Bush Rejects Defense Bill by Pocket Veto

President Bush on Friday used a "pocket veto" to reject a sweeping defense bill because he dislikes a provision that would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits seeking damages from the Saddam Hussein era.

In a statement, Bush said the legislation "would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts."

The president's objections were focused on a provision deep within legislation that sets defense policy for the coming year and approves $696 billion in spending, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also in the legislation were improved veterans benefits and tighter oversight of contractors and weapons programs.

The pocket veto means that troops will get a 3 percent raise Jan. 1 instead of the 3.5 percent authorized by the bill.

Bush's decision to use a pocket veto, announced while vacationing at his Texas ranch, means the legislation will die at midnight Dec. 31. This tactic for killing a bill can be used only when Congress is not in session.

The House last week adjourned until Jan. 15; the Senate returns a week later but has been holding brief, often seconds-long pro forma sessions every two or three days to prevent Bush from making appointments that otherwise would need Senate approval.

Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "The House rejects any assertion that the White House has the authority to do a pocket veto."

When adjourning before Christmas, the House instructed the House clerk to accept any communications _ such as veto messages_ from the White House during the monthlong break.
A Democratic congressional aide pointed out that a pocket veto cannot be overridden by Congress and allows Bush to distance himself from the rejection of a major Pentagon bill in a time of war.

In a message to Congress, the president said he was sending the bill and his outline of objections to the House clerk "to avoid unnecessary litigation about the non-enactment of the bill that results from my withholding approval, and to leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed."
Democratic aides said they have not ruled out any legislative options, including dropping the language on lawsuits against Iraq and sending the rest of the bill back to Bush.

The sponsor of the contested provision, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said the provision would allow "American victims of terror to hold perpetrators accountable _ plain and simple."
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called on lawmakers to "move rapidly to fix this section" when Congress returns in January so that the underlying bill can be signed.
Democratic congressional leaders complained that Bush's move was a last-minute stunt because he had never indicated his intention to veto the bill.

Bush aides said they had signaled concern about the controversial provision for weeks, although there had been no formal veto threat. They said their concern grew urgent recently after a legal review and feedback from U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Iraqi leaders.

The disputed section of the bill would reshape Iraq's immunity to lawsuits, exposing the new government to litigation in U.S. courts stemming from treatment of Americans in Iraq during Saddam's reign. Even cases that had once been rejected could be refiled.

Bush's aides warned of a dire scenario _ a rush of litigation that could freeze tens of billions of dollars in Iraqi assets being held in U.S. banks. Money at the heart of the Iraqi rebuilding effort would be tied up in court, potentially halting the very stabilization efforts that could get U.S. troops home faster, the aides said.

Yet Democrats fumed that Bush could have worked out the technical fix sooner if he had wanted, without rejecting an entire bill that contains extra help and money for troops.

By BEN FELLER
Townhall.com

A Campaign Day in Iowa

The Iowa Caucuses will be held one week from last night, on January 3. After that few in national politics will darken Iowa's door again until sometime in the middle of 2011.

That's not a knock on Iowa or Iowans. That's the reality of the circus packing up and moving on.
As you know, I am a paid consultant to the Fred Thompson campaign. As we sprint to the finish, I suspect our campaign is very similar in its activities as the other major campaigns so, I thought it might be interesting for you to read about our day.

Iowa does not have a primary, it has a series of precinct caucuses.

Contrary to popular belief, the word "caucus" is not a Greek word which would make the plural "cauci" in the same way that more than one "alumnus" would be called "alumni."

According to the Merriam-Webster Third Unabridged, the origin of the word caucus is from the Algonquian Indian word "caucauasu" meaning "elder" or "counselor."

We're here to help.
There are close to 2,000 separate precincts in Iowa, some are tiny and will have a handful of attendees. Others are large and may have several hundreds in attendance.

Nevertheless, the total number of Democrats who will go to their neighborhood grammar school or firehouse may be in the range of 120,000. On the GOP side the number of caucus-goers may be closer to 80,000.

To put that in perspective, in the 2000 primary election in South Carolina nearly 400,000 Republicans and Democrats participated.

Here in Iowa, every campaign is attempting to contact as many voters as possible using as many different techniques as they can: Mail, phones, paid radio and television, personal appearances and the press.

The Thompson campaign started yesterday shortly before 8:00 AM with phone calls from the candidate to foreign policy experts to discuss the implications of the murder of BenazirBhutto.
He then went to the downtown Des Moines Marriott to appear on WHO radio, the major station in the Des Moines market.

At about 11:00 Thompson did what is called a "Media Availability" or, in the shorthand of campaigns, a "press avail." This is a gaggle of reporters - print, radio, and TV - who stand in a semi-circle around the candidate while they fire questions for about 10 minutes.

This works well for both the media and the candidates because they are informal and can be set up by the press aides in a matter of minutes but give the candidates a chance to get a story moving and they give the media something to file quickly.

On the 15 minute drive to the Thompson Iowa headquarters in a suburb of Des Moines we got a call from Carl Cameron asking if he would be available for a live stand-up prior to a "Meet Fred Thompson" event for about 150 supporters there.

He would and he did that interview discussing the crisis in Pakistan.

Inside the HQ Thompson did his 15 minute stump speech, took another 15 minutes of questions from the audience, shook hands and allowed supporters to take pictures for another 15 minutes then it was back onto the bus for an hour drive to Oceola where he did a "Radio Town Hall."
It occurred to us that doing a town hall at a restaurant in a town like Oceola (pronounced Oh-see-OH-la" allowed Thompson to speak to the 75-100 people who could pack into the limited space.

Cont......Towhall.com

By Rich Galen

Liberal and Gutless

The U.S. House of Representatives conducts routine votes, called "Journal votes," on whether to approve the record of the previous day's proceedings. On 18 occasions this year, the Journal vote has been handled through a roll call. A "nay" vote on this purely procedural matter is, of course, meaningless. But the Washington Post reports that a number of freshman Democrats routinely vote "nay" in roll call Journal votes in order to increase the percentage of times in which they fail to support the Democratic majority.

Here are the six leading culprits, along with the rate at which they vote against approving the record of House proceedings:

Jason Altmire (Pa.) = 94.4%; Joe Donnelly (Ind.) = 83.3%; Chris Carney (Pa.) = 66.7%; Brad Ellsworth (Ind.) = 66.7%; Heath Shuler (N.C.) = 61.1%; Harry Mitchell (Ariz.) = 61.1%

Each of these faux moderates votes with the liberal Democratic majority more than 80 percent of the time overall. Ellsworth is perhaps the biggest phony. He claims that his "nay" votes are "protest votes against little things I heard during the [previous] day."

It's understandable, of course, that Democratic freshmen from swing districts want to distance themselves from the Democratic majority. After all, Congress' approval rating is approximately 25 percent. But it's difficult to believe, in this political age, that "nay" Journal votes will convince constituents that these clowns are independent voters, not reliably liberal members. The ad that backs out the meaningless procedural votes and informs voters of the real extent to which a given member of this crew votes with Speaker Pelosi virtually writes itself. I'd call it "Liberal and Gutless."

Powerlineblog.com

Huckabee Adopts New Tone on Immigration

Hispanic activists who viewed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as a voice of moderation on illegal immigration say they've been taken aback by the hard-line stance he's adopted as a presidential candidate.

While governor, Huckabee gained favor with Hispanic leaders by denouncing a high-profile federal immigration raid and suggesting some anti-illegal immigration measures were driven by racism. He advocated making children of illegal immigrants eligible for college scholarships.

Huckabee's Republican presidential rivals have tried to make an issue of the scholarship plan, portraying him as soft on illegal immigration, an important issue for many GOP voters.

Huckabee responded this month by unveiling a plan to seal the Mexican border, hire more agents to patrol it and make illegal immigrants go home before they could apply to return to this country.

