Laura Ingraham vs. Tony Snow on Immigration

Here’s an entertaining conversation between Laura Ingraham and Tony Snow about the Bush administration’s failed immigration bill.

Good job Laura!

(Thanks to National Review Online for the link.)

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/laura-ingraham-vs-tony-snow-on.html

Wiretaps – “NO!” Government Control of Our Health Information – “YES!”

Today’s release of “SiCKO”, Michael Moore’s new “documentary”, is going to push the American health care system into the spotlight of public debate.

In “SiCKO”, Moore unfavorably compares the American health care system to the socialized medicine programs in Canada, Great Britain, France and Cuba. A lot of people will walk out of the theater asking “If France and Cuba can do it, why can’t we have universal health care in the United States?”

People who see the movie will feel smugly superior to everyone who hasn’t, as if Michael Moore has just let them in on a secret. They will wholeheartedly support any candidate with a plan for government-administered health care. The very idea makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside. After all, don’t we all have the right to free health care? Since “universal health care” is one of their pet issues, it will be a bonanza for the Democrats!

However, support for “universal health care” exposes one of the inconsistencies of Democrats’ positions.

Many Democrats don’t support government wiretapping of phone calls by suspected terrorists or government tracking of financial transactions by terrorist organizations because these actions infringe on our “right to privacy”. They argue that it’s a small step from tracking the financial transactions of terrorist organizations to tracking the banking maneuvers of Aunt Mildred in Poughkeepsie.

They don’t want the government to know what we talk about on the phone or how we spend our money, yet they’re willing to give the government full access to the most personal information we posses - our health records. Our government isn’t worthy to listen to phone calls between terrorists, but they can be trusted to know who has which sexually transmitted diseases; how many miscarriages women have had; and which men have erectile dysfunction.

I think most people would rather let the government listen to their phone call to Uncle Fred from Spokane than let the government know about their chronic flatulence problem.

I agree that our health care system could probably use some improvement, but government-administered “universal health care” is not the answer.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/wiretaps-no-government-control-of-our.html

The Use of Fear

It's interesting how Democrats accuse Republicans of using fear to justify the War on Terror, while they have no problems gratuitously using fear to push their Global Warming agenda.


Click here to see my position on the environment.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/use-of-fear.html

Hedge Fund Implosion – It Will All Hit the Fan in 2007, Part 15

The sub-prime contagion is spreading to the hedge funds that own securities based on sub-prime mortgages.

Stay tuned…

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Links to previous "It Will All Hit The Fan in 2007" posts:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4 (Addendum), Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 13, Part 14

Original link to this post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/hedge-fund-implosions-it-will-all-hit.html

Hippies!

Apparently, the aging hippies of Haight-Ashbury can’t stand the younger generation who are, well, acting like the aging hippies used to act in the “glorious” Sixties.

There's not a lot of love in the Haight.

From his second-floor apartment at the counterculture crossing of Haight and Ashbury streets, Arthur Evans watches a new generation of wayward youth invade his free-spirited neighborhood.

The former flower child was among the legions of idealistic wanderers who migrated here during the Vietnam War to "tune in, turn on and drop out."

But Evans, who has lived at the same address for 34 years, says he has never seen anything like this crowd, who use his flower bed as a bathroom and sell pot outside his window.

They're known as gutter punks, these homeless kids with dirty dreadlocks and nose rings, lime-green mohawks and orange spray-painted faces, who panhandle with cardboard signs that riff on their lifestyles. "Please Help Us Get Un-Sober," one reads. Another: "Please Give Us Weed, Beer or Money."

Sometimes aggressive, they block sidewalks as they strum guitars or bang on bongos. Gangs of them skateboard down the middle of Haight Street. Some throw used hypodermic needles into a nearby pond they call Hep-C Lake.

Evans, 64, says they should get help, clean up or go home.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin's blog for the heads-up.)

