Back Talk

The partisan media has been predictable during this ad-naseum political season.

CNN hosted the recent Republican Presidential debate and, true to their precedent set in the last debate, arranged to have several plants sprinkled among the questioners. The questions to the candidates were transparently formed to embarrass the panel or to show conservatives in a bad light. Rather than placing emphasis upon serious questions on the war on terrorism, social security, tax reform, and our porous southern border, the CNN plants wasted the opportunity with questions out of the mainstream of public concern such as gays in the military, corn subsidies, and that all-consuming anxiety over flying the Confederate flag. At least nine of the 34 questioners were linked to anti-Republican organizations such as The Council on American-Islamic Relations and a pro-Democrat labor union. A homosexual retired soldier asked about the "don"t ask, don"t tell" policy of the military; it turned out that he is associated with Sen. Clinton"s campaign. CNN has long since joined the ranks of the press with partisan, agenda journalism. Some pre-television pundit nailed the issue of trust in the media with the following statement: “I read the newspapers avidly. It is my main form of continuous fiction.”

Posted by Jim at 02:38 PM | Permalink

The good news: Our colleges are still sanctuaries for free speech. The bad news: it doesn’t apply to those with whom they disagree.

Disgraced former Colorado University professor Ward Churchill spoke at California State University, Davis. He is the anti-American activist who said that “we deserved what happened on 9/11 and the World Trade Center was a legitimate target because it is a symbol of the financial power that allows the United States to flex its military might.” He said the innocent victims who worked at the Center were “Little Eichmans” because they worked in our capitalistic system. He was subsequently fired, after much tormented debate and hand wringing since it is nearly impossible to fire a tenured teacher; his anti-American teaching was a non-issue given the admiration our universities have for left-wing teachers nowadays. He was canned only after it became impossible to rationalize his hate-America rhetoric to the benefactors for the following reasons: he blatantly plagiarized other writers in his books, lied like a five-term politician about his educational background, and lied for years that he was a native American to gain some form of misguided sympathy as a victim of American society’s mistreatment. In the rare case when a college invites a conservative writer or professor (it’s easier to find a four-leaf clover,) to speak, the teaching staff boycotts the speech and students demonstrate and shout down the speaker.

Posted by Jim at 08:54 AM | Permalink

For education, we in California spend $11,000 per student; that is 3 times, inflation adjusted, more than we spent 50 years ago when we had the highest ranked schools in the nation and comparable to the best in the world.

Back then, before the enormous government school system bureaucracy and the advent of the stifling teachers unions, teachers did not have to provide various supplies. There was plenty of construction paper and blunt-nosed scissors for everyone. We did not have the high school dropout problem we have today. We have too many incompetent, lifetime tenured teachers with a pathetic lack of control, discipline, or expertise in the classes they teach. An educational survey found that 85% of American high school seniors are deficient in American History and math. The teachers unions spend funds for radio and television ads that make a plea for more education funds. Education has become just another government fumbleflop and teaching our kids is much too important to be left to the government. The government controls 90 percent of our schools yet most Americans are oddly unconcerned. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

Posted by Jim at 07:52 AM | Permalink

Although the press is starting to give in to the inconvenient fact that our troops are having an enormous success with the “surge” in the Iraq war, the Democrat politicians, having long since become invested in our defeat, are remaining silent.

Along with the liberal press, they took on an anti-war agenda from the onset that permeates anything to do with the war against Islamo-facism, and have, in fact, never treated terrorism as a serious threat to our country and the rest of the world. They have maintained a steady drumbeat of anti-war, anti-Bush propaganda in the media in an effort to turn public opinion in their direction and, therefore, have played down any good war news and have minimized any alarming news of terrorist activity that might spoil their game plan and long-term agenda to defeat George Bush. Only the Washington Times felt it important to carry the recent terrorist threat in the Arizona desert. Fort Huachuca is the nation's largest intelligence-training center, housing a large contingent of soldiers and families and have the mission to train members of all the services. Intelligence agents learned that Islamist terrorists, with the aid of Mexican drug cartels, were planning an attack on the army base. Fort officials took immediate measures after agents warned that up to 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were sneaking into the U.S. through underground tunnels to attack the base with high-powered weapons and explosives.

