If you have some well-to-do friends who don't think their tax rates are high enough and would not object if their rates went up, you may want to suggest a couple of possibilities to them to solve this problem. First, they can file their tax returns without claiming any exemptions or deductions. If this isn’t sufficient, here is an excerpt from Publication 17 of the IRS that will provide them with unlimited possibilities for paying more:

I would suggest that they not follow the suggestion in the last paragraph because it kind of defeats the goal of paying more taxes.

Physicists and others seeking to unlock the mysteries of the universe posit many theories about what exists beyond our night sky. One of the more intriguing theories is that our universe is just one of many universes, or dimensions, in which our doppelganger encounters different experiences and thus, different outcomes. Given the bizarre rhetoric being used by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and President Obama lately, this theory is becoming all the more believable by the minute.

When confronted with the news that the economy has gotten worse under President Obama, both the President and Congresswoman have offered up answers that display a stunning disregard for what is happening with the economy. Failing the possibility that both have crossed into our dimension via a liberal wormhole, answers such as the economy is struggling due to the increased adoption of new-fangled job-killers such as ATMs or it has hit a soft patch because of the reluctance of conservatives to accept increased taxes in the form of an ever-increasing "fair share" can be seen for what they are: partisan spin.

The Democrats' calls for an increased "fair share," while excellent on the stump, will do nothing to spare the economy from the dreadful bleeding of jobs that has occurred during this administration. Wasserman Schultz is left with nothing that remotely resembles a success in the almost three years of the Obama administration so she must provide blinkered responses to the cold, hard facts: 1.9 million jobs have been lost, gasoline prices have more than doubled, and the debt has ballooned to an unsustainable $14 trillion under Democratic guidance. It is no wonder she is left to insist weakly that the Democrats have "turned the economy around."

In Weiner-esque fashion, President Obama's policies have been exposed. Left with the difficult task of selling the value of an economy that has gotten demonstrably worse, Wasserman Schultz can only pull the cord on her failsafe Democrat See-and-Say and repeat, pull, repeat. The results are the predictable complaints ranging from the natural disaster in Japan to Greece's eventual default, a crisis that Ms. Wasserman Schultz should watch closely for future spin when the U.S. meets a similar fate. By then, if a Democrat still holds the White House, she will surely resort to a "nothing to see here" redux of bumbling cop Frank Drebin from the Naked Gun movies.

The comedic cop routine would be an improvement, though, to the mainstay of liberal politics: accusations of racism. Simply pointing out the massive failure of the stimulus package and the Democrats' plan to turn the economy around now conjures up images of a return to Jim Crow laws and the mistreatment of African-Americans in Wasserman Schultz's alternate universe. A shameful, libelous non sequitur is now the last refuge of a Democrat when reality doesn't fit the liberal storyline where their policies are rousing successes even when evidence points to the contrary.

Still, that evidence is making even Wasserman Schultz and President Obama bow to reality. At a forum held by Politico.com, Wasserman Schultz claimed "ownership" of the economy on behalf of her fellow Democrats. That ownership presumably includes the wasted disaster that was the stimulus package which spent $1 trillion of borrowed money. At the time of passage, promises were made that the unemployment rate wouldn't climb over 8% if the bill passed and jobs would blossom from the tree of the Congressional spending spree. As is painfully obvious, this failed to materialize and led to the President's poor attempt at humor that "shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected." Outside of the President's deluded pied pipers, most Americans aren't laughing at the gargantuan waste and ineffectiveness of his policies.

With 2012 approaching, it appears unlikely that the economy will begin to turn around sufficiently enough for the President to fulfill Wasserman Schultz's silly claims of economic achievements. What remains then is the contemptible use of the race card against Republican critics and other worldly economic claims that can only be construed as accomplishments in the swamp of DC. Jobs and debt are the worries of the average voter and their doubts will be an electoral death knell for the President no matter their spin or accusations of racism. Then again, maybe President Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz know something the rest of us don't and the Recovery Summer is just one worldly dimension away.

Page reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/06/the_alternate_universe_of_democrats.html

At the moment, the Democrat Party is reeling like a boxer who's taken too many combinations to the body. The audience can sense a knockout, and the party's doing everything it can to prevent itself from falling face first to the mat.

The first combination came from a weakening economy which the Democrats have failed to attempt any form of repair. No instead, they have opted for a complete economic transformation from capitalism to statism. Consequently, the economy has only worsened.

The second combination landed from health-care. While both sides of the aisle have agreed that the status quo wasn't acceptable, liberals have manufactured a health-care crisis. They have told the American people that reform was needed immediately-so immediate that there was no time for discussion-and it could only be dealt with appropriately by means of a massive government takeover of the entire system. A majority of the American people don't believe them.

