1. Is the mistreatment of animals morally offensive?
2. While you personally perhaps will never be cruel to an animal, do you believe there should be laws preventing your neighbor from being cruel to his dog and cat?
3. Cruel pet owners often respond to animal rights activists who want to strengthen animal cruelty laws by saying 'Don?t like animal cruelty, don't get an animal but leave us alone to our beliefs.' Should a free society have laws to protect animals from cruelty?
4. Should we leave the treatment of pets up to the conscience of each pet owner and their families, clergyman, and veterinarian and keep government interference out?
5. Given the fact that in some cultures and religions things like rooster-fighting and dog-baiting are perfectly acceptable and legitimate, should we have still laws prohibiting them?

I have a set of questions in the Socratic format for my liberal and self-declared ‘moderate’ and ‘independent’ friends. Please answer with a yes or no. There will be a second set tomorrow. This is the first part of an exciting exercise.

Question 1: Is discrimination on the basis of race or sexual orientation wrong and immoral?

Question 2: Do you personally believe that prejudice against people of a different race or a differing sexual orientation is wrong?

Question 3: Would you, in your personal life, engage in discrimination against people of a different race or a differing sexual orientation?

Question 4: Would you support the enactment of laws that prohibit discrimination based on race and sexual orientation?

Question 5: Would you want judges to uphold these laws?

And today, in her hour of dire need, as she gasps for her political life-just like the 26 week old child gasping for life as the pincers of George Tiller puncture its tiny head-the abortion industry has pulled the plug on her. This morning the industry’s apex loudmouth NARAL endorsed Barack Obama without as much as a nod towards the lifelong obeisance that Mrs. Clinton had dutifully paid to the industry. Sisterhood be darned, there is a new hottie in town.

I am no supporter of Mrs. Clinton and have never found her anything but purely ambitious and driven by a lust for power. But even I have sympathy for her today. Forty years of dutifully selling her soul for blood money and to be treated like this in return. Must hurt. Wonder what she is gonna be drowning her sorrows in this weekend. Heck, I will drink a bourbon for her; after all, as her husband said so eloquently 'I feeel yaur paayne, girl'.

Forwarded to me earlier today was a fun (but perhaps not entirely inaccurate) description of the difference between the office wardrobe of conservative guys and liberal guys in 2008.

Liberal guys tend to wear flat front pants at the hips with belts that are wider and buckles that are not always subtle. Complementing these pants are fly collar fitted shirts in in pastel colors or bold stripes with satiny or raised texture. The shoes are flat toe or round toe pumps, though those can be substituted with laced brogues when formality so requires. On dressier occasions, one may find these guys in suits with three- or even four-button jackets in soothing or luminescent hues. Ties….well these guys are not too ‘hip’ on ties but if it is a must, you may seem multi-colored, multi-patterned neckwear adorning their Sunday best.

God and the soldier

we alike adore

In times of danger

but not before

The danger past

and all conflict righted

God is forgotten

The subliminal concept of honor is the embedded in the very bones of John Sidney McCain; in so many ways, the concept but defines the man. In a national race against a liberal Democrat, unfortunately, a prickly sense of honor can contribute to a huge liability as well.

 In the last few weeks, Senator McCain has constantly shied away from criticizing Barack Obama for his Pastor Wright connection and even bickered with the North Carolina Republicans for the latter wanting to run anti-Obama ads. Time and again, the former warrior has defended the decency, patriotism, and good intentions of his likely Democratic opponent. Has there been any reciprocity? Au contraire, the man claiming to be a new kind of ‘bridge builder’ politician has left no opportunity unused to make snide remarks about John McCain. And the general election season hasn’t even begun yet!

 McCain suffers from, I believe, the Jack Kemp syndrome.

 Many readers will recall that former NFL quarterback, Congressman, cabinet secretary and human rights activist Jack Kemp was the GOP vice presidential nominee in 1996. Out of a sense of sheer decency and inherent honor, Kemp refused to criticize his opponent Al Gore or Gore’s boss Bill Clinton. In fact, Secretary Kemp actually defended Al Gore ‘noble intentions’ during the veep debate when the moderator questioned the then vice president sharply about his flip flops on everything from taxes to gun control.

