You cannot discriminate against voters -- even if you are black and they are white.

In a case that marked the federal government's first use of the Voting Rights Act to accuse African-Americans of discriminating against white voters, a judge on Monday ordered a Mississippi county Democratic Party and its chairman to forgo election activities until 2011.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee issued the order as a remedy in the 2005 lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Under his order, a "referee-administrator" will have full authority over the party's primary and runoff elections through November 2011. The job went to former state Supreme Court justice Reuben Anderson, the first African-American to serve on the high court in Mississippi.

In June, the mostly black-run Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee (NDEC) and Chairman Ike Brown, who is black, were found to have discriminated against white voters and their candidates by fixing absentee ballots and ignoring residency requirements.

Democrats have engaged in racist behavior throughout their history to maintain their hold on power wherever possible. When will it be recognized that the nation's RICO laws need to be applied to its ongoing pattern of misconduct, for the good of the American political system?

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And if Gul can successfully walk the fine line between the nation's secular constitution and the desire of religious Turks to see their values reflected in the nation's laws, there may be a real model for Muslims to follow.

After being shut out of the presidency last spring, Abdullah Gul, a religious man in the assiduously secular realm of Turkish politics, allowed himself a little soul-searching.

“Has the government limited women’s rights?” Mr. Gul, 56, asked a panel of newspaper editors on national television, hoping to persuade Turkey’s establishment that it had nothing to fear from his candidacy.

After all, he argued, his party was already in power, but “has the government closed down places where young people or modern people go? Has the government done some secret things and those been disclosed? What happened?”

As he saw it, he had done everything right. As foreign minister, he pushed for Turkey to join the European Union. He called for changes to a law that punished writers for “insulting Turkishness.” He raised Turkey’s profile abroad and helped devise a set of democratic reforms.

But for TurkeyÂ’s secular class, all that was beside the point. Mr. Gul came from a party that espoused political Islam, his wife wore an Islamic head scarf and the fear that inspired outweighed his accomplishments. A high court blocked his candidacy at the request of the main secular opposition party.

Four months later, he is running again, after Turks voted overwhelmingly for his party in a national election. This time, in todayÂ’s parliamentary vote, he is almost certain to win.

Turkey’s secular class is still clearly uncomfortable with the choice. Turkey’s powerful military, which has ousted four elected governments, said on its Web site on Monday that there were “centers of evil” that “systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic.”

But TurkeyÂ’s secular elite won only a fifth of the vote last month, and Mr. Gul, an outsider from TurkeyÂ’s religious heartland, seems to be calculating that he no longer needs its consent.

His approval will thrust a group of young, reform-minded members of the Islamic middle class into the upper echelons of secular power in Turkey, a fundamental reversal of the hierarchy in place since the founding of the state in 1923. For most of TurkeyÂ’s history, upper-class Turks have occupied the presidency and imposed Western values onto the conservative Anatolian heartland below. With Mr. GulÂ’s election, that heartland is on top.

Given that Gul and his supporters appear to be the Muslim equivalent of the Christian Coalition, I hope they are successful in their efforts to balance religion and politics.

Posted by: Greg at 10:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Earlier this year, a sex-abuse scandal hit the Texas Youth Commission. At the same time (for unrelated reasons), the whining mother of a whining delinquent got a crew of race-baiters to demand her release -- and sparked the early release of a large number of juveniles thugs and criminals.

Care to guess what happened? It shouldn't be too hard.

Thirteen days after Howard McJunkin was paroled from a Texas Youth Commission facility for beating and raping an elderly woman in this East Texas town, authorities say he committed the same crime again.

McJunkin is one of 2,200 offenders the TYC rushed to release this year as part of an effort to drastically reduce the population of the scandal-plagued juvenile corrections system. Nearly one in five of those parolees — 408 — have been rearrested for committing new offenses, including McJunkin and 42 others for violent crimes, documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle reveal.

While high recidivism rates have long been a fact of life for TYC — 50 percent of parolees offend again within three years — the rapid rearrests of offenders released in a hurry this year has residents in this town of 25,000 demanding to know: Exactly who's getting out, and how are decisions being made?

* * *

While the Legislature this spring enacted a series of agency-wide reforms in an effort to address a sex abuse scandal, including closing TYC to offenders between the ages of 19 and 21 and those who committed misdemeanor offenses, they left untouched TYC's current criteria for paroling juveniles.

Staff who make parole decisions can consider neither the seriousness of an offender's original crime, nor his or her sentence, just the offender's behavior inside TYC.

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Hey, I found a neat new site the other night that is right up the alley for a wannabe pundit like me. Called Guess Now, it offers participants the chance to guess the outcome of certain events and trends, and to make money doing so. Think about it -- Free Cash for Predicting Outcome of Future Events .

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A great many Harris County GOP activists became quite upset after last spring's bait-and-switch resignation of County Judge Robert Eckels and his replacement with Ed Emmett only weeks after Eckels had been sworn in for a new term of office. We have been looking around for a candidate that we could support -- one selected by the voters, not foisted on us as a part of an inside deal.

The day is rapidly approaching when our candidate makes his formal announcement.

Harris County District Clerk Charles Bacarisse is expected to announce his candidacy for county judge on Wednesday, ending months of speculation about whether he would seek the job after being passed over for it earlier this year.

