In all of our history the United States lost one war of insurgency, Vietnam. Not surprisingly, the party of despair embraced Vietnam as the historical norm instead of the anomaly. Every reader knows that Reid, Murtha, Pelosi and the mainstream Democrat leadership have declared American defeat at every turn of event in Iraq. This morning, however, Dingy Harry, Damascus Nancy , ABSCAM Jack and the other devotees of despair and defeat in Iraq are themselves experiencing despair.
The news dynamic is changing, and that is bad news for the Democrats.
The liberal mainstream media effectively silenced any coverage of good news and disseminated bad news with exaggeration and without critical analysis or context for the last four years. Fox News, talk radio and various internet news services were able to report the positive developments and occurrences in Iraq, so reality was never completely suppressed. The much larger and less fact driven mainstream media continued to feed a news template of failure.
Fortunately, history is not a compilation of news stories; it’s the occurrence of real events. President Bush did what Abraham Lincoln did before him, fire the losing generals and bureaucrats, change tactics and keep going. Out went Rummy, Casey and Sanchez. In came Gates, Fallon and Petraeus, along with 30,000 new combat soldiers.
Since then, Al Qaeda has been routed, evidence of the civil war that never was has largely disaapeared, the militias seem controlled and the violence has been dramatically reduced. After weeks of silence (at best) or continued coverage of the increasingly smaller body counts, the factual reality of American success have compelled the mainstream media to stray from the template that serves the Democrats' political needs.
Early last week, Newsweek prominently headlined “Bagdad Comes Alive”. The same day, among the most reliable of Democrat allies, the NY Times headlined the reduction in violence to the lowest level in eighteen months. Mid week saw the Financial Times describe the “phenomenal” reduction in violence. The LA Times even covered the Iraqi government’s description of a “vast improvement” in violence. Reuters headlined the delivery of a petition to the Iranian government accusing Iran of causing turmoil and violence in southern Iraq that was signed by 300,000 Iraqis, including something like 600 Shia sheiks from southern Iraq. Even this morning, the ABC News is headlining “Baghdad gets back to normal”.
This morning, in a development even more dangerous to Democrats than coverage of actual positive developments themselves, the NY Times highlighted the political perils of American success to Democrats. If the liberal press is talking about Democrat political difficulties this far out of an election you can be assured those problems are real.
Maybe the lesson is to not allow one’s domestic political success to become wedded to American national failure.
The news dynamic is changing, and that is bad news for the Democrats.
The liberal mainstream media effectively silenced any coverage of good news and disseminated bad news with exaggeration and without critical analysis or context for the last four years. Fox News, talk radio and various internet news services were able to report the positive developments and occurrences in Iraq, so reality was never completely suppressed. The much larger and less fact driven mainstream media continued to feed a news template of failure.
Fortunately, history is not a compilation of news stories; it’s the occurrence of real events. President Bush did what Abraham Lincoln did before him, fire the losing generals and bureaucrats, change tactics and keep going. Out went Rummy, Casey and Sanchez. In came Gates, Fallon and Petraeus, along with 30,000 new combat soldiers.
Since then, Al Qaeda has been routed, evidence of the civil war that never was has largely disaapeared, the militias seem controlled and the violence has been dramatically reduced. After weeks of silence (at best) or continued coverage of the increasingly smaller body counts, the factual reality of American success have compelled the mainstream media to stray from the template that serves the Democrats' political needs.
Early last week, Newsweek prominently headlined “Bagdad Comes Alive”. The same day, among the most reliable of Democrat allies, the NY Times headlined the reduction in violence to the lowest level in eighteen months. Mid week saw the Financial Times describe the “phenomenal” reduction in violence. The LA Times even covered the Iraqi government’s description of a “vast improvement” in violence. Reuters headlined the delivery of a petition to the Iranian government accusing Iran of causing turmoil and violence in southern Iraq that was signed by 300,000 Iraqis, including something like 600 Shia sheiks from southern Iraq. Even this morning, the ABC News is headlining “Baghdad gets back to normal”.
This morning, in a development even more dangerous to Democrats than coverage of actual positive developments themselves, the NY Times highlighted the political perils of American success to Democrats. If the liberal press is talking about Democrat political difficulties this far out of an election you can be assured those problems are real.