Of course Al Gore (or Bill Clinton, for that matter) had absolutely no qualms going after Kemp’s record or launching scandalous accusations on his character. They even hired attack dogs to dig up dirt from Kemp’s NFL days, a venture that didn’t yield anything except the discovery that Kemp was a quiet, almost boring, family man off the field.

What Kemp learnt in 1996, and McCain seems to have forgotten in 2008, is that the liberal Democrats don’t play by the Marquis of Queensberry rules. Any Republican candidate expecting Democrats to run an honorable campaign is sorely mistaken and likely to be pummeled at the hustings for that mistake. Democrats, for the first time since, can almost taste the possibility of a one party liberal government in the nation’s capital; there is no depth they will not stoop to in order to bring that possibility to reality. John McCain’s sense of honor and decency is not going to deter the likes of Carville, Dean, and Axelrod from reaching into the depths of their collective unscrupulousness for a November victory.

Senator McCain will do well to recall the wisdom of Clementine Churchill who reminded her husband Sir Winston that electoral politics was “not a lady’s tea party”. Specially against liberal Democrats and their allied hate groups who will stop at nothing to get the Holy Grail of complete control in Washington DC for the first time since 1993.

Titanic:..... Jack is a starving artist.
Clinton :..... Bill is a bullsh1t artist.

Titanic:.... In one scene, Jack enjoys a good cigar.
Clinton :.... Ditto for Bill.

Titanic:..... During the ordeal, Rose's dress gets ruined.
Clinton :..... Ditto for Monica.

Titanic:..... Jack teaches Rose to spit.
Clinton :..... Let's not go there.

Titanic:..... Rose gets to keep her jewelry.
Clinton :.... Monica' s forced to return her gifts.

Titanic:..... Rose remembers Jack for the rest of her life.
Clinton :.....  Clinton doesn't remember Jack.

Titanic:..... Rose goes down on a vessel full of seamen.
Clinton :..... Monica.. Ooh, let's not go there, either.

Titanic:..... Jack surrenders to an icy death.
Clinton :..... Bill goes home to Hillary - basically the same thing

Mark my words though; the day after the House goes Republican (whenever that is), if Carazyoux is still in office, he will switch to the GOP. That is the nature of most of the white Democratic politicians in Louisiana. But until that day, Minority Leader John Boehner has his work cut out. He has to cajole or coerce his charges to go back to the basics and eschew the immigrant bashing that has hurt the GOP so badly in 2006. Revolutionary tax reform, solid school choice, protection of all innocent life, and strong national defense…that is the ONLY winning formula. Get on with the program Mr. Boehner or come 2009, we will be in a one party socialist state with a national policy of surrender to al Qaeda, nationalized socialized healthcare, taxpayer funded abortions till the day of delivery forced upon the hospital networks of the Catholic and Orthodox Jewish faiths, and prosecution of pastors and priests for calling immoral things wicked. Yep, that is exactly what will happen when a Democratic Congress rules together with a Democratic President.

What the British, the French, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Russians failed to do, we have done ourselves handsomely. From being proud, confident, conscientious individual who was not intimidated by power, the average American, in his day to day life, has become a creature terrified that something he may say or do may offend some petty bureaucrat somewhere. Such an offended bureaucrat may not have the power of life or death over the American but has immense authority to make life a miserable existence for a long time to come. The bank regulator, the child protective service case worker, or the water inspector each have more power over the ordinary American man or woman than King George III ever dreamt of having. It is a sad commentary on the once indomitable American spirit that today an American is more afraid of a call from the IRS than a threat from an armed burglar.

Two hundred years ago, the Indian poet Ghalib penned the famous verse “Love has left me incapacitated/Otherwise I too was a free man.” Change the word ‘love’ to ‘fear’, and the couplet is well said of Americans today.

Imagine this scene of an attempted crime. A WASP suburban  punk has nothing to do during the summer and is short on his allowance so he decides to hold up the nearby convenience store which is run by an Indian American. Well, as the kid is holding his gun towards the owner behind the counter, the latter calls the young man’s bluff and decides to charge at him with his bare fists. In the ensuing struggle, thankfully no bullets are fired and cops arrive in time to see the store owner landing a couple of punches on the kid and calling him a ‘spoiled cracker’. Guess who gets charged with a federal crime? The store owner.