Bacarisse told the Houston Chronicle last week that he had no plans to declare his intentions before Labor Day. But a close political adviser, Jim McGrath, indicated Monday that Bacarisse would make it official this week.

Asked if that was true, the district clerk hedged.

"I want to wait until I speak at the press conference to say anything, for obvious reasons," Bacarisse said. "I don't want to trigger the 'resign to run' provision until I trigger it."

Charles has done a great job in his current office, and has the skills needed to be a fine County Judge. He has been popular among Harris County voters, while Emmett has not been before the people for election in about 20 years, and holds his job because he was chosen by a constituency of one -- Eckels selected his friend and pulled the strings to get him selected.

Charles Bacarisse has my whole-hearted endorsement for the office.

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Yahoo has announced changes that might put it ahead of Google in the free email game.

Yahoo Inc. will introduce new features Monday for its popular Web-based e-mail program, including software that allows computer users to type text messages on a keyboard and send them directly to someone's cell phone.

The enhancements make it easier to send e-mail, instant messages or text messages from a single Web site — no need to launch or toggle between separate applications or devices. The features will be available to users in the United States, Canada, India and the Philippines.

The most obvious beneficiaries will be parents, who will be able to use their keyboards to type messages sent to their children's cell phones — no thumb-twisting typing on a dial pad, said Yahoo Vice President John Kremer.

"We're giving you the right way to connect at the right time with right person," said Kremer, whose two preteen sons vastly prefer text and instant messages to e-mail.

I'll be honest -- I don't text, because i don't like using the little keypad on my phone. This move could be enough to get me to start -- although I have become so wedded to my Gmail address that I can't imagine making the switch. So I guess I'll wait for Google to introduce the feature.

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Drug abuse happens in our society, all too often. So does alcoholism. They occurs among the rich and the poor -- even athletes and celebrities are not immune. As a teacher, I can know that addiction happens among my students and in every classroom in every high school. It is very likely that I have at least one student in active need of rehab in my newly formed classes -- and I just pray that I recognize their problem and can help guide them to help.

How bad can alcoholism and drug abuse be at a young age? Last spring, one of my students had to enter rehab because she was smuggling alcohol into class in a bottle of apple juice -- she couldn't even make it through a class without drinking!

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Take away the jobs, and the border jumpers leave.

Undocumented immigrants are starting to leave Arizona because of the new employer-sanctions law.

The state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal immigrants for years. But a growing number are pulling up stakes out of fear they will be jobless come Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.

It's impossible to count how many undocumented immigrants have fled because of the new law. But based on interviews with undocumented immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents, at least several hundred have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill on July 2. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Some are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico, selling their effects and putting their houses on the market.

The number departing is expected to mushroom as the Jan. 1 deadline draws closer. After that, the law will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers through a federal database.

"I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," said Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at undocumented immigrants.

Here's hoping that the rate increases as the deadline looms.

And that other states – and the federal government – impose similar employer sanctions.

Posted by: Greg at 02:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Take away the jobs, and the border jumpers leave.

Undocumented immigrants are starting to leave Arizona because of the new employer-sanctions law.

The state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal immigrants for years. But a growing number are pulling up stakes out of fear they will be jobless come Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.

It's impossible to count how many undocumented immigrants have fled because of the new law. But based on interviews with undocumented immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents, at least several hundred have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill on July 2. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Some are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico, selling their effects and putting their houses on the market.

The number departing is expected to mushroom as the Jan. 1 deadline draws closer. After that, the law will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers through a federal database.

"I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," said Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at undocumented immigrants.

Here's hoping that the rate increases as the deadline looms.

And that other states – and the federal government – impose similar employer sanctions.

Posted by: Greg at 02:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This makes no sense at all -- if this organization is a terrorist conspirator in an ongoing trial, the Justice Department should be keeping far away from them, not sponsoring their annual convention.

The Justice Department is co-sponsoring a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing federal terrorist funding case — a move that is raising concerns among the Justice's rank and file.

Justice lawyers have objected to the affiliation with ISNA, fearing it will undermine the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Dallas.

"There is outrage among lawyers that the Department of Justice is funding a group named as a co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case," said a Justice lawyer who spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity.

According to an e-mail from Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, acting deputy chief of the Voting Rights Division, the sponsorship will involve sending government lawyers to man a booth for the Labor Day weekend event in Illinois.

"This is an important outreach opportunity, and a chance to reach a community that is at once very much discriminated against, and very wary of the national government and its willingness to protect them," Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere said in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Times.

"It would be a great step forward to break through those barriers. And Chicago is lovely this time of year," Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere said.

We should be locking some of these folks up, not registering them to vote. We should be monitoring their activities, not supporting them.

What next -- government catering of the next reunion of the Gambino family?

Posted by: Greg at 10:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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John Edwards has jumped on the defeat-at-any-cost bandwagon.

Congress should continue to push for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq regardless of what top military advisers say in their progress report next month, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday on Face The Nation.

"I think they should not submit a single funding bill to the president for the war that doesn't have a timetable for withdrawal," Edwards told Bob Schieffer. "And I think they should use whatever legislative tool is available to them, including filibuster."

