Recently I posted on the corruption of the nation’s core educators’ union. An organization that began as a protective association for teachers and metamorphosized into something entirely different, not at all representative of its dues paying constituency.

Well, this is not an isolated incident, as they say; Evidently this kind of thing has spread like a cancer into the infrastructures of other unions, not least among which is the United Farm Workers(UFW).

According to Columnist Ruben Navarrette, Jr.,

Discussing the Jack Abramoff congressional lobbying scandal, some have invoked the colorful saying — often attributed to Eric Hoffer, a longshoreman-turned-philosopher of the 20th century — that every great cause begins as a movement, degenerates into a business and winds up a racket.

I can’t help but think how beautifully, and how tragically, that phrase sums up the moral trajectory of the United Farm Workers union over the last 40 years. What began as a worthwhile cause — to bring dignity to farm workers — eventually became a national movement, then a family business. And now, the evidence suggests, it has become a racket.

Read the entire column.

And this is what those contemptible, soulless, murder endorsing, liberal scum “progressives” who, outspokenly so, do not support Judge Sam Alito’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, do support.

For every 100 babies born in New York City, women had 74 abortions in 2004, according to newly released figures that reaffirm the city as the abortion capital of the country.
And abortions for out-of-town women performed in the city increased from 57 to 70 out of every 1,000 between 1996 and 2004, a subtle yet noticeable trend that experts say may reflect growing hurdles against the procedure in more conservative parts of the country.

The new Vital Statistics report released by the city Department of Health this month shows there were 124,100 live births, 11,700 spontaneous abortions and 91,700 induced abortions in the city in 2004.

Hat Tip; James Taranto

Jay, over at Stop The ACLU, reports that the American Civil Liberties Union(spit) is now suing the National Security Agency over their electronic intelligence gathering programs made public by the New York Times in recent weeks.

ACLU Sues NSA

by Jay on 01-17-06 @ 12:53 am Filed under ACLU, War On Terror, News
Another Big Hat tip to AJ Strata

Is the ACLU in contact with terrorists overseas? Well, of course they are! Now it seems they are paranoid of getting caught!

Saying that the Bush administration’s illegal spying on Americans must end, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the National Security Agency seeking to stop a secret electronic surveillance program that has been in place since shortly after September 11, 2001.
“President Bush may believe he can authorize spying on Americans without judicial or Congressional approval, but this program is illegal and we intend to put a stop to it,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “The current surveillance of Americans is a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since the days of Richard Nixon.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys, and national nonprofit organizations (including the ACLU) who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East. Because of the nature of their calls and e-mails, they believe their communications are being intercepted by the NSA under the spying program. The program is disrupting their ability to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship, and engage in advocacy. The program, which was first disclosed by The New York Times on December 16, has sparked national and international furor and has been condemned by lawmakers across the political spectrum.

In addition to the ACLU, the plaintiffs in today’s case are:

Authors and journalists James Bamford, Christopher Hitchens and Tara
McKelvey

Afghanistan scholar Barnett Rubin of New York University’s Center on
International Cooperation and democracy scholar Larry Diamond, a fellow
at the Hoover Institution

Nonprofit advocacy groups NACDL, Greenpeace, and Council on American
Islamic Relations, who joined the lawsuit on behalf of their staff and
membership

“The prohibition against government eavesdropping on American citizens is well-established and crystal clear,” said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson, who is lead counsel in ACLU v. NSA. “President Bush’s claim that he is not bound by the law is simply astounding. Our democratic system depends on the rule of law, and not even the president can issue illegal orders that violate Constitutional principles.”

Note special emphasis on this line:

“Because of the nature of their calls and e-mails, they believe their communications are being intercepted by the NSA under the spying program.”

So, while our military fights the good fight, the ACLU are sueing over an inconvenience in its ability to talk to the very people who want to kill us all. Like I said before, the ACLU’s slogan of “Keep America Safe and Free” is an absolute lie. They care more about the imaginary rights of our enemies than any kind of safety for America. They have done absolutely nothing for America’s safety, and everything in their power to fight the efforts to protect America!

