Bush, The United States' First "Black" President?

Black Unemployment Drops Under Bush
by Jerry Bowyer
Posted Oct 28, 2005

On the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March this month, Louis Farrakhan led what he called the “Millions More Movement,” which, ironically, appeared to have hundreds of thousands fewer attendees. Here’s a possible explanation: A lot of people had to work that day. After all, anybody keeping up with the African-American unemployment rate would know that it is at one of its lowest levels ever.

George W. Bush is laying a claim to be the President who did the best job creating jobs for blacks. Currently, black unemployment is 9.4%, which is significantly lower than the 10% it averaged in the Clinton years. The current rate is also much lower than the average black unemployment rate over the past 30 years, which is 12.4%. Some on the left have complained that even if the black unemployment rate is dropping, there is still too great a gap between the unemployment rate for blacks and for whites. If this complaint were sincere, those who made it should be pleased to learn the gap between black and white unemployment, which stands today at 4.9 points, is smaller than the 5.5-point average gap of the Clinton years and the 6.9-point average gap of the past 30 years.

Mr. Bowyer is author of The Bush Boom and an economic adviser to Blue Vase Capital Management. He can be reached through www.BowyerMedia.com.

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Hey liberals, facts are a bitch, aren't they?!! Especially when they don't support your bogus rhetoric. That's why, in the absence of facts, the left resorts to just repeating talking points over and over again in the hopes that eventually people will except it as factual. And the mainstream media is all too eager to oblige.

Fat, Drunk And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Senator Kennedy.

Unbelievable comment from Ted Kennedy regarding 2000th soldier death - "On this auspicious day..."


In case you missed it, I hope you are going to be as angry as I am. As the DemocRATS are celebrating the 2000th death of American servicemen in the Iraq war, they can barely contain themselves. But Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy has gone way beyond what anyone would consider decent behavior. On Tuesday, on the floor of the Senate, when discussing the 2000th death of American heroes, he actually used the following words:

"On this auspicious day . . ."

Don't think they're celebrating? I give you Senator Edward (the Killer) Kennedy. He described Tuesday's news of the 2000th death as an "auspicious day". I guess anyone who can leave a young woman to drown could call the death of 2000 American soldiers "auspicious".

Wise up, Massachusetts! Dump this bloated, mentally deficient blowhard!

Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Guy

George Galloway: Fascist Pimp and Prostitute
By Christopher HitchensSlate October 26, 2005

