My Thanksgiving Day Prayer

We had 20+ people at our house this Thanksgiving. When all the food was laid out, we all came together and bowed our heads for this prayer, which I had written a little earlier. It was my first-ever attempt to write such a prayer:

Lord God, we thank you for the blessings you give us every day of the year.

We thank you for giving us the skills to do the work we do and provide homes and food for our families and our communities.

We thank you for giving us health and strength to live our lives without suffering.

We thank you for giving us the temperaments to live with each other peacefully and for the love we have to help one another when in need.

And we especially thank you today, Lord, for bringing our families together to feast and enjoy each others’ company.

We ask you, Lord, to please bless these gifts that you have brought us, to bless this home and these people, and to send your special graces today to all those around the world who cannot enjoy these gifts.

And especially, Lord, we ask you to bless our American troops overseas, who are apart from their families this Thanksgiving, at the risk of their own lives, in the pursuit of freedom for others. Be with them and their families and grant them peace today.

We ask for all this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one god forever and ever.

Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

John O'Neill on "Kerrying" the Troops

John O'Neill, of "Swift Boat Veterans" fame, has written an op-ed in the New York Sun on the actions of the mainstream media (MSM) and the Democratic party during this war. It is excellent. The full article is buried behind a subscription link, but you can read a copy of it at the Democracy Project, here.

Some excerpts:

It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of military personnel simply wish to be left alone by the Kerrys and other politicians to finish a job which they believe is nearly done and which they know the John Kerrys and Nancy Pelosis of Washington are totally incompetent to direct and even understand.

and:

Sadly, the party of Henry Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt has become the party of retreat - from the Iranian Hostage Crisis to the retreat from Mogadishu; to opposition to the 1991 Gulf War; to the failure to avenge the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the USS Cole bombing or the murder of our own troops and embassy personnel around the world. Indeed, this past Thursday night, the nation watched the bizarre spectacle of a Democratic Party speaking in favor of immediate withdrawal but too afraid to even cast a vote recording for posterity these convictions.

The entire article is a must-read.

Liberal Bias in the Media

I had a heated debate the other day with a very liberal friend of mine about the war, George Bush, faith, etc. When you talk with liberals, you wind up all over the place in short order. But I digress...

At one point I'd made the comment that the news media is biased. Not only did he not buy this, which shocked me (I figured everyone knew this to be true), he thought it was an absolutely insane statement. I don't generally keep a list of items that show liberal political bias lying around, but I'm going to start doing so. Here are just a few I picked up today, all of which happen to pertain to the MSM (mainstream media)'s inability to report positive news coming from Iraq:

From the 101st Airborne:
"The Iraqi’s pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet Americans badmouth our President for having us here."

Marines Complain About Negative Reporting in the Media:
"They felt that it's not that the negative stories — like casualty reports — shouldn't be reported, but that we never hear what America is getting for this sacrifice. As one Marine put it, it's like if I spent $7.99 for a slice of pizza and the headlines the next day read, 'Marine Out Eight Bucks!'"

The Corporal Jeffrey Starr Incident by the NY Times:
The Times intentionally mis-represented a letter that a soldier who died in Iraq sent to his family, making it seem as though he was afraid to be there, when in fact he was proud of what he was doing: "Unfortunately they did not tell Jeffrey's story. Jeffrey believed in what he was doing. He [was] willing put his life on the line for this cause."


My point, by the way, to my liberal friend was that when you are of a "leftie" mindset, you don't notice the media bias because it's all in agreement with your worldview. When you are right-leaning, though, you see the bias all over the place. Whether it's referring to the president's comments against Democrat anti-war comments as "lashing out" (when was the last time you heard of a liberal "lashing out"?) while using words like "pressing" when referring to liberal comments; or pointing out that XX number of Americans have died in the war at every possible opportunity; or trying to frame the president right before an election with phony papers; it's everywhere, and it needs to be called out.

Good Piece on the Importance of Winning in Iraq

A major general in the USAF has published someone else's column on the importance of winning the war in Iraq. It's a 5-minute read and makes some good points, not pulling punches. Here are some excerpts:

They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train, and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do, will be done. Spain is finished.

The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20 percent Muslim, and fading fast!

