I've written about this before, but it's such an important issue that I want to mention it again. Jury nullifcation, the idea that, even faced with incontrovertibly evidence that a party is guilty of what the prosecution says they are guilty of, a jury can pronounce them not guilty. This really just applies to cases where the law the person is being prosecuted under is unfair or unjust in the particular situation. The cases cited as good examples of where jury nullification would have been a good thing are the Ed Rosenthal case and one with a parapeligic.

Rosenthal grew marijuana for medical patients under the authority of the city of Oakland. Since pot is banned by Federal law, the judge ruled that the defense was NOT allowed to mention the city of Oakland part or the medical part, so all the jury knew is that this guy was growing pot and that's illegal. They convicted him, and EVERY SINGLE JUROR regretted it when they found out the truth afterwards. one even went so far as to say it was the biggest mistake of his life. Judges do what they can to set parameters for the jury, and to make the jury think those parameters are inviolate, when in fact they aren't.

The other case involved a man in severe pain who found the only way he could function was to take opiates far above the limit physicians can prescribe. He made a copy of his prescription to get more and was arrested and convicted for dealing drugs. He never sold a bit, but had above the legal limit for possession. I know for pot that the limit is 1 oz., which is not a huge amount for someone to have in their house for personal use. But anything above an ounce makes you a dealer. Anyway, the jury was not told the whole story because the judge wouldn't allow it, so they convicted this poor man, and again regretted it when they were told the truth.

The Federal government should be seeking justice, not convictions, and when there are mitigating circumstances that would change the mind of the average person, they are being particularly unjust by not revealing the entire truth. So just remember the concept of jury nullification if you are called to jury duty, or know someone who is.

This one seems about par for the course. I'm sure the Air America people felt justified taking half a mill from a community center since they are liberal, and thus a public service in their own opinion.

A little column on the nomination of Roberts and the hypocritical villification of the Federalist Society, as related to the McCarthyism meme that I mentioned yesterday.

Speaking of meme, when and how did that word become so darn popular in political discourse? It certainly works well.

Yesterday was a bit of a downer compared to the previous few days, poker-wise. I played and quickly lost a $55 SNG when I got home from work. Then I put down $20 on a ring game (yes, I know I said I wasn't going to play ring anymore, btu I did anyway, so get over it) and got that up to $52. Then a $5.50 SNG, which I lost. Some studying, then dinner, then a $33 SNG, which I won for $135, making my daily profit $72. I'd been getting over $100/day since Sunday and wanted to keep that up, but I can't really complain.

It's getting to the point where I don't think I can credit my recent success to great luck. Luck is always a part of poker, but I've been winning far too regularly for it to be all luck, so something in my game must have changed recently. I think it's that I'm better able to get away from hands that could lose me a lot of money. Sure, I may have spent 1/4 of my stack on something, but if someone comes over the top and I think they got me, now I fold and wait for a better moment. A week ago I might not have been willing to fold to a raise there.

I still have a lot to work on, but $100/day translates to $36k/year, and that would be a heck of a supplement to my current income. And give me enough to play in the Main Event next year in Vegas. I'm setting my sights pretty high, I guess.

Tonight is probably the night I play in my first (and only, unless I win some money) $100+$10 buy-in multi-table tournament. The winner will make about $4000, I'd guess. If I win... Well I'd say it's a good shot I'll end up a pro poker player within the next year or two. If I don't then it's back to grinding out $100/day.

I just had to post this, which I stole off a forum somewhere:

CNN is reporting that Lance Armstrong may be denied his Tour de France title. In a random check for banned substances, three banned substances were found in Armstrong's hotel room ......

The three substances banned under French rules are as follows:

(1) Toothpaste
(2) Deodorant
(3) Soap

French officials also found several other items which they had never seen before and were not immediately able to identify. These items included testicles and a backbone. More on this story at 11:00.

More from the Ted Kennedy is a poor excuse for a decent politician department. The ONLY thing he has going for him is his last name. What's against him? The Mary Jo Kopechne thing for starters, you know, the case where he let a woman drown to death while he paced up and down the road wondering how to save his political career, his hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty, the list goes on and on. This latest is a hoot. In 1967 he cited law and precedence as reasons not to question Supreme Court nominees on specific cases either currently in the court, or probables to the court in the future, but now that a conservative is nominated, he expects full disclosure. Hypocrite! It's amazing how full of them the Democratic Party is.

Mike Adams has a column illuminating his fight against a left-wing family that accused him of libeling their daughter when he criticized her anti-American comments. She wrote something that basically blamed the US for 9/11. He wrote something along the lines of "You're wrong, and anti-American to boot." This was in email, apparantely. Her parents then reported him to the University (UNC-Wilmington, I believe, where he is a professor), and they decided to break in to his email account to examine the emails and released the emails to the lawyer for the accusers, who apparantely feel anti-American speech is protected by the First Ammendment, but criticizing anti-American speech is not. At any rate, there was no evidence of libel, and the story got press in several outlets, making the University look foolish and invasive for reading his email, and the libel accusers look like jerks. Heck, even Alan Colmes, the liberal side of Hannity-Colmes, agreed that Adams was in the right here.

I read a short article on the bombings in Egypt which left me cold. There's so much talk out there about the "moderate" Muslims eventually putting down the extremists. The moderate Muslims affected by the Egypt bombings hate the terrorists that perpetrated the act, and are willing to fight them to the death to safeguard their lvies. The only problem? Every moderate Muslim interviewed refused to beleive that a Muslim could possibly commit such a horrible act, and they were all convinced that Israelis or Americans were behind the attack, and, I assume, the ones in London.

I no longer think we can count on moderate Muslims helping much. They seem to have their heads in the sand every bit as much as a lot of the left wing here in the US, and their lack of basic facts is backed up by years of learning hatred for Jews and Americans in school.

I'm on a poker playing rush like you wouldn't believe. Since my big day on Sunday where I won $1800 (but lost about $300), I've won just over $100/day, for a totl profit of $1800. It's going to cost me $1281 to fix the A/C and a CV joint/axle thing on my car, and a few hundred is going to a CC bill, and $300 is staying in my poker account to see if my success continues. As long as I'm doing well, I'm going to post my daily results here.