He's also touted the support for his candidacy of the founder of the Minuteman Project, an anti-illegal immigration group whose volunteers watch the Mexican border.

Though he still defends the scholarship provision, Huckabee's new tone bothers Hispanic leaders like Carlos Cervantes, the Arkansas director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
"He's trying to be tougher on immigration than we've ever seen him before," Cervantes said. "That's kind of worrisome now. He was willing to work with the communities. I don't see that he's willing to work with us now."

In 2005, Huckabee tried to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for scholarships and in-state college tuition.

Joyce Elliott, the former state representative who sponsored the scholarship measure, said she originally had wanted to offer just in-state tuition, but Huckabee's office asked her to add the scholarship provision.

"The notion I got from him is that he believed it was the right thing to do," said Elliott, a Democrat from Little Rock.

The measure ultimately failed in the Legislature that year and has now become a favorite talking point for Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, GOP rivals who want to paint Huckabee as soft on illegal immigration.

Cont......Townhall.com
By ANDREW DeMILLO

Buying Products Bearing 'Made In USA' Label Invests In Nation's Future

What does "Made in the USA" mean to you? Hopefully, it inspires images of quality and reliability. And well it should.

My father has an electric drill that he got in the early 1960s. It still works. The label proudly shows "Made in USA." In my life, I have gone through at least a half dozen foreign-made drills, the best lasting two years before it started to smoke and catch fire. Should I have been surprised? I guess not, but I was.

As a business major, I know that companies spend millions of dollars in advertising to promote a specific image of their overseas-manufactured products. The product is sometimes sold at exorbitantly high prices. When the product breaks or ceases to function, we realize it doesn't live up to our expectations.

Do we learn from our mistake? Obviously not, because we go out immediately and purchase another one just like it.

As I look at this issue, I ask myself how it could live up to our expectations of quality when it usually is made with inferior components and assembled by untrained, uneducated and often abused workers.

The only quality control many of these companies appear to have is that which protects and maximizes their profits.

I have visited several of these factories in Asian countries and witnessed the working conditions, safety issues, worker health problems and the substandard quality of the manufacturing processes. If these companies tried to run their businesses in America under those conditions, the government would shut them down.

Yet our government allows these companies to establish manufacturing subsidiaries in foreign countries that do not have environmental or safety and compliance laws. As a result, American jobs are lost for the sake of profit.

Why would an American manufacturer relocate to Mexico or Asia?
Well, for the reasons listed above and because, on average, companies can expect to save as much as 75 percent on labor costs. Yet they precariously slap a label that indicates "Product of America" or another misleading title, and it is shipped to this country for us to purchase at our favorite stores.

As my dismay with these inferior products continued to grow, I searched for anything made in America to assess whether our products are better than the imports. I found a few items and even purchased one.

I am proud to admit that I am impressed. The quality is obvious, and I am happy with my purchase. To date, this product has outlived several similar imports I had. And most important, the cost was not much different than the import.

Made-in-USA products are different. Not just because they are usually produced with better quality materials and are assembled by smart, creative workers, but because "Made in USA" means much more than just having an American flag displayed on the label.
It means an investment by hard-working Americans who believe in America and the vision of our forefathers.

It means an investment in our children, education and future. Just look at the misery that "Made in China" has brought us lately, and you can appreciate "Made in USA" a lot more.
My father once told me: "You get what you paid for." And again, he was right.

I prefer to pay a little more for a product and have it last a long time than pay for cheap products that end up breaking or poisoning my children with lead or other toxins.

As you venture out and shop, think "Made in America." Whether you're in the market for clothing, tools, toys or other products, take into consideration what you are getting for your money. When possible, buy American.

When you buy an American product, you know you're getting the best possible quality at a reasonable price. In addition, you also will be helping your community, both economically and ecologically. By purchasing products made here, you are investing in American businesses that are not afraid to make their products under the American standard - a standard of quality.

The American work ethic is something to be admired. Our workforce, regardless of position, works hard to produce the best product and serve customers to the best of their ability. It is the fuel that allows the American worker to attain results unmatched by anyone.

More notably, by buying "Made in USA" products you will have found another piece of the American Dream and, hopefully, some peace of mind.

The writer is a youth counselor and Zephyrhills city councilman.

By LUIS LOPEZ
TampaBay Online.com

Grinch-o-Meter Ratings 2007 - Christmas Clashes 2007

There’s good news and bad news this Christmas.

First, the good. Americans are pushing back more than ever against the generic “holiday” tide (see Santa’s Helpers list below). As part of that effort, CMI is unveiling the Grinch-o-Meter, which rates those who are Christmas-challenged.

But here’s the bad: Some of the Grinches seem to be scaling new heights of peevishness and absurdity. And although the national news media are largely ignoring the cultural battle underway, local news sources have been rich with detail.

Here is a roundup of some of the more interesting people, institutions and media stories in this season’s Christmas culture clash, with their Grinch-o-Meter ratings. The Grinch-o-Meter is CMI’s new tool for measuring the Grinchiness of those seeking to secularize, diminish or tarnish the celebration of Christmas in America. People who actively seek to wreck Christmas for others (for example, ACLU lawsuits regarding nativity scenes), or do something profoundly petty, get a 10. Others who start off Grinchy and then correct themselves receive a middling score. People who embrace and promote Christmas without having their arms twisted get a zero on the Grinch-o-Meter.

Grinch-o-Meter Ratings 2007

TOP Grinch-o-Meter Award: The 17 congressmen who supported a resolution recognizing Islam and Ramadan but voted “no” or “present” (that is, there but wouldn’t vote) on a similar resolution introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) recognizing Christianity and Christmas. Lawmakers who voted “no” for Christianity and “yes” for Islam are: Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Fortney Stark (D-CA) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). Those who voted “present” on Christianity and “yes” on Islam include: Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Barney Frank (D-MA), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Peter Welch (D-VT) and John Yarmuth (D-KY). [Grinch-o-Meter: 10-Plus]

Ft. Collins, Colorado – The city created a Holiday Display Task Force, which recommended banning red and green lights and using only white ones and only secular symbols. A local ACLU representative was on the task force. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly reported on November 27 that the task force’s recommendations were “rebuffed.” The Council voted 6-1 to keep their Christmas decorations. [Task Force gets a Grinch-o-Meter 10; the council gets a 2]

Ridgeland Schools – The Oak Lawn, Illinois district was going to do away with Christmas parties. But parents raised a fuss, so the school board decided that rather than take Christmas parties off the agenda, they would include celebrations of Ramadan and other Muslim holidays. [Grinch-o-Meter initially registered a 10, but dialed back to a 5]

Companies that operate government-assisted housing for senior citizens – In Plant City, Florida and Troy, Pennsylvania, residents were told they cannot decorate common areas in their buildings with religious symbols at Christmas. After being contacted by Liberty Counsel these companies reversed their decisions. [Grinch-o-Meter initially registered a 10, but dialed back to a 2]

Spokane, Washington – The Associated Press reported that the Spokane Public Schools sent home a calendar for elementary school students with “important dates” for December. Hanukkah, Human Rights Day, winter break, first day of winter, Kwanzaa and the Islamic holy day of Eid-al-Adha were on the list, but one rather significant holiday beginning with a “C” didn’t make the cut. A school spokesperson said, “In our efforts to be inclusive we missed the obvious.” The school corrected the omission in the online calendar. [Grinch-o-Meter registered 10 initially but dialed back to 2]

Barbara Walters – During the December 13 episode of ABC’s The View, Walters whined about the White House Christmas card because it quotes the Bible’s book of Nehemiah. “Don’t you think it’s a little interesting that the president of all the people is sending out a religious Christmas card?” she asked her co-hosts. [Grinch-o-Meter: 9]

