op ed review 7/4

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

In its second major ruling on gun rights in three years, the Supreme Court Monday extended the federally protected right to keep and bear arms to all 50 states. The decision will be hailed by gun rights advocates and comes over the opposition of gun control groups, the city of Chicago and four justices.

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/28/high-courts-big-ruling-for-gun-rights/

The interest on our national debt is now about the size of the defense budget.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/25/joint-chiefs-chair-says-debt-is-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

A morning flight over the Mississippi Sound showed long, wide ribbons of orange-colored oil for as far as the eye could see and acres of both heavy and light sheen moving between the barrier islands. What was missing was any sign of skimming operations.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/26/96608/no-skimmers-in-sight-as-oil-floods.html

The largest skimming ship in the world — known as an “A Whale” — will be prevented from helping to clean up the oil spill until the federal government decides that the vessel is “effective.”

http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/30/largest-skimmer-in-the-world-must-be-deemed-effective-by-the-federal-government-before-its-allowed-to-help-with-oil-clean-up/

There have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations to clean up the oil….only a small number have been accepted by the Obama administration, with the vast majority still under review.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXpxSxVPAD9GN1O480

Why Is the Gulf Cleanup So Slow? “One possibility is sheer incompetence…..Another possibility is that the administration places a higher priority on..placating organized labor, which vigorously defends the Jones Act…..(but) the oil spill may be also be viewed as an opportunity, the way White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said back in February 2009, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Many administration supporters are opposed to offshore oil drilling and are already employing the spill as a tool for achieving other goals.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703426004575339650877298556.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

“Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling” You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, it will be by Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, off the Brazilian coast.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html

Portland, Oregon , police have decided to reopen the investigation into a 54-year-old masseuse's allegations that Al Gore sexually assaulted her in his hotel room in 2006.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-gore-sex-abuse-case-reopened-portland/story?id=11059203

Apparently, she saved DNA evidence, and a hotel surveillance video has been obtained. Andrew Breitbard sums up what we know so far.

http://bigjournalism.com/mfrazier/2010/07/02/as-gore-keeps-changing-stories-the-evolution-of-a-crazed-sex-poodle-denial/

After the incident, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her "to just suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Sex-complaint-against-Gore-is-detailed_-credible-97329474.html#ixzz0sG1z0RA6

And of course there is yet to be an outcry from feminist groups in support of defenseless women forced to physically fight off influential male aggressors.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/als_masseuse_and_the_feminists.html

It appears all but certain that Washington voters will be asked to help bail out the state budget with an income tax that “targets high-income earners.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012250217_incometax01m.html?syndication=rss

Dino Rossi and Clint Didier have been in the nation's capital seeking support and campaign cash. The two Republican Senate candidates from Washington State are wooing different D.C. networks. Rossi is taking the more traditional route, heavy on meetings with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Didier has met with Tea Party favorite Ron Paul. He has talked with GOP chairman Michael Steele and met with conservative groups ranging from the Eagle Forum to the Family Research Council and the National Right to Life to Americans for Tax Reform.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/27/96558/gop-primary-challenge-heats-up.html

?? Nancy Pelosi says sending out unemployment checks is the fastest way to create jobs.

http://www.breitbart.tv/pelosi-unemployment-checks-fastest-way-to-create-jobs/

The National Rifle Association on Thursday publicly opposed the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, telling senators their votes could impact whether the NRA endorses them for re-election.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/1/nra-opposes-kagan-nomination/

John Lott: “A Vote for Kagan Is a Vote to Take Away Your Guns”

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/06/30/john-lott-elena-kagan-sonia-sotomayor-gun-ownernship-self-defense-second/

Kagan's Own Words: “It's Fine If Law Bans Books Because Government Won't Really Enforce It...”

http://www.breitbart.tv/kagans-own-words-its-fine-if-the-law-bans-books-because-government-wont-really-enforce-it/

While serving as Dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan demanded and forced Blue-Cross, Blue-Shield to cover sex-change operations as an “equal right” paid benefit. Kagan also offered a sympathetic ear to lesbian group Lambda’s Transgender Task Force demand to force all women to share public bathrooms and locker-rooms with cross-dressing men

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/24796

The Indiana Supreme Court decided the state’s voter identification law is constitutional. ‘It is within the power of the legislature to require voters to identify themselves at the polls using a photo ID.’”

