Hillary Clinton - Defender Of The "Little Guy"

I watched the Democratic Debate Tuesday night, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Of course, I’m one of those who slows down to look at a train wreck, and boy, was this a train wreck.

A someone who spends a great deal of time on this blog attacking liberal hypocrisy, I have to give a big “Thank You” to Hillary Rodham Clinton for making my job so much easier. Hillary not only says stupid things, she continues to repeat them. The problem is, the liberal media never pushes her on any of her comments, and never checks into whether her personal life meshes with her professional declarations.

Last night, Tim Russert comment that the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is a strong supporter of Hillary’s campaign, and he wants to repeal the alternative minimum tax and add a 4% “surtax” on the rich, which he defines as $150,000 annual income for a single individual, and $200,000 for a married couple. Russert commented that Bill Clinton, speaking in Harlem, stated “Charlie Rangel wants me to pay more taxes so you can pay less, and I think that’s a good idea.” Russert asked Hillary if that was also her view, to which she responded “…George Bush and his cronies can’t figure out how they can give even more tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans, and I never though Bill and I would be in that category… it’s a new experience and it’s not one that makes us very comfortable.”

So there is her public stance, that they never expected to be wealthy, and that the wealthy need to pay their fair share. Does her private life jive with those statements? Even going back to Bill’s run as President in 1992, the Clinton’s always portrayed themselves as middle-class folks trying to do the right thing. “We’re not about money” Hillary was often quoted as saying.

But the Clintons have always been about money, and Hillary’s appetite for the material things in life is well known in the press, just not well reported. In that campaign, Clinton repeated over and over again that he was the “lowest paid governor in America” and that Hillary had given up huge amounts of income to devote her time to charitable causes. The first year Clinton was governor they made $408,000, putting them in the top 1% of wage earners in America. That doesn’t even include a food allowance of $50,000 per year, free residence in the governors mansion, an entertainment budget, a state credit card for travel, free babysitting, health insurance, chauffeurs, bodyguards, etc…. Just a normal middle class family.

In the final days of 2000, as she was getting ready to enter the senate and they would leave the White House, Hillary put out the word that she wanted some things for their two new homes. She registered at two luxury retailers, and calls were made by her friends asking wealthy donors if they could help the Clinton’s get set up in their new home. However, they were quick to point out that these gifts needed to be received before January 3rd, when the new Senate ethics rules kicked in.

In all the Clinton’s received over $190,000 in gifts. This does not include the $360,000 in other gifts that had been donated to the White House that they took with them. The White House curator said that these items were shipped to the Clinton’s new home on Hillary’s orders, and when the scandal went public, Hillary blamed it on a clerical error.

As for taxes, Bill was once quoted as saying “I must be the only person in America that every time I sign that tax form, I smile.” And yet a study of the Clinton’s income tax returns reveals that since 1991, the Clinton’s have paid about 7% less to the IRS than others in their income group. While most Americans in their tax bracket paid 27%, the Clinton’s have paid 20%.

How did they manage this? By taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in write-offs, during a time when they didn’t even have a mortgage to deduct. A look at their “write-offs” to charity included $30 for a used shower curtain, $80 for an old pair of dress shoes, and – get this - $4 for each pair of Bills old underwear. According to the accountants at Money Magazine: “The Clinton’s appear to have repeatedly overstated their charitable contributions.”

The Clinton’s also took numerous write-offs on Whitewater, the real estate development that they never actually put any money into. A Senate committee investigating Whitewater disclosed that in 1985-85 the Clinton’s took thousands in deductions that Hillary admitted at the time SHE KNEW they were not entitled to.

On their 1980 returns they failed to report Hillary’s profits from commodities trading (close to $100,000), but instead CLAIMED A LOSS. They also never reported $74,234 in loans, payments and forgiven debts that the IRS claims as income.

Shortly after being elected President, Bill laid out a tax plan to create a “millionaires” rate, increasing the top rate from 31% to 36%. The plan would be retroactive, meaning that even if the bill passed in the fall of 1993, it would apply to all income from January 1993 and beyond. Meanwhile, as 1992 was coming to an end, Hillary made sure to draw her partnership proceeds from the Rose Law Firm - $203,172 – on December 31st, avoiding the retroactive task. In every year past she had received those proceeds in January.

The Clinton’s have been outspoken in their support of the Inheritance Tax, yet they have set there money up in a contract trust, which substantially reduces the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Democratic Party, I give you YOUR candidate for President, Hillary Clinton.

I need your help today....

Dear Readers, today I ask you for some help.

I need to further understand an issue that I found on my friend Chris’ blog today: www.redhogdiary.com. One of the top banners on this site read ”Good News! Senate Passes Needed Hate Crime Legislation.” I clicked on the link and I was directed to the following story: “Senate votes 60-39 for cloture on hate crimes legislation; voice vote adds Kennedy-Smith hate crimes amendment to Department of Defense authorization bill.

Now I’ll admit that I have not done a lot of research on Hate Crime legislation, and I am choosing not to do any research at this point, but rather ask you dear readers to convince me one way or the other whether this is a good idea.

My initial take is this: We already have laws to deal with these crimes, why the need for hate crime legislation? Look, I’m not saying that beating or killing someone because they are black, or gay, or whatever, isn’t about as ugly as ugly can be, but beating or killing someone for any reason is wrong, and we do have laws.

My second point will probably stir up the most debate, because I am going to take a risk at sounding very racist and/or homophobe, neither of which I consider myself. I know this bill is meant to protect minorities. Do you think it also should be used to prosecute a member of a minority against, say a white male?

And finally, since I am assuming that an act committed as a hate crime would carry a more severe penalty, what do you think should be the standard should be for determining if a crime is a hate crime. For example, if I beat a man who happens to be (insert protected class here), how would you determine that the reason I beat that man was do to the fact that he was, whatever he was. Sure, If I jump him screaming “We don’t like _____’s around here” it’s pretty clear, but beyond that, what is legal justification.

And for those of you who do think this is important legislation, let me ask what you think about this being attached to a Department of Defense authorization bill that the White House has threatened to veto (I am assuming the veto has nothing to do with the hate crimes attachment, but rather the DOD authorization bill). If in fact the Senate leadership felt this bill was so important, why attach it to an already troubled bill.

I know I have a small readership at this point, but I feel I have an intelligent readership, and I really want to hear your points on this issue. The ball is in your court….

Do As I Say, Not As I Do....

As a libertarian and conservative, I feel a certain responsibility to fight liberalism. Actually, that’s not 100% true. I have no problem with several tenets of liberalism, it’s just that I think they are more idealistic than pragmatic. Liberal leaders talk a good talk, and if they actually believed what they said and lived by what they said, it might actually make a good ideology.

Currently, one of the leading liberal voices out there is Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is all but guaranteed the Democratic nomination, and a strong bet to win the White House. Look, I don’t like this women, never have. I wasn’t a Bill Clinton supporter as a Republican at the time of his presidency, but I always felt that whatever was wrong with his administration, that Hillary played a role.

One of my goals with this blog is to spread the truth about Hillary Clinton. Like millions of Americans, I don’t care if the next president is a Democrat or a Republican, as long as it isn’t Hillary.

What surprises me is the shear volume of damning information surrounding Hillary, and how she has been able to overcome situations that would kill an ordinary political career. Today I want to talk about one of those situations: Whitewater.

Now if you’re going to go after Hillary, Whitewater is probably the last place you want to start. There are so many lies wrapped around the truth, that it’s hard to tell what’s what here. However, my discussion today will have nothing to do with the “scandals”. What I want to look at is how, as an attorney, Hillary Clinton set up the Whitewater project.