Maybe the lesson is to not allow one’s domestic political success to become wedded to American national failure.
44 comments:
Sporer,
Nice partisan spin, again. Maybe this change in coverage actually reflects reality? What if the much maligned, supposedly D MSM is actually trying to report the facts. Now that they see progress, they are reporting it.
Of course, my spin would be that MSM is desperate to see American military to succeed. Thus, everyone in MSM is all giddy about the surge looking like it might work. (And don't get me wrong, I hope it works. Achieving "victory" would definitely be better than losing.) But nobody is asking the real question: Even with this potential "victory," what is it that we have gained in WOT? An awful lot of effort and resources to handle a very minor player in WOT. As I've said over and over again, no honest cost benefit analysis can justify this debacle. But the pussies in the MSM don't dare to ask this fundamental question. They are desperate to see us achieve "victory."
Spare me, Ted, from the Viet Nam era style victory is just around the corner horse shit.
On the same Military-Industrial Complex payroll as the GOP, they love endless, unwinnable war as much as the neocons.
Spent all day campaigning in the heart of NH Republican country. Spoke to dozens of people in the course of handing out out almost 500 brochures and shaking hands. Didn't meet anyone who supported the war.
Here in NH Republican country people like my message it's time for America to stop playing global dragon slayer.
With dough I'll save doing that we'll have an affordable, first class government-private enterprise national health insurance plan much like Medicare.
On Day #1 of a Klein Administration I'll begin the rapid, orderly withdrawal US combat troops from Iraq as well as reevaluate the Afghanistan situation. After seeing "American Gangster", began wondering whether our mission in Afghanistan is to make the country safe for the poppy growers and heroin manufacturers.
The costs and benefits won't be known for years to come.
Was American involvement in WW1 worth it? That question is still being debated.
People thought we were insane to fight over Korea but now it seems insane to have not engaged the commies in Korea.
The MSM is very late getting to the coverage, that' s all.
Just having the bases and allies on either side of Iran seems quite worth the cost of Iraq in historial circles.
Dr. Klein, didn't WW2 and the Cold War teach you that isolationism died for good with Pearl Harbor?
Bubba and W both ran for President on promising more isolationist policy. Both quickly abandoned those policies (Clinton landed in Haiti like two years in, just to start the small wars in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and somwhere else I'm sure I'm forgetting), not by choice but by necessity.
History has given us this role, and however nostalgic we may be for our quaint 19th Century non-interventionism, another century has come and gone and those days are not returning. TR, FDR, Harry, LBJ and Ronny Reagan have made America history's lone superpower and a lot of people want what we have.
Why do you think history began with American involvement in French Indochina? The ostrich doesn't fare very well in conflict with the jackel, now does it?
Ted--We're the authors of the castastrophe called the 20th century. If we don't get our act together PDQ, there'll be a end of world as we know it in a global thermonuclear war with the Islamic world.
Our appetite whetted for playing global dragon slayer in the Spanish-American War, we unwisely intervened in WWI leading to the collapse European political stability and the rise of the Nazis and Soviets.
We got through the Cold War unscathed by the skin of our teeth only to get into a fight to the death with the traditional Islamic world in the name of spreading a style inimical to their way of life they desperately wish to preserve. Can you blame when they see our families wrecked, stable middle class life vanishing, and women openly scorning men and fatherhood in particular?
The political resistance, and sometimes overt political sabotage, I'm getting from otherwise intelligent people brings to mind treatment problems I encountered treating the sickest psychiatric patients. They frequently had no idea how ill they were and how much damage they were causing themselves and others.
That's why I addressed the psycho-political dimensions of my campaign in the new Washington Times ad. In the end I can only do my best. My skills, patience and kindness helped many but weren't sufficient for some.
I need the White House like a hole in the head. But I love America and fear for her future. A parent and a physician very experienced in doing things I'd much prefer to avoid. But being a responsible grownup carries inescapable obligations. Can't bear the idea going to sleep with my Fathers without having tried my very best.
If things don't work out, I'll return to California intensely proud of the effort I made. I'll just pick up the very pleasant life I previous enjoyed. The voters will decide my fate 6 weeks hence.