New York City officials – gave the Christian Defense Coalition a Scrooge-like two-hour window to display a small nativity scene in midtown Manhattan. The display is part of “The Nativity Project,” a nationwide campaign to set up nativity scenes in well-traveled public areas. [Grinch-o-Meter: 9]

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – The airport made major headlines last Christmas when it removed all of the Christmas trees on display throughout the airport after being threatened with a lawsuit if a menorah was not also included in the display. This year, the airport convened a “holiday decorations advisory committee” which determined that the airport would not use any decorations with religious connotations. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports this year’s décor is a “grove of luminous birches up to 30 feet high and hung with crystals and mirrors to reflect colored, low-energy lights.” Above the trees will be a “spiraling flock of migrating birds cut out of foam.” Wind chimes will occasionally ring as well. [Grinch-o-Meter: 9]

Chattanooga, Tennessee officials - For years the city has included a live nativity scene in its public festivities. This year, after receiving a complaint, the city decided to do away with the nativity scene. A public backlash resulted in the nativity scene being moved to a local church. [Grinch-o-Meter: 9]

Hollywood, California – For 75 years the city has sponsored a Hollywood Christmas Parade, but it refused to sponsor the parade this year. The Los Angeles City Council has taken over, and is changing the name to the Hollywood Santa Parade. [Grinch-o-Meter: 8]

The Texas Gas Transmission Company – The company ended a four-decade-long tradition in Owensburg, Kentucky of displaying a large, lighted cross. The company’s president, H. Dean Jones II, said the cross was a religious symbol and the company didn’t want to alienate people of other faiths. [Grinch-o-Meter: 8]

Missouri State University – The college took down a Christmas tree from an atrium in a campus building after a Jewish faculty member said it “showed a lack of sensitivity” to people of other religions. After the local press reported the story, the administration reconsidered and put the tree back up. [Grinch-o-Meter registered 8 initially but dialed back to 2]

Oberlin, Ohio artist Keith McGuckin – Last year it was gingerbread Nazis with Swastika-labeled candles. This year, McGuckin has created a murderous snow woman and a drug smuggling elf. His art is on display at the Oberlin Public Library and a local crafts store, according to WEWS in Cleveland. [Grinch-o-Meter: 7]

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources – Bureaucrats initially ordered all state parks to remove Nativity scenes because of one complaint. After being contacted by Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal defense organization, the ODNR changed its stance and decided to continue “prior holiday traditions.” [Grinch-o-Meter: 6]

New Hyde Park, New York school officials – The district drew the ire of more than 250 residents when it considered changing the name of school Christmas Concerts to Holiday or Winter Concerts. The New York Times reported the large crowd came out in August to demand to keep “Christmas” in the Christmas concerts. The district reportedly was considering the change based on a single complaint. [Grinch-o-Meter: 5]

Overall, the Grinches seem to be losing ground to common sense and tradition.

During the Nov. 27 broadcast of The O’Reilly Factor, conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher said he believed that the rise of conservative voices in the media, especially on talk radio and on Fox News Channel, has helped shift the tide in the War on Christmas.

No doubt the clashes will continue. The ACLU [Grinch-o-Meter: 10-plus] typically only has to threaten a lawsuit against a town or school, and administrators will buckle. On top of that, advertisers and retailers continue to hype the generic “Holiday” at the expense of Christmas. The “Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh” ads by carmaker Hyundai come to mind. [Grinch-o-Meter: 8] Retailers like Banana Republic, The Gap (also owns Old Navy), Eddie Bauer and Petco [collective Grinch-o-Meter: 8] spend massive amounts of advertising dollars and use only the word “Holiday.” Some companies go to ridiculous lengths not to mention Christmas. Circuit City and CVS [Grinch-o-Meter: 8] have ads for “Free Shipping” or a “Holiday Shipping Schedule” for delivery by December 24. That would be Christmas Eve.

Other retailers have been more responsive. Lowe’s, the home improvement chain, came under fire in November when one of its circulars carried the banner “Family Trees” over pictures of Christmas trees. Lowe’s issued a public apology and said it would be advertising them as Christmas trees this year. [Grinch-o-Meter: 3] Home Depot still calls the conifers (both fake and live) “Holiday Trees.” [Grinch-o-Meter: 9]

For current lists of retailers who are Christmas friendly, check Focus on the Family and Liberty Counsel, which regularly update their information.

And then there are television networks. Again, the push/pull of the Christmas clash is evident. Every year, different networks air classic Christmas movies or TV shows like Charlie Brown’s Christmas, in which Linus recites the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth. It is always the top-rated show across multiple demographics when it airs. [ABC aired the program this year. Grinch-o-Meter: 0] In contrast, more than two-thirds of the publicly owned PBS stations refused to air the program “The Birth of Christ,” the CD of which is currently No. 4 on the Billboard charts. [For those 200+ stations, Grinch-o-Meter: 10].

There is little doubt that the culture clash surrounding Christmas will not end any time soon. In a Chicago Tribune article about the Oak Lawn schools’ Christmas-Ramadan brouhaha, Bernard Beck, a sociology professor emeritus at Northwestern University, said demographic shifts often create such conflicts. He added that religious tolerance in America is constantly being renegotiated.

Despite the continuing liberal efforts to sanitize the religious aspects of Christmas and make it just another holiday, renegotiation is, in fact, happening. The Christmas Spirit is spreading, as attested by the activities of people like those who made our Santa’s Helper List.

Cont.......TownHall.com

By Kristen Fyfe

Tony Blair joins Catholic Church

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has left the Anglican Church to become a Roman Catholic.
His wife and children are already Catholic and there had been speculation he would convert after leaving office.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who led the service to welcome Mr Blair, said he was "very glad" to do so.

But ex-Tory minister Ann Widdecombe - herself a Catholic convert - said Mr Blair's voting record as an MP had often "gone against church teaching".

Last year, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said he had prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops into Iraq.

And one of Mr Blair's final official trips while prime minister was a visit to the Vatican in June where he met Pope Benedict XVI.

'Regular worshipper'

Mr Blair was received into full communion with the Catholic Church during Mass at Archbishop's House, Westminster, on Friday.

Cont......BBC News

It's not too late to save Christmas

Buy these 10 gifts now and keep the American economy humming

Consumers account for some two-thirds of the growth in the U.S. gross domestic product by buying goods and services and have largely been credited with holding up the U.S. economy for most of the decade. With spending predicted to slow to a crawl, many analysts believe the economy is on the verge of a menacing contraction.

It doesn't have to be that way. With your last-minute holiday purchases, you still have time to get your loved ones the gifts they crave and save the U.S. economy from potential disaster.
To help you choose the right gifts with the proper amount of economic heft, MarketWatch has gathered 10 suggestions, culled from the brightest minds in everything from economics to bar tending.

There's nothing scientific or methodical about these items. They're just old-fashioned, homegrown ideas, which not surprisingly tend to focus first on U.S.-made goods and local services.

"It's back to the old days -- buy American; buy things that are produced here," said David Wyss, Standard & Poor's chief economist.

Apparel, for example, is mostly woven, sewn and stitched overseas, primarily in China. But golf balls are chiefly American-made. So is food, both in grocery stores and at restaurants.

Buy any one of these 10 now, then sit back and watch the economy roll:

A used house
No industry produces the ripple effects of housing, which by some estimates accounts for 15% of all domestic economic activity. Besides the real estate agents' commission there are mortgage fees and title charges and attorneys' costs -- not to mention money generated for everyone from the moving van driver to the carpet cleaner. At a median price of just about $206,000, houses are even on discount (about 6%) from a year ago. Worried about more price declines? Once folks start buying and supply equals demand, MarketWatch's chief economist Irwin Kellner said, housing prices will stabilize.