Just before my last exchange with George Galloway, which occurred on the set of Bill Maher's show in Los Angeles in mid-September, I was approached by a representative of the program and asked if I planned to repeat my challenge to Galloway on air. That challenge—would he sign an affidavit saying that he had never discussed Oil-for-Food monies with Tariq Aziz?—I had already made on a public stage in New York. Maher's producers had been asked, obviously by a nervous Galloway, to find out whether I had brought such an affidavit along with me. I replied that this was not necessary, since his public denial to me was on the record and had been broadcast, and since it further confirmed the apparent perjury that he had committed in front of the U.S. Senate on May 17, 2005. I added that I wanted no further contact with Galloway until I could have the opportunity of reviewing his prison diaries.
That day has now been brought measurably closer by the publication of the report of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This report, which comes with a vast archive of supporting material, was embargoed until 10 p.m. Monday and contains the "smoking gun" evidence that Galloway, along with his wife and his chief business associate, were consistent profiteers from Saddam Hussein's regime and its criminal exploitation of the "Oil for Food" program. In particular:
1) Between 1999 and 2003, Galloway personally solicited and received eight oil "allocations" totaling 23 million barrels, which went either to him or to a politicized "charity" of his named the Mariam Appeal.
2) In connection with just one of these allocations, Galloway's wife, Amineh Abu-Zayyad, received about $150,000 directly.
3) A minimum of $446,000 was directed to the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned against the very sanctions from which it was secretly benefiting.
4) Through the connections established by the Galloway and "Mariam" allocations, the Saddam Hussein regime was enabled to reap $1,642,000 in kickbacks or "surcharge" payments.
(For a highly readable explanation of how the Oil-for-Food racket actually worked, see the Adobe Acrobat file on the site http://www.hitchensweb.com/ prepared by my brilliant comrade Michael Weiss and distributed as a leaflet outside the debate in New York.)
These and other findings by the subcommittee, which appear to demonstrate beyond doubt that Galloway lied under oath, are supported by one witness in particular whose name will cause pain in the Galloway camp. This is Tariq Aziz, longtime henchman of Saddam Hussein and at different times the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of the Baathist dictatorship. Galloway has often referred in moist terms to his friend Aziz, and now this is his reward. I do not think—in case anyone tries such an innuendo—that there is the smallest possibility that Aziz's testimony was coerced. For one thing, he was confronted by Senate investigators who already knew a great deal of the story and who possessed authenticated documents from Iraqi ministries. For another, he continues, through his lawyers, to deny what is also certainly true, namely that he personally offered a $2 million bribe to Rolf Ekeus, then the head of the U.N. weapons inspectors.
The critical person in Galloway's fetid relationship with Saddam's regime was a Jordanian "businessman" named Fawaz Zureikat, who was involved in a vast range of middleman activities in Baghdad and is the chairman of Middle East Advanced Semiconductor Inc. It was never believable, as Galloway used to claim, that he could have been so uninformed about Zureikat's activities in breaching the U.N. oil embargo. This most probably means that what we now know is a fraction of what there is to be known. But what has been established is breathtaking enough. A member of the British Parliament was in receipt of serious money originating from a homicidal dictatorship. That money was supposed to have been used to ameliorate the suffering of Iraqis living under sanctions. It was instead diverted to the purposes of enriching Saddam's toadies and of helping them propagandize in favor of the regime whose crimes and aggressions had necessitated the sanctions and created the suffering in the first place. This is something more than mere "corruption." It is the cynical theft of food and medicine from the desperate to pay for the palaces of a psychopath.
Taken together with the scandal surrounding Benon Sevan, the U.N. official responsible for "running" the program, and with the recent arrest of Ambassador Jean-Bernard Mérimée (France's former U.N. envoy) in Paris, and with other evidence about pointing to big bribes paid to French and Russian politicians like Charles Pasqua and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, what we are looking at is a well-organized Baathist attempt to buy or influence the member states of the U.N. Security Council. One wonders how high this investigation will reach and how much it will eventually explain.
For George Galloway, however, the war would seem to be over. The evidence presented suggests that he lied in court when he sued the Daily Telegraph in London over similar allegations (and collected money for that, too). It suggests that he lied to the Senate under oath. And it suggests that he made a deceptive statement in the register of interests held by members of the British House of Commons. All in all, a bad week for him, especially coming as it does on the heels of the U.N. report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, which appears to pin the convict's badge on senior members of the Assad despotism in Damascus, Galloway's default patron after he lost his main ally in Baghdad.
Yet this is the man who received wall-to-wall good press for insulting the Senate subcommittee in May, and who was later the subject of a fawning puff piece in the New York Times, and who was lionized by the anti-war movement when he came on a mendacious and demagogic tour of the country last month. I wonder if any of those who furnished him a platform will now have the grace to admit that they were hosting a man who is not just a pimp for fascism but one of its prostitutes as well.

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I guess we now know why Galloway has been such a huge critic of the Iraq War. It messed up his retirement fund. You know, George, there are many legal ways to invest and receive sound financial advice that does not involve taking kickbacks from third-world, barbaric dictators.

Political Correctness Gone Mad

Banks fear piggy banks offend Muslims
Religion News ^ October 23rd, 2005

Bristish banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims. Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reported today.

Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal. Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move. "This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said. However, the move brought accusations of political correctness gone mad from critics. "The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity," the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said. "We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them."

Khalid Mahmoud, the Labour MP for a Birmingham seat and one of four Muslim MPs in Britain, also criticized the piggy-bank ban. "We live in a multicultural society and the traditions and symbols of one community should not be obliterated just to accommodate another," Mr Mahmoud said. "I doubt some Muslims would be seriously offended by piggy banks."

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As a form of protest, maybe we should strap some explosives to our midsections and blow ourselves up in front of the banks?? If you decide to protest in this manner, I hear you get 72 piggy banks when you go to heaven!

What Is Wrong With People?!

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Too Little, Too Late??

US security chief strives to expel all illegal immigrants.
Oct 18 11:47 AM US/Eastern Email this story

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. "Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.