And Edwards kept insisting that there has been no political progress in Iraq, even as the Maliki government announced exactly the sort of compromises and steps forward that Edwards called a necessary step to stability.

Iraq's top Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders announced on Sunday they had reached consensus on some key measures seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation.

The agreement by the five leaders was one of the most significant political developments in Iraq for months and was quickly welcomed by the United States, which hopes such moves will ease sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands.

It seems that the Breck Girl wants to go down in history as an even worse president than Jimmy Carter.

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As classes start today, I'm pleased to say that we don't have a single vacancy in my building. That is not the case at many schools around the country.

The retirement of thousands of baby boomer teachers coupled with the departure of younger teachers frustrated by the stress of working in low-performing schools is fueling a crisis in teacher turnover that is costing school districts substantial amounts of money as they scramble to fill their ranks for the fall term.

Superintendents and recruiters across the nation say the challenge of putting a qualified teacher in every classroom is heightened in subjects like math and science and is a particular struggle in high-poverty schools, where the turnover is highest. Thousands of classes in such schools have opened with substitute teachers in recent years.

Of course, there are ways of fixing the problem -- starting with higher salaries to entice more and better-qualified teachers into the classroom. Giving teachers more support instead of adopting the attitude that the student and parent are always right would help as well. Too many teachers I know walk away from the field in the first five years because they are imply beat down by the constant expectation that they accomplish miracles while standards of conduct and achievement are lowered for students. Until we see a return to the day when teachers were treated as respected professionals, the shortage will continue.

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And I don't doubt that Hillary will be throwing lamps at her husband again, this time for being off-message as she attacks the Bush record in the course of her presidential run.

In an interview for a high-profile magazine cover story just hitting newsstands, President Clinton offers praise for several foreign policy initiatives undertaken by President Bush.

Speaking with Condé Nast Traveler, Mr. Clinton lauds Mr. Bush mostly for decisions that involved overruling hard-liners in his administration.

"He has done three things that I think the world generally approved of: restoring cooperation with the Latin American countries, making a diplomatic agreement with North Korea instead of continuing to have a frigid standoff, and sending Americans to the conference to discuss the future of Iraq with the Iranians and the Syrians," Mr. Clinton said. "Those are, all three, things that signify we're trying to do better in the world."

The former president said more inflexible positions the Bush administration took earlier on those and other issues were the understandable product of the trauma America incurred on September 11, 2001. "It took us a couple of years to regain our bearings, and I think we have now," he said. "I think that we're getting our balance back."

Mr. Clinton also gave Mr. Bush credit for pressing for an end to the genocide in Darfur. "I think the fact that he's pushing really, really hard through the diplomatic channels on Darfur is a plus. People see that we're pushing harder than some of the other countries are to try to get an acceptable UN force in there that will save more lives," he said.

Clinton's rhetoric is so moderate that it can only further alienate the mouth-frothing leftoids that claim to be the new center of Democrat politics. Not only does he praise Bush, but he also praises Wal-Mart at a time that his wife is having to distance herself from the company. I don't see this as being any help to the Senator .

Posted by: Greg at 09:54 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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With the government of Mahmoud the Mad insisting that it "will use these (bombs) against our enemies when the time comes", that isn't even a question.

Iran vowed Sunday to use a new 2,000-pound "smart" bomb against its enemies and unveiled mass production of the new weapon, state television reported.

The government first announced development of the long-range guided bomb Thursday, saying it could be deployed by the country's aging U.S.-made F-4 and F-5 fighter jets.

"We will use these (bombs) against our enemies when the time comes," Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on state television Sunday.

Iran often announces new weapons for its arsenal, but the United States maintains that while the Islamic Republic has made some strides, many of these statements are exaggerations.

The broadcast included a brief clip of a fighter jet apparently dropping one of the bombs, which destroyed a target on the ground.

The defense minister continued his threats as state television showed him unveiling a mass production line for the weapon in Tehran.

"We will use this weapon where we want to ... hit enemy's strategic and defense targets," Najjar said. "This will be used against our enemies, against those who violate our land and air space."

Israel said the claim underlines its concerns over Iran's arms buildup.

The Israeli government rightly notes that every nation in the region is concerned about Iran's expansionist military build-up. And given the regular threats to wipe Israel off the map which emanate from Tehran, I wonder how long it will be until the Israelis shut down this production line "with extreme prejudice".

Posted by: Greg at 09:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Posted by: Greg at 09:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Is this the wave of the future for entertainment?

Now, however, Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker and their bosses at Comedy Central, a unit of Viacom’s MTV Networks, are attempting to leapfrog to the vanguard of Hollywood’s transition into Web. In a joint venture that involves millions in up-front cash and a 50-50 split of ad revenues, the network and the two creative partners have agreed to create a hub to spread “South Park”-related material across the Net, mobile platforms, and video games.

The deal, signed Friday, begins with a three-year extension of the show and its creatorsÂ’ contracts through a 15th season, in the year 2011, and gives Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker sizable raises, both in their salaries and in their guaranteed advances against back-end profits from DVDs, merchandising, syndication and international sales.