Posted by Jim at 05:13 PM | Permalink

It’s difficult to be a conservative. It was so easy being a Liberal. All one had to do was disengage the brain and go with heart, be guided by whatever feels feel good, and avoid all that tedious studying the issues, and risk learning something unpleasant or having to take on unpopular views.

No more fun demonstrating, marching, holding up signs trashing the President, proclaiming for animal rights, the environment, or other nice sounding stands. It is uncomfortable to learn there is a limit to the damage we should do to our way of life in the name of the spotted owl, the fairy shrimp, or the delta whatever. One must face up to the fact that we cannot reward illegal aliens and their offspring with benefits simply because that sob-story about the poor hard working immigrant family touched our generous and sensitive nature. One must become aware that raising the minimum wage does more harm than good; that it damages the economy and invariably causes unemployment of the low wage workers, the newest entries into the labor market, and working students. It was so easy to avoid these unpleasant facts and merely concur with the Democrats populist dictum, “everyone needs a raise.” Most of the Democrat politicians are not that spectacularly ignorant of Economics; they are merely taking the politically advantageous route. Some philosopher said “No people do so much harm as those going about doing good.” It is hard to admit that the Islamo-fascists are evil – that they actually want to kill us all for no reason except than we are non-Muslims and our way of life is abhorrent to them. It would be so much easier to adopt the Liberal 1970s attitude that we are all the same; we can love each other, that we can negotiate with terrorists, have a group hug, and then put it behind us. It was easier to blame the world’s problems on America, or, specifically, on those mean Conservatives who want America to be the most powerful nation and don’t care if the world doesn’t love us. Gosh, it’s hard to be reasoned about these things? I may go back to being a Liberal.

Posted by Jim at 03:49 PM | Permalink

Regarding the New York Governor’s aborted attempt to give illegals drivers licenses, naturally San Francisco is planning a similar move to reward lawbreakers, the difference is that San Francisco being San Francisco will succeed.

The Washington Post quoted statistics that illegals are involved in more minor accidents and more serious accidents than citizens and, left-twisting rag that they are, actually used this data to justify granting drivers licenses to lawbreakers. Liberals are adept at stretching to irrational limits to validate their biases and believe that licensed illegal aliens will have taken an exam and, therefore, will drive more safely and accident-free. Here is a truism for the liberal Washington Post: Correlation does not mean causation. Illegals do not have accidents because they are unlicensed. We give illegals all sorts of enticements and benefits, ranging from free medical attention to free college tuition. Several of our largest cities have declared themselves sanctuary places for illegals. Here is another truism for our liberal friends: Rewarding bad behavior brings more bad behavior. Unknown intruders are invading our country and threatening our homeland security and national sovereignty, but the elites are either clueless or actively hostile to any aggressive attempt to secure our southern border. The odd mixture of liberal multiculturalists and business lobbyists has repeatedly thwarted attempts to fix the problem. We have a federal law that forbids bringing in or harboring aliens. What is going on in the country?

Posted by Jim at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Have we lost the fight to defend our porous southern border and to deal with the 12 to 20 million illegal alien lawbreakers in our country? Nobody knows exactly how many.

A furniture and bedding store in Alexandria, Virginia has been advertising easy credit with a twist: “no gringo papers necessary.” For the first time, two Hispanic surnames — Garcia and Rodriguez — are among the top 10 most common in the nation. The Hispanics population in the United States grew by 58 percent in the 1990s to nearly 13 percent of the total population. Liberals think we should ignore the fact that the Illegals broke our laws by sneaking into the country, that many end up violating more laws, that terrorists are entering via the same route, and that it is wrong to call them “undocumented immigrants.” They are criminal lawbreakers. The Libs condemn anyone as mean spirited who thinks these lawbreakers should be prosecuted and denied the privileges of citizens. The little mutant Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke out against our hateful government persecuting the illegal immigrants. When public opinion overwhelmed New York’s governor forcing him to withdraw his effort to grant illegal aliens drivers licenses, a New York politician, Representative Jose Serrano, said, "The governor was not defeated by anything other than the hate in this country toward immigrants.” Here’s a hateful fact for Jose: In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide, which total 1,200-1,500, are for illegal aliens. Illegals kill more Americans than are killed in Iraq. One million more sneak into the country every year.