"It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year," Chertoff told a Senate hearing. Thousands of "Mexicans who are caught entering the United States illegally are returned immediately to Mexico. But other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers. The problem is especially severe for non-Mexicans apprehended at the southwest border," Chertoff explained. "Today, a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities," he added. "Through a comprehensive approach, we are moving to end this 'catch and release' style of border enforcement by reengineering our detention and removal process." Chertoff's remarks in favor of returning "every illegal entrant, no exceptions" appeared to conflict directly with the US policy toward illegal Cuban migrants.
Though Cubans picked up at sea are returned to their country, those who reach US soil by air, sea or ground are allowed to stay and work -- a fact Cuba says encourages dangerous illegal emigration attempts.

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Tough talk to appease Bush's conservative base or an actual change in policy to make this country safer? We'll see. It is a sad day, though, when this Republican administration has to do some maneuvering to position themselves to the right of Hillary's RHETORIC.

Hopefully this an actual real shift in policy that should have been initiated MANY years ago. It's about time that Bush remembers who got him elected and started acting like a conservative again. A clear majority of Americans do not support open immigration due to security issues and the immense strain it puts on our social services. It will be interesting to see if this yields actual results.

(On a side note, a find it amusing that spellcheck always wants to replace Hillary's with hilarious.)

More Ronnie! (Part 3)

Monday, Oct. 17, 2005 9:59 a.m. EDT Newsmax.com

Ronnie Earle: DeLay Evidence Missing

The most compelling piece of evidence cited by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to implicate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a money laundering and conspiracy case can't be located, Earle's prosecution team admitted on Friday. Indictments against DeLay and fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro allege that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002, reports the Houston Chronicle. The document was touted as proof that DeLay was part of a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates. But Earle's prosecution team told the court on Friday that they had only a "similar" list and not the one allegedly given to the RNC. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates in Texas, but fewer than half are alleged to have received money as part of the alleged DeLay plot.

DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin immediately pounced on the development, telling the Chronicle that the lack of a list "destroys" Earle's case against the three men. "That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said. Prosecutor Earle engaged in similar tactics in 1993, when he twice indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for misuse of campaign funds, only to have the case dismissed both times. Earle indicted a third time, but when the case went to trial he failed to produce any evidence and was forced to dismiss all charges.

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Looks like little Ronnie is up to old tricks. Wonder if there is a way to charge Ronnie with conspiracy to falsely indite? If not, there should be a way to protect people from prosecutorial misconduct so this type of partisan hackery can be stopped.

Hopefully this will be the last chapter in the Ronnie Earle crusade. Good riddance!

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Dead!

Boomers' Overdose Deaths Up Markedly
By Daniel Costello, Times Staff Writer

Californians age 40 and older are dying of drug overdoses at double the rate recorded in 1990, a little-noticed trend that upends the notion of hard-core drug use as primarily a young person's peril.Indeed, overdoses among baby boomers are driving an overall increase in drug deaths so dramatic that soon they may surpass automobile accidents as the state's leading cause of nonnatural deaths.

In 2003, the latest year for which the state has figures, a record 3,691 drug users died, up 73% since 1990. The total surpassed deaths from firearms, homicides and AIDS.Remarkably, the rate of deadly overdoses among younger users over that period has slightly declined, while the rate among those 40 and older has jumped from 8.6 to 17.3 per hundred thousand people.The change has caught many prevention programs, which tend to be geared toward young people, off guard. Several drug abuse prevention officials and other experts said there was virtually no strategy in place to address the risk of overdose among older users."We have seen a massive, long-term trend toward more middle-age drug abuse that is leading to an unprecedented number of deaths," said Michael Males, a sociology researcher at UC Santa Cruz. But "no one is doing anything about it. It has gotten almost no attention at the state, federal or local level."Because the problem has been recognized only recently, it is difficult to say what is behind the generational split.Some experts suggest, however, that California is merely reflecting a national trend in which Americans increasingly are using illicit drugs long past the days of youthful resilience. According to the U.S. Substance and Mental Health Services Administration, more than a third of drug users today are older than 35, compared with 12% in 1979."Baby boomers are the first generation that is facing a drug and overdose epidemic in their middle age," said John Newmeyer, epidemiologist and drug researcher at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics in San Francisco. "They started using drugs recreationally or regularly over 20 years ago, and they aren't really slowing down."To a degree, it seems overdoses are following the same generation through time. In California, the age at which someone was most likely to die from a drug overdose in 1970 was 22; by 1985, it was 32; and today it is 43, according to calculations by Males, based on state health data.Many of those who die are hard-core drug users who never quit, even when they reached middle age. As such, they are likely to be in poor health, enhancing their overdose risk. "Using year after year can have a clear and deleterious physical effect. [Drugs] take a toll as people continue to use," said Dr. Karl Sporer, a San Francisco emergency room physician and drug treatment expert. With age, even occasional users grow more susceptible to medical complications such as strokes, heart attacks and respiratory distress. By far the greatest number of overdose deaths is among users of opiates, such as heroin, which in excessive doses can shut down the lungs. Doctors say that because older users tend to have slower metabolisms, the opiates may remain in their systems longer, increasing the risk of cumulative overdose.Cocaine is the next most lethal drug. It can lead to heart attacks, especially among long-term users, whose habits can cause their hearts to become weakened or enlarged. Drugs such as methamphetamine and barbiturates account for a smaller number of overdose deaths. Treatment experts said people most at risk are older users who try to stop, then return to using drugs at their previous dosages. The drugs may kill them because the users have lost tolerance or the drugs are more potent. Many street drugs have gotten purer in recent years, experts said, which adds to their potential lethality.It is unclear from the data available what role prescription drugs play. The state's drug overdose data do not include a small number of cases in which medications led to an overdose even though they were taken as directed.Some researchers believe that rising incarceration rates around the state could be leading to more overdoses, because many released prisoners return to drugs after long periods of abstinence.