Yesterday I started playing $50 on a 25/50 cent NL 6max table. Ended up down to $38 when I left, but I was playing a $50+5 SNG at the same time, which I finished 2nd in for an $80 profit. Then I played another $50+5 SNG, which I won for a profit of $170, while at the same time I lost $20 in a ring game (I'm going to stop playing ring games for now, I just don't seem to do well). Then I played one more $50 SNG, which I lost, and put down $20 twice, which I lost, and then I decided to quit for the night, as I was tired and I think that's why I was losing. So that leaves me about $120 up for the day, or so. I'm going to start keeping exact track on an Excel spreadsheet since I've made enough that I'll have to pay taxes on my winnings, and I want to make sure to set enough aside to pay for that.

My roommate has previously bitched about the GOP sending out talking points to various conservative operatives, either official ones, or unofficial allies like talk show hosts. I wouldn't be totally surprised, but on the other hand, a lot of conservative philosophy is very consistent, at least on economic issues, unlike the Dems where you have a coalition of multitudes of smaller interest groups with some common goals, and some contradictory goals. I would expect any number of conservatives to independently develop the same thoughts on various issues. I know I frequently think a certain way about something, and then later that day see Instapundi or someone else saying the same basic thing I had been thinking already. Logic applied by me should get the same result as logic applied by someone else, and I find most conservative ideals (forget the religion stuff, that's a separate issue) to be very logical.

At any rate, my roomie is not the only one to whine about this tlaking points memo thing, I've heard leftists of all types rail against it. Well it seems they've attempted to apply this lesson to themselves. Several times over the last few months there have been letters written to editors of many different papers by different people with obvious liberal or anti-Bush agendas with almost the exact same wording. It was almost as if they all received a memo telling them what to write. I have no problem with this, I think it's a decent way for a party to get a solid front, and next time someone whines about the GOP doing this sort of thing (though Neal Boortz, for one, says he's never gotten any memos, and how can he get on the list?), I can throw it back in their face that the Dems do it, too. Their defense will be that it wasn't the Dems, it was moveon.org or some other group, but since the Democratic Party is practically run by the moveon crowd (who refuse to move on from anything, unless that thing is something that makes the Democratic Party look bad), it's the same thing.

It turns out that only one person has ever been prosecuted for passing classified information to the press, and he was pardoned.... By Bill Clinton! Where's was the outrage?! Rove didn't even leak anything, but the left is calling for his firing, and even want him thrown in jail before the investigation is over. Funny how they didn't seem to care back when it was a Democratic President and one of his cronies, but now that's it's Bush, he's gotta go to jail. Hypocrites.

Democrats and left-wingers everywhere are gearing up to fight the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. The latest is that he belonged to the Federalist Society. He says he never joined or paid dues, and the organization won't reveal if he did for privacy reasons, but he did, and admits it, make some speeches at society events and was on their steering committee at one point. The Federalist Society is basically a group that promotes individual liberty, strict constructionism, and state's rights.

The same people who still whine about McCarthy and the blacklist of Communist Party members in the 50's are now hypocritically attacking Roberts for belonging to an organzation that has not caused millions of deaths.

There's trouble brewing in the AFL-CIO, the largest labor organization in the U.S. Many of the individual unions that fall under the AFL-CIO umbrella are leaving, frustrated with the politicization of the group and the lessening of pro-labor activism. My interpretation is that the leadership considers themselves primary movers behind the Democratic party, but the membership is beocming more and more divided between left and right, and don't like all the dues going to left-wing projects and politicians.

I've always thought it was crap that you can be forced to join a union to have certain jobs in many states (closed shop is what they call it), and thus forced to pay union dues, which then invariably go to Democratic politicians. What if you're a Republican? You won't have a choice, you are forced by law to indirectly give money to Democrats. That should be illegal, and would make a good "Campaign Finance Reform Act," unlike the McCain-Feingold Act that restricts free speech in violation of the Constitution (despite the Supreme Court not seeming to have a problem with it, they aren't always right).

Anyway, the Democratic leadership is having fits because they may lose one of their biggest cookie jars and vote buying schemes if they no longer can harness the complete power of the AFL-CIO. Good! They've had an undeserved monopoly on labor for way too long. Now people are beginning to realize that conservative economic policies (yeah yeah, I know, the current Republican Congress is spending too much, I agree, but at least they cut taxes and the deficit is shrinking, though the deficit is not always a horrible thing, as any economics class will teach you) may actually benefit the little guy. Lowering taxes on a hard working blue collar head of the household can't help but help, even if it means horrible rich people also got lower taxes.

How can the media continue to be this dishonest? I love it! They ay in the first paragraph that gas hit a record hi a few weeks ago, and then in a paragraph a bit further down, they say it wasn't really a record because the real record is from the late 70's early 80's oil crisis. So now we have a record which is only a record if you ignore the real record.

It's like saying "I have the world record in the 100 meters, if you ignore hte three people that ran it faster than me." And the media wonders why poll after poll finds a falling level of trust in them.

I've spent a long time thinking about what I'm going to do with my big winnings. Of course some of it is going right back to poker so I can try to win big again, or at least entertain myself, some of it went to my roommate, who had previosuly transferred me some money for poker, and some is going to pay a bill, but the rest... I could use it to pay off same credit cards, but I've been withoout A/C in my car for over two years now, and I think I'm going to use this windfall to make my life a little easier. Get the A/C fixed, and the window if I have enough left over. Wish me luck! I found a mechanic that specializes in Hondas and seems pretyt honest and relatively cheap, so I go my fingers crossed. I'm taking it in tomorrow and I'm betting I'll be without a car for the weekend. It's going to be so nice to not have to sweat like a pig just driving home from work every day!

Yesterday was a great day in poker, for me anyway. The goal for the day was studying, who can really study without playing a four hour poker tournament first? I bought in for $10, took 2nd and came away with $390, and then studied for a while. Then, at midnight (I have today off of work, so staying up late was not a problem), I sat down at a $20 tournament. Four hours and several extremely lucky suckouts later, I finished with all the chips and $1,400 for a total daily profit of $1,770. Now I'm not kidding myself, I'm still not that great and $1700 is not life changing money, but it still feels pretty damn good.

There's an old saying, "I'd rather be lucky than good." Personally I'd rather be good, but if lucky is all I can get, I'll take it.

