Youth funds diverted to libtard radio station Air America... as a loan
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Youth funds diverted to liberal radio station

The Bronx News has learned, through informed sources, that the diversion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Co-op City to the liberal Air America Radio is at the center of the city’s probe of corruption at the local club.

The money, which was reportedly paid to Air America as a loan, was supposed to be paid back with interest, two unidentified informed sources told the News. One source added that Air America officials, led by an official of the Gloria Wise Club, agreed to help the local club by publicizing its activities.

To date, no indictments have been handed down in the New York City Department of Investigation’s ongoing probe of the Gloria Wise Club’s reported transfer of funds to Air America.

Most of the Gloria Wise Club’s programs are for the Co-op City community, but the club also runs after-school programs in the Baychester/Edenwald and Soundview areas.

At the center of the investigation, in addition to Charles Rosen, the charismatic leader of the local club for the last 15 years, is Evan Cohen, who resigned, under fire, as chairman of Air America Radio shortly after its start as an alternative to conservative talk radio.

Cohen, at the time the alleged transfers of funds from the Gloria Wise Club to Air America took place, was also the director of Development for the local boys’ and girls’ club, the News has learned.

One source told the News that $480,000 in funds from the Gloria Wise Club is involved in the city’s investigation of illegal transfer of funds from the local club.

A second unidentified source stressed that Rosen never sought to profit personally from the reported loan that the Gloria Wise Club gave to Air America. The source emphasized that Rosen’s sole motive, even if it was a bit na?ve, was to benefit the Gloria Wise Club with the interest that Air America would pay for its loan from the local club.

The city’s DOI is pursuing the probe because the Gloria Wise Club depends heavily on city funding for its operations. These funds are subject to extensive audits, as are funds received through the state and federal governments.

The Co-op City-based club, which Rosen has built into an empire in the Co-op City community, reportedly has 19 contracts and at least one grant with the city, worth a total of $9.7 million.

Over the last year, Rep. Joseph Crowley has secured two major federal grants for the Gloria Wise Club, one for a day-care program for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers and the other for the community’s NORC program for senior citizens. The grant for the program for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers was for $250,000, while the grant for the NORC program was for $99,410.

In 2003, Crowley secured a $218,500 grant for a mentoring program that the Gloria Wise Club runs.

Cohen, who is reportedly at the center of the Gloria Wise probe, is a Guam-based investors who was reportedly a key principal in the start-up of Air America, which has been billed as the liberals’ answer to conservative talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Shaun Hannity, Bob Grant, Michael Savage, and G. Gordon Liddy.

Bronx News - Gotham Community Gazette ~ Michael Horowitz ** Youth funds diverted to liberal radio station

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin, who has links to other information about the story...
Michelle Malkin.com ** AIR AMERICA: STEALING FROM POOR KIDS?!

Front Page Magazine.com ~ Michelle Malkin ** AIR AMERICA: STEALING FROM POOR KIDS?!

Clinton Pardoned National Security Leaker
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Bill Clinton Pardoned Nat'l. Security Leaker

No wonder 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been silent as a churchmouse about Karl Rove while her Democratic colleagues call for his prosecution for leaking classified information about CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Turns out - in the only case in U.S. history of a person successfully prosecuted for leaking classified information to the press - Hillary's husband pardoned the guilty party.

On January 20, 2001, President Clinton pardoned Samuel Loring Morison, a civilian analyst with the Office of Naval Intelligence. In 1984, Morison had been convicted of providing classified satellite photos of an under-construction Soviet nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly.

He received a two-year jail sentence.

In pardoning Morison, Clinton dismissed the advice of the CIA.

"We said we were obviously opposed - it was a vigorous 'Hell, no,'" one senior intelligence official told the Washington Post at the time. "We think ... giving pardons to people who are convicted of doing that sends the wrong signal to people who are currently entrusted with classified information."

Morison is the only person ever successfully prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act, the law invoked by Democrats who want to nail Rove after it became clear that he didn't violate the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

But it's going to be difficult for Dems to feign national security outrage over Plame's outing when the husband of their party's presidential front-runner let an actual convicted leaker off the hook.

Last week, when Sen. John Kerry called for Mr. Rove to be fired, with Hillary standing by his side, she nodded silently. When reporters asked her what she thought of the alleged Rove outrage, she offered only, "I'm nodding."

No doubt while remembering her husband's pardon of Mr. Morison.

News Max.com ~ Carl Limbacher ** Bill Clinton Pardoned Nat'l. Security Leaker

Hillary Clintax wants cease-fire in Dem ideology war
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

To show how bad the internal divisions have grown in the continuously splintering Dem Party, Hillary Clinton publicly acknowledged a rift and asked for a “cease-fire” in the interest of beating the GOP. Hillary has it wrong, unity between the centrists and liberals is an impossible dream and will not produce something with wide enough appeals to win back the Senate, House, Presidency or most of the Governor’s mansions. The party needs to run the liberals out on a rail or they will never be a dominant party again.

Sen. Clinton Calls for Party Truce, United Front

Prospective '08 Candidates Say Democrats Must Do More Than Oppose Bush Policies

COLUMBUS, Ohio, - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) called Monday for a cease-fire among warring factions of the Democratic Party, arguing that a united front is needed to reverse the party's recent electoral defeats and halt the advance of conservative Republican ideology.