The American Civil Liberties Union undoubtedly speaks for someone, but not for the American people nor for the American way of life.

Nor, evidently, for the preservation of American life.

Now this is a crying shame.

Howard Baugh grew up next door to Martin Luther King Jr. and joined the Atlanta Police Department in 1953 as its 12th black recruit. He is a veteran of the civil-rights demonstrations that roiled this city — and of a long struggle against bigotry within the police force itself.

Mr. Baugh, now 81 years old, is still fighting that battle. Together with a group of fellow officers who crossed the color line decades ago, Mr. Baugh is pressing the state of Georgia to grant him the same pension benefits as his white counterparts from that era.

Mr. Baugh and the other African-American retirees say that early in their police careers, they were blocked from participating in a state-backed supplemental retirement fund because of their color. As a result, Mr. Baugh says, he receives about $700 less each month than white officers who signed up. As many as 200 other retired black officers, many in their 70s and 80s, are in the same boat.

There shouldn’t be any kind of an argument here, these guys laid their lives on the line to protect the public, excelled at their jobs and the “powers that be” should find the money to pay them pensions and retirement benefits equal to those of retired white cops.

Of all the liberals to come down against a filibuster to disrupt Judge Alito’s confirmation hearings,

Prospects for a filibuster to try to derail Samuel Alito’s confirmation to the Supreme Court all but died yesterday when a key swing Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, came out against it.

I’ll bet that a lot of sighs of relief were audible on the left side of the aisle when Dianne made that statement — the last thing most of that crowd wanted was a filibuster - nuke option showdown they would have lost, further damaging their already feeble chance of winning any more seats in November.

New Jersey has banned smoking in all indoor public places, including bars, but has exempted casino gaming areas from the ban.

Personally, I don’t believe that any government, city, state or federal, should have the right to tell a bar, restaurant or office-based business owner whether he can or cannot allow smoking in his establishment or office complex.

It is, after all, the owner’s business. He or she owns or leases the property and as such has the right to determine such issues. People who do not like cigarette smoke are not forced to hang around or seek employment on the premises. They can frequent or work at places where non-smoking or anti-smoking proprieters do not allow tobacco use on the property.

The self righteous proponents of government imposed smoking bans claim that they have the health interests of non-smoking employees at heart. Balderdash! They are merely grinding an axe and using state governments as their conduits. The vast majority of the bars and restaurants I’ve frequented over the last few decades have had one thing in common: all, or nearly all of the employees were smokers. This means that in most cases, these smoking nazis are getting legislation enacted that “protects” these employees without their consent.

That said, I especially take umbrage with the government passing double standard laws that tilt the proverbial playing field rather than keeping it level.

Having worked in the gaming industry in Nevada, I’ve seen a few examples of what happens when people aren’t permitted to smoke, drink and gamble at the same time — it costs a casino some serious money.

The Jersey casinos pay a lot of taxes and their owners contribute big bucks to political campaign funds.

So the casinos are exempt from the same no-smoking law that will be enforced against smaller businesses like bars and restaurants.

For Angeloni, owner of Angeloni’s II, an Italian restaurant two blocks off the casino strip, the casino exemption is a matter of dollars and cents. Customers won’t be able to smoke at his tables or bar, but they will be at the city’s dozen casinos.

“It’s going to kill me, I know it is,” Angeloni said Wednesday. “Do you know how many conventioneers eat here and come out to the bar to smoke afterward? You can kiss them goodbye, now. They won’t even leave the casino.”

Seeing many mom & pop businesses disappearing as giant chains emerge, concerns that can afford to charge less for products while providing more selection has always depressed me. No one can replace the local family-run butcher shop, for example. However, that’s the marketplace, it’s capitalism at work, and it occurs on a legal, level private sector playing field.

By exempting the casinos, which serve food and beverages in vast quantities at all hours, cheaper than the smaller bars and restaurants can afford to charge and often comped, the Jersey gubmint is in fact stacking the deck against these little guys and therefore interfering with the local marketplace.