It also creates an entity called SouthParkStudios.com, to be housed in the showÂ’s animation studio in Culver City, Calif., that is intended to be an incubator not only for new applications for characters the likes of Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny, but for new comedy concepts that could one day mature into TV series of their own.

All told, people involved in the deal confirm that it is worth some $75 million to Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone over the next four years. But what is likely to draw the most attention in Hollywood is not the richness of the pact, but the networkÂ’s willingness to share its advertising revenue.

In an age when you don't need a network to be successful in reaching viewers, it seems to me that there will have to be a new paradigm for splitting the revenue generated by network shows. I just wonder if this will give the creators of South Park greater freedom from PC cenosrship like that involving the depiction of Muhammad this spring.

Posted by: Greg at 09:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No wonder we have a problem with border jumpers and drug smugglers breaking American law and sneaking into the US -- it isn't the job of the Border Patrol to stop them.

At least not according to Carlos X. Carrillo, Border Patrol chief of Laredo, Texas.

A Border Patrol chief at one of the nation's most dangerous Southwest border crossings says the agency's mission doesn't include apprehending illegal aliens or seizing narcotics — perplexing front-line agents and angering a congressional critic of illegal immigration.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Carlos X. Carrillo, Border Patrol chief of Laredo, Texas, told guests at a town-hall meeting Thursday. "The Border Patrol's job is not to stop illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol's job is not to stop narcotics. ... The Border Patrol's mission is not to stop criminals.

"The Border Patrol's mission is to stop terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the country."

Law-enforcement agencies consider Laredo to be one of the Southwest's most dangerous border crossings. It is the sister city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which is controlled by one of that country's most ruthless drug-smuggling rings.

Somebody needs to explain to Carrillo that the interdiction of drugs and immigration criminals is a big part of his agency's job.

Better yet, somebody in Washington needs to tell him that he needs to find a new job, because he no longer works for the US government.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Is It Just Me?, Rosemary's Thoughts, Nanotechnology Today, Big Dog's Weblog, Right Truth, Nuke's News & Views, Webloggin, Phastidio.net, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, , , Stageleft, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Faultline USA, , The World According to Carl, Walls of the City, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 08:37 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Not, mind you, that the station doesn't have the right to do as its choosing with its schedule. However, the reason for that change is quite troubling.

A Christian televangelist who harshly criticizes Islam and other religions said Friday that his late-night program is being pulled off the air because of pressure from a Muslim group.

Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote a letter to the TV station's owners asking for an investigation of the show it broadcasts, "Live Prayer with Bill Keller."

In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a "1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell" and called the Prophet Muhammad a "murdering pedophile." He also called the Quran a "book of fables and a book of lies."

Council officials asked for equal air time for Florida Muslims to counter Keller's comments, but never got the chance.

The hourlong show, which airs nightly at 1 a.m., is broadcast on WTOG-TV, a CBS-owned station that airs the CW network locally. WTOG station manager Laura Caruso said the decision to end Keller's contract was a programming one, made by station executives and the televangelist.

But after speaking with CBS executives, the Islamic group claimed credit for Keller's demise. His last broadcast will be Aug. 31.

"They really based their decision upon our letter," said Ramzy Kilic, the group's civil rights coordinator. "They really did not know that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric."

Let's see -- Keller says they yanked the show because of Muslim complaints. The terrorist-affiliated Muslim group indicates that its protests got Keller off the air. The station, on the other hand, says that the complaints had nothing to do with it and that Keller agreed to the change. Is it just me, or does it appear that someone -- likely the CBS affiliate -- is lying here?

Mind you, I don't necessarily agree with all of Keller's theology, or even all of his comments about Islam. But he is accurate in his initial premise that Islam and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible -- and that since Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Light, an incompatible faith explicitly states that Jesus was not divine and was not crucified and resurrected clearly does constitute a danger to one's eternal soul. A book (such as the Quran) which purports to be divinely revealed and teaches falsely about Jesus is, in fact, a "book of fables and a book of lies." And while one can argue the Mohammad was not a pedophile based on certain cultural and social norms that prevailed in seventh century Arabia, it is clear that he and his successors over the next 1400 years often engaged in murder to advance their religion and to prevent the exercise of the human right to freely practice the faith of one's choosing.

In America, respect for the religious beliefs and sensitivities of others is not required. Indeed, WTOG-TV and CBS regularly broadcast material which is insensitive and insulting towards the religious beliefs of Christians and other religious groups. Only Islam seems to get this sort of hyper-sensitive treatment.

Could it be that the tendency of Muslims world wide to riot and murder when confronted with opposing voices is the reason for this disparity? And if it is, isn't such barbaric behavior sufficient reason in and of itself to denounce ridicule and belittle the Religion of Behead-The-Infidel and those who practice it?

H/T Stop the ACLU, Weasel Zippers

And on a related note, bravo to Salon.com for having the courage to host two weeks of Berkley Breathed's "Opus" which have been withheld from publication by many newspapers for mocking Islamism.

Posted by: Greg at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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What can I say -- even when the New York Times explicitly concedes the legitimacy of the President's position on an issue, it still feels it necessary to delegitimize that position.

I mean, consider this in today's editorial on the SCHIP program and the new regulations put into place by the President.