Sporer,
If you could provide one actual, real benefit to the greater WOT from the Iraq debacle, there possibly could be some discussion about the cost benefit analysis. Basically, what you mean by trying to achieve "victory" means only that we are fighting for a draw. If we can achieve it, it will be one hell of an expensive non-decision. Again, where are we with the greater WOT even if we achieve this victory? Not very far, I'm afraid.
Regarding the benefits of being close to Iran thanks to the Iraq debacle. How do you even make that claim with a straight face? Everyone knows the Iranians are as bold as they are now because of the mess we are in Iraq.
The best "stalemate" outcome possible in Iraq will still be a disaster requiring us to stay there forever under persistent attack. We're still tied down in Korea 50 years plus following the 1953 armistice but at least thank heavens with a ceasefire and barricaded behind the DMZ.
I remember the 1952 presidential campaign very well. Back then the GOP was the economic prosperity and social stability party. Its foreign policy was a very strong national defense to contain the Soviets while avoiding playing the global dragon slayer. Eisenhower landslided into the White House with a pledge to end the Korean War.
I know what real propserity is because I came of age in the Eisenhower years. He was the last responsible grownup to occupy the White House. Since then been nothing but a relentless stream of juveniles, crooks, hacks, and the corporate owned and operated "Manchurian Candidates" sitting in the Oval Office.
I know exactly how to restore the peace and prosperity of the Eisenhower years.
Submitted the below to the NY Times financial blog today.
"The political acceptance of usury will bring down our civilization. Radical Islam is on the move because ordinary people ache for real stability.
Today's very fat money center bank yields are essentially "Islamic" dividends. The dollar's precipitous fall turned dividends from earnings into a return of capital. Banks lose money on lending dollars on anything less than 30% dollar denominated interest rates because the euro and the Israel shekel rose 25% against it over the past year.
This distinction is real and has real financial consequences for shareholders. Some years ago I forced Cavanham Forest Industries to revise its 1099 to restate a "dividend" as a return of capital. The socalled dividend was the minority shareholders' part of the a $250 million loan Sir James Goldsmith took out mortgaging Cavenham's assets to repay himself for his out-of-pocket expenses of taking over Crown-Zellerbach to break it up."
Hillary Clinton Takes Cash From Recipients of Husband's Controversial Pardons
By JAKE TAPPER
Nov. 15, 2007 —
Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety.
"It's not illegal," Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ABC News. "But, of course, it's inappropriate and she should return the money. It does raise the appearance that this is payback.
One of the pardonees who has become a donor to Sen. Clinton is David Herdlinger, a former prosecutor in Springdale, Ark., who, according to press accounts at the time of his pardon pleaded guilty in 1986 to mail fraud after taking bribes to reduce or drop charges against defendants charged with drunken driving offenses.
Now a life and business coach in Georgia, Herdlinger was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001; he donated $1,000 to Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign in August.
Insurance agent Alfredo Regalado, who gave Hillary Clinton $2,000, was pardoned by her husband for failing to "report the transportation of currency in excess of $10,000 into the United States," according to the Department of Justice.
John Deutch is a different case, having served as President Clinton's CIA director.
Pardoned by President Clinton for charges he had mishandled government secrets -- but before the Department of Justice could file the proper paperwork against him.
Deutch, now a professor at MIT, gave Sen. Clinton the maximum allowable donation, $2,300.
The 177 pardons and commutations President Clinton issued in the closing hours of his presidency in January 2001 ignited a firestorm of controversy, most especially the one issued for financier Marc Rich, considered the biggest tax cheat in history, whom Rudy Giuliani had successfully indicted as a U.S. attorney.
But other controversies more closely involved Hillary Clinton.
In August 2000, during her first Senate run, Clinton met with the Hasidic community in New Square, where many members were working to obtain clemency for four members of their community who had been convicted of stealing tens of millions of dollars from the state and federal government.
The town overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, and in January 2001, the four men were granted clemency. Hillary Clinton had met with members of the community in August 2000, but said the issue did not come up
Hillary Clinton's brother Hugh Rodham , was paid approximately $200,000 from Almon Glenn Braswell, whom President Clinton pardoned for mail fraud and perjury, as was Carlos Vignali, whose sentence for cocaine trafficking was commuted.