A newly constructed house
Better yet, convince 99 friends and family to get one too. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the estimated one-year impact of building 100 single-family homes in a typical U.S. metropolitan area is $16 million in local income and 284 jobs. They then drum up $3.2 million annually in local income and 63 jobs -- and there's no question the construction and building industries are hurting for jobs. An average new home will set you back about $218,000, about 13% less than a year ago.

A pickup truck
It's true you'll be using a good percentage of foreign substances to fuel it, but the domino-effect of building trucks and cars in the U.S. trails long and wide. Consider the Ford F-series trucks and in particular the F-150, the most ubiquitous on the road. Ranging in price from $15,000 to $30,000, about 90% of the truck's parts are manufactured in the U.S. and there are plenty of people employed to build engines, doors, fenders and rear-view mirrors. But more important, the entire machine is assembled in the U.S. The F-Series Super Duty, for example, has spawned an entire community around the 5,000 workers Ford employs at the assembly plant outside of Louisville, Ky., in the last 10 years alone, according to the company.

An airplane
Need a faster and more-high-flying means of transportation? Boeing's best-selling plane is the 737, which ranges in price from $57 million to $79 million. Ninety percent of its parts are U.S. made and the entire plane is assembled in the homeland, mostly in the Washington state cities of Renton and Everett. In fact, all Boeing planes are put together in the U.S., the company said, while the percentage of parts made here varies according to style and size. Don't forget, too, that planes need pilots to fly them, mechanics to service them and airport personnel to direct and harbor them, among other jobs tied to putting a plane in the sky.

A couch
And while you're at it, throw in matching chairs, tables, lighting and rugs. Hit hard and hardly noted during the housing slowdown has been the furniture industry, in which sluggish sales have led to bankruptcies ranging from Levitz Furniture -- its third in 10 years -- and Bombay Co. to Mattress Gallery and Sofa Express.

An entertainment package
Bring down the price points and buy a subscription series to the local opera, orchestra, play group or museum. Artists really don't like to starve and a gift certificate to a local arts group helps keep them employed, as well as their directors, lighting crew, makeup artists and costume designers. Don't forget ushers and ticket-booth sales people, too, who will benefit from your up-front purchase and continued support.

Food
Buy restaurant gift certificates to a favorite dining spot or a one that should be someone else's favorite. That keeps the chefs, waiters and waitresses, bartenders, bus boys and kitchen crews in living wages. Even fast-food and grocery-store gift cards generate income for your neighbors.

A local service
Any kind of service will do, be it a massage, a hair cut or even a trip to the dentist. Services are nearly always performed down the block or around the corner and help employ any number of people to book, manage and carry them out.

Movie tickets and DVDs
The vast majority of movies are created, produced, directed and acted out in Hollywood, employing hundreds of people per flick. California needs the help. The state, whose residents number some 36.5 million, is on the brink of a recession that most economy watchers believe would ripple quickly throughout the rest of the country.

A person's time
Hire someone, anyone: a nanny, a painter, a gardener, a tutor, a piano teacher or even a teen to shovel snow. For every job that's created there is a new consumer created too.

Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch

Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune

An unprecedented battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin's departure from office, the Guardian has learned, with claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune.

Rival clans inside the Kremlin are embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets as Putin prepares to transfer power to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in May, well-placed political observers and other sources have revealed.

At stake are billions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian state-run corporations. Additionally, details of Putin's own personal fortune, reportedly hidden in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are being discussed for the first time.

The claims over the president's assets surfaced last month when the Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky gave an interview to the German newspaper Die Welt. They have since been repeated in the Washington Post and the Moscow Times, with speculation over the fortune appearing on the internet.

Citing sources inside the president's administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (£20bn). The sum would make him Russia's - and Europe's - richest man.

In an interview with the Guardian, Belkovsky repeated his claims that Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a "non-transparent network of offshore trusts".
Cont ........

Luke Harding The Guardian

Success Against the Axis

WASHINGTON -- Just four months after 9/11, George Bush identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil" and declared that defanging these rogue regimes was America's most urgent national security task. Bush will be judged on whether he succeeded.
Six years later and with time running out on this administration, the Bush legacy is clear: one for three. Contrary to current public opinion, Bush will have succeeded on Iraq, failed on Iran and fought North Korea to a draw.

Iran. Bush has thrown in the towel on Iran's nuclear program because the intelligence bureaucracy, in a spectacularly successful coup, seized control of the policy with a National Intelligence Estimate that very misleadingly trumpeted the claim that Iran had halted its nuclear program. In fact, Iran only halted the least important component of its nuclear program, namely weaponization.

The hard part is the production of the fissile material. Iran continues enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges at work in open defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Once you have the necessary fuel, you can make the bomb in only a few months.

Thus to even speak of the Iranian program as having been stopped while enrichment continues is absurd. And that is true even if you discount recent dissidents' reports that the weaponization program, suspended in 2003, in fact resumed the following year -- contrary to the current NIE estimate, offered with only "moderate confidence," that it has never been restarted.

The administration had to immediately release and accept the NIE's sensational conclusions because the report would have been leaked and the administration then accused of covering up good news to justify going to war, the assumption being that George Bush and Dick Cheney have a Patton-like lust for the smell of battle.

The administration understands that the NIE's distorted message that Iran has given up pursuing nukes has not only taken any military option off the table but jeopardized any further sanctions against Iran. Making the best of the lost cause, Bush will now go through the motions until the end of his term, leaving the Iranian bomb to his successor.

North Korea. We did get Kim Jong Il to disable his plutonium-producing program. The next step is for Pyongyang to disclose all nuclear activities. This means coming clean on past proliferation and on the clandestine uranium enrichment program that North Korea had once admitted but now denies.

Knowing we have no credible threats against North Korea, we now come bearing carrots. President Bush writes a personal letter to Kim Jong Il, in essence entreating him to come clean on his nuclear program so we can proceed to full normalization.

Disabling the plutonium reactor is an achievement and we do gain badly needed intelligence by simply being there on the ground to inspect. There is, however, no hope of North Korea giving up its existing nuclear weapons stockpile, and little assurance that we will find, let alone disable, any clandestine programs. But lacking sticks, we take what we can.

Iraq is a different story. Whatever our subsequent difficulties, our initial success definitively rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his monstrous sons. The Hussein dynasty will not -- as it would have, absent the U.S. invasion -- rebuild, rearm and threaten the world.

The taking down of Saddam led directly to Libya's full nuclear disarmament and, undoubtedly, to Iran's 2003 suspension of weaponization. As for Iraq itself, after three years of disorientation, the U.S. has finally found a winning counterinsurgency strategy.

It took Bush three years to find his general (as it did Lincoln) and turn a losing war into a winnable one. Baghdad and Washington are currently discussing a long-term basing agreement that could give the United States permanent military presence in the region and a close cooperative relationship with the most important country in the Middle East heartland -- a major strategic achievement.

Nonetheless, the pressure on this administration and the next to get out prematurely will remain. There are those for whom our only objective in Iraq is reducing troop levels rather than securing a potentially critical Arab ally in a region of supreme strategic significance.

On North Korea and Iran, with no real options at hand, the Bush administration heads to the finish line doing what Sen. George Aiken once suggested for Vietnam: Declare victory and go home. With no good options available, those decisions are entirely understandable. But if Bush or his successor does an Aiken on Iraq, where success is a real option, history will judge him severely.

By Charles Krauthammer

Townhall.com

Bush Bans Light Bulbs, Gas Guzzling Cars

President Bush signed an energy bill on Wednesday that bans traditional incandescent light bulbs and requires automakers to produce more energy-efficient vehicles.

The bill, titled the Energy Independence and Security Act, calls for higher fuel standards for cars and light trucks, mandates higher ethanol production and begins a phase out of incandescent light bulbs by 2012 because they burn too much energy.

