Labels: democrats, left-wing media, liberals, pelosi

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But she didn't stay long, and was soon back in the fight. Six months later she parachuted into the Auvergne, wearing two revolvers and a camel-hair coat. As with so much of Nancy's life, her account of this war is richly surreal. Everyone has a cartoon name (Judex, Gaspard, Bazooka and the Macaroni Man) and the résistants try to rob her at first, and then make her Chef du Parachutage London sends her tea Sten guns and lipstick, gelignite and packets of Brooke Bond Tea. The Americans meanwhile send two advisers, each in chocolate cavalry boots and without a word of French. At night, Nancy wears pink satin pyjamas, and - if the battle restarts - she fight in them too. There's also a twenty-ninth birthday party in an abandoned château, and gifts from all the guerrillas: ice-cream spoons from the French, etchings from the Americans, wild flowers from the penniless Spanish, and linen from a beautiful colonel, who will lose his legs. For Nancy, thesea are happy time, in their way

- John Gimlette on Nancy Wake

Labels: end times

But there was nothing to be done; the hoteliers were beyond reform. 'If you chastise them with sword, cane or horsewhip,' wrote Smollett, 'they will either disappear entirely, and leave you without resource; or they will find the means to take vengeance by overturning your carriage.'

Labels: left-wing media

Labels: economics, weekend

Labels: left-wing media, rangel

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.

We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.

The party's over

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming...I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

Labels: end times

Labels: democrats, rangel

I consider myself a very patriotic person, and I have been teased or damned all my life for my pro-American views — particularly in academic settings. But, I’m sorry, this is, in many ways, a sick country...

"The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people."

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face...You are my ambassadors."

Obama mobilizes rapid response on Web (Chicago Tribune)

Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows.

Labels: end times

Sometimes you just have to step back and be a little frivolous, in the face of all the madness, and it is both mean and crazy out there. Can you imagine the press not talking about the invasion of Sarah Palin’s privacy, and the press’ own unwillingness to co-operate with the FBI, because a) they’re Obama-enthralled and b) they don’t want to create “sympathy” for a candidate who - like unlike Hillary Clinton back in 2000 - has SERIOUSLY had her “space” invaded. And just imagine the way they’d be screaming if one of them found their email hacked into. They forget that the people they cover are people just like them. It’s just sad to see what the press has become...

Labels: end times, left-wing media

But, through most of these travels, my guide - emotionally if not geographically - was an American, called Putnam Flint. In one sense, it seemed perfectly natural to make this journey with an American; after all, the liberation of Western Europe was largely an American enterprise.

In every other sense, however, the presence of an American made my travels seem even more exotic. All my adult life I've been drawn to Americans, with there determination to do the right thing, there sense of the possible and their talent for making it happen, but I've never truly understood them. At a superficial level, this is just a linguistic problem (Americans don't bonk or slim, and have no use for bumph, crisps, plonk or Christmas crackers) but - more profoundly - I realise there's truly a difference of perspective. As the tenants of an enormous space, Americans see no limit to human potential, whereas the British see only gaps and opportunities closing fast. Whilst the Americans might be guilty of overdoing things, the chances are we're doing nothing at all. Time too looks different to Americans. To them, history is awesome, whereas to us it's important. Perhaps that's why I enjoy being with them. To Americans, 'Liberty' actually means something whereas to us it's just a shop.

At the end of a star-spangled century it may be unfashionable to declare affection for Americans, but I'm not alone. Every year, the British spend over one and a half billion minutes on the phone to the USA, and there are over 45,000 flights between the two nations. Around 4.7 million Britons actually make the trip, some of them year after year. It's an affection that's partly cultural partly genetic, and partly forged out of war. Of course, it wasn't always like this. Dr. Johnson once said, 'I am willing to love all mankind except an American', a feeling he shared with a good few others, including Ruskin, Burton, Dickens, Wilde and Trollope. But things have changed, and now the jibes are largely a matter of journalistic convention. Just as plenty of American writers insist that the British are all arrogant and phoney, so plenty of hacks over here portray America as all talk and no taste. Clearly, they can't have met men like Putnam Flint.

Rep. Charlie Rangel won't step down as Ways and Means Committee chairman

WASHINGTON — Rep. Charles Rangel is staying put.

The 19-term Democratic lawmaker refuses to quit as chairman of the House's powerful tax law-writing committee despite embarrassing revelations about his personal finances, Rangel's lawyer said today.

Labels: democrats, rangel

Labels: hollywood, obama

So it would appear that this is precisely what Obama has been railing against: Washington insiders lining the pockets of other Washington insiders while the taxpayers ultimately have to foot the bill. The Agent of Change, it seems, didn’t exactly walk the walk on this one.

Source

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Let’s Push Raul Castro into Reforming Cuba
Earlier this year a Cuban blogger named Yoani Sanchez was selected as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential list. Sanchez, who faces incredible hardships to post her writings on her blog because of the purposeful lack of Internet access on the island, also won Spain’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. She writes about the absurd nature of life in Castro’s Cuba with her beautifully descriptive prose.

Related
"On Monday, August 24, a dissident punk rocker named Gorki Aguila was picked up by Cuban police for allegedly committing the Orwellian crime of “pre-criminal dangerousness.” Aguila, who fronts a band called Porno Para Ricardo, writes lyrics that are harshly critical of the regime.