Look, I'm not calling for racial genocide or anything like that, but people have got to get a clue. It's a truism and cliche for people to say "Not all Muslims are terrorists," but people seem to forget that the opposite is nearly true. "All terrorists are Muslims." There may be some out there that aren't, but as far as who is doing the bombing and killing and decapitations, it's all Muslim, all the time. Any officer of the law or politician that says, "We will not do racial profiling" should be kicked out office in favor of someone who is serious. Why waste time and money searching white women, when not a single act of terrorism that we are fighting against was carried out by white women?

And did anyone see the remarks made the other day by Ken Livingstone, mayor of London? After the boiler plate "terrorism is bad" crap, he went on to say that Palestinians killing Jews is not terrorism, and basically implied that Muslims should have free reign to kill Jews. He even put British Jews in the target by saying that British Jews who fight in the Israeli Army should be fair game. The implication is two fold. One, that British Jews are scum and can be killed with justice by Muslims, and two that British Jews join the Israeli Army and thus are not true British citizens. Of course that's BS. If a Jew from Britain joins the Israeli Army, it's because he/she has decided to become an Israeli. No one goes to join the IDF for a couple of years and then heads back to Britain, it doesn't work that way. I guess he's using transferrence, realizing that British Muslims seem to be more loyal to their religion than to their country, and thinking Jews must feel the same. Well I hate to tell you this, jerkoff, but the vast majority of Jews I know are Americans first, last, and always. I care about what happens to Israel, and I fear that if the United States changes and becomes as anti-Semetic as say... the mayor of London, then I may want to move to Israel, but I'd rather live a happy life here and never have to abandon the country I grew up in and love with all my heart. If more people get anti-Semetic attitudes like Ken Livingstone's, then Jews are going to be in a lot of trouble in a few years.

I think I've written on this before, but it may have been as much as two years ago, so here it goes. When you see cops running traffic by a Church or business or whatever, and stopping traffic on the road to let people in and out of the church/business, that's bribery. These cops are not on duty, so basically the Church or business is bribing them to use their police power to favor one group (the people going in and out of the parking lot) over another (the people driving by on the street). This has become an accepted activity, but it's definitely bribery. I can't think how it's different than paying a cop to look the other way when some shady deals are going on. You're paying the cop to use (or not use) his police power to favor (or not favor) you. I've racked my brain on this issue for a while, and cannot come up with any reason why this is not bribery, so next time a traffic cop stops you in front of a Church, ask him how he can sleep at night while taking bribes.

Let's just say that the tables were turned, that Bush is a Dem, and Wilson was a partisan Republican with an axe to grind. Let's say that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and sent him to Niger to investigate yellowcake, and the Democratic President's chief of staff told a reporter that Wilson's wife, not the Vice President, initiated getting Wilson involved in the trip. Instead of "Chief of Staff leaks identity of covert agent," the headlines would be, "Gross nepotism at the CIA leads to fudged intelligence report."

You know, it is interesting to think about all the ridiculous books that have been lauded on networks and in the mianstream media that were basically unsubstantiated attack pieces against conservatives. Kitty Kelley's book on Nancy Reagan, for instance, was all over the airwaves, and was a very unfair work, full of innuendo and rumors, with little proof to back up much of it. Or how about the drug dealer that claimed Dan Quayle did a lot of drugs? He was celebrated like a rock star in the mainstream media. Now Ed Klein, former editor of Newsweek, and hardly a conservative, has come out with a book on Hillary Clinton, which is also full of innuendo and unsubstantiated rumors, and there's nary a word about it in the media, except for a few words of disdain. Even the Conservative media, the blogs, the radio talk shows, etc., are denouncing the work. Too bad such respect only comes from one side. The media will punce on the very smallest bit of rumoe that might make Bush look bad, but they will ignore anything that could possibly make a Democrat look bad. Remember the Swift Boat Veterans? They were ignored by the mainstream media outlets until they were basically forced to acknowledge the issue because of hype and complaints from the blogosphere and talk radio.

That said, from what I've seen of Klein's book, it's beyond disrespectful, and should be shunned. On the other hand, from what I have read by fact-checkers, he has just as much evidence to prove his points as the media had when they decided Bush skipped National Guard duty, which is to say almost none. Once again, the double standard the left wing employs to castigate conservatives in any way possible rears it's ugly head. But kudos to the right wing pundits for not running with this book. It's all about honor and integrity, folks, and one side seems to have a monopoly on this ideals.

Check out this column by Thomas Sowell, man, myth, legend, for more on why ebonics can only hurt, and can in no way ever help anyone. Except racial warlords playing the race card for monetary shakedowns.

The eminent domain deal in Texas that I mentioned in a post yesterday regarding the quest for a new hearing on the the Kelo case is no longer going to be happening. The state legislature in Austin passed a law that takes away the ability for towns to abuse their powers in such a manner. Texas did what the Supreme Court said they should do, they passed a law. I still don't understand why they had to since there's a clearly written one in the Constitution that should have blocked the town of Freeport from doing what they wanted to do anyway... That is until the SCOTUS decided that the Constitution doesn't mean what it means, or what the authors meant it to mean, it means absolutely nothing.

Bush has nominated some guy named Roberts that I've never heard of before to replace O'Connor on the big bench in D.C. His credentials are impressive by any standard, but I ahve little idea of his style. I don't want to say views, because justices are not supposed to be swayed by their own opinions, they are supposed to rule based on the Constitution. What I don't know is if he's more of a strict constructionist, or one of those living document people. Anyway, from the bit I've read in the last few minutes, he's served as an advocate for much of his career and also clerked for Reinquist. He's supposedly a staunch Conservative, but unlikely to ge a full-on Bork or filibuster. My initial reaction is that he's a good choice.

Now on to the motivation of the evening. It's all about Rove! Or is it? This is one conspiracy theory I agree with, the timing. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Bush had this press conference tonight to distract from the Plame deal. Whether or not you have a problem with Rove, or his alleged involvement in leaking a covert identity, you have to agree that he's being smeared through the mud the last week, and that doesn't look good for the administration. I gotta hand it to Bush for sticking by his man (an innocent one, I believe), despite the pressure he's getting from the press. If you accept that there wasn't any wrongdoing, then you have to respect Bush for his loyalty to a longtime staff member. I'd bet the average person out there that doesn't pay much attention to politics thinks he's guilty as hell. As little as four years ago, before I began to follow politics, I was always read to think the worst of politicians who were getting smeared in the press. If you don't pay attention, all you see is snippets on the news before you change the channel, or maybe a headliine here and there, and if that's all you saw today, you'd think Rove should be in jail.

