. . . the love Republican moderates have for themselves, that is. Not all of their constituents are basking in the afterglow following the sell out by the jack ass 14, however. According to the South Carolina Republican Party, the state GOP HQ got 900 phone calls from pissed off Republicans after Senator Lindsey Grahahm put his name on the document allowing Dems to continue fillibustering every conservative in sight.

(Picture this: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid at the podium, saying, “In light of new allegations that Mr. Joe Average once attempted to prepare for his own retirement, has home schooled his children, and once legally purchased a handgun from a federally licensed fire arms dealer at a gun show, we will require at least 60 votes to confirm Mr. Average as the President’s liason to the White House grounds staff. Amen.”

Perhaps some fired-up folks will form some political action committees to get the Republican members of the jack ass 14 out of office when their current terms expire. It goes without saying the Dem members need to go. (Note to Republican high-ups: start promoting a GOP Senate candidate in Arknasas at least a year before the election, don’t wait until the last three weeks.)

Besides damaging some of their political careers (I hope), the agreement not to fillibuster three out of 10 current judicial nominees has certainly done a lot of good for non-judicial nominees, hasn’t it? Take the case of John Bolton, for instance. He barely makes it out of committee only to get fillibustered yesterday.

And why are the lib dems fillibustering him? Because he yells at people who tell him one thing and do another. Because he takes a hard-line stance against communist dicatators. Because he is not afraid to say what he thinks.

(Allegations of Bolton chasing a woman down a Russian hotel hallway in a fit of anger and pounding on her door have turned out to be a bunch of malarky. She is a member of an anti-Bush activist group and was known as a whiner during the time Bolton supposedly chased her ’round. Strange that she didn’t whine about that incident until Bush wanted Bolton for the U.N. rep.)

The Dems don’t like Bolton because he is strongly conservative, opinionated, pro-Second Amendment, doesn’t tolerate a lot of crap, knows what he likes, what he doesn’t, and how he defines right and wrong. In short, he has testicular fortitude and (with the possible exception of Hillary) the Dems don’t. Jealousy is a terrible thing.

I must amend my previous post. There was one fillibuster of a judicial nominee prior to Cowboy Dubya and his posse arriving on the scene.

According to the new edition of National Review, Abe Fortas was fillibustered by a bi-partisan group of Senators in 1968. He was Johnson’s nominee to be Supreme Court Chief Justice. He was fillibustered to allow more discussion, which revealed some serious ethics problems. Fortas, already a member of the Supremes, resigned from the Court a few months later.

Attempts were made by a lone Republican to fillibuster a couple of Clinton nominees in 1999 and 2000, but these didn’t go anywhere. Not enough GOPers went along with the idea and the fillibusters never had enough votes to get started.

And that’s it. The great Senate tradition of fillibustering judicial nominees. One bi-partisan case 30 plus years ago and two failed attempts in the Clinton years. Aren’t you glad the jackass 14 stood up for the rights of the minority?

First, let me apologize for the poor writing exhibited in this post. I am so angry. I just saw the news about a deal being reached between moderate Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate tonight.

Doesn’t anyone understand that the “nuclear option” would just be a Senate rules change? Fillibusters for judicial nominees are NOT guaranteed in the Constitution! What is the big, fat, hairy deal about letting the party that controls the White House and both Houses of Congress put some conservatives in positions of authority? The people elected majorities of GOPers to the House and Senate. A majority of 3.5 million people put Bush back in the presidency. A coalition of 14 Senators, seven of them RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) thwarted the will of the people. And they are Proud of it! PROUD! McCain helped lead this “Gang of 14” renegades. He has aspirations to the presidency. Who does he expect to vote for him? Democrats? Not hardly. And he has sold out the conservatives who put him in office.

I have a copy of the U.S. Constitution in front of me. Article 2, section 2 says the President can nominate and appoint federal judges with the “Advice and Consent” of the Senate. How do you get fillibuster out of advise and and consent? There are specific instances throughout the Consitution that require a two-thirds approval of the Senate. Guess what, approving judicial nominees is not one of those instances! Go to http://www.fed-soc.org/pdf/Filibusters.pdf for some good reading.