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100630/NEWS/100630007/Indiana-justices-uphold-voter-ID-law

Fox News continued its domination of the cable news landscape in Q2 2010, with the top 13 programs on cable news all on the channel.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/fox-news-channel/2010/06/30/fox-news-had-top-13-programs-cable-news

A federal program designed to help impoverished families heat and cool their homes wasted more than $100 million paying the electric bills of thousands of applicants who were dead, in prison or living in million-dollar mansions, according to a government investigation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100701/ap_on_re_us/us_electric_bill_fraud

Under legislation moving quickly in Congress, volunteer fire departments could soon be a thing of the past. The bill forces state and local governments to collectively bargain with police, firefighters and emergency workers. Its critics say it would compel volunteer firefighters to join unions.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37738

Your Washington tax dollars at work: A freeway ramp was built by mistake. It wasn't until the concrete was poured and the ramp 90 percent finished that someone raised a question. Now, crews are ripping up the off ramp, at a cost of nearly $900,000.

http://www.nwcn.com/news/Construction-Mistake-to-Cost-Taxpayers-97199654.html

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose agency is charged with securing America’s borders, told an audience in Washington, D.C. this week that she can’t do the job.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/68494

Starbucks is now offering free Wi-Fi at all locations in the U.S. and Canada starting today, July 1st.

http://starbucks.tekgroup.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=411

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

Phyllis Schlafly 6/29

Barack Obama revealed his goal for the Supreme Court when he complained on Chicago radio station WBEZ-FM in 2001 that the Earl Warren Court wasn't "radical" enough because "it didn't break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution" in order to allow "redistribution of wealth."

Now that Obama is president, he has the power to nominate Supreme Court justices who will "break free" from the Constitution and join him in "fundamentally transforming" America. That's the essence of his choice of Elena Kagan as his second Supreme Court nominee. She never was a judge, and her paper trail is short. But it's long enough to prove that she is a clear and present danger to the Constitution.

When Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, she presented a guest speaker who is known as the most activist judge in the world: Judge Aharon Barak, formerly president of the Israeli Supreme Court. The polar opposite of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "all legislative powers" are vested in the elected legislative body, Barak has written that a judge should "make" and "create" law, assume "a role in the legislative process" and give statutes "new meaning that suits new social needs." Barak wrote that a judge "is subject to no authority" except himself, and he "must sometimes depart the confines of his legal system and channel into it fundamental values not yet found in it." Channel? Does he mean he channels in a trance, as Hillary Clinton supposedly channeled discourse with the long-deceased Eleanor Roosevelt?

Despite Barak's weirdo writings, or maybe because of them, Kagan called him her "judicial hero." Judge Robert Bork, a man careful with his words, says Kagan's praise of Barak is "disqualifying in and of itself." Bork said that Barak "establishes a world record for judicial hubris." He wrote that Barak embraces a judicial philosophy that "there is no area of Israeli life that the court may not govern." During Kagan's confirmation hearing for solicitor general, Sen. Arlen Specter asked her views on using foreign or international law or decisions to interpret our Constitution and laws. She wrote in reply that she approves using "reasonable foreign law arguments." Au contraire. The U.S. Constitution says our judges "shall be bound" by "the Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof."

Federal law requires all educational institutions receiving federal funds to present an educational program on the U.S. Constitution on every Constitution Day, Sept. 17. Kagan thumbed her nose at Constitution Day 2007 by hiring a transnationalist to the Harvard faculty, Noah Feldman, and featuring him for two days of speeches. Transnationalists are lawyers who advocate integrating foreign and international law into the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and laws. In his Harvard Constitution Day address, Feldman urged the "use of international legal materials in constitutional decision-making ... to help actually decide cases," and opined that "international tribunals' rulings must be treated as law."