News of his involvement in the pardon controversy prompted an outrage in Washington, D.C.
"I knew nothing about my brother's involvement in these pardons," Sen. Clinton said at the time. "I knew nothing about his taking money for his involvement."
Hillary Clinton's brother Tony Rodham was paid $244,769 over 2½ years by a carnival company, United Shows of America, owned by Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory.
The Gregorys had been convicted of bank fraud and were seeking pardons.
Tony Rodham has said he mentioned their pardon application to his brother-in-law, who ultimately granted the Gregorys a pardon. But Rodham said he was not paid for anything having to do with the pardon.
The estate of the Gregorys sued Tony Rodham this year, saying $107,000 if the money he received was a loan. Rodham and the estate settled the case in September.
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 26, 2007
OAKLAND, Calif. — In a life marked largely by political caution, one entry on Senator Clinton's résumé stands out: her clerkship in 1971 at one of America's most radical law firms, Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein.
One partner at the firm, Doris Walker, was a Communist Party member at the time.
Another partner, Robert Treuhaft, had left the party in 1958, several years after being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and labeled as one of America's most "dangerously subversive" lawyers.
The Oakland-based firm was renowned for taking clients others rejected as too controversial, including Communists, draft resisters, and members of the African-American militant group known as the Black Panthers.
To this day, Mrs. Clinton's decision to work at the unabashedly left-wing firm is surprising, even shocking, to some of her former colleagues there and to those supporting her bid for the presidency.
To the former first lady's enemies and political opponents, her summer at the Treuhaft firm is yet another indication that radical ideology lurks beneath the patina of moderation she has adopted in public life.
An oft-repeated and published anecdote about Mrs. Clinton's involvement in the firm's plea negotiations over an armed invasion of the California Legislature by Black Panthers seems to be apocryphal, though one of the attorneys directly involved has a "very distinct" memory of Mrs. Clinton's attendance at a Panthers-related meeting.
The firm was involved in another volatile Black Panthers case the summer Mrs. Clinton worked there: the trial of Huey Newton for the 1967 killing of an Oakland police officer.
Treuhaft represented a Newton associate whose role in the trial may have helped Newton win a series of mistrials and, eventually, the dismissal of all charges related to the officer's death.
Partners at the firm said it was likely Mrs. Clinton also worked on politically sensitive cases involving a Berkeley student activist denied admission to the California bar over incendiary rhetoric, Stanford physician interns fighting a loyalty oath at the Veterans Administration, and men claiming conscientious objector status to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam.
As Mrs. Clinton left the Treuhaft firm in 1971, one of its partners was gearing up for the defense of a Communist and black revolutionary, Angela Davis, against murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges stemming from a 1970 shootout that left a California judge dead.
Ms. Walker became the resident Communist on Ms. Davis's legal team. "I was asked by the Party to participate in Angela's case," the lawyer said.
By the time Mrs. Clinton arrived at the Treuhaft firm in 1971, its reputation as a defender of left-wingers and radicals was well established. Indeed, those at the firm assumed that reputation drew the Yale law student in.
"She did want to work for a left-wing movement law firm. Anyone who went to college or law school would have known our law firm was a Communist law firm," Treuhaft told Ms. Sheehy in 1999.
"This was an old-left, radical law firm," a staff attorney there during Mrs. Clinton's summer, David Nawi, told the Sun. "Treuhaft was suing the police and doing wonderful work with the black community in East Oakland before anybody else."
When the connection did emerge, halfway through a Herb Caen column in the Chronicle on Nov. 12, 1992, eight days after the election, some conservatives likely viewed it as confirmation of Mrs. Clinton's radical views. However, some on the left side of the political spectrum who knew the Treuhaft firm were taken aback.
"I was quite shocked when I found out that Hillary had been there the summer after I was," Ms. Nichols, a Democrat who holds a top environmental post under Governor Schwarzenegger, said. "She certainly downplayed anything that would make you think that'd be the kind of place she'd summer….
Once the political career was actually launched, Hillary's whole life has been about being moderate and fending off criticism from friends on the left."
"I was kind of surprised when I heard she had worked there," Mr. Siegel recalled. "Anything I've ever heard about her or known about wouldn't have led me to think she was interested in Marxism, for example, or any other kind of left politics."
