At least to the uninformed sleeping Moderate Middle of America. There's a battle raging at Tora Bora, and, the United States is beating Al Queda, and driving Bin Laden to desperation as the West closes the noose. Guess the Enemedia decided not to talk about this one. But Ray Robison has:

So let's put this together. The Uzbeks of the IMU/IJU, a major portion of al Qaeda in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region were driven out by an impending US assault on their camps. They were at war with the local Taliban and had nowhere to go but Afghanistan. They were lured into Tora Bora and surrounded then attacked suffering brutal losses. They then activated a terror cell in Germany and urged them to attack now. Why?

To cause the German public to demand an end to operations in Afghanistan just as the Madrid train bombings caused the Spaniards to demand an end to that government's involvement in the war on terror. Since the Germans are the only western forces allowed to operate in Uzbekistan this would help al Qaeda forces trapped in Tora Bora.

Folks, we are winning. The Democrats are gnashing their teeth.

We must prevent the Democratic Socialist party from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. America can win, and will if we persevere. Thanks for the report Ray.

What is it, why should I care?

"children" up to and including the age of 25, to cover families of four with household incomes of $82,000.  It proposes to cover all of these people with government insurance, government programs.  It is a stealth way to incrementally start the whole ball rolling on socialized medicine.

They won't quit on Socialism and they won't quit trying to destroy our sovereignty. And the GOP is considering "compromises". Go figure.

No matter how much he's tried, Ken Burns has not been able to prevent the manifestation of his feelings about the current state of affairs from affecting his latest work, "The War".  I've been watching it, and will see it through. But I've been unsettled by it, the same way my wife and co-workers have been. But I hadn't been able to put my finger on why. Until Jules Crittendon helped.

“The War” is a death-obsessed dirge, dwelling on the ugliest parts of war, more interested in folly than success. Even extraordinary heroism gets short shrift. “The War” is about the meat grinder and the dutiful submission of good citizens to their fate. Victory is presented as an almost foregone conclusion, threatened only by the foolish mistakes of generals. Victory is only a death-ridden slog away, as long as Americans are willing to make that slog, despite their leaders’ shortcomings.

The comparison to this work and his "Civil War" are night and day. Yet, the reasons for fighting the Second World War were much more noble and necessary. So why has he chosen to ignore the heroism and brilliance of Americans facing death in Europe and the Pacific? The transcendence of love and sacrifice over evil? Why would Ken Burns make a film like this?

Ken Burns: "It’s exactly what’s happening on the streets of Baghdad."

The real story of Americans in World War II is "Band of Brothers".  That's the one you should see.

The shining bastion of Progressive Socialism, American Academia was front and center in our living rooms this week. Columbia University had EVERYONE'S attention, and simply, they blew it. They blew it for the Liberals who want to change America to the Left, and they blew it for Americans who believe in their own country. None to my surprise, the Neo Comms proved incapable of using logic and reason to deal with a problem.

They just called him names. Brilliant.

Ignoring the pleas of most of America not to give I'madinnerjacket a propaganda platform, they did, and his intended message reached the Muslim world. But you'd think, once you invite someone as your guest to speak at your venue, you treat them the way your parents taught you to treat guests.

It doesn't matter to American Liberals that Iran hangs Gays and subjugates women, because to them, the end justifies the means, as always. Liberals are rude, lying ineffectual ideologues incapable of using reason and facts. Emotions are the basis of their actions in life, and only make them effective in closed tightly controlled worlds, like Academia, or ..........Congress.

In a poll taken:

for the Latino Policy Coalition of 31 House districts represented by freshman Democrats. The poll showed Rudy Giuliani leading Hillary Clinton comfortably in them.

This by Jack Kelly in Real Clear Politics, who is an admittedly pro Giuliani writer is of the camp that says Rudy's the guy who can win the general election. But what's most interesting to me is the admission that:

If Newt were nominated, he'd have no chance to win the general election. But he has the best ideas in politics, and he expresses them well. It'd be great in a presidential debate to have Newt expound on this, that or the other, and have the other candidates, say, in effect: "What Newt said."

That speaks volumes about us. When the best men for the job can't get elected because of reasons other than what they stand for, we're in trouble. And also, is Newt's supposed unelectability a wishful thought by his competitors? If Newt does get in, things may get very interesting when people begin to listen to what he's got to say.