A little background, as if we need it. Whitewater started as an old Clinton friend, Jim McDougall approached the Clinton’s with an investment idea – To purchase 230 acres of land along the White River, and subdivide it and sell lots as Vacation sites. No problem, nothing illegal there. However, while Hillary publicly criticized Reagan’s tax cuts, she wrote McDougall “If Reagaonomics works at all, Whitewater could become the Western Hemisphere’s Mecca.”

While the Clinton’s put no money into Whitewater, Hillary did play an important role establishing and running the business. What was interesting is HOW Hillary set up the venture. Ordinarily, when you buy a piece of land and finance the purchase, you receive a deed. If you start missing payments, the finance company will eventually repossess the property and resell it, and after paying off fees and debts, you will get back the remaining equity.

Hillary set up Whitewater differently. When someone bought a lot, they signed a simple purchase agreement. The small print on the bottom of that agreement read :”In the event that the default continues for 30 days…payments made by the purchaser shall be considered as rent for the use of the premises.” In other words, the buyer did not actually take ownership until the final payment was made. Hillary wrote the contract so if a buyer missed just one monthly payment, ALL of their previous payments would be classified as rent and the buyer would have zero equity in the property.

Again, this was not illegal. At least, it wasn’t illegal in Arkansas, even though it WAS illegal in most states, because it is considered exploitative of the poor and the uneducated. Wait, isn’t that the group Hillary claims to champion? Hmmmm

Consider Clyde Soapes, a grain-elevator operator from Texas. Clyde put $3,000 down on his Whitewater parcel, and paid his $244.69 per month. He made 35 payments – totaling $11,564.15 – when he fell ill with Diabetes. Although Soapes had paid more than 75% of his $14,000 total, after two missed payments the Clinton’s informed him that he had lost his land, and they resold his property to a couple from Nevada for $16,500. That couple as well missed ONE PAYMENT, and the Clinton’s resold their property.

All told, MORE THAT HALF of the people who bought lots in Whitewater eventually lost their land after missing payments. According to Whitewater Records, at least 16 different buyers lost more than $50,000 and NEVER received a property deed.

To claim the Clinton’s didn’t know what was going on is pure bliss of ignorance. Monthly payment checks were sent to Whitewater Development Corporation in care of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary herself in 1982 sold a home to Hillman Logan, who went bankrupt and then later died. She took possession of the home and resold it to another buyer for $20,000. No one was compensated, and she didn’t report the sale on her tax return.

This is the same Hillary Clinton who as Senator has gone on to champion the cause of going after banks and other lenders for “predatory mortgage lending practices”, and in an amazing feat of moral dexterity, she cosponsored the Predatory Consumer Lending Act, claiming that mortgage fees are too high. Not surprisingly, this law does NOT outlaw the kind of practices that the Clintons used in establishing Whitewater.

To my friends on the left, this is the moral center of your party. And this is just the beginning…..

And The Difference Is?

Just a short one today.

A couple of days ago I ran into a women I used to work with. She is very liberal, and she and I used to have some wonderful debates when we worked together, so I made sure to tell her about my blog.

Throughout the course of small talk we got around to politics, and she started blasting Bush. "He should have never been elected President. The only reason he did was because of his father. He was elected solely based on his name."

I asked her who she planned on voting for in the next election, and she quickly responded "Hillary Clinton". I was still laughing as she walked away, but I don't think she ever got the joke.

Listen To The Geezers

Going to take a lighter direction today after the tone of the last few days.

What follows is life advise from some wise old men. The 130 members of the San Luis Obispo County Retired Men’s Coffee Cabinet were recently asked: “Based on your 70-plus years of life experience, what advice would you give this years college graduates?”. The following advice represents 9,100 years of experience by men who have been successful in all areas of employment.

“Learning to love your job is easier than finding a job you love” – Tom Stuelpnagel, retired CEO

“You’ve learned some things in school, but you will learn a lot more from your mistakes” – Don Morris, retired Cmrd., U.S. Navy

“Over the past years, well-intentioned and experienced professorshave challenged you with textbooks and other reading materials. Keep up a lifetime habit of reading – choose books and magazines that are better than those you’ve been required to read.” – George Chucas, retired Cal Poly administrator

“Get all of the information you can, than make a choice. Don’t play the game of what might have been” – Bill Epstein, retired chemist

“My father once told me ‘He who never does more than he gets paid for, never gets paid for more than he does” – Anonymous

“In 27 years with my company, I saw a lot of people come and go. But in all that time, I can remember only two who were terminated because of an inability to satisfactorily do their jobs. By far, virtually all of the firings were for ‘people problems.’ Firmly plant in mind that personality and ability to work well with people is the most important aspect of achievement or failure ” – J.I.F. Clary, administrator

And if I may be so forthcoming as to think that I could add my own advice to the words of these great gentlemen, my advice would be: “The biggest decision you will ever make is marrying the right person. A spouse is capable of making good times bad, or bad times great. The right person will mean the difference between a wonderful life or a life that could have been.”

I dedicate this post to the most wonderful of spouses, my wife Cindy. And now dear readers, I ask YOU, what would your advice to the youth of today is.

The Last Word On The Liberal Media (For Now)

First of all, thank you my friends for your help regarding the firefighters efforts in Southern California. Sadly, it seems to take a tragedy for us to understand what a great country and what great countrymen we really have. This is a spirit we all need to try to embody daily. As my good friend Chris would say, it’s the Red Hog way.

Secondly, thank you for reading what I know have been somewhat long postings the last few days. I feel that this is an important subject, and there is SO MUCH data out there, that it is difficult for me to gloss over this stuff. While I will continue to hit on this subject in the future, I will stay away from the week-long series.

Recently I have discussed the liberal bias in the reporting of the homeless and the spread of AIDS. These are very serious and important issues, and I hope that I have shown how the left, in an honest effort to do a social justice, potentially end up doing more harm than good. For example, by focusing on educating and “saving” heterosexuals from AIDS, how many gay people lost their lives to this disease because the media focused on the wrong group.

Tonight I want to discuss the way the media reports on race. About 10 years ago President Clinton called for a “national dialogue on race.” As far as I can see, this never materialized, and personally I think it’s because of white guilt, and the fear of saying the wrong thing. Say the wrong thing these days, and you’re labeled a racist. Once that label sticks, anything else you have to say has no value.

Please know that in no way am I saying racism doesn’t exist. It does, and some of it is very, very ugly. The thing is, I don’t think that as a nation we have learned to separate “racial” from “racist”. “Racial” is when you make a remark based on race or generally based on a stereotype. Often, these kinds of remarks are based on ignorance, not malice. A “racist” remark is one which is meant to hurt or discriminate.

For example, the other night Halle Berry was on Jay Leno’s show. I didn’t see it, but apparently they were doing a bit where they were showing pictures of Berry that had been altered to accentuate certain features in a comical way. Apparently there was a picture that accentuated her nose, and she commented that “This is like my Jewish cousin.” Was this a mean-spirited comment meant to “get” the Jewish people. Of course not. Was it an ignorant comment? Probably, and to her credit Ms. Berry did apologize. However, read some of the blogs on this comment, and you would think that Berry called for all Jews to be put on an island and then for the island to be bombed.

When Don Imus called the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team “nappy headed ho’s”, was that racist? Well, that’s a little tougher. It was a horrible comment, and if that’s all you know of Imus, I’d probably say yeah, it’s racist. But if you had listened to Don Imus for a long time, you would probably know that Imus is not a racist. Should there have been punishment for that comment? Yeah, I think there should have. Should he have been fired? Whose to say – I say it’s overkill.

Interestingly enough, for the first eleven weeks of the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy story, Dan Rather refused to allow CBS news to report the story, claiming to take the “high ground” on the story. When the pressure from the brass finally got to much, and CBS was forced to join this particular media circus, Rather explained on the VERY SAME Don Imus program why he finally caved in and aired a report on the story: “What happened was they (CBS management) got the willies, they got the Buckwheats. Their knees wobbled and we gave it up.