Clinton was the marquee attraction among a procession of prospective 2008 Democratic presidential candidates who spoke at the annual summer meeting of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) -- a group that was a springboard for Bill Clinton's first White House bid 13 years ago. She announced that she had taken a new position with the group aimed at winning back heartland voters.

All the prospective candidates emphasized that opposition to President Bush's policies alone will not put the Democrats back in the White House, but it was Clinton who forcefully argued that the Democrats no longer can afford internal strife and must bridge long-standing divisions to regain power.

"We Democrats have not yet succeeded in isolating and defeating the far right, in part because we have allowed ourselves to be split between left, right and center," she said. Noting that the DLC had often been in the forefront of those intraparty battles, she said all Democrats should agree to a truce and unite around shared values, "values violated every day in Washington by the ideologues of the Republican right."

Bill Clinton used his chairmanship of the DLC in the early 1990s to engage in some of those intraparty fights, urging a break from traditional liberalism and emphasizing "New Democrat" themes that foreshadowed his 1992 campaign. But in taking on a central role with the DLC, the New York senator suggested she would use her position less to create intellectual friction in the party than to serve as a voice around whom all Democrats can rally. "It is vital that we bring everyone's positive Democratic progressive ideas to the table," she said.

Although the next presidential campaign is three years away, Monday's session had clear overtones of that coming race. Three other Democrats actively considering running in 2008 -- Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, the newly named DLC chairman; Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), the outgoing DLC chairman; and Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner, who just concluded a year as chairman of the National Governors Association -- competed with Clinton for attention.

Warner, Vilsack and Bayh -- all current or former governors -- used the meeting to introduce themselves to the delegates as potential national candidates, each testing new themes in carefully crafted speeches. Implicit in all three speeches was the suggestion that they have records demonstrating how to win and govern in places, such as the South and the rural Midwest, where Democrats have faltered in recent presidential elections -- a boast that Hillary Clinton cannot make for herself.

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner told the Democratic Leadership Council in Columbus that the "solutions we offered in the 1990s aren't enough." >>>>>

Attendees gave all four prospective candidates good reviews, but the mob scene that surrounded Clinton afterward showed she retains a special position within the party, one that for now seems to transcend the party's ideological camps.

In her speech, Clinton accused Republicans of reversing the course established by Democrats in the 1990s. "They turned our bridge to the 21st century into a tunnel back to the 19th century," she said. Then, with a time-machine metaphor, she offered an idealized vision of America in 2020 after other, presumably Democratic, policies had been put in place.

That America included a more protected homeland, a better-equipped and trained military, and diplomatic reengagement abroad as well as refocused attention on domestic problems such as health care, the budget deficit and strains on families.

Clinton drew a rebuke from the Republican National Committee, where a spokeswoman said her new DLC role could not hide the fact that she has a liberal record in the Senate and before.

Bayh said Democrats should put aside the doubt and denial that has plagued the party since Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) lost to Bush last November. He also said internal party debates about the semantics and framing of messages is largely irrelevant to the real challenge of adapting party principles to the 21st century.

Democrats, he argued, must win public trust on security issues. While there is a right time and a wrong time to use military force, Bayh lamented: "We don't even get to have that discussion because too many of our fellow countrymen out here in the heartland have concluded -- inappropriately, but they've concluded nonetheless -- that we don't have the spine or the backbone to use force even in the face of the most compelling circumstances. And that must change."

Vilsack criticized Bush for misleading the nation before going to war in Iraq and for failing, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a shared sacrifice among all Americans. Noting the sacrifice paid by those who have lost their lives in battle, and their families, he asked: "Is it right, is it fair, is it the American way, to ask a small sliver of our society to bear full responsibility? Is that really affording a sense of community? I think not, and I think it's time for change."

Warner accused Republicans in Washington of being out of touch with the priorities of the rest of the country. "In today's Washington," he said, "politicians work deep into the night to write laws to interfere with the family of Terri Schiavo, but ignore the fact that 45 million Americans have no health care."

He said those kinds of actions have alienated independent and moderate Republican voters, and argued that these voters could be won by Democrats if they back the right policies. Warner, who made a fortune before politics as a telecommunications entrepreneur, said Democrats must show voters they understand the realities of the global economy and how technology has affected America's competitive position in the world.

These realities mean that the "solutions we offered in the 1990s aren't enough," he said. "Sometimes defending the same programs, thinking they're going to get us new results, makes no sense. We need leaders who can see a bit farther down the road."

Washington Post ~ Dan Balz ** Sen. Clinton Calls for Party Truce, United Front

The libtard anti-war, funeral crashing, PA lieutenant governor (D-bitch) Catherine Baker Knoll story
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

With friends like these....

What, besides an excessive fondness for groceries, do Catherine Baker Knoll, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, and ultra-left wing film maker Michael Moore have in common?

Air Force Major Gregory Stone, an air liaison officer with the 101st Airborne Division, was killed in Kuwait in March, 2003, when Sgt. Hasan Akbar rolled a grenade into the tent where he was quartered.