Kagan's hero is also a transnationalist. In his book "The Judge in a Democracy," he sharply criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for failing to cite foreign law, and he praises Canada, Australia and Germany for their "enlightened democratic legal systems."

Kagan is particularly inappropriate because this anti-military woman would replace the only veteran on the court, John Paul Stevens. As Harvard Law School dean, she signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn or rewrite the Solomon Amendment, which she called "profoundly wrong." That popular law denies federal funds to colleges that bar military recruiters from campus. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Kagan's argument, proving what an extremist she is.

Kagan showed her feminist extremism when she served as the lead White House strategist advising President Clinton to veto the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Ten years later, substantially the same act was passed by Congress, signed by President Bush and upheld by the Supreme Court.

Feldman has published a New York Times magazine article in which he worries about how the high court will rule on lawsuits over ObamaCare, Obama's corporate takeovers and the stimulus spending cronyism. Feldman hopes Kagan's appointment means "the moment has arrived for progressive constitutional thought" to seize the courts .

The left is counting on Kagan to play a major role in getting the Supreme Court to uphold Obama's transformation of our exceptional private enterprise system to a socialist economy. The New Republic magazine is salivating at the prospect that Kagan will reassert the discredited doctrine of the "living Constitution."

A Rasmussen poll reports 42% of Americans oppose Kagan's confirmation, and only 35% favor her. Are senators listening?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/538850/201006291834/Constitution-Is-Endangered-If-Kagan-OKd.aspx

“The case against Kagan, Radical Obama nominee answers to politics, not the law. Here's what we know about this former dean of Harvard Law School…”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/24/the-case-against-kagan/

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

"In the 'living Constitution' era, the Supreme Court rediscovers original intent and rightly rules that the right to bear arms applies to all Americans just as the rest of the Bill of Rights does. It's hard to conceive how the justices could have decided otherwise. But by the narrowest of margins -- 5-4 -- they have reaffirmed that keeping and bearing arms is an inalienable and individual right like speech and religion, and that it applies to all individuals as the Founding Fathers intended. Why anyone thinks the Second Amendment does not apply to all Americans is a mystery to us. Governments have powers; individuals have rights. The Bill of Rights was an enumeration of those individual rights -- from freedom of speech to freedom of religion to the right to bear arms -- that are to be protected from the intrusion of an oppressive government. Now the Supreme Court agrees. ... Both the Constitution and 'we the people' are safer today."

-Investor's Business Daily

"Strict gun-control policies have failed to deliver on their essential promise: that denying law-abiding citizens access to the means of self-defense will somehow make them safer. This should come as no surprise, since gun control has always been about control, not guns."

-David Rittgers

"Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the Second Amendment to the Constitution means that individual Americans have a right to bear arms, what can we expect? Those who have no confidence in ordinary Americans may expect a bloodbath, as the benighted masses start shooting each other, now that they can no longer be denied guns by their betters. People who think we shouldn't be allowed to make our own medical decisions, or decisions about which schools our children attend, certainly are not likely to be happy with the idea that we can make our own decisions about how to defend ourselves."

-Thomas Sowell

"President Obama insisted ... that General McChrystal's departure signals a change in personnel but not in policy. It's a policy the president can call his own. Our purpose remains not to kill the Taliban but to register them to vote in Chicago."

-Argus Hamilton

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BOOKS, FILM

“Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State” by William Voegeli. Since the beginning of the New Deal, American liberals have insisted that the government must do more – much more – to help the poor, to increase economic security, to promote social justice and solidarity, to reduce inequality and mitigate the harshness of capitalism…….Even though the federal government’s outlays on all the programs in its “Human Resources” category have, after adjusting for inflation and population growth, doubled every 18 years since 1940, liberal rhetoric is always addressed to a nation trapped in “Groundhog Day,” where every year is 1932, and where none of the existing welfare state programs that spend tens of billions of dollars matter, or even exist. Never Enough explores the roots and consequences of liberals’ aphasia about the welfare state’s ultimate size. It assesses what liberalism’s lack of a limiting principle says about the long-running argument between liberals and conservatives, and about the policy choices confronting America in a new century.