Barack Obama said this in Des Moines on October 27, 2007: "You're not ready to lead if you can't tell us where you're going." It was a strike at Clinton who has been focusing on the "ready to lead" mantra for months.
Hillary Clinton said this today in Nevada, Iowa: "You've got to know where you're trying to go. You've got to know which direction you're headed." It was a verbal strike back at Obama who has said it's time to "turn the page" and lead the country in a new direction.
Fort officials changed security measures after sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, according to multiple confidential law enforcement documents obtained by The Washington Times.
"A portion of the operatives were in the United States, with the remainder not yet in the United States," according to one of the documents, an FBI advisory that was distributed to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, Customs and Border Protection and the Justice Department, among several other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.
"The Afghanis and Iraqis shaved their beards so as not to appear to be Middle Easterners."
According to the FBI advisory, each Middle Easterner paid Mexican drug lords $20,000 "or the equivalent in weapons" for the cartel's assistance in smuggling them and their weapons through tunnels along the border into the U.S.
The weapons would be sent through tunnels that supposedly ended in Arizona and New Mexico, but the Islamist terrorists would be smuggled through Laredo, Texas, and reclaim the weapons later.
The connections between criminal enterprises, such as powerful drug cartels, and terrorist organizations have become a serious concern for intelligence agencies monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.
DON'T GO THERE: BRIT PAPER STARTS 'UGLIEST MONTH'
Sun Nov 25 2007 20:45:12 ET
The TIMES of London starts 'The Ugliest Month' with a full page photo takeout on Hillary Clinton and her beautiful personal assistant.
"Hillary Clinton has been accused of having an affair with Huma Abedin," reads the caption.
This from Page 6 of the NY Post.
November 25, 2007 -- IT'S hard for Hollywood pacifists like Brian De Palma to capture the hearts and minds of America if
Americans won't see their movies.
While the public is staying away in droves from “Rendition," “Lions for Lambs" and “In the Valley of Elah," audiences are really avoiding “Redacted," De Palma's picture about US soldiers who rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, then kill her and her family.
The message movie was produced by NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who insisted on deleting grisly images of Iraqi war casualties from the montage at the film's end. Cuban offered to sell the film back to De Palma at cost, but the director was too smart to go for that deal. “Redacted" - which “could be the worst movie I've ever seen," said critic Michael Medved -took in just $25,628 in its opening weekend in 15 theaters, which means roughly 3,000 people saw it in the entire country.
"This, despite an A-list director, a huge wave of publicity, high praise in the Times, The New Yorker, left-leaning sites like Salon, etc.
"I think the fact of the matter is that Sen. Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn't work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it," Obama said, and added, referring to his relationship with his wife, Michelle, "There is no doubt that Bill Clinton had faith in her and consulted with her on issues, in the same way that I would consult with Michelle, if there were issues," Obama said.
"On the other had, I don't think Michelle would claim that she is the best qualified person to be a United States Senator by virtue of me talking to her on occasion about the work I've done."
With this line of attack, Obama is openly calling Clinton out on one of the basic arguments of her candidacy and her career -- that her experience at Bill Clinton's side in the White House and before, make her the most qualified person in the race.
"You are not retarded, you have shown you abilities to use a computer."
You, on the other hand have not shown "you" ability to write. You must be retarded.
I like the articles. They actually contribute to the discussion. What I dislike are the endless Mark Klein discussions and pointless vulgarities.
heckle:to harass and try to disconcert with questions, challenges, or gibes
Badger : to harass or annoy persistently
Bait: 1 a: to persecute or exasperate with unjust, malicious, or persistent attacks
2 a: to harass
Synonyms bait, badger, heckle, hector, chivy, hound mean to harass by efforts to break down.
bait implies wanton cruelty or delight in persecuting a helpless victim.
badger implies pestering so as to drive a person to confusion or frenzy (badgered her father for a car).
heckle implies persistent annoying or belligerent interruptions of a speaker (drunks heckled the stand-up comic).
I'd say 12:22 makes a pretty good point you asshat.
Hillary's war chest suggests she left her leftist credentials at the door some time ago. She's the darling of America's top corporate and financial players. Hard to blame them given the administration's utter economic incompetence.
