Here's a quote from Hillery Clinton's recent speech at a big time San Francisco $10,000 a plate fundraiser:

Many of you are well enough off that . . . the tax cuts may have helped you.

Since i'm so rich, though, i was not pleased to hear about the next thing the chief Democratic wench said:

We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short [the tax cuts] and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

Link via Dodger fan, Matt.

Posted by: annika at 12:55 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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i've been posting lightly lately, but i don't want to miss the chance to acknowledge the two amazing events that happened recently, neither of which, some critics say, have a snowball's chance in hell of lasting.

Iraq is a sovereign and independent nation . . .

. . . and . . .

. . . Brittany got engaged!

So congratulations to all 25,374,691 Iraqi citizens and to Brittany Spears. i wish all of you guys the best of luck. Who can say what the future holds for you? But i know, if you work hard, persevere and stay true to what is right, with a little bit of luck i'm sure that you all will create a lasting and successful modernized union that will become the envy of all countries throughout the troubled Middle East region, or of skanky homewrecking no-talent ho's, whichever the case may be.

Posted by: annika at 05:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The latest poll, currently the subject of many giddy headlines in the mainstream press, can only be described as a Democratic push-poll. Look at the actual question, which most news stories will not quote verbatim:

In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?

i am not an undecided, and i don't think "the United States made a mistake"  . . . so there.

Still, the results of the poll are very discouraging to me because they show that the leftist media/adademia/entertainment alliance is beginning to sway public opinion towards weakness and capitulation. The effect of this wavering will be to encourage our enemies, increase the death toll among innocents and lengthen the war. Not only that, it will increase the likelihood of further terrorist attacks in our country and against our allies.

Only complete victory by one side or the other will end this conflict. History has shown that time and time again. Our violent islamic expansionist enemies understand this, why don't we?

Posted by: annika at 09:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 When media corporations swing their news coverage as well as their editorial coverage heavily in favor of particular parties and candidates, it seems to me that at some level they are making de facto in-kind political contributions. Corporations are supposed to be tightly limited by law as to how they can spend money in support of political candidates: an auto company (for example) could never get away with running TV ads in support of their preferred presidential candidate. But media companies are able to use their economic power to support their views, and are increasingly doing so. I don't think this differential power between industries was the true intent of the campaign finance laws.

Posted by: David Foster at June 25, 2004 09:44 AM (SpkYG)

2 Annika, Don't give in to discouragement. That is what the leftist media want. Most polls seemed to be cooked to give the opinion the media is looking for.

Posted by: Chuck at June 25, 2004 07:33 PM (s6c4t)

3 Annika, be careful talking about polls! I know firsthand how the minions can swoop in and drop 90 f-bombs in your comment section But, yeah, it's blatantly obvious to me that polls are biased. Remember Den Beste's words: the only poll that matters is the election.

Posted by: Sarah at June 27, 2004 12:40 PM (khJB1)

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In a Sacramento Bee story about two high school girls who wrote essays about the Newdow case, and their reactions to the Supreme Court's recent ruling that wasn't really a ruling, i found the best exposition of the typical liberal approach to law i have yet seen.

The chick who wrote the winning essay in support of Newdow's position (that "under God" should be declared unconstitutional) said the following:

[M]y opinion has strengthened a lot more with looking up the different laws and legal briefs. I really look at it from how others feel. It's not really about the laws; it's about how it makes people feel living in their country. [emphasis added]

Posted by: annika at 04:06 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Today we took a trip down J Street for lunch at one of those eateries in the hip district of Sacramento, where the tatooed college students hang out. i happened to see a stenciled picture of President Bush that had been spraypainted on the sidewalk, with the words "bad man" underneath. i said to my co-workers, "Why is it that you never see any conservative vandalism?" The consensus was that conservatives generally try to follow the law. i replied that it's not against the law to vandalize if the ACLU is always there to get you off scott free. But they'll only do so if your message is anti-American or anti-Republican.

When i got back to the office, i happened to check out a blog that i visit less often than i should: Jen Speaks. Coincidentally Jen linked to this story about a kid who fought the liberal stranglehold on free thought at his public high school using one of the left's favorite weapons: agitprop. It's hilarious. As you can probably guess, his communist sympathizing teachers and a few "useful idiot" classmates did not take too kindly to a student who questioned their monopoly on speech.

[J]ust when we posted about 200 of our 500 signs, we heard a rustling around the corner. Upon investigating the noise, we found a fellow student tearing the signs from the wall and ripping them into shreds. We made no attempt to stop her, but she quickly abandoned her pursuit when I removed my camera from my backpack. Apparently, her being conscious of her own hypocrisy was not enough to prevent her from forcibly suppressing our dissenting point-of-view. But facing the prospect that others might be made aware of her hypocrisy, and it's cut-and-run. Typical.

i was so energized by the kid's story, and his chutzpa, that i think i just may return to that hip college area of town with some agitprop of my own. His five tips at the end of the article are very similar to Gandhi's protest philosophy, satyagraha.