The third combination, hailed from national security, stunned the body. The American people thought that after eight years of security on their homeland, 9/11 was just a distant memory in our nation's history. We were wrong. Liberals have proven to not be the party of national security. We continue to be a nation at war abroad and now we're even more on alert at home as we've witnessed a rise in domestic terrorism. They are not keeping us safe.

Then just as the Democrats gathered themselves and believed that they could dodge any further punches and counter back with a strong left jab, by reaching closer to forcing their unpopular health-care reform legislation upon the nation, the fourth combination landed viciously.

The disclosure of Senator Harry Reid's racist comments towards Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential Election have served as a devastating blow. The liberals' playbook of identity politics has served effectively to manipulate people to secure their votes, which they need to further advance their agenda. As a result of his comments, Reid has debunked the myth that liberals are the "pro-minority party" and revealed that his party is only pro-itself.

Now the audience is wondering, how much more can this lefty take?
Despite the party's damage control presentation as a united front, the various damaging combinations to the body have knocked off the masks that liberals have worn over their heads for years to sell themselves to the electorate. Now we see why they say in boxing, kill the body, the head will fall.

Definitely not as anything that is good for the nation. Although they will remain in power for the meantime, they are reeling, knowing that they're but a haymaker away from landing on the canvass.

J.C. Arenas is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and welcomes your comments at jcarenas.com

Immanuel Kant once observed that “he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.” I thought about Kant when I recently learned that the Obamas had graced their dog ‘Bo’ with a dog house shaped birthday cake made out of veal – that’s right, veal – the most expensive item on many a restaurant menu.

Winter is approaching and many American families find themselves struggling with severe job loss and a rather bleak vision of the normally festive holiday season. But over at the White House nothing is too good for the nation’s pampered first pet. Says Michelle:

“We had a really sweet celebration – [Bo] got a doghouse cake made out of veal stuff and he had his brother Cappy come over and we had party hats."

Veal stuff? Veal calves are usually brought straight from the auction arena by veal producers and placed immediately into a 2 by 5 foot stall. The calf lives so confined for the next 3 or 4 months unable to move and eats nothing but an iron poor liquid diet designed to prevent its tender meat from becoming too dark. The anemic calf is then taken away and slaughtered.

Veal gourmets might dispute Kant’s conclusion above but consider the following: if George and Laura Bush had been party to an effort to construct a dog house birthday cake made out of veal wouldn’t the left (and PETA) be screaming about cruelty and insensitivity at the White House, especially during these difficult economic times?

Will PETA be the next ACORN? Conservative blogs and websites have been working to uncover a scandal at PETA which has the potential to destroy the credibility of the radical animal-rights organization.

For example, at BigGovernment.com, Mary Grabar has written an expose on the organization. As she notes,

But PETA is not only engaged in legal pay-to-play, their relationships are highly suspicious. They are allies with groups which one would assume are hostile to their goals, and enemies with other companies one would assume should be allies. The question, of course, is ... "why?" As a recent Human Events article noted an interesting fact; PETA's "partner" VISA maintains prominent partnerships with Omaha Steaks and the Kentucky Derby. For obvious reasons, these partnerships seem to contradict PETA's radical goals.

As Human Events noted, "VISA's partnership with Omaha Steaks is such that when a person uses the card to buy a mail-order sampler box, Omaha Steaks receives a whopping 68 percent discount." That's a deal I could get interested in, but then again, I'm not a PETA member.

Here's the rub. According to PETA's worldview, VISA is not only funding a major distributor of animal products -- they are actually an accomplice to the promotion of eating a "slaughtered"animals.

Moreover, PETA recently put out a press release which makes the hypocrisy of these partnerships blatantly obvious:

If one subscribes to PETA's world view, they must logically also conclude that VISA is a partner, and therefore funder to companies and events that support and profit from some of the most egregious violations to animal rights.

But the PETA/VISA connection is not the only questionable "partnership" uncovered. Human Events also pointed out a similar contradiction in PETA's actions concerning its campaign against the Canadian Olympics. It notes, "Currently, PETA is running a campaign to pressure the Canadian government to end an annual seal hunt during which the animals are bludgeoned to death. This sport has been targeted by PETA, and a statement released to urge the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee ‘to use its clout to help stop the Canadian seal slaughter.'"

Similarly, it was interesting to find that VISA maintains a partnership with the Kentucky Derby, the most popular horse race in the world. PETA has made direct assertions to the public to avoid support of this "exploitative 'sport,'" yet does not directly confront one of its funders.

