Before you check out Bush’s speech tonight, head over to http://www.timbenedict.grp1.com/books/ and http://www.timbenedict.grp1.com/handwriting/ and check out the merchandise. Heck, Tim’s handwriting test is free! Best money you never spent.

Tell ‘im I sent ya.

Liberals across the blogosphere seem to be standing on their high horses, knickers in a twist, that the Rev. Lennox Yearwood was “football tackled and beat” today by Capitol Hills police while innocently standing in line to get into the Petraeus briefing.

After watching the video a few times (do a youtube search), the activist reverend appears to try to push past the cop in front of him to get into the briefing room after a police man lays his hands on his shoulders from behind. Predictably, Yearwood is pushed to the ground and cops pile on. Unfortunately, during all this, his ankle is broken.

Hmmm, let me try to piece this together. Police are probably already tense knowing that protesters are going to be trying to disrupt the briefing. (Democrats made sure the event would be open to the public.) A known protester tries to rush past the aforementioned police to gain access to the briefing after being told to stay out. Protester is injured and arrested after police force him to the ground.

Police brutality! Racism! Fascism! Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

Unhappily for Jackson and Sharpton, one of the first police men to stop the rev (a man of color) was black. Of course, the officer who put his hands on Yearwood’s shoulders was white, so that will probably give the race baiters some meat to throw out to their masses.

You know this kind of thing would never have happened in a more enlightened country, like Cuba (Yearwood would have been put in prison already for political dissent), Iran (Yearwood would have lost one or more of his more highly valued body parts long ago, dissuading him from further activism), or China (he would already be in jail for practicing a religion not sanctioned by the state).

Yes, America is one of the few places on Earth where political dissidents are allowed so much freedom that they come to believe it is their right to be able to make their opinions known in whatever manner they choose, wherever they choose. (Don’t you know that dissent is the highest form of patriotism? At least, under a Republican president?)

But, last I heard, disobeying the police meant you could probably be arrested, whether you are speeding down a side road or trying to rush into a room full of your duly elected congresscritters in Washington. Someone should probably alert the media.

A Democratic Underground moonbat asked “Do we live in America or East Germany?” I’ll let you decide.

Fred Thompson hasn’t even entered the race and he is already polling ahead of Mitt Romney. That ought to tell you something.

One of the problems inherent to being a knuckle-dragging conservative is getting those long, ungainly arms up to a semi-horizontal position in order to reach the keyboard. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, complete disgust with Bush notwithstanding.

The former Republican leadership was bad enough (in the Senate, at least), but now that the Democrats have resumed control, they are rapidly making conservative observers long for the “good old days” prior to last Nov. 11.

Legislation has been introduced to raise your taxes, take away your guns, and lose the war in Iraq. (It would be tempting for me to lambast those of you who didn’t vote for your Republican congress critter last November to show your dissatisfaction with its performance, but I completely understand how you felt at the time.)

The cycle goes something like this: Dem candidates in conservative states/districts run on conservative issues. Dems get elected. Screaming liberal leaders of national Dem party beat the newly elected “conservatives” into towing the party line. Democrat majority pushes socialist laws through congress that have nothing to do with the issues their “conservative” partymates compaigned on and do not represent the will of the people. Of course, liberals know what’s good for you and you, fellow knuckle-dragger, do not. And don’t you forget it.

I fully expect Bush (President Cave) to sign any new gun control or tax hike laws that are put in front of him. The only thing he shows any sign of guts on is Iraq. If he doesn’t let the new soldiers in his surge kill people and break things like good soldiers should, he has screwed up his last-ditch effort over there to boot. Time will tell.

Here’s the skinny. Join the NRA, the GOA, the Heritage Foundation and similar conservative values groups. Buy your AR-15s and regular capacity magazines now because you might not be able to get them later. Get involved in supporting your favorite candidates for ’08. Pray that Fred Thompson decides to run (soon) or you and I will have no conservative candidate.

And a special thanks goes out to the guy at the ourkarlrove blog for reminding me why it’s important to get the conservative word out.

Here we are on the eve of a Day Without Illegal Aliens. Despite what these misled Mexicans may think, no one wants to discriminate against them because they’re immigrants. What part of “illegal” don’t they understand?