One of the items mentioned by the Supreme Court in the Kelo eminent domain case was that the judges supporting eminent domain felt that there was a line of abuse that would not be crossed. The Kelo people are asking for another hearing, citing several instances in this country wherre it has been abused since the ruling. One in Texas is a particularly apt example, in which two seafood companies are being kicked out of their ocean front space to make way for a fancy new marina catering to the rich. These businesses have been there for years, they are seafood businesses, so what better place to be than the ocean front? They are not at all blighted, or in any way a detriment to the community, but the day the Kelo decision was handed down, the town council jumped at this chance. It's sickening, and exactly the sort of thing that supporters of the Kelo decision said would not happen. Just like with any law or regulation, if you provide any opening at all, some greedy bastard will take it.

Schools in California are going torecognize ebonics as a foreign language and treat it as such in the curriculum. Are these people nuts? Ebonics is not a foreign language, it's a bastardization of English which makes speakers sound ignorant and uneducated, and these idiots in California want to formalize it. The kids coming out of that program are going to find it almost impossible to get a decent job. Stuff like this drives me nuts!

A Muslim woman in Inida was raped by her father-in-law when her husband was away. The religious leaders in the area decreed that her marriage is null and void, and she must marry the man that raped because she is unclean.

Makes sense to me. Good thing we're so sensitive to the religion of peace (the one that goads people into beocming suicide bombers, and likes to stone women for having the nerve to be raped), maybe if we're lucky we'll be so tolerant that we'll get to live under sharia law someday.

I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday. It was pretty darn good, as are all the Harry Potter books. I estimate a 2008 release for book 7, the final one. I'll be sad to see the series end. Whenever I finish a really good fantasy series that has taken me away to another world, and I now have to return to the real world, I'm left with a feeling of sadness and loss. I won't ever be going back there. Even rereads are never as enveloping as the first time. I'll never forget the first time I read the Lord of the Rings. It was the most amazing experience. I was in 6th grade, and read the three adult size books in about two days each, because I just couldn't put them down. I was right there with Frodo and Gandalf and Merry and Pippen, and when they all said their goodbyes, so did I. I wish that someone would invent selective amnesia so I could forget everything I ever knew about Middle Earth (considering how many times I've read the series and it's associated books, I know a good bit), and read them again for the first time.

Back to Harry Potter. I don't want to give anything away to anyone who hasn't read it yet, but the end was very sad. I suspect, however, that more was going on than we yet know. The person who is made out to be the really bad guy... Well I think he may be deeper undercover than we think. Dumbledore is just not that naive. We'll find out in a few years.

The latest in the ridiculous Plame scandal is that Bush moved the goal posts on when he would fire someone involved in the leak. The thing is, he never moved the goal posts, he simply had different ones than the press is reporting. If you look back to 2003 when this first broke, Bush said that if someone in his administration was involved, he wanted to know about it, and if they broke the law, he would fire them. Was Rove involved? Yes and no. Plame's cover was broken first by Aldrich Ames, the spy for the Russians, and then by a CIA report sent to Cuba which revealed her identity to Cuban intelligence. Rove got his info from another reporter and was not aware that Plame was covert (and it looks like she hadn't been covert for a while by that time), and did not mention a name. Even the most partisan of Democrats would have a hard time finding a broken law here. Since no laws were broken, Bush has stuck to exactly what he said he would do. It's not Bush's fault that the media and his political opponents choose to retroactively change his words so it looks like he's moving the goal posts.

Check out this site, where Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days episodes are fact checked. I knew the minimum wage episode was a bit fishy, playing fast and loose with some facts, but I had no idea about the sponsor, ACORN. ACORN is a group that goes around the country trying to push for living wage laws. They themselves sued in a Calfornia court to be able to continue paying their own employees less than a living wage, which makes them hypocrites of the highest order. They argued that if they had to pay living wages, they wouldn't be able to hire as many activists to push for living wages. Makes sense, huh? That's the same arguement that most corporations against living wages make, and it's reasonable. Spurlock, according to this fact checking site (and not my memory, which is fuzzy, though I did see this episode), mentioned this theory and poo-pooed it. Seems his own backers believe it, though.

Just so you know, the concept of a living wage makes almost no sense economically, and will only lead to higher unemployment and lower growth. Is it better to have 10 people earning a below-living wage, or 7 people earning a living wage and 3 earning nothing, but perhaps having a lot more time on their hands to commit crimes?

The World Series of Poker is over, and a few people have a lot more money than they previously did. The winner of the main event, Joe Hachem, took home $7.5 million. The winner of last year's main event, Greg Raymer, is no longer an unknown. He outlasted over 5000 people to make it to the final three tables, so only a complete moron would continue to call him a lucky, unskilled player. Doyle Brunson won a bracelet, as did Johnny "Fuckin'" Chan, their tenth each. And I should thank Pauly of Tao of Poker for providing the very best coverage I saw. He covered every single event every day of the WSOP all by himself, and he was phenomenal. I hope he goes back next year, and maybe I'll be there to thank him in person.

Here's an article on aid to Africa in which an actual African who is an economist has a chance to have his say. Now I know that Will Smith and Sting and all the other participants in the Live8 music extravaganze have studied economics for years, have spent long periods of time travelling through Africa and seeing first-hand what aid money does for the third world, and have studied the history of the region in order to realize what the consequences of their actions, but I still think this guy deserves a shot to be heard.

Turns out what he wants most of all is no aid. He wants Africa to stop being dependent on foreign aid and food and goods, and start making their own. The greatest countries in the world now, the U.S., Britain, and Chian, got to where they are with no foreign aid. Why should we expect less from Africa? Add to that the repeated lessons of history which clearly show tat throwing money at the problem is more likely to create an angry underclass of terrorists than solve any problems, and you'd think the musicians would get a clue. Somehow they never do. Is it a feeling of inferiority, in which they realize that they have done nothing to deserve what they have, so they try to makes themsevles feel better by trying to sound intelligent about things they nothing about? At least I've taken some economics, and majored in history.

