But did they get free health care?

This is a quick follow-up to something discussed here and elsewhere last week about a possible border breach by Islamic terrorists. A Washington Times article today goes into more detail about the attempted attack on Ft. Huachuca in southern Arizona.

If anyone in the northeast can be bothered to take a break from shopping for carbon credits to give as Winter Solstice gifts, I'm sure they'd react something along the lines of this:

"Islamic terrorists sneaking across the Mexican border to do bad things? That's just whacky right wing propaganda. It's impossible for someone who isn't good and honorable to illegally enter the country because 'there are no illegal people'! Wait, we have a border with Mexico?"

Heads up, people. The immigration debate is about more than keeping the price of lettuce affordable. Poor people in Mexico aren't the only ones that have noticed that the border is porous. Just guessing here, I bet it's hard to enjoy a salad full of reasonably priced produce if the restaurant you're sitting in gets blown up.

Hey, if liberals can speculate that the glaciers are going to drown us when they melt based on computer models I can speculate that terrorists might blow Americans up based on the fact that they already have.

Politburo Weekend

Seeking to enjoy a stress-free and peaceful holiday, I minimized the time I usually spend reading the lefty blogs this past week. I did, however, promise myself that I would monitor and mouth-off about said blogs with some frequency so...here's a quickie weekend glance at what the communists progressives were getting their knickers in a twist about.

Honestly, I was a little curious to see what such a large collection of inveterate bashers of the United States would have to be thankful for so I did peek at what Kos had to say on Thanksgiving. His imagination and wit have an inversely proportionate relationship to his growing acclaim. He used to be good for a few zingers that were, at the very least, fun to dissect and respond to. In his Thanksgiving post he merely proceeds from boring to bitchy.

A guy named Duke1676 attempts to air quote his way out of the left position on illegal immigration in this post. The immigrants are no longer undocumented in this "There are no illegal people..." story, they've become unauthorized. Perhaps the right should develop a fetish for the "un" prefix as well and begin referring to illegals as unstoppable. It's full of pedestrian left wing, um, logic that claims that there is no crisis and that real concerns are nothing more than talking points. He babbles on for what seems like days to come to his point that we simply don't approve enough visas for unskilled laborers.

Just one of the elephants in the room that Duke dances around is the question of whether we need to approve many at all since, by most counts, there are 12 million of the unwhateveryouwantocallthems already living here and handling a lot of the unskilled labor. The problem isn't our immigration policy. It is, and always has been, the fact that Mexico doesn't have anything resembling a middle class. The rest of the world does absolutely nothing to pressure it while the leftnuts here want an insane redistribution of wealth to accommodate the steady flow of impoverished Mexicans into the U.S. We're not supposed to be the world's cop but the left wants us to be the world's sugar daddy.

Duke1676 does provide some humor if you check out the other blog he posts to. The posts rail against the right wing and it's got a blog roll that would make Hugo Chavez look right of center yet its "About" section claims that the site is "nonpartisan". They probably meant "non-Parisian" since very little French appears on the site. Easy mistake.

There's a big philosophical post at TDK today titled "Why Are We Here?" It proceeds from the "evolution as fact" point of view so the first thing you have to do is get a huge grain of salt to take with the rest of it. Claiming that Darwinian theory, as yet not backed by the fossil record, reasonable computer models or even four out of five dentists, has "wrung the Genesis out of human origins..."

I'm not exactly an either/or guy on this so I would ask that any lefties who happen to be reading spare me the religious zealot epithets.

As usual, whenever a discussion about how precise everything had to be seconds after the Big Bang for us to get to this point one is left with a few ways to consider how it all fell into place. Ironically, proponents of evolution like to take a leap of faith. They do worship a god over there, it's called "Coincidence". Or you can believe that something may have been directing the whole thing. They're asking you to believe that, if you take a bunch of actors with no script or director and sit them in a room, "The Godfather" will eventually happen.

I believe in coincidence like I believe in the lottery as a retirement plan.

Despite its condescension ("...if you failed to make it to the back cover of A Brief History of Time, think twice about diving in here..."), the post is worth plowing through. It is one of those rare TDK postings that at least tries to discuss something rather than simply type out a temper tantrum.