This Hillary bashing is ridiculous. The road to the White House is paved with sound policy proposals. The public interprets our Hillary attack dog approach as weakness in the same way I feel emboldened by the amazingly rude and utterly vacant of intellectual content criticism I get on this blog.
blogging so easy a caveman can do it.
NEW BUCHANAN BOOK DECLARES 'END OF AMERICA'
Sun Nov 25 2007 20:40:15 ET
**Exclusive**
"America is coming apart, decomposing, and...the likelihood of her survival as one nation...is improbable -- and impossible if America continues on her current course," declares Pat Buchanan. "For we are on a path to national suicide."
The best-selling author and former presidential candidate is on the eve of launching his new epic book: DAY OF RECKONING: HOW HUBRIS, IDEOLOGY AND GREED ARE TEARING AMERICA APART.
[The book's release date has been moved up to this week. It ranked #237 on AMAZON's hitparade Monday morning.]
This time, Buchanan goes all the way:
"America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive."
The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America’s global commitments.
The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments.
U.S. manufacturing is being hollowed out.
The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico.
The culture is collapsing and the nation is being deconstructed along the lines of race and class.
A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed.
All these crises are hitting America at once -- a perfect storm of crises.
Specifically, Buchanan contends:
• Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam
• Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of “democratism,” to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11
• Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.
• The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America’s borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.
• Free trade is shipping jobs, factories and technology to China and plunging America into permanent dependency and unpayable debt. One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush
• “Sovereign Wealth Funds,” controlled by foreign regimes and stuffed with trillions of dollars from U.S. trade deficits, are buying up strategic corporate assets vital to America’s security
• As U.S. wages are stagnant, corporate CEOs are raking in rising pay and benefits 400 to 500 times that of their workers
• The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to our survival as one nation than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq
* European-Americans, 89% of the nation when JFK took the oath, are now 66% and sinking. Before 2050, America is a Third World nation
• By 2060, America will add 167 million people and 105 million immigrants will be here, triple the 37 million today.
• Hispanics will be over 100 million in 2050 and concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans believe belongs to them
Buchanan’s Recommendations:
• A new foreign-defense policy that closes most of the 1000 bases overseas, reviews all alliances, and brings home U.S. troops
• A purge of neoconservative ideology and the “Cakewalk” crowd” from national power.
• To avert a second Cold War, the United States should “get out of Russia’s space and get out of Russia’s face,” and shut down all U.S. bases on the soil of the former Soviet Union
• To reach a cold peace in the culture war, Buchanan urges a return to federalism and the overthrow of our judicial dictatorship by Congressionally mandated restrictions on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
• To end the trade deficits and save the dollar, Buchanan urges a Hamiltonian solution: a 20% Border Equity Tax on imports, with the $500 billion raised to be used to end taxation on American producers
• To prevent America becoming “a tangle of squabbling nationalities” Buchanan urges: No amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens; a border fence from San Diego to Brownsville; Congressional declarations that children born to illegal aliens are not citizens and English is the language of the United States; and a “timeout” on all immigration.
Democrat Hillary Clinton would lose to all major Republican White House candidates, according to a hypothetical election matchup poll Monday, reversing her months of dominance over potential 2008 challengers.
The Zogby International poll was the latest sign that withering attacks on the former first lady were chipping away at her opinion poll leads just 38 days before the Iowa caucuses, the first party nominating contests.
In the new survey, Clinton trailed Senator John McCain 42 percent to 38 percent, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani by 43 percent to 40 percent and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney by 43 percent to 40 percent.
She also lagged behind former Arkansas Republican governor Mike Huckabee by 44 to 39 percent, and former Senator Fred Thompson by 44 to 40 percent in hypothetical general election matchups.
Clinton's top Democratic challengers Barack Obama and John Edwards however would still beat their hypothetical Republican rivals in potential 2008 contests.
In July, Clinton held a five point lead in the same poll over Giuliani, edged out McCain by two points and had a clear lead over other contenders.
A Rasmussen poll last week had Clinton also falling behind Giuliani in a hypothetical matchup of the November 2008 general election, and narrowly beaten by McCain.
An average of all previous similar polls gives Clinton a narrow lead over possible Republican candidates.
