Area417

New Pledge For Ron Paul

If you save $25/week until the deadline, you can meet this pledge! Help Ron get elected by going PledgeBank and making your pledge!

"I will pledge 200 dollars to Ron Paul for President 2008 but only if 199 other people will pledge 200 Dollars."

— Nathan L McDonald, Concerned American

Deadline to sign up by: 21^st June 2007

Viguerie Not Impressed With Giuliani, McCain, Romney

Richard Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed, doesn't believe conservative voters should support Giuliani, Romney, or McCain. He does, however, have good things to say about Ron Paul.

Welcome Home Our Marines!

Update: I (finally) got my homecoming pictures uploaded. You can find them by clicking the "Photo Albums" link at the top of the page.

From KSGF's site:

Join KSGF For A Welcome Home Celebration

News Talk KSGF encourages you to join Vincent David Jericho in welcoming home 34 Marines and Sailors from Weapons Company, Third Battalion, 24th Marines, returning from Fallujah, Saturday, April 28th.

Jericho will start broadcasting from the reserve center on Pythian behind Evangel University in Springfield at 4:30 pm. He will be talking with family members and the citizens who turn out for the rally.

Somewhere between 6 and 7pm the Marines and Sailors will arrive by motorcade. We encourage everyone to come out and be a part of this homecoming. Flags and uplifting banners will be appreciated!

Parking is available in the Evangel University parking lot off of Glenstone. When the motorcade is ½ hour out Jericho will ask people to line Pythian and Glenstone with signs and flags and encourage everyone to cheer the faces off as the soldiers go by.
Click here for a map of the rally location.

Snarky Journalism: Washington Post's Dana Milbank

I'm not a Kucinich fan, but I'm annoyed by Dana Milbank's article, Kucinich's Battle Against Cheney Not So (Im)Peachy Keen, in today's Washington Post.

Rather than an intelligent discussion on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of Kucinich's drive to impeach Vice President Cheney, Milbank used the article as an occasion to make sly digs at a presidential candidate for whom he obviously has no respect.

There were the inevitable snarks about Kucinich's appearance:

[...] Standing perhaps 5 feet 6 inches tall in shoes, he wore a solemn face as he approached the microphones, which nearly reached his eye level. He beckoned to aides, who handed out thick binders detailing the case."

Kucinich read at length from his articles of impeachment,undeterred by rush-hour traffic noise on Independence Avenue ("I'll wait till the truck goes by here," he said at one point) and wind that ruffled his text and the few strands of his hair that were insufficiently weighted by Brylcreem.

Milbank made sure readers knew that other Democrats weren't taking this seriously:

[...] A reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer encouraged USS Kucinich to contact planet Earth. "But Nancy Pelosi says this is not going anywhere," she pointed out.

And this:

[...]

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic caucus, was equally dismissive -- "Dennis can do what he wants; I'm not going to support it" -- but used the occasion to try out some Cheney material: "This is the biggest setback for the vice president since oil went under 65 bucks a barrel."

While we can surmise this is a ploy by Kucinich to grab some attention, I'm wondering what tone Milbank (or Rahm Emanuel for that matter) would have taken if Clinton or Obama had been the one to call this news conference.

Not that that is likely to happen; it would ruin Clinton's new centrism, and Obama couldn't find a way to wax poetic on the subject.

Video: Ron Paul on Lou Dobbs

Ron Paul recently appeared with Lou Dobbs on a segment called 2008: Time for Answers.

Listen to Rep. Paul discuss Free Trade, NAFTA, the North American Union, WTO, and illegal immigration.

Related writings from Ron Paul: Bowing and Scraping for the WTO; Free Trade Means No Tariffs and No Subsidies; "Buy American," Unless...; True Free Trade Benefits Texas Farmers; The World Trade Organization; International Protectionism

On Earmarks, Social Security, and B.S.

$300,00 for mapping the catfish genome? $2.5 million for a virtual spray paint simulator system?

ABC news recently did a spot on Americans For Prosperity's crusade to end such dubious earmarks. You can see the video here.

***

Speaking of earmarks, the Democrat overlords refused to let real earmark reform come to a vote.

Senator DeMint's bill, S. Res. 123 would expose those guilty of saddling the public with their pork projects by posting the bill, with the requester's (and recipient's) name attached, on the internet at least 48 hours prior to consideration. 

Such a system would go a long way toward helping voters identify which Senators are wasting our money.

Our own Senator McCaskill was one of five cosponsors of DeMint's bill, so kudos to Claire! I've had harsh words for her in the past, but I must give credit when credit is due.