Naturally, they're happy about the Labor win in Australia but unhappy about the French rail workers having to do their jobs. Pro labor as long as nobody has to work too hard.

That's how the nutroots roll.

Psychos Without Borders

First, an item of interest that I found yesterday at one of my favorite watering holes, Miss Beth's Victory Dance. It's been making the rounds on the conservative blogs but it bears repeating for a couple of reasons.

The most important reason is that I don't think most people on the left understand that border security and national security are linked. If we get upset about lax immigration enforcement we're labeled xenophobic loons who want to damn the poor people of Mexico to eternal struggle. Like the chance that Rosie O'Donnell will say something stupid again, the likelihood that terrorists will cross our southern border is fairly great. All I'm saying is this: if we can demand panic because the computers say that we might have some problems with climate in the future maybe we can be just a little concerned about the threat of avowed enemies availing themselves of our easy access policy.

I also bring the story up because I believe that people who don't live in California, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas can't appreciate the problem unless we talk about it ad nauseam. When you're sipping tea in Connecticut and your greatest border fear is that a New Yorker who makes less than $200 thousand a year will sneak across and try to stay at one of your B&B's all of the talk seems silly.

Let us move on to the main point today. The two-headed dictator pig, Mahugo Ahmadinechavez, got together in Tehran for some good ol' hatin' on the U.S.A.

As you wade through the tons of verbal fertilizer being spread by the Democratic presidential hopefuls you will, no doubt, hear a lot of talk about, well, talking. According to the left, America's problems have nothing to do with a violent group of fanatics who have sworn to kill us and everything to do with that fact that we don't reach out enough.

Lefty Assumption Disclaimer: I'm not at all against diplomacy. I just think it works better when both parties are interested in it and I'm not getting that vibe from Mahmoud and Hugo.

"Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist," said the cuddly Venezuelan dictator. That was followed up with "God willing, with the fall of the dollar, the deviant U.S. imperialism will fall as soon as possible too," and "The U.S. empire is coming down..."

Admittedly, I got confused and thought I was reading the new Markos Moulitsas Newsweek column.

"We have common viewpoints and we will stand by each other until we capture the high peaks. God is with us and victory is awaiting us," was Ahmadinejad's diplomatic offering.

Doesn't everything about them just scream "Let's grab a latte and chat..."?

What gets lost in all the pathological equivocating on the left is the ability to admit that our enemies may have come to be so of their own volition. The lefties see conspiracies and evil everywhere they look on the American right but want to believe unhinged loons like Ahmadinejad and Chavez are basically good at heart. It's the "Aw, somebody needs a hug..." approach to international relations.

Settle down, liberals, I'm not advocating war. All I am saying is that it's time to stop deluding ourselves that world leaders who say things like, "The U.S. empire is coming down..." are ready to think outside the box and play nice. If you think all of this is going to change just by putting a Democrat in the White House then all I can do is say, "Have at it," and wish you good luck with that visit from the Great Pumpkin next Halloween.

I'd like to conclude by proposing that negotiations with Chavez and Ahmadinejad proceed only if King Juan Carlos is hosting them.

Cross posted at Real Clear Politics (vote for it!)

The Fembot and the Fumbler

After two weeks of sadistically giving false hope to the likes of Bill Richardson (D-Invisible) and Chris Dodd (D-Why Am I Here?), Hillary Clinton (D-Testosterone) reclaimed her masculine side and restored order at the Democrat's debate. John Edwards (D-Up In Your Business) is once again the only woman making a historical bid for the presidency.

I've been trying not to pay attention to these things (either party's) because I never like the various formats. These debates are nothing more than amateur political porn, with each candidate trying to excite donors just enough to make them pay to see more.

Hillary did actually have a chick moment when she complained about being "personally attacked." Oh stop. I don't want a president who is going to stomp her feet and ride a wave of estrogen out of the room whenever someone says something she doesn't like. She sounds like an aggrieved crack addict mom on Jerry Springer when she whines like this.

The sharp contrast between her experience and Saint Obama's (D-Not Much There) lack thereof was shown when the illegal license lovefest was brought up again. Obama's problems inevitably arise when he ceases being the smiling guy on the magazine covers and becomes a three dimensional figure who has to say stuff. When the subject can be approached with vague, obvious generalities ("All children should be young and happy!"), Obie's quite the charmer. If specifics are involved, the saying of the stuff becomes a problem.

