H/T to Discerning Texan

“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.”

Can you imagine if a Conservative / Republican said that, what the fallout would be? It would be on every news outlet, paraded over the airwaves, and the liberals would be falling all over themselves looking for a resignation.

But this quote came from John Kerry, who actually wanted to be the Commander and Chief of the men and women who are given there all over in Iraq.

Here is the Video of His Comments from NBC4.

What a looser.

Also Reporting:
Captain’s Quarters
Hot Air
Wizbang

If you did not see the orriginal Blitzer / Lynn Cheney interview on CNN, you can find it here.

Well Blitzer couldn’t keep up with Mrs. Cheney during the original interview – she out thought, out talked, and out dazzled him. So, like an honorable man, he took the weekend to think up an appropriate response, then aired it when Mrs. Cheney was not there to tie him into verbal knots.

Here is the text of his conversation. I can’t seem to find a good video yet, but will post if I do.

On Friday in the Situation Room on CNN, I interviewed the wife of the Vice President, Lynne Cheney. The interview generated quite a bit of commotion and we are going to replay the unedited version. First, some history. I have been covering the Cheneys for many years, including on a day-to-day basis when he was the defense secretary during the first Gulf War and I was CNN’s Pentagon correspondent. This — Mrs. Cheney has been a frequent guest on my programs. IN recent years I’ve often invited her to discuss her new children’s books, but she’s always open to discussing the news of the day.

In this most recent interview, she, of course, knew we would be speaking about politics. That was reaffirmed to her staff only hours before the interview. As a former co-host of CNN’s Crossfire during the 1990s, she knows her way around the media. She was never shy in sparring with Democratic strategist Bob Beckel and co-host.

I was surprised when she came out swinging on Friday, surprised by what she said about CNN’s “Broken Government” series and the excellent one-hour report by our chief national correspondent John King. One of the most precise and respected journalists in Washington. At CNN’s decision to air sniper video provided to our intrepid Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware by insurgents in Iraq which Anderson Cooper specifically branded, I’m quoting now, “a single propaganda tape.” Surprised at her sniping at my patriotism.

Wow, sounds like she struck a nerve; Blitzer and Al-Ja-CNN had there feeling hurt.

You can see my previous posts on ACLU vs Mt Juliet here and here and here.

The following press release comes to us from Bob Cooker, a candidate for Senator from Tennessee.

U.S. Senate candidate Bob Corker today said the Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is woefully wrong to have filed what he called a “frivolous liberal lawsuit” against the Wilson County School District alleging a morning prayer endorsed by Lakeview Elementary School officials is a constitutional violation of church-state separation.

“When the President declared September 14, 2001 — just two days after the attacks of 9-11 — a National Day of Prayer, no one sued him for crossing some arbitrary line between church and state,” said Corker. “We just bowed our heads and prayed. When a school in Wilson County or anywhere in our country allows children to do the same on the National Day of Prayer, or at a gathering at the flagpole, the courts ought to stay out of the way.”

Corker said he supports the efforts of Mt. Juliet Commissioner Glen Linthicum, who said it was time for the community to take a stand against the ACLU lawsuit recently filed against the Wilson County School District. Linthicum co-sponsored a resolution unanimously approved last Monday night by the Mt. Juliet City Commission that encourages the elementary school and the Wilson School District to fight for their rights to religious expression.

“Like many parents across our state, I pray for my family everyday,” Corker stated. “We should never force anyone to believe a certain faith or pray a certain way,” Corker continued, “but if a school decides to set aside some time to allow children who wish to pray to do so, we ought to support that school and community. That is precisely what it means to protect our freedom of religious expression — and I will fight to do just that in the U.S. Senate if elected.”

I hope the fervor over these sorts of cases continues, and the ACLU is forced to consider carefully before harassing innocent schools in such a fashion. As I hear more I will post them here.

H/T Stop The ACLU

As the economy continues to come under fire from our friends who are left of center, it is interesting to note that the facts dispute hype.

Today, the Department of Commerce released its personal income and outlays report, which shows yet another month of growth.

Personal income increased $53.0 billion, or 0.5 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $49.3 billion, or 0.5 percent, in September, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $11.6 billion, or 0.1 percent. In August, personal income increased $47.2 billion, or 0.4 percent, DPI increased $46.4 billion, or 0.5 percent, and PCE increased $15.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, based on revised estimates.