Posted by Jim at 04:58 PM | Permalink

One has to hand it to Liberals; their opinions are strong to the point of neurosis and they have chutzpah.

Armed with their “ends justifies the means” philosophy, they will straightfacedly look you in the eye and tell you black is white, up is down, two plus two equals five, and, best of all, avow they are unbiased. Hillary Clinton’s latest adventures with the truth are a good case in point; her various positions on illegal aliens and her claim she had no knowledge of her staff planting questions with her audience – questions for which she was clearly well prepared. Black is white.
The Paradise town council voted to support the politically charged Kyoto Protocol and had the brass to tell us the vote was not politically motivated. Up is down. A Post editorial noted the hypocrisy of this although indicating it had no complaint with the council discussing global warming provided it did not interfere with regular business. The Kyoto Accord is not, as in never, the affair of a small town council and the mere fact of discussing and voting for it is an interference with town business by definition.
One of our local political scolds who voices his opinions ad-nauseum in blogs, letters, and the Forty-Niner demonstrated the chutzpah thing admirably. He penned a column titled, “Political Partisanship is Killing America,” and then saturated the column with heavily partisan opinions.” Two plus two equals five.
Liberals refer to illegal aliens who broke the law by sneaking into our country as “undocumented immigrants.” They call our 7-year booming economy, “troubled.” They call new taxes that confiscate more of our earnings funding initiatives.

Posted by Jim at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Today, Hillary Clinton does not favor driver licenses for illegal aliens.

Her latest statement: "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people.” In the last televised Democratic presidential debate, Clinton said home state Governor Eliot Spitzer’s plan to permit illegal aliens to apply for driver’s licenses “makes a lot of sense.” It’s shades of John Kerry; she was for giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens before she was against it. Of course, she was against it back before she was in favor of it the first time. It’s all because that mean old moderator, Tim Russert, had the nerve to ask her a hard question. Lucky for Tim he is an old established TV personality so the Clinton machine made only a feeble shot at destroying him. It is not so surprising that Clinton tried to straddle the fence on the Illegal alien question or try to avoid even going near the fence for that matter; she is, after all, a lawyer and a politician - a combination that yields a persona devoid of inner conviction on anything. No wonder her handlers planted questions in the audience at her next appearance before the public – something she could knock out of the park and look presidential. Here are the sad facts: The woman couldn’t care less about driver licenses or illegal aliens or any of it; she cares about political power and prestige. She is nothing more than an empty pants suit whose only notable accomplishment is that she survived the ride on hubby Bill’s coattails, and may become our next President and leader of the free world.

Posted by Jim at 07:46 AM | Permalink

Another one of those pop-up environmental groups, “The National Resources Defense Council” got a liberal judge who has never been near a farm to accommodate them with a ruling that took a big step toward crippling California farmers and our state economy by taking away their lifeblood - water.

They did this in the name of protecting the Delta Smelt, whatever that is. I commented earlier that any oddball collection of enviro-wackos can string three official sounding words together and come up with an important sounding environmental group; this one went that extra step and strung four words together. A recent report said that if water normally allocated to productive California farms is re-directed to insure protection of the Delta Smelt, California farmers will have to take 82,000 acres out of cultivation, miles of orchards will simply die, and the economy will suffer a $69 million hit. If I met a smelt, I probably would like the little critter and approve ruining the California economy for his protection, but right now this feels like another case of pseudo-science armed environmental cultists taking advantage of the national hysteria about the environment to save an organism that may or may not even be in danger.