Clearly, PETA is willing to overlook a few minor flaws when partnerships have the potential to impact their bottom line. That would be fine if they had not attacked MasterCard for employing the same type of strategic partnerships. For example, MasterCard is a partner of Ringling Brothers Circus. In response, PETA attacked MasterCard renaming it, "NastyCard."

At the end of the day, PETA is another example of a liberal interest group which wears their ideals on their shoulder -- until you show them the money.

Georgia Arms replied to an e-mail in which I asked if the casings policy (where the Department of Defense would scrap used casings rather than sell them to ammunition manufacturers) was still in effect. They advised that the policy was changed after 5 days because of customer uproar to their elected officials in Washington. It shows that sometimes Washington does listen to the voters.

Sean Harkins, in the April 17, 2009 edition of The Alpena News, reported on Michigan Democratic Party Chair, Mark Brewer. He has been traveling through a dozen Northern Michigan counties to talk to local parties and attempt to sign up candidates. He said the Democrats are targeting the 36th and 37th district senate seats now held by Tony Stamas and Jason Allen. He is also searching for a candidate for the 106th district state house seat now held by Andy Neumann, an Alpena Democrat.

The Democrats apparently think the jobs being done by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Pres. Barack Hussein Obama are so impressive that they deserve additional seats in the legislature and the State offices. We still have at least 75% of the people in our area employed. We must need to lower that some more. We still have some money left after paying taxes. We have to get that to the State, local and federal government as soon as possible. We should only be satisfied when everyone is equally poor and living on welfare.

Michael Calderone of Politico on Feb. 5, 2009, reported on a conversation between liberal radio host Bill Press and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who only believes in the 1st Amendment for Democrats, and is married to Tom Athans, a liberal talk radio executive.

Calderone reported on Feb. 11, 2009, that Stabenow has now backed off on the idea of hearings for radio accountability but that others in her party, including Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa have taken up the issue.

If Democrats can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, and succeed on talk radio, the answer is to make sure that in the only media market where Conservatives have an edge, the radio must be silenced.

Rep. Jack "Abscam" Murtha, of Pennsylvania, who accused Marines of cold-blooded murder in Iraq, charges that have been dismissed against the marines so accused, has long been closely tied to defense lobbyists, may have some trouble coming his way, according to a report by Emma Schwartz and Justin Rood of ABC News on Feb. 9, 2009.

The FBI has raided the Virginia headquarter of the PMA Group in November and in January, agents of the FBI, IRS, and Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the office of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, as well as the homes of the firms' founders. The two firms have received over $100 million in earmarks, thanks to Murtha's efforts.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has called Murtha one of the most corrupt members of Congress, for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from companies and writing them millions of dollars in earmarks. Murtha has declined to comment on the designation.

Like a lot of Democrats, former Washington mayor, Marion Barry, seems to have an aversion to paying taxes. According to a report by Brian Westley of the Associated Press on February 9, 2009, US Assistant Attorney Tom Zeno said Barry, who is a current District of Columbia Council member has failed to file his taxes on time for the 8th time in nine years. He is on probation for a previous conviction for failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2004. As a part of the plea bargain, he agreed to file future federal and local tax returns annually.

The prosecutors are trying to have him thrown into jail, or at the least, have his probation extended.

On Feb. 10, 2009 the Telegraph.co.uk from London reported on Joe Biden's latest gaffe. Joe Biden, in discussing the latest stimulus proposal said: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."

President Barack Obama, when questioned at his press conference on Feb. 9, 2009, as reporters started giggling about Biden's statement said: "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly." It could be a long four years for the perfect team.

A friend from Georgia recently went to a gun shop to try to buy ammunition. The place was packed. The owners finally told everyone trying to buy a gun to go to one of two salesmen, and anyone else to come to him. Everyone in the store, except for 3 people went to the salesmen. The high volume of gun sales has caused an ammunition shortage which will probably last till March. As our friend was leaving the store he saw a picture of Obama with the label "Salesman of the Month." It seems that those buyers are on the mark. On Feb. 25, 2009, ABC News reported that the Obama administration will seek to reinstate the "assault" weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration. For those who don't remember, an "assault" weapon is any semi-automatic that the liberals think is ugly.

Those of us who are "dish nuts" are stunned to learn from the guardian.co.uk on Jan. 5, 2009, that Waterford Wedgwood, the 250-year-old maker of luxury glassware and china was placed into bankruptcy.

The mayor of Waterford, Ireland, Jack Walsh, has warned that if production ceased at the Waterford crystal factory, it would be a "national disaster." The company is seeking new funding with the probability that it will have to turn over a controlling share of the company.