Moore used footage of Maj. Stone's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in his antiwar propaganda film, Fahrenheit 9/11. He did so without the permission of Maj. Stone's family.

The family was not pleased. Maj. Stone's mother called Moore a "maggot that eats off the dead."

Catherine Baker Knoll has done Moore one better (or worse).

On July 19th, a funeral service was held at St. John Lutheran Church in Carnegie for Staff Sergeant Joseph Goodrich, 32. Goodrich and fellow Marine reservist Lance Corporal Ryan Kovacicek, 22, were killed by mortar fire July 10th while conducting combat operations in Hit, in western Iraq.

Goodrich, a Marine reservist since 1993, also had been a police officer, and the church was filled to overflowing with Marines and cops who came to say farewell to their fallen comrade.

Goodrich was remembered as a principled, good natured person who always had time to help other people with their problems.

"He was always upbeat, always smiling, never had a bad thing to say about anyone," recalled HM1 Mike Debich, a Navy corpsman in Goodrich's unit, Kilo Company of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, based in Moundsville, W. Va.

Brian Armstrong, a police officer for the borough of Forest Hills, had served with Goodrich as a cop at the Kennywood amusement park, and was inspired by Goodrich's example to join the Marine reserve.

"When bad things would happen, he would handle it with a take charge attitude," said Armstrong, who served in Iraq with Military Police Co. Bravo, a reserve unit based in North Versailles. "That's when the Marine came out of him."

After his wife, Amy, being a Marine was the most important thing in Goodrich's life, Armstrong said. Goodrich's father, James, had been a Marine in World War II.

"He wouldn't have wanted to die. He loved life too much. But if he had to die, he would have wanted to die as a Marine, defending his country," Armstrong said.

Catherine Baker Knoll, who lives in nearby McKees Rocks, crashed the funeral, plopping herself down in the pew next to Linda Kubiak, Goodrich's aunt. During the communion service, Knoll told Kubiak she attends 90 percent of these "functions" across the state.

"This was not a function," fumed Rhonda Goodrich, Joseph's sister in law. "A function is a dinner or an awards ceremony. This was my brother-in-law's funeral."

Then Knoll handed Kubiak her business card and confided: "I want you to know our (state) government is against this war."

"When my sister in law related that to us, everyone just gasped," said Goodrich's mother, Patricia. "We didn't feel it was appropriate at all." "I am amazed and disgusted Knoll finds a Marine funeral a prime place to campaign," Rhonda Goodrich said.

Rhonda Goodrich was by no means alone in her amazement and disgust. "As a Marine Corps officer, it is unethical for me to express political opinions, but my opinion of this sorry excuse for a human being has nothing to do with politics," an officer in Goodrich's battalion in Iraq emailed the web log "Rhymes with Right."

"After seeing dozens of my fellow Marines from my battalion get killed these last few months, I always felt that at the very least that these men were being honorably brought back to their families and being laid to rest with as much dignity as our nation could afford to provide.

"This woman has misrepresented our government, and poorly represents the state of Pennsylvania," the officer said. "If Pennsylvanians have any self respect at all, they will take whatever legal methods are available and toss her out of office immediately."

Gov. Ed Rendell faces a stiff re-election fight next year. If he wants to get re-elected, he'd better think about getting a new running mate. "Maggots who eat off the dead" tend not to attract many votes.

Jewish World Review.com ~ Jack Kelly ** With friends like these....

White House Signals Recess Appointment For Bolton - Friday Night?
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

The White House signaled on Monday that President Bush may bypass the Senate and appoint John Bolton, his embattled nominee for U.N. ambassador, to the post temporarily as hope faded for a Senate vote on the nomination. A recess appointment could be announced as early as Friday night, immediately after the Senate is scheduled to adjourn for the monthlong August recess, congressional aides said. Bolton adjusts his glasses as he testifies at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination in Washington April 11, 2005. ^

Bush may bypass Senate and appoint Bolton to UN

WASHINGTON - The White House signaled on Monday that President Bush may bypass the Senate and appoint John Bolton, his embattled nominee for U.N. ambassador, to the post temporarily as hope faded for a Senate vote on the nomination.

Congressional aides said a recess appointment could be announced as early as Friday night, immediately after the Senate is scheduled to adjourn for the monthlong August break. A recess appointment would allow Bolton to take up the U.N. post but he would serve only until January 2007.

The nomination of the blunt-spoken conservative has been held up by accusations he tried to manipulate intelligence and intimidated intelligence analysts to support his hawkish views in his post as the top U.S. diplomat for arms control.

Some critics have also seized on reports he may have been involved in leaking the identity of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, but a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bolton had neither testified nor been asked to do so before the grand jury investigating the leak.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush has used recess appointments in instances where "there are important priorities we're working to advance and it's important to have people in certain positions."

McClellan declined to say whether Bolton would receive a recess appointment.

But when asked in general about possible recess appointments, McClellan said, "If the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees, then sometimes there comes a point where the president has needed to fill that in a timely manner by recessing those nominees."

Asked if his U.N. nominee fit into that category, McClellan said: "There's nothing that's changed, in terms of what we said previously on that at this point."

When asked earlier this month about the prospects of a recess appointment for Bolton, McClellan would only say that the White House was seeking an "up or down vote" in the Senate.