Instead, Americans will have to purchase more expensive, longer burning compact fluorescent bulbs. Although they last longer than incandescent bulbs, CFL bulbs contain small amounts of mercury and, if broken, must be handled with caution.

At his signing ceremony Bush said the bill was a “major step” toward making the United States “a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure.”

The legislation will dramatically change production for automakers and domestic energy producers.

Corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) standards are currently 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 22.2 miles per gallon for light trucks. This bill increases that to new standard of 35 miles a gallon for all cars and light trucks by 2020.

It also increases domestic ethanol production by five times in order to meet an annual 36 billion-gallon requirement.

By Amanda Carpenter

Townhall.com

Paul keeps white supremacist donation

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist, and the Texas congressman doesn't plan to return it, an aide said Wednesday.

Don Black, of West Palm Beach, recently made the donation, according to campaign filings. He runs a Web site called Stormfront with the motto, "White Pride World Wide." The site welcomes postings to the "Stormfront White Nationalist Community."

"Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he's wasted his money," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said. "Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom."

"And that's $500 less that this guy has to do whatever it is that he does," Benton added.

Black said he supports Paul's stance on ending the war in Iraq, securing U.S. borders and his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"We know that he's not a white nationalist. He says he isn't and we believe him, but on the issues, there's only one choice," Black said Wednesday.

"We like his stand on tight borders and opposition to a police state," Black told The Palm Beach Post earlier.

On his Web site, Black says he has been involved in "the White patriot movement for 30 years."

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

Why are the wheels coming off the Clinton bandwagon?

In Iowa and New Hampshire — the first two tests for the presidential nominating process — Hillary Clinton is faltering badly.

When you average all the polls in Iowa, her lead has dwindled and is now eradicated:

Hillary vs. Obama in Iowa
	Hillary	Obama	Hillary Margin
October	30	23	+7
First half Nov.	28	22	+6
Sec half Nov.	26	28	-2
December	28	30	-2

And, Hillary has suffered an even greater slippage in New Hampshire, where the last poll, by Rasmussen, has Obama ahead by three points. Here are the averages of all the polls for these time periods:

Hillary vs. Obama in New Hampshire
	Hillary	Obama	Hillary Margin
October	41	22	+19
First half Nov.	36	23	+13
Sec half Nov.	34	23	+11
December	31	29	+2

But curiously, Hillary remains in the national lead and her margin has not dwindled appreciably:

Hillary vs. Obama National
	Hillary	Obama	Hillary Margin
October	47	21	+26
First half Nov.	45	23	+22
Sec half Nov.	45	23	+22
December	45	24	+21

Hillary Clinton is tanking and Obama is surging in New Hampshire, gaining a net of 17 points. In Iowa, Hillary is dropping and Obama is also moving up, gaining a net of nine points. But nationally, there is almost no change since November 1. Throughout the country, Obama has gained only five points in three months.

Why the difference?

Obviously, New Hampshire and Iowa are markedly different states with little in common demographically. But, what they do have in common is prolonged exposure to the candidates and to their paid media advertising. These two states have been through what we will all go through before Election Day. They have seen Hillary and Obama campaign day after day. They have watched the candidates — with the advertisements on television, heard them on radio and have focused on the more intensive news coverage they are receiving in the local media. The conclusion is inescapable: the more voters come to know Hillary Clinton the less they like her and the more they get to know Barack Obama the more they like him.

In the abstract, Hillary is a captivating idea. The first woman to run for president, she is the living reminder of the better economic times and international peace of the Clinton administration. But, up close and personal, she is far less attractive. As the rest of the country is exposed to the former first lady, if they emulate the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire and revise their opinion of her, the results will not please the Clinton camp.

What is Hillary doing wrong and what is Obama doing right?

A trip to youtube.com or to the Web site of each of the candidates shows in an instant the difference in the ads the two campaigns are running. Obama's send goose bumps up your skin while Hillary's leave one flat. Obama speaks and demonstrates his charisma. Hillary’s platform style is no match for the Illinois senator and most of her ads feature a voice over doing the speaking for her.

In their campaign themes, Hillary stresses her experience while Obama focuses on the need for change. Hillary seems determined to appropriate her husband’s record, while Obama mocks the idea of going back to an alternation of the Bushes and the Clintons, a latter day American Hatfields and McCoys.

Now, in desperation, Hillary and her minions are attacking Obama with shots that will only arouse voter sympathy for him and backlash against her. Hillary asks, “When did running for president become a qualification to be president?” and her aides distribute evidence that Obama wanted to run for president in kindergarten to defuse the attack that Hillary and Bill have always planned on a regal, dynastic succession. More recently, a top Hillary campaign aide spoke of the need to investigate Obama’s drug use in high school where he has admitted to using cocaine.

None of these shots are going to knock anybody out or even down, but Hillary keeps up the pattern of personal, irrelevant negative attacks.

The conclusion is obvious: neither Hillary nor her staff know how to campaign. After the Clinton re-election in 1996, they have never been tested in a competitive race. When Giuliani dropped out of the New York State Senate race and the young Congressman Rick Lazio had to enter at the last minute to try to stop Hillary’s bid, the conclusion was pre-ordained. Hillary’s re-election was a cakewalk against a totally under funded opponent. She doesn’t know how to win.

Hillary’s experience has been limited to the insider back biting of Washington where she is an expert at using her secret police — a small army of private detectives — to unearth negatives about her or Bill’s opponents. (Even former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young recently admitted that Hillary ran the effort to discredit women who might come forward and accuse Clinton of misconduct.) But, when it comes to campaigning, advertising and winning an election, these folks and this candidate don’t have a clue.

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Townhall.com

Small group of US experts insist global warming not man-made

A small group of US experts stubbornly insist that, contrary to what the vast majority of their colleagues believe, humans may not be responsible for the warming of the planet Earth.

These experts believe that global warming is a natural phenomenon, and they point to reams of data they say supports their assertions.

These conclusions are in sharp contradiction to those of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which reached its conclusions using largely similar data.

The UN body of about 3,000 experts, including several renown US scientists, jointly won the award with former US vice president Al Gore for their work to raise awareness about the disastrous consequences of global warming.

In mid-November the IPCC adopted a landmark report stating that the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now "unequivocal."

Retreating glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, the report said.

Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth's surface and inflicting changes to weather systems.

A group of US scientists however disagree, and have written an article on their views that is published in The International Journal of Climatology, a publication of Britain's Royal Meteorological Society.

"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, doesn't show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming," wrote lead author David Douglas, a climate expert from the University of Rochester, in New York state.

"The inescapable conclusion is that human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming," Douglas wrote.

According to co-author John Christi from the University of Alabama, satellite data "and independent balloon data agree that the atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface," while greenhouse models "demand that atmospheric trend values be two to three times greater."

Data from satellite observations "suggest that greenhouse models ignore negative feedback produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects" of human carbon dioxide emissions.

The journal authors "have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases."

For Fred Singer, a climatologist at the University of Virginia and another co-author, the current warming "trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep sea sediments and stalagmites . . . and published in hundreds of papers in peer reviewed journals."

How these cyclical climate take place is still unknown, but they "are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on cloudiness, and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface and thus the climate."

Singer said at a recent National Press Club meeting in Washington that there is still no definite proof that humans can produce climate change.

The available data is ambiguous, Singer said: global temperatures, for example, rose between 1900 and 1940, well before humans began to burn the enormous quantities of hydrocarbons they do today. Then they dropped between 1940 and 1975, when the use of oil and coal increased, he said.

Singer believes that other factors -- like variations of solar winds and terrestrial magnetic field that impact cloud formations and the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface, and thus determining the temperature -- are much more influential than human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

by Jean-Louis Santini
Yahoo News

Taxing Time for Democrats?