“The Buckwheats”? For those of you who don’t know, Buckwheat was the timid black child on the “Our Gang” films. And the call for Rather’s head was ….. Oh wait, that never happened. But you can bet that if the phrase “they got the Buckwheats” tumbled out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth, the elite media may have taken notice.

Like I said, there is still some very ugly racism in this country, and it needs to be reported on. Actually, racism is “sexy” to the mainstream media, and it usually does get reported on. And while the media is timid to take on racism from the left, such as when Jesse Jackson refers to New York as “Hymietown” or Al Sharpton refers to Jews as “Diamond Merchants” , in their rush to report on white on black (or brown, or…) racism, especially if a conservative is involved, they sometimes get it wrong. Take for example the “Jena Six” . When I first heard about this, it reeked of racism to me. It had all the “sexiness” that the media looks for, even Jesse and Al.

Now I’ve always considered anything that Jesse and Al were involved in is probably being misreported, and I have a lot of data to back that one up. But this one, Jena Six, looked to be exactly what it was being reported as, and it looked like justice was not being served. But before you make up your mind on that one, I want you to go to the following website: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p09s01-coop.html

This link is to a story by Craig Franklin titled “Media Myths about the Jena 6”. Now you can find reporting on both sides of ANY story. You can find pro-Bush reporting, and anti-Bush reporting, some of which (on each side) is straight reporting, some of it agenda-driven reporting. When I first saw this headline, I thought this was part of the latter. However, what gives this story some credibility, is that Craig Franklin actually LIVES in Jena, LA., and he is the only reporter to cover this story from the beginning.

None of this means that Mr. Franklins accusations in his story are true or not, but like I said, given his position, he has credibility. But don’t look for any of Mr. Franklin’s claims to be debated in the mainstream press, because to do so would be to admit that THEIR reporting was flawed.

In 1995 the state of Alabama resurrected the old chain gang, where prisoners were chained together and put in the fields to perform backbreaking labor while guards with shotguns watched over them. CBS sent a news team to cover this and to talk to Alabama Governor Fob James, who was a huge supporter of the idea.

Producer Larry Doyle oversaw the videotaping and reporting, edited the piece and turned it over to the senior producers at CBS news. They were concerned because all but one of the prisoners shown were black. Doyle was asked if this was a fair portrayal of the prisoners, and Doyle informed them that there were 20 men on the chain gang (reserved for repeat offenders and troublemakers), 19 of whom were black.

“Well, be more careful next time” Doyle’s senior producer Al Berman told him. “We don’t want to give the impression that the only prisoners down there are black.” He told him to get more pictures of white prisoners next time.

Al Berman isn’t a bad man, he’s just trying to be compassionate. But why does Berman choose to show his compassion by featuring more white faces and few blacks? Wouldn’t a REAL compassionate person ask if Alabama was unfairly rounding up Black Men? Are authorities labeling black prisoners as “troublemakers” to funnel them on to the chain gang? Are whites arrested for the same crimes convicted at an equal ratio? These are all very legitimate questions. Did CBS ask them or report on them? No. Why? Such a story would be hard, time-consuming, and expensive. Reporting on “Cons in Chains” is quick and fast.

Later that year CBS also sent Larry Doyle to St. Thomas to report on Hurricane Marilyn. During the report there had been looting, and Doyle and his crew happened to be there when police rounded up some looters and hauled them off to jail. The problem, according to CBS, was that all of the looters were black, and ultimately CBS did run the story, but without the video of the Looters being arrested. Yes, showing only blacks being arrested could be viewed as “presenting” an opinion that all looters are black, but what CBS didn’t take into account was that, yes, while all of the looters were black, so were the cops that were arresting them, and so was 95% of the island.

Once CBS refused to air a story because they referred to a victim – not the criminal, but the victim - as “black”. CBS told the producer to change the script to “African-American”. The problem was, the man was from Jamaica, he wasn’t an anything-American. “Change it to “African-American, or the story doesn’t get on the air.

Minorities in this country have suffered and continue to suffer some incredible racism, and in the end they are often getting sympathy, but no one is really addressing the REAL issues and asking the hard questions. The Liberal media distort the images not to ease the pain of oppressed black, Hispanic or other minorities, but to ease there own pain, to make themselves feel less guilty, and most important, to prove how good and caring THEY are.

Shame on them!

The Liberal Media Bias, Part Three

The day before yesterday I explained how the mainstream media distorts the news but both WHAT they choose to cover, and how they choose to cover it. Using the example of the homelessness in America, I (hopefully) showed how journalism activists choose how they want a story covered, rather than simply stating the facts.

Today I’ll give you an additional illustration, again using the book “Bias” by Bernard Goldberg as my reference point. I highly recommend this book, which I consider to be the Bible when it comes to media bias. And while my liberal friends will find fault with Mr. Goldberg’s findings, they hopefully should approach it with an open mind. Rather than coming from the point of view of a right-wing pundit or television critic, Goldberg is a CBS reporter with over 30 years on the job, and a self-professed liberal who has never voted Republican in his life. He refers to Rush Limbaugh as “The Antichrist”.

I promise to keep today’s post shorter than yesterday’s, and as you’ll see in a moment, I don’t always keep my promise. It’s just that I feel very passionate about this issue, and it’s easy to go on and on. Let’s look at how the left portrays another issue in the mainstream media. (NOTE: Before I start, let me address the fact that I am not making light of any of these issues, homelessness or AIDS. These are REAL problems in our society, and I DO want to see these issues covered and addressed, but they need to be covered objectively. )

AIDS: At the time of the writing of Bias, the big push in the press was to move AIDS from a homosexual/I.V. drug user issue to a heterosexual epidemic waiting to happen. I believe that their fear was that not enough people cared about the gay or addict populations, and as such AIDS funding would not receive the attention it deserved. And the sad truth is, they were probably right.

Now the left likes to accuse the right of always trying to scare people, but I think the left is just as good at this as the right, if not better. The fact is that while AIDS does not discriminate, there has never been any proof that it is or will become a mainly heterosexual disease. There are THEORIES, and it’s okay to report on those theories, but make sure that you report them as theories, not fact. In 1987, Oprah Winfrey reported on her program “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That’s by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

One in five in three years? Okay, Oprah Winfrey isn’t exactly mainstream media, but where did she get the information from. At the same time as Oprah’s announcement, our government was spending over five million dollars for an “AIDS Doesn’t Discriminate” ad campaign focusing on the one group that wasn’t in real danger: Heterosexuals who were not having sex with junkies.

Now to be fair, there was a lot that we didn’t know about AIDS at the end of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s. But while there were plenty of “experts” theorizing about the path AIDS was going to take, the fact is there was no proof that heterosexuals were likely to be the biggest group at risk for AIDS. At one point in 1986, CBS News reported that “over the last year the number of AIDS cases among heterosexual men has doubled.” What they didn’t tell you was that A) it doubled from 2% to 4%, and B) that year the CDC had made the decision to move ALL AIDS sufferers of African and Haitian origin into the category of heterosexual AIDS.

I’ll come back to the reporting in a moment, but let me give you a few numbers first. In 2005, the last year we have numbers for, 40,540 people contracted AIDS (29,766 men and 10,774 women). These were new cases. In 2005, 12,140 men died of AIDS. Of those 12,140 men, 5,929 were gay men, 3,159 were intrevenious drug users, and 1,364 were both gay and I.V. drug users. Another 1,584 were “high-risk” heterosexual contact, meaning the men were having sex with women who were either I.V. drug users, had sleep with I.V. drug users, or had sleep with bisexual men. The final category, “other”, which includes heterosexual men who were not known to have slept with “high risk” males.