There is a legitimate argument to be had over how far up the income scale the federal-state partnership known as the State ChildrenÂ’s Health Insurance Program, or S-chip, should climb. When it was created, the program focused on children whose family incomes were no higher than twice the poverty level, or about $41,000 today for a family of four. The goal was to cover the near-poor, who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance.

After all, who can argue with the notion that those intended to be helped by the program should be effectively served before it is expanded to cover others -- especially when the new "market" is the upper middle class, including families making over $82,000 a year (also called "the rich" by the NYT editors when they get a tax cut)?

Well, the New York Times, that's who!

Yet the Bush administration wants to return to a darker age. Its letter to state officials seems intent on virtually eliminating such coverage for middle-income children, or at least drastically reducing it.

In other words, the position advocated by the President (making sure the program fulfills its primary mission) is legitimate, but not legitimate because it is advocated by the President.

It must be so easy to be a part of th NYT editorial staff. You just need to see what W is doing and declare it illegitimate.

Posted by: Greg at 07:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is David Broder.

This is David Broder on drugs.

Chuck Hagel, the senator from Nebraska, describes himself as a "tidal" politician, one who believes that larger forces in society shape careers more than the ambitions of individuals. "The only mistakes I've made," he told me last week, "were when I tried to go against the tide."

Today, that tide may be carrying him away from his Republican Party and toward a third-party or independent ticket with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- a development that could reshape the dynamics of the 2008 presidential race.

Any questions?

Where, exactly, would Hagel and Bloomberg draw their support? Neither has any significant GOP support. Neither would appeal to the Democrats. And third party/independent bids are generally insignificant things. Why would this one, with two politicians with limited national recognition, be any different?

Posted by: Greg at 07:16 AM | Comments (31) | Add Comment
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Whether that means several smaller independent nations emerging in its place, or some sort of national confederation of regions drawn based upon ethnicity and religion is subject to discussion and debate, the political status quo is difficult to overcome following decades of dictatorship during which the Baath Party exploited the divisions between different religious and ethnic groupings.

In part, of course, Iraq remains a place pocked by violence and fear, which makes compromise difficult. But more important, say Iraqi political commentators and officials, Iraq has become a cellular nation, dividing and redividing into competing constituencies that have a greater stake in continued chaos than in compromise.

In most areas, for most Iraqis, the central government today is either irrelevant or invisible. Provinces and even neighborhoods have become the stages where power struggles play out. As a result, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — or elements of each faction — have come to feel that they can do a better job on their own.

“No one can rely on the political participants who lack a common view of the public interest,” said Nabeel Mahmoud, an international relations professor at Baghdad University. “Such a concept is completely absent from the thinking of the political powers in Iraq’s government, so each side works to get their own quota of positions or resources.”

Because of their autonomy, the Kurds are perhaps best positioned to benefit from the governmentÂ’s failures. American protection in the final years of the Hussein government helped disconnect the Kurdistan region from the rest of Iraq, bringing glass office towers and foreign workers to cities like Erbil.

Earlier this month the Kurds took another step in that distancing process, passing a regional oil law that will reach its full potential only if a national oil law is never implemented.

Shiites and Sunnis, however, are still the factions with the greatest responsibility for IraqÂ’s political stalemate, and the ones most able to gain from the dysfunctional status quo.

Personally, I prefer the confederation model, which I believe would produce more a more viable Iraq.

Why the problem? For the same reason we find instability in a number of Middle Eastern and African nations. Boundaries were drawn by imperialist powers in the late 19th and early 20th century without regard to the traditional affinities and antipathies of the groups that would be impacted by the borders.

In Africa, that got us Rwanda and Darfur. In the Middle East, that created Iraq and Lebanon. Rarely have the results been good.

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Are you into paintball? Are you looking for a paintball store where you can find all your paintball guns, paintball gun parts, paintball equipment, paintball gear, milsim paintball needs, and paintballs in one place and at a good price and from the best manufacturers. Well, I've found it, and I suggest you take a look, too. You won't be sorry.

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In an attempt to control the primary dates of the states, the DNC has declared that Florida delegates selected this January will not be seated at the 2008 presidential nominating convention.

The Democratic National Committee, threatening to take the toughest line possible, voted Saturday to refuse to seat any Florida Democrat at the Democratic presidential convention in 2008 if the state party did not delay the date of its 2008 primary to conform to the partyÂ’s nominating calendar.

The committee gave Florida Democrats 30 days to propose a primary date that conformed with Democratic rules prohibiting all but four states from holding their primaries or caucuses before Feb. 5. But Florida leaders, who seemed stunned by a near-unanimous vote and the severity of the punishment, said they were doubtful they could come up with an alternative.

They said they were bound by the vote of the Republican-controlled State Legislature, which set the primary for Jan. 29.

Beyond what is emerging as a clear embarrassment for the party, the practical results of this dispute were unclear. To a considerable extent, it could prove to be little more than a reminder of how little authority the party appears to have over its nominating process this year.

It strikes me that the Florida legislature may need to take a firm hand in resolving this dispute. As i see it, they have two options.

1) Deny access to the November 2008 ballot to any party which holds a national nominating convention which refuses to seat the delegates duly elected on the primary date established by law.