In short, they’ve both infringed on the rights of business owners like so many other states have, and sabotaged the food and beverage competition for casinos whose actual specialty product is gambling.

If you’re going to pass a law, it needs to apply to everybody, not just those who generate less tax revenue, employ less people and make smaller campaign contributions.

While I’m a hard core advocate of states’ rights, I think this one should rightly be taken to a higher court by the small business owners who stand to lose a lot of money, if not their very businesses, by this inequity in the new New Jersey state law.

Mark Steyn has offered up another of his on-point analyses, this one titled Ham handed Dems didn’t lay a glove on Alito. It doesn’t bide well for the immediate future of the Democratic party in terms of “looking good for the next elections.”

I find it, as grave somber Senate Democrats like to say, “troubling.” Indeed, I find it not just “troubling” but sad that a party once so good at “the politics of personal destruction” has got so bad at it. The last time they had a Supreme Court nominee to hang upside down in the Democrat bondage dungeon was the John Roberts hearings. And at least, when hatchet man Chuck Schumer professed himself “troubled” by the “fullness” of John Roberts’ “heart,” the crack oppo-research guys had uncovered an “inappropriate” use of the word “amigo” by Roberts back in the early ’80s.

But, with Sam Alito the worst they come could up with was that he might have been around some other guy who might have used the word “amigo.” Not back in the early ’80s, but in the early ’70s.

Mr. Steyn writes of the dog-and-pony show in which the older Democrats dance, looking extremely foolish, to the idiotic tunes of far left organizations like MoveOn.org in order to continue to enjoy the filthy lucre campaign backing these concerns cough up.

He calls it “dancing for dollars,” LOL.

…In the Democratic Party, the old lions are now led by the grassroots donkeys, and, like some moth-eaten circus act, Ted and Pat Leahy and Dianne Feinstein are obliged to jump through ever more ludicrous hoops for the gratification of the base.

Read on.

I’ve been keeping really busy for the last several days working on the house I closed on exactly ten days ago and moved into four days later. I mean, I’m transforming this wonderful red brick ranch style house into my permanent home and, being only a semi-patient man, I am doing so at what some might call an accellerated pace.

Jeff has the living and dining room floors about 1/3 done, laying new oak floors in their stead, then he’ll be doing the den. In less than twelve hours, carpeting people will be here to lay 122 square yards of exactly what I want and the next day, DirecTV will be doing a lot of installation work here. Furniture will begin flowing in on Tuesday. So a lot’s going down on my modest 1/3 acre of the planet.

Modest, sure, but at least I have six big trees on my property, and coming from a city/apartment kind of background, that’s a major detail!

But that’s not what I’m posting about, it’s partially a valid excuse as to why I’m still in this scarce posting period but mostly about still another reason I miss the 1960s and 1970s so much.

Early last week I ordered the entire DVD collection of Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. They arrived two days ago, and I’ve been watching them almost whenever I’m not doing things to the house.

They are male tuxedoed and formal womened groups of top stars of every ilk sitting along a daiz, taking turns giving good natured, super-funny insults to whoever the man or woman of the week happened to be. They were televised.

What I love about them is that most of the toasters and toastees were friends and acquaintances from that era’s Hollywood and ‘Vegas crowds and they were completely confident that they could go as low, as funny or as irreverent as they wished, political correctness{the dreaded “PC”} not an issue.

No one entertained any fear of being sued for their comments at the roasts, which believe you me could be rather extreme, they knew it was all in fun.

We’re talking the likes of Dean Martin(of course), Milton Berle, Ruth Buzzi, Nipsy Russell, Don Rickles, George Burns, Rich Little, Flip Wilson, Foster Brooks, Lucille Ball, LaWanda Page, Jimmy Walker, Phyllis Diller, Jack Benny and so many other comedians of yore who, without using a single profanity, could get as adult as you dare while uttering nothing that a child could be “enlightened” by and behysterically funny utterly hilarious to where your most recent sip of coffee or other beverage spews across the room before you have the opportunity to swallow it and your sides ache from your hard, uncontrollable laughter.

