Moonbatosphere Double Standards

Word that former North Carolina Democrat Senator John Edwards has admitted to the extramarital affair (he denies fathering the illegitimate child) is truly sad.

After all, about the only thing respectable about the guy was the fact that a successful, good-looking trial lawyer didn't dump for a trophy wife his rather frumpy wife when she hit 40. Even more tragic is the fact that Elizabeth Edwards' cancer has recurred, and apparenly is inoperable. In short, she is dying.

Oh well.

But I'm wondering about the moonbatosphere's response. After all, they savaged Newt Gingrich for "pressing his [first] wife for divorce while in the hospital," or so the story goes. Incidentally, the first Mrs. Gingrich survived, and is alive today.

Go ahead. Google "Gingrich divorce 'first wife' cancer." I came up with not fewer than 10,400 results in about a quarter second. Most on far-Left smear sites.

As for Edwards? Don't hold your breath waiting for the moonbatosphere to apply the same standard to their boy. After all, "principles" are principles for the far Left. They're mere tools of convenience.

UPDATE: Well, there's one exception. But I've never categorized Ben Tribbett as part of the moonbatosphere.

Modern Democrats: Too Far Left For George McGovern

Say what you will about George McGovern (I have), but at least he's not a Marxist. A raging Socialist, perhaps, but not a "vanguard of the proletariat," "false-consciousness" Marxist.

To what am I referring? The amazing op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal in which he come out against the fraudulently-misnomered "Employee Free Choice Act," a pernicious little proposal at the very top of the union-boss wish list.

And what would EFCA do? Well, let's leave it to former Senator McGovern:

it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak.

The key provision of EFCA is a change in the mechanism by which unions are formed and recognized. Instead of a private election with a secret ballot overseen by an impartial federal board, union organizers would simply need to gather signatures from more than 50% of the employees in a workplace or bargaining unit, a system known as "card-check." There are many documented cases where workers have been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards that have led to mandatory payment of dues.

Under EFCA, workers could lose the freedom to express their will in private, the right to make a decision without anyone peering over their shoulder, free from fear of reprisal.

So tell me again how Democrat supporters of EFCA (North Carolina freshman Congressman Heath Shuler comes to mind) are "moderates"? George McGovern is no moderate, and even he cannot stomach this proposal.

I once labeled McGovern "George 'No Enemies to the Left' McGovern."

It would seem that I owe him an apology. I apologize.

Oh, Foresooth! WaPo Editorializes In "News" Coverage

Thanks to one of the moonbats ... er, Lowell over at Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough ... er, Raising Kaine ... er, "RK," I noticed this little item in one of the "news" articles in today's Washington Post:

Since the end of World War II, government policy has funded and encouraged the suburban lifestyle, subsidizing highways while starving mass transit and keeping gas taxes much lower than in some other countries.

"funded and encouraged the suburban lifestyle [by] ... keeping gas taxes much lower than in some other countries."

So, it's a "subsidy" when government refuses to seize more of the income of the producers?

Few comments so succinctly illustrate the Marxist/Socialist premises upon which so many of today's media based their "reporting."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, RIP

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize-winning author and perhaps Communism's most potent literary foe, died today at age 89.

His One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich should have been required reading in every American government school, but wasn't. While I had read this work, I was reintroduced to his importance by one of my college professors, James Pontuso, Patterson Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at Hampden-Sydney College, whose doctoral thesis was on the great Russian author's work.

With a personal knowledge that the author of the phrase (Eric Blair AKA George Orwell) could not, Solzhenitsyn illustrated the reality of Marxist totalitarianism: "Imagine a boot in your face. Forever." And revealed its horrors to a world all too frequently willing to turn a blind eye.

RIP.

Obama's "Distractions"

I keep hearing from the Obama campaign --- in response to any issue raised by McCain or any other Conservative --- that "it's just a distraction."

By which the speaker means "We really don't want to or can't answer this, so we'll just dismiss it. Doesn't Senator Obama give a good speech?"

In short, it's just a "distraction" from the fact that BHO gives such a darn good speech. Says nothing, but says it well.

Once again, the far Left is demonstrating it's lack of respect for anyone who isn't on the far Left. And that the far Left fears real debate in the same way (and for the same reasons) that a vampire fears sunlight.