Adding to the problem: Older drug users often use alone. Younger people, research shows, tend to use in groups. One of the major risk factors for a fatal overdose is not having anyone to call paramedics when someone first shows signs of overdosing.Drug treatment officials and the families of addicts know the personal tragedies behind the statistics.
"From what I see, there is no doubt that people are doing drugs later in life and, like for anyone, that can be dangerous," said Dr. Michael Stone, medical director of Cornerstone of Southern California, a drug treatment facility based in Tustin.He estimated that about 10 former patients have died from overdoses this year alone.Paul Tanner of San Rafael lost his 48-year-old daughter Toni Marie Tanner to an overdose in 2003.The elder Tanner said his daughter had been addicted to drugs on and off her entire life but had been sober for two years.She was caring for her mother, who was sick with cancer, when she relapsed — for the first time, he believes — on a mix of heroin and cocaine. She died later that day."I think her mother's illness got to her and she couldn't take it anymore," he said. The question now is what, if anything, can be done to combat the problem. For decades, the bulk of federal prevention money, which makes up the majority of state prevention budgets, has been aimed at deterring young nonusers from trying drugs.Kathy Jett, director of the state's Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, said the agency wasn't aware until recently that drug overdoses were rising so quickly — let alone so dramatically among older users. She asked an internal task force assessing the department's overall drug abuse prevention strategy to come up with new approaches.But Jett said budget constraints may limit what the agency can do.Researching and reacting to trends like rising overdose death rates is "not something that we're typically equipped to do," she said. "We have very limited resources." Males, of UC Santa Cruz, said overdose trends call for a major realignment of the state's drug policy."We're going to have to adapt our treatment and prevention model to older users," he said. "We must stop obsessing solely on younger people doing drugs and focus resources on aging addicts."

Amnesty International Uncovers Human Rights Abuses In Texas

Addison, TX - In what is being exposed as one of the greatest human rights abuses, reminiscent of the gulags of Guantanamo Bay, a local Addison eatery is forcing their patrons to eat flan. As evidence of torture and widespread cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment mounts, it is more urgent than ever that the US Government bring Gloria's, a restaurant that specializes in Latin American food, salsa music, and communist rhetoric, into full compliance with international law and standards. The only alternative is to close them down.

As was witnessed by Amnesty International and many other patrons last Saturday night, the above diner was physically forced into eating the establishments chocolate flan. The director of Gloria's Secret Police (GSP), Hector, who eerily resembles Saddam Hussein, conducted the "interrogation" and subsequent forced-feeding. Throughout the ordeal, cries of "Eat the flan, capitalist pig!" cascaded down on the prisoner. The abuse by Hector and the GSP did not end with the flan. In an effort to weaken the uncooperative dissident's resolve, multiple Mexican Martinis and Top-shelf Margaritas were continuously brought to the table throughout the evening.