I had quite a weekend. Friday night I went to Chapter 11 to get Harry Potter. I thought about going to Borders to see the hundreds of little kids, but I decided that in and out would be the best policy, so while people who pre-ordered from larger bookstores had to wait in line for up to several hours, I walked in, went right up to the register to buy my copy, and left, all in less than five minutes in duration. I was very tired so I didn't read any that night. When I woke up I watched the Tour de France coverage and then read for a bit. I'm done yet, but I will be soon.

A lot more happened this weekend, but nothing I feel like writing about right now.

From an interview with John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia (unless he's the President, those foreign forms of governmetn are confusing...).

MAXINE McKEW: Prime Minister, if as you say you can't rule out that possibility that we could have potential bombers right here in Australia, what if today's announcement, this redeployment to Afghanistan and our continued presence in Iraq is all the provocation they need?

JOHN HOWARD: Maxine, these people are opposed to what we believe in and what we stand for, far more than what we do. If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it's also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people.


John Howard gets it.

The New York Times just got caught editing Hillary Clinton quotes to make them palatable. She said in an interview that she was "adamantly against illegal immigrants," but they changed to the far more politically correct "adamantly against illegal immigration." With most news outlets I'd be tempted to say this was just a mistake in transcription, but the New York Times has a history of changing the news to fit their views, which dovetails nicely with scandals like Jayson Blair (the man who got his job without proper qualifications because he's black and then made up most of his stories).

From National Review Online:
Here is Joseph Wilson himself, talking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN today: "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." Read that again. Now reflect on the fact that there has been an ongoing investigation FOR TWO YEARS conducted, we were breathlessly and rather constantly told in the weeks surrounding the initial controversy, on the basis that the White House and reporters OUTED A CLANDESTINE AGENT. Now we know. She wasn't. Not then.

Game over. Stop whining about Rove. What he did was as bad as when I called up a friend the other day and said another friend was married to a girl I know. No crime, no nothing, get over it. If you want to attack back by saying that she only has to have been a covert agent within the previouys five years.... Well it turns out she'd been in the US working at Langley since 1997, and got pregnant and had twins during this period. No covertness at all, no leak, no nothing. I still wonder who Judith Miller is protecting, and why?

This a big day, a HUGE day, one of the most important days in a few years, easily eclipsing the election last November. What's going? Harry Potter is released at midnight. I will be at a bookstore with all the little kids getting my copy. Maybe it sounds cheesy to do that, but I'm a big fan of the books, and a big fan of books in general, and this is the literary event of the decade, I want to be involved in my own small way. Any fan of literature should feel the same. A lot of the little kids reading Harry Potter never liked reading before, and hopefully some will be inspired to start writing themselves, perhaps becoming the next great American novelist.

It's also a busy weekend for me. The plan: Take a nap when I get home, watch a little TV, go get the book, read the book, go to sleep at 9 am when I finish, wake up by 5 pm Saturday and go to my Aunt and Uncle's house for an engagement party, then take the groom and some other guys to the free Weezer show downtown, then a taxi to the Pink Pony, then sleep, then lunch plans on Sunday, and probable plans that afternoon, too. And Sunday evening I have about an hour's worth of homework to do.

Reporters have been trying to throw Bush's words about the Plame thing back at him, saying that he said that if anyone in his staff was involved, they would be fired. Just to clear the air, here's what Bush said when first asked about it. Notice how says, "if anyone broke the law." Well based on what Matthew Cooper revealed, Rove broke no laws, not even close, so Bush in no way is contradicting himself by not firing an innocent man.

There's still questions about Plame's actual status. According to the "leking" statute that people want to fry Rove under, she has to have been a covert agent in another country within the previous five years. All I have seen indicates that she was working in D.C. during that period. I certainly haven't seen anything to the contrary, even on hardcore left-wing websites.

So far, no laws broken. At the worst, whomever was Miller's source may have flirted with breaking the law, but probably not. At any rate, all indications seem to point to Miller's source as being the only real culprit here, but probably innocent of lawbreaking.

An Orwell quote requoted from Max Boot's column today:

Orwell's words, written in October 1941, ring true today: "The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by submitting to it is simply a flight from fact. As I have said, it is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality."

As many times as that lesson is taught to pacifists and intellectuals who say war is never worth it, they never get it. Maybe it's because the ones that were taught such a lesson are usually dead before they learn it.

Here's a column in which the writer sums up my own frustration with the Plame scandal. There's so much we don't know, but the one thing we do know is that a certain element will do anything to smear Karl Rove or anyone else close to Bush, and who cares about innocent until proven guilty? Who cares whether or not a crime was actually committed? Who cares if someone else was the actual leaker? We can take control of the dialogue and fry this man in the court of public opinion before anyone has a chance to find out the real truth!

A fascinating and detailed roundup of the latest in the Plame scandal. Looks like, among other revelations, it was a well known secret that Plame worked for the CIA, and Cooper probably already knew this when Rove told him that Wilson's wife planned the trip (and yes, that's one of Wilson's lies, he said on the record that his wife had nothing to do with him being picked for the trip to Niger, and it's now proven beyond a doubt that he lied about that), and thus Rove did not reveal anything not know, but since he didn't name a name anyway, no problem. Patrick Fitzgerald is not going after Rove at all, he's going after the real culprit, and one theory is that the criminal in the case is Judith Miller, currently sitting in jail for refusing to reveal her source. Perhaps her source was herself, forgetting that this well known secret was supposed to remain a secret. In the end Rove will be cleared of any wrong-doing, but the Bush-haters will try to fry him anyway, and will refuse to believe he's not at fault even if Miller ends up in jail for a much longer time for leaking the information herself. Basically this is a non-story where a small leak that didn't hurt anyone is being used to fry an innocent man while ignoring the real culprit. If Miller got her information from Rove, why isn't she saying so? He signed a statement releasing any reporters from protecting him if he's their source, and she's still not talking. Why? Two possibilities: One, she knows she's the real leaker and doesn't want a longer sentence, or two, she knows who the real leaker is, but doesn't want to say because she'd rather see a friend of Bush get fried than reveal the truth. If that's not bias, then what is?