The Canada Free Press, on Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, noting that the liberal Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, trying to place the blame for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fiascoes on the Bush Administration and Republicans in general, located a videotape from a Fox News program showing the true story. Despite threats of a proprietary rights lawsuit if the videotape was run on You Tube, a video now appears on a conservative Canadian website, ProudToBeCanadian.CA clearly showing President Bush warning of the dangers in April 2001 and again in 2003. These calls were met with resistance from the House Finance Committee Chairman, Barney Frank, who vehemently denied any problems with the two entitled saying there was "no crisis." The requested legislation for controls was blocked by House Democrats and killed.

In April of 2005, Charles Schumer, liberal Democrat senator from New York dismissed similar warnings from then-Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, saying that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "did a very, very good job." The video can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1

The dailytech.com reported on Jan. 1, 2009 that satellite observations of the sea ice over the 30 years of observation show that the level is the same as it was in 1979.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Sea ice is floating and doesn't affect ocean levels, but due to its transient nature responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.

The earlier predictions this year that the North pole ice could melt entirely in 2008 were so wrong was attributed to colder temperatures, weaker winds, the fact that the new thinner ice grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The TimesOnline from the United Kingdom reported on Jan. 4, 2009, that residents of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, are complaining that it is falling apart.

Fairway Oaks, built in northern Florida by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a 17-day blitz, are known 8 years later for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.

A lawyer representing many of the 85 homeowners said that Habitat for Humanity should have told people that part of the estate had been built on a rubbish dump. One resident pulled up his floorboards to find rubbish 5 feet deep under his kitchen. Others complain of cracking walls and rotting door frames. The case claims the idea that using volunteers, rather than professional builders is causing as many problems as it solves.

HOW CRYPTO-MARXISM WON THE COLD WAR
By James Lewis, May 23, 2008

Today, for the first time in American history we have two --- count 'em, two --- hard-core Leftists running for the Democrat Party nomination. The Left hasn't had this kind of chance for power since Truman defeated Henry Wallace in 1948. Hillary and Obama are Marx twins who only differ in race and gender.

All the media tell us is how great it is to have a woman and a black man running for president. What those two really believe, where they learned their quasi-religion, where they derive their support, who else they want to raise to power, and what they will do if they get there --- all that doesn't even get discussed. All over the world, Leftist hearts are leaping at Hillarybama. What exciting progress!

Wait a minute. Marxism lost the Cold War, right? The Soviet Empire came down, Eastern Europe was liberated, China is now semi-capitalist, and post-socialist countries like India are thriving like never before. More of the world is prospering, because economic and political freedoms have spread since the USSR crumbled. Even Russia has a low, flat tax to encourage free markets. Indigenous talents and enterprise are finally being liberated, and the results are wonderful for hundreds of millions of people.

Liberals are upset today because free-market economies are growing too fast, and are therefore polluting an unsullied Mamma Earth. Tens of millions of ordinary people in China and India are doing too well. The elites seem to yearn for the good old days --- the famines in India, the massacres in Russia and China --- and that wonderful sense of being in charge of human progress.

And yet ... in spite of years and years of Leftist catastrophes, our organs of propaganda are still tilting drunkenly to the Left. Crypto-Marxism, a barely disguised revival of the old farce, is flourishing in our chattering classes. The prestige that Marxism lost in the real world soon came back in fantasy. Oh, if people only loved one another! Oh, if people only cared! Oh, if we only had real solidarity with the wretched of the earth! That's the feel-good story. But the real yearning is for power: Oh, if only people like us were in charge of everything.

In Britain, under the daily pounding of the Bolshie Beeb, the most admired "philosopher" of all time is now ... blood-dripping old Karl Marx. Freedom is routinely trashed; thieving tyrants like Hugo Chavez are celebrated.

"Crypto Marxism" --- crypto meaning "hidden" --- is a useful word to describe what's happened in the last twenty years. Because as soon as the Soviet Union crumbled, a host of barely disguised post-Marxist ideologies grabbed the microphones: the Green Movement, now furiously peddling global warming fraud; Third Way socialism in Europe, trying to hitch the welfare wagon to free markets; the European Union, a new autocracy of unelected committees, exactly what the USSR used to call "workers' Soviets"; the unbelievably corrupt, bigoted and self-serving United Nations; and all over the academic world, an explosion of anti-Western and anti-democratic fads like Post-Modernism, Multi-Culturalism, Deconstructionism, Feminism, anti-Zionism, Black Liberation Theology and other repackaged Marx imitations. It was a triumph of image-making and marketing.

Today, crypto-Marxism dominates our political discourse. It's wild --- just as if Nazi goose stepping had became a popular sport after World War Two, instead of the hula-hoop. The Nazis were horrific in their thirteen years in power. The Marxists had seventy years in the Soviet Union, and managed to kill 100 million people according to Marxist historians themselves. But here we are, twenty years later, and all that is deliberated wiped from our minds.

