John Kerry insults the American military

John Kerry, speaking at Pasadena City College at a rally for the losing Democratic contender for Governor, said the following:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Read Michelle Malkin's roundup of comments from members of the Armed Forces and links to the audio and other comments on the absurd statement by Kerry here and watch the video here.

Keep in mind this idiot came very close to being our Commander-in-Chief.

Have you heard this reported in the LA Times, or in any of the old media? You won't.

Technorati Tags: John Kerry,Angelides,Democrats,

Lynne Cheney - Sandbagged by Wolf Blitzer

Lynne Cheney walked into the belly of the beast - CNN - this week to talk about her new children's book, "Our 50 States". Wolf Blitzer, knowing that she was coming to talk about her book, decided he would ambush her with loaded questions about the War on Terrorism, the current elections and Iraq in an aggressive adversarial tone.

Mrs. Cheney gave back as good as she got. I thought it was great how, even though she expected the interview to be about her book, she was prepared for Blitzer's outrageous and partisan onslaught.

Here is an excerpt:

LC: But what is CNN doing running terrorist tape of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I thought Duncan Hunter asked you a very good question, and you didn’t answer it. Do you want us to win?

WB: The answer, of course, is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There’s no doubt about that. You think we want terrorists to win?

LC: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?

WB: With all due respect, with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.

LC: Oh, Wolf…

WB: This is reporting the news, which is what we do. We’re not partisan…

LC: Where did you get the film?

WB: We got the film…look, this is an issue that has been widely discussed, this is an issue that we reported on extensively. We make no apologies for showing that. That was a very carefully considered decision, why we did that. And I think, and I think, of your…

LC: Well, I think it’s shocking.

WB: If you’re a serious journalist, you want to report the news. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes the news isn’t so good.

LC: But Wolf, there’s a difference between news and terrorist propaganda. Why did you give the terrorists a forum?

WB: And if you put it in context, if you put it in context, that’s what news is. We said it was propaganda. We didn’t distort where we got it. We didn’t distort anything about it. We gave it the context. Let’s talk about another issue in the news, and then we’ll get to the book.

If you notice, he first says it isn't propaganda, and then he admits it is.

You can read the whole transcript here, and you can see a portion of the interview in video here.

Hugh Hewitt comments that:

And here we arrive at the central issue: You cannot want the United States to win the war and yet take actions that help the enemy. Doing what the enemy asks --in this case airing the enemy's propaganda-- helps the enemy.

The deep incoherence on the left, which includes most of MSM and the leadership of the Democratic Party is impossible to ignore and accounts for the shifting fortunes of the GOP.

No matter what the problem is, the answer cannot be electing more Democrats or believing the MSM.

and Carol Platt Leibau says,

Mrs. Cheney was rightfully disgusted, but at least she wasn't surprised by CNN's tactics. At the interview's conclusion, Wolf Blitzer effectively conceded defeat, telling her, "You came armed. I guess you knew what you wanted to do."

So did the people at CNN, Wolf. They just weren't as good at it.

There is no surprise at the far-leftist bias of CNN, but after watching Lynne Cheney deal with this ambush, Lynne Cheney is my hero!

Technorati Tags: Lynne Cheney,CNN,Wolf Blitzer,War on Terrorism,Islamic Fascism,Supporters of Terrorists,MSM unpatriotic,traitors in time of war

No Voter Left Behind

My friend, Bob Rosebrock, makes an excellent case in an article about the how the HOV lane on our freeways not only causes more traffic and congestion, but is clearly undemocratic, gives preferential treatment to a special class of drivers and denies equal access to public transportation. He calls for opening the HOV lane to all drivers on election day - November 7th to allow voters a free flow of traffic so they can make it to the polls.

I agree. Let's all get behind opening the HOV lane to all drivers on Election Day and see how traffic is really improved. Read his article below. It makes a lot of sense.