Michelle Malkin can be very funny. In this column she rails against politically correct verbiage in new reporting, highlighting that the BBC changed their articles on the London bombing so that they said "bombers" instead of the "terrorists," as was originally written. The BBC says they do this to avoid making any value judgements. As Malkin points out, does this mean that we should call rapists "unplanned lovers?"

I love vindication! I got blamed for amking a mistake at work. It wasn't a big deal, and it only took me a few minutes to fix, but I was ticked off, because it's not the sort of mistake I usually make, especially as it involves a technique of data mining that I pioneered in my department. I decided to take a little time and investigate further. First I noticed that all the mistakes happened June 3. Then I realized that I had June 3 off. I feel a lot better now.

I make plnety of mistakes and am the first to admit it when I do, but there are certain things that I just don't make mistakes on, and this was one of them. I was highly doubtful that it could have been me, and now it turns out I'm right.

Courtesy of Powerline, here's a cut from a New York Times article highlighting their investigative journalism:

"While posing as a private charter outfit - "aircraft rental with pilot" is the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service. The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees.
An analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and corporate documents, as well as interviews with former C.I.A. officers and pilots, show that the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased since 2001. The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft.

The planes, regularly supplemented by private charters, are operated by real companies controlled by or tied to the agency, including Aero Contractors and two Florida companies, Pegasus Technologies and Tepper Aviation."


Looks to me like the New York Times exposed a covert CIA operation with the potential for damage to our national security MUCH higher than the Plame thing, even if Rove had named her by name and even if she was a covert agent. Where is the equivalent anger at the New York Times for exposing a real covert operation which could lead to real problems for some of our agents? If the Plame thing did not involve anyone connected to Bush, no one would care, just like with the operation I mentioned above. People in danger, secrets exposed for no real reason, no Bush connection, who cares? Oh, but here's an exposure which is so completely minimal that it doesn't matter, but it's a Bush connection, so let's fry 'em!

There were several reporters involved in the Plame non-affair. Novak, who seems to have gotten out of any trouble, Cooper who is out of trouble after saying that Rove mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and Judith Miller, who is in jail and still refuses to reveal her source. Rove signed a little deal saying that he won't mind if his part in the affair is revealed. That means he must not have been Miller's sourvce, otherwise why would she still be in jail? Why would she go to jail to protect someone who asked not to be protected? Because she has another source, the real source. There's even a theory that she was the one that mentioned Wilson's wife to Rove in the first place, and the special prosecuter is not even investigating Rove. Why? Because the people involved, the people who know far more than the bits of info that leak out to the media, know that Rove did not leak anything and did not break any laws. The people attacking Rove, on the other hand, smell blood in the water and are converging like sharks to bring down any part of the Bush administration they can, even for doing something that is not against the law. There may still be a real leaker though, we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps Miller got her information the old fashioned way, by putting two and two together. I doubt it was tough to figure out that Plame was a CIA agent. She worked in D.C., maybe she worked in a CIA building.

A great column on aid to Africa by Thomas Sowell. Some people will read this and see that he thinks sending more money to Africa is bad, and immediately think he's a bigot who couldn't care less about the poor. On the contrary, Sowell, unlike his liberal counterparts, can read a history book and realize that not one single time that tons of free money and other aid has been sent to a poor country has that country pulled itself out of poverty... Hat is, except in the rare cases where that country subsequently embraced a free market economy.

Every succesful economy in the long-term was a free market economy. Even China had to go free market with a bunch of industries before they were able to become the powerhouse they are today. When will the left learn to read a history book and see that their policies help no one and hurt most everyone invovled? They are like little kids who want immediate gratification. Fixing an economy and bringing people out of poverty is possible, but not if you think sending a few billion dollars will fix everything.

Direct from Boortz:
"So ... for those of you who are so elated over the possibility of finally nailing the hated Karl Rove ... make your case. Show me:

1. That Rove specifically named Valerie Plame.
2. That Valerie Plame was, in fact, working undercover for the CIA. (Looks like a desk job to me.)
3. That Rove knew Valerie Plame was working undercover for the CIA.
4. That the CIA was actively trying, and that Karl Rove knew that the CIA was actively trying to protect the identity of Valerie Plame at the time Rove made his statement to the reporter.
When establish those facts, I'll have further comment. Pesky things, facts."

He puts it well. Without those four things, there is no broken law. If you can prove those things are true, I'll be ready to throw Rove (and McClellan) to the wolves. Since none of those things are provable (because they aren't true), stop whining about it.

Just to add a little more information to the mix, the context of the conversation that Rove had with Cooper is important. People are trying to paint it as Rove casting doubt on the validity of Wilson's mission by mentioning that his wife got him involved. When put in to proper context, however, you see that Rove was merely trying to point out that the mission was not authorized/organized by Colin Powell, and that's the only reason Wilson's wife was mentioned at all. And more speculation... If all Rove did was say that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and it was obviously easy to figure out her name from that, then either she wasn't covert, or the CIA needs to do some serious work on keeping covert agents hidden.

There was no law broken here, no matter how much you stretch the truth. On the other hand, Rove probably should have told Bush about this conversation or memo or whatever it was back when the firestorm first broke. A firing offense? Not to me, but the left will demand his head. Personally I find this to be a bit ridiculous. WHat Sandy Berger did, stealing classified documents from the National Archives, and then lying about it, and then mysteriously burning some of the documents before they could be returned, is FAR worse a violation of security, especially as these documents related to the 9/11 investigation, yet Berger, a Democrat toady, got a slap on the wrist. This shows that the Dems care little about following rules and procedures and are going after Rove not because he did anything that they think is really bad, but because he keeps beating them in elections and they want to punish him. This is partisan politics, pure and simple.

And for goodness sake! The woman then appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair. She obviously wasn't worried about anything bad happening from revealing her identity.

The NAACP, a hotbed of racial baiting which no longer has the cachet of integrity it once held, is using accusations of slavery ties to extort money from businesses. If they find that a business has any ties at all to slavery, even if those ties are due to a company that was bought by a company that was bought by a current company 80 years ago, even if that current company did not even exist before 1900, they are extorting money. If a company doesn't pay up, the NAACP is putting them on a blacklist and saying that they won't get any more African-American dollars. I think this is disgusting behavior. They are punishing shareholders, many of whose ancestors were in Europe or elsewhere when slavery still existed here. And more, the black people receiving this windfall are not necessarily the descendents of slaves. Their ancestors may not have come over till recently, too.