Again I feel the need to stop and say what a horrible disease this is, and in no way am I trying to say that one persons life means more or less than another because of their sexual orientation. Some may see my comments as mean-spirited and homophobic, nothing could be further from the truth. Stay with me and I think (I hope) I can pull all of this together.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs monitored the network TV stories in 1992, and concluded that “TV’s visual portrait of AIDS victims has little in common with real life.” During the period studied, 6 percent of the people shown on the evening news were gay men. But in real life 58 percent were gay men. On TV, 16 percent were blacks and Hispanics. In real life 42% were black or Hispanic. On TV, 2 percent of AIDS sufferers were IV drug users – in real life 23 percent were?

So? Like I said earlier, we know a lot more now about this horrific disease then we did when these articles first came out. But lets forget for a moment about what was real and what the “experts” thought. Why, when the press needed to put a “face” on this disease, it was – like the homeless face from yesterday – a heterosexual white male.

Why would the mainstream press present an inaccurate portrait of this disease. My take on it is that, like the homelessness issue, the journalists covering this issue had taken on the role of activist. They knew that, as unfair as it was, most of America was not going to “get behind” finding a cure for a disease that mainly afflicted gay men and I.V. drug users. By making it a “everyone” disease, they were able to drum up more support and funding.

And that’s a good thing, right (the correct answer is yes, it is). However, should this be the role of the supposed “objective” journalist, manipulating the news for what they see as a good cause? And if we allow it here, what next? Isn’t this what we are talking about – Bias in the media? Does it matter if there was a “good reason” ?

Personally, if I was a gay man, I’d be pissed off. Why? Think about it. Think of all of the money spent to fight the heterosexual AIDS (non) epidemic. What if that same amount were directed to fighting AIDS in the gay community. How many lives were lost because the mainstream media was overly sensitive? I can only imagine. Also, imagine a news director saying essentially “We have an epidemic in the gay community. We need to put a face to this tragedy – just make sure it’s a straight face.” Yeah, the left is such a sensitive crowd.

And as I stated, 42% of the new AIDS cases were white or Hispanic. Imagine that same news director saying essentially “We have an epidemic in the African-American and Hispanic communities. We need to put a face to this tragedy – just make sure it’s a white face


One other thing hit me when I was putting this story together. Even though AIDS is still with us, there is a lot of good news with regards to this disease. For example, in 1992, 894 children under the age of 13 contracted AIDS. In 2003, 50 children under 13 contracted AIDS. Now that is still 50 too many, but that is a HUGE step in the right direction. At the peak of the epidemic, in 1992 and 1993, about 80,000 new cases were being reported each year. As I reported above, in 2005 just over 40,000 new cases were reported. And the annual deaths from this disease has dropped from over 51,000 in 1995 to 17,011 in 2005.

Again, AIDS is not cured, and there is still a lot of fighting to do, but why aren’t the advances in this fight, some amazing advances when you compare it to the improvements in other diseases (Diabetes, Breast cancer, etc….), why aren’t these advances trumpeted?

My opinion, and this is only my opinion, is that it’s the same reason that the advancements in racial issues have not been trumpeted. Because the left is afraid that if we say we ware winning the fight, that no one will care any longer. We can only care about this tragedy as long as it is an epidemic and out of control.

Which leads me to my closing thought, which I level at ALL media, regardless of it’s slant: Why does the media feel the need to scare the hell out of us. Ratings? Really, is it worth getting people all worked up so you can get your ratings up. Remember Oprah telling us one in five will be dead in three years. And like I said, this is not a left or right issue. Both sides are equally responsible for the state of fear we live in.

I don’t have a statistic, but living on the California Coast our local news stations are constantly running stories on sharks, and the danger we all face if we are even close to the Ocean. Between 1959 and 1990, 12 people have been killed by sharks in the U.S.. Last year alone, 341 people in the U.S. drowned in their bathtubs. That means you are 880 times more likely to die in your tub than be attacked by a shark. Oh my God, I have to go, I have two tubs I need to get out of this death trap….

Join me tomorrow for the final segment in my liberal media bias series. I will have information that, if you tune in, it just my save your life…… Film at 11:00.

A Little Help Please.......

My series on the liberal media bias will return tomorrow. Today I am reaching out to all of the readers of my blog for help. Okay, both of my readers (thanks Mom and Chris)

As you know, our state is currently being ravaged by wildfires. As I am writing this, close to seven hundred square miles have been destroyed, and close to one million people have been evacuated from their homes. Several of my fellow bloggers as well as several in the media have tried to politicize this fire, on both sides of the aisle. I am not here to add to that poison. All I am here to do today is ask for your help. Below are some websites and phone numbers of organizations that are in need of assistance. If you do not see an organization here that hits you, simply google "California Fire Relief" for dozens more.

Thank you…..

Feed The Children: www.feedthechildren.org

Los Angeles Fire Relief Association: www.lafra.org

The Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/news/ds/profiles/disaster_profile_CAWildfires.html

The Red Cross Phone: 1-800-HELPNOW

The Salvation Army: http://www.salvationarmy-socal.org/

Again, thank you so much for your help.

Liberal Media Bias, Part Two

Yesterday I began my series on liberal bias in the media with a few numbers from a recent Gallup poll that shows that Democrats trust the mainstream media buy a two-to-one margin over Republicans, and with good reason, because it’s their message the media is delivering.

The funny thing is, it isn’t even that I’m so upset that the media has a liberal bias, it’s that the media itself is unable to see that they have this bias. They are unable to see it, because these leftist views are so ingrained that they see them as normal, and middle-of-the-road.

So much of the bias is “normal” to these people that they don’t even see it. For example, Bernard Goldman, in his book “Bias” recalls his cohost on CBS This Morning introducing a segment on sexual harassment saying “…has anything really changed? Just ahead we’re going to ask noted law professor Catharine MacKinnon and conservative spokeswomen Phyllis Schlafly to talk about this.”

Sounds innocent, but why was Schlafly identified as a conservative, but MacKinnon not identified as a radical feminist, a far left law professor, or even a plain old Liberal? She is afterall just as far to the left as Schlafly is to the right. This is after all the same women that famously implied that “all sexual intercourse is rape.” Not exactly “middle-of-the-road”, and yet the reason she was not identified as a liberal is that to the mainstream media, the views she holds ARE middle of the road.

As Goldman so eloquently points out, while the term “right-wing” is a common adjective in the media, the only time you will hear these same folks talk about “left-wing” is when they are reporting about the part of the airplane that caught fire before the crash.

The reason the media doesn’t identify liberal views on such subjects as abortion or affirmative action as liberal is because to these people these views are not liberal, they simply make sense. To mainstream America these are major elements of the liberal agenda, but to the liberals in the media these are just sensible, reasonable, rational views which just happen to coincide with their own.

Bias isn’t always black and white. It isn’t always a report like “Right wing whacko Congressman Joe Smith, Disgraced Republican from ______, today announced his health care plan. Considering Congressman Smith’s past support for the Iraq war and his no vote on SCHIP, it should come as no surprise that this piece of legislation he is proposing is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake.”

That would be too easy to spot and go after. Too often the bias comes in the form of what side of an issue they fall down on, especially issues that are considered to be liberal or conservative in nature. Issues such as abortion, school vouchers, gay rights, the NRA or affirmative action have definite left and right positions. How the media reports on these issues show where the real bias is.

Think about Homelessness. Now homelessness is political in nature, because we all know that Ronald Reagan created homelessness. Now homelessness IS a real and serious issue, but it is also a perfect example of how journalists have become activists in our society. Now to really study this issue we have to look at data from the Reagan/Bush I years, since we all know homelessness ended the day Bill Clinton took office. How do we know this? The media of course.