It's been a while since taxes were a potent political issue. It was almost 20 years ago that George H.W. Bush invited voters to "read my lips" and a baker's dozen years since Republicans captured Congress by decrying the Clinton tax increases. George W. Bush did promise to cut taxes, but it didn't help him much in 2000, and the ensuing economic recovery didn't help him much in 2004.

But taxes could be an issue in 2008, as the federal tax structure is poised to change in the next few years.

First, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2010, and the Democrats, who seem almost sure to hold or expand their majorities in the next Congress, seem determined not to extend some or all of them. So taxes at least on high earners are likely to rise. And secondly, the alternative minimum tax, passed in 1969 to prevent a handful of millionaires from avoiding income tax altogether, is now slated to hit more than 20 percent of taxpayers. And that percentage is due to rise every year because the AMT is not indexed for inflation.

The paradox is that the same Democrats who want to increase top-bracket income and capital-gains tax rates are desperately eager to spare relatively high earners from the AMT -- so desperate that Senate Democrats agreed to waive the "paygo" rule they reinstated when they took control.

Paygo requires that a tax cut be offset by a tax increase or a spending cut of corresponding dollar amounts. But when the Senate early this month passed its $50 billion AMT "patch" exempting 230 million taxpayers from the AMT for one year, it waived the paygo rule.

House Democrats are simmering, but they will probably have to go along. There's a process argument for waiving paygo, which is that future AMT revenues are fictitious because no Congress will allow the tax to go into effect. But it's nonetheless embarrassing for Democrats to renounce a rule they adopted as a guarantee of their fiscal responsibility.

The reason Democrats risked this embarrassment is that the AMT tends to fall on voters in places with high state and local government spending and taxes -- Democratic places like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California.

Taxpayers hit by the AMT can't deduct state and local taxes from their federal income tax bill. Sooner or later, that puts downward political pressure on state and local spending. And that, in turn, threatens the vested interest of a key Democratic constituency, the public employee unions. Democratic voters in suburban New Jersey, for example, who feel far from rich, face a substantial tax increase if they're suddenly covered by the AMT. They may take their revenge on Democratic candidates and on New Jersey public employee union members.

The Democrats' need to get rid of the AMT suggests the possibility of broader tax reform. House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel has put forth such a proposal, with a cut in the corporate tax rate and huge tax increases on very high earners. But it's a nonstarter as long as George W. Bush is in office.

Another approach with more bipartisan appeal would be to combine AMT repeal and extension of the Bush tax cuts with a mass repeal of tax exemptions, along the lines of the 1986 bipartisan tax law.

Meanwhile, in this election cycle, the AMT remains largely invisible to the voters who are threatened by it, and it will remain so unless Congress somehow fails to patch it this year. The more visible issue is whether or to what extent taxes will go up in 2010.

Democrats, conscious of the popularity of some recent governors who have raised taxes (like Mark Warner of Virginia), seem on the surface unfazed by the political risks of tax increases and are preparing to argue that they'll raise taxes only on the rich. But this may be awkward at a time when the budget deficit is rapidly declining and when we face the nontrivial possibility of a recession.

A tax increase in a recession is usually not a good idea. And Republicans will say that when Democrats promise to tax the rich, they end up raising taxes on the ordinary person, as Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress did in 1993. The Democrats' desperation to patch the AMT and their willingness to break their own paygo rule suggest that they fear the wrath of those New Jersey suburbanites more than they let on.

By Michael Barone
Townhall.com

The Media’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2007

10. Airlines are solely to blame for the unfriendly skies.
Media myth: Blame the airlines for all those flight delays; never mind the obsolete government-run agency creating the gridlock.

9. Consumer spending is the be-all, end-all of the economy.
Media myth: Without excessive consumer spending – especially at Christmastime – the U.S. economy will collapse.

8. The stock market is trouble, whether it goes up or down.
Media myth: One day the stock market can’t sustain growth; the next, we’re just one drop away from another crash.

7. Anyone who ‘denies’ global warming shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Media myth: Global warming could cause a ‘century of fires,’ just as it has created allergies and ended winter fashion. If we don’t do something now (i.e. spend hundreds of billions of dollars), it’s only going to get worse.

6. You’d better not eat/drink that!
Media myth: Forget the right to eat as you please; the nanny-state knows better.

5. Most Americans are losing their homes.
Media myth: Americans everywhere are losing their homes to foreclosure, and the housing bust is going to ruin the economy.

4. “Going Green” is good for America and business.
Media myth: Businesses are much better off if they go green, and that’s what people really want anyway.

3. Lenders are responsible for everyone’s debts.
Media myth: Drowning in red ink isn’t your fault; blame the guy who loaned you the money.

2. Free health care would be great!
Media myth: To save our children and the 47 million uninsured Americans, and to keep up with the rest of the world, we must have government-run health care.

1. The U.S. Economy is in recession.
Media myth: The U.S. economy is nearly in, or is in, a recession.

See The Truths:
Read The Full Article From the BMI

Clinton adviser: Obama drug use concern

A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that Democrats should give more thought to Sen. Barack Obama's admissions of illegal drug use before they pick a presidential candidate.

Obama's campaign said the Clinton people were getting desperate. Clinton's campaign tried to distance itself from the remarks, and the adviser said later he regretted making them.
Bill Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Clinton's front-runner campaign, raised the issue during an interview with The Washington Post, posted on washingtonpost.com.

Shaheen, an attorney and veteran organizer, said much of Obama's background is unknown and could be a problem in November 2008 if he is the Democratic nominee. He said Republicans would work hard to discover new aspects of Obama's admittedly spotty youth.

"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" said Shaheen, whose wife, Jeanne, is the state's former governor and is running for the U.S. Senate next year.

"There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome," Shaheen said.
Clinton's campaign said it had nothing to do with his comments, and Shaheen said later he regretted them.

"I deeply regret the comments I made today and they were not authorized by the campaign in any way," Bill Shaheen said in an e-mail released by the campaign.

A campaign spokeswoman, Kathleen Strand, earlier had said "Senator Clinton is out every day talking about the issues that matter to the American people. These comments were not authorized or condoned by the campaign in any way."

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in response to Shaheen's remarks:
"Hillary Clinton said attacking other Democrats is the fun part of this campaign, and now she's moved from Barack Obama's kindergarten years to his teenage years in an increasingly desperate effort to slow her slide in the polls. Senator Clinton's campaign is recycling old news that Barack Obama has been candid about in a book he wrote years ago, and he's talked about the lessons he's learned from these mistakes with young people all across the country. He plans on winning this campaign by focusing on the issues that actually matter to the American people."

Obama wrote about his teenage drug use in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father." His rivals have largely remained silent on the subject.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, he wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it.

Speaking to Manchester high school students earlier this month, Obama said he was hardly a model student and had experimented with drugs and alcohol.

"You know, I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about. You know, got into drinking. I experimented with drugs," he said. "There was a whole stretch of time that I didn't really apply myself a lot. It wasn't until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, 'Man, I wasted a lot of time.'"

New polling shows Clinton and Obama basically tied in New Hampshire. A CNN-WMUR-TV poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire shows Clinton at 31 percent support, Obama at 30. The same poll had Obama trailing by 20 points in September.

Clinton's campaign has distributed its first flier that criticizes Obama's health care plan for leaving 15 million people without insurance. TV ads following the same theme also have been prepared.

"This is not the time to go back to the same old politics of, 'now I'm going to smack you over the head with a baseball bat and call into question your character,'" Obama co-chairman Ned Helms told reporters in a conference call earlier Wednesday, decrying what he said was Clinton's negative campaign.

In Iowa, Democratic presidential rival John Edwards said of the comments: "I reject it. I reject it, and I want nothing to do with that kind of politics."

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
Posted on Yahoo News

Revisit the Clinton Record?