Senate Democratic leaders have removed a possible hurdle by signaling that they would not use a recess appointment of Bolton to hold up Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It's unlikely that one would be used against the other," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

There had been questions about whether Bolton would accept a recess appointment, which lawmakers said would send him to the United Nations in a weakened political position.

But Republicans say Bolton has signaled his willingness to accept a recess appointment if another vote by the Senate is unlikely to occur.

McClellan said it was premature to speculate on what "may or may not occur" until the Senate adjourns.

But congressional aides said there were no immediate plans to bring Bolton's nomination back to the floor of the Senate for another vote. "I don't see any appetite for that," one senior Democratic aide said.

In procedural votes in May and June, Democrats denied Republicans the 60 votes needed from the 100-member chamber to bring debate on Bolton to a close and move to a confirmation vote, which would require a simple majority.

A number of Democrats and Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record) have urged Bush to give up on Bolton and offer another nominee.

(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen and Paul Eckert)
Yahoo News ~ Adam Entous - Reuters ** Bush may bypass Senate and appoint Bolton to UN

FL Dems deciding which GOP gov. candidate to support
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

The author is hardly pro-GOP. But she says that Dems in Florida have basically written off any hopes of winning the Governor’s mansion next year.

Pick your person; ax the party

Much more than a year away, the election of Florida's next governor is already great cocktail party talk in the capital city where many Democrats are deciding which Republican they'll support.

It's a matter of practicality to not be too fussy about parties, though it is still good to have some discrimination regarding personnel within the party.

There is, in effect, just the one party despite an almost even split in party registration in Florida. That would be the party with the bank vaults full of money and, I'm visualizing here, Swiss bank accounts holding elusive contributions to the Grand Old Party that will be handed out as party favors in lesser races.

For nearly a decade, a loophole in Florida's campaign-finance laws has allowed candidates to receive money and aid directly from political parties. This loophole means parties simply don't have to be as scrupulously detailed in their give-and-take as individual candidates do. It's wrong and the law should be changed.

Not that the Democratic Party would get a pass on decadent and indiscriminate party spending. It's just that it doesn't have much money to squander on dirty tricks.

I predict, though, that as the primary nears the Republican dirty tricks in the governor's race will be mostly intraparty - the top guns trying to bring down each other, not Democrats. It will get ugly and the test will be of who can respond to adversity best.

By all accounts, it's going to be the most expensive gubernatorial race in Florida history. I can't imagine why since it's also going to be the most politically lopsided race in decades.

I give you as evidence the contribution totals from the last quarterly reports: Attorney General Charlie Crist has raised $3.8 million; Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, $3 million.

By comparison, Democrat Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua had raised $397,000, and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, (D-Tampa) had raised $390,000. Former Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox's campaign may be resurrected, because miracles do happen, but even if he should win the primary, so what?

As for Toni Jennings: Where is she? Is she going to be sent is a the relief quarterback if Crist and Gallagher destroy each other? Just asking.

So that's 10-to-1 in favor of the Republicans. Proof, certainly, that the incumbency amounts to one motherlode of power and cash.

This election is a sad state of affairs if you're a classic Democrat and not a strictly theoretical one. If you've got a fond memory for when Democrats were not so rigid that they were ineffectual; when moderate Democrats won because most people are, at heart, moderate, and when the GOP just couldn't bring itself to get grubby or utter the words "Joe Six Pack."

It's not much easier for today's moderate Republicans, who are dismayed by seeing their party hijacked by either extremists or self-serving muggles.

I hear about more and more people from both parties who are considering registering as independents to at least keep some dignity when their party seems silly or tyrannical.

It is frustrating as an independent to miss out voting in the primary, but now that there is no Florida runoff, even that first vote isn't really about representative government.

Without a runoff, a candidate with as little as 15 percent of the vote can win the nomination if there are enough candidates to divide the votes. This won't happen in a gubernatorial race most likely, but it will in many others on down the ticket where factions and one-issue zealots can hijack the vote.

This campaign law, like the one allowing such loose watch over party money, isn't right and Gov. Bush was wrong to have vetoed a bill to bring back the runoff.

So what's an interested voter supposed to do?

Try to find the candidate who most closely resembles what you once thought of as a noble political warrior - whenever it was that you were at the peak of your political judgment and the least jaded.

Those would probably be pretty good values to go by and look for in a candidate regardless of labels. Decency, a person who can look you in the eye, a sense of humor, just a little indifference to winning at all costs. Beware of too much charm. And study the issues you care about so you aren't a complete fool, trusting in sound bite reasoning.

It will take discipline and a certain high-minded optimism to believe that some individuals really are more than the sum of their party affiliation; that some can accept contributions without selling their soul.

But it's up to you to ferret out what's real and what's fiction and whether you can even trust yourself to do what's best for yourself and your community.

When you reached 18, did you ever dream you'd be signing up up for this?

Tallahassee Democrat ~ Knight Ridder - Mary Ann Lindley ** Pick your person; ax the party

More Dem fundraising woes ~ Rove Protest a Windfall for GOP Lawmaker
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Dem sugar daddy "Americans Coming Together" is laying off workers in the face of disappointing fundraising just as the DNC continue to trail the GOP in dollars. All of this spells trouble for the Dems mid-term hopes.