So --- who won the seventy-year struggle of the Cold War? We did in reality. The good guys really did triumph, and in the most profound way, going by Sun Tzu's Art of War --- not by waging a mega-war, but by constant political pressure, by far outrunning Marxist regimes economically, and by a spontaneous revulsion from within the Soviet Empire itself. Yet we fought many small wars --- and two large, bloody and unpopular ones, in Korea and Vietnam. The United States and a few allies faced down numerous Marxist threats in a very determined way. It was a huge test of our will to live and win.

And yet, today the New York Times makes a boutique specialty out of writing loving obits for flaming Old Reds, when they finally sputter out and die. No one on the American Left has ever expressed public sorrow for the estimated 100 million people killed by Marxist murderocracies; after all, they were murdered for "idealistic" reason. The crumbling of the Soviet Empire simply made it possible for the Left to walk away from Darth Vader and the Evil Empire. Soviet Union? Never heard of it.

As Rush Limbaugh often says, conservatives stopped teaching when the Soviet Union fell. Marxists, on the other hand, just accelerated their propaganda. Privately they mourned the "idealistic" experiment of the Soviet Union --- never confessing their own, whole-hearted participation in unrelenting evil. The Boomer Lefties rose to power in the 1970s, and they were not going to sacrifice their religiomania just because all the Marxist nations walked away from Marx. (Except for North Korea, which is still as murderously Stalinist as ever.)

In fact, without the Soviets our hard-core Leftists were no longer agents of a foreign power --- as the KGB archives showed that many of them were during decades of Moscow's control. So they could pretend to be running different "idealistic" movements: Red changed to Green, but that was it. The mainstream media learned to peddle that old Daily Worker agitprop instead of real news, until talk radio and the web broke the media monopoly, and conservatism revived. In Europe this is only barely beginning to happen.

Since 9/11 the Left has been telling itself how really patriotic it is --- providing that you redefine patriotism as internationalism, just like the old CP USA. And of course, the vitally important history of the Cold War is being written by the hard-core Left. It's just as if the Confederate South controlled the history of the Civil War.

Senator Joe Lieberman's fate shows what has happens to centrist Democrats: They are all but thrown out for deviationism, which is exactly what Josef Stalin used to do with the CP USA.

Both Obama and Hillary grew up on the Alinsky Left, which only a theologian can tell from orthodox Marxism. Coming out of Yale Law, Hillary joined a crypto Marxist law outfit in Oakland, California. David Horowitz, who was part of that world until he recovered his moral center, has been pretty clear about the real roots and goals of that Greater Berkeley network.

The triumph of crypto-Marxism is not just weird, it's dangerous. The Reds haven't changed. They have just metastatized: That is why we are now so vulnerable to the next wave of totalitarianism, the Islamofascist kind. The long struggle of Western civilization against bloody tyranny is being covered up. The very real danger of new totalitarianism is being dismissed.

We have to start teaching again from scratch.

Well, that's how it is.

Note to conservatives: You don't win a war until the histories are written.

Roll up your sleeves and go to it. There's work to do.

James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com

Page Reprinted by permission from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/how_cryptomarxism_won_the_cold.html at May 23, 2008

The "energy plan" announced by the Democrats offers one thing: a significant slowdown of our economy for at least twenty years. Those who run both legislative branches of the congress, and the energy plans of both of their leading candidates for president clothe themselves in the mantle of righteousness. That the Republicans are allowing this to happen, right before our eyes, tells us much about the sad state of American politics.

From their official website, here is the summary paragraph (including the bad grammar) of the Democrat plan to solve the energy crisis:

This is also the Democrat solution. Get it? The Democrat plan is the Democrat solution. In logic this is called petitio principii or "begging the question."

Ask yourself: which of the five components of the "plan" should happen first? "Reducing our dependence on foreign oil" is listed first. But it cannot happen first. In order to keep the economy moving ahead, some type of energy must replace foreign oil-and this energy must be tangible, readily available, and close to the market price of the energy it is replacing.

This is a crucial point and very few people seem to understand it. We cannot solve the energy crisis by talking about the creation of, say, hydrogen fuel cells for cars. We must have a fully functioning economy in the intervening thirty or forty years that it will take to "develop energy alternatives" like hydrogen fuel cells. In other words, the pressing question is not "What energy alternative will we be using in forty years?" The real question is: What energy alternative will we be using tomorrow that will allow us the economic prosperity to create future alternative energies much further down the road?