The fact is, Bush is the first president to ever have judicial nominees fillibustered en masse. Don’t believe it when you hear talk about “time honored traditions of the Senate” or similar crap. The lib dems changed the rules when the started fillibustering Bush’s people and they know it.

Don’t let anyone tell you Bush has had (insert large number here) of his judicial nominees approved. This is about appellate court nominees. And Bush has the lowest percentage of appellate court nominees approved of any president since Truman. Why? Because federal appellate court judgeships are very powerful positions and the people who hold them make good Supreme Court candidates. The lib dems are scared silly of one or two more conservatives like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas making it to the Supreme Court.

Speaking of Clarence Thomas, has anyone else noticed that the lib dems, party of the minority, have been fillibustering women and hispanics? Did any democrats out there see the harsh treatment given to Condoleeza Rice during her confirmation hearing? Does anyone see a disconnect? The party of the minority, the weak and oppressed, will throw their weight against you and do their best to damn any chance you have of ever making any positive gain for yourself unless you espouse their socialist agenda.

So what do moderates stand for, these RINOs who have sold out their own party? What do they offer the country and those who voted for them? Compromise instead of victory. Half of the immediate prize and none of the future promise. Weak-kneed servitude to the minority lib dems.

They should be proud, these moderates. They stand for nothing and gladly promise more of the same to anyone who should listen. If any readers care to change this, contact the offices of McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of these cowards and tell them how you feel.

Now here’s a slogan we won’t hear chanted by drooling liberal mobs: “Newsweek lied, people died!” The mental picture of Howard Dean blowing spittle while chanting this little mantra brings a smile to my face.

But the hatred and illogic which gave rise to the “Bush lied, people died” motto will work to justify Newsweek’s crime in the eyes of the liberal throng. I’m sure it won’t really matter to the average liberal that 16 people died because of Newsweek’s false article. It was for a worthy cause, they were trying to smear Bush and the U.S. military.

Besides, Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of millions, right? Wrong. Practically every world intelligence agency worth its salt thought that there were WMDs in Iraq. Saddam prohibited the use of surveillance drones over certain parts of his country, indicating he was trying to hide something. The U.N. types who whined about us going in are now found to have been getting oil to sell on the world market courtesy of Saddam.

In short, Bush didn’t lie. Newsweek writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry decided to take the word of an unnamed government source who said he had seen reports of the Koran-flushings. Now this same source isn’t so sure he saw those reports after all. So maybe Newsweek didn’t lie, their source did. Or maybe Isikoff and Barry invented the source, and they were lying after all. That’s the thing with a single anonymous source. Who is to say the person really exists?

But Barry and Isikoff are following in a grand tradition of writers who invent stories. Remember Jason Blair, the guy who was fired from the New York Times for making up events? And we can’t forget Dan Rather, who went with the forged documents because they suited his political purpose.

This may be a good thing in America, because these kinds of fabrications only besmirch the already tarnished reputation of the mainstream media. However, a lot of Muslims aren’t buying Newseek’s admission of guilt. They think the magazine is under pressure by the government to retract its story. Isikoff and Barry may have succeeded in making America look bad in the eyes of Muslims everywhere, at least Muslims who aren’t familiar with the media’s perpetual war against Bush and conservatives.

If you hear a succession of very loud popping noises coming from both coasts, it will be liberal elites pulling their heads out. But I wouldn’t stand around waiting for it.

President Bush and his administration have the right idea on many issues, but fail miserably when they attempt to address the growing problem of illegal immigration. The recently concluded Minuteman Project points up these shortcomings clearly.

