COWARDICE DOESN’T APPEASE TERRORISTS
Appeasement doesn't work. It doesn't work with dictators, and it doesn't work with terrorists. The attempted Times Square bombing on May 1st was yet more proof. We've allowed Islamist extremists to dictate what we can say, print or portray. We don't want to offend them. The First Amendment bows before Islam. The Obama administration has ducked all unwelcome evidence that such appeasement doesn't work. Instead, it goes to absurd lengths to convince Moslem radicals that we respect their views. Since the Obama administration deepened our submissive attitude toward Islam -- banning all references to "Islamist terror" or "Moslem radicalism" from government documents and statements -- the number of terror attacks on our soil has gone up. Do any of you believe this is just a coincidence?
THE BIGOTRY OF THE LEFT
American and European leftists share the conviction that the immigrant, legal or illegal, is always right -- and the native-born citizen is always wrong. This bigotry toward the law-abiding American, Brit, Frenchman or Italian doesn't help the immigrant in the end. Instead, it's a powerful engine driving divisiveness. There are deep differences between Europe's experience with legal immigrants intent on importing intolerant lifestyles and our problem with illegals responsible for social friction and violent criminality. But the left's blame-game is identical: Anyone who doesn't elevate the "rights" of the immigrant over the rights, safety and desires of the citizen is a bigot. No exceptions. Could there be a formula better designed to excite anti-immigrant sentiment? As the left's blame-the-citizen demands for special privileges for all immigrants only intensify an anti-immigrant backlash, let's apply some commonsense maxims:
CINCO DE REALITY
Today is May 5th - celebrated by American gringos as an excuse to drink cheap tequila margaritas and eat bad Mexican food by calling this day "Cinco de Mayo." Nobody in Mexico cares about May 5th. Only we, us gringos, pretend to. For if you ask just about any reveler at the nearest Pancho Villa's Cantina or some such Mexican-themed bar anywhere in the US, just what is being celebrated today you'll get either a blank stare or "It's their July 4th " ignorance. So first the real history. Then the reality - the horrific reality of how the fascists of the American Left are using Mexico to destroy their own country.
FACT-FREE JOURNALISM IN ARIZONA
The law Arizona just passed to authorize state and local police to enforce federal immigration law is a racist abomination, said Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. It reminds them of apartheid, said Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse. Mr. Robinson is exercised that legal immigrants would be required "to carry papers proving that they have a legal right to be in the United States." Mr. Robinson evidently is unaware that federal law has required that for half a century. Mr. Robinson, Ms. Tucker and Ms. Greenhouse engage in fact-free journalism when they assert the law permits Arizona cops to stop people on the street and demand they produce ID, like the Gestapo did in those World War II movies. There is really no excuse for this, because the Arizona law is not a 2,700-page monstrosity like Obamacare, or a 1,400-page monstrosity like the financial "reform" bill. It's just 16 pages long, and it's written in simple English. The key provision of Arizona law SB 1070 is this:
WHY DO DEMOCRATS (AND RINOS) HAVE FLACCID BRAINS?
If government spending is growing faster than gross domestic product (GDP), can the resulting deficit problem be solved by: (A) decreasing the rate of growth of government spending, (B) increasing tax rates, (C) decreasing the rate of growth of government spending and increasing tax rates? If you answered A, you have a strong brain and can go to the head of the class. If you answered B, you have a flaccid brain and will need to repeat the class. I will get back to the C students later. People with flaccid brains have a hard time understanding the consequences of actions, and they tend to treat variables as constants (e.g., I know how to drive, so I should be able to drive drunk). They rarely do real cost-benefit analyses or think about the long run. An example of a flaccid brain is that which occupies the skull of Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, who, in a hysterical reaction to the Gulf oil spill, wants to shut down all offshore drilling.