Democratic Booster Cuts Liberal Spending

America Coming Together, the liberal 527 that spent lavishly during the 2004 campaign, is sharply scaling back its operations and laying off employees in the face of lackluster fundraising. "It's been very difficult to raise the amount of money we had hoped to raise," Harold Ickes, one of the group's directors, told Roll Call.

So what has happened to all the liberal money? Ask Howard Dean.

The Democratic National Committee reported that Democrats' fundraising during the first half of this year jumped by more than 50 percent compared with the same period in 2003, the last non-election year. The Democratic National Committee, the party's Senate and House campaign committees along with its constellation of state and local parties reported taking in more than $86 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Their Republican counterparts posted a more modest 2 percent increase over the same period in 2003. But the GOP still significantly outfundraised the Democrats, receiving more than $142 million.

The DNC recorded a 66 percent increase, from $19 million in 2003 to $31 million this year. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's fundraising more than doubled to nearly $23 million. The Republican National Committee said it raised $62 million, up 11 percent from 2003. The National Republican Senatorial Committee said fundraising increased by more than 40 percent to $21 million.

Rove Protest a Windfall for GOP Lawmaker

MoveOn and another liberal activist group picketed Bush aide Karl Rove's appearance at a fundraiser Tuesday on Pennsylvania Avenue for Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.). Some of the demonstrators carried plungers to highlight the Justice Department's probe into Rove's role in the "leak" of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. But Rove, driving a Ford Escape, slipped into the garage unnoticed by the demonstrators.

But the protest -- and the previous effort to get Gerlach to dump Rove from the $1,000-a-head fundraiser -- appear to have had the reverse of the intended effect. The Wayne (Pa.) Suburban newspaper quoted organizers saying that attendance increased from the original plan for 40 people to more than 100 coming out to see what Rove had to say.

Good Politician, Lousy Journalist

Q: Did you take notes?

A: No.

Q: Did you tape it?

A: No. I don't have time to read notes. Anyhow, I was there, why would I need notes? I don't write for the New York Times.

-- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), talking with reporters about his private meeting Wednesday with Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.

Washington Post ~ Dana Milbank, Brian Faler ** Democratic Booster Cuts Liberal Spending

DNC chief (quite the word-smith) Coward Deanpeace now says: GOP proposals ''screwing working people''
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Howard Dean Again Ratchets up Anti-Bush Rhetoric
Source: Cybercast News Service

Despite being scolded in June by members of his own party for inflammatory remarks targeting Republicans, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean Friday showed no willingness to back off.

At one point, he characterized the Republican version of campaign finance reform as "screwing working people and making sure that the fat cats are giving more money."

Back in June, Dean accused Republicans of operating with a "dark, difficult and dishonest vision" of America. Dean labeled President Bush the "most ineffective" president in his lifetime.

And in referring to the long voting lines during the last presidential election, Dean speculated that Republican voters didn't mind the lines as much. "Republicans, I guess, can do that (stand in line) because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives," Dean said on June 2.

Several Democratic governors and members of Congress denounced Dean's comments, but on Friday, the Democratic Party chairman was back to hurling insults.

President Bush "only likes to hear from people who agree with him," Dean told the College Democrats of America, and Republicans, he said, "are all about voter suppression."

After asking the students to donate money to the Democratic National Committee, Dean said "one of the biggest problems in this culture of corruption that the Republicans brought to Washington, is they sold our government to the highest bidder.

"If we want it back, we'll have to buy it back," Dean said.

He also said the president was partly responsible for a recent Supreme Court decision involving eminent domain.

"The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is 'okay' to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is," Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.

Dean's reference to the "right-wing" court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the fourth dissenter.

The court's liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.

"We think that eminent domain does not belong in the private sector. It is for public use only," Dean said.

The former Vermont governor cited moral values as the stamp of the Democratic Party.

"We are Democrats because we have moral values," Dean said. "We think it's a moral value to stop stealing money out of the Social Security trust fund." The Democratic Party's moral values, according to Dean, also include an obligation "to balance the budget," and have a "strong public education system."

The Democratic Party chairman suggested that Bush should be "reaching out and putting a collar and a mouthpiece on some of these people in his own party that are encouraging bigotry against immigrants in order to win the 2006 election.

"I am sick of being divided!" Dean shouted over the applause.

Regarding his support for Bob Casey, the pro-life Democrat running for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, Dean said that "we ought to respect people's positions of conscience."

"A pro-life Democrat, unlike a pro-life Republican, cares about kids after they're born, not just before," Dean said.

He closed by encouraging the College Democrats to "fight for what you believe in ... We don't need two Republican parties," Dean said.

Townhall.com ~ CNSNews.com ** Howard Dean Again Ratchets up Anti-Bush Rhetoric

Abortion support declines among young women ~ Abortion conflict growing in Dem Party
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Abortion support declines among young women
By: Leon H ~ Section: Culture ~ Red State.org

Support for young women for unrestricted abortion on demand is declining. Of the reasons, the 'sonogram effect' is among the most interesting. Unlike 10 years ago, nearly everyone has seen a sonogram. As they have grown more detailed and, recently, 3D it personifies the fetus. It is harder to write off a baby as tissue when you can see it open its eyes and suck its thumb.

