Free kibbles

Democrats call for nationalization of refineries so government "can control how much gets out into the market!" That's the scariest thing I've heard from government yet. Republicans should make this a huge campaign issue.

After playing political football with our security for years, Democrats finally do the right thing and agree to a deal for telecom immunity for wiretaps. It's outrageous that they waited years to provide freedom from lawsuits to companies that help our government provide security. If you don't like wiretaps, you can vote for another president, but having companies threatened for helping the government is ridiculous. This shows the power of the American people. Democrats feared them in an election, as well they should.

Treasury Sec. Paulson wants to give the Fed new powers to police Wall St. No thanks. We need to remove the Fed's powers to continue corrupting our economy and creating these boom/bust cycles like the bust we're going through now. Cato says history shows the Fed's powers are cause of financial problems, not a limiter of them.

FBI arrests hundreds for subprime mortgage fraud including 2 Bear Stearns managers. This will be interesting. If these guys really committed fraud, they should be punished. But it could well be a witch hunt as the government tries to distract voters from its role in creating this crisis.

Here we go again. We just got through the worst of a credit crisis that was sparked by government forcing lenders to make risky loans, called subprime loans, to people who were credit risks, and made worse by a tax code that rewards borrowing while punishing savings, and by the Fed's loose money supply. Learning nothing from this, Democrats introduce a bill forcing lenders to make student loans to any student attending a qualified college, whether they are bad credit risks, bad risks for graduating, or not. Let these congressmen loan these bad risks money out of their own pockets, and leave everybody else alone. Cato explains that low graduation rates show we have far too many people in college who can't handle it already, and this will make the problem worse, driving up prices and forcing bad credit into the credit markets again.

Western oil companies are negotiating oil contracts with Iraq. Good deal. It's about time we got something back for freeing Iraqis from Saddam. This isn't THE reason we went to war in Iraq like some would have us believe, but getting oil contracts is good for the US, and oil had better have been a major factor when making the decision to invade Iraq, or Bush would have been even more stupid than most of us think.

NATO and Afghan forces rout Taliban outside of Kandahar.

California Democrats and Schwarzenegger prefer forcing Americans to pay $4 per gallon for gas to drilling off the California coast. Those rich elitists can afford it. We won't even have to lift the ban to make prices drop. The more this gets debated, the more it looks like the ban might be lifted, the more speculators will sell off oil futures and prices will come down. Actually lifting the ban will bring prices down even more.

The EU agenda of Europe's political elite likely to go forward despite another rejection by voters. European elites don't care about the will of the people, who have rejected the EU power grab over and over for 15 years. This shows one of the essential truths of government. Government will continue to take power over time regardless of the will of the people. If they don't get more power today, they'll come back for more power tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Always under the guise of being for the good of the people. Governments never surrender power willingly.

The bodies of four opposition activists abducted in Zimbabwe discovered.

Treasury Sec. Paulson wants to give the Fed new powers to police Wall St. No thanks. We need to remove the Fed's powers to continue corrupting our economy and creating these boom/bust cycles like the bust we're going through now. Cato says history shows the Fed's powers are cause of financial problems, not a limiter of them.

Reason thinks concern over the Supreme Court decision extending habeas corpus to unlawful enemy combatants, who have less rights than prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention, held overseas is unwarranted.

Democrats abandon Obama on his anti-Iraq war position, funding the Iraq war with no debate and no call for a time table for withdrawal. They're hiding from the issue because they were so blatantly wrong, so blatantly invested in defeat instead of victory, and they don't want voters to talk about that. Watch for Obama to change his position on the Iraq war to one calling for victory before the election. He's not going to stay out there as the only prominent person on America who doesn't see the phenomenal progress being made in Iraq now.

Obama decides to break his commitment to use public financing. He should never have made that commitment in the first place. This just reminds everybody he's just a standard government aristocrat who's word is worthless. And in typical Obama fashion, he doesn't take responsibility for his decision - instead he blames the "broken system". That system is exactly the same as it was when he made the commitment. This guy has a serious mental problem with taking responsibility for his actions, and the press keeps giving him a pass.

Here's a messianic picture of Obama in front of dove and "Jesus Christ is Lord" wall relief.

If Condi Rice would be his VP, she would make McCain a big winner.

On what principle does McCain base his newfound position on allowing states to decide about drilling offshore but continuing to ban drill in ANWR? Isn't Alaska a state?

I like Ron Paul a lot, but his claim that bin Laden loves what we have done is dead wrong. We're crushing al Qaeda and its affiliates all over the globe including in bin Laden's chosen central front in the war on terror, Iraq. Bin Laden thanks God he hasn't been on the receiving end of a 2,000 bomb every morning and worries about it all day, every day. His terror movement has been resoundingly rejected by his hopeful allies, the Sunni Arabs. He's watching his dream of a new caliphate get blown to hell by the US and its allies. He doesn't love what's going on.

The senior officer acquitted for the Haditha incident considers suing Rep. Murtha for calling those Marines cold blooded killers. Go for it. Drag that slimy dog through the courts.

Australians more obese than Americans. I'll scratch Australia off of my places to visit.

Romanians re-elect dead mayor because they don't want change and didn't like the opponent.

Cato explains that aid to Africa is part of Africa's problem and should be reduced in favor of intra-African solutions to African problems. Welfare is destructive to recipients and providers alike.

Karl Rove hits at Obama and McCain for their failure to understand economics, markets, and oil companies.

British police unit spends $200,000 of taxpayer money trying to find a chemical and biological hazard suit that would accommodate Sikh beards and turbans. This is nuts. They should have standards that are the same for everybody to accommodate the suit. Standards like no facial hair and no hats inside the suit. If Sikhs choose not to meet the standards, that fine, but the standards shouldn't change for different religions or cultures.

If you want to be immune from the economic downturn, get elected to Congress. That's the quickest get-rich scheme there is.

Even the leftist L.A. Times understands that Bush did not lie to convince us to go to war in Iraq, shoots down the partisan report recently released by the Senate which even acknowledges the intelligence was flawed and has no support for claiming the Bush administration lied, and shows that the liberals who are propagating this Big Lie are trying to rewrite history by pretending that incorrect intelligence from the CIA is equivalent to Bush lying.

I would love to see corporate welfare declared unconstitutional. Not just because it is, but because all welfare is unconstitutional and we could put an end to all of if.

Ann Coulter rips the Supreme Court's ruling giving habeas corpus rights to enemy detainees. Fred Thompson on same.

More and more people are noticing that Obama isn't very bright. This guy points out that Obama has a poor understanding of the Nuremberg trials and the first World Trade Center bombing trials. Ralph Peters says the press is giving Obama a pass on national security. That's an understatement.

Condoleezza Rice on US policy towards Asia at the Heritage Foundation.

General Petraeus to the rescue in Afghanistan and Pakistan.