http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/never-enough/

Fox News host Glenn Beck's apocalyptic political thriller The Overton Window debuts at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, “despite critical mauling”. "A visionary work of fiction. One of the best thrillers I've read in years " says Vince Flynn, another New York Times bestselling author

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/

The Lottery is a feature-length documentary that explores the struggles and dreams of four families from Harlem and the Bronx in the months leading up to the lottery for Harlem Success Academy, one of the most successful schools in New York City. The four families cast their lots in a high-stakes draw, where only a small minority of children emerges with a chance at a better future. The vast majority of hopefuls will be turned away.

The Lottery delves into the ferocious debate surrounding the education reform movement. Interviews with politicians and educators explain not only the crisis in public education, but also why it is fixable. The Lottery makes the case that any child can succeed.

http://thelotteryfilm.com/

Baroness Thatcher may be played by Meryl Streep in a movie of the former British prime minister's life.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/7865102/Meryl-Streep-to-play-Baroness-Thatcher-in-Hollywood-movie.html

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LEFTIST WATCH

One of the 11 people arrested Monday and Tuesday and accused of being secret agents for Russia is no stranger to controversy. Vicky Pelaez, 55, is known for her leftist writings as a columnist for El Diario La Prensa, the largest Spanish-language daily newspaper in New York, as well as other publications. She has been a strident supporter of former Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/29/russian.spies.pelaez.profile/

“Florida school district bans Bibles on Religious Freedom Day”

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features-the-religion-world/2010/07/01/florida-school-district-bans-bibles-on-religious-freedom-day/

Just when you think a state where a school board voted to give condoms to elementary school kids (unbeknownst to their parents) had scraped the bottom of the ideological barrel, Massachusetts has stooped even further: the town of Arlington school committee has rejected a request to allow students to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The reason given? According to the arlingtonpatch.com, educators there "are concerned that it would be hard to find teachers willing to recite it."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0710/ahlert.php3

“Capitalism produces. Socialism distributes….Some of the most celebrated champions of socialism have coined terms like “greedy capitalist” or “capitalist pig.” By implication, a socialist is neither greedy nor a pig. But economic history suggests that socialists are just as porcine as their capitalist counterparts…maybe even more so. One need only look to the recent goings on in Australia for a glimpse into the real world outcomes of this ideological struggle. Kevin Rudd was last week ousted from Prime Ministership after a botched attempt to impose a “super profits” tax on the most productive sector of the Australian economy – the mighty mining sector…“The story is a classic ‘producer vs. parasite’ tale…Rudd, like any other socialist bully would do, attempted to sell the tax to the Australian public under the familiar ‘fair share’ slogan. “‘The infrastructure needs of this state are vast and on the existing tax base cannot be funded,’ Rudd told Australian reporters..‘We say the sector of the economy most able to share a greater part of the burden for funding our infrastructure needs for the future is in fact our most profitable mining companies.’ “If this sounds like thinly veiled Marxist rhetoric…that's because it is. As the founder of that ill fated, though persistently insidious ideology himself famously noted: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’” One might be forgiven for thinking that, after Rudd’s spectacular political decapitation, replacement Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, would think twice before trying to kill the goose laying all of Australia’s golden eggs. Alas, it was out with one parasite, in with another…”

-The Daily Reckoning

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NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD

A mother of two is waiting to die in Iran by stoning. She will be buried up to her chest and the stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately. The 42-year-old woman from the northern city of Tabriz was convicted of adultery in 2006. She was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes. She later retracted that confession and has denied wrongdoing. Her conviction was based not on evidence but on the determination of three out of five judges,

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/07/01/iran.stoning/index.html?fbid=7p2LOvCWaAM

Muslim pupils in the UK are being withdrawn from music lessons because some Islamic beliefs forbid followers learning an instrument.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1291218/Muslim-pupils-taken-music-lessons-Islam-forbids-playing-instrument.html

