The AP actually reports some upbeat news. They’re reporting that Sunnis are “signaling the intention of many Sunnis to join the political process despite their failure to block ratification of the new constitution.” Far be it from them, though, to keep the news be upbeat without dousing it. Here’s the first 2 paragraphs from the story:

A Sunni Arab coalition submitted its list of candidates for the December election Friday, signaling the intention of many Sunnis to join the political process despite their failure to block ratification of the new constitution.

In the latest violence, the U.S. command said Friday that five American service members, three soldiers and two Marines, were killed Thursday in separate attacks. Their deaths raised the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war to 2,010, according to an AP count.

They’ll report negative news without reporting the positive but they won’t report the positive without reporting bad news. I’m wondering if this isn’t a diabolical pattern.

Regardless, most people would ignore the negative news and be happy about the fact that more Iraqis are buying into the political process. Every person that buys into the political process is another person who isn’t participating in the insurgency.

Sunni Arab participation in politics is considered a vital step toward calming the Sunni-led insurgency and enabling the United States and its coalition partners to begin drawing down troop levels next year.

This is translating into plans of troop reductions within the next year. This isn’t news to the average blogosphere reader but it sounds like it’s news to these AP reporters. Shame on them.

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing

The Canada Free Press asks why British MP George Galloway and Canadian councilor Maurice Strong are still at large and in denial while they top the list in the United Nations Oil-for-food scandal.

You’ve just gotta love those peace-loving liberals…

Why are we conservatives? Barbara Boxer says mama didn’t love us.
(Click pic to enlarge)

L.A. Times reports: “It may come as a surprise to many of her constituents, but for seven years California Sen. Barbara Boxer has been moonlighting from what she calls her ‘day job’ — as an elected official from the state that boasts the free world’s fifth or sixth largest economy — to write a novel. “A Time to Run” is a for-whom-the-bell-tolls story of a liberal blue-state senator who braves the political mud wrestling in Washington for the sake of her ideals. It is, of course, co-written, with San Francisco author Mary-Rose Hayes.”

Of course. “…a liberal blue-state senator who braves the political mud wrestling in Washington for the sake of her ideals”? *grimace*

Dear readers, it’s a time to puke.

The Accolades: Limosine-liberals offer singing praise
(Where’s Streisand?)

In Boxer’s fictional world, a liberal California senator with views very much like hers goes to bat to defeat the Supreme Court nomination of a woman whose most conspicuous qualification for the job seems to be her conservative credentials — a plot twist Boxer said she added a year and a half ago.

“It’s crazy, the parallels,” the Democrat said on a recent day as she whizzed across Los Angeles in a chauffeured SUV to a Hollywood party honoring her book. “It’s just remarkable that this all happened,” she said, referring to the controversial Supreme Court nomination of conservative Harriet Miers. “My book seemed to be so prescient.”

“It’s practically psychic!” Peggy Northrop, the editor of More Magazine, told Boxer when the senator pulled up at a More party to unveil the book. “It’s so … prescient.”

“Maybe if the whole political thing doesn’t work out you could open a business, Barbara — psychic extraordinaire,” actress Mary Steenburgen, who hosted the party with her husband, former “Cheers” star Ted Danson, told a roomful of Hollywood backers whose fundraising has floated a succession of “blue state” candidates.

As Boxer says, “A Time to Run” is “written out of a blue mind.” It comes off as an airplane read, aimed at liberals.
. . .

She got no argument from Danson at the gathering of wealthy Hollywood liberals in honor of Boxer. The people at this party left their day jobs long ago. Here, Armani mingled with flips-flops, Manolo Blahniks and the kind of deep midday cleavage that would be glaringly out of place in Washington.”

Wow. We couldn’t ask for better examples of shameless self-adulation coming from liberal elites. The writer of this article must be seriously trying to ingratiate herself.

If you care to read any more of this nauseatingly fawning “book review” (if that’s what it’s called), you can do so here. But we’re going to skip ahead.

The Premise: Democrats good, Republicans bad.
(And conservative families are abusive)

In “A Time to Run,” the main characters from the reigning “blue states” — Josh from California and Ellen from equally reassuring New York — are liberal, altruistic, sane. Their affluent families are caring and sharing.

Their red state-born buddy, Greg, is the son of an emotionally abusive Ohio hardware seller former Marine who lost his favorite son in Vietnam. The red states that Greg heads to after graduation are interchangeably dull Siberias where Greg hangs out with the menfolk, bonding over beer, football and hunting.

No stereotyping here.

Josh and Ellen become Left Coast do-gooders. Greg becomes a sociopathic neoconservative journalist, the go-to guy for character assassinations conjured by a right-wing California senator. Boxer said that although she didn’t intend for the characters to represent the American political equation, “I hope people will understand the issues I raise about why people are blue or red or purple.”