During 1988, Reagan’s last year in office, The New York Times ran 50 stories on the homeless, including five on page one. A decade later, in 1998, they ran ten homeless stories, none on page one. In 1990, when George Bush the First was president, there were 71 homeless stories on the ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN evening newscasts. In 1995, with Bill Clinton in the White House, that number had dropped to nine. Homelessness couldn’t be a problem in the Clinton years, because homelessness is caused by Republicans.

And it isn’t just the sheer number, but the content. How many homeless are there in America. Given that they don’t have homes, they are not easy to count. In the late 80’s the U.S. Census Bureau estimated it to be 230,000. The General Accounting Office of Congress put the total between 300,000 and 600,000, and the Urban Institute figured there to be between 355,000 and 462,000 homeless.

In 1989 on CNN, reporter Candy Crowley reported that “Winter is on the way and three million Americans have no place to call home. Three Million?

In January of 1993 Jackie Nespral on NBC Weekend Today stated that “nationally right now, five million people are believed to be homeless… and the numbers are increasing”.

Charles Osgood, one of the most talented and respected men in broadcasting, reported “It is estimated that by the year 2,000, nineteen million Americans will be homeless unless something is done, and done now.

The CBS Evening News went it one further, finding homeless people who actually live in homes. This group is – get ready – the “Hidden Homeless”, people who because they can’t afford their own places are living at home with Mom and Dad.

While numbers are difficult to obtain, most reports from individual cities have shown that homelessness is dropping in most areas.

But overestimating the numbers is just the start. Robert Hayes, who ran the National coalition for New York told The New York Times in 1989 that when congressional committees and TV news producers contacted him for a homeless face to put on the air, “they always want white, middle-class people to interview.”

In a May 22, 1989 story in The New York Times by Gina Kolata (which was considered groundbreaking for its candor), it emerged that “drug and alcohol abuse have emerged as a major reason for the homelessness of men, women, and families”. It sounds so obvious now, but this was groundbreaking front-page news in 1989.

In the late 1980’s, Robert Licher of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs analyzed 103 stories on ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, as well as 26 articles in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. The results “provide a blueprint of advocacy journalism.” Stated Licher.

Only 1 source in 25 blamed homelessness on the personal problems of the homeless themselves, such as mental illness, drug or alcohol abuse, or lack of skills and motivation. The other 96% blamed social or political conditions such as high housing prices and the governments inability to provide adequate housing. And it’s not that those are not legitimate issues, but they do not account for 96% of homelessness.

As you can see, the left chooses to report what will most serve there ultimate goal. And I’m not saying that this issues and concerns don’t need to be reported, but the job of the media is to report the facts and let the public form their own opinions. It is not to conform the facts to fit THEIR opinions.

More examples tomorrow….

Liberal Media Bias, Part One

My good friend Chris, aka the Red Hog, and I have been going back and forth over the last few weeks over at His Blog, www.redhogdiary.com, over bias in the media. We both agree that there is bias in the media, it’s just that Chris thinks there is a conservative bias, and I know there is a liberal bias. So today, I start a short series on bias in the media.

But before I get into that, I have something else I want to shine a spotlight on. My hometown paper, The Tribune, recently reported that the pictures of local men and women serving in the Iraq War were recently removed from the Paso Robles, CA post office. These photos of local servicemen and women have been up there for years. But last week, ONE individual complained, stating the display was “Pro-War”, so down came the pictures.

Why is this one persons opinion more important than other’s. Again, let me remind you that these pictures have been posted for years, and this was the first complaint. And what happened to the whole “I don’t support the war, but I support our troops” that the left keeps trotting out? I guess we’re not even pretending to support the troops anymore.

Let me calm down….. Okay, lets move on. Like I stated in my opening paragraph, my friend Chris and I have been discussing bias in the media. Over the next few days I will be giving you specific examples that will show that the media is left leaning, but today I want to set the stage by discussing a recent Gallup survey. And I would like to thank my friends at Hillary Clintons “Media Matters” for bringing this to my attention.

The poll shows a wide gap between how Republicans and Democrats view the mass media. Nearly 3 in 4 Republicans say the media is "too liberal."

[Gallup director Frank] Newport explains: "Republicans in America today remain deeply distrustful of the national news media -- in sharp contrast to Democrats, who have a great deal more trust in the media's accuracy." Exactly twice as many Democrats (66%) express some faith in the media compared with Republicans (33%).

More than twice as many Americans say the news media are too liberal (45%) rather than too conservative (18%). But Newport adds: "Americans' views of the bias in news media are highly related -- as would be expected -- to underlying political orientation."

Some 22% of Democrats find the media "too conservative," but this is a much lower number than the Republican assertion [that the media are too liberal] (77%).

Now here’s what I take from this poll. Lets assume that the country is roughly 50/50 between left and right. That means that, if the media wasn’t bias at all you should see a roughly similar number on both sides saying that there is bias. I do agree with Newport when he says "Americans' views of the bias in news media are highly related to underlying political orientation."

But the mere fact that twice as many Democrats (66%) express faith in the media shows a liberal slant. Do you think that if, as my friend Chris believes, the medias slant was conservative, that the left would express twice the faith in it. Only if they were idiots, and I don’t think they are.

I want to wrap up this initial discussion of media bias by first of all explaining what I mean by “media”. What I am talking about here is what is often referred to as the “Mainstream Media” (MM). This includes network news (ABC, CBS, NBC) as well as national newspapers such as the New York Times, The L.A. Times, and the like. No one is denying that Fox News has a conservative bend to it, just as CNN and MSNBC have a liberal slant. And we’re not talking about alternative sources of news and content, such as right-wing radio, left-wing radio, Media Matters, The Drudge Report, or any other sources. What we are talking about here are the supposed “non-bias” news outlets.

Also, I am not saying that there is never right-wing bias in the mainstream media. What I am saying is that most of the reporting by the MM is non-bias, but that when the MM does show bias, it is almost always for the left.

Tomorrow, I’ll have some examples.

Congresswomen Capps, Part Two

Yesterday I introduced you to my Congresswoman, Lois Capps, and discussed my desire to see Ms. Capps defeated and replaced in the house, due to the fact that she A) was initially elected due to her pledge to serve only three terms (she is currently serving her 5th), and B) the fact that in nearly 10 years she has passed one piece of legislation.

And my desire to see Ms. Capps defeated has nothing to do with the fact that she is a Democrat. The 23rd district of California, Ms. Capps district, is drawn so that it would be practically impossible for a Republican to win (See photo on the right).

Anyway, I was surprised on Thursday to see the headline “Faith Meets Politics At Capps Event”, with the sub headline “Democratic congresswomen invites local religious leaders to Washington for rare talk on church-state relations. “ in my local paper. I was surprised because while Church-State events are rare in Washington, one hosted by a Democrat is really rare. However, given that Capps is a preacher’s daughter, it made some sense.

The article describes how Capps invited 20 local clergy for “an all-day meeting to talk about faith, justice and religious pluralism.” It further states that Capps said “The deep religious divide between the political left and right is what inspired this conference.” The conference also drew appearances from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Actually, I was a little surprised by Pelosi’s involvement, because I saw “The Omen” and I remember how Damien kicked and screamed as he approached a Church, so I just assumed…….

Initially, I thought that, even with Pelosi’s involvement, this was a good thing. I think mixing politics and religion can be dangerous, but I also think that the left’s effort to distance government from religion has done a lot of harm.