The NAACP has lost all claim to my respect. I feel sure that Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with me.

The World Series of Poker main event is rolling right along, with day 3 about to start. With 5800 contestants putting up $10k each to play, they had to split day 1 in to three days, leaving about 1800 people still in at the start of day 2, and down to 569 for today, with the top 560 getting paid. I'm cheering on the two pros left from the poker site I play on, Full Tilt Poker, which means I want Phil Ivey or Howard Lederer to win. Ivey is considered by many to be one of the top five players in the world, and unlike the rest of those top five, he's pretty young (28, I think) and still has a lot of learning to do. Lederer is called the professor, and might be one of the smartest players in the game. Why does it matter to me who wins $7.5 million? It doesn't, but it's more fun to follow if you're pulling for someone. Last year's winner, Greg Raymer, is still in with a big stack, so maybe this year will put to rest the critics regarding his skill level. As we saw with Chris Moneymaker two years ago, you don't have to be incredibly good to win the Main Event, but you do have to be lucky. Raymer, I think, is an example of someone who was lucky and is also really good. We'll see how it works out this year.

Ugh!!! This Plame thing is heating up again, and the misinformation is flying fast and furious. For the record, as far as I can ascertain, Karl Rove mentioned to a reporter that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and cooked up Wilson's ridiculous trip to Niger, the one where he lied about his findings regarding yellowcake. Later on people decided that Wilson's wife, Valeria Plame, was a covert agent for the CIA and her name had been leaked. Now Rove is being attacked as the leak. A few problems with this.... One, Rove never mentioned her name, just that Wilson was married to a CIA employee, and two, he also never said she was a covert agent. If she was a covert agent, and that's debatable, then why was the medai so wild to shoout it ut from the rooftops? This is just another example of Bush haters using any excuse to go after Bush and his administration, with honor and integrity being thrown by the wayside. None of the attackers will admit it, but it's fairly obvious this woman was not a covert agent. She was working openly in the D.C., for one thing, and she didn't hesitate to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair with her husband shortly after, which is something I hardly think a covert agent who is worried about her blown cover would do. She wasn't a covert agent, Rove did not reveal her name, the only problem here is that the function of government is going to be hijacked by this partisan which hunt to brand someone a criminal even though no crime was committed.

We have hate crime laws in our country. I don't agree with them, but they are there. If you can say that burning a cross in someone's front lawn is a hate crime, then shouldn't burning a flag also be a hate crime? Why is it legitimate protest to burn a flag and insult an entire country, but it's hate to burn a cross and terrorize an individual? Hate is motivating both. Not every flag is burned with hate, but since msot people radical enough to burn flags will freely state that they hate Bush and that's why they are burning the flag, then it's a hate crime and should be punished as such.

I see more and more stories like this popping up these days. The Kelo case, affirmative action, and Roe v Wade are all illustrations of judges making laws instead of ruling on the constitutionality of laws. The left wing has, ever since the 1930's, been using the courts to make laws that they can't get passed by legislative bodies because the people don't want these laws. In some cases it has worked out ok, but even in those cases it would have been better to allow the lawmakers to make the laws. Anyway, the left has gotten exactly what they wanted, a court full of judicial activists that do what they think is right, no matter what the Constitution says. The recent Kelo decision is a result of stuffing the courts with judges who think of the Constitution as something they can reinterpret to fit their needs. Good for you liberals, you've screwed yourselves.

The New York Times is jumping all over itself to denounce the Ed Klein book about Hillary Clinton. I've already covered my opinion, which is that much of the book is simply disgusting and did not need to be printed. The New York Times, however, is employing their typical double standard. The Kitty Kelley books on Bush and on Reagan found great welcome at the paper, despite Kelley's reputation as a tabloid hyperbolist. Klein has impeccable journalistic credentials, and is villified for telling what he see as the truth, whereas Kelley, a tabloid writer, is practically made a saint for accusing Ronald Reagan of date rape. Both Klein and Kelley deserve severe criticism for the things they chose to write about in their books, yet only Klein receives the criticism from the New York Times. Why? Perhaps becasue he was attacking a saint of the left wing, Hillary Clinton, whereas Kelley was attacking an enemy of the left wing, Reagan.

Yesterday the AJC had an article on the economy in which their measure of how it was doing is that companies announced 110,000 job cuts last month. What they don't bother to tell you, because it would be against their "trash Bush" agenda, is that other companies added more jobs than that, for a net gain of 36,000 jobs in June. That fact sort of changes things, doesn't it? Is a deliberate omission the same thing as lying? It is when the full truth invalidates the point the ommitter was trying to make. Unemployment has fallen to 5%, the lowest since September 2001, and I don't think I need to remind you what happened then. 5% is about as low as unemployment gets, historically. I'll bet it goes lower before Bush's term is up, though. Too bad the AJC would rather lie than be happy about a good economy.

Judith Miller is the New York Times reporter who is going to jail rather than reveal her source for her story about "Plame is a secret agent for the CIA." People are defending her for standing up for a free press. I like the idea of a free press, though several problems have cropped up recently. One, anonymous sources have been feeding incorrect information to journalists, screwing up their careers, like the Newsweek Gitmo thing, and the CBS docs, among others. Maybe it's time to realize that if someone isn't willing to have their name attached to their information, they might not be on the up and up. Two, if the person that told Miller that Plame is an agent broke the law, then didn't Miller break it too, by revealing such information in print? Protecting a source is one thing, but if you break the law, that's a whole different animal, journalist or not. Of course many people deny that it was a secret that Plame was a CIA agent. Her husband had no problem splashing it all over his book in the middle of his yellowcake tour before it was discovered that he was dead wrong about the yellowcake. Of course none of the talk shows he was on mentioned that, they just stopped talking about rather than admit to being wrong. Wouldn't want to discourage people from hating Bush, would they?

About half the letters to the AJC today were people saying that the London bombing is Bush and Blair's fault, and we need to pull out of Iraq and negotiate, and it will all be over.