Boxer said the novel explores “why people become liberals and conservatives. We explore the battle between liberals and conservatives at so many levels.”
. . .

“It’s so clear the relationship with (Greg’s) dad and what happened to his brother in Vietnam, made a big impact on his life,” Boxer said. “The fact that [Josh and Ellen] had loving families made a very big difference.”

The Politics: Republicans are sinister

Boxer said she believes the Republicans purposefully nominate women and minorities to camouflage policies that undermine their interests.

“I think it’s a tactic and a strategy to confuse the real agenda, which is certainly not seeing the government as a force to give opportunity to women and minorities,” Boxer said. “This is not what the right wing believes government should be doing. So if they put up a woman or a minority they think that that will sort of cover up their real hidden agenda.”

Our Conclusion:

Don’t buy the book. Just read her press releases. They’re free.

RELATED:
Book Review: “Saints” Fend Off “Snakes”
in Boxer’s Political Novel
Boxer’s Book: Been Working On A
So-Called “Suspense Novel” for Years

AP reports: “Near- simultaneous explosions rocked the Indian capital Saturday evening, tearing through a bus and two markets crowded with people shopping for gifts for a Hindu festival. At least 58 people were killed and dozens wounded in the blasts, which the government blamed on terrorists.”

Police declared a state of emergency and closed all city markets. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged calm while denouncing the apparently coordinated bombings, which did not prevent an unprecedented India-Pakistan agreement to open the
Kashmir border to facilitate aid for survivors of the region’s devastating Oct. 8 earthquake.

“These are dastardly acts of terrorism,” Singh said in a brief televised statement. “We shall defeat their nefarious designs and will not allow them to succeed. We are resolute in our commitment to fighting terrorism in all forms.”

Sounds a lot like someone else we know. “Evil-doers,” indeed. That’s what the war on terror is about. This is what we’re fighting against.

Since they’ve got some downtime, maybe our “anti-war” protesters will board a plane and pay a visit to India. Cindy Sheehan would like the extra frequent flier miles.

And if there’s ever been something worth protesting against, it’s the evil villains responsible for this kind of massacre.

GatewayPundit has more coverage.
PoliticalTeen has video.

Michelle Malkin reports on beheadings of Christian school girls in Indonesia.

The next giant sucking sound you hear is the cash devouring machine that is the Los Angeles Unified School District is now coming back to the trough begging voters to approve Measure Y and another $4 billion in debt, on top of the billions of dollars the district has already borrowed to ostensibly build new schools and fund other “needs.”

Come on Mayor Sam - its for the children!

The sad thing is that despite spending increasing and increasing amounts of money each year, the public schools are showing lesser results. Indeed, a major issue in the Mayor’s race earlier this year was that over 50% of LAUSD students do not graduate high school.

The Daily News is right when they say that LA Unified does not need more taxpayer financed debt, but a breather.

But more than just bringing a really financially bad idea to the voters, LAUSD may be using the taxpayers’ dollars to sell a yes vote on Measure Y.

Just today, I received a mailer from the LAUSD selling the merits of Measure Y. As well, the District’s website has extensive info on the measure, but no opposition viewpoints.

While they do not come out and specifically say “Vote for Measure Y,” I find these activities inappropriate. Its something that really should be looked into.

And if anything, if the District is going to distribute information about the Measure at taxpayer expense, then they have the moral obligation to inculde opposing views.

But for the district politicians and teacher union leaders who have become addicted to bond money like a junkie to crack, this may seem like a ludicrous idea. Hopefully, the voters will see the truth.

Cross-posted at Mayor Sam’s

Dear Scooter:

Now that you’ve been indicted, I’m pleased to have an opportunity to remind Americans about why truthfulness matters.

Ever since Bill Clinton and his enablers infested the White House, lying has become as virulent and acceptable as herpes. The aftermath of their blight was so infectious that some compulsive liars have won international awards and gained wide acceptance because of their disease. Lying is no longer viewed as a behavioral abnormality but as a sport to be practiced, like golf. And because US Senate Democrats were so accepting of Bill Clinton’s admitted pathology, how can they question or judge UN diplomats who profit from the same behavior today?

If you are not guilty, I wish you well and hope that you recover from your experience to enjoy a long and peaceful retirement. I know the pain of being falsely accused and convicted and you have my sympathies and support. Public servants like us deserve nothing less than peace after decades of service.

But if these indictments are true, I have no sympathy for you. You’re a smart guy; a magna cum laude Yale Law School grad with a distinguished career. It’s hard to imagine that you would unnecessarily soil yourself over someone as sordid as Joe Wilson. Breathtakingly dumb, if true.

If the evidence is accurate and you are convicted, I pray that no one pardons your conviction the way Democrats excused their president, or the way Clinton pardoned his drug dealing and money laundering library supporters.

You’re not a Democrat, Scooter, you’re a Republican. We expect much more from each other.