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ACTIVISM

“The badly misnamed campaign finance bill, the DISCLOSE Act, will strangle the voice of the AFA and other pro-life and pro-family organizations during election campaigns, right at the time our voices most need to be heard. President Obama and the Democrats have already pushed this bill through the House, and will push it through the Senate in the next few days unless we intervene. Although the bill will muzzle the voice of pro-family groups, Democrats carved out a special exemption for unions, the Sierra Club and the AARP, so the rules won't apply to them. And the bill will go into effect just 30 days after it is signed by President Obama, just in time to silence our message before the fall elections.” Send your senators a message:

http://www.capwiz.com/afanet/issues/alert/?alertid=15192516

The 2010 RightOnline Conference will bring together influential new media activists, representatives of conservative organizations, and hundreds of citizen activists to provide important leadership and grassroots training, offering the tools and inspiration to more effectively impact public policy in favor of limited government and free enterprise. Fri and Sat July 23-24 in Las Vegas.

http://rightonline.com/

You may need to contact the NRA again: “NRA thinking of endorsing Harry Reid over Sharron Angle?” Why would they do that? “Reid secured a $61 million earmark for a gun range in Clark County, Nevada”

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/01/too-bad-to-check-nra-thinking-of-endorsing-reid-over-sharron-angle/

Contact the NRA here:

https://www.nrahq.org/contact.asp

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ARTICLES

"They are overwhelmingly white and Anglo, although a scattering of Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans combine to make up almost one-fourth of their ranks." This is from today's long (and on the whole not bad) USA Today article on the tea parties and tea partiers. But there's something a little odd about that term "scattering." That "scattering" is pretty hefty—23 percent of tea partiers are, according to the survey, non-white Anglos. How does this compare to the nation's adults as a whole? They're 25 percent non-white Anglos. So tea partiers are—in this as in other respects—a startlingly representative demographic group.

http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/tea-parties-look-america

“Hurricane GOP On The Way: Make no mistake about it: There is a wave out there, and for Democrats, the House is, at best, teetering on the edge.”

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cr_20100630_6929.php

An open letter from actor Jon Voight to President Obama: “Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/22/dear-mr-president-jon-voight/

Ted Nugent’s 4^th of July message: “Get angry. Get passionate. Get cracking. Take back America from the Fedzillacrats, who, if they get their way, ultimately will destroy the dreams of our forefathers. Slay Fedzilla at the ballot box. Do it for your grandchildren…”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/21/the-declaration-of-defiance/?page=1

“The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport.”

http://blog.american.com/?p=16158

Why is President Obama suing to invalidate the Arizona law on illegal immigration? Why is he incurring the enmity of even his own Democratic congressmen from the Phoenix and Tucson areas by trying to kill a law that two-thirds of Arizona and a similar proportion of America as a whole supports? The answer: It is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to rebuild his sagging popularity with America's Hispanic voters. Furious at Obama for failing to keep his election-year promise to promote comprehensive immigration reform when he had a super-majority at his disposal, they are deserting the president and his party in droves.

http://townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2010/06/26/obama_courts_latinos_by_suing_arizona/page/full

Polls Turn Against Public Employee Unions “By a 62 to 19 percent margin…respondents said that having a federal work force that was more generously compensated than workers in the private sector “was a bad thing for our country.”

http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/05/20/Polls-Turn-Against-Public-Employee-Unions.html#read_more

The Harlem Success Academy is under attack by teacher’s unions for being too successful. “They don’t want to be the face of the opposition to the press and expose the fact that they are hell bent on putting their own adult interests ahead of the success of the children. So the United Federation of Teachers hires outside groups to do the dirty work (not that teachers’ unions aren’t eminently capable of their own dirty deeds themselves). One of their favorite hires is ACORN, that community group of outstanding citizens, who will bus their troops to protest charter schools in general or a particular school.”

http://falmouthcitizens.com/blog/tag/harlem-success-academy/

Video report on the Harlem Success Academy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njBEryfdmLc