Presently, over eighty-five per cent of our energy comes from "fossil fuels." We use more than twenty million barrels of oil every day in this country. For the economy to expand and give us time to create alternative forms of energy we will need more, not less, moderately priced fossil fuels in the intervening years. Nowhere in the Democrat plan is there a strategy to provide this energy.

Make no mistake, we are entering an energy crisis. At five dollars a gallon a typical low-income family will spend nearly 20% of total income on gasoline each year. At ten dollars a gallon these people will not get to work -- especially in rural or suburban America where a car is an absolute must.

Where will the desperately needed and moderately priced energy come from? Most of the currently developed oil fields are in the hands of dictators, like Hugo Chavez and the Saudi Royal Family or in the hands of socialist governments, like Norway, Mexico, and Russia. They can afford to keep production low and prices high. Indeed, given their controlled economies, it makes absolute economic sense for them to do so. It is our job (not Saudi Arabia's) to develop new natural gas and oil resources to help stem rising energy costs.

The Democrat plan also calls for "eliminating billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies." (I could not discover when and how the federal government has provided "billions in subsides for oil and gas companies." I assume that this really means raising taxes on oil and gas companies.) How is this strategy going to provide one gallon of fuel for Americans? It certainly has not worked in the past when price controls and higher taxes have always led to long lines at the gas pumps.

The Democrats are playing a very dangerous game.[i] If we do not have a viable, recession free, economy in the short and medium term, then we will not get to a "cleaner, greener and stronger America" in the long run. We will not be able to sustain short-term economic growth that leads to long-term technological development without moderately priced energies being available throughout the process.

Republicans, if they are truly interested in America's future, had better start to point out the obvious flaws in the Democrats' "plan." Time to start drilling.

Larrey Anderson is a philosopher and writer living in Idaho. He can be reached at ldandersonbooks.com
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[i] Recently passed legislation that tinkered with our strategic oil reserves is nothing but a shallow ploy to try and lower gasoline prices a bit by Election Day. (That is all that the recently passed legislation will do-if it even does that-it is clearly an incumbents' reelection bill.) The fact that Republican senators rolled over (after their legislation to explore and drill for more domestic natural gas and oil was easily killed), and unanimously (minus one) voted for the Democrat sponsored bill indicates that elected Republicans are far more interested in staying in office than in solving the energy crisis.

Reprinted by permission from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/your_energy_future_under_the_d.html at May 19, 2008

DEMOCRATS, MOVE ON AND THE MONKEY TRAP
By Denis Keohane, September 18, 2007

There are varieties of the monkey trap used in Africa, South America and Asia. Some are pottery jugs, some are wooden boxes, but all work on the same principle. The trap is secured to something, perhaps tied to a tree. There is an opening in the trap large enough for the target monkey to reach his hand inside. Bait, usually nuts, is placed in the trap. The monkey reaches in, grasps a fistful of nuts, and finds that when his hand is clenched around the bait, he can’t remove it from the trap.

At that point, the concealed hunter who had been observing this approaches the monkey. Seeing danger coming, the monkey jumps around and shrieks in panic, spitting and snarling and going berserk, but does not do the one thing that would allow him to easily escape: let go of the nuts! He is caught or killed.

When it comes to the MoveOn ad about General Betray-Us, Democrats are like that monkey. There’s a national campaign looming, and there’s danger in it for them as a party, but they just can’t let go of the nuts.

Reprinted by permission from the American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/09/democrats_moveon_and_the_monke.html

In the January 2, 2004 edition, theglobeandmail.com carried an article by Marcus Gee commenting on Gen. Wesley Clark's performance in Kosovo.

In running for the Democratic Party nomination, Gen. Clark touts his performance in the war over Kosovo, at which time he was NATO commander. He claims the 78-day conflict in 1999 was an armed intervention that worked. He claims he "stopped a campaign of terror" and "liberated a people." He claims, that in contrast to President Bush's intervention in Iraq, he helped assemble a grand coalition against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Gee comments: "It would be a strong platform if it bore any resemblance to the truth. In fact, Gen. Clark is painting a glorified portrait of the Kosovo campaign, which was far less triumphant and multilateral than he would like Americans to think."

While Gen. Clark is right to say that Bill Clinton assembled a bigger coalition for Kosovo than Mr. Bush did for Iraq, Kosovo was still mostly a US mission. The thrust of the bombing campaign came from US warplanes and the decision to go ahead was essentially made in Washington. The United Nations was decidedly not on board. Clinton avoided seeking support for the war from the UN Security Council when it became clear that Russia and China were opposed. Canada, which said four years later that it could not possibly participate in the Iraq conflict without UN support, went merrily along. So much for multilateralism.