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/hippies.html

Federal Government Accounting Practices

What would happen if our federal government was held to the same accounting standard as American corporations?

According to this USA Today article, we’d be in much deeper trouble than we realize.

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

Scary stuff.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/federal-government-accounting-practices.html

The Situation in Gaza

Check out this great column by Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

In Gaza’s Shadow.

Here’s an excerpt:

We need to stop making politically correct excuses. Arab civilization is in collapse. Extremes dominate, either through dictatorship or anarchy. Thanks to their dysfunctional values and antique social structures, Arab states can't govern themselves decently.

We gave them a chance in Iraq. Israel "gave back" the Gaza Strip to let the Palestinians build a model state. Arabs seized those opportunities to butcher each other.

The barbarity in Gaza has become so grotesque that not even the media's apologists for terror can ignore it (especially since Islamist fanatics began to target journalists).

Over the weekend, Hamas gangbangers-for-Allah grabbed a Fatah functionary and dropped him from the roof of a high-rise to check out the law of gravity (the only law that still obtains in Gaza). Tit-for-tat, Fatah gunmen grabbed a Hamas capo and gave him the same treatment.

Thereafter, cooler heads prevailed and both sides returned to their everyday routines of kidnapping, torturing and assassinating each other's leaders, gunning down teachers and doctors and, of course, murdering women, children and stray pedestrians.

Educated Palestinians flee, if they can. Civilians cower, wondering where the next rocket-propelled grenade will hit. And, amid the carnage, students risk death to take their final exams so they can qualify to study abroad - and get out. The indiscriminate violence is the Palestinian version of democracy: Every citizen gets a chance to be killed.

Tough and a little extreme, but it rings true.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/situation-in-gaza.html

How 12 Million Could Turn Into 50 Million

If you want to know how quickly 12 million illegal immigrants could turn into 50 million or more, read this story about how one illegal immigrant, through the laws of the 1986 amnesty, brought his entire extended family into the United States.

In the three decades since his crossing, all nine of his siblings followed, bringing spouses and children. The Baltazar clan, now too numerous to count, stretches from Eastern North Carolina, where its members started out working the fields, to Florida, Texas and Colorado.

I’m all for giving people a chance at a better life, but I’m also a realist. We can’t let everyone into our country. We should instead pressure the corrupt Mexican government to improve conditions at home rather than force Mexicans to come to the United States looking for work, emptying whole villages in the process.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-12-million-could-turn-into-50.html

Another Way to Look At Illegal Immigration Numbers

There are several numbers being tossed around in the media about how many illegal immigrants are currently in the United States. Since illegal immigrants are metaphorically “in the shadows”, it’s impossible to have an exact count, but the general agreement is somewhere between 12 and 20 million.

Considering that in October, 2006, the United States population hit 300 million, that doesn’t sound like too many.

But let’s look at it this way:

- If the number is 12 million, 1 out of every 25 people currently living in the U.S. is an illegal immigrant.

- If there are 20 million illegal immigrants, the ratio is 1/15.

Think about that the next time you’re driving down the highway. One out of every 15 people you see is an illegal immigrant.

Some people have estimated there the number may be as high as 25 to 30 million. The ratios become 1/12 and 1/10.

We have neglected this issue long enough. The numbers have gotten so large that it is difficult to take decisive action to take care of this problem. But if we wait too much longer, the numbers will grow even larger.

Let’s take tough action today. Secure our borders. Enforce existing laws. Then we can worry about bailing the water out of the ship.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/another-way-to-look-at-illegal.html

Those Wacky Headline Writers at the Seattle PI

The Seattle PI is at it again. Check out their interesting headline choice for an AP article describing the timeline from the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 to the present-day chaos:

Hamas struggled to govern amid isolation.

The headline implies that Hamas is a group of do-gooders who tried their darnedest to govern, but failed because other governments isolated them and refused to send them money.