Glamour Magazine Mourns the Pro-Life Shift

Given the extraordinary male dominance of the RedState.org editorial staff, we all collectively almost missed a very interesting article that was stuffed all the way in the back of the most recent Glamour magazine. However, thankfully, some of us have people who live in our households who read these kinds of publications, so with a tip of the hat to Mrs. Nachos, let's examine The mysterious disappearance of young pro-choice women below the fold.

In the first place, it will be noted at once by anyone who takes time to read the entire article that it is ridiculously slanted toward the pro-choice position - to the point that it barely escapes the realm of evangelism. However, my wife reads these things enough to tell me that, for Glamour, this really is pretty even-headed, and the fish are making a somewhat honest attempt to see the water they are swimming in. In my opinion, they fail miserably, but I digress. Let's be honest - we expect to find balanced political commentary from Glamour Magazine about like we expect to find it at Red State.org.

After I resisted the temptation to write a piece blasting the ridiculous inherent bias of the authors, I found that the article actually has a lot of encouraging news for pro-life voters. First of all, the article begins with the premise, established by various polling organizations, that support for unrestricted legal abortion has taken a nose dive among females aged 18-29.

For instance, according to a CBS/New York Times poll cited in the article, 49% of 18-29 year old women believed that abortion should be "available to anyone who wants it" in 1993. In 2003 among the same age group, only 35% of respondents believed abortion should be "available to anyone who wants it." In 2005, only 28% of respondents favored making abortion "available to anyone who wants it."

Furhtermore, in 1993, 30% of female respondents in the 18-29 year old age group believed that abortion should be "available, but with stricter limits." By 2005, the number had risen to 40%.

Most encouraging of all, only 19% of respondents in 1993 believed that abortion should be "not permitted." By 2005, the number had risen to 30%.

The article lists a number of different reasons why support for the pro-choice movement is dwindling among younger women, which merit bullet-pointing and brief commentary.

First, although the authors themselves do not bullet-point this reason, much of the introduction to the article is dedicated to the proposition that today's younger women are pro-life simply because they don't know what it was like back in the scary days when you had to take a legal risk to have an abortion.

Putting aside the fact that this is easily the weakest pro-choice argument (philosophically speaking), in the context of this article, it's also factually implausible. If the poll in 1993 was conducted among women aged 18-29, then the oldest respondents in the initial poll would have been nine years old in 1973 when Roe and Doe were decided.

Now, while I'll grant the proposition that there may have been some respondents to this poll who really wanted to get abortions when they were nine years old, but were forced into the "back alleys", I'll reject the notion that the number is high enough to make any statistical difference whatsoever - and it's certainly not nearly enough to account for the fact that support for the NARAL position (abortion on demand, no questions asked) has fallen nearly in half among the age group in question.

Second, the article notes Birth control confidence as a reason for declining support for the pro-choice movement. Many young women, the article notes, are inclined to have a lot less sympathy for girls who get pregnant and want to have abortions, given the amazing proliferation of free (or very cheap) birth control available these days. They reason, if you are so incredibly irresponsible as to have unprotected sex in this day and age, you ought to live with the consequences of that decision.

This is, of course, a valid point, and yet another stirling example of liberals shooting themselves in the foot.

Third, the article credits a Pro-life movement makeover. Now, the author of this particular article suffers from terminal liberal bias, and so can only credit the campaign against partial birth abortion, and the claimed link between abortion and breast cancer. What the author misses is the general fact that we've become much more effective and organized at getting our entire message out.

The reality is that abortion is an incredibly calloused and gruesome procedure when performed at virtually any time during pregnancy. What we came to realize is that it's much more visibly gruesome in the latter second trimester. When we undertook the PBA fight in the mid-90s with widespread bipartisan support and an effective advertising campaign, it illustrated two things. First, it exposed the fallacy, at least in some cases, that abortion is the medical equivalent of having a tumor removed. Second, when the horrifying pictures and images were made public, the reaction of virtually every human being still possessed of a conscience was abject and utter disgust. "Who could support that?" people asked. And when NARAL and Planned Parenthood stepped forward to do just that, the soullessness of the pro-choice movement was exposed.

The article next credits what it calls The sonogram effect. The theory (and it is a valid one) is that advances in sonogram technology have conspired to make the fetus a much more personal experience. The article states:

"Everyone has seen a sonogram by now," says pollster Conway. "You've seen them taped to a colleague's computer for three months, or your mom's sent you one in the mail and said, Look, this is going to be your nephew.' These scientific images are shifting the debate."

Indeed.

Two valid points need to be made here. First, this the reason that abortion rights groups are furious over statutes that are quietly cropping up in some places mandating that women seeking abortions must first view a sonogram. Why do they oppose this? Well, because women who see them very infrequently go through with the abortion. It kind of gives the lie to the whole notion that nobody's "pro-abortion", as Howard Dean likes to tell (scream at) us.