While the US political system of awarding delegates by state in a general election would not necessarily translate into a Clinton election defeat on the basis of the poll, it may provide more fodder for her opponents.
Clinton has repeatedly portrayed herself as the most electable Democratic candidate who could stand up to Republican assaults in a general election.
But Obama and Edwards are increasingly starting to challenge that claim, as the race heats up, as other polls suggest that Clinton's clear lead in the Democratic White House race may be narrowing.
The Zogby poll was conducted online among 9,150 likely voters across the United States between November 21 and 26, and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
DON'T GO THERE: BRIT PAPER STARTS 'UGLIEST MONTH'
Sun Nov 25 2007 20:45:12 ET
The TIMES of London starts 'The Ugliest Month' with a full page photo takeout on Hillary Clinton and her beautiful personal assistant.
"Hillary Clinton has been accused of having an affair with Huma Abedin," reads the caption.
MORE
The splash stunned British readers and angered campaign insiders.
"This does not even qualify as tabloid trash... it's ridiculous and reckless," a Hillary confidante explained over the weekend.
Taking the whisper from the underground to the overground, the paper made no claims to knowing any truth of the relationship between Hillary and Huma, in its story headlined: "Snarls, smears and innuendo as attack dogs get ready for the fray."
The current campaign promises to become one of the dirtiest in modern history.
Developing...
Ann Coulter Home Under Assault
Monday, November 26, 2007 12:09 PM
By: Newsmax Staff
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter is accustomed to hurling verbal lances, but she’s been on the receiving end at her home often enough that she’s had the local property appraiser remove her home address from public records.
Coulter’s $1.2 million home in Palm Beach, Fla., is one of 2,674 properties in Palm Beach County whose owners are confidential in property appraiser records, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Homeowners seeking anonymity must submit an affidavit stating why they believe they require it. Exemptions are made for people in occupations that could make them targets — including police officers, judges, prosecutors, and child abuse investigators — and for victims of domestic violence, stalking, or harassment.
In March, harassment came in the form of a greeting card someone delivered to Coulter’s home, which read: “You self-aggrandizing — sociopath! The only thing left after a nuclear war are you and cockroaches.”
In June, Coulter — whose latest book is “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans” — received several phone messages from a man in Alameda, Calif., who later told police he had found her unlisted number on the Internet.
In one message he said: “Hey, Ann, now that you’ve moved to Florida and you’re in your 40s, did you know that you can join the Florida National Guard?” He also stated: “You love war until you have to put your own a** on the line. I don’t call that patriotism. I call it cowardice.”
Someone called 911 from Coulter’s house in July, but hung up, the Post reported.
On another occasion, Coulter heard someone screaming from a vacant lot next to her house: “Ann Coulter is a big [expletive].” Coulter called police, but the perpetrator was gone when they arrived.
Coulter called the cops a few days later after she found an apparently hand-delivered envelope in her mailbox. It was marked “Ann Coulter!!” and depicted a cupid heart with an arrow drawn through it.
The greeting card inside read: “Go [expletive] yourself.”
© 2007 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Chavez Says He Will Freeze Relations with Madrid
Monday, November 26, 2007 11:25 AM
MADRID, Spain -- Spanish officials sought clarification of remarks by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that he is "freezing" bilateral relations until King Juan Carlos apologizes for telling him to shut up.
On Nov. 10, Juan Carlos told Chavez to "shut up" during an Ibero-American summit in Chile after the Venezuelan leader called Spain's former premier, Jose Maria Aznar, a fascist.
Chavez on Sunday said: "Until the king of Spain apologizes, I'm freezing relations with Spain."
The Foreign Ministry's top official for Latin America, Trinidad Jimenez, said she had telephoned Venezuelan Ambassador Alfredo Toro and arranged to meet later Monday.
"There have not been any consequences in diplomatic and economic relations," Jimenez said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Bernardino Leon said Spain would also contact Venezuelan officials in Caracas Monday.
Chavez has said he will review Spanish business operations in Venezuela. But Leon said his latest remarks "are not very far removed from what he has been saying these days."
In an interview with Antena 3 television, Leon avoided comment on whether the king or the Spanish government was considering an apology.
I agree with most of what Buchanan said above.
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