Posted by Jim at 03:21 PM | Permalink

At the DemPol debate, Hillary stepped in it big time when she tried to respond to the first ever difficult question: her opinion on the New York’s governor’s attempt to give driver’s licenses to Illegals.

Normally fearful of challenging a Clinton, her DemPol colleagues even called her on her Clintonesque attempt to answer to straddle the yes or no question. She gave a tortured response saying at first she agreed with the Governor and then that she yielding a sum of zero. During the next day or two she followed the Clinton formula by denying the facts, attacking moderator Tim Russert, and shifting the blame. She didn’t blame Halliburton or talk radio but did take a shot at blaming everyone in general for gender bias. She takes a similar tack whenever she has to respond to any question, for example her voting for the war and then saying she was duped into supporting it. Always protected by the adoring press, she not only has no experience in any kind of leadership role, she has never had to respond to the typical hardball news conference questions. Aside from her wishy-washy response to the Illegal question, like many Washington insiders, she is so out of touch with the average person, she is unaware of the concern over the illegal alien problem. A new poll found that 77% of Americans are opposed to driver’s licenses for Illegals. It's been widely reported that the 19 hijackers on 9/11 possessed 63 total pieces of fake ID, and the Wall Street Journal reported that eight of the hijackers were actually registered to vote, courtesy of the "motor voter" law.

Posted by Jim at 11:13 AM | Permalink

We are desperately in need of more adults in Government.

There are too many critical issues facing us to leave a crowd of DemPols in charge. We have huge problems such as Social Security collapse, war on terrorism, national security, and a nuclear Iran, yet the Congressional DemPols are fixated upon raising taxes for bigger government, more bureaucracy, and more permanent expensive welfare programs. House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel is proposing a $1.3 billion tax hike – the largest on record. Several states had various tax increase initiatives on their ballots in the recent election including huge cigarette taxes, property tax increases, and a new tax on the seller of real estate. The Democrats are coming on strong and they are predictable. Tax, tax, tax and spend, spend, spend. They may talk of spending cuts to balance the enormous expenditures, but the only area they ever consider cuts is our national defense. They will not renew the Bush tax cut which has been largely responsible for our good eight year economy. Since the 2003 tax cut, the budget deficit has dropped by $240 billion, 8.5 million jobs have been added, and the stock market has hit all-time highs. Nevertheless, the DemPols will find a way to blame Bush when their economy plummets. The Dems have become beholden to the extreme left wing of the party, such as Move-on.org, the wacked-out “aliens in my back yard” crowd and will have to pay up by taking the country to the extreme left. Without a restraining veto in the White House, we will see a weakened military, de-facto illegal alien amnesty, homosexual marriage, softness on crime, and more government control of our lives. House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid have presided over the most inept Congress in memory and that situation will only worsen with a Democrat President.

Posted by Jim at 09:38 AM | Permalink

The best war news in years just came out and the anti-war newspapers took almost no notice.

The New York Times took this page one news and buried it on page 19; the Washington Post on page 23. The LA Times and San Francisco Chronicle probably ignored it altogether. The most terror-ridden section of greater Baghdad is now free of terrorists, Iraqi police are in control, and former residents are moving back into their homes. Good news is subjective to our Press that has been the driving force behind the DemPols’ effort to undermine the war starting on day one and accelerating when Senate Leader Harry Reid announced a few months ago that we have lost. DemPols do not relate to the war in Iraq or the broader war on terrorism; their Socialist-leaning teachers all those years have inculcated them with the pacifist philosophy that any fighting war is bad, that all disagreements between nations are easily resolved by just getting together, talking, maybe a group hug, and singing a couple of bars of Cum ba ya. However, they are not completely bereft of the warrior spirit. They are schooled as soldiers in the war on poverty (not one of their better fights; we have spent $6.6 trillion on this war and the poverty rate is almost exactly the same as it was at the onset.) They are gaining ground on the war on our Economy via economy-stunting regulations, laws, environmental impact restrictions, and bans on developing our own oil sources and nuclear reactors. They fight along side their allies, the teachers’ unions, in the war on education by blocking any attempts at innovation such as school choice and vouchers. They successfully won the battle against President Bush’s attempt to resolve the Social Security bankruptcy issue. They are still fighting the skirmishes to allow homosexual marriages, and to censor conservative talk radio with the laughably named “Fairness Doctrine.”

