Hallelujah - Bush against Kelo

The Supreme Court may not give a damn about private property rights, but President Bush does, filing an executive order prohibiting the taking of private property for the use of other private entities:

It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.

Now, if only he could fire off a few more...

Hint: how about one emphasising that actions (like oh, say, burning a flag) are not speech?

Treason at the New York Times

Let's talk a bit about the New York Times and their most recent blatant acts of treason.

Yes, I said treason, and I don't use the term lightly. Revealing national security secrets in a time of war is the very definition of treason, at that's what the Times has been doing with alarming frequency of late.

The details of a completely legal plan looking for suspicious internation monetary transactions used to fund terrorists overseas or to direct their money to operatives here? Now useless, thanks to the Times. Troop levels as reported in a classified briefing? Printed in the Times. Those are just the two most recent examples.

There was a time in this country where even the New York Times had a sense of responsibility to the country at large, not to their pet causes. Did they print attack plans during World War II? Of course not, but I'm sure they would today, as part of the public's "right to know" (actually part of their continued plan to do everything possible to destroy George W. Bush.) You can also be sure the next time a Democrat President pleads with them not to reveal information, they'll of course say that discretion was called for in that case.

There is Freedom of the Press, as outlined in the First Amendment. But guess what, that means there will not be state censorship of the press. That does not mean there will not be legal liabilities for printing blatantly treasonous content.

Granted, they're not alone. Those who are leaking this information to the press need to be found and found now, arrested, and put on trial for - you guessed it - treason against the United States of America. Frankly, the number of people with security clearances blabbing away is nothing short of an embarassment to the country. Imagine people inside the War Department blabbing to the press that we were breaking German and Japanese codes during World War II, with the next day's Times headline undoubtedly reading U.S. Continues Warrantless Eavesdroppng on Foreign Communications. In today's world, I certainly can.

In the mean time, it's good to know Al Qaeda need not spend dime one on intelligence of their own, and need not do any work to try and figure out how America is tracking them down and what America's next moves in Iraq, down to the numbers of military present will be. All they need to do is pick up a copy of the Times.

(Los Angeles Times? They're just as bad, also giving the same lame answers as to why the need to reveal the contents of secret programs is minimal compared to the need to betray the country they print their garbage in. No wonder their readership continues to plummet like a rock.)

Read all about it at The Truth Laid Bear.

Blinded by their own prejudice

That's the only way I can explain the complete lack of understanding shown by editors of various publications.

The latest is TelevisionWeek, which in their June 12, 2006 issue presented an article entitled "Immigration Tough Topic for Hispanic Reporters to Cover."

The article is, obviously enough, about how it's difficult for Hispanic reporters to cover immigration issues without being judged to lean one way or another, but unless they're blinded by their own world view, it's hard to believe an editor could have read the following two paragraphs, presented one after another, without making the obvious comment (emphasis in the quote is mine):

"When you're covering immigration, you have to prove yourself, that you're being balanced on the issue," said veteran Univision news anchor Maria Elena Salinas. "You're being scrutinized because you're Hispanic. It's bittersweet. On the one hand it's great that the Hispanic community has woken up and is reacting and fighting in a peaceful manner for their rights as human beings. But the backlash is so horrendous, and I think it's a major setback. There's so much focus on the southern border that it's become a racial thing."

Verónica Villafañe, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, agrees with Ms. Salinas' assessment. "Anecdotally, some reporters have been accused of leaning one way or another," she said.

Excuse me? When the right to illegally immigrate to the United States is considered a right as a human being, I think the reporter is pretty clearly leaning one way or another. Did the editors at TelevisionWeek read this? Are they actually so unaware of their own biases that the juxtaposition of these two quotes didn't cause them to do a classic "spit take" while reading it?

Must just be me…

It's not hard to understand the immigration issue…

As I've said before, yes you are a criminal if you're in the country illegally. See how those two words go together, illegal and criminal?

Here's a hint: if you'd be afraid to walk into an INS office, perhaps you're not playing by the rules. (Not like today's INS would do anything to you even if you were undocumented, but that's another story.)

The opponents of immigration reform (I hate that; since when is it reform to want to enforce existing laws?) say it's racist, but why should Chinese, Indians, Koreans, etc. get shafted while waiting to come to the US and/or bring over family members just because they don't share a porous border with the U.S.?

Finally, why, oh why don't Republicans get it? McCain of course is calling all those who care de facto racists, but since he may as well have had a (D) behind his name for the past several years that's not at all surprising. For the rest, is the allure of 13 million potential new voters that strong, and worth losing the support of the very Republican voters that got them elected in the first place?

It's incredibly stupid to take the attitude of "I'm just going to sit home and not vote next election" considering the irreparable harm a Democratic sweep of the House and Senate would cause, yet more and more Republicans realize they just won't be able to hold their nose and vote for the same idiots who claim that requiring the payment of a fine (good luck collecting that) and a "requirement" to learn English somehow doesn't make the Senate's legislation amnesty. Frankly I think the GOP Congressional delegation has become so deeply infected with the "we want to be liked by the Washington media" virus that there may be no way to cure them of it. They act as if they're 16 and trying to sit at the "cool kids'" table in the high school cafeteria and don't realize the head cheerleader is only being friendly to them so they'll do her Chemistry homework for her.

No, it's become readily apparent that we need to refresh the GOP ledger in Washington with a slate of candidates that actually have some core beliefs, and more importantly, we need a leader who isn't afraid to show his Conservatism and who realizes that helping people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps is the true meaning of compassion. The old "give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime" mantra would apply here, except our current representatives are too busy listening to PETA tell them that fishing is cruel.

What's the solution? I don't know, except perhaps to opine that if the country may really end up with a female president in 2008, rather than Hillary it desperately needs to be Ann Coulter.

(Of course, to use Rush Limbaugh's line on the subject, I doubt Ann would be willing to take the pay cut…)