NO VOTER LEFT BEHIND

“Freedom of the Freeway”

By Robert L. Rosebrock

Of the many privileges we enjoy as a democratic society, ‘freedom to vote’ is paramount for our country’s survival. Equally important for our personal survival is ‘freedom of movement,’ because without it we could not travel to and from work or accomplish a multitude of our endeavors, including going to the polling station to vote.

To ensure that our citizenry has accessible maneuverability, it is a primary function of government to facilitate our public freeway system so that all motorists have uniform liberty to mobilize his or her self in their pursuit of happiness. To the contrary, our individual mobility has been seriously curtailed under California’s Transportation Control Plan that was implemented more than thirty years ago. As a result, our freeway traveling is unjustly regulated with an ideological‘wall of separation’ that discriminates against millions of motorists based simply on passenger or vehicle preference.

This restrictive barrier is the preferential-treatment carpool lane, also known as the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) law, which rewards special driving privileges to motorists that have a single passenger or drive alone in a hybrid car. And for those motorists who do not or cannot conform to this doctrine, they are unfairly penalized with inferior driving conditions. Such laws are inequitable, divisive and contradictory to the basic principles of democracy and violate America’s trusted creed of “With Liberty and Justice for All.”

We must never forget that there’s a big difference between equal opportunity and equal treatment. In his book “My American Journey,” former Secretary of State General Colin Powell rightfully declared: “Equal rights and equal opportunity mean just that. They do not mean preferential treatment.” But why doesn’t our government practice this?

Protecting Our Civil Liberties

In a democracy, civil rights are granted to each person and it is government’s duty to provide equal privileges and opportunity for each member of its citizenry. According to the definition provided by www.dictionary.law.com, “Civil rights include the right to vote, the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a democratic society, such as equal access to public schools, recreation, transportation, public facilities, and housing, and equal and fair treatment by law enforcement and the courts.”

More than two centuries ago, Andrew Jackson summarized the great American ideal as “Equal opportunity for all and special privileges for none.” A half-century ago, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that "Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."

Correspondingly, California’s state freeway system belongs to all motorists and entitles each driver with the same equal access and privileges afforded to all. Our Constitution’s 14^th Amendment declares: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United State … nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Separate and Unequal

The State of California has approximately 19 million motorists that drive alone in standard vehicles, either out of personal choice or absolute necessity. Yet despite these individual preferences or uncontrollable circumstances, they are unfairly separated by law and left behind in oppressive gridlock.

In a ruling prior to her recent retirement from the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that, “We rejected the notion that separate can ever be equal 50 years ago in Brown vs. Board of Education, and we refuse to resurrect it today.”

Let there be no misunderstanding; the divisive diamond lane doctrine not only defies the forbidden “separate but equal” laws of yesteryear, but it embarrassingly exceeds them with the “separate and unequal” driving conditions of today.

Freedom of Movement is a Human Right

As equal members of the human race, we each have certain human rights that are God-given. Eleanor Roosevelt declared that, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person, the neighborhood he lives in, the school or college he attends, the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”

On the day of his tragic death on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was to deliver a speech that prophetically proclaimed: “It should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future.”

Ronald Reagan reminded us that, “We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Correspondingly, On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the following: Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Article 21. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

This U.N. Declaration notwithstanding, less than thirty years later California established and continues to rigidly enforce a law that controls and restricts the freedom of movement of motorists without a passenger or a hybrid car by denying them equal access onto the public-funded diamond lane.

Even though individual human and civil rights are paramount to the survival of a free and democratic society, California’s state government has established a dual-tiered system of privilege and abuse on our public-funded freeway system. Even more troubling is that ‘we the people’ allow these bureaucrats to impose this cruel injustice upon our personal lives by denying us of our equal human rights and as full citizens of the United States.

Freeway Torture

There has been much controversy about the treatment of Al Qaeda terrorist prisoners being held under the control of our Federal government at Guatanamo, Cuba. Based on various accusations, Congress passed new anti-torture laws to especially protect these terrorists, even though their devout mission is to kill every American citizen.