Posted by Jim at 01:01 PM | Permalink

The ER’s high-minded editorial page, jumping on the band wagon along with all the other liberal newspapers came out with a piece excoriating the use of waterboarding war prisoners to gain information.

It must be a sign of the times. During WWII, news people were concerned with winning the war, not the comfort of prisoners. Nowadays, editorial board members - a cadre of over-indulged, products of our liberal journalism schools plant their fat well-fed bottoms around a conference table and fret about the welfare of terrorists – avowed killers of Americans. They have more concern over the humane treatment of Islamo-Nazis than for American fighting men. It is easy to take the high road when in one’s comfortable surroundings and feeling he has no stake in the fight against terrorism which seems to be the case nowadays with the anti-war, pacifist bent of newspapers. Somebody needs to remind them that we're at war, that the enemy is killing our boys, and that we should be more concerned with gaining intelligence that would save lives. Of course this would likely fall on deaf ears because their professors have told them that war is bad. These self-righteous prisoner’s rights advocates are unfazed by the hypothetical question: What if thousands of innocent lives could be saved by waterboarding one terrorist? What about 100 saved? How about 10? How many American lives are worth scaring one terrorist into thinking he is drowning? The case of terrorist leader Khaled Sheikh Mohammed also leaves them unfazed. He masterminded the September 11th attacks, and waterboarding convinced him to reveal al-Qaida's complete organization list which clearly saved lives. In my own mind, I know what is and what is not torture. Torture is permanent physical injury to a prisoner of war. Embarrassing a prisoner, humiliating him, depriving him of sleep, withholding his holy book, questioning his manhood, or making him subservient to women is not torture and neither is waterboarding. Even if it is mental torture; so what?

Posted by Jim at 04:06 PM | Permalink

Keep it up media, and your readership will continue to plummet.

A joint study by The Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, not exactly conservative groups, found that media coverage of the presidential race has been strongly sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans. That the mainstream media is biased, is not much of a revelation since every poll, survey, and study for years has shown this to be the case, and it will shock nobody that the media is not eager to print the results. In fact, the only reference you are likely to hear from the media on this subject is how balanced and unbiased they are. Tut, tut. “Investors Business Daily” published the study results that stated “Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage, but they get much more coverage. IBD states this is particularly evident on morning news shows, which produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) that focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans.” The worst bias was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone “positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.” Television has a similar problem where Democrats get mush better treatment. Reviewing 154 stories on evening network newscasts over the course of 109 weeknights, the survey found that “Democrats were presented in a positive light more than twice as often as they were portrayed as negative. Positive tones for Republicans were detected in less than a fifth of stories while a negative tone was twice as common.” National Public Radio, where everyone’s tax money – Democrat and Republican – goes to support was shown to be equally biased. The study found “NPR’s ‘Morning Edition.’ approvingly covered Democrats more than a third as often as Republicans. Negative coverage of Democrats was a negligible 5.9%.” Is it any wonder that many of us read newsprint in a perpetual state of doubt?

Posted by Jim at 06:29 AM | Permalink

So, what are we to do about health care? Good sense and unavoidable facts tell me that we do not want to embark upon a national health program.

Canada, England, and France have tried these programs and found them full of problems with poor care, long waits for serious problems, and unavailability of doctors and nurses willing to stay with such a mess. Hundreds of Canadians come to the United States for medical treatment and surgery. More importantly, we don’t need another huge, incompetent, inefficient, wasteful bureaucratic government program. History tells us none has ever succeeded before and not likely to now. Now for the “on the other hand” side of the issue. Having been strongly opposed to government-run health care, the thing that makes me ponder the issue is the experience of a family member who had surgery and a 24 hour stay in the hospital. The hospital charges were $45,700 not including the surgeon and anesthesiologist fees. I apparently have not been paying attention over the past few years and have never been hospitalized because this figure stunned me. No amount of rationalization about expert care and conditions or friendly, attentive staff can convince me this is not a grand rip-off of the insurance company and Medicare. Legalized larceny. Incidentally, the surgeon’s fee was $5000 and the anesthesiologist’s $500.