But further you might ask, "Why, seriously?" If abortion is a medical procedure, between a woman and her doctor, in what other medical procedure would an advocacy group actually fight something that would give a patient more information about a medical procedure they were about to undergo? Have you ever heard of the American Cancer Society opposing CAT-scans? The North American Spine Society opposing MRIs? Would either of those groups have a problem with a patient viewing the results of these tests with their doctor? If abortion really is "just a medical procedure", there is absolutely no justification for abortion advocacy groups to oppose pre-abortion sonograms. One by one, the lies of the pro-choice movement are being peeled away, and their knee-jerk reaction against sonograms is but another example.

Second, pro-life advocates should support companies that specialize in sonogram and prenatal imaging research in whatever way they can. Buy stock in companies that are procuding imaging machines that can render in full-color 3D - do what you can to help make these as commonplace as the grainy sonograms you've seen taped to people's computers. The more human fetuses become, the more the battle for life shifts in our favor.

The article next cites A new reverence for motherhood. According to the article, the stigma of giving children up for adoption has been replaced with admiration. What was once shameful has now become the altruistic thing to do. There is much to be commended for avoiding behavior that leads to unwanted pregnancy. However, when all the failsafes fail, it is a likewise commendable shift in our attitude that we are more willing to forgive and support, and less willing to bathe in shame and disgrace. One can only assume that this attitude will likewise improve with time.

The last portion of the article, Who still needs choice? is really nothing more than a smearing charge of hypocrisy against all the new pro-life young women. When put in a pinch, the article contends, we bet they'd still all get abortions. You can read the final section yourself and make of it what you will, it's late and I've rattled on long enough already.

The final point of this whole discussion is that we've found hope for the future of the pro-life cause in a very unlikely source. Nobody is more prone to fits of desperation on this issue than I am, and I mourn the fact that too often I have allowed my indignation to cross the line and turn people off. But the point of it all is that persuasion is working. Slowly but surely, if we maintain the course, the battle will be swung our way.

Red State.org ~ Leon H ** Glamour Magazine Mourns the Pro-Life Shift

Abortion conflict growing in Dem Party

This is an article on a "progressive" web site. What is important is that abortion is a key issue for Dems. It is how they attract new, young idiot voters and raise big bucks. But it causes increasingly well organized resistance and the appeal of abortion may be declining. This may seem strange source to post content from here but it is important. The theme of this site is that the Dems depend upon a coalition of groups which is unraveling at the seams. I believe that this dependence makes it hard for them to change with the times. Like a stone around their necks environmentalists, abortionists, big labor, socialists, gay-culture radicals and others are killing the Dem party.

Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats
By: Joshua Frank ~ Dissident Voice.org

"I don't do gonadal politics."

-- Ralph Nader, 1996, thus encountering the eternal wrath of pro-abortion progressives.

How can anybody reasonably consider the Democrats the party of opposition? I mean, what exactly do they oppose? Far too many Dems in Washington are reading whatever dyslexic cue cards George Lakoff flashes in front of them.

The one issue you'd think the Democrats would want to stand behind, as President Bush appoints a pro-lifer to the bench, is the right for a woman to get an abortion. But here we have commander in chair Howard Dean exclaiming that Democrats should drop their pro-choice shtick and do what they can to pull more pro-lifers into the fold.

"I think we need to talk about this issue differently," Dean said on June 20. "The Republicans have painted us as a pro-abortion party. I don't know anybody in America who is pro-abortion."

Translation: "Abortion is murder, and nobody I know in America is pro-murder!"

The true motives of the Democratic establishment, on occasion, shine right on through their repugnant rhetoric. As if you can really be "pro-woman" if you aren't "pro-choice." As if the Democrats don't already have enough anti-choicers calling the shots in DC.

Harry Reid, the Democratic Minority Leader in the Senate, is blatantly anti-choice. NARAL reports that Sen. Reid has voted against "choice" 70 percent of the time he's been given a chance. And we're supposed to believe that Reid and Dean can organize any sort of opposition to John Roberts?

Go on hoping. But you can hope in one hand and crap in the other. See which one gets filled first.

Senator Hilary Clinton, a likely presidential candidate in 2008, has recently taken the same anti-choice line Dean has authorized. It's just one more fib in a laundry list of Democratic cant. Like, we're "for labor" but we'll pass NAFTA. Or we are "for the environment" but we'll pass the Salvage Rider. Or "we want to uphold privacy" but love the infringing PATRIOT ACT. Or, like, we "oppose Bush's foreign policy agenda" but want to keep thousands of troops occupying Iraq, and while we are at it why not bomb Iran.

The fact is the Democrats have absolutely no program that will build any alternative to the Republican onslaught. Their ineptness goes well beyond losing a few elections here and there; the Democrats can't even win the hearts and minds of all those disenfranchised Americans who will never go to the polls, simply because they don't see any reason to vote.

How long will we have to wait for the Democrats to embrace a living wage? How long will it be until the Democrats oppose the "war on terror"? How about supporting universal health care? We can rest assured that we'll be waiting for a long, long time. The Democrats are simply not the alternative to the conservative takeover of America. They are the enablers.