Middle-School Tactics For Me, But Not For Thee

Just saw this post by Lowell Feld over at Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough ... er, "Raising Kaine" ... er, "RK," and I thought something was funny. After all, the make sport of GOP presumptive presidential nominee John McCain by calling him "McLame."

But I seem to remember something about savaging former Delegate Dick Black for childishly characterizing challenger David Poisson (French for "fish") as "Poison."

Yup. Sure enough. Here's a post by teenager Kenton Ngo attacking Black's actions.

It's pretty pathetic when a teenager demonstrates more maturity than a man of Feld's years. On your own website!

Happy Nuke Day!

It was on this day, 63 years ago, that mankind produced the first man-made nuclear explosion with a plutonium fission device at the Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Shortly thereafter, World War II was ended when quickly-weaponized atomic bombs were first used in anger over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While fewer died on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively, than were killed in conventional raids on Dresden and Tokyo, it is the events of August 1945, which command the attention of most.

And what were the results of man's success in harnessing the atom?

Hundreds of thousands of American and Allied troops were neither maimed nor killed because President Harry S. Truman had the wit to bring to bear this new instrument of American power. Likewise, hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of Japanese survived who would not have, had the Allies been forced to invade and conquer the Japanese mainland.

Nuclear weapons can also happily be credited with the lack of a direct major-power confrontation during the last half of the Twentieth Century. Doubtless, we came close to one on a number of occasions. Nevertheless, the prospect of the horrific consequences of the use of nuclear weapons as equally undoubtedly a major factor in preserving a precarious --- if imperfect --- peace notwithstanding the ideological hostility between the world's two major powers in the post-war period.

Alan Oppenheimer, the on-site head of the Manhattan Project, quoted Shiva, the destroyer, from the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, upon witnessing mankind's first atomic mushroom cloud: "I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds."

Literary critic and historian Paul Fussell --- himself a veteran of the war in Europe, and scheduled for transfer to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan --- observed twenty years ago, in the title essay (called "classic" by one author, and "powerful" by another) of his book, Thank God for the Atom Bomb.

Today, I would put it more simply: Happy Nuke Day!

Jesse Helms, RIP

Senator Jesse Helms was an unapologetic, no-nonsense lion of the Conservative movement, and his passing yesterday --- appropriately enough, for such a champion of liberty, on Independence Day --- will be keenly felt by generations of Conservatives. We heard the news as we were traveling to the annual Conservative Soiree at Bull Run Regional Park.

While a long-time friend of the Right to Work movement, I had only two occasions to have any interaction with the Senator from North Carolina.

The first was back in the summer of 1984, when I was interning for Congressman George W. Gekas (R-PA). I had just attended a reception on the Hill. It was a "Free China" reception, held by Conservative Senators and Members of Congress in response to a reception for athletes from Communist China.

In any case, as I was leaving, I happened to run into Senator Helms (who had attended) and joined a group of other interns who were chatting with him. It wasn't a long conversation, but it was less than a year after the liberation of Grenada, which caused a firestorm among the media because they weren't allowed to accompany the troops. Someone else, knowing of Senator Helms' history as an award-winning journalist, asked him what he thought of the controversy.

I'll always remember his humorous, almost impish response, delivered in a wonderful Southern accent. He paused, and then offered "Well, Ah think it woulda been sportin' to send them in first!"

Priceless.

The other was a few years later, on a professional level, when the Senator retained me to represent him in a lawsuit challenging a Clinton Executive Order attempting to debar Federal contractors who dared to exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act to replace permanently strikers in an economic strike (for higher wages and/or benefits). While it was ultimately determined that only those Members of the House who retained me had a claim, and we never filed suit on Senator Helms' behalf, I was alway flattered that a Conservative hero had retained my services.

He is and will be missed.

Resquiat in pacem.

Great Tune; Lousy Words

I heard a politician speak a few days ago on the phenomenon of the Obama campaign. This politician pointed out that, like a few songs of which he could think, Obama coupled a great, catchy tune with lousy words.

The classic metal anthem "Highway to Hell" came immediately to mind.

Interesting Point

It seems that Howling Latina has stumbled unwittingly into the truth.

She complains that Obama has assumed the posture of a moobat to win the Democrat nomination for President, but is posturing as a Republican to win the general election.