Posted by Jim at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Who are these people who automatically believe any and every group who proclaim the world’s environment is in crisis because of man-make global warming, regardless of opposing science, but particularly if the proclaiming group has an official sounding title such as “Energy Research Associates,” or “Environmental Awareness Association?”

Just pick three buzzwords, string them together and shazam, you have an expert environmental source, and, if you include the trendy buzzword ”sustainability,” you really have a winner. The first group is comprised of naïve individuals that believe if it sounds good, and it feels good, it must be true; they are the feel-gooders who swallow the Al Gore scare tactics or whatever the agenda-driven press prints, damn the facts. The second group is home to the delusional freakazoids who believe that President Bush and the Republicans are conspiring to destroy our environment in the name of huge financial profits for the oil companies, Halliburton and Wall-mart. These are the “aliens kidnapped my aunt” folks that live their miserable lives from one conspiracy theory to the next; their latest conspiracy knee-slapper: that the Security firm Blackwater conspired to ignite the San Diego fires because they want to build a large new facility in San Diego and the desired land was unavailable or too expensive. The third group, and I had to observe them at environmental activist demonstrations to convince myself of this, is the new home of the anti-American, anti-Capitalism throwbacks of the old Communist Party who use the enviro movement as a vehicle to further their goal of world Socialism. I’m unsure where Al Gore’s fits among this motley concoction. We know he is delusional because of all the pointless lies he tells, yet he does seem to believe his own shtick. Naturally, our leftist press has bought into the enviro-scare-scam; however, the British are becoming openly skeptical; British press advises readers that a judge found nine scientific errors in Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” and ordered British schools to list them and to teach that science has not established that man has caused the global warming. Enviro-cultists scared us with the news that global warming would create the worst hurricane season on record in 2007; that prediction was totally wrong; in fact, 2007 is turning out to be one of the most inactive years on record. An Associated Press hack’s lengthy account last week – an opinion piece posing as news analysis - warned us of the dire environmental consequences of coal-fired factories throughout the world. When that writer, unable to control himself because of his own strong feelings, quoted from the group “Energy Research Associates,” that there will soon be no more polar bears, I immediately discounted the validity of the entire piece. A shame too because increased coal usage is truly an important topic.

Posted by Jim at 09:14 AM | Permalink

The Post carried one more piece about the long-standing feral cat problem.

This has been one of those continuing, perennial, everlasting issues that refuses to go away regardless of the numerous attempts that good animal loving people have tried all those years. It’s like an incurable skin rash; the description on the tube of that new ointment sounds so great, and it feels so soothing on the skin, you just know you have finally found the solution. Then you discover you have merely treated the symptom because that devilish rash returns worse than ever.
The article described a new volunteer organization – Topcats – that is going to make the nasty rash go away. They are going to capture feral cats, neuter them, and then return them to the wild where they will feed them through their next celibate nine lives. They report that this method of “decreasing the population by attrition” is the only workable solution because euthanasia does not work. Spokesperson for the group said that 5 million cats were euthanized last year, that the Topcats have neutered, freed, and feed 508 cats in two and one-half years. She said, “There are 45 cats for every person in the United States.” Let’s see now, I’m having a small problem with the numbers so I took my rudimentary math skills and calculated that, if there are 45 cats per person nationwide and using a local population figure of 20000 people, there are 900,000 cats in Paradise. At the Topcats rate, they process 203 of these per year. Even more head-scratching, their figures tell us there are 13 trillion, 500 billion cats nationwide. I’m surprised we can walk without stepping in cat litter.
I don’t want to go too far out on the feral cat limb, what with my cat-loving friends and family; however, do the above “facts” seem a trifle perplexing to you?

Posted by Jim at 09:37 AM | Permalink