Love and Kisses from the Land of the Freed Balloons

There is so much good news out there, it must feel like Christmas wherever you are. Good news is a’ breakin’ out ALL OVER! Since we’re constrained for space and time, let’s start at the top:

THE WAR IS WON! THE WAR IS OVER!

That’s right. According to Andrew Bolt in the Daily Telegraph (Australia):

THERE is a reason Iraq has almost disappeared as an election issue.

Here it is: The battle is actually over. Iraq has been won.

I know this will seem to many of you an insane claim. Ridiculous!

After all, haven’t you read countless stories that Iraq is a “disaster”, turned by a “civil war” into a “killing field”?

Didn’t Labor leader Kevin Rudd, in one of his few campaign references to Iraq, say it was the “greatest … national security policy disaster that our country has seen since Vietnam”?

You have. And you have been misled. … Add it all up. Iraq not only remains a democracy, but shows no sign of collapse.

I repeat: the battle for a free Iraq has been won.

Now the task is one familiar to every democracy, and especially any in the Middle East: eternal vigilance.

If you doubt my assessment of Iraq, ask Osama bin Laden….

No word on whether we can leave now. But Brave, victorious Bush DID note that the Democrats are enabling Hitler:

Associated Press
Thu Nov 1, 2:14 PM ET

WASHINGTON – President Bush compared Congress’ Democratic leaders Thursday with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying “the world paid a terrible price” then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.

Bush accused Congress of stalling important pieces of the fight to prevent new terrorist attacks by: dragging out and possibly jeopardizing confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, a key part of his national security team; failing to act on a bill governing eavesdropping on terrorist suspects; and moving too slowly to approve spending measures for the Iraq war, Pentagon and veterans programs.

“Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation. “This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader. … It’s no time for Congress to weaken our ability to intercept information from terrorists about potential attacks on the United States of America. And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al-Qaida terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Well, not only was that good news, but his speech to the Heritage Foundation (he’s finding it harder and harder to find sympathetic audiences, these days) convinced Senators Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein to show their Pro-War spine and roll over on confirming Mukasey:

Mukasey all but a shoo-in for approval

Two Democrats on the judiciary panel express concerns but say they will vote to confirm him as attorney general.
By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 3, 2007

WASHINGTON — Michael B. Mukasey appeared on Friday to be all but assured of becoming the nation’s 81st attorney general when two Senate Democrats broke ranks and said they would support the retired federal judge to head the Justice Department.

While acknowledging serious concerns about his views on interrogation techniques, Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York said they would vote to confirm Mukasey when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up his nomination to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales on Tuesday.

In separate statements Friday afternoon, the lawmakers praised the 66-year-old New Yorker … The twin announcements, coming within minutes of each other, were the latest twist in a six-week nomination saga in which Mukasey’s confirmation at first seemed to be a foregone conclusion, then looked imperiled and now appears to be back on track.

His prospects had dimmed because of mounting concern after his confirmation hearing last month, when Mukasey refused to declare that a coercive interrogation technique known as waterboarding was illegal torture. His carefully worded explanation reminded some members of Gonzales, whose frequent evasions often disillusioned congressional Democrats and Republicans alike.

And that’s ALSO good news, because it’s now estimated that this war will cost us $2.4 TRILLION dollars. The Houston Post quotes the Kansas City Star (evidently spinelessness is not confined to Democratic Senators sitting on the Judiciary Committee):

Nov. 1, 2007, 10:28PM
ANOTHER VOICE
Kansas City Star
Wars’ staggering cost

Much of the concern about Iraq and Afghanistan has focused, appropriately, on the human suffering. But as new projections from the Congressional Budget Office show, the financial costs are staggering, as well.

The budget office estimates that the conflicts in those two countries could end up costing American taxpayers $2.4 trillion in the next decade.

President Bush and his top aides have spent nearly seven years sneering at those who suggested that they were on an irresponsible fiscal course. Yet where are we now? The federal debt has soared past $9 trillion, up from $5.7 trillion when Bush took office.

No WONDER he vetoed the Water Bill as “fiscally irresponsible.” Who, in all of recorded human history, would know more about fiscal irresponsibility?

But NOT TO WORRY! The economy’s GREAT!

Meredith Whitney, the analyst who prompted a $369 billion (£177 billion) plunge in the value of US shares on Thursday by issuing a negative note on Citigroup, hit out at Wall Street’s culture of intimidation yesterday after receiving several death threats from investors in the bank.

Ms Whitney, a CIBC analyst who is married to the former World Wrestling Entertainment champion Death Mask, prompted a near 7 per cent drop in Citigroup’s shares on Thursday, after suggesting that the bank needed to raise more than $30 billion to restore its capital cushion.

She also downgraded her recommendation on Citigroup’s shares to “market underperform” in the note that set off America’s biggest stock market decline since August.