Posted by: annika at 04:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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i find it interesting that the L.A. Times neglected to mention the religion of the "Chechen insurgents" who killed 58* people yesterday. Isn't their religion important to the story? The L.A. Times doesn't think so. But to the "insurgents" themselves, their religion is very important. In fact, if you asked them, they would probably say that their religion justifies their mass murdering tactics. (That is, assuming they didn't just kill you instead of answering your question.)

The Times also neglected to mention a certain phrase that the "insurgents" shouted as they attacked Ingushetia on their murderous rampage, shooting at passing civilian vehicles and ambulances. It just happens to be the same phrase that Nick Berg's killers repeated over and over again as they sawed his head off with a knife. But i guess the Times didn't notice that connection.

i also love the Times' headline, which emphasizes the Russian response in a curiously negative way. What exactly, i ask, is wrong with Putin's vow to destroy the terrorists?

i say go for it, Vlad!

* The New York Times, who also neglected to mention the terrorists' religion, reported 75 dead from the attacks.

Posted by: annika at 12:38 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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i finally got up the nerve to look at the Paul Johnson pictures today, which i found at Drink This. i don't need to reiterate the disgust and hatred that i feel towards those animals who murdered Mr. Johnson.

After i posted about Nick Berg's murder, i got a stupid troll comment, which seemed to posit the theory that he wasn't really murdered. That the video was somehow faked. i'm not quite sure why it's important for some people to believe that the terrorists didn't really behead someone, but apparently it is.

The key to that ridiculous theory was that there wasn't enough blood in the Nick Berg video. Now, after looking at the gruesome Paul Johnson photos - much worse than the Berg photos, by the way - i wonder where those tin foil hat idiots are. 'Cause there sure looked like a lot of blood in those Johnson photos.

i wonder what new theory the far-left wackos will come up with in their ever evolving effort to defend vicious brutality and murder.

Posted by: annika at 10:35 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson. Is it becoming clearer now?

Not that i want to see any video of this one, because i don't, but there are apparently some stills out there. Will we respond in kind to this barbarity, or will we just get used to it?

Half of us want to kick ass until these vermin are extinguished. The other half want to hold hands, sing cumbaya and let it go on. What will it take to wake up those fools?

Posted by: annika at 12:01 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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There seems to be a disconnect between the mainstream media and reality. i never heard President Bush say that Hussein was involved in 9/11. But the media keeps reporting the 9/11 commission's conclusion that there was no Hussein Al Qaeda connection in the attacks as if it was news.

As the President said this morning, yet again:

This administration never said that the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda. . . . We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, for example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with (Osama) bin Ladin, the head of al-Qaeda in Sudan.

The point that always seems to get lost in these pissing contests, and the only point that matters in my view, is that Saddam Hussein and Ben Ladin both hated us badly. Therefore it was too dangerous to leave Hussein around and able to help Al Qaeda in the future. Did anybody seriously believe that Ben Ladin would not have eventually approached Hussien for support and training camps after we kicked him out of Afghanistan?

If anyone had doubts on that point, the 9/11 Commission's report should clear that up:

Al Qaeda did approach Hussein.

Al Qaeda did meet with the Iraqi government.

There was an Iraqi-Al Qaeda connection.

Just not on 9/11.

It's not necessary to take Bush's word or even my word on it. That's what the 9/11 Commission said. But the media keeps trying to put words in the president's mouth. Yet even The Washington Post couldn't find a quote that states what their editorial writers want us to believe. In this collection of administration quotes they call "White House Statements on Iraq, al-Qaida", i defy anyone to find a direct statement by any admininstration official saying that Iraq and Al Qaeda collaborated on the 9/11 attacks.

You'd think if such a quote were there, the Washington Post would have found it. Instead, the Post's anthology of quotes merely shows that the administration was right about the budding relationship between Hussein's Iraq and Al Quada. We can believe they were right because the 9/11 Commision agrees that there were links.

And it therefore follows, i say, that we were right to take out Saddam Hussein before those links turned into a full fledged alliance.

More on topic: read DANEgerus.

Posted by: annika at 09:32 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Almost every day i see another example of the freakazoid left's infatuation with violence. You may remember i posted my theory on that subject here. i should make it a regular feature to post further evidence of my theory.

In today's Bee, there's a story about how the protesters in my old hometown of San Francisco failed to shut down the biotech conference. Some protesters "pushed conference attendees aside and shouted profanities" at them. As the police escorted the scientists and attendees into the Moscone Center (no doubt to protect them from hurled objects as much as hurled invective) the unwashed, jobless retards shouted the following peaceful slogan:

ARREST THEM! SHOOT THEM!