2) Exercise its constitutional power to direct the votes of the state's electors by prohibiting the awarding of any of the state's electoral votes to a candidate nominated at a national nominating convention which refuses to seat the delegates duly elected on the primary date established by law.

The first of these might be subject to a court challenge, but the second is clearly within the power of the legislature to implement, and would not even require the signature of the governor to implement.

And I'd like to pointedly suggest to my own GOP that my proposal is not a partisan one -- they apply to any attempt to sanction the Florida GOP as well.

On the other hand, this does point up the need for some nominating structure that is more structured, more coherent, and arrived at through a process of consensus.

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What else do you call Martin Lewis' direct call for the overthrow of the Constitutional principle of civilian control of the military by having a general relieve the President of his constitutional role of commander-in-chief during time of war?

Though you are Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President's principal military advisor - President Bush has shown his disdain for your honesty and wisdom. Though you are a decorated Vietnam war hero - who has served his nation honorably for four decades - the President is dispensing with your services. You have one month left in your position before you are tossed out by the President.

President Bush is going to ignore your advice. Just as he has ignored the advice of other Generals who have had the courage to respectfully point out how terribly wrong he is in respect of the Iraq War and the safety of the US military he is sworn to protect. Highly-decorated colleagues of yours such as General Anthony Zinni (Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command), General Eric Shinseki (Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army) and General John Abizaid (Commander of the U.S. Central Command).

General Pace - you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.

You can relieve the President of his command.

Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.

That is, of course, a military coup and a direct abrogation of the US Constitution. The military is subordinate to the President.

What is most shocking is this disingenuous disclaimer.

To be crystal clear - I am NOT advocating or inciting you to undertake any illegal act, insurrection, mutiny, putsch or military coup. You are an honorable patriotic man.

I am NOT advocating or inciting you to interfere with any of the civilian duties of the President. That would not be a legal action by you.

However you have the legal responsibility - under Article 134 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice - to protect the troops under your command by relieving the President of his MILITARY commandÂ…

In addition to relieving him of his command as Commander-In-Chief, you also have authority to place the President under MILITARY arrest.

Now let's break this down -- he is urging the general to violate his oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution by preventing the President from exercising his powers under that Constitution, and to do so by illegally (indeed, unconstitutionally) using military force to that end. That would be unlawful, an insurrection, an act of mutiny, and, consequently, a military coup. And the call for a military trial of the President while he is detained under military arrest prior to and during a military trial is undeniably one which would interfere with the President's civilian duties -- one of which is to be the civilian head of the armed forces exercising civilian control over the same.

In effect, the author is calling on the general to dispense with the constitutional method of removing a president -- impeachment. Given that the House lacks the votes to impeach and the Senate lacks the votes to convict, Lewis is calling for the subordination of the Executive Branch to military control, but also the Legislative Branch. No doubt any attempt to use the courts to legally challenge this military coup would be suppressed, so we would also see the constitutional role of the Judicial Branch overthrown. Interesting how quickly this Leftist is prepared to dispense with the Constitution just to get rid of a President and policies he disagrees with. Who is the fascist?

Captain Ed points out a number of flaws, some of which I have touched upon.

Lewis quotes extensively from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but clearly his scholarship does not extend to the Constitution. The command of the armed forces follows from the presidentÂ’s election to office, and cannot be separated from the office itself. Bush isnÂ’t C-in-C because he got appointed to that position, but because the American electorate voted him into that role. In other words, the military cannot arrest the C-in-C but leave the President in power, and to argue otherwise is to demonstrate complete ignorance.

Secondly, the President does not serve at the pleasure of the Joint Chiefs — and indeed, the military is subservient to the civilian command structure. They do not have arrest authority over the President — nor over anyone else in the US other than military personnel, as the Posse Comitatus Act stipulates. Civilian oversight keeps the military from seizing power and is a long and vital tradition in this nation. It’s what keeps us from becoming a banana republic, run by military strongmen.

Lewis wants to turn America into just that kind of nation. His Bush-hatred runs so deep that he would willingly see the military take control over the federal government just to get rid of him. The Left likes to talk about supposed fascism among conservatives, but the Huffington Post is literally calling for a military coup to reverse an election, not only an un-Constitutional act but also the kind of authoritarian rule they supposedly despise.

I'd argue, as my title suggests, that this post at HuffPo constitutes treason on Lewis' part -- and possibly on the part of Arianna Huffington for allowing it to continue to run on her site. However, Clayton Cramer suggests that it might merely be sedition, and points out that Lewis has taken a course of action that could legitimately lead to his imprisonment for the next twenty years.

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I call them depraved followers of Satan who make Michael Vick and OJ look like Jesus.

I guess I missed George Washington burning little children.

UPDATE: Tammy Bruce has info on where to donate to help Yousif.

Here's the Children's Burn Center site if you would like to make a donation. Under "Honor/Memorial Gift Information" there's a drop down menu for Youssif's fund.

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As Houston prepares to welcome Lucy from Ethiopia, a new discovery will likely cause a reevaluation of the evolutionary timeline of the human species.

Ten million-year-old fossils discovered in Ethiopia show that humans and apes probably split six or seven million years earlier than widely thought, according to landmark study released Wednesday.