The atmosphere was patriotic, none of the leftist entertainment industry output we encounter today. When those people went wrong, they did so big time.

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts really bring me back to a time when things were much more clean and honest in the entertainment industry, before they brought on the Marxism and PC many of their number had once privately embraced, to today’s extremes.

Today’s comedy isn’t nearly as original and is, in many cases, too PC, but unfortunately too many of today’s young people don’t even know that, because while it’s out there, they need to give it a chance.

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts are so completely, awesomely hilarious to watch without all the PC baggage and otherwise lawsuit-motivated sensitivity that they easily bring back a more pleasant era that existed before the liberals in America decided that it was time to separate Americans from one another by emphasizing their differences and controlling their use of the English language and its vocabulary.

Young people who were born within the last quarter century have absolutely no idea how funny those Rat Pack era comics could be, they need to go here ASAP and get a clue.

The recently released video message from al Qaeda’s number two leader is part of a pattern that signals a countdown to a major terrorist attack within the next 30 days, warns a Washington D.C.-based analyst.

The theory, based on a pattern observed after previous terrorist attacks had occured, is that…

…it is not the content of the video that is a sign of a possible imminent strike, said terrorism expert Christopher L. Brown. Instead, it is the timing of the video that is consistent with previous patterns. Brown, a researcher with a Washington think tank, has briefed members of Congress and senior administration officials on key threats, and he has prepared testimony and briefing materials for officials at the Department of Defense, State Department, CIA, National Security Council and the White House.

The pattern Brown observed is that each Zawahiri video appears to be part of a pair, with the second video followed by a significant attack within 30 days, outside of the major combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The videos released on Sept. 9 and Nov. 9, 2004, were the first “set” and were followed by the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, bombings on Dec. 6, 2004. The second “set” of videos was released Feb. 20 and June 26, 2005, followed by the July 7 London bombings. A third set of videos was released Aug. 4 and Sept 1, 2005, followed by the bombings in Bali, Indonesia, on Oct. 1, 2005.

It’s all here.

Columnist Diana West has written an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel

…in just about every account of your American trip — biggish news in Europe — it is prominently mentioned that Guantanamo Bay is prominently high on your list of, well, prominent concerns. Trouble spots. Global things you lose sleep over.

This is, with due respect, bizarre. Iran is going nuclear, Europe is going Islamic, Russia is going off the reservation, China is a fearsome thing, and your big concern is sending what is called a “clear message” to Mr. Bush about Guantanamo Bay, the tropical jail where the United States keeps jihadis on ice — and keeps the rest of the world safer as a result. But that’s not what you say. “An institution like Guantanamo can and should not exist in the longer term,” you told the German news magazine Der Spiegel this week. “Different ways and means must be found for dealing with these prisoners.”

I have a suggestion: How about if we ship all these guys — unflushed Korans and all — to Germany? Maybe “72 Virgins” Airlines would cut us a deal. Then you — Germany — can parole them to Lebanon.

That, of course, is just what you did just before Christmas with Muhammad Ali Hammadi, the convicted Hezbollah killer of Petty Officer Robert Dean Stethem. In case you didn’t know, Mr. Stethem is one of our American heroes, a courageous young Navy diver who became an early casualty of the war on Islamic terror. In 1985, at age 23, he was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by Hammadi and his gang, shot through the head and dumped onto a Beirut runway during the Hezbollah hijacking of TWA Flight 847.

Great article, read on…

So we have Merkel on hand to tell us what to do with the terrorists we have in captivity. It’s pretty sad that the western Euros haven’t yet gotten the message that they are no longer credible enough to tell the United States what to do or how to do it. Their economies are in bad shape and are only worsening, their honesty and dependability as allies have come up wanting between their dubious collective support in the Global War On Terror and the Oil-For-Food scandal and it now seems as though Germany’s been performing the “kiss of shame”, big time, on the Islamofascists in an attempt to get the terrorists to leave them alone.

Fat chance. To al-Qaeda and their colleagues, an infidel is an infidel, period.