Since freeway motorists are technically under the control of our government, will this new anti-torture law also protect us from "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment" on the freeway? Consider that our State government prejudicially segregates, detains, degrades and humiliates millions of innocent freeway motorists every day simply because they do not have a passenger or drive a hybrid car. As a result, these American motorists are held against their will and force-fed insufferable gridlock while being kept in physically stressful positions for hours in isolated and sub-standard traffic lanes.

This undignified treatment against our fellow Americans makes you wonder where the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other human rights attorneys are when we really need them. There’s an ongoing effort by the ACLU and others parties to close down Guatanamo for purported inhumane treatment to the terrorist prisoners. Among those calling for the prison to be closed is former President Jimmy Carter, who said, “The United States should shutter the detention center as an illustration that it is committed to protecting human rights.”

That’s a noble request from a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Accordingly, if we’re really serious about closing the Guantanamo camp because of ‘human rights violation’ against terrorist prisoners, then let’s get equally serious and close the HOV diamond lane for the very same reason to protect America’s solo-motorists.

Freeway Aristocracy

During the 2003 Governor’s recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger offered this compelling campaign pledge: “We have the capacity to create more highway capacity in just the areas where it is most needed without spending another penny. We must convert the High Occupancy Lanes to free flow lanes, so that all the taxpayers who paid for those lanes and are now sitting in traffic jams can use them.”

Make no mistake, this inspiring promise helped to get him elected. Then, like so many politicians, he failed to deliver on his pledge. To make matters worse, he signed a controversial law that unfairly grants hybrid motorists with the exceptional privilege of driving alone on the carpool lane.

Thus, with the stroke of his pen, Governor Schwarzenegger established an elitist ‘hybrid aristocracy’ on our public freeway system that creates economic injustice for those who cannot afford a hybrid car and social injustice for those who choose not to own such a vehicle.

A Vote For Equal Opportunity

Congress recently extended the federal Voting Rights Act that guarantees equal rights to all voters. Unfortunately, California voters will never have the same equal access at the voting booth until there is the same equal access on the drive to the voting booth. As long as there is a diamond lane that divides and rewards a few motorists with free-flowing driving privileges while the majority are penalized and left behind, equal voting rights will remain a fantasy.

“Freedom of the Freeway”

It’s time for Governor Schwarzenegger to honor his original pledge by opening the HOV lanes on Election Day so that all registered voters will share the same equal opportunity in their drive to the polling station as they’re entitled to at the polling station. Then leave them open, just as they were originally designed and built a half-century ago with equal access and use by all motorists alike.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.

The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators

and Congressmen and Government officials, but the voters of this country.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Rosebrock is author of his soon-to-be released book, “Freedom of the Freeway.” You can write him at: RLRosebrock1@aol.com

Technorati Tags: California,Traffic,Freeway,HOV Lane

The Jewish-American Anti-Israel Lobby

Caroline Glick, a reporter at the Jerusalem Post, writing at Townhall.com, tells us about a group of leftist Jews who want to destroy the special relationship that Israel enjoys with the U.S.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech at the American Task Force for Palestine's inaugural dinner in Washington on Wednesday evening was but the latest sign that America's alliance with Israel is weakening.

Rice's statement that "there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state," just about says it all. The secretary of state of a president who was once friendlier to Israel than any of his predecessors now claims that the establishment of a state for a people who have distinguished themselves as the most overtly pro-jihad, terrorist society in the world, would be the greatest thing American could ever do.

Unfortunately, unless concerted steps are taken by the Israeli government, Israeli citizens and the American Jewish community, the downward trend in relations with the US will only get worse. Perhaps most upsetting is the central role that a tiny minority of American Jews has played in souring ties between Jerusalem and Washington. That minority has undermined support for Israel in the Democratic Party and now seeks to undermine Israel's position in the US in general.

The Democratic Party's sharp turn leftward in recent years has been a major factor in weakening the US-Israel alliance. The ideological transformation of the party is the fruit of a collaborative effort by leading financiers, radical-leftist ideologues and political activists. Together these forces built organizations that dictate the party's agenda; finance the campaigns of politicians who embrace this agenda; and work to defeat conservative Republicans and Democrats who disagree with their agenda.