Ms Whitney, Forbes’s second-highest ranked stock picker for 2007, told The Times: “People are scared to be negative, especially when a company has such a wide holding. Clients are not pleased with my call and I have had several death threats.

“But it was the most straightforward call I’ve made in my career and I am surprised my peer analysts have been resistant. It’s so straightforward, it’s indisputable.”

And it’s only going to get better with all the CHEAP NUCLEAR POWER we’re going to be getting:

TVA Applies for New Reactors

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority filed an application Tuesday for a license to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at a site in northern Alabama where it mothballed two reactor projects nearly two decades ago after investing billions of dollars.

The filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made in conjunction with an industrial consortium called NuStart, was the second application for a new commercial reactor in just over a month and is expected to usher in more applications.

Bill McCollum, TVA’s chief operating officer, said it would be up to the TVA Board to decide whether to proceed with construction, but applying for a license as part of the NuStart consortium “is a cost effective way to preserve TVA’s nuclear power option.”

[...]

If all goes as anticipated, TVA is widely expected to proceed with construction. The Energy Department said four other NuStart consortium members also have announced they expect to submit similar license applications to build Westinghouse reactors before the end of next year.

Under the new NRC licensing process, these applications will be allowed to reference the TVA application to speed up the process. Westinghouse Electric Co. is owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp.

Last month, NRG Energy Inc. submitted an application for two new reactor units at its Bay City, Texas, nuclear power plant site. Those would be boiling water reactor designs made by General Electric Co.

Prior to the NRG application, there had not been an application for a new nuclear power plant in the United States since before the Three Mile Island accident. Now the NRC says it expects as many as 21 applications for 31 reactors over the next few years.

The rush to build reflects a resurgence in nuclear power …

With such notable environmentalists (as I’ve reported HERE, HERE and HERE) as Christine Todd Whitman on board, this looks to be a slam dunk for SAFE NUCLEAR ENERGY!

But, as last night’s Penn & Teller “fair and balanced” 11/02 episode of “Bullshit!” (how appropriate a title is THAT?) on Showtime™ pointed out, anybody who doubts nuclear power is just a pathetic liberal, weenie asshole. It’s the liberal media, you know.

And the media IS filled with liberal bias!

… a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

Since I didn’t notice much crowing about the October Vanity Fair article on how that same press gave Georgie Dubya a leg up in 2000 (and he STILL didn’t win the election) I kind of fail to see what the impact of this is, OR how this proves that all of the media is biased. But then, I’m one of those brain-addled liberals.

In fact, this whole pushed-forward-a-year presidential Iditarod sled-dog race has been bread-and-circuses more for the media than the public, who have tuned it out. On Sunday, it will be one year until the 2008 Presidential Election, and THEN I’ll pay attention.

But, for psychotic (‘reasonable’ sounding and yet, still psychotic) ideologues like “Special” Ed Morrissey, this is PROOF of their long-cherished dream of a boogeyman. It must be Christmas already:

What A Shock — Liberal Bias In The Media (Update – Read The Report)

Instapundit calls this a dog-bites-man story, but it does have a twist. Instead of the Media Research Center issuing a report on media bias, today’s study comes from another bastion of conservative thought: Harvard University. Not only did the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy find that the media treats Democrats better than Republicans, it also finds that the media gives more air time to the Democrats as well …

(We’ll pass over the minor detail that the “report” was on PRESIDENTIAL campaign coverage, and the implication that the GOP candidates automatically MUST have exactly the same amount of coverage and balance of “positive” and “negative” in a statistical analysis of the dog and pony show that our presidential election has devolved into.)

And Sean Hannity was able to spread the news about the Socialist Underpinnings of Halloween from Steve Benin at The Carpetbagger Report:

Fox News’ Hannity rails against Halloween, which ‘teaches kids to be liberals’

Posted November 2nd, 2007 at 9:15 am

Last week, The Onion, which is a satirical publication, ran a very amusing editorial cartoon, mocking right-wing attitudes. The cartoon asked, “Halloween: What is it teaching our kids?” It depicted a kid trick-or-treating with a bag that read, “Something for Nothing,” under the caption, “Everyone deserves hand-outs!”

Proving once again that today’s right is practically impossible to satirize, Fox News’ Sean Hannity actually made the same argument, on the air, in the hopes of labeling Halloween a “liberal holiday.”

On the October 31 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that “Halloween is a liberal holiday” and “is teaching our kids to be liberals.” Hannity explained that “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a “liberal holiday.” Colmes asserted that Halloween represents “the act of giving,” and asked: “Isn’t that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?” Hannity replied: “Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout.”

In all sincerity, I thought Media Matters was kidding about this, until I watched the clip. Hannity, apparently in all seriousness, said we shouldn’t teach “our children to beg for something for free.” He concluded, “You’re teaching your kids to beg for a handout.”