Of course, this illustrates one of the fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats: Republicans expect their candidates to do when elected what they promise in their campaigns; Democrats expect their candidates to lie and act like moonbats when elected.

Today, In Cloudcuckooland....

In response to my post below, Jim Riley makes a wonderful point.

You see, it seems that our friends on the far Left have taken to calling themselves "Hussein" in honor of the Moonbatic ... er, Democrat nominee for President. Lowell Feld notes this over at Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough ... er, Raising Kaine ... er, RK ... er, whatever.

Even the sometimes logical Ben Tribbett, who is Not Larry Sabato, is now Not Larry Hussein Sabato.

Now, I suppose there's something to be said for doing so. After all, the Democrat nominee-presumptive is quite sensitive about sharing his middle name with the late and former Maximum Leader of Iraq, so much so that he whined about people who were pointing it out. Obviously, some Democrats worry that reminder of Obama's non-English, non-typical name will cost him votes and/or support. Taking the power out of it (much as adherents to Martin Luther's reforms took on the name "Lutheran," once an insult) is a legitimate tactic.

But remember two years ago, when Virginia's Moonbatosphere was was making sport of Senator George Allen's middle name?

So let me get this straight: "Felix" is to be ridiculed, but "Hussein," surname of one of the five most bloodthirsty dictators of the last half-century, is to be celebrated?!?!?!

Liberalism. It's not just a lifestyle; it's a mental disease.

"Hussein" Fashionable?

According to Lowell Feld, some moonbats ... er, "Democrats" have started putting "Hussein" in the middle of their names.

Doubtless, it a demonstration of solidarity with the late and former Maximum Leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. After all, these are the same moonbats ... er, "Democrats," who suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome. And who has lost more to the Bush Administration than Saddam Hussein?

Oh, that's not the reason?

Could've fooled me.

Wesley Clark: Four-Star Moonbat

I'll vote for John McCain, with grave reservations based upon some of his positions (hostility to the First Amendment, for example), but it's clear that the moonbat Left finds little in his military record to commend him.

According to Gen. Wesley Clark, on yesterday's "Face the Nation" on CBS, John McCain's heroic record isn't that big a deal:

In the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war.

He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world, but he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded .... that wasn't a wartime squadron.

According to Newsmax.com, even this was too much for moderator Bob Schieffer, who raised the issue by citing similar remarks Clark has made previously, noted that Obama hadn't had those experiences nor had he ridden in a fighter plane and been shot down. "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," Clark replied.

Really? Apparently, riding in a swiftboat was, however.

In a March conference call with reporters while he was still backing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Clark said: "Everybody admires John McCain's service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There's no issue there. He's a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot --- and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam --- that doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues."

It's utterly amazing that one would disparage that record. But when you're a moonbat who supports a guy who was, just a few years ago, a "community organizer," i.e., a professional rabble-rouser, and who has no significant legislative or executive record, you have to start by denigrating perhaps the most honorable service a man can render and which, among any but the moonbats of the far Left, makes a man --- objectively --- highly qualified for the highest office in the land.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, within two hours of the Supreme Court's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, predicts "higher taxes to pay for extra police if his city's gun restrictions are lost."

A pretty good prediction in any Democrat administration.

Duh!

Perhaps the dumbest and most self-evident headline I've seen in a long time:

"HIV spikes in men who have sex with men."

Only the perversion lobby has ever suggested otherwise.

What's next? "STDs spike among the promiscuous"?

Heller: "...it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct"

Courtesy of SCOTUSBlog, we learn that the Supreme Court today affirmed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in District of Columbia v. Heller. In so doing, the Court affirmed that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, exposing the dishonesty of the gun-grabbing, liberty-destroying Left.

A link to the decision is here.

Liberty and the right of revolution lives!

As I will be arguing a case before the Court on 6 October, no further commentary will be offered.

*&@$#%! Airlines!

Amazing. Utterly amazing.

If you have a few bucks laying around, and are thinking about investing in an airline, DON'T DO IT!

Just got off the phone with Ruiz, at United Airlines. It seems that United just managed to find a bag that had been misdirected.

'Course, the flight that it was supposed to arrive on arrived on time at Washington Dulles International Airport ten months ago tomorrow!!!

That's right. United will be returning a bag (my mother's) from a flight from ten months ago.

You see, last summer, the Youngs took a trip to Alaska. For reasons discussed elsewhere, my mother came along.