"My name is Sam Besserman, I'm eleven years old, I live in Beverly Hills, California, and ever since I can remember I have been subjected to political bias in school. The first time I noticed the bias was actually in preschool where the teacher was reading a book about the importance of mothers and the inferiority of fathers….”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/a_conservative_kid_tries_to_su.html

By appointing Gen. David Petraeus, the man who in 2007 was reviled by Sen. Murray and other liberal Democrats as a monstrous figure, a warmonger who had to be relieved of command, the leader of the Democratic Party laid a political minefield between Murray and her reelection. While Moveon.org coordinated the anti-war media campaign – punctuated by its infamous full-page “General Betray Us” ad – Murray worked hard to make use of the negative public opinion it generated.”

http://www.redcounty.com/return-gen-petraeus-command-puts-patty-murray-a-bind/41272

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Gene Simmons Military Tribute: Turn up the volume!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MtdIO23MKM

“Attack of the 50 foot Pelosi”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38033676/ns/politics-washington_post/

Here are the 25 essential conservatives to follow on Twitter.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/01/the-top-25-conservatives-on-twitter/

The Eight Most Irritating Liberal Celebrities

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37688

Despite the tight White House security, an intruder, probably a conservative, invaded POTUS' personal space.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/06/obama-fly-face.html

Strange Taiwanese re-enactment video of Al Gore’s massage. (for mature audiences only)

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/06/al_gores_sex_scandal_now_on_vi.php

This site was developed by the Office of House Minority Leader as part of an official effort to increase the dialogue between Americans and their Congress.

http://www.americaspeakingout.com/

Resurgent Republic seeks to replicate on the right the success Democracy Corps has enjoyed on the left. As Democracy Corps does, Resurgent Republic makes survey and focus group results publicly available. We promote conservative free market principles such as lower taxes and economic growth, and support strong national defense policies. Resurgent Republic has become a valuable resource for the general public, policy makers, Congressional leaders and others that are aligned with us on these important issues.

http://www.resurgentrepublic.com/about

Get your "Obama Tax Hike Exemption Card," which (in theory) exempts "Americans making less than $250,000 from any form of tax increase signed into law by President Barack Obama." ". If you'd like to give one of these cards a test run, here's how it works: If you make under $250,000 and find yourself facing any of the new taxes highlighted by ATR ("Tax on Indoor Tanning Services," "Medicine Cabinet Tax," "Special Needs Kids Tax," etc.), you present the card and, if challenged "politely ask, 'Excuse me, but are you calling President Obama a liar?'"

https://www.atr.org/card.html

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“KNOW YOUR REPUBLICAN HERITAGE:”

Q. How many Democrats in Congress voted to abolish slavery?

a. 127, b. 95, c. 34, d. 0

Q. Which park was established by a future Chairman of the Republican National Committee?

a. Central Park, b. Griffith Park, c. Franklin Park, d. Lincoln Park

Q. Which former Republican presidential nominee declined a nomination for Chief Justice?

a. James Blaine, b. Wendell Willkie, c. Thomas Dewey, d. Bob Dole

Q. Who was the first Vice President to attend Cabinet meetings?

a. Levi Morton (R-NY), b. Theodore Roosevelt (R-NY), c. Calvin Coolidge (R-MA), d. Charles Dawes (R-IL)

Q. Which archaeological site was discovered by a future Republican U.S. Senator?

a. Angkor Wat, b. Great Zimbabwe, c. Machu Picchu, d. Stonehenge

Answers here:

http://biggovernment.com/mzak/2010/06/27/know-your-republican-heritage-quiz-1/#more-136810

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LATE NITE

Jay Leno: President Obama met with the Russian president at the White House and afterwards, took him out for a burger. It was a bit awkward because Gen. McChrystal was working behind the counter……The Russian president wanted to pick up the check, but Obama said, “Don’t worry about it, just charge it to our grandchildren.”……Mexico has filed a brief against Arizona’s new immigration law. It’s a precedent because it’s the first immigration law Mexico has paid any attention to.

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WISE WORDS

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites."

-Edmund Burke