One of the Man from Hope's consistently amazing lines is that the press doesn't offer the Clintons enough credit for all their good works. The latest example came on the trail in Keene, N.H., where the Associated Press found him whining about how the press hasn't underlined the vast chasm in experience between his wife and Barack Obama. "Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals," reported the AP.

Clinton obviously believes his presidency was a Golden Era, a time when peace and prosperity graced America. The Clintons want the press to replay a sort of glowing Harry and Linda Thomason propaganda movie about The Way They Were, with a soundtrack by Barbra Streisand.

Oh, baloney. The last thing Bill or his wife want is for the press to scrutinize their public records. The media have been absolutely AWOL on this front for 15 years. He knows it, just as he knows that his bellyaching about the press will also succeed in keeping them at bay.

How easy it would be to make a list of all the things the press could do to clear the cobwebs with thorough investigations (as opposed to the infrequent and incomplete spurt of a few negative stories). Reporters could draw up a quick list of "old news" about Hillary Clinton's record of public malfeasance that Bill knows full well have never been resolved:

1. Hillary ordering around the White House staff to fire seven workers in the White House Travel Office for financial mismanagement, with Billy Dale accused of embezzlement. Hillary then lied to a grand jury about how she was not really involved in the firing scheme, even though staffers were writing there would be "hell to pay" if they didn't do Hillary's bidding. Billy Dale's life was ruined. Two years later, it took a jury two hours to acquit him of all charges. Why did she do that? What would voters think, Mr. President?

2. Hillary making a mysterious $100,000 profit off a $1,000 investment in cattle futures with Tyson Foods lawyer Jim Blair making her trades. Was this a bribe for the governor's wife? It certainly didn't fit Hillary's first fairytale explanation: that she made the trades just reading the Wall Street Journal. Would more focus on this still-unresolved scandal help Hillary's campaign, Mr. President?

3. Hillary's staffers rifling through Vince Foster's office for documents in the hours after Foster's death in Fort Marcy Park. One man seen leaving the scene with documents was White House aide and Hillary protege Craig Livingstone. What was he taking away? Why won't anyone in your administration give an honest answer, Mr. President?

4. Hillary's Rose Law Firm records "disappeared," only to reappear in the White House residence after years of requests for documents from the independent counsel investigating her lawyering for her corrupt business partner Jim McDougal. What were they doing right outside Hillary's private office, Mr. President?

5. Hillary demanding the need for a White House database of friends and enemies. The Clinton White House was found to be in possession of over 1,000 FBI files of Republican White House employees. At the center of the controversy again: Craig Livingstone, who told friends he was Hillary's hire. Why were they there? How were they used?

In each of these cases -- and so many more! -- the Clinton-adoring media pulled a collective hamstring and retired before the scandal was ever resolved.

According to the AP, Clinton also said "his wife's bipartisan work in the Senate proves she can accomplish her campaign's message of change, and that records matter more than rhetoric." But Hillary couldn't even get her massive health-care plan through a Democratic House and Senate. In Carl Bernstein's biography, he reported Hillary made enemies among Senate Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan by threatening to "demonize" them if they didn't swallow her health plan whole. Does that sound like a formula for bipartisan rule in 2009?

Looking at Hillary's public record would also mean taking a serious look at her very liberal Senate voting record. She has a perfect 100 pro-abortion score with NARAL Pro-Choice America. Except for "gay marriage," she's pretty much perfect with the gay Human Rights Campaign lobby. She gets an F from the National Rifle Association. On fiscal issues, she gets an F from the National Taxpayers Union, a 14-percent score from Citizens Against Government Waste, and only a 6.7 percent score from Americans for Tax Reform. Her lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 9 percent.

At every turn, whether it is scandalous behavior or a scandalously liberal voting record, Bill Clinton knows full well that if the press were really focusing "like a laser beam" on Hillary's past, her poll ratings would be dropping, not skyrocketing.

By Brent Bozell III
Townhall.com

American Girl Dolls Made In China

They're marketed as the all-American girls, each representing a different period in American history. But CBS 11 found the American Girl dolls that teach our heritage aren't really American.

Susan Mobley has purchased several American Girl dolls over the years for her daughter, Heather. But the Mobleys recently discovered these dolls are only American in name. If you look closely, you'll see a tag on the box that says "Made in China."

"To have an American Girl doll made in China sounds like a contradiction, does it not?" said Dr. Daniel Howard, professor of Marketing at the SMU Cox School of Business.

He says it's all about cost. It's more expensive to manufacture the dolls in the U.S., which means the price of the $87 dolls would be even higher.

"I believe that there are many American consumers who would pay it simply for the knowledge, simply for the comfort of knowing that this doll was made in the good ol' U.S. of A," Dr. Howard said.

Nan Moon owns Plano-based American Joe Apparel. It's a product which is American in name and in it country of manufacture. Every supplier and every manufacturer is American.
"The cotton is being grown in either Texas or Georgia," she says. "The yarn is being made in South Carolina, and the fabric is made in Missouri."

Moon says it does cost more, but the quality is better. She says using the word "American" in a product but manufacturing it in another country can give consumers the wrong idea.
"I think it's misleading the public, but then again, we all have the capability to look and see where that product was made," she says.

Some moms we talked to outside the American Girl Boutique and Bistro at the Galleria were surprised about the dolls' true origin. But others we spoke to weren't surprised at all, and say they'll still buy American Girl dolls.

"It doesn't bother me as long as they continue to provide the kind of quality items my girls will enjoy," said shopper Wendy Bates.

Susan Mobley and her daughter say they're disappointed the dolls aren't American-made, but say the message the dolls represent should still be celebrated.

"I'm not pleased with where they're made, but I'm not going to stop buying them... I have to admit," Mobley said.

American Girl sent us this statement regarding the dolls' origin:
"Like the majority of the world's toys, American Girl products are manufactured in China, in addition to 18 other countries. All the design and conception work is done at the company's headquarters in Wisconsin."

And by the way, in case you're wondering, we did have a doll and its accessories tested for lead. Experts say the doll and its toys are perfectly safe.

By Ginger Allen
Dallas CBS 11 News

Huckabee, Romney, Church and State

By David Limbaugh

The surfacing of the "religion question" in the Republican presidential primary campaigns of both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee has raised important issues and exposed much public confusion about the intersection of religion and politics.

Secularists feign sympathy with Romney for having to address the Mormon question in response to alleged anti-Mormon bigots but condemn him for failing in his speech to expressly include nonbelievers among those whose religious liberty he would safeguard.

This particular attack on Romney by the secularist bigot patrol reveals their own religious bigotry, their ignorance or their disingenuousness. It goes without saying that robust religious liberty includes the freedom to believe in any religion or not to believe at all.

But the secularists' attacks on Huckabee are more serious. They have taken him to task for identifying himself as a "Christian leader" in Iowa, with some saying he was exploiting Romney's Mormonism and also violating the spirit of the constitutional prohibition on requiring religious tests for public office.

In a campaign ad, Huckabee says, "Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me," and he identifies himself as a "Christian leader."

It's one thing to read the First Amendment Establishment Clause as prohibiting the slightest government endorsement of the Christian religion (while not demonstrating similar angst over government promotion of secular humanism, New Age-ism, Islam or Native American spirituality). But it's taking it to an entirely new level to say that it precludes public officeholders from allowing their Christian worldview to influence their policy preferences or governance.
Public officials cannot separate their worldview from their governance without gutting themselves into ciphers. Their policy agenda will necessarily reflect their value system. Voters in turn properly base their decisions on candidates in part on their respective values and how closely they resemble their own.