And Michelle Malkin reveals with considerable glee that NOTHING will stop the anti-abortion agenda:

107 criminal counts against Planned Parenthood in Kansas
By Michelle Malkin • October 23, 2007 09:03 PM

I’ve written many times about the predators of Planned Parenthood. The latest effort to hold the abortion racket accountable comes from Kansas. There, Johnson County DA Phill Kline filed a 107-count criminal complaint last week against a Planned Parenthood operation. The counts range from falsifying documents to performing illegal late-term abortions. Planned Parenthood, of course, is crying “anti-choice politics!”

A hearing is set for Nov. 16.

And she quotes this, from “Medical News Today”:

Kline while serving as state attorney general in 2004 subpoenaed the records of 90 women and girls who in 2003 underwent late-term abortions at Comprehensive Health or Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, Kan., saying there is probable cause that each record contains evidence of a felony. The state Supreme Court in February 2006 ruled that Kline could seek access to the records but that he must return to Shawnee County District Court Judge Richard Anderson and present his reasons for seeking the subpoenas. Anderson turned over the records to Kline’s office in November 2006 after removing information that would identify individuals.

State Attorney General Paul Morrison (D) — who defeated Kline in the November 2006 election — in June in a letter to PPKM attorney Pedro Irigonegaray wrote that he has ended the investigation of Comprehensive Health. Morrison added that the attorney general’s office “found no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” by the clinic. Morrison in the letter also said that Kline forwarded copies of the medical records from PPKM patients to the Johnson County district attorney’s office on Jan. 5 — three days before he left the state attorney general’s office.

And, speaking of disreputable bloggers: not content with manipulating congressional election results by targeting huge contributions to targeted races, Pat Toomey, President of Club For Growth (his job after losing a primary challenge to Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004 ) sent out this email, urging members to stuff the ballot box for the Weblog Awards, as well (not that the Club For Growth blog actually deserves it):

Dear Robert,

Good news! The Club’s blog was nominated for the 2007 Best Business Blog award. Please consider voting for us here. Our blog is your one stop shop for free market news. If you haven’t checked it out, please do. We’re sure that you’ll love it. You can vote once a day from now through November 8th.

Earlier this week, the Club issued it’s seventh presidential white paper. This time it was on Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. Click here to read it.*

[NOTE: They're "agin" Paul: "Ron Paul is, undoubtedly, ideologically committed to pro-growth limited-government policies, but his insistence on opposing all but the perfect means that under a Ron Paul presidency we might never get a chance to pursue the good too." Ron Paul: The Perfect as the Enemy of the Good ..." --HW]

Here’s a fun video montage about Mike Huckabee that you might enjoy. [Huckabee raised TAXES, which is the equivalent, to the CFG, of a crucifix and garlic to a vampire -- If that isn't redundant. -- HW]

Finally, and I’m sorry to end on a negative note, but here’s an important article by Steve Chapman for Reason Magazine about how a band of Senators, including Chuck Schumer and Arlen Specter, want to effectively gut the First Amendment.

Have a great weekend!

Best Regards,

Pat

We’ll be hearing about Mr. Toomey again very soon.

And, finally, another COMMIE AMERICA-HATING PROFESSOR has been caught in David Horowitz’ jihad against academia:

Flag-burning ‘lesson’ provokes UM student

By Toni-Lynn Robbins
Saturday, November 03, 2007 – Bangor Daily News

ORONO, Maine – A University of Maine student alleges her former professor offered extra credit to class members if they burned the American flag or the U.S. Constitution or were arrested defending free speech.

On the first day of class, associate professor Paul Grosswiler offered the credit to members of his History of Mass Communications class, according to sophomore Rebekah McDade. Disturbed by the comment, McDade dropped the class and intends to take the course again next semester with a different professor.

“I was offended,” McDade said Friday. “I come from a family of military men and women, and the flag and Constitution are really important symbols to me because of my family background.”

In an e-mail responding to a request for comment from the Bangor Daily News on Friday, Grosswiler said he thought McDade misunderstood the class discussion, which was intended to elicit thought about the First Amendment. He said he has held this same discussion for years without incident.

“I don’t intend for students to burn either the Constitution or the flag, and over the years hundreds of students have understood that,” Grosswiler wrote.

The incident was made public recently when The Leadership Institute, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization, distributed a press release detailing the classroom discussion.

The Leadership Institute was founded in 1979 by Morton Blackwell and has a mission to identify, recruit, train and place conservatives in politics, government and the media, according to the organization’s Web site.

A field representative for the institute met McDade on Oct. 1 at UM, when she shared her experience and expressed an interest in spearheading a group “Students for Academic Freedom,” Blackwell said Friday.

The group’s initial goal would be to convince UM to enact a “Student Bill of Rights,” as other colleges have, which would protect students from professors who treat and grade students differently based on religious or political beliefs …

Yep. Good news is breaking out all over.

But, isn’t that what the papers were saying in Berlin the day before the Russians got to town?

Remember, you can’t say “Republican” without saying “blecch!”

Courage.

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