On the appointed day, Gorki’s trial was postponed, then postponed again as a throng of supporters and members of the international media waited outside the court. In the matter of just one week, Gorki Aguila went from being a relatively unknown punk rocker to a cause célèbre. Raul Castro officially had a hot potato on his hands. Finally, at 5:00 p.m. (eight hours behind schedule) Gorki was brought into one of the regime’s kangaroo courts. He faced anywhere from one to four years in prison if convicted (everyone gets convicted). Then something unusual happened. The charges were reduced to a simple case of “disobedience” and Gorki was convicted (remember, everyone gets convicted) and sentenced to pay a fine of 600 pesos, which is roughly $40, about two months’ salary in Cuba.

Yes, changes are occurring in Cuba. The going rate for calling Fidel Castro a “c*ck sucker” on the island was reduced from a lengthy prison sentence to a $40 fine, a bargain that is sure to increase the levels of remittances to the island. This was most certainly a change that Raul Castro never envisioned having to make when he ascended to his brother’s throne."

Labels: cuba, left-wing media, liberals

Representative Charles B. Rangel has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns, according to a lawyer for the congressman and documents from the resort.

Labels: democrats, obama, rangel

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A $40 billion scandal

To top it off, the Fannie Mae leadership was quite well-connected in D.C., especially to the Democratic Party. The Washington Post on May 23 made this all clear in black and white. The front page of that day's Business section showed how James A. Johnson, a former campaign manager for Walter Mondale's presidential run, had created "a political powerhouse."

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger.

Like others before him [Obama], he seems to think government is the answer to every problem; that government should take our resources and make our decisions for us. That type of change doesn't trust Americans to know what is right or what is in their own best interests. It's the attitude of politicians who are sure of themselves but have little faith in the wisdom, decency and common sense of free people. That attitude created the unresponsive bureaucracies of big government in the first place. And that's not change we can believe in...

Labels: economics, end times

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"Question a person of this type, and you will often get the semi-frivolous answer: "I don't object to Socialism, but I do object to Socialists." Logically it is a poor argument, but it carries weight with many people. As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle class. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar drive, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible- the really disquieting- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. Once sometime gets the impression that the mere words "Socialism" and "Communism" draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, "Nature Cure" quack, pacifist and feminist in England. One day this summer I was riding through Letchworth when the bus stopped and two dreadful-looking old men got on to it. They were both about sixty, both very short, pink and chubby, and both hatless. One of them was obscenely bald, the other has long grey hair bobbed in the Lloyd George style. They were dressed in pistachio-coloured shirts and khaki shorts into which their huge bottoms were crammed so tightly that you could study every dimple. Their appearance created a mild stir of horror on top of the bus. The man next to me, a commercial traveller I should say, glanced at me, at them, and back again at me, and murmured, "Socialists," as who should say, "Red Indians."

Labels: liberals, obama

Poll: 51 percent say reporters are trying to hurt Palin

Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) also believe the GOP vice presidential nominee has better experience to be president of the United States than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Labels: left-wing media

"But Sarah Palin didn’t court this anger with more anger. That would be a turn-off. What most frustrates Americans is that we are a happy, optimistic, can-do people ceaselessly harangued by media solons, delusional academics, post-sovereign Eurocrats, and the Democrats who love them. While we free and feed the world, they can’t tell us enough that we’re racist, imperialist, torturing louts. We know it’s a libel, an endless stream of slander. But we also know it’s an absurd libel. We’re tired of hearing it, but taking it too seriously would give it power it doesn’t deserve..."

Labels: left-wing media, liberals, obama

Labels: obama

Excerpts
Liberals would replace opportunity with dependency on government largesse. They grow government and raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid, to take work requirements out of welfare, and to grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all.

Democrats want to use the slowdown as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations.

It's the same path Europe took a few decades ago. It leads to moribund growth and double-digit unemployment.

Excerpts

When Russia rolled over Georgia, John McCain knew exactly how to respond.

Having been to that part of the world many times and having developed a clear worldview over many years, John knew where he stood. Within hours, he established a very strong, informed position that let the world know exactly how he'll respond as president. At exactly the right time, John McCain said, "We're all Georgians."

Obama's first instinct was to create a moral equivalency — that "both sides" should "show restraint." The same moral equivalency that he has displayed in discussing the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel.

Later, after discussing it with his 300 foreign policy advisers, he changed his position and suggested that "the UN Security Council" could find a solution. Apparently, none of his 300 advisers told him that Russia has a veto on any U.N. action. Finally Obama put out a statement that looked...well, it looked a lot like John McCain's.

Here's some free advice: Sen. Obama, next time just call John McCain.

Labels: the good guys

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.

Labels: left-wing media, liberals, obama

Labels: liberals

Some more excerpts from his speech on McCain's time as a POW

The guards cracked ribs, broke teeth off at the gums. They cinched a rope around his arms and painfully drew his shoulders back.

Over four days, every two to three hours, the beatings resumed. During one especially fierce beating, he fell, again breaking his arm.

Labels: the good guys

Thompson on Sarah Palin
Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit.

Thompson on Foreign Policy & Soaring Rhetoric
The respect he is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.

Thompson on the Democratic Nominee
To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president.

History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President. Apparently they believe that he would match up well with the history making, Democrat controlled Congress. History making because it's the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation's history.

Thompson on NEW & EXPANDED Democratic Taxes
Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases.

They tell you they are not going to tax your family.

No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline ... or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry ... it's not going to affect you.

They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the "other" side of the bucket! That's their idea of tax reform.

Thompson using Obama's own words from the Saddleback Civil Forum
And we need a President who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.

Labels: left-wing media, the good guys

Labels: left-wing media