These people are morons. Apparantely they forgot about all the terrorist bombings that went on before Iraq. Starting with the slaughter of the Israeli wrestling team at the Munich Olympics, Islamic terrorists have killed and killed and killed and it has nothing to do with Iraq. Did they kill those wrestlers because of a war that wasn't going to happen for 30 years? DId they throw that wheelchair-bound American off that boat in the Mediterranean because of war that wasn't going to happen for 20 years? Did they start the Second Intifada because of a war that wasn't going to start for two years?

Karl Rove was exactly right when he compared liberal and conservative reactions to 9/11 last week, and I saw the same thing happen yesterday, though there are exceptions, of course. Liberals blamed Bush and Blair and want to appease and counsel. Conservatives want to find the people behind the bombings and make sure they can never do it again. I'll go with group two, as it's the only plan with a chance of succeeding. Some might decry such a response for continuing a death spiral, but that's certainly better than just giving up and being at the mercy of Islamic fundamentalists.

I understand that a burned copy of a Koran was found placed inside a bag outside a Mosque in West Virginia. All the usual suspects piped in racism, and the need for understanding, and how if it had been a Bible, the police would have found the criminal and charged them with a hate crime (which I doubt, since they never arrested the "Piss Christ" guy for a hate crime). Columnists talked about how it's another sign of American intolerance, and how we are racist and the Muslims are a peaceful group, blah blah blah. The anti-American rhetoric flew fast and furious.

Turns out the bag was left by a Muslim student who wasn't sure how to properly dispose of a Koran that got burned in a house fire. As yet I have not seen a single retraction of the anti-American rhetoric that the incident caused, nor a condemnation of those who are so quick to call racism on every issue.

People who are infected with Bush hatred seem to think that conservatives hate all Muslims. Let me repeat this for the one-thousandth time. I don't hate all Muslims. I hate very few, just the ones that have stated that they want me either dead or living under the bootheels of sharia law. I feel I'm perfectly justified in hating someone that would like nothing better than to cut my head off and rape my sister. Luckily none of the Muslims I know feel that way, thus I do not hate them.

I thought I'd put some pics of myself on here, so here they are... Both from that wedding in Florida I went to a few weeks ago.

A few months ago one of the big stories was that the dollar was falling in value and it's yet another sign of the apocalypse and that Bush's economic policies are driving us to ruin. People with reasoning ability and lacking a hatred of Bush that makes them irrational realized that much of the dollars problem was China's policy of pegging their exchange rates based on the dollar. Well it turns out that the dollar has risen in value each of the last few months, putting to rest talk about Bush bad policies. In fact, by any sort of marker, the economy is going great in any areas that Bush's policies might affect things. Oil, however, is going to cause some problems if it keeps rising. Since Bush has no way to control those prices, you can hardly blame him for it. All he's tried to do in that regard is drill for our own oil, and the left reacted with fierce antagonism (big surprise), and up R&D expenditures for alternative fuels. I don't know what else he could be expected to do. But at any rate, the economy is chugging along. Historically low unemployment rates that are far less than what most of Europe is saddled with, high home ownership, a dollar rising in value, the deficit shrinking, tax revenues WAY up, mostly because of the tax cuts that were the end of the world according to the left. In fact just about everything that the left said about the economy and Bush's economic policies turned out to be exactly wrong.

Perhaps you read that the new President of Iran may have been involved personally in the Iran hostage crisis at the end of Jimmy Carter's term in office. Well Brian Williams, the anchor at NBC, wondered why it's such a big deal since "The British government probably considered out founding fathers terrorists in 1776." Williams is getting a lot of well-deserved heat for this. The differences in the situation are vast and obvious, but I will point out a couple here. For one, our founding fathers were not involved in kidnapping and ransoming and murdering. Our war against the British was a conventional war for the time, and captured redcoats were sent safely home to Britain. John Adams, a founding father, actually defended several British soldiers in court during the leadup to the revolution. Do you think the President of Iran would ever defend an American in any situation ever? He's more likely to cut their heads off, and has possibly already done so.

There is no moral equivalence between freedom fighters and terrorists. These Muslim fanatics are not freedom fighters, they are gonocidal maniacs who would like nothing better than to wipe every Jew off the face of the Earth and convert everyone else to far right wing Islam to live under sharia law.

Which brings up another question. Islamic fanatics are as right wing as it gets. The people in Iraq that want them out, that are happy Americans are there to give them freedom, are basically liberals. How come then that the liberals here seem to favor pulling out and letting the far right Islamists have their way?

Mark Steyn has a point. The musicians who participated in the Live8 conert got filthy rich through capitalism. You would think a few of them would realize that maybe Africa could become filthy rich through capitalism, too. No one EVER got rich from people giving them charity, but plenty of people, and countries, have become wealthy through democracy, capitalism, and free markets.

I wonder how different the world might be if everyone followed a few simple rules:

1. If you can't afford to raise a child with a decent lifestyle, then don't have a child. If you have one anyway, out it up for adoption so a responsible family can raise it, instead of one that is so irresponsible they decided to bring a child in to the world when they can barely take care of themselves. Yes, I realize that some people are poor through no fault of their own, but that doesn't give themt he right to have kids and subject their children to a life of poverty and hopelessness, or a life of surviving on other peoples' hard earned money (welfare).

2. When you get free schooling, take advantage and learn what you can.

3. When a problem arises, ignore the blame game and try to fix it regardless of whose fault it was.

If everyone followed those rules, we'd have a lot less people on welfare, we'd have a much more educated populace, there'd be no such thing as affirmative action because there would be no need, there'd be no ghettos in the U.S., and we'd have a culture of responsibility instead of one of victimization. I could probably think of a couple more to add, but those alone would make a big difference. In fact if everyone followed these rules, we wouldn't have liberals (in today's meaning of the word) because liberal philosophies wouldn't make sense. If everyone is educated, if there are no poor children because people who can't afford kids don't have them, if everyone takes responsiblity for their own actions instead of finding someone to blame, well that pretty much yanks the rug out from almost all liberal agendas being pushed in our country today.

Pretty sad when your whole philosophy is dead because people are being responsible. I guess that means that the Democrats survive by depending on the irresponsibility of their constituents.