Across the pond we hear the reverberations of Democratic Talking Points. Liberal Socialists are sticking together. The UK sees Republicans as stubborn obstructionists of the people's will. The Guardian:

And the 47 million without healthcare, and the thousands dying in Iraq? As usual, they are beside the point.

The Point? The Point is that the GOP is standing firm on Iraq and Health Care because the majority of Americans want them to. Because the Talking Points of the Liberal Socialists are lies. Anyone can go to an ER in America and get treated. You wait months in England. And many die. Now, Iraq, well we've been through that ad-nauseum, but this illustrates the stubbornness of the Progressive ideology, to ignore facts, reason and truth in order to advance their agenda. The end justifies the means for Liberals. Winning is everything.

This week, the Congress is considering the Dream Act. Ever hear of it? Back door scamnesty. Grassfire.org is mounting a campaign to stop it. That means getting you to contact congress. Well?

Here it is. Congress switchboard: 202-224-3121.  Now it's up to you.

This issue and the condemnation of the Soros backed MoveOn.org are the issues I'll be questioning my Senators and congressman today. How about you?

This article in American Thinker speaks directly to you in a way I'm not talented enough to....

I am not asking you to love the war. I am asking you to listen to a man who watched his guts leak from his body to protect that freedom of the press you use to attempt to dishonor him.

There actually are some things John McCain says that are relevant. In spite of the fact his campaign should fold up the tents for his stand on illegal aliens if nothing else, he has pointed out one of the biggest problems with Rudy Giuliani. The SFGate reports:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain lobbed a thinly veiled attack at fellow rival Rudy Giuliani, describing the former mayor's "devious" attempt with a lawsuit "to bankrupt our great gun manufacturers."
"My friends, gun owners are not extremists; you are the core of modern America," McCain said in the prepared remarks. "The Second Amendment is unique in the world and at the core of our constitutional freedoms. It guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. To argue anything else is to reject the clear meaning of our founding fathers.

For his part, with a judge beginning to hear opening arguments in a lawsuit many mayors including Rudy have brought against gun manufacturers, Giuliani is going into the lion's den. CBS reports:

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that he "hopes to clarify” his views on the right to bear arms when he speaks to the National Rifle Association on Friday.

Rudy is going to attempt to do the tightrope walk, and convince gun owners he doesn't mean them harm. Good luck with that one.

His stands on illegal immigration, abortion and gun control may sink Rudy's ship. There seems to be not one single candidate on the board that can appeal to conservatives. What is the GOP doing to itself? Anybody got 30 million bucks to spare for Newt's campaign?

UPDATE 12.30pm: Rudy's remarks from his NRA speech today:

He indicated that he would oppose new efforts to tighten national gun laws.

"I believe that law enforcement should focus on enforcing the laws that exist on the books as opposed to passing new extensions of laws," he said. "A person's home is their castle. They have the right to protect themselves in their own home."

Giulaini explained the lawsuit he initiated in 2000 against gun manufacturers by saying that he was "excessive in everyway that I could think of in order to reduce crime" but said that "intervening events" like September 11th had caused his views to evolve. "I think that lawsuit has gone in the direction that I don't agree it."

In a bizarre real life sequel to the scenario in one of my favorite movies, "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", The Lansing State Journal reports the following:

Lansing firefighters Tuesday extricated a 900-pound man from his home by cutting a hole in the wall of his second-floor bedroom and lifting him out on a forklift.

Rescue workers were called in at about 4:48 p.m. to a duplex on Eighth Street by a visiting nurse, who determined the man needed medical help, according to Lansing Fire Chief Tom Cochran, who was at the scene. He said the man had not left his home since 2003.

This story is a small vignette of America. The gawkers who can't help look at the misfortune of others, and the helpless left to hide from society. Even the diagnosis of genetics is being questioned by the public. The usual appearances in the comments by Liberals politicizing the situation, and the insensitivity of those who are comfortably removed from the reality of the situation. Of course, in the movie, Gilbert's mother died, and they burned down the house with her remains in it, rather than subject her and the family to the ordeal of the very same solution reported above. But hey, that's Hollywood, and Johnny Depp got the girl. This guy's not going to have the same ending. It was the finest performance I've ever seen by Leonardo DiCaprio.