The restaurant at the corner of Belt Line and the Tollway in Addison has become a symbol of the US administration's refusal to put human rights and the rule of law at the heart of its response to the atrocities of 11 September 2001. Hundreds of people of many different nationalities are held in effect in a legal black hole at Gloria's, many without access to any court, legal counsel or family visits. Hypocrisy, an overeaching war mentality and a disregard for basic human rights principles and international legal obligations continue to mark this restaurants' indoctrination tactics. Serious human rights violations are the inevitable result.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does!

Mink Activist 'Would do it all over again' (Animal Rights Terrorist Alert)Madison.com via AP Wire ^

October 8, 2005 Staff Writer from AP

Peter Daniel Young, an animal rights activist who faces federal prison for freeing thousands of mink from Midwestern fur farms, says he'd do it again, and doing time will be nothing compared to what caged animals suffer. Young said in an interview from jail he believes he saved the minks from slavery. "I would do it all over again," he said. "As bad as it could get (in prison), it will never be as bad as it was for those mink."
Federal prosecutors believe Young and an accomplice were acting on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front when they broke onto mink farms in Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin in 1997 and freed about 7,000 mink. The FBI considers groups like ALF the nation's top domestic terrorist threat.
"If saving thousands of lives makes a terrorist, then I certainly embrace the label," Young said. "I would have been just as fast to act if those cages had been filled with human beings."
Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA, a national association of fur farmers, called Young's philosophy nonsense. Alex Ott, owner of a fur farm Young raided in Tomahawk, WI said he treats his mink well and has every right to make a living. "These people ... skulk around. They attack and they terrorize," Ott said.

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And what kind of wonderful existence are these minks in for now??

By Tomas Alex
Tizon Times Staff Writer
August 31, 2003 SULTAN, Wash.

For a few days, the roads were paved with mink. Dead ones mostly. They were mangled by dogs, withered by summer heat and run over by cars and trucks. Their carcasses were reduced to tufts of blue hair on the pavement. In the early morning darkness on Monday, in what residents call an act of eco-terrorism, animal activists released 10,000 Blue Iris minks from the Roesler Bros. Fur Farm in this former logging town east of Everett. The animals spread like a flash flood. "They were everywhere. They covered the road, they were all up in the brush," said Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser. For a time, there were more than three roaming minks for every resident of this town of 3,000. Minks by the hundreds were captured by neighbors and friends and returned to the farm. By the end of the week, there were still as many as 2,500 loose animals, and they were, one local said, creating havoc. The hungry animals invaded chicken coops, raided fish ponds, stole pet cats and ducks and ate salmon fry in streams and rivers. Some feared the local ecosystem would be thrown off by so many new predators in the area.


Enjoy prison!

Wonder How The Libs Will Spin This?

FBI FREEH UNLOADS ON CLINTON: 'CLOSETS WERE FULL OF SKELETONS' Thu Oct 06 2005 14:07:50 ET

Louis Freeh Speaks for the First Time About his Terrible Relationship with the President. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh says publicly for the first time that his relationship with President Bill Clinton – the man who appointed him – was a terrible one because Clinton’s scandals made him a constant target of FBI investigations. Freeh discloses this and many other details of his dealings with the Clinton White House in a new bombshell book: 'My FBI : Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror' -- set for release next week. Freeh has taped an interview with Mike Wallace and CBSNEWS '60 MINUTES' to be broadcast Sunday, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. MORE in the book, “My FBI,” he writes, “The problem was with Bill Clinton -- the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.”The director sought to distance himself from Clinton because of Whitewater, refusing a White House pass that would have enabled him to enter the building without signing in. This irked Clinton. “I wanted all my visits to be official,” says Freeh. “When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president,” he tells Wallace.Returning the pass was only the start of the rift. Later, relations got so bad that President Clinton reportedly began referring to Freeh as “that F…ing Freeh.” Says Freeh, “I don’t know how they referred to me and I really didn’t care,” he says. “My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. He, unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation,” Freeh says. In another revelation, Freeh says the former president let down the American people and the families of victims of the Khobar Towers terror attack in Saudi Arabia. After promising to bring to justice those responsible for the bombing that killed 19 and injured hundreds, Freeh says Clinton refused to personally ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to allow the FBI to question bombing suspects the kingdom had in custody – the only way the bureau could secure the interviews, according to Freeh. Freeh writes in the book, “Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library.” Says Freeh, “That’s a fact that I am reporting.” The most unsavory of those investigations was the one concerning Clinton and Lewinsky. The White House intern had kept a semen-stained dress as proof of her relationship and a Clinton blood sample was needed to match the DNA on the dress. “Well, it was like a bad movie and it was ridiculous that…Ken Starr and myself, the director of the FBI, find ourselves in that ridiculous position,” he tells Wallace. “But we did it…very carefully, very confidentially,” recalls Freeh. As he explains the plan in the book, Clinton was at a scheduled dinner and excused himself to go to the bathroom. Instead of the restroom, he entered another room where FBI medical technicians were waiting to take a blood sample.Freeh says he was determined to stay on as FBI director until President Clinton left office so that Clinton could not appoint his successor. “I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director,” he tells Wallace. “[So] I was going to stay there and make sure he couldn’t replace me,” Freeh tells Wallace.

