Itz News to Me

In just the latest round of Democratic hypocrisy, the state of Maryland (my home sweet home) thinks that everyone deserves to get paid a “living wage,” unless of course that somebody happens to work for the state of Maryland.

For those of you not privileged to live in this fine state, it is literally infested with Democrats from the local level all the way up to our governor and congressional delegation. If you want to find Republicans here, you have to go west in the “skinny” part of the state: but the population of Baltimore and the DC suburbs is so much larger that it is practically inconsequential. In recent years, Maryland has become more and more nanny state-ish, and this is going to be the end result: the only ones who will be able to afford doing business in this state will be the government. By creating special rules for itself while over-regulating and taxing everybody else to death, the Democrats are creating a creeping de facto socialist state.

This is what a liberal future looks like: is this what you really want?

Popularity: 14%

Don’t question their patriotism! Isn’t that the mantra we hear over and over? It’s gone well beyond a question into a statement. Democratic leaders have no patriotism: just an appetite for raw power that extends to their willingness to lie about the soldiers who are fighting the war in Iraq.

Democrats are already pre-emptively attacking General Petraeus as some sort of Bush stooge claiming that he will lie in his upcoming report by saying the surge is working. The problem is that the surge is working and they know it. Every reporter or blogger who has actually been there in the last couple months has come back saying what a big change it has made, and it has Democrats running scared. They’ve spent the last four years distancing themselves from the war and counting on its failure, so much so that a successful outcome could literally cripple their future electoral chances for a generation. And they know it.

So rather than get on the right side of history and admit they were wrong, they go to the backroom and devise a new party line: the soldiers are liars! they’re tools of President Bush! General Petraeus isn’t going to tell us the truth! Blah, blah, blah. It’s one thing to be on the other side of an issue, but it’s quite another to intentionally slander our troops. I have no patience left for these lying traitors, and I can only hope that the American public punishes them in the 2008 elections for trying to perpetrate this fraud on us and on our soldiers.

Popularity: 14%

For all the current talk about problems within Republican ranks, the truth is that when it comes to outright fraud and corruption, nobody does it like Democrats. From mafia-controlled unions to backroom politics, the biggest local “machines” such as the infamous Tammany Hall which controlled New York politics have always been Democratic. But that was the past you say. Lots of people and organizations have unsavory pasts that they’ve moved beyond. True. It’s just the Democrats aren’t one of them.

Witness New Jersey. In what at first blush seems just another local politician gone bad story, the money quote is literally the last sentence in the article:

More than 100 public officials in the state have been convicted on federal corruption charges in the last five years.

How many? More than 100. Convicted. Not charged, convicted.

If there had been more than 100 Republicans convicted across the country in the last five years, the media would be pounding on them day and night. But there hasn’t been a peep about New Jersey. Why? Because they’re Democrats. And the silence is deafening. Where are 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC, 20/20, the New York Times, or the Washington Post on this story? An entire state subverted by corrupt party politics at every level right down to the school boards, and no one thinks that’s national news?

Media defenders always conveniently ignore how many stories don’t get run because of media bias. There’s no bias? Really. Then defend this….

Popularity: 18%

The New York Times has had enough 9/11. Today’s edition contains an article with complaint after complaint from locals who just wish the whole thing would go away. How fitting…and how politically convenient…

First, let’s dispense with the basic point: that six years is far too long to commemorate 9/11. Hey guys, ever heard of Pearl Harbor Day? It’s closing on 70 years later and it’s still on the calendar. So where’s the article about Pearl Harbor Day fatigue? Answer: you’ll never see one. Ever. Why? Because Democratic victories in upcoming elections don’t depend on people forgetting Pearl Harbor Day.

It’s a measure of just how far the NYT is willing to sink that they are resorting to this sort of propaganda. For that’s what this article is: an attempt to neutralize the Democratic weakness on national security issues by trying to erase 9/11 from the public consciousness. Nothing more and nothing less. Move along. There’s nothing to see here. So what if Democrats have a long history of weak-kneed appeasement of threats to this country, dictators and thugs both at home and abroad. There are no threats on the horizon to worry about, right? Right? 9/11? What 9/11?

Just another reminder of who’s side they’re really on….It’s not yours or mine or even this country’s. It’s all about naked political power. They want it, and they’re willing to do anything to achieve it. I don’t question their patriotism, because there’s no question that they have none.

UPDATE: Over at Classical Values, Eric has found an even more embarrassing divide between what the NY Times is and isn’t willing to commemorate: Princess Diana’s death. Hey guys: she wasn’t American, she wasn’t even in line for the British throne….She was just a foreign celebrity, but the NYT goes wall-to-wall for the anniversary of her death while the more recent deaths of nearly 3,000 of their neighbors is just “annoying.”

Popularity: 16%

I said this a long time ago, and I’ll repeat it again: History will judge President Bush kindly.

For those of us old enough to remember Reagan’s time in office remember that many of the same criticisms being leveled at the Bush administration are simply retreads of the exact same criticisms - from many of the exact same people and institutions - that were made toward then President Reagan: arrogance, tyranny, insensitivity, stupidity, yada yada yada.