Capps revealed the concern that she and other Christian house members feel when they talk about their religious backgrounds in a political context because of a fear of alienating Muslims, Hindus, or others holding different faith beliefs. Why? Why is the left so concerned about offending Hindus and Muslims, but they have no issue offending Christians. And no, I’m not saying Hindus and Muslims don’t matter, of course they do, but why do we need to be “inclusive” in everything? You can’t even tell a story about your religion because you might offend someone? Look, if my Jewish friend is telling me about Yom Kippur or Rosh Ha-Shanah, I don’t take offense because he hasn’t found a way to “spin” it to include my religion.

Remember earlier when I stated that one of the reasons for this conference was to address ““The deep religious divide between the political left and right”? Well, they probably might have had a better time of addressing those concerns if they had actually INVITED someone from the right. Capps admitted that through self-selection there were no invitations made to anyone on the right side of the aisle. She did however include the faith-based organizers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign from 2004.

They also stated in the article that “There was gloating about how the religious right was “imploding”. Yeah, sounds like they were really concerned about closing that gap between the left and the right. But what more could I expect from Congresswomen Capps, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the left.

I'd Like You To Meet My Congressperson....

I want to tell you an interesting story about my congresswomen, Lois Capps. But before I do that I need to give you some background on Ms. Capps, so this will be a two-part blog, with the story coming on Sunday’s post.

I like Lois Capps. Lois Capps is a Democrat, but I still like her. She is a genuinely nice person, despite being in Congress for almost ten years. I like Lois, and I want to see her out of Congress. Now I don’t want Lois out because she is a democrat, because the way the 23rd District is drawn, it will always be won by a Democrat.

To understand why Lois shouldn’t be my Congressperson, you need to understand how she became my Congressperson in the first place. In 1996 Lois Capps was a nurse, married to Walter Capps. In 1996 Walter Capps ran for and won the House seat for the California 22nd District (It changed to the 23rd in the 2000 redistricting). Walter Capps served seven months in the House before he died of a heart attack on October 28, 1997. His wife Lois won his seat by defeating Republican Tom Bordonaro in a special election on March 10, 1998.

Before I expand on why Lois Capps should step down, let me address a political pet peeve of mine. Why is it when a Senator or Congressman dies in office, their spouse gets voted into their place. And before I am accused of this being a sexist thing, I would feel the same way if it were a female senator dying and her husband taking her place. And it isn’t a Republican/Democrat thing either. Currently there are four spouses serving in the house of representatives: Capps, along with Mary Bono (R-CA), Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), and Doris Matsui (D-CA). Two Republicans, two Democrats. And while I am not as familiar with the work of the other three as I am Capps, I still feel comfortable saying they probably are not serving their districts as they should be.

If I died tomorrow, my wife couldn’t take over my job. Or if she died I couldn’t take over for her. I’m not saying she isn’t smart enough, she just isn’t trained to do what I do (or vice versa). For most of you reading this, I would bet you too are in the same boat. To me, the only explaination is that being a member of congress is among the easiest jobs in the world.

There are two reasons that I feel Capps shouldn’t be representing me or the Central Coast of California. First is that in 9-1/2 years, Lois Capps has sponsored 96 bills, of which 85 haven't made it out of committee. One was successfully enacted. In other words, she hasn’t exactly done a lot for her constituents.

The other reason is that during the special election following the death of Capps’ husband, one of the big issues at the time was term limits. Both Capps and her opponent, Republican Tom Bordonaro, were asked by a group called “U.S. Term Limits” (USTL) to sign a pledge stating that they would serve no longer than three terms. Bordonaro, who was actually a huge proponent of term limits, stated that he would not sign the pledge because he didn’t want to be locked into a pledge while the other representatives were not. He repeatedly stated that he would vote for a term limit law.

Capps on the other hand signed the pledge. Her reasoning: “I’m 60 years old. In six years I’ll be 66, and too old to run for a 4th term.” Capps didn’t even support term limits, but signed the pledge anyhow. Because she signed, USTL pumped $150,000 into her campaign, and she defeated Bordonaro.

Lois Capps is in Congress because of the money she received based on her pledge to serve no more than three terms. Next year she will campaign for, and win, her sixth term. If we’re lucky, she can win four or five more and can get a SECOND piece of litigation passed.

Tomorrow, a different side of Lois Capps…..

The Amazing Harry Reid

As we know from Yesterdays Post, Rush Limbaugh recently put up on eBay the letter that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid crafted condemning Limbaugh, and said letter was signed by 41 senators (including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, John Kerry, John Edwards & Ted Kennedy) and sent it to Mark Mays of Clear Channel Communications, Rush Limbaugh's syndication partner.

Just when you thought this story couldn’t get any stranger (or backfire on Reid any worse), now Reid is TAKING CREDIT for the $4.2 million that the letter raised for Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. What follows is Reid’s comments on the Senate Floor this morning.

"Madam President, earlier this month I came to the floor to discuss some comments made by Rush Limbaugh. Following my remarks, more than 40 of my Senate colleagues and I cosigned a letter to the chairman of Clear Channel, Mark May, telling him we wanted him to confer with Limbaugh regarding the statements he made. I've since spoken to Mark May about this. Mark May, in fact, called me regarding this letter. This week, Rush Limbaugh put the original copy of that letter up for auction on eBay. Mr. President, we didn't have time, or we could have gotten every Senator to sign that letter."

"He put the letter up for auction on eBay, and I think very, very constructively, let the proceeds of that to go to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation that provides scholarship assistance to Marines and federal law enforcement personnel whose parents fall in the line of duty. What could be a more worthwhile cause. I think it's really good that this money on eBay is going to be raised for this purpose.”

"When I spoke to Mark May, he and I thought this probably wouldn't make much money, a letter, written by Democrat Senators, complaining about something. This morning, the bid is more than two million for this. We've watched it during the week. It keeps going up, and up, and up. There's only a little bit of time left on it, but it certainly is going to be more than two million. Never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature, and for the cause, Madam President, it's extremely good. Now everybody knows that Rush Limbaugh and I don't agree on everything in life. Maybe that's kind of an understatement. But, without qualification, Mark May, the owner of the network that has Rush Limbaugh, their auction is going to be something that raises money for a worthwhile cause. I don't know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education."

"More than $2 million, this is going to really help. And that's, again, an understatement. There's only a little bit of time left.“So I would ask those that are wanting to do more, that they can go to the Harry Reid, search -- actually go on say "Harry Reid letter," this will come up on eBay. I encourage anyone interested in this with the means to do so to consider bidding on this letter and contributing to this worthwhile cause. I strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside, even Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh, we should do that and try to accomplish good things for the American people."


I don’t think I have ever heard anything as audacious in my life. For Reid to try to make it like he is a part of this is incredible. I also like how he referred to the letter as “a letter, written by Democrat Senators, complaining about something” When in fact this was a smear campaign by the United States Senate against a private citizen for something that wasn’t even what he was saying.

"When I spoke to Mark May, he and I thought this probably wouldn't make much money…” First of all, it’s MAYS, not May. Secondly, he didn’t mention that the reason he was speaking to Mays was to try to get Mays to help him STOP the eBay auction.

You want to take credit for this Harry? Well, Rush matched the 2.1 million winning bid, what say you do the same? As a matter of fact, how about the rest of you who signed that letter doing the same thing?

On the positive note, the 110th Congress has FINALLY passed a piece of paper that actually did some good.

SIDE NOTE: Reid's favorable-to-unfavorable rating hit its lowest point in a new poll published by the Las Vegas Review Journal: 32 percent favorable vs. 51 percent unfavorable. In fact, the paper said, Reid is less popular than President Bush.

Now For A Few Words From The Opposition...

Well, here it is my 4th day on this Blog, and I’ve hit writers block. Actually I have a lot of things I want to write about, but since I’ve dug at my liberal friends the last couple of days – and because I don’t want this site to just be a “dump on the liberals” site (even though most of the liberal sites I read are “dump on the conservative” sites) – I want to make sure that I am fair and balanced and that I stick it to the other side as well.