Private wage and salary disbursements increased $31.0 billion in September, compared with an increase of $10.1 billion in August. Goods-producing industries’ payrolls increased $1.3 billion, compared with an increase of $3.0 billion; manufacturing payrolls decreased $0.4 billion, in contrast to an increase of $0.7 billion. Services-producing industries’ payrolls increased $29.7 billion,
compared with an increase of $7.0 billion. Government wage and salary disbursements increased $1.8 billion, compared with an increase of $3.3 billion.

I wonder how the Democratic Spin Machine will turn this as a negative to republicans and underscoring the need for change?

Just wait until the ACLU gets a hold of this one.

From the Washington Times:

Sex offenders on probation or parole in Tennessee are banned from Halloween costume parties this year and aren’t even allowed to put up decorations, such as jack-o’-lanterns, that might attract youngsters.

The new state guidelines are meant to clarify policies that prevent offenders from interacting with children, said Board of Probation and Parole spokesman Jack Elder, and were not enacted in response to any specific problems the board has seen during the Halloween season.

[…]

The Tennessee restrictions prohibit sex offenders from attending Halloween events, such as cornfield mazes and haunted houses, handing out treats, displaying Halloween decorations, accompanying trick-or-treating children or wearing costumes.

[…]

Parole-board officers will conduct spot checks to make sure the offenders are obeying the rules. Violators could lose their parole or probation.

Good for Tennessee. This move is a logical and well thought out decision that runs the risk of being very unpopular with certain legal actives groups, such as the ACLU.

The article also notes that several other states have enacted similar laws, and the trend is expanding. Given the ACLUs stance on restricting where Sex Offenders can live and if they can frequent public parks, this sounds right on target. I am surprised the ACLU has yet to make a comment on this.

H/T to Discerning Texan

Yes, you heard correctly. Al “Smoking Causes Global Warming” Gore is to help the UK sell the Global Warming case here in the US.

From The Guardian:

Britain is to send the author of today’s landmark review on global warming to try to win American hearts and minds to the urgent cause of cutting carbon emissions - as it emerged yesterday that the government has already signed up former US vice-president Al Gore to advise on the environment.

While I don’t want to play down the condition of our environment, and the steady damage we are doing to world — do you think the UK could have found a more credible source?

I found the following very interesting article on ABC News Online. The core of the article is the results of an Associated Press, AOL poll.

The number of people who go online for political news is rising, with more than one-third saying they check the Internet for such information.

This group is more likely to be younger, better educated and male than the population in general, an Associated Press-AOL News poll found.

While 35 percent say they check the Internet for political updates about campaigns and candidates, that number grows to 43 percent of likely voters and they tend to be more liberal than conservative.

Think about that a minuet – the implications are staggering. Just under 50 percent of likely voters use the Internet to educate themselves about politics, political campaigns, and candidates. Less shocking, especially for anyone maintaining a conservative presence on the Internet, is that the Internet is more liberal than conservative – though there are no numbers provided to tell us how much more.

If, as the poll suggests that 43% of likely voters are in a mostly liberal category – dose that point to the fact that the likely voters are no representative of the US population as a whole? I tackled the whole right and left statistics previously in this post, which is made more interesting by the ABC article.

More interesting information from the poll:

four in 10 men search the Web for political news, compared with three in 10 women.

about four in 10 of those under age 50 search the Web for political news, compared with fewer than two in 10 of those 65 and over.

more than half of those with college degrees look to the Web for politics, compared with one-third of those who have some college, and fewer than one in six with a high school education or less.

Here is something the chew on:

Seven in 10 said such sites run by news organizations are the most trustworthy

Even the news outlets can admit they are biased, to bad the vast majority of the people don’t realize this fact. That means that 70% of the population takes the man stream media as honest and complete its portrayal of the news. Scary, that.

Another interesting tidbit for my fell members of the blogosphere:

For all the noise made by the political bloggers, a relatively small slice of the population is contributing to the blogs, an online journal or newsletter, and chats.

Only one in 10 of those who browse online for politics participate in the blogs though more than twice that many check them out.

Interesting read, you can find the entire article here.

Another good toon:

H/T to Wizbang