On the way back, her single bag was misdirected.

Now, we were pretty sure as to what happened. When we got back to Dulles, and noticed that only her bag (among the seven checked by the five of us) was missing, I noticed that we had an errant baggage claim check. There was a different name on it, and it was for a woman (in the military) traveling on to Kuwait, as was our flight.

Well, we of course reported that information when we went to the Baggage Office for United to complain.

Thus began six weeks of conversations with people on the United toll-free line. 'Cept English wasn't their first language. And they weren't in the United States. Noooo, they were in New Delhi. Yeah. In India. And we begged them to contact Kuwait, and to have someone physically look for the bag. "No can do," we were told. We begged them for the phone number of the terminal in Kuwait, so we could do that which they wouldn't. No luck. It was so bad that I seriously contemplated asking a friend from church --- a Marine officer on his way to Afghanistan --- to check for the bag when he went through Kuwait. Figuring he had better things to do --- and having been assured by United that they had, indeed, checked in Kuwait, I declined to do so.

To make a long story a bit shorter, we received a check for about $1,200.00 about six weeks later. But no bag.

And now, one day short of ten months to the day after we returned home, United has finally found.

I'm sure that my mother will be delighted.

As for me, I have little doubt anymore as to the reasons for the sad state of American airlines.

What A Huge Surprise!

The Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee has voted to increase your taxes!

Another fine example of why Chuck Colgan should have been retired last year by Bob FitzSimmonds.

Tell Me Again Why We Need More Taxes?

Senator (and future Attorney General) Ken Cuccinelli gets it right again!

In Richmond for Governor Timmy's! special tax-increase ... er, "transportation" session of the General Assembly, Senator Cuccinelli has apparently noted that while Virginians of all stripes are having to reprioritize their budgets to account for increased costs for transportation, only Democrats in the government of the Commonwealth are refusing to acknowledge reality by reshuffling budget priorities to spend more for transportation, and less (well, not really less, but smaller increases) for other areas of the budget.

I invite my few readers to play the Democrats' game. Rather than reordering your families' spending priorities, I suggest that you go into your bosses' offices, and demand a raise to account for the higher costs of gasoline for your commute.

When he or she finishes laughing you out of his or her office, call your state legislators and demand that they respond similarly to Governor Timmy's! tax-increase proposals.

Announcement: The Guilty Liberal Fund

Caught a caller to the Chris Plante Show on WMAL on the way to work today.

"Theresa" describes herself as a black single woman who makes over $120,000 per year, and supports the Dalai Bama ... er, Barack Hussein Obama (since I saw another blogger referring to "John Sidney McCain" the other day, with no complaints from his fellows in the moonbatosphere, I'm pretty sure I don't want to hear any more complaints about referring to middle names). Plante queried her for the reasons for her support, and she rendered the usual talking points about "health care for all Americans." Interestingly, she conceded what few close to the Dalai Bama will: that Obama will raise taxes.

That really doesn't bother "Theresa," since she's willing to pay more.

What Plante failed to ask her was "How much extra did you send in to the Federal government last year? The year before that? How about 2005?" Better yet, Plante might have asked her how much her tax refunds were for those years.

Plante also failed to ask "Theresa" for how many people --- other than herself and her family --- was she paying for health insurance.

You see, nothing in the world prevents people from sending in more to the Federal government. And "Theresa" is certainly free to purchase health insurance for whomever she wants.

And until someone advocating those positions favors us with that information --- and the answer is substantial --- I'm really not interested in hearing how "willing" he or she is to pay more taxes, or how he or she believes that "we" should be providing health insurance to "everyone," which by the way includes those who can "afford" it but are young, and/or healthy, and/or have decided to self-insure.

Of course, what "Theresa" means by "we" is that the Federal government should seize money from the productive at the point of a gun, and redistribute it to others. What she means --- assuming that she hasn't purchased health insurance for some unfortunate outside of her immediate family --- is that she doesn't take personal responsibility for her beliefs and put them into action.

Perhaps what we need to do to put the tax advocates to their proofs is to create the "Guilty Liberal" fund, so that Liberals who find themselves paying too little in taxes can assuage their guilt by sending in more than required by law.

Maybe then they'll leave the rest of us alone.

Of course, it's been tried in Virginia --- since 2002 --- and precisely five people have contributed to it.