MoveOn.org is the most influential organization of this type established in recent years. Its principal financiers are American Jewish billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis.

MoveOn.org first gained national prominence during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. Howard Dean, a previously undistinguished governor of Vermont, was an eminently forgettable also-ran with a reputation among the few who knew of him as a political moderate who was hawkish on national security. Then he was discovered by MoveOn.org.

As the group began pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign,Dean veered to the left and began roundly condemning the war in Iraq. Caught off-balance by Dean's challenge, all but one of the other candidates shifted left as well and joined him in criticizing the war. For his principled refusal to disavow the war in Iraq, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman earned the enduring enmity of MoveOn.org.

This summer, MoveOn.org played a central role in Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primary for his Senate seat. It contributed funds to Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, and its Web site served as a clearinghouse disseminating anti-Lieberman propaganda.

Propaganda posted on the Web site was laced with blatant anti-Semitic attacks. Postings repeatedly referred to Lieberman as "the Jew Lieberman," and "ZioNazi Lieberman." These attacks were by no means unusual. Indeed, anti-Semitic slurs against Israel and Jewish Americans, and belittlements of the Holocaust, appear regularly in MoveOn.org Web forums.

In a representative post, a MoveOn.org member compared President George W. Bush negatively to Adolf Hitler, writing, "Bush is no Hitler. Hitler was a socialist and believed in something beside money. He did not dodge real military service and he believed at least in Germany, which was a real nation and not a corporation like the US. Moreover, Hitler did not use depleted uranium and phosphorous to burn people alive. He did not condone the torture of prisoners 'for fun' or 'to relieve stress.'"

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report, Soros and his wealthy Jewish American friends have now decided to aim their fire directly at Israel. Soros has invited Lewis and other North American Jewish plutocrats like Charles and Edgar Bronfman to join forces with him and leftist Jewish American organizations including American Friends of Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Reform movement's Religious Action Center to form a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Many of the individuals and organizations associated with the initiative have actively worked to undermine Israel. Soros caused a storm in 2003 when, during a fund-raising conference for Israel he alleged that Israel was partially responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic violence in Europe because of its harsh response to Palestinian terrorism.

In November 2005, the leaders of the Israel Policy Forum met with Rice and pushed her to dismiss Israel's legitimate security concerns regarding the operation of the Gaza Strip's border crossing points at Rafah and Karni. Following their advice, Rice aggressively and publicly pressured Israel to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinians that involved Israel's relinquishment of effective control over its own borders.

After Israel capitulated to Rice and an agreement was reached, Semour Reich, one of the founders of the Israel Policy Forum, crowed, "I have no doubt that we bolstered the secretary of state's instincts and strengthened her opinion that aggressive American involvement was needed to achieve practical results."

Ahead of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon's scheduled visit with Bush in the summer of 2003, Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote a letter to Bush along with former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger expressing opposition to the security barrier and asking the president to treat Sharon in the same manner he had treated PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Weeks later, Bronfman criticized the Palestinians for not limiting their terrorist assaults to Israeli residents of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. In a media interview he said, "If the Palestinian suicide bombers only went to the settlements and told the whole world they were wrong, then the whole world would have had a case against Israel and there would be a two-state solution by now. Instead, they sent them into Israel proper, which is ghastly."

After Hamas's electoral victory in January, American Friends of Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom came together in an ad-hoc coalition to shield the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority from Congressional sanctions. Together they worked to sink the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act, which enjoyed overwhelming support in the Congress and the Senate and was backed by AIPAC. The legislation was designed to update US policy toward the PA in the wake of Hamas's ascendance to power.

The bill called for the immediate cessation not only of direct US aid to the PA but also for the cut-off of US assistance to nongovernmental and UN organizations operating in the PA that had connections to terrorist organizations. The bill defined the PA as a terrorist sanctuary and consequently would have barred the entry of PA officials to and the operation of PA offices in the US, and placed travel restrictions on PA and PLO representatives to the UN. The bill also would have prohibited US officials from having any contacts with officials from Hamas, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The bill was approved by an enormous majority in the House of Representatives. Yet, due to the lobbying efforts of this group of Jewish leftists, the Senate version was greatly watered down, and included a presidential waiver that rendered the bill more or less declaratory. Since there was little common ground between the two versions of the bill, the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act was scuttled.