Yep. Under the new federal ‘hate’ crimes bill being proposed by the radical liberal Democratic majority in Congress, using racially insensitive language in a physical altercation-even in self defense-is a new crime to be investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the United States Attorney.  Both Senators Clinton and Obama are co-sponsors of this chilling, bizarre, Orwellian measure which is designed to please certain ethnic lobbies, create jobs for the diversity industry bureaucrats, and line the pockets of the criminal defense lawyers.

Melissa Hart is endorsed, of course, by the Susan B. Anthony List PAC whose website you will also see in the blog roll. The idea behind this PAC is simple: conservatives have got to fight radical feminism not with more WASPy male politicians but with true feminists of their own.  The PAC, which someday could mature to challenge its much bigger ultra- radical counterpart EMILY’s List, draws inspiration from its namesake Susan B. Anthony (the pioneering American suffragette and mother of North American feminism) and the late  Representative Clare Boothe Luce, the first  New England woman to electorally  win a Congressional seat in her own right.

Then there is the Children’s Right Council (CRC), a national advocacy group that speaks up for the fundamental right of children to have two parents in their lives. Arrayed against the CRC is a powerful phalanx of special interest groups that make money every time a child’s relationship with a loving biological parent is severed: the American Bar Association ‘Family’ Law Section, ‘family’ court judges and court personnel, child support bureaucrats in state capitals and Washington DC, the National Organization of Women, and the WNLA. I believe the CRC is the organization fighting the most important battle of our times..a battle whose outcome will predicate our economic, social, and ultimately, security future. No wonder that the board of the CRC includes everyone from liberals like Congressman Al Wynn and conservatives like Fred Thompson, and many other decent Americans from all walks of life.

Or maybe she is simply too naïve to understand the intricacies of global diplomacy, historical context, and strategic affairs. Yes, believe it or not a Yale trained ‘worldly’ carpetbagger lawyer wearing chic black pantsuits can indeed incorrectly consider herself to be an expert on the world just because she gets invited to the dinner parties of fawning sycophants with South Asian and Middle Eastern hues. Eating twice a week at a Persian restaurant and having an identity-crisis suffering Pakistani-American retainer doesn’t make anyone, even a New York Senator, an expert on the morass that is the Middle East.

Pity for Mrs. Clinton that she has forgotten that while the crazy government of Iran is indeed our foe, the Iranian people have the most pro-American feelings of anyone in the Middle East. Hence the wise men in Washington-the actual foreign policy gurus and generals-speak of the deep yearning of the Iranian masses to be free of their clerical overlords and the abiding friendship between Iranians and Americans. But then actual experts like Dr. Condoleeza Rice and Senator Richard Lugar are not Johnny-come-lately supporters of Israel unlike Mrs. Clinton who seems to find her pro-Israeli tone only during election years.

So this is why I think HRC said the bizarre things she said about Israel and Iran. One, she is overcompensating for her monochromatic pantsuits. Two, she has very little knowledge about Iran or the Iranian people. Three, she was trying to pucker up to Israel after being quite a bit less than dependable of a friend (she is quite buddy buddies with the widow of the terrorist master Yasir Arafat).

Hillary Rodham Clinton tries her best to appear tough like Condi Rice and Baroness Margaret Thatcher. Well, the problem is that Mrs. Clinton forgets the difference between tough and vindictive. Secretary Rice and Baroness Thatcher are tough women who have never needed the crutch of radical feminism to appear tough; they were and are tough, period (several Argentine generals will vouch for that about Baroness Thatcher!). Frankly, I would feel much more secure with Baroness Thatcher in charge of our national security than any of Democratic male or female senators overseeing it.

For all her silly wardrobe and sillier saber rattling, the fact remains that Hillary Rodham Clinton is simply a vain, vindictive, and angry woman who believes she deserves the presidency because, well, because she just does! And that kind of mindset is imprudent to have in the Presidency, especially in a time like this when we are engaged in a War that tests the very contents of our characters.