Both parties’ complete failure to deal with this situation is going to make a lot of Americans really mad. I’m one of them. Our congress critters see these 11-12 million illegals as a future voting block and want to put ’em on the fast track to citizenship. Immigrants who have gone the legal route and the will of the people be damned.

My predition, for whatever it’s worth, is that the GOP will lose its majority in one or both houses. If the Dims take over the Senate, Bush won’t be able to appoint any more Supreme Court justices. If the take the House, Bush will be impeached. Who will the GOPers have to blame for this? Themselves, because they sold out the conservatives who put them in office.

And don’t get me started on Frist’s idea of giving $100 to each citizen to offset high gas prices. How stupid do these people want us to be? What a buch of miserable, abject failures. I rather suspect that the Day Without Illegal Aliens will cause a backlash among the otherwise silent masses. But I still don’t expect our elected overseers to do anything other than be the wusses they are.

This may bring a viable third-party candidate to the frontlines for 2008, though. He or she will drain votes away from the Republican candidate, just like Perot did for Bush I. And when Hillary gets into office, the limp-wristed GOPers in DC won’t have to look any further than the mirror to see who to blame.

A recent link on the drudge report caught my eye: the story was a series of guidelines on how to speak and act to counter the image of the “ugly American.” An expert quoted in the story says that “surveys consistently show that Americans are viewed as arrogant, insensitive, overly-materialistic, and ignorant of local values.”

In short, we are convinced the American way is the only way and most other folks would be better off following our lead.

Yes, America sucks so bad that 11 – 12 million Mexicans snuck across our southern border to get better jobs. (Can’t blame them for that, but there’s a process for immigration and hiring a coyote to haul you and the fam up north ain’t it.) Now that our elected overseers are talking about unenforceable immigration “reforms,” some of these same illegals are throwing hissyfits in the streets. By missing work to loudly proclaim their right to flaunt the laws of the country that pays them bettter then Mexico ever could, some are getting fired for unapproved absences. Welcome to America.

United States capitalism is so unsuccessful that we have a 5.5% unemployment rate. Please contrast this to the 20% unemployment rate among France’s 26-years-old-and-younger set. Much of this comes from the fact that employers are afraid to hire new workers without a track record. Once hired, it’s hard to fire them. To get more employers to hire new workers, the French gov’t proposed that anyone under 26 could be fired without cause during the first two years of their employment. What happened? Days and nights of rioting. Was it ugly? You bet. What happened? France surrendered to itself (again). Shocking.

And regarding American intolerance – didn’t we just liberate millions of Muslims from dictatorships that routinely used mass killings, rape rooms, and torture as standard operating procedure? Why yes, I believe we did. Examples of Muslim gratitude and like-mindedness? How about an Afghani being put on trial for his life for having converted to Christianity? How about Iran threatening to blow Israel to kingdom come on general principle? How about open-minded Muslims chanting “death to America” while they sign up to be martyrs in the name of Iran’s “right” to have a nuclear weapon? How about the Christians being killed regularly in the Sudan?

What could one call these attitudes and practices of foreign nations and foreigners within our borders? Misguided, ignorant, xenophobic? Yes, and don’t forget ugly. Sometimes it really does go clear to the bone.

Our panty-waisted Republican legislators have belched the latest toothless immigration reform bill out of committee to sprawl upon the Senate floor. Eleven million illegal aliens can be rewarded with US citizenship. Proposed criminal penalties for those helping illegals were voted down.

This bill is toothless and accomplishes worse than nothing if passed. The GOPers are offering compromises and platitudes with no means of enforcement in hopes to appease their conservative base. If George Allen doesn’t get in in 2008, I think we’re all in for a world of hurt.