First, a bit of history: the Minuteman Project was formed by ordinary citizens from across the nation who formed a coalition to patrol a porous section of Arizona border. During the month of April, these volunteers watched over several miles of border frequently used by Mexicans to gain illegal entry to the U.S. While they were on watch, the Minutemen received all kinds of negative press predicting violent clashes, etc. (None ever occurred, despite many Minutemen being legally armed.) President Bush went so far as to call the volunteers vigilantes.

To paraphrase dictionary.com, a vigilante is one who takes the matters of law enforcement in his or her own hands or condones the same. In this regard the Minutemen were vigilantes, but so what? They broke no laws and did a job the U.S Border Patrol is unwilling and/or unable to do.

The Minutemen did a great job, alerting Border Patrol agents when they saw illegals making their way across the border. Their vigilance resulted in the arrest of several illegals and a drastic reduction in the number of border crossings. Area residents summed up their feelings regarding the Minuteman Project in a half-page ad in a local newspaper which thanked them for the most peaceful month they had experienced in a long time and for doing a job the government won’t – closing the border.

Now we learn from several Border Patrol agents that supervisors within the organization have given orders that illegals crossing the border where the Minutemen patrolled should not be arrested. The volunteer project can’t be perceived as having been a success, you see.

Bush’s comments regarding the Minutemen, his proposal of amnesty for illegals already in the U.S., and his failure to hire sufficient numbers of Border Patrol agents to do their job and to allow them to do it show his failure to properly address the problem.

Mexican President Vicente Fox knows that the money illegal aliens send back to their kin in Mexico is his country’s second largest source of income. He has a vested interest in keeping our borders open. What is President Bush’s motivation?

While watching “Hero” at the theater with my wife a few months ago, it suddenly struck me why this movie was so popular in China.

Let me begin with a brief summary of the plot. If you haven’t seen this movie and plan on watching it soon, stop reading now. It is set way back in Chinese history when seven kingdoms were fighting amongst each other to dominate the others. Nameless, the hero of Hero, is sent to kill the leader of the largest, most powerful kingdom. Nameless wants revenge because his father was killed fighting the warlord’s forces (I think – it’s been a few months). He gains a private audience with the warlord and has the chance to kill him, but doesn’t after deciding a unified China under the warlord’s rule is better than the prolonged struggle among the kingdoms should the warlord die. He lets the warlord’s soldiers kill him in the end.

So do I think that revenge for his dad’s death is the only thing that matters? No. I think the plot is a thinly disguised pro-communist promotional tool. Individuals don’t matter when compared to the greater good. And neither do individual cultures, their histories, or beliefs. Safety and prosperity are best achieved by the repression of individuality under a strong totalitarian rule.

No wonder this movie was the highest-grossing film in Chinese cinematic history. It makes the populace feel better about living under a regime that represses and persecutes anything that doesn’t receive the government’s seal of approval. And, in so doing, it denigrates the spirit of individuality which still flourishes in America (much to the lib dems’ chagrin).

Try this on for size: Terri Schiavo’s husband finally got the government to kill her despite no solid evidence that she wanted to die. Margaret Rich, a 14-year-old girl in Boulder, Colo., is being charged with second-degree murder after she helped her father commit suicide.

Where is the disconnect? The courts had only Michael Schiavo’s testimony that his wife wouldn’t want to continue living in her then-current state. There were no written documents to back him up. There were a number of news stories that came out before Terri died that indicated Michael didn’t have his wife’s best interests at heart. I wonder how the policemen felt who arrested people for trying to give Terri water. Government sanctioned starvation, with no one having the guts to just kill her outright.

On the other hand, it was clear Margaret Rich’s father Garrett wanted to die. She had found him in pain after shooting himself in a suicide attempt. Margaret picked up the gun and finished the job. Was what she did right? Probably not. Was it any less wrong than the government-sanctioned killing in the Schiavo case? No. Maybe Margaret wouldn’t have been charged if she had starved her father to death inducing euphoria, according to some “experts.” I’m sure the charges would still have been forthcoming, unless she got the stamp of approval from the almighty judicial system.

What a crock.