Cont... Townhall.com

ANOTHER CASE OF GUNS SAVING LIVES

OK - We have all just been made aware via the news media that several church goers were killed recently by a gun wielding teenager. The bigger story from my perspective as the "PA Citizen" is the story of lives saved because the church had the uncanny foresight to have an armed "Security Team" that took quick action and killed the mentally unbalanced gunman. How many lives were saved will never be known, but when you measure it against other similar occurrences when unarmed, helpless victims waited for assistance from law enforcement the difference may be drastic. Since response time by our boys in blue is sometimes hampered by distance, procedures they must follow once on the scene, and a fear of making a bad situation worse, another alternative must be considered. In my opinion, that alternative is "the right to carry a concealed weapon". Someone on the "inside" seeing what is going on, can save lives. This is the real story that is being ignored regarding the church shootings and the Heroes on the Church Security Team. Hats off to some real americans.

PA Citizen is a Blogger for In Defense of America

A Year Later, Signs of Progress Around the World

The world looks safer, friendlier, more hopeful than it did as we approached Christmastime last year.

Then, we were on the defensive, perhaps on the verge of defeat, in Iraq. The Europeans' attempts to persuade Iran to renounce nuclear weapons seemed to have failed. Hugo Chavez was using his near-dictatorial powers and the oil wealth of Venezuela to secure the election of opponents of the American "empire" in Latin America.

Today, things look different. And they suggest, to me at least, that the policies of the Bush administration, pilloried as bankrupt by the Democrats after their victory in congressional elections in November, have served American interests better than most Americans then thought.

Start with Iraq. The surge strategy, opposed by almost all Democrats in Congress and the party's presidential candidates, has clearly worked. Violence has sharply decreased; Iraqi Sunnis have turned against al-Qaida and toward the Shiite-dominated government; bottom-up reconciliation has gone forward in apparently all areas of the country. Polls show that despite minimal coverage in the mainstream media for many months, most Americans are coming to understand that the surge is working.

True, majorities still say that we should not have gone into Iraq in the first place. And George W. Bush's job rating has rebounded only a little, if at all. There is room for criticism of his record: If the surge has been so successful, why didn't he order it some months or even years earlier? But the prospect of a non-dictatorial Iraq, friendly to the United States, growing economically and peaceful enough to nurture civil society, is now within sight -- as it wasn't a year ago.

Then go to Iran. The National Intelligence Estimate unveiled Dec. 3 stated that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program back in 2003. But it also noted, though this didn't make the headlines, that the mullahs' regime is continuing its enrichment of uranium. Uranium enrichment is the single hardest part of making a deliverable nuclear weapon, and the NIE also stated that the mullahs could resume their nuclear weapons program anytime soon.

In the short run, the NIE will probably make it harder for us to persuade Russia and China, and perhaps the Europeans, to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. And it forecloses any possibility of a U.S. military attack, although my own not totally uninformed opinion is that there was no prospect of George W. Bush ordering one in any case. But note the date on which Iran allegedly stopped the weapons program: What happened in 2003? Is it possible that the major military action in Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein, which motivated Muammar Qaddafi to cancel Libya's nuclear weapons program, had the same effect on Iran's mullahs? If so, it was not as much of a blunder as so many Americans thought a year ago.

And then there's Venezuela. Hugo Chavez asked voters to make him president for life and give him the power to seize all private property. They declined by a 51 percent to 49 percent margin. The brave students who monitored voting sites might have prevented him from stealing this referendum.

We can be reasonably sure that Chavez will make more mischief in Latin America and undermine the vibrant democracy of next-door Colombia, and it's possible that by rejecting the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, congressional Democrats will do the latter, as well. But the rejection of Chavez's plan by the people in whose name he claims to speak is a shattering blow to his prestige that will resonate all across Latin America. It will amplify the words King Juan Carlos I, who has done more than anyone else to advance freedom and democracy in Spain and the Spanish-speaking world, addressed to him at a recent conference: "Why don't you just shut up?"

Not all these favorable events are the work of George W. Bush and the United States. Iraqi Sunnis started turning against al-Qaida even before the surge began, the mullahs (assuming the NIE is correct) may have moved partly out of fear that their own people would rise up against them, and the Venezuelans who rejected Chavez's referendum acted without much encouragement from the United States. So if the world does seem safer, American voters might forget that we still have many vicious enemies determined to inflict great harm on us and install a president who believes we can resume the holiday from history we seemed to be enjoying in the 1990s. But as Christmas approaches, we have more to be thankful for than we did this time last year.

By Michael Barone
Townhall.com
Photo by Caspar inc.

The Mortgage Mess

Like obnoxious relatives, the mortgage mess won’t go away. Some two million adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) will reset over the next two years, and analysts say that within the coming year alone, $362 billion in subprime home mortgages will experience rising interest rates. This will lead to ever more payment defaults and foreclosures, a horrible state of affairs not only for the affected homeowners and lenders, but also for the financial markets in general.

As is their wont, officials from both parties are rushing to offer “solutions.” The Bush administration is urging lenders to maintain the low teaser rates on ARMs, while Hillary Clinton recently advocated a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures. Although casting themselves as knights rescuing beleaguered citizens from greedy corporations, in truth these politicians will only make matters worse.

In his classic Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt said that the good economist looks not only at the obvious, immediate beneficiaries of a government policy, but also considers the long run, hidden costs. We should do the same with the latest mortgage proposals. Although particular homeowners may benefit in the short run, such government tinkering will ultimately harm average Americans by distorting the mortgage industry.

To understand the downside of the recent proposals, we need to step back and ask ourselves why ARMs and foreclosure clauses exist in the first place. They are obviously advantageous to the lender, so it’s no surprise that banks favor them. But why do the borrowers agree to these terms? Why doesn’t everybody simply take out a conventional fixed rate loan, and moreover one that is unsecured—so that the bank can’t seize one’s house in the event of default? Is every borrower just plain stupid for failing to insist on loans of this nature?

Of course not. The reason borrowers agree to adjustable rates (which have the possibility of skyrocketing) and to pledging their home or other assets as collateral, is that this allows them to receive concessions from the bank—in particular, it allows them to borrow a great deal more money than would otherwise be possible. Very few people would persuade a bank to lend them money to buy a house, if the bank didn’t ultimately have the right to take ownership of the house in the event that the borrower couldn’t make the mortgage payments. Yes, borrowers would prefer that they get a $300,000 mortgage with no strings attached, but lenders wouldn’t be too happy with this arrangement. The beauty of a capitalist system is that property owners must compromise to reach mutually beneficial arrangements, since private transactions are voluntary.

Now after individuals enter into these voluntary arrangements, what happens if the government swoops in and invalidates them? There will be short term winners and losers, naturally. And most Americans have no problem with this, because it seems fair to help struggling homeowners at the expense of Wall Street fat cats.

Yet this conclusion is very superficial. Lenders will learn the lesson that their contracts aren’t safe; contrary to popular belief, the government will not serve to enforce the law. (Or rather, the “law” can change on a dime, depending on the public’s mood.) Lenders won’t simply shrug their shoulders, say “aww shucks,” and continue with business as usual.

No, lenders will rationally respond to the new environment, by being much pickier in giving new loans. After all, it becomes much riskier to grant a mortgage to a young couple with little job experience, if the government will shield them from the consequences of default on the loan. Many people say that “the American dream” involves homeownership, yet this will be harder to achieve if the government introduces yet another uncertainty for lenders.

I am aware that the real world process of home buying and financing has its share of shysters and shady practices; every human enterprise does. But the recent proposals aren’t merely about prosecuting outright fraud; no, the politicians want to grant a mulligan to hundreds of thousands who bought homes they couldn’t afford.

Such a move seems generous and noble, but in practice it will prevent true reform of the mortgage industry. Especially in light of the artificially low interest rates in the early 2000s that fueled the housing boom, politicians are the last people we should trust to restore integrity and soundness to the mortgage industry.

By Robert Murphy
Townhall.com