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What "moral compass" was he following? How about his Johnson?! (No offense PJ.)

I'm sure Freeh will be attacked by the left and labled as a disgruntled ex-employee, or a right-wing operative, or an incompetent trying to make a buck. Heck, any of the above might be true but it doesn't change the fact that Willie was better suited to being a strip-club owner in backwoods Arkansas.

Ronnie Earle: Dumbocrat Crusader (Part 2)

The Movie: Ronnie Earle, on a Mission from God. The Texas DA is inspired by the Bible to prosecute Tom DeLay.

A new film featuring Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as he pursued the investigation that led to the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay portrays Earle less as a partisan figure than as a messianic leader on a mission to rid American politics of the "evil" influence of money.

A copy of the still-unfinished film, entitled The Big Buy, was obtained by National Review Online Friday. On several occasions in the film, Earle engages in monologues on what he believes is the sinister effect of money in politics. "The root of the evil of the corporate and large-monied interest domination of politics is money," Earle says as he takes the filmmakers on a nighttime drive around Austin. "This is in the Bible. This isn't rocket science. The root of all evil truly is money, especially in politics. People talk about how money is the mother's milk of politics. Well, it's the devil's brew. And what we've got to do, we've got to turn off the tap."

In another scene, Earle describes how he deals with offenders in cases like the campaign-finance investigation. "It's important that we forgive those who come to us in a spirit of contrition and the desire for forgiveness. That's important. But if they don't, then God help them." The film then dissolves to a picture of DeLay.

In yet another scene, Earle describes corporate political contributions, which are illegal in Texas (although state law allows corporations to fund the administrative activities of political action committees) as a problem that is "every bit as insidious as terrorism."
The film also features footage that illustrates the extraordinary access to the DeLay investigation that Earle granted filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck. The Big Buy contains footage of the empty Travis County grand-jury room, as well as video of grand-jury staffers and some members of the grand jury entering the room (the face of one grand juror was obscured by the filmmakers). The film also contains footage of the original indictments of DeLay's associates, as well as those of several corporations, being sorted and copied, apparently before they were made public, on September 21, 2004, the day the indictments were handed up. There is also footage of Earle meeting with his staff attorneys, reading the indictments before they were released. "It's like that moment right after the missiles are launched," Earle says of the scene, "when it's real quiet, but it's not going to be quiet for long."
In the picture, Earle explains that he believes he bears a profound responsibility to alert the American public to the dangers of big political contributions. "I feel great pressure to get the information to the public, to point, to set a tone and to point a direction, and to say which hill needs to be taken," he explains. "When a powerful politician [Earle was referring to DeLay] can demand $25,000 for face time for large monied interests, I mean, something's wrong. What happened to face time for John and Jane Citizen who are raising two kids and they've got two jobs a piece and the kids don't have insurance? What about face time for them and the problems they're facing? Those are the problems that the country is facing."

The film features commentary from a number of DeLay critics, including Lou Dubose, author of The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress, columnist Molly Ivins, defeated political rival Martin Frost, Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, and others. It also contains interviews with some Republican state lawmakers in Texas and attorneys for the defendants in the case (DeLay himself declined to cooperate with the filmmakers).

At one point in the picture, Rosemary Lemberg, an assistant district attorney in Earle's office, explains that Earle singlehandedly pushed forward the DeLay investigation over the objections of colleagues. "Ronnie was the only person in maybe a group of six or seven lawyers in a room who thought we ought to go ahead and investigate and look at those things," Lemberg says. "We got sued every time we turned around, we got taken to court over this, and Ronnie was the one who just kept pushing forward with it, and saying 'I'll put more resources on this, just keep hacking at it.'"