If we lose the war, our production, income, exports, and way of life will all vanish, as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us, if they were threatened by the Muslims?

If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else?

The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war, and therefore, are completely committed to winning, at any cost. We better know it too, and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.

And:

name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal rights for anyone – let alone everyone, equal status, or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the world.

Finally:

If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France, and continue to encroach little by little, on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves, over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them, and keep them from any united resolve.

People need to take this war in Iraq seriously. It will have repercussions throughout the world, whichever way it goes. We simply MUST win in Iraq. There is no other acceptable outcome.

Tell this to every liberal you can get ahold of.

Senate Slaps Bush While He's Abroad

The U.S. Senate, under the wonderful (not) leadership of Bill Frist, dealt President Bush a body blow today when they voted in a resolution that essentially demanded that he set a timetable for troop withdrawal commencing some time in 2006. And this while the president was traveling in Asia.

Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, in an interview on Hugh Hewitt's radio show this afternoon, pointed out an aspect to this I had not considered:

When you practice that kind of legislation, you're going to get poor results. You can't have a committee run a war, the war...we have to win this war. This is a real war, and what they did is damage the American people today, because together, we can win this war. If we divide ourselves, we'll lose the war, and most Americans don't understand that if we lose this war, it's not like walking home from Vietnam with our head down. It is we lose our way of life. And they will pick off the Europeans, one at a time, we will not have allies, we will not have the trade, the standard of living that we have today, and we will be vulnerable evermore.

By demanding regular reports (which they had already been getting, and in greater frequency than they requested in this resolution) and a timetable for withdrawal, the Senate is handing Iraqi terrorists exactly what they want. Now the terrorists will be encouraged to sit back and wait it out, and those Iraqis who might be opposing the terrorists there will be discouraged from helping our military track them down because they fear our withdrawal and their own death as a result. This thing is a disaster, politically.

I've already written to the Senate Majority leader, Bill Frist, and to John Warner, the sponsor of the bill, and to the Majority Whip, Mitch McConnell. Let's see whether they backtrack at all, tomorrow (I'm not holding my breath). At a minimum, the president should be on the phone to these guys, if not outright denouncing the action in a speech, even before he comes back to the U.S.

Podhoretz Writes Definitive Piece on Bush "Lies"

Norman Podhoretz, father of John Podhoretz, who writes for the New York Post, put together this piece, which I would say is definitive proof that those who claim President Bush lied about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, are themselves the liars. Not only did the president not lie, but those who are claiming he did today in fact know this is a ridiculous claim and many were out in front saying the exact same things about Saddam Hussein before the war that the president was saying.

Here is an excerpt:

But the consensus on which Bush relied was not born in his own
administration. In fact, it was first fully formed in the Clinton
administration. Here is Clinton himself, speaking in 1998:

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s
weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Here is his Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998:

Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

Here is Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, who chimed in at the same time with this flat-out assertion about Saddam:

He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.

Finally, Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, was so sure
Saddam had stockpiles of WMD that he remained “absolutely convinced” of it even after our failure to find them in the wake of the invasion in March 2003.

Podhoretz's article is must-reading for anyone who believes "Bush Lied," or argues with someone who does.

Schwarzenegger Goes Down in Flames

It is 12:30AM and I am up doing some work, scanning the ongoing results of tonight's special election here in California. Amazingly, it is beginning to look as though not a single ballot initiative passed. This is unheard of. Proposition 73, which would require parental notification before a minor has an abortion -- this has to be the biggest no-brainer of all time -- is even failing to pass. More tellingly, of the 4 propositions that Governor Schwarzenegger got onto the ballot and pushed hard for the last couple of months, every one is going down.

This is bad, bad news for the governor and for the state. California has been in financial trouble the last few years due to crazy overspending by the Democratic-controlled legislature. Until a year ago we also had an incompetent Democratic governor, Gray Davis, who basically rubber-stamped every piece of pork to come through the legislature. The liberals ran the state and we were headed for bankruptcy.

Davis wound up overextending himself by mis-handling the electricity crisis, raising the auto registration fees by a huge amount (alienating every constituency), and signing a driver's-license-for-illegal-immigrants bill that most of the state did not support. He got tossed out on his ear in a special election, shortly after winning re-election. Out with the liberal, in with the moderate Republican (my choice, Tom McClintock, evidently was way too conservative to get elected). Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected by promising to reform the government and get spending under control.