In this triumph of humanitarian intervention, when Gen. Clark unleashed his bombers on Serbia, it turned a messy conflict with ethnic Albanians, in which there had been many killings and at least one terrible massacre, into a true humanitarian disaster. Rather than halt the conflict, it intensified, with hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians fleeing the country in a refugee exodus that captivated the world.

When Mr. Milosovic pulled his troops out of Kosovo, making way for a NATO protection force, letting the refugees return to their homes after thousands had died, Gen. Clark claims the Albanians were liberated from Serb oppression. He says nothing about the Serbs, 180,000 of whom had to run for their lives as the Albanians took their revenge.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and a NATO garrison of more than 12,000 troops, this ethnically cleansed, fiercely nationalistic mini-state of Kosovo is still a poor, dangerous, unstable place where the remaining Serbs live in fear.

Talks on Kosovo's final status are scheduled to begin in the middle of 2005.

Serbia's situation is hardly better. In December, 2003, the Serbians elected an extreme nationalist and accused war criminal, Vojislav Seselj, who is in jail awaiting trial before the UN war-crimes tribunal in The Hague, where Milosovic has been performing since 2002. He, also, effectively won election when his Socialist party took 7.6% of the vote.

The conflict in Kosovo is hardly a model of good intervention, despite Gen. Clark's claims. It was, and is, a mess.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. wrote an article in the May 20, 2002 issue of FrontPageMagazine.com entitled "The 'Next War'; Will Carl Levin Be Allowed To Leave America Vulnerable to Missile Attack?"

Reacting to the recent overblown bloviation from Congressional Democrats about the attacks of 9/11, Gaffney recalled the bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission led by now-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 1998. When asked by Congress to assess the danger of ballistic missile attack on the United States, the Commission declared: "Sea-launch of shorter-range ballistic missiles. . . could enable a country to pose a direct territorial threat to the US sooner than it could by waiting to develop an intercontinental-range ballistic missile for launch from its own territory. Sea-launching could also permit it to target a larger area of the US than would a missile fired from its home territory."

With an estimated 25,000 vessels at sea on any given day, the majority of them flying flags of convenience, terrorists have a capability of launching a Scud-type missile which could reach most of the Nation's population centers.

Gaffney notes that the Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Carl Levin, have decided to hamstring President Bush's ability to address the missile threat. They propose to cut funds sought by the President and Secretary Rumsfeld to build missile defenses by roughly $800 million and introduced new bureaucratic impediments to swift acquisition of such defenses. By a straight party-line vote, the Democrats voted to transfer the money to ship-building and other member directed priorities.

Perhaps the next time we're attacked, the Democrats will look in a mirror first when looking to lay blame.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-RI, is the head of the Democratic Congressional Committee in charge of electing Democrat representatives. He has a definite point of view as to how that should be done. In a fit of pique after a vote on a gun control amendment which was engineered by his pro-gun Democrat colleague, Rep. John Dingell, D-MI, Kennedy stated: "We [Democrats] have written off rural America."

The truth of that statement is evident to Bruce Vincent of the League of Rural Voters who commented on the administration's end-run around the national forest planning process: "While trying to reinforce their eco-credentials, many politicians have resorted to bashing rural economies. Kennedy has said the Democrats are writing off rural areas because they don't need them to win the White House or recapture Congress."

America's 1st Freedom, September, 2000, noted that if 20% of the population remains rural, that's 54 million people. If 70% are of voting age, and 80% of these can be mobilized to vote, then 30 million rural voters can take charge of their political fortunes.

The Washington Times, September 4, 2000 reported on a study just released by the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE). The primaries had the lowest turnout in years. Turnout for states where both parties held presidential primaries was only 17% of the eligible voters, the second lowest in 35 years. These statistics lead CSAE to predict a historic low turnout for the general election.

What if those 30 million rural voters decided to buck the trend? Patrick Kennedy might take another look.

Compare these two statements...

From U.S. Representative Debbie Stabenow's congressional web site:

"Her first legislative initiative as a Member of Congress was the Computer Donation Incentive Act, a bill sponsored in partnership with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo that provides enhanced tax deductions to companies who donate computer equipment (2 years old or less) to elementary and secondary schools or to tax-exempt charitable organizations supporting elementary and secondary education. SHE incorporated this bill into the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997." (Emphasis added)

And...

Testimony given by Jerry Grayson of the Detweiler Foundation Computers for School Program (before the House Ways & Means Committee):

"The 21st Century Classrooms Act...provides businesses with an enhanced tax deduction for donation of equipment two years old or less. We are among the many students, parents, teachers and friends of education most grateful to CONGRESSMAN RANDY "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM for his sponsorship of this far-sighted legislation and his championing of better technology in our schools." (Emphasis added)

Someone is lying.