Actually, that’s not a fair characterization of what I want this site to be. Most Blogs, especially political blogs, are a mixture of opinion and fact. One of my goals is to try to do my best to make sure that the facts are correct. As far as the opinions, hey, you’re on your own. And I’m going to do my best to not be hypocritical. For example, recently Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana admitted seeing a prostitute. Now if I were to say that it shouldn’t matter, that it was between two consenting adults, AND THEN somewhere down the line a Democratic Senator gets busted for the same thing – and I call for his head – then I would be a hypocrite, and I need to be called on it.

However, if I were to argue against government-run healthcare, and you were to argue for it, that would be a debate of OPINIONS. And I fully welcome any debate regarding my opinion. I will give you the best argument I have for something, you will give me the best argument against it (or vice-versa), and hopefully we can both learn from each other. Will I change your mind, or you change mine? Maybe, but probably not. However, the bottom line is that hopefully we will both be better informed.

With that said, lets give a nod to the other side of the aisle today.

A) First, a big JEER to National Review Online columnist John Derbyshire, for comments he made in an article titled “Aztlan North”. Derbyshire comment that in Storm Lake Iowa he had heard a couple of times the remark that in this little corner of rural Iowa, the student body in the schools is half Hispanic. Derbyshire commented “Say what you like, that is truly an invasion. Why on earth are we letting this happen?”

Responding to Derbyshire's post on The Corner, NRO editor Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote: "Um, Derb .... I have no idea the situation as to their immigration status, but if that population consists of legal immigrants who speak English ... I'm not moved to invasion outrage." Derbyshire replied: "I can't agree, Kathryn. Legal or illegal, this is asking for trouble," later adding, "If we must have mass immigration, can we please return to the fine old American tradition of taking people from (A) lots of different places, none of which are (B1) contiguous to our territory and (B2) make historical claims -- propagated, for instance, in their school textbooks -- on that territory?"

Now I know when discussing race issues, sometimes people say things that are, well,… clumsy. This is not one of those times. While I like the National Review, even though I don’t always agree with everything they write, this is too much. This man is an ignorant idiot, and the National Review will damage their reputation if they keep him on staff.

B) Kudos to Barack Obama for finally starting to stand up to Hillary Clinton. Readers familiar with my comments on redhogdiary.com know that I actually kind of like Obama, and I truly hopes he gets the nomination. Heck, he might even get my vote.

However, I feel that Obama, along with all of the other Democratic candidates, have let Clinton set the tone on this campaign, and they are slow to take her to task on her history and comments. Personally, if I were a candidate Clinton would be the one I would want to run against because there is so much you can use against this woman.

Anyway, Barack is FINALLY starting to stand up to Hillary. Last Friday Obama noted that when he said in July he would meet with the leaders of Iran and other countries that have strained relations with the U.S., without setting any conditions, Clinton called his stance "irresponsible and frankly naive."

Questioned Thursday by a voter in New Hampshire, Clinton said twice that she would negotiate with Iran "with no conditions." "I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading," she said.

Obama said Friday, "So I'm not sure if any of us knows exactly where she is standing on this issue. But I can tell you this _ when I am President of the United States, the American people and the world will always know where I stand."

Okay, it’s not the harshest criticism I’ve ever heard, but it’s a start. However, with less than three months to go before the Iowa Primaries, and with Clinton leading Obama 29% to 22% in Iowa (and a whopping 51% to 21% nationally) I hope it isn’t too little too late.

C) And finally, Kudos to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. You may know that Harry recently went after Rush Limbaugh for comments that were taken out of context regarding Rush’s use of the term “Phony Soldiers.” Reid claimed Rush was referring to any soldier that was critical of the war, when in fact Rush was attacking ACTUAL Phony Soldiers – people that claimed to have been in the military but weren’t.

Anyhow, Reid crafted a letter condemning Limbaugh, and said letter was signed by 41 senators (including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (hey, that may cost him that Kudos I just gave him)) and sent it to Mark Mays of Clear Channel Communications, Rush Limbaugh's syndication partner.

Well, the letter ended up in Limbaugh’s hands, and it is currently up for bid on eBay. As of this writing (9:00pm Pacific Time), it is up to 1.2 MILLION dollars. That’s right, 1.2 MILLION dollars. All of the proceeds from this sale will be donated to The Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation, a registered charity which provides financial assistance to the children of fallen Marines and federal law enforcement officers.

So thank you Harry for your (not-so-direct) support of this fine organization. It is greatly appreciated.

And while I said I was going to limit my Kudos to the left side of the aisle today, let me throw a quick one out to Rush who has promised to match the winning bid. That means at least 2.4 million to The Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation – and with 13 hours to go before the auction ends it could go even higher (it went up $400,000 in the last hour alone.) Hurry up and get your bid in soon.

This Randi Rhodes story just keeps getting better and better….

For those of you who didn’t read my blog yesterday, or are not familiar with this story, it was reported on Air America on Monday that one of their hosts, Randi Rhodes, had been mugged outside of her home in Manhattan.

Jon Elliott, another host at the network, told listeners "This does not appear to me to be a standard grab-the-money-and-run mugging," and, "Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own? Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?"

It later came out that in fact there was no mugging. The facts are still a little bit blurry, but it appears that Ms. Rhodes fell, and somehow this got escalated into an attack and ultimately a planned assault by the vast right-wing conspiracy.

My point in all of this yesterday was how amazed I was that the liberals were so willing to believe these outrageous allegations with absolutely zero proof. Heck, it turns out that there wasn’t even an attack.

Today I want to share with you some comments from readers of a prominent left site: DemocraticUnderground.com. Now keep in mind some of these comments were made before the news came out that there was not a mugging, so I don’t fault the readers for reacting too the fact that she had been mugged. As for the “leaping to far-fetched conclusions”, well you be the judge.

Below are just a few of the comments from the regular contributors to this site (with the name of the respondent at the end of each comment):

“If this was a neocon.....they have just upped the ante....” (Mad Maddie)

“I hate living in a country were I have to suspect my government did this. Random mugging? Maybe. But IMHO, the odds of her being the victim of a random assault are much, much smaller than the odds are of somebody from the BFEE (Bush Family Evil Empire) busting her chops just because they hate what she says.” (Rageneau)

“I don't believe for a second that this was a random thing” (JSK)

“Wow, my biggest fear, and I have stated several times in posts, that at some point, SOMEONE is going to snap. It may be someone on the left, or it may be someone on the right. It now appears that it may be from the right. I am too cynical to believe that Randi was a random mugging. She is too well known, especially for her outspokenness. But once it starts, it will be extremely difficult to stop. It could, literally, end in an ideology war between conservatives and liberals, that will rip this country apart. A war that will be bloody, and claim lives. And once it starts, all grievances will be addressed. We won't be able to hide from the freepers, the freepers won't be able to hide from us, the politicians will not be protected by their gated communities... the shit will, literally, hit the fan. Too bad Americans don't care enough to deal with the situation, but would rather ignore, whistling past the graveyard, until it is too late. Hell, maybe this is what has to happen before we can start to take our country back. I hope not.” (LDF)“Interesting they went for her mouth and teeth, isn't it?” (Breeze54)

“You want to know what's useless? Watching the clouds grow darker on the horizon, watching the millions of individual events signaling the transition of America from what it was 1776-2000 and whatever it will eventually become, of which this incident (if further information corroborates this to not have been a robbery, and if the perp’s aren't caught, which they likely won't be because Randi is a New Jew and her attackers then would be New Nazis, as it were, then we will know as close as we can to certainty without ironclad proof what is going on) is juts another step and one which signals that we are getting well along now. What's useless is watching all that and denying it because it's an Inconvenient Truth, perhaps the most inconvenient of the lost of them we have to deal with these days. I, for one, am willing to wait to hear what Randi has to say and to see if the cops do an "Anthrax Investigation" and the perp’s walk scot-free (that's my bet) before making final judgment. But this whole thing stinks to high heaven of the Middle Phase of the Transition of America.” (Tom_Paine)