After he got elected, he went to the Democrats in the legislature and basically said, "look, there's a new sheriff in town..." The liberal Democrats, predictably, laughed at him and ridiculed him in the press. You might remember Arnold's "girlie man" comment that got him into hot water in the press (he was referring to the liberals in the legislature). But Schwarzenegger had said during his campaign that, if elected, he would try to work with the politicians, but if they wouldn't play ball, he would go around them and go straight to the citizens through ballot initiatives.

Using this threat once he got into office, Schwarzenegger proved to be formidable. He forced the legislature to change workers' compensation laws that were destroying businesses in California; he repealed Davis's car tax; he got the legislature to get rid of the illegal immigrant license bill that had passed; he killed a proposal to amend the state's "3-strikes"; etc. In short, he was very effective and the legislature had to step back a bit when he would threaten.

This Fall he pushed 4 propositions: 74, 75, 76, and 77. These were all designed to REFORM the state government, in different ways:

Prop 74 would change the current law that says that public school teachers, who currently only have to work for 2 years before getting "tenure" -- basically a lifetime job -- would have to instead work for 5 years first. When you consider that California public schools rank near the bottom in academic performance in the country, clearly reform of some kind is necessary. The whole idea of tenure for public school teachers to me seems ridiculous just to start with. College professors are one thing, but elementary and high school teachers?? Why on earth would we want them to have guaranteed jobs? My boss can fire me any time he wants to, and the threat of that keeps me working hard every day. Why should teachers be any different? To put this in perspective, the L.A. Times stated that of the 30,000 teachers employed by the horrible LAUSD, in the past 10 years a grand total of 12 have been fired. How afraid of losing their jobs do you think teachers are? Anyway, this proposition is losing by 5 percentage points.

Prop 75 tries to cut down on the power of special interest groups in Sacramento by requiring public employee unions to get their members' permission to spend their union dues on political campaigns before they spend them. Basically you have union members who may support the governor on any given issue, but the dues they are required to pay to their union (which can and often are raised at will) go to support political smear campaigns against the governor. If I were a teacher with a conservative nature, I would be furious that my money was being spent in this way. The California Teachers Association is one of the most powerful special interest groups in Sacramento and oppose the governor every time he turns around. They get popular support by claiming they're out there "for the children," when in fact they are out there for the teachers. California teachers have an excellent pension system that allows them to retire early on the public dime, simultaneously costing taxpayers a fortune and removing the most qualified teachers from the system. The passage of Proposition 75 would severely impair the CTA's ability to continue to influence legislators in the state capitol. Yet this bill is going down 52-48.

Prop 76 changes the requirements of the legislature to pass a spending bill within the means of the state Treasury (they have a habit of borrowing whatever they need); it also gives the governor some authority, subject to legislature approval, to make spending cuts mid-year, before deficits get ugly and corner everyone in the next budget cycle. This prop is going down hard, 61-39.

Finally, Prop 77 authorizes the redrawing of legislative districts throughout the state, by a panel of 3 retired non-partisan judges. State elections almost never result in an incumbent getting thrown out of office, because the district lines are drawn in such a way that there really is no competition. As a result, each district tends to elect a more "extreme" individual, and so you get hard-left liberals from some districts and hard-right conservatives in others. They are so far apart, idealogically, that they will never see eye-to-eye and thus the "compromise" deals that should be happening up there don't happen. With 77 passing, the districts would be competitive and elections would be much less predictable. In theory, also, more "moderate" legislation would come out of Sacramento. Proposition 77 is losing 58-42.

With the loss of all these propositions, the Democratic legislature will no longer fear the governor. Without a credible threat of going straight to the people, making the legislators irrelevant, the governor will effectively be impotent; a lame duck.

Conservatives' hopes for reforming the state government are going down in flames. Tune in in a few years and see whether the liberal legislature has bankrupted California yet; or whether there are any businesses left in the state; or whether our school system is actually graduating a majority of the kids who go through it. If these election results are any indication, we're in for a world of hurt...