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/30/10
We've a lot of ground to cover for this week's HFR, but first let's ask - who knew Connie Mack (R-FL) has gone senile at 42 years old? Of course the Fascist Democrats of the Anti-American Left are hysterically demagoguing Arizona's anti-illegal alien law. But Connie? What kind of bizarre mental dysfunction caused him to compare Arizona to Nazi Germany? You'd expect RINOs like Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, and Lindsey Graham to wimp out. And now we can see that for Lincoln Diaz-Barlart (R-FL), his Hispanic blood is thicker than patriotism. But again, Connie? Maybe the open-borders/cheap-labor-for-business folks at the Wall Street Journal got to him. Whatever. Let's now go back to the HFR of January 23, 2009, which said:
What could be more appropriate, on the eve of the TTP Carefree Rendezvous, than to hoist a pint of Four Peaks Ale brewed here in Arizona to an inspiring woman Republican governor who drives liberals out of their minds because she is a pro-family, pro-life, pro-Christian, anti-tax, anti-government spending, anti-illegal immigration Reagan conservative. Nope, we're not talking about Sarah Palin - however much the HFR is happy to hoist a glass in admiration of her at any time. We're talking about another fine lady who, in addition to all the great qualities above, has the greatest name for drinking to one could ever ask: Jan Drinkwine Brewer...
CALIFORNIA’S CROOKED CORRUPT COURTS
A distinguished 70-year-old attorney in poor health has been sitting in solitary confinement in "coercive incarceration" in the notorious Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail without being charged, tried, or convicted of anything since March 4, 2009. In effect, he was thrown in jail for an indefinite period with no bail or hearing set for blowing the whistle on judicial corruption in California. The chain of events that led to his incarceration was set in motion in 2000, when Richard Fine became aware that L.A. superior court judges were receiving illegal "judicial benefits" payments from Los Angeles County, despite the fact that lawsuits against that county were often adjudicated by these same judges, thus creating clear conflict of interest problems. In other words, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, with taxpayer funds, was bribing superior court judges to decide cases in favor of the county. This is "the greatest judicial scandal in American history," as Mr. Fine says, and he has become an American political prisoner because of it.
THE BARBERS OF DUSSELDORF
One of Margaret Thatcher's more trenchant observations is: "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." The purpose in life for most politicians anywhere in the world is to, by whatever sleight-of-hand shell game they think they can get away with, make that run-out-of-other-people's-money moment forever later. The world's spotlight is currently on politicians in Europe who are frantically, hysterically, desperately engaging in this shell game. The question of the immediate moment is: will the barbers of Dusseldorf let them get away it - or at last and for once, put an end to it? For if they opt for the latter, they could precipitate an end to Washington's shell game here in America. First, the background, starting with the Greek Limbo Dance.
OUR #1 NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT IS MEXICO
South of the border, down Mexico way, a new and savage revolution rages just beyond our inspection lanes. After less than five years of fighting, estimates of the dead have reached 22,000. The rate of killing accelerates each month. And Washington covers its eyes like a kid at a scary movie. Well, the Mexican narco-insurgency, in which well-armed guerrilla forces confront the authority and presence of the state, is our No. 1 security challenge. The chaos in northern Mexico has far deeper implications for our country than Islamist terror or even an Iranian nuclear capability (as grim as those threats are). The rule of law has collapsed from Tijuana (across from San Diego, California) on the Pacific's edge to Matamoros (across from Brownsville, Texas) on the Gulf of Mexico. Major cities are now "ungoverned spaces," as our diplomats refer tidily to distant trouble spots. And Arizona's "discriminatory" new state law empowering police to pursue criminal aliens? Should Phoenix let the rule of law collapse because Washington prefers political correctness to public safety? In DC, it's about politics. In Arizona, it's about survival.
AVOIDING A PYRRHIC NOVEMBER
The backlash against President Barack Obama's radical policies has grown so large even the New York Times has noticed. "The fight for the midterm elections is not confined to traditional battlegrounds," wrote Jeff Zeleny and Adam Nagourney in a lengthy analysis Monday (4/26). "Republicans have expanded their sights to places where political challenges seldom develop." If nothing much changes between now and November, Republicans are likely to have their greatest victory since 1994, when they won 54 seats in the House to take control of that body for the first time since 1952, and 8 seats in the Senate, to win control there for the first time since 1986. Republicans could have their best midterm elections since 1946, when they gained 55 seats in the House and 13 in the Senate. I write this column not to belabor the giddy Republican prospects in 2010, but to point out that the GOP landslides in 1994 and 1946 were followed by Democratic victories in the presidential races two years later. In 1948, Democrats also retook control of the House and Senate. If a 2010 victory isn't to be Pyrrhic, Republicans had better figure out what went wrong in 1948 and 1996. Especially 1996.