Pat Toomey, president of The Club for Growth, had this to say:

The Democratic leadership passed earmark reform unanimously when the issue was hot, but now that the appropriation process is under way and its special-interest cronies are knocking at its doors, it is all too eager to sweep the issue under the rug,” Mr. Toomey continued. “Democratic leaders want to tell taxpayers they voted for earmark reform out of one side of their mouths, but brag about their pork-filled goody bags out of the other side. American taxpayers will see through this hypocritical charade.

***

McCaskill was the only Dem who voted for S.Amdt 489, which would have protected Social Security funds from unrelated spending by established a reserve. (Republicans should heap scorn on Olympia Snowe (ME) and Senator Smith of Oregon for voting against this amendment.)

I hope voters remember that Democrats, known for their demagoguery of  Social Security, voted against this amendment.

Looks like the Dems just exposed their real motives for rejecting privatizing Social Security and it has nothing to do with your retirement.

Partial Birth Abortion Ban Upheld--Barely

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the partial-birth abortion ban that was signed into law by President Bush.

Ginsburg the Disgusting responded thusly:

A sharply written dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned that the court's decision "deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety." 

Ginsburg, joined by the three other liberal justices, said the court's "hostility" to the abortion right guaranteed by Roe was "not concealed." (Link: ABC News)

This is how a registered nurse, who was pro-choice, describes the procedure murder of a baby via partial-birth abortion:

I stood at the doctor's side and watched him perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby's body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby's body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen."

One has to wonder what age you have to be before that putrid bitch (Ginsburg) thinks it isn't O.K. to have scissors rammed into your head.

More reading: Second Trimester Abortion: From Every Angle; AbortionFacts.com;

Rest in Peace, Liviu Librescu

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 

John 15:13, New American Standard Bible

***

Liviu Librescu is the Israeli engineering/math lecturer who was shot to death protecting his students at Virginia Tech.

 

In a letter addressed to Prof. Librescu's wife Marlena, one student described how he climbed out the window, but paused on the ledge to look back. 

"I saw your husband still standing there. He was holding the door closed and looking over his shoulder to make sure everybody else was safe. It was the bravest thing I have ever seen and I will always remember his courage," the student wrote.

Link: Virginia Tech Shootings, The Globe and Mail

Truckers Plan Protest Over Mexican Trucks

Once again, President Bush is telling Americans to piss off by going ahead with a program that allows Mexican trucks to move freely through our country.

American truckers plan to fight back:

The plan calls for drivers to form a slow-moving line across major highways outlying Washington, D.C. and the state capitals of the lower 48 states.

"We want to circle the White House and the state capitals in a slow-rolling boycott," Piety explained. "As long as we keep moving, the trucks won't be ticketed. The truckers plan to drive the slowest minimum speed allowed by the law, running bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side across the highways to block up and jam up traffic."

Bush has committed our troops and tax dollars to the "war of terror" and yet left our borders wide open. 

Link: Angry truckers to encircle D.C. with 'blockade'. WorldNet Daily

Related reading: Kansas City customs port considered Mexican soil?;  NASCO (Tri-National Advocacy for Efficient, Secure, and Environmentally Conscious Trade & Transportation); Bush sneaking North American super-state without oversight?; Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America

Big Brother Watches To No Avail In U.K.

The British government, not content with merely observing its citizens, has plans to electronically scold them too:

...officials in the UK were experimenting with security cameras that would also scold people, if it spotted them littering or some other form of public nuisance. Apparently, however, the program has been a success, and there are plans to use these scolding surveillance cameras in 20 additional areas throughout England. However, to make the systems seem more friendly, they're talking about holding contests for local school children to become the "voice" of the surveillance cameras. Apparently, if you make it into a game, you can hope that kids will accept the concept of "Big Brother" at a young age. (Link: Big Brother Sounds So Much Cuter With The Voice Of A Local School Kid, techdirt)

Although the British government has its eyes on just about everyone (Wikipedia puts the figure at one camera for every fourteen people), crime is on the rise.

City Journal writes: 

Britain is experiencing a spate of murders that suggests a population increasingly unable, or unwilling, to control itself. A recent survey suggested that the British are now more prone to knife-fights than any other people in Europe. Guns have also become fashionable, despite—or is it because of?—stringent laws against them.

Indeed, in spite of the fact that the government has its eyes, ears, and nose everywhere, the Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper, informs its readers that a U.N. report England (along with Wales) places second in assaults.