At a time when the Democrats can stand behind an issue that actually means something, like "choice", they fade into the shadowy ether, ever increasing their transparent myopia. Go ahead. Sit back and watch the nomination of Roberts be affirmed by the overwhelming majority of the Democrats in DC, despite the fact that Roberts as deputy solicitor general under the first President George Bush argued to the Supreme Court that, "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

Dissident Voice.org ~ Joshua Frank ** Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats

Hillary Clintax to direct creation of Democrats' agenda... her blueprint is due in ONE YEAR
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Clinton to Direct Creation of Democrats' Agenda

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Democratic Leadership Council, an organization of influential party moderates, named Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today to direct a new initiative to define a party agenda for the 2006 and 2008 elections.

The appointment solidified the identification of Clinton, once considered a champion of the party's left, with the centrist movement that helped propel her husband to the White House in 1992. It also continued her effort, which has accelerated in recent months, to present herself as a moderate on issues such as national security, immigration and abortion.

In her new role, the New York Democrat immediately called for a truce between the DLC and liberal elements of the party, which have engaged in a ferocious war of words over the Democrats' direction since President Bush won reelection in November.

"Now, I know the DLC has taken some shots from some within our party and that it has returned fire too," she told a gathering of the group here. "Well, I think it's high time for a cease-fire, time for all Democrats to work together based on the fundamental values we all share."

Clinton assumed her role as head of the DLC's "American Dream Initiative" at a meeting that drew three other centrist Democrats widely considered possible 2008 contenders and highlighted the maneuvering already underway for the next presidential race.

Besides Clinton, roughly 500 elected officials and DLC supporters who convened at a downtown hotel also heard from Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), the DLC's outgoing chairman; Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who replaced Bayh this month; and outgoing Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

The session amounted to one of the first multi-candidate "cattle calls" for the potential 2008 contenders.

"I thought I was at a New Hampshire J-J dinner," joked Warner, in a reference to the Jefferson-Jackson party dinners that are frequent platforms for presidential contenders.

Each potential candidate delivered a campaign-style speech that blended criticism of the Bush administration with calls for Democrats to pursue centrist policies on such issues as national defense, energy and the federal budget.

Clinton's speech was built around an elaborate metaphor of what the country might look like on issues from healthcare to homeland security to a similar gathering that assembled in Ohio in 15 years.

Vilsack focused on restoring a greater sense of community and "shared sacrifice," Bayh emphasized the need to persuade Americans that Democrats could effectively safeguard national security, and Warner stressed the economic competition with rising nations such as China and India.

"The race is on for the future," Warner declared.

Those in the audience generally liked what they heard.

"We are going to be able to field an A-team in 2008," said Louis Magazzu, a local official in Cumberland County, N.J., after listening to the speeches.

Despite the calls for unity from Clinton, Bayh and other speakers, the day underscored continuing divisions among Democrats about how to rebuild at a time when Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

While many liberal activists insist the party's highest priority must be to block Bush's initiatives, DLC officials universally argued that Democrats would not recover until they fill in their own agenda.

"I think the nation fully understands what we are against," Vilsack said in an interview. "I think it is incumbent now to show what we are for."

The proceedings also highlighted a fissure among centrist "New Democrats." While the DLC recently endorsed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Clinton voted against it in the Senate. Almost all House "New Democrats" are expected to oppose it when the lower chamber votes on the agreement this week. Several of the speakers sounded more skeptical notes toward free trade than were common among moderate Democrats in the 1990s.

The meeting comes at a time when the DLC is struggling to maintain the influence in the party it wielded when Bill Clinton held the White House.

Leading party centrists formed the DLC after Ronald Reagan's landslide reelection victory in 1984 over Walter F. Mondale, who was allied with the most liberal Democratic interest groups.

Urging Democrats to seize the political center, the DLC helped formulate key "New Democrat" ideas for Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, such as welfare reform and national service. Clinton chaired the group from 1990 through 1991 and brought many figures involved with it into his two administrations.

Since Clinton left office, though, a broad array of liberal activists, many of them clustered around left-leaning websites like the Daily Kos, have accused the DLC of weakening the party by advocating positions, such as support for free trade or the Iraq war, that they say have blurred distinctions with the GOP.

David Sirota, a Democratic consultant who posts indefatigably on his own liberal web log, responded to the news of the "American Dream Initiative" Clinton is leading by warning that Democrats would be doomed to "permanent minority status" if they followed the DLC direction.

"The fact is, the Democratic Party has to make a choice: is it going to continue to follow the DLC, be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate America, and lose elections for the infinite future," he wrote in an e-mail. "Or is it going to go back to its roots of really representing the middle class and standing up for ordinary people's economic rights?"

Clinton said that she would reach out not only to centrists but "progressive people from all perspectives" to prepare her blueprint, which is due in one year.

But the fierce remarks from Sirota — and only somewhat more muted criticism of liberal groups like MoveOn.org — show the challenge of devising a program that attracts broad support across the party.

Indeed, Al From, the DLC founder, said in an interview that the plan was not intended to "be a lowest common denominator agenda" assembled by compromising among all elements of the party.

All this suggests that strains could develop between Clinton's desire to write a plan popular with as wide an array of Democrats as possible and the DLC's hope of crafting a sharply focused centrist road map — even if that means continued conflict with liberals that Clinton may be reluctant to antagonize.

LA Times ~ Ronald Brownstein ** Clinton to Direct Creation of Democrats' Agenda