But we all know what Hamas really is – a bunch of violent, power-hungry bullies who either toss rivals off of buildings or execute them in front of their wives and children.

I suspect that is why they failed – they didn’t have the right skill set.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/those-wacky-headline-writers-at-seattle.html

Just In Case You’ve Forgotten...

Just in case you’ve forgotten what the immigration protests were like last year, here are some photos to remind you:









Welcome to the United States of Mexico.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/just-in-case-youve-forgotten.html

Immigration protest photos.

What Will Our Friends Think?

One lesson I was taught as a child was to keep my promises. “Your word is your bond,” my parents taught me. “If you promise that you’re going to do something, make sure you do it.”

Let’s apply that lesson to the situation in Iraq.

Conservative talk radio has argued that if we pull out of Iraq without achieving a full victory, we are telling our enemies that the United States does not have the will to withstand a prolonged fight. The argument can be summarized with one question: “What kind of message would we send to our enemies by pulling out?”

That’s a valid point, but I think there’s a much more important question:

“What kind of message would we send to our friends if we pull out?”

A lot of Iraqis have risked their lives helping us establish a democratic government in their country. If we pull out before stabilizing Iraq, our enemies will take over and these people will die.

We pulled out of South Vietnam and millions of our allies were killed. If we similarly pull out of Iraq, not only will the Iraqis who supported us be massacred, but who will support us in the future knowing that the United States does not keep its promises?

Therein lies the true risk of pulling out of Iraq without finishing the job.

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-will-our-friends-think.html

Does Barbara Walters Still Love Hugo Chavez?

Sometime around the Ides of March I watched Barbara Walters' interview with Hugo Chavez. I didn’t watch the whole interview, but saw just enough to be repulsed by Barbara’s fawning over this wannabe-dictator.

At the time, I jotted down some of the things that Barbara said about Chavez. (These quotes probably aren’t verbatim, but they’re pretty close.)

“He’s often on television. He has a connection with his audience. He sometimes sings to them.”

Barbara described Chavez as “warm” and “dignified” and mentioned how “he evoked Martin Luther King by saying, ‘his dream is my dream’”.

Now that Chavez is shutting down opposition television stations and is consolidating his power as dictator of Venezuela, I wonder if Barbara has changed her mind?

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Link to the original post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/06/does-barbara-walters-still-love-hugo.html

The Natural State of Things

In her latest column titled “A Green Card in Every Pot”, Ann Coulter discusses the (illegal) immigration bill that is raising the ire of conservatives across the country.

As usual, her column is worth the read. However, one sentence stands out:

In fact, the natural state of the world is Darfur. The freakish aberration is America and the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world.

It’s easy to forget that democratic civilizations with free citizens are a recent invention. The natural form of government is when the biggest bullies, through violence and intimidation, take control and oppress their people. In fact, most of the world today is ruled by this kind of tyrant. What we’re seeing in Darfur is aspiring despots fighting for control.

It is also easy to forget that democracy is fragile. A garden requires constant vigilance and work to maintain – grass needs to be mowed, flower beds need to be weeded, and trees need to be pruned. If the gardener stops doing these things, the garden returns to its natural state.

Democracy is the same way. If we don’t maintain it, it will return to its natural state.

And that is Darfur.

The Kennedys Have a History of Defeatism

I have just finished a terrific book, “Battle of Britain” by Len Deighton. On page 217, there’s a fantastic quote by Robert Vansittart, British Chief Diplomatic Adviser, about the American Ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy (yes, that Joseph Kennedy – the patriarch of the Kennedy dynasty).

“Mr. Kennedy is a very foul specimen of double-crosser and defeatist. He thinks of nothing but his own pocket. I hope that this war will at least see the elimination of his type.”

Well, Mr. Vansittart, I’m afraid that World War II did not see “the elimination of his type”. Today, Mr. Kennedy’s son, Senator Edward Kennedy, carries on the family tradition with his defeatism about the war in Iraq.

I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.