Though the film's tone is admiring, the filmmakers allow Earle's critics to suggest that, given the sometimes highly politicized nature of his opinions, he should perhaps work in some field other than law enforcement. "The problem that Ronnie has is that he sees something that he believes is wrong," says Roy Minton, an attorney for one of the organizations investigated by Earle. "If you ask him, when he says, 'They're doing this' and 'They're doing that,' you say, 'Alright, let's assume they're doing that, Ronnie, is that against the law?' He will say it's wrong. You say, 'Well, OK, let's assume that it's wrong. Where is it that it is against the law?'"

— Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of the new book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.
* * *

Meet Ronnie Earle: Dumbocrat Crusader (Part 1)

On Ronnie Earle Raising Money For Democrats.

Ronnie Earle is at it again. The partisan Democrat District Attorney from Travis County (Austin), Texas, has, because of a quirk in the Texas law, the peculiar jurisdiction over statewide political issues, and he has persistently abused that authority over the past decade. Earle became ignominious in Texas when he launched the politically motivated investigation of three of Tom DeLay's associates working for Texans For a Republican Majority (TRMPAC). This investigation has not produced any credible or compelling evidence of corruption, but it is widely cited by the left as evidence that DeLay is dirty. In the ongoing controversy over whether he is an objective voice for justice or merely an arm of the DeLay-hating mob, Earle has "hammered" the final nail in that coffin. According to The Houston Chronicle, Earle has now crossed the line into raising money for far-left interest groups:
A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said. Earle, an elected Democrat, helped generate $102,000 for the organization. In his remarks, Earle likened DeLay to a bully and spoke about political corruption and the investigation involving DeLay, the House majority leader from Sugar Land, according to a transcript supplied by Earle.... "It may help Tom DeLay establish his case that Ronnie Earle's investigation is a partisan witch hunt," said Richard Murray, a political scientist with the University of Houston. "It clearly fuels the perception that his investigation is politically motivated. It was probably not a wise move," said Larry Noble, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer who heads the watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics.

Earle has a history of vicious partisan hackery:
EARLE'S LAST FORAY INTO politicized prosecution in 1993 turned into a huge embarrassment when he went after Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who was then Texas Treasurer. Earle made a series of trumped-up charges, including that the demure Hutchison had physically assaulted an employee. Earle dropped the case during the trial.
Defenders of Earle like to point to the red herring that Earle has prosecuted Democrats, as well as Republicans, over the years. What they don't mention is that those Democrats were clearly guilty of serious violations (the cases were open and shut), and those prosecutions happened decades ago, when Texas was essentially a one-party state (controlled almost entirely by Democrats).

The real issue here is a failure on the part of Democrats to cope with the loss of political power they held in Texas (and elsewhere) for so many generations. Because Democrats have been so ineffective at the ballot box, and because DeLay is, in part, responsible for that failure, he must be destroyed. Ronnie Earle, by invoking DeLay's name in the raising of money for far-left Democrat interest groups, has shown his true colors; he is indeed a partisan prosecutor out to get DeLay, and those who claim otherwise are deluding themselves.

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You know something is rotten in Denmark when you have Chris Mathews defending Delay and the Bush Administration against a liberal political hack. Last night on Hardball, Mathews had Mark Green, tired NY lib, on his show to discuss the indictment. Green sounded like all of the other libs this week, Pelosi, Kennedy, Reid, etc. By the way, Kennedy taking the moral high-ground is really amusing. Give credit to Mathews for taking Green to task. As liberal Mark Green went off on how corrupt the Bush administration is and started ticking off indictments, Mathews countered:

MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction, Mark?

GREEN: Hold it, hold it. What I said was —

MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction?

GREEN: One second. What I said was that six people — three people have been indicted — by the way Chris, if you and I have been indicted, it doesn't mean we're guilty, but we wouldn't trade places —

MATTHEWS: No no no. I just want to know, when you call an administration has a, has a culture of corruption, I think you need one case of proven guilt, don't you? At least one case of proven guilt.

Green tried to bring up Jack Abramoff, but Matthews pointed out that Abramoff was not part of the administration. If you watch the video, stick around for Ben Ginsberg's point that all the Democrats can do is attack, because they have no positive agenda. http://media.nationalreview.com/050930_02.wmv

Side note: If you put a shiny silver suit on Mark Green, he could be FUTUREMAN!!!!

More to follow soon.......