The handful of teeth from the earliest direct ancestors of modern gorillas ever found -- one canine and eight molars -- also leave virtually no doubt, the study's authors and experts said, that both humans and modern apes did indeed originate from Africa.

The near total absence to date of traces on the continent of apes from this period had led many scientists to conclude that the shared line from which humans and living great apes emerged had taken a long evolutionary detour through Eurasia.

But the study, published in the British journal Nature, "conclusively demonstrates that the Last Common Ancestor (of both man and ape) was strictly an African phenomenon," commented paleoanthropologist Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio.

Lovejoy described the fossils as "a critically important discovery," a view echoed by several other scientists who had read the paper or seen the artifacts.

"This is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the origin of humanity," Yohannes Haile-Selassie, a physical anthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, told AFP.

The most startling implication of the find, the scientists agree, is that our human progenitors diverged from today's great apes -- including gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees -- several million years earlier than widely accepted research based on molecular genetics had previously asserted.

Looks like I may have to revise my lesson plans for Wednesday. Who says there is nothing ever new in history?

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Looks like the big announcement is coming VERY SOON.

A round of applause, please, for former Virginia Sen. George Allen, who finally got likely GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson to hint when he plans his big announcement. Filling in for Richmond's WRVA morning host Jimmy Barrett, Allen just came out with it, asking the Law & Order star what's up.

Said the Fred, who's been testing the political waters: "Well, the water is pretty warm. I like the temperature a lot." He also told Allen, "It won't be very many more days" before he declares.

During the five-minute chat, Thompson addressed the complaints that he is taking too long to make up his mind.

"This is not an attempt to be cute or game the system," he promised. Thompson said instead that he's just working on more of an old school schedule, when candidates didn't announce until the fall before the election year.

And he said that running for president isn't something he's planned all his life. "I'm doing in a few months what people have taken a long, long time period to do," he said.

It will be interesting to see how the announcement jumbles up the already tight GOP race.

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An aging member of the Democrat Party's terrorist wing has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of two black teenagers during the height of the civil rights movement.

Calling the crime “unspeakable because only monsters could inflict this,” a federal judge on Friday sentenced a former member of the Ku Klux Klan to three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 kidnapping and murder of two black teenagers in Mississippi.

The case was one of several that focused a spotlight on white supremacist violence during the civil rights era.

The victims, Henry H. Dee and Charles E. Moore, both 19, were hitchhiking in Meadville, Miss., when a group of Klansmen, including James Seale, picked them up and took them to a wooded area, where they were beaten and their weighted bodies thrown into the Mississippi River. Both young men drowned.

Their bodies were not recovered until later that year in a high-profile search for three civil rights activists whose deaths generated widespread revulsion against the racial violence in Mississippi.

“The pulse of this community still throbs with sorrow,” Judge Henry T. Wingate of Federal District Court said as he imposed the sentence, which will effectively keep Mr. Seale, who is 72 and has cancer, behind bars for the rest of his life.

Personally, I'd like to see this decrepit terrorist hung by the neck until dead, but I'm sure he will meet his maker sometime soon. And I'm sure he will be joining al-Zarqawi and the jihadis in the same warm environment -- and that he won't be getting 72 virgins, either. After all, the Klan and al-Qaeda may have different ideologies, but they are reflective of the same fundamental evil that lurks in the hearts of some individuals and leads them to harm their fellow human beings.

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Which I suppose could be beneficial if you have the technical skill to do it and the willingness to risk screwing up a $600 cell phone.

A teenager in New Jersey has broken the lock that ties AppleÂ’s iPhone to AT&TÂ’s wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.

George Hotz, 17, confirmed Friday that he had unlocked an iPhone and was using it on T-MobileÂ’s network, the only major U.S. carrier apart from AT&T that is compatible with the iPhoneÂ’s cellular technology.

While the possibility of switching from AT&T to T-Mobile may not be a major development for U.S. consumers, it opens up the iPhone for use on the networks of overseas carriers.

Why do I have a feeling that this kid will one day be able to write his own ticket to do anything he wants in a technical field of some sort?

Or that he will one day own us all?

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The missing children of RussiaÂ’s last Tsar have been identified, nearly 90 years after they and their family were murdered on the orders of Vladimir Lenin.

Prosecutors announced Friday that they have reopened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the last Russian czar and his family nearly 90 years ago after an archaeologist said the remains of the czar's son and heir to the throne at last may have been found.

The announcement of the reopened investigation, while a routine matter, signaled that government may be taking the claims — announced Thursday by Yekaterinburg researcher Sergei Pogorelov — seriously.

In comments broadcast on NTV, Pogorelov said bones found in a burned area of ground near Yekaterinburg belong to a boy and a young woman roughly the ages of Czar Nicholas II's 13-year-old son, Alexei, and a daughter whose remains also never have been found.

Yekaterinburg is the Urals Mountain city where the czar, his wife and children were held prisoner and then shot in 1918.

If confirmed, the find would solve a persistent mystery and fill in a missing chapter in the story of the doomed family, victims of the violent 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that ushered in more than 70 years of communist rule.

* * *

The spot where the remains were found appears to correspond to a site described in writing by Yakov Yurovsky, the leader of the family's killers, said Pogorelov, an archaeologist at a regional center for the preservation of historical and cultural monuments in Yekaterinburg.