So Barry Manilow thinks Elisabeth Hasselback is dangerous? Seems the justice system in America sees things the other way around. In Colorado:

John Cary, where are you? The Brie eating, bordeaux drinking Democrats are missing in action. Were the current events in France happening in the good old USA, we'd have red faced indignant Liberals shouting, shaking their fists and demanding a full surrender before we start. (in France's case, this may not be necessary). The masses would be in the street burning conservatives in effigy. Why?

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner said Sunday:

that in view of Iran’s nuclear crisis, the world must “prepare for the worst, and the worst is war.

Of course, the Democrats will all be for war with Iran, before they are against it. Once it comes to really fighting for our survival, they will of course, demand surrender, submission and defeat. Bet on it. But of course, Israel and the United States military will prevail, and there will be one big mess to clean up. That's where the Democrats are experts, criticizing after the fact, how we made the mess, our plan to clean it up, and shouldn't we have been more careful when we were making it.

There are dark times ahead.

Here we go again. Now that they've let the dust settle, and think most of us are asleep or watching football (how bout those Lions?), the attempt to attack our sovereignty has been renewed. The LA Times reports:

As early as this week, Democratic senators are set to introduce an amendment that would give conditional legal status to young illegal immigrants.

That's the strategy. Sneak it in the back door tacked on to something else while no one is watching. Our shameful congress. The Democratic party, the party of open borders and surrender to Islamic Jihadists.

The New Media has to watch this, and do it's part to prevent the Progressive Democrats, and the Establishment Republicans from destroying our country from within.

The Times of London has sifted through a reportedly snore of a read to pounce on statement by Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East......“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Why who the Time's calls "America's Elder Statesman of Finance" should be the source of info about military decisions is only convenient to the Enemedia. Mr. Greenspan has said nothing that is untrue, if any foreign nation would attempt to block the oil flow out of the Middle East, the aircraft would already be in the air. No, it's the media's implication that Bush wanted OIL PROFITS by invading Iraq. This isn't stated in the Times piece, it's merely the background mantra the Times is resonating. And the belief of the constituency they are selling papers to.

I find them boring, unpatriotic traitors. Yawn.....sigh.

UPDATE: 9/17/07
CAPTAIN ED at Captain's Quarters has the following:

In fact, Greenspan meant almost the opposite of how the quote got reported and interpreted. Had the media read the book more closely, they would have discovered who actually made that argument to the administration, and who rejected it. It also calls into question the motives of those who decry "blood for oil" but leave us vulnerable to petroleum-based extortion.

OK, many Townhall bloggers have been criticized for daring to find fault with the Republican Party. The suggestion being that the WOT mandates a lockstep sealed lips subservience to the GOP and it's elected officials. Sorry, RINOs, not going to happen, ever. And now, none other than lifelong Republican Alan Greenspan has entered into the realm of Townhall Echo Syndrome. The Wall Street Journal, in a review of Greenspan's newest book, relates:

In a withering critique of his fellow Republicans, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says in his memoir that the party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles.

That's interesting. And the same thing conservatives here have been saying for months and months. And further, in the discussion about what ideas need to be considered to solve our future problems, Townhall's conservative reader's blogs seem to be echoed again:

Rising income inequality could undo "the cultural ties that bind our society" and even lead to "large-scale violence." The remedy, he says, is not higher taxes on the rich but improved education, which can be helped by paying math teachers more.

More wealth, more jobs, more economic expansion, more stuff for everybody. Communism, or it's modern American name, Progressivism, will kill this nation.

The great beltway conservative darling of the elitist establishment George Will, at one time was relevant. Less and less these days. He's just like the mass of elitists who can't understand why we knuckle dragging neanderthal xenophobes actually want to protect our sovereignty, and culture. And so the great hot wind blows, and asks if Fred Thompson is really necessary? The implication being that we've already got our guys to vote for. Really George? In Real Clear Politics, he asks:

Fred Thompson's plunge into the presidential pool -- more belly-flop than swan dive -- was the strangest product launch since that of New Coke in 1985. Then the question was: Is this product necessary?

George Will is much of what is wrong with the Republican Party. I'm not sold on Thompson yet, but to suggest that the top three are all we need to consider is so out of touch with mainstream conservatism that it makes me think George Will's day is long over. He even writes about baseball like a snob wonk. And on the side of the page view of Will's opinion piece, we see...

RCP Average

Giuliani    27.8%

Thompson   23.2%

Romney   11.6%

McCain    5.6