And it's not Rep. Cunningham.

As a state representative, Stabenow fudged facts. As a state senator, she exaggerated her influence. Now, as a U.S. representative, she's stealing other members' accomplishments. For further information, contact Mike Murray, Editor of Stabenow Watch at StabenowWatch@listbot.com, ALT: spindoctor2000@netscape.net

While Al Gore professes to have seen the light about the campaign finance abuses of the 1996 Clinton-Gore effort, the fallout continues.

William Hamilton, Jr. (on whose conviction we reported in February 2000 -- See the Archives under "Media") was sentenced to 36 months in prison, according to Bloomberg on March 14, 2000. Hamilton was part of the Teamsters/Democratic National Committee effort to use the union's money to elect Ron Carey president of the Teamsters and Clinton-Gore to the White House. He was convicted of embezzling $885,000 of union funds.

It is interesting to check out the Federal Election Commission's filings. They not only tell you something about the candidates, they raise some real questions.

As of the July filings, Al Gore had raised $19,559,571. He spent $8,211,047, leaving him with $12,428,594.

As of the same time, Bill Bradley had raised $11,748,225 and spent $4,292,175, leaving him with $7,496,610.

The Washington Times reported in its Oct. 4-10, 1999 edition that Bradley raised $6.7 million from July through September compared to $6.5 million for Gore. Because of Gore's spending on staff, consultants, pollsters, travel and other campaign expenses, he and Bradley were virtually tied for money in the bank at the end of September of approximately $10 million. Does anyone believe that Gore would do better at watching our money than he is at watching his own?

Did you know that Hillary Clinton has TWO campaign committees listed? Since they were apparently opened after the July reporting date, little can be said about her fundraising and expenditures. One of the committees is for the New York Senate race. The other is for President for 2000. Is it the plan of the First Couple to try to save the Democrats from Al Gore by offering Hillary as the candidate at the August 2000 convention? All the money that she raises on her "listening tour" would be transferable. . . .

The Democratic National Committee has put Carlottia Scott on its new "political/leadership team," reported The Washington Times on April 14, 1999.

She is "far left," reports the conservative weekly Human Events and worked for Rep. Barbara Lee and former Rep. Ron Dellums, both California Democrats.

Allan Ryskin, in discussing Scott's radical politics came to light in 1983 when US forces, in the wake of the Grenada invasion, captured documents revealing that Dellums and his the aides, Lee and Scott, had a unique relationship with Maurice Bishop , Grenada's Communist ruler.

Dellums went to Grenada ostensibly to discover if its airfield was being made into a landing site for Soviet aircraft and reported to Congress "nothing being done in Grenada constitutes a threat to the United States or her allies."

However, the captured documents confirmed that the Bishop regime "was intent on thoroughly communizing Grenada." The documents also included letters Scott sent to Bishop for at least a year before Dellums' visit in which she referred to him as "My Sweet", "My Dearest" and "My Darling Comrade leader." In one letter to Bishop, Scott said of Dellums, "Ron is a political thinker, is the best around and Fidel will verify that in no uncertain terms." The letter is signed "Love you madly."

"Now she's got a top job at the Democratic National Committee," Mr. Ryskind concludes.

On May 26, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) held a Capitol Hill news conference to identify the least taxpayer-friendly members of the House of Representatives. The group, America's largest taxpayer watchdog group, released its "1998 Congressional Ratings."

Rep. David Bonior (D-MI), House Minority Whip, and Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-MO), House Minority Leader, were among 33 members of the House -- all Democrats -- to rate an absolute zero.

In general, Republican members of the 105th Congress did well, averaging 75% in the House and 74% in the Senate. In contrast, the Democrats turned in a lackluster performance of just 18% in both chambers of Congress.

"Rep. Bonior's performance has been abysmal," CCAGW President Tom Schatz remarked. "You would think that the House minority whip could have voted in favor of the taxpayer at least once. Instead, he arbitrarily and capriciously voted to misuse the money of hard-working Americans. That kind of record with the taxpayers should keep him in the minority for a long time. . . . It is a truly sad day in Washington when an elected official fails to vote even once in defense of overburdeded taxpayers."

For a complete copy of the 16-page Congressional Ratings report, contact Jim Campi or Aaron Taylor (202) 467-5300 of Citizens Against Government Waste. The web site is http://www.cagw.org

HOW CRYPTO-MARXISM WON THE COLD WAR By James Lewis, May 23, 2008

HOW CRYPTO-MARXISM WON THE COLD WAR
By James Lewis, May 23, 2008