Posted by: annika at 08:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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My first memory of President Reagan is from November 1984. i was seven. My father asked me to take a walk down the block with him. We went into a neighbor's garage where there were little booths set up. People went into the booths and pulled a curtain behind them. i stood in line with my dad as he gave his name to a lady who handed him a card. Then my dad took me into the booth with him to watch him cast his vote for president of the United States.

It's fitting that my first introduction to democracy was watching my dad vote for Ronald Reagan.

Another formative experience of my life was the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Like many children, i watched the launch on television with my class. It was horrifying. i'll never forget how President Reagan spoke afterwards, directly to us young people, sharing our pain and somehow giving us a way to understand that traumatic loss.

I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

That last victory, his greatest, was not easy. And it was not certain. Reagan didn't stumble his way into it either. Victory in the Cold War was the almost uniquely held vision of this one great man. He alone among the post war presidents had the courage to say: "Let's win this thing. We can win this thing." When Nixon and Carter were trying to figure out how to co-exist with the Communists, when Ford was denying the Soviet domination of Europe, Reagan alone seemed to know that we would win, because we were better.

And he got us to believe it too. And we did win. Despite all the nay-sayers (funded from behind the iron curtain, by the way) who were shouting "nuclear freeze," Reagan rolled back the nukes, doing it from a position of strength and leaving our nation infinitely safer than if he had listened to the peaceniks. And when the left shook their heads after Reykjavik, saying we had blown our chance for peace, Reagan, by his courageous stand on principle, led us to the lasting peace that only victory could win.

i've been weepy all weekend. i, too, loved Ronald Reagan. i'm proud to have been alive while he was president. i'm proud that i'm a Californian, a Republican, an American, and he's a large part of those things. i've heard it said, and i fully agree, that if Ronald Reagan were president today, he'd know exactly what to do. i wish that were possible. But in a way, i'm glad he didn't realize how much trouble we've gotten into since we lost the blessing of his stewardship. He would have been deeply disappointed.

Or, perhaps i'm wrong about that. Ronald Reagan was an eternal optimist. And one of the great things about all the tributes of the past few days has been the long overdue recognition of his optimism. We should honor his optimism, by remembering it, and re-igniting it. What President Reagan said at the 1992 Republican Convention has been quoted often in the last few days, but i don't think it can be repeated often enough.

Well I've said it before and I'll say it again -- America's best days are yet to come. Our proudest moments are yet to be. Our most glorious achievements are just ahead. America remains what Emerson called her 150 years ago, 'the country of tomorrow.' What a wonderful description and how true. And yet tomorrow might never have happened had we lacked the courage in the 1980's to chart a course of strength and honor.

Recommended on topic: The Maximum Leader meets the President.

Also Recommended: Lileks, as always. Professor Hugh looks at the Democratic spin attempts. And Daniel Weintraub spins the President as a liberal.

Posted by: annika at 08:36 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 Amen

Posted by: Casca at June 07, 2004 10:42 PM (q+PSF)

2 Reagan from alays the ill of I! Then by me, from hom I feel Soviet never, trade unions of in of to be anted I have that to remind on. Society during Kollektivumonderfull to this too intended to belong I have only from child of small of only one likeise. Each itself more helping and nobody in compitition. Then these have of and coboy of of its body masters! It pays one more turned fair one on perfectly it practically from progressive and from communists more than capitlist, the filled of flag from ith allt! the connerie United States on. of not enough this of theres of silicon of ho.

Posted by: Um Yeah at June 08, 2004 12:30 AM (KBwQo)

3 Cuba. Therapy. Spellchecker. In reverse order. Les.

Posted by: Lesmorte at June 08, 2004 03:55 AM (LFtoQ)

4 This is the best writing on Reagan that I have seen yet in blogs or in the mainstream media.

Posted by: ginger at June 08, 2004 05:43 AM (WX5CY)

5 how dare you make me cry so early in the day with such a heart warming post.

Posted by: missie at June 08, 2004 07:41 AM (m+/Dj)

6 "Good night, sweet prince." Extremely well put, Annika.

Posted by: Jason O. at June 08, 2004 08:27 AM (loMDg)

7 Well put Annika. Very well put. (And thanks for the link.) Although some have lamented the abundance of Reagan eulogies on the internet, I for one, think they are great. He would be very touched to read them all.

Posted by: The Maximum Leader at June 08, 2004 04:56 PM (0PRJS)

8 Annika, this is one of the best posts I've read. Thank you.

Posted by: Anna at June 09, 2004 11:17 PM (uvamW)

9 thank you annika- mainly from your past writings about Reagan, I have been promted to pick up one of his latest books "Reagan in his own hand". He truly was a visionsary. eg. "..our current tax system is simply a way of transferring wealth from the most productive members of society to the least"

Posted by: jimi at June 12, 2004 11:45 AM (lN8eP)

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