After attacking a wounded Future Madame President for two weeks about her licenses for illegals flip-flops one would have presumed that Obama would have thought through some coherent ideas of his own on the subject. Ah, but the conveying of the ideas requires the saying of the stuff.

The reason that Democrats have a hard time with the illegal immigration issue is that they're required by their handlers over at MoveOn.org and The Daily Kos to avoid the, well, illegality of it all. It's difficult to make a logical argument for or against anything when you have to pretend the very essence of the argument isn't there.

Here are some excerpts from the debate that illustrate how the Sainted One managed to undo whatever momentum he'd gotten going against The Pantsuit. We'll begin with Wolf Blitzer's question.

MR. BLITZER: All right. I want to just press you on this point because it's a logical follow-up, and then I want to go and ask everyone. On the issue that apparently tripped up Senator Clinton earlier, the issue of driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, I take it, Senator Obama, you support giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Is that right?

SEN. OBAMA: When I was a state senator in Illinois, I voted to require that illegal aliens get trained, get a license, get insurance to protect public safety. (Scattered applause.) That was my intention. And -- but I have to make sure that people understand the problem we have here is not drivers licenses. Undocumented workers don't come here to drive. (Laughter.) They don't go -- they're not coming here to go to the In-N-Out Burger. That's not the reason they're here. They're here to work. And so instead of being distracted by what has now become a wedge issue, let's focus on actually solving the problem that --

MR. BLITZER: All right.

SEN. OBAMA: -- this administration, the Bush administration, has done nothing about.

Translation: "Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense...Bush's fault!"

In-N-Out Burger? You can almost imagine a voice in his head screaming "Why can't I just shut up-oh no-am I still talking? Please make it go away!"

It gets better. He should have asked for a blindfold and a firing squad at this point, it would have been more humane.

MR. BLITZER: Well, let's go through everybody because I want to be precise. I want to make sure the viewers and those of us who are here fully understand all of your positions on this.

Barring, avoiding, assuming there isn't going to be comprehensive immigration reform, do you support or oppose drivers licenses for illegal immigrants?

SEN. OBAMA: I am not proposing that that's what we do. What I'm saying is that we can't -- (interrupted by laughter). No, no, no, no, look, I have already said I support the notion that we have to deal with public safety and that drivers licenses at the state level can make that happen. But what I also --

MR. BLITZER: All right.

SEN. OBAMA: But what I also know, Wolf, is that if we keep on getting distracted by this problem, then we are not solving it.

Translation: "I'm not saying that's what we should do but I've already said that's what we should do."

Who preps him for these things-Miss Teen South Carolina?

Blitzer then explains to them that this is a "yes" or "no" question and asks them to answer accordingly. Here's what happened when he got to Obie:

Senator Obama, yes or no?

SEN. OBAMA: Yes.

"He did it! Our little guy finally rode his bike without falling!"

His Blessedness was seemingly out of the woods. He'd given the one word answer required of him then shut up. Seconds later, as if allergic to shutting up, he started to say stuff again. He wants to be president but he can't grasp a complex notion like "yes or no question." The verbal diarrhea continued:

MR. BLITZER: Okay. (Applause.)

SEN. OBAMA: I am going to be fighting for comprehensive immigration reform, and we shouldn't pose the question that somehow we can't achieve that. I believe that the American people desperately want it. That's what I'm going to be fighting for as president.

MR. BLITZER: Senator Clinton?

SEN. CLINTON: No.

Game, set, pantsuit.

The main action happened between Hillary, St. Obama and Fluffy Edwards. The other guys were so removed that I kept expecting CNN to install a window on stage that they could stand behind and press their noses against to watch the actual candidates.

Mrs. Clinton, no doubt, probably went to sleep rather easily after this one. Sadly, Barack Obama is going to be awake for another day or two while he finishes explaining his one word answer.

Cross posted at Real Clear Politics (Vote for it!)