The AP has filed the article announcing that Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, has been indicted by the Fitzgerald grand jury on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case. Much to the Democrats’ dismay, Karl Rove wasn’t indicted.

After 22 months of investigating, we still don’t know:

• who told Robert Novak the name of Valerie Plame;
• how the CIA’s confidential referral become public;
• if Joe Wilson or Valerie Plame testified; and
• why their statements were taken at face value.

What we know is that:

• Plame wasn’t outed, which is what the irresponsible media, AKA the Agenda Media, were hyperventillating about;
• Wilson’s findings had nothing to do with why we went to war; and
• the Agenda Media got most of their ‘reporting’ badly wrong, to nobody’s surprise.

What this shows is that the media isn’t about reporting facts; they’re about trying to get Democrats elected while destroying an American president. This also shows that the CIA is waging war with this administration.

Politically, this is sure to get the GOP base fired up. If there’s something that the GOP hates is the misuse of the judicial system, especially if they see it being used for political purposes.
(continue reading post »)

Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds was offline and test-driving family vehicles today with his wife, comparing the Toyota Highlander hybrid to the Subaru Tribeca.

Reynolds declares: “The Tribeca has its high points, but the Highlander was the big winner, beating out all of the cars I’ve driven.”

That’s one helluva endorsement. Read his full testimonial here.

In terms of style, we have only one suggestion:

The Insta-Logo. Built for speed and intelligent handling.

Some accessories are optional. Dashboard blogging not included.

UPDATE: (10/31)
Instapundit makes the purchase.

Freedom of speech according to special interests.

“A single Schwarzenegger supporter struggles to hold her ground in a rally against the governor’s special election initiatives. Opponents tried to hit her with their signs and some blocked news cameras as she argued her point. The crowd turns quickly, grabbing her signs and tearing them up. Even a woman wearing an orange security vest rips up the “Vote Yes” signs.” (CBS 2 News, October 28, 2005)

See the video here, and here.

Since CBS News provides the report, we decided to do a search of their website for “schwarzenegger” and were surprised by what it yielded: not the stories (only two), but the ads. We discovered an anti-Prop. 75 link, titled “Arnold Wants to Silence Californians,” sponsored by the AFL-CIO.

Upon clicking the link, we are brought to the union’s site and a promotional page that declares:

“Don’t Let Arnold Silence You—Take Action Now to Stop Prop. 75

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his corporate backers are tired of unions getting in the way each time they try to cut funds for our schools, hospitals, health care, infrastructure and public safety. The whole point of Proposition 75 is to shut us up and get us out of their way.”

They must be projecting. Because it sure looks like that’s exactly what they were doing to the woman in the video.

“Public employee union activists showed the utter hypocrisy of their campaign against the special election initiatives on Thursday at a rally in LA’s Pershing Square,” reports CC4Truth.

While $115 million has been spent by public employee unions to oppose the reform initiatives and promote a message that the voices of their members will be silenced if Prop. 75 passes, an angry mob of dues paying union members showed what little respect they have for free speech.

Two Los Angeles television stations caught on tape a hyped up mob of union activists intimidating and roughing up a woman who had the courage to speak out in favor of the four reform initiatives.

Whipping the crowd into a frenzy was none other than Speaker Fabian Nunez, who was a featured speaker at the rally in Pershing Square. At the very least, Nunez - a former union organizer himself - has a duty to issue a public apology to this woman on behalf the union bosses who control him. That is, unless the Speaker believes that violence and thuggery are acceptable forms of public expression.

With every call to action, the unions are desperately trying to rally the troops and confuse the public. Same strategy as always.

We hope California voters know better.

UPDATE: (10/29)
GatewayPundit is reminded of another example.
Clark Baker wonders why Dems are turning a blind eye?
Michelle Malkin has picked up the story
Welcome readers!

RELATED:
Special Election: Gov. Schwarzenegger
Takes The Stage On T.V.
Unions Raise More Than $80 Million
To Defeat Schwarzenegger’s Initiatives
(includes many more links)

She’ll have to do better than this.

You’d think that someone who just wrote a book entitled, The Case for Hillary, would have facts and figures at her fingertips to actually make a case. You’d be wrong.

On Tuesday, Bill O’Reilly interviewed Susan Estrich, who’s busy making the rounds to peddle her new book. (Just like Dick Morris)

O’Reilly asked her some very basic questions regarding the Senator’s positions on Iraq, the border, and health care — which could have been seized by Estrich as an opportunity — to shed some light on Hillary Clinton’s views that would make her, as the book’s title suggests, an attractive candidate in 2008. (Not to mention promote her book, which was the obvious objective for appearing on the show)

Instead, Estrich sounded clueless. Embarrassingly so.

PoliticalTeen has the video. FreeRepublic has transcript.

RELATED:
Condi Rice: I Don’t Want To Run For President