According to the JTA account, Soros would like to institutionalize the ad-hoc coalition's success in undermining the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act in a new lobby. Its founders all insist that theirs is a pro-Israel group. Yet scrutiny of the groups' organizational and individual members' actions leads to the inevitable conclusion that far from acting to promote Israel, this new lobby will work to weaken Israel, to weaken the Israel-American alliance and to strengthen Israel's enemies. While its Jewish founders insist that they are pro-Israel, the fact of the matter is that they are about to establish an American Jewish anti-Israel lobby.

To its discredit, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government took no steps to stymie the coalition's machinations against the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act. Indeed, since 2003, Israel's governments have gone out of their way to applaud these groups. Olmert's now infamous speech in June 2005 where he said, "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies," was made at the Israel Policy Forum's annual dinner.

BUT FOR all that, it is not too late to change course. The Jewish American anti-Israel lobby is scheduled to be launched on October 26. Now is the time for the Olmert government to forthrightly announce that the new lobby is not pro-Israel, but rather anti-Israel.

Even if the government does no such thing, Israel's citizens have a responsibility to explain to the organized American Jewish community and to its umbrella organization, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, that we, the citizens of the largest Jewish community in the world, view these groups as anti-Zionist. Israeli citizens should request an explanation for the inclusion of some of these groups in pro-Israel umbrella organizations like the Conference of Presidents when their goal is to weaken Israel, to weaken Israel's alliance with the US and to strengthen Israel's enemies. Israeli citizens can and should send letters and e-mails to this effect to the Conference at its New York offices.

One of the great strengths of the American Jewish community is its pluralism. On a religious level, all communities - from the ultra-Orthodox to the ultra-Reform - are recognized as Jewish communities. But there is a line that everyone knows may not be crossed. Jews for Jesus have removed themselves from the Jewish people and everyone knows this. There is not one Jewish organization that accepts them as Jews.

By the same token, the vast majority of American Jews support Israel. As is the case with religious observance, this support runs the gamut from disciples of Meir Kahane to followers of Yossi Sarid. But everyone knows that organizations like Not in My Name, which acts as the Jewish American branch of the International Solidarity Movement, seeks to undermine IDF operations and makes common cause with Israel's enemies, are not Zionist organizations.

Like Jews for Jesus, Jews who work to weaken Israel's security, undermine Israel's relations with the US and strengthen Israel's enemies take themselves beyond the broad tent of the American Jewish pro-Israel community.

Israel's alliance with the US is based on the fact that most Americans support Israel. American support for Israel finds its roots in foundations as diverse as religion, politics, morality, security, culture and economics. While the alliance is visibly weakened, its foundations remain solid. To rebuild American political support for Israel and to enhance the US-Israel alliance, it is imperative that Israel be capable of understanding the nature of this support. This understanding begins by making distinctions between our many friends and our foes and acting on these distinctions. Not all of our friends are Jews and not all Jews are our friends.

These leftist Jews from the Democratic Party such as George Soros, Peter Lewis, the Bronfmans, Semour Reich, Howard Dean and others, are in the process of forming an organization to undermine the support of Israel. American Jews - wake up! The anti-semitism of the 21st Century is coming from the left not the right. The support of Israel by the United States will be considerably weakened by these self-hating leftist Jewish organizations like MoveOn.org, Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum and others. These groups purport to be pro-Israel, but they are clearly not.

American and Israeli Jews need to oppose these movements that want to destroy the relationship between the United States and its ally, Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel,Soros,anti-semitism,self-hating Jews,anti-Israel Lobby,Democratic Party anti-semitism

Jewish Democrats: Does the Party still represent you?

Technorati Tags: Jewish Democrats,Jewish,Jimmy Carter,anti-semitism