The reality is that many of those criticisms are not aimed at Bush’s ineffectiveness, but the fear that his policies actually are effective. I’m not going to waste my time arguing on behalf of his PR machine which has been woefully inadequate since Karen Hughes’ departure. The Medicare drug benefit for seniors which Democrats wanted to block rather than have seniors believe that the Republicans were anything but willing to euthanize the elderly, implementation of testing in schools over the objections of the teachers union which is offended by the prospect of actually forcing teachers to do their jobs rather than run social experiments on our children, and the prosecution of militant Islamists rather than continue the Democratic appeasement policies of Carter and Clinton will all be what is long remembered while the critics of those policies will be resigned to the “dustbin of history.”

Even now the Democrats are running scared of any perceived success of the surge in Iraq by attempting to continually move the goalposts away from success on the ground to avoid any hint of a victory against tyranny and Islamism in the Middle East because the truth of the matter is that Bush said one of the rationales for the war is a “draining of the swamp.” And it truly is doing that despite the protestations of war critics. Democrats want to either: a) run away from Iraq before it truly takes hold, or b) get into office themselves so they can take credit for the heavy lifting being done today.

History will tell a different story than today’s New York Times just as it does of the Reagan administration: and just like today, they’ll all “remember” how they supported those policies too…

Popularity: 20%

If you had any illusions that the Democrats actually meant what they said about “cleaning up Congress,” you should be ashamed of yourself. The political party that virtually invented the local party machine and is in bed with mafia-controlled unions across the country disingenuously claimed that they were dedicating themselves to changing the Washington culture which virtually ensures that only the friends of those in power benefit from the actions of Congress.

If you need proof, look no further than the corrupt activities of Dianne Feinstein, who has funneled millions of dollars in contracts to herself via her position overseeing appropriations. Is it surprising that corruption on this scale isn’t leading the evening newscasts or splashed on front pages across the country? Not if you know anything about how the major media protect their own - and the Democrats are just that…

Popularity: 30%

For much of the gubernational campaign in Minnesota, Republicans have portrayed Democratic candidate Mike Hatch as a hot-headed bully. Just mean-spirited Repbulicans trying underhanded tactics to win an election, right?

Wrong.

Like Howard Dean’s infamous scream which played into already existing questions about his temperament, Mike Hatch’s blow-up only served to underscore what Republicans have been saying about him all along.

Remember that it was “the scream” which put an instant end to Howard Dean’s presidential prospects, despite the fact that his campaign seemed to be gaining momentum until that very moment. Could this dust up do the same to Mike Hatch? If Minnesotans are smart, it will…

Popularity: 36%

In an blatantly political attempt to slam the Bush administration days before the mid-term election, the NY Times has made the screw-up of all time (at least from their side of the political aisle): in the course of an article so slanted it practically lies down sideways, they inadvertantly made the case that the Iraq had the know-how to build a nuclear weapon and were in a position to disseminate it to others.

Every Democrat in the country (except Joe Lieberman) has made a living preaching that there was no WMD threat from Iraq, and that Bush made up the war for some kind of blood-for-oil scheme that involved Halliburton, big corporations, and Satan himself. But now comes news that the Iraqis’ nuclear knowledge was so advanced that it might have been used to propel Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Kind of blows the whole “no WMDs” argument out of the water just a few days before the election, doesn’t it? Makes Joe Wilson out to be both a fool and liar, doesn’t it? Makes the Democrats look awfully foolish for making political hay out of what they have always known was a house of cards in an attempt to score some short-term political points at the expense of national security…

Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people…

Popularity: 40%

After watching the unfolding John Kerry debacle, I feel the need to point out a few things:

1) The claim that he intended to slam Bush but not the troops is false on its face. He was speaking in the context of encouraging students to study hard and do their homework so they could move on to college. Since President Bush has both an undergraduate degree and an M.B.A., the “joke” would have nothing to do with him. On the other hand, many of the troops in Iraq have only high school diplomas, so it would apply to them. They didn’t come up with the “he meant to say ‘get us stuck in Iraq’” excuse until a day later when he was already coming under fire after refusing his first opportunity to apologize for his stupidity.

2) This is the same thing he and other liberals have been saying about the troops since Vietnam. In fact, it was one of the strongest rallying cries of the Leftists that rich kids and college students were being exempted from the draft while the war was being fought by the uneducated and poor who were unable to get exceptions. He’s been reading from that playbook for almost forty years now, but all of a sudden today he feels completely differently and this was some sort of verbal slip? It’s not unreasonable to judge a man by his last forty years, so there’s no reason to believe he meant anything other than exactly what he said.

3) He didn’t apologize for what he said. He merely said he was sorry that people were so stupid as to listen to the words coming out of his mouth, interpret them according to their plain meaning, and hold him accountable for them. He did not retract or in any way mitigate what he said. It’s like saying ‘I’m sorry you’re offended that I called you stupid.’ It’s not an apology for calling you stupid, it’s just a regret that it offends you when people tell you that you are.

Popularity: 38%

For all the recent talk about conservative anger at Republicans, the media hasn’t uttered a peep about the civil war breaking out in the Democratic ranks over the Ned Lamont candidacy in Connecticut.

As evidenced by postings of this kind, the failure of the Democratic party elite to back Lamont in a meaningful way is creating a backlash amongst the party faithful which may have implications for voter turnout not only during the upcoming mid-term elections but into 2008 and beyond.

For years the media have turned a  blind eye to these sorts of internecine conflicts between special interest groups within the Democratic Party, but if these conflicts result in Republicans being able to eke out wins in this year’s elections would you say that the lack of media attention to these growing problems have been a net positive or negative for the party they are trying to protect with their silence?

Popularity: 37%