Free kibbles

Democrats gear up for a constitutional battle with the President over eavesdropping, warrantless wiretaps, on suspected terrorists. From the dawn of civilization, generals have relied on captured intelligence to win wars. Washington intercepted communications between the British and American sympathizers. Fully understanding the need to empower 1 man to lead the country in a war, the founding fathers gave powerful war powers to the commander in chief which includes the power to intercept communications between the enemy and sympathizers that has been part of waging war since the first war. Lincoln used it. Roosevelt used it. Now Democrats want to take that power from the Commander in Chief, and we can't allow them to subvert the separation of powers that way.

The way to avoid abuse is to elect presidents of good character. The remedy if the Commander in Chief abuses that power is impeachment. The founders were smart enough to know that congressional or judicial oversight of eavesdropping orders will get us killed. Democrats aren't near that smart, and they have no respect for the constitution. Bush had better not cave.

Barbara Boxer has proposed an amendment that would block enforcement of our immigration laws and force the 2010 census to count non-Americans. This is help blue states pick up congressional seats during redistricting.

Pakistani troops kill 150 Taleban and al Qaeda fighters.

Private security contractors kill 2 Iraqis. It doesn't say it was Blackwater this time. The hidden lesson of this story is that things are going so well in Iraq, that private contractors are the new story.

Most Americans still think the media is too biased towards the left. The left tries to skew this story as an attack on right wing bias. Funny. The liberal bias is front and center in this article.

Reason discusses a case of expert testimony gone horribly wrong.

Slate wonders about Syrian President Assad.

Gosh, who would ever have thought that the demagogues would be mistaken (or outright lie) about who had free trade and who didn't. (Hopefully all of us know better than to trust demagogues.) Apparently colonial France did and England didn't despite conventional wisdom.

Study shows that people conform their belief of facts to their cultural biases. We see this all the time, but in this case, I think we needed a study to confirm it so we can use it to change the way we debate issues. Political discussion tends to degenerate into belief versus belief because both sides tend to ignore the facts. The million dollar question is how do we change the debate so that all debaters work with facts instead of biases. People can set aside their biases while reviewing facts, but most are just too lazy or slaves to agendas.

Reason comments on Ron Paul's $5 million quarter.

Thompson average in first debate.

Hillary Clinton proposes big-government retirement program with taxpayers paying matching funds on 401k-like programs for everybody. She would raise the death tax on estates worth over $7 million. Talk about vote buying. There aren't many people with estates over $7 million to vote against stealing their money at the barrel of a gun to give to other people. Charles Krauthammer likes this idea. How much more proof do people need that the 2 parties are so similar that it doesn't matter?

I have a far better idea. Adopt the FairTax, dramatically cut the size of government and the tax rate, and let Americans save their own money tax free for their own retirement.

Pat Buchanan correctly exposes 3 pillars of belief that have failed Republicans and Bush, but he is mistaken about free trade. Free trade is not the reason we are hemorrhaging jobs, running record trade deficits, and the dollar is falling: our federal taxes are. Every major US trading partner has adopted a business friendly VAT tax that rebates taxes on exports and taxes imports, our tax structure embeds a 22% price penalty, on average, on every product and service made in America. Therefore, whenever an American product competes with a foreign product, at home or abroad, the US product is penalized by our embedded tax.

The solution is to adopt the FairTax. Our exports will have no embedded taxes. All products sold in America, foreign and domestic, will have a 23% embedded tax, putting American made goods and services on a level playing field with our trading partners. And Americans, who are still the most productive workers in the world, will win. Did I mention that everybody gets to keep 100% of their paychecks too? And there's no tax penalty for saving money?

Phyllis Schlafly exposes a white paper detailing Bush's plans for a North American union being developed by a 3 nation working group called The Security and Prosperity Partnership. Wow.

I don't know what's up with all these nooses suddenly showing up. Hanging a noose on a professor's door is stalking, and the stalker should be prosecuted.

Chimps show more rational behavior than humans. This is evidence for my hypothesis that human brain growth is limited because larger brains lead to behavior unfavorable to survival.

Boortz highlights Hillary's pork projects. Apparently she's quite a porker.

He also discusses Sandy Berger's role as Hillary adviser. I have a theory of why Hillary would do this. Those documents Berger destroyed showing Bill Clinton's weakness fighting terrorism would have damaged Hillary's campaign, so the Clinton's struck a deal with Berger. If he would destroy the documents, the Clintons would bring him back into their political machine. I think this is Hillary's first step toward rehabilitating Berger for a higher office. Bill Salmon suggested Sec. of State, no less. That's going to be a hard sell, since they defended Berger's actions as saying he was absentminded. I don't think America wants an absentminded Sec. of State, let alone a serious criminal busted for stealing and destroying classified documents, obviously for the political gain of the Clintons.

Terrorists endorse Hillary. That's no surprise.

Boortz offers a C.S. Lewis quote regarding the tyranny of do-gooders.

Organization wants Congressmen to reveal their earmarks. Hillary refuses.

GM cars with OnStar can be shut down by the system.

Thomas Sowell appreciates Clarence Thomas.

Rich Lowry calls Iraq the lonely war.

Robert Novak reports that the Blackwater hearings were prompted by a trial lawyer suing Blackwater on behalf of the families of 4 contractors slain in Fallujah.