Lady Gets The Vapors

My, my...what a difference a fortnight makes. Prior to Halloween, Madame Fright had a seemingly untouchable lead over her rival Democrats. The whole thing had become so laughable that they were still letting Dennis Kucinich (D-Nowhere) hang around to play chimp to Hillary's organ grinder.

By now we all know what happened in the Philadelphia debate: Mrs. "Definition of 'Is', Is" attempted to give a straight answer without consulting the polls first. That was dangerous territory for a woman who calls Rasmussen before scheduling her first bowel movement each day. Her decision making process consists largely of sticking her finger in the air to check the prevailing winds. (If elected, she'll be sticking that finger elsewhere to see if you have any money left that the IRS hasn't found yet.)

We also know that the missus doesn't possess any of her-um-husband's folksy charm. Heck, she doesn't possess any of Dan Rather's charm. Whenever Hillary Clinton smiles and attempts sincerity I have flashbacks to every Charles Manson interview I've ever seen. Manson has the slightly more feminine hair, of course.

What happened after the debate is the one thing I'll admit I never saw coming: Hillary Clinton started acting chicky. Yeah, I thought the pant suits were hiding the same thing you did.

Today's incident involving the Madame can't even be called a flip-flop. The phrase "brain fart" entered the vernacular several years ago and Hillary Clinton just became its poster girl. After leading an extraordinarily charmed political life for seven years, Mrs. C. just spent fifteen days with a rabid pack of dogs leaving something for her to step in no matter where she turned.

It all began, of course, with her ladyship doing her best impersonation of someone who had just sustained severe head trauma when asked about NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer's (D-Clueless) "Break The Law-Get Extra Privileges" plan. Mike Tyson sounded more sensible when he still had Evander Holyfield's ear in his mouth. She even tried to resort to the standard Democrat battle cry of "It's all George Bush's fault!" and that didn't work for her. Quickly spotting a wounded idiot, her rivals pounced.

Up until this point, the Mrs. Clinton campaign had been a model of locked-down, KGB-like, ruthless efficiency. One expected it to shoo her opponents back to the lightweight division where they belonged. The campaign's response to the debate hiccup was stunning. It can best be summed up like this: "Mommy, the boys are being mean to me!" It wasn't her fault for wilting under a miniscule amount of pressure, it was Tim Russert's for asking tough questions. Or Barack Obama's for smelling blood. Or John Edwards for choosing a more flattering shade of lip gloss than she.

After that, it got weirder than reading a Thomas Pynchon novel while 'shrooming. Mrs. Clinton sent Mr. Clinton out to defend her honor. The reasons for this being remarkable are twofold. First, it was basically an admission by her camp that she was willing to bring Willy the Zipper in at the first sign of trouble. Years of establishing her own identity had suddenly become Monica Lewinsky's blue dress: yes, you could wash the stain out but everyone is going to remember it was there. Second, bringing Bill Clinton in for a dash of chivalry and damage control is not unlike calling in OJ Simpson for conflict resolution.

Oh, for the record, the aspiring First Husband's response to the problem was, "The boys are being mean to her."

Next, the Woman Who Would Be Queen was caught planting softball questions in her audience. Why? Because the best thing to do when people accuse you of being a controlling bitch is to prove it, I guess. And probably to prevent the boys from being mean to you.

And now, after yielding to pressure from every sane person in America, Gov. Spitzer has decided that only the law abiding citizens of New York should have driver's licenses. Many are saying that the future Madame President pressured noble Comrade Spitzer into doing this. If so, it really didn't help because her response made her look like the concussion hasn't worn off yet. She supported Spitzer when he was for the licensing. Now she says, ""I support Governor Spitzer's decision today..." when decides to drop the plan. He must be the one boy who hasn't ever been mean to her.

Immigration is an issue that looms large in the next presidential election. Her first attempt at staking out a position on it left her looking like Keith Richards giving a lecture on calculus. One would hope that the smartest woman in the history of the known universe (according to Democrats, anyway) would be able to formulate a thought of her own in a debate this important. From what we've seen so far, her position seems to be pointing at Eliot Spitzer and whining, "What he said!"

If she's elected president she will have to make up her own mind during times of crisis.

And the boys will be a lot meaner.

Cross posted at Real Clear Politics (Vote for it, people!) and Grizzly Groundswell