“[T]hree cartoons made political points. One showed Muhammad turning away suicide bombers from the gates of heaven, saying ‘Stop, stop—we ran out of virgins!’ —which I believe was a commentary on Muslims’ predilection for violence. Another was a cartoon of Muhammad with horns, which I believe was a commentary on Muslims’ predilection for violence. The third showed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, which I believe was an expression of post-industrial ennui in a secular—oops, no, wait: It was more of a commentary on Muslims’ predilection for violence. In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence. Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.” -Ann Coulter

“The way our Constitution’s framers used the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people and imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech, or freedom to travel, is something we all simultaneously possess. My right to free speech or freedom to travel imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference. In other words, my exercising my right to speech or travel requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights. Contrast that vision of a right to so-called rights to medical care, food or decent housing, independent of whether a person can pay. Those are not rights in the sense that free speech and freedom of travel are rights. If it is said that a person has rights to medical care, food and housing, and has no means of paying, how does he enjoy them? There’s no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy who provides them… So-called rights to medical care, food and decent housing impose an obligation on some other American who, through the tax code, must be denied his right to his earnings. In other words, when Congress gives one American a right to something he didn’t earn, it takes away the right of another American to something he did earn… Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we’d call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution… Income redistribution not only betrays the founders’ vision, it’s a sin in the eyes of God. I’m guessing that when God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ I’m sure he didn’t mean ‘thou shalt not steal unless there was a majority vote in Congress’.” —Walter Williams

I just found out that one of my favorite PETA stories is a complete fabrication. Doubtless its creator meant well. I’m sure he or she had just read of another of PETA’s stunts and had had just about enough. After all, these are the people that publish comic books portraying Dad as a frothing homicidal maniac for catching and cleaning fish.

Anyway, the debunked story is as follows: A bunch of PETA-heads in Ohio decided they would be cute and put blaze orange vests on 405 deer. Since hunters wear the vests to avoid being shot by their overzealous brethren during modern gun deer season, the vapid vegans thought to save the lives of the poor innocent game animals. However, the owner of a local sporting good store starting offering rewards for vested deer. Three hundred some-odd of the smartly attired quadrapeds were bagged in short order, since the orange overgarments defeated their natural camouflage. PETA’s short-sighted plan foiled by common sense. Its still kind of funny, even if it’s not true.

The thing about PETA is that it’s so loopy you don’t have to invent stories to make the organization and its members look whacky. Here are some real-life examples: http://www.furisdead.com/feat-momfur.asp and http://www.fishinghurts.com/pdfs/DaddyKillsAnimals.pdf#xml=http://www.petasearch.org/texis/search/pdfhi.txt?

You gotta love Vladimir Putin. He’s been busy laying the smack down on any and all organizations which stand between him and absolute power over in the old USSR. Of course Bush likes him, which makes as much sense as him inviting Ready Teddy over to the White House theater for popcorn.

Now he is going to stop selling gas to Ukraine, since that country refused to sign a contract with the Russian state monopoly Gazprom which would quadruple their current price. Ukraine is the conduit through which Europe receives 25% of its gasoline. Last time I looked, we are part of a global economy. Gas shortages in Europe are going to affect the prices of gas and petroleum products here.

So now is the time for all the Democrats and limp-wristed girls in the Senate who kept us from drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve to stand up and take a bow. Now would be a really good time to look at breaking a little of our dependence on foreign oil, but the PETA-heads have decided what’ best for all of us once again.

BTW, drilling up there isn’t going to have any significant impact on the caribou and (last I heard) the goofy-looking critters liked to huddle around the existing Alaskan pipeline to keep warm. Maybe we can ship ’em some solar powered space heaters to boot.

Drilling in ANWR wouldn’t solve all of our oil-related problems, but it would eventually account for about 20% of what we currently have to import from overseas. After we start drilling in some desolate part of the Great White North, maybe we can really go out on a limb and seriously discuss builing a new oil refinery for the first time in 30 years. If I had my way it would be constructed just off the coast of Kennebunkport.

Here’s the thing about Bush authorizing wiretaps without court warrants: its legal. The Dims know its legal. They just think the rest of us are too stupid to figure it out.

Looky here: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12949.htm and here: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12139.htm.

Will the facts stop them from starting impeachment proceedings should they regain some power in Congress next year? No way. There’s a subliminal command implanted in their subconscious minds by backward masking. It goes something like this, “Gotta get Bush. Bush is the devil. Gotta get Bush. Bush is the devil.”

How did this command get stuck in their pea brains in the first place? Well, rumor has it that all of the Dim congressbeasts have the remasters of Barbra’s greatest hits in heavy I-Pod rotation. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.