"An anthropologist has determined that the bones belong to two young individuals — a young male he found was aged roughly 10-13 and a young woman about 18-23," he told NTV television by telephone.

Nicholas abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he and his family were detained. The next year, they were sent to Yekaterinburg, where a Bolshevik firing squad executed them on July 17, 1918.

Historians say guards lined up and shot Nicholas; his wife, Alexandra; their five children and four attendants in the basement of a nobleman's house. The bodies were loaded onto a truck and initially dumped in a mine shaft but were later moved, according to most accounts.

And thus closes a sad chapter in the violent, murderous history of Communism.

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The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Is the United States an Imperialist Power and Does It Matter? by Right Wing Nut House, and How The New Republic Got Suckered by Pajamas Media.  Here are the full results of the vote:

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Michael Vick refuses to admit to his crimes.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick will not admit to killing dogs or gambling on dog fights, as detailed in his indictment, when he enters a guilty plea in a Richmond, Va., federal court Monday, a source close to the case has told ESPN. Instead, the one count of conspiracy that Vick will plead to will admit guilt to the charge of interstate commerce for the purpose of dogfighting.

The source told ESPN that Vick's defense team met with federal attorneys Thursday afternoon to determine the "summary of facts" to which Vick will plead, and that his attorneys believed they had a deal. The source said Vick maintains he never killed dogs and never gambled on a dog fight.

He will admit he was present when dogs were killed, but that he did not personally kill any of the dogs.

The allegations of killing dogs and gambling were part of the picture painted by Vick's three co-defendants, all of whom have pleaded guilty.

Vick, 27, is scheduled to enter his plea agreement Monday and could face up to five years in prison.

Vick's co-defendants said Vick provided virtually all the gambling and operating funds for the Bad Newz Kennels enterprise. Two of them also said Vick participated in executing at least eight dogs seen as underperforming by various means, including drowning and hanging.

His failure to come clean is clear proof of a lack of contrition. And his involvement in this ongoing gambling enterprise is a strong basis for keeping him out of the NFL in any event.

Posted by: Greg at 08:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I’ll admit it – I’m not a fan of Hillary or Obama.

That said, this sort of rhetoric and display are beyond the pale.

I hope my fellow conservatives will join me in denouncing Ted Nugent over this.

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Proving that the Democrat legacy of hatred and violence is alive and well today, one local blogger and Democrat leader has called for a prominent Jewish Republican to be tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged like James Byrd.

And there is no question of my misinterpreting the post in question. Not with this title.

Time to drag Ari Fleischer out of town

And certainly not when it is combined with this conclusion.

The ads are running in states where Senators are possibly waffling on whether to continue to "stay the course". Nothing like using the war and our vets for political purposes. Someone needs to volunteer to give Ari, the rotten bastard, a ride out of town.

Behind the back of a pickup truck.

Sorry about the language, folks, John Cobarruvias tends to be a crude, profane individual. He clearly doesn't believe that his political opponents have a right to speak, and obviously isn't above urging/threatening violence to silence them.

Since John is a good enough friend with Congressman Nick Lampson to be admitted to his hospital room following heart surgery, I wonder what he has to say about such a close friend and political supporter engaging in calls for political violence. Why don't you call him and ask?

Congressman Nick Lampson
Washington Office Phone: 202.225.5951
Stafford Office Phone: 281.240.3700
Clear Lake Office Phone: 281.461.6300

For that matter, how about making a similar call to John's new best friend, Senate candidate Rick Noriega. Does Noriega support calls for dragging Jews and Republicans behind a pickup truck like James Byrd?

Exploratory Committee Office Phone: 713-921-7425

Political violence has no place in the American political system. That calls for such violence are coming from a Democrat leader is despicable -- and presents an opportunity for that party to prove whether it has really progressed beyond the era when it held on to power via the noose and the burning cross.

As an aside -- John makes an accusation about me here (note the juvenile name-calling) that is false and libelous. The comments in question raised the issue of his call for violence and a tendency towards anti-Semitism. He deleted them and then made the accusation -- but you know that had they REALLY been racist he would have left them in place, given his history of attempts to frame me as a hate-monger for opposing illegal immigration and jihadi terrorism.

UPDATE: Looks like John is calling for the lynching of more folks who disagree with him -- now he is going after Lone Star Times blogger/managing editor Matt Bramanti

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Kudos to Don Surber for pointing out these little details about America's crime rates and those of "more civilized" socialist nations with lots of gun control and fewer jail cells.

In 2006, Norway had 86.3 crimes reported for every 1,000 people, according to Statistics Norway.

In the United States, reported crimes were 39.8 per 1,000 people, according to the FBI.

The violent crime rates are similar: 5.5 per 1,000 people in Norway, 4.7 per 1,000 people in the United States.

No, for violent crime, one has to head north to Canada, where there are 9.5 violent crimes for every 1,000 people. That figure is down 5 percent from 1996. The numbers are from Statistics Canada.

That's double the violent crime rate in the United States.

I agree with Don on his key point -- our crime rates are low because we imprison (and, might I add, execute) criminals. I think the comparisons make it clear how the more the "humane and compassionate systems" of these nations with lower incarceration rates impact the lives of law-abiding citizens.

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