“Yep. Nothing shocks me about the radical right in this country And this ain't no tin-foil hat shit, either. I think this is a deliberate attack from some right-wing nut jobs. We do have some wild conspiracy things that float around here on DU. I personally don't believe this is one of them. Randi has been on TV. She tells it like it is on her show, and believe me those fascists don't care about her one bit. This is one hit job, alright.” (Ishoutandscream2)

“Arrogant thugs, I feel anger and hate for the Gestapo neocon right. I will calm down sometime today. if I hear just one repuke say anything I will most likely knock their teeth out!" (froward69)

“I'm almost certain this was politically motivated. Pretty damned sickening. The right-wing hate machine needs to take at least a little blame for this - they'll of course say they had nothing to do with it, but people like Ann Coulter gleefully encouraged it. And so Amerika's Krystallnacht comes that much closer. Don't think I won't defend myself on that day...” (backscatter712)


Some interesting stuff. “Randi is a New Jew and her attackers then would be New Nazis”, “This is one hit job, alright", “And so Amerika's Krystallnacht comes that much closer”, "But this whole thing stinks to high heaven of the Middle Phase of the Transition of America.” And my favorite “It could, literally, end in an ideology war between conservatives and liberals, that will rip this country apart. A war that will be bloody, and claim lives. and once it starts, all grievances will be addressed.”

Now to be fair, there were a few people posting saying things like “Don’t jump to conclusions” and “lets wait until the whole story gets out before we start speculating”, but these folks were definitely a minority.

I do wish Ms. Rhodes a speedy recovery, and maybe we can all learn a little something from this incident. Apparently though, Air America itself has not learned anything. I just visited their website, and there is no news whatsover about the incident, which in my mind is just feeding the misinformation and left-wing frenzy.

Get Well Soon Randi

You may have heard that Randi Rhodes, a talk show host on the Liberal Air America, was attacked near her Manhattan home around 8pm Sunday evening. Now those of you familiar with my writings at my friend The Red Hog’s post may know of my vast dislike for Ms. Rhodes. I think she is uneducated in her thoughts, unwilling to even consider “the other side of the story”, and exemplifies everything that is wrong with extremist politics. To my liberal friends, I liken her to Michael Savage on the right, who I equally dispise.

Rhodes claims she was walking down the street near her Manhattan home around 8 p.m. when she was struck and found herself face down on the pavement, her lawyer, Robert Gaulin, told FOXNews.com.

"We don't know whether there was a deliberate intention aimed at her or whether it was an accident... she was pretty much, she was hurt badly when she fell and her face hit the ground," Gaulin said, adding that people on the street came to her aid.

Jon Elliott, another host at the network, told listeners of his show Monday night that Rhodes had been attacked near Park Avenue and 39th Street.

According to the blog TALKING RADIO, a blog that follows Air America's programming, Elliott then said, "This does not appear to me to be a standard grab-the- money-and-run mugging," and, "Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own?" Elliot also suggested that the act might have been meant to intimidate left-wing radio, the blog reported. "Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?"

You may think that given my dislike of Rhodes that I would find this to be good news. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not agree with her opinions 95% of the time, but that does not mean that I would wish her harm.

But the story doesn’t end here. First of all, there is no proof whatsoever that this is a Hate Crime, that Rhodes was attacked for her views. But wait, it still get better. Apparently Rhodes was never even attacked. A police source said Rhodes never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging. Cops from Manhattan's 17th Precinct called her attorney, who told them Rhodes was not a victim of a crime, the source said.

This is the same attorney who told FOX News Ms. Rhodes “was struck and found herself face down on the pavement”

The reason I find this story so interesting is that it shows just how warped a lot of people on the left have become. You are so hateful of the Bush Administration, the conservative movement, and anyone on the right in general that you are willing to believe any story because it fits in with your view of the world.

Look, I’m not letting conservatives off the hook either. If you found out tomorrow that Hillary Clinton drinks the blood of a newborn baby every morning, there would be a fair amount of you believing that. However, I am confident that the vast majority would say “wait a minute, show me the proof.”

However, on the other side of the aisle, it’s the vast majority that are willing to run with it. What if this was the other way around, and Rush had been “attacked” and the talk on right wing radio was that he was attacked by a liberal and that this was a hate crime. Then it came out that he wasn’t attacked? The left would be hollering about the conservative jump to conclusions, claiming that the accusation itself constitutes a hate crime. Anyone want to take bets on how long it’s going to take Rhodes to apologize to the right for the false claims. (hint: I wouldn’t bet on any day that ends in a “y”).

Why is it that the left are so willing to believe these horrible things about the right, and yet are so easily snowed by the lies on their own side. Like I said, I believe this is an issue on the right as well, but not nearly to the extent as my Liberal friends. Any thoughts?

Be Gentle.... It's My First Time

Well, today I launch my blog. What exactly will “LostIowanDiary” be about? Well, that’s kind of hard to say, as I tend to go off on tangents from time to time. Think of it as a political blog with ADD. Although it’s not all about politics. Sometimes it about….. well, I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m sure I will.

Why even write a political blog? Well, I have to give credit where credit is due, which is with my old college roommate Christopher David Peter Wilcox, aka “Wally”, aka “The Red Hog” Wally started his own Blog back in February of 2006, and I have been an avid reader and commenter on his blog, and I finally decided that I wasn’t going to let Wally have all of the fun, thus the birth of this site.

It should be noted that while I owe a lot to Wally, he and I do tend to be on different ends of the political scale. While my politics tend to lean towards the right, Wally’s are decidedly liberal. But, to give Chris his due, he does tend to call them as he sees them, and is not above calling his own party to task from time to time. Not as often as I would like him too, but Chris’ blog, redhogdiary.com, is definitely more open minded than most liberal blogs.

And it is in this vein that I launch lostiowandiary.blogspot.com. I hope to be able to use these pages to bring to light the hypocrisy on both the left and right sides of the aisle. It’s just that I have a lot more to work with on the left.

And before I go any further, let me state that I am not a George W. Bush supporter. I do support Mr. Bush more than my liberal friends, but all-in-all I do not feel that his presidency has been a great one. However, to give him some credit, and post-9/11 presidency was likely to be a difficult one, and I believe that between their nonstop rants against George W., most liberals are secretly grateful that their boy Al wasn’t in office when 9/11 happened.

Anyhow, while I tend to defend the conservative side of the argument, what I actually am is a Libertarian. And to be honest, George W. is one of the reasons that I have made this move. I believe in fiscal responsibility as far as the government (and those who it governs) is concerned, and yet I have watched the current administration outspend even the Clintons. Granted, he had a war to contend with, but even so George has gone way too far.

But that doesn’t mean that there is room on the left side of the aisle for me either. Liberalism has come to mean more spending on such things as speech police, a failed 40+ year old war on poverty that rewards dependency, workplace rules that stifle opportunity, absurd environmental regulations, and the creation of a “womb-to-tomb” nanny state that tells us what to eat, drink and think.

As one of my heroes John Stossel once wrote “I like the idea of personal freedom that is often put forward by the Democrats, but they never seem to connect that with personal responsibility.

So, as a Libertarian, what do I believe? Well dear friend, for that you are going to have to tune in tomorrow.

Thank you for reading my words, and I certainly hope that you will stop back from time to time. And remember, this is a two-way street, and I want to hear what YOU have to say. We’ve got a good thiong going here, lets see if we can change some minds.