Sibby Online

Lauck fascinates MSM

The South Dakota MSM seems to be fascinated by Jon Lauck’s addition to the staff of John Thune. First Kevin Woster ran the story in the Rapid City Journal, and then the AP picked it up. It was in today’s Mitchell Daily Republic, and can also be found on the Aberdeen and Sioux City web sites.

Memogate solved…kind of

The source of the so-called GOP talking point memo has been disclosed. From Mickey Kaus:

Non-fake but inaccurate! WaPo's Mike Allen reports that the now-famous Schiavo "talking points" memo came from freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez's office. So that mystery is cleared up. The memo wasn't a fake. It wasn't merely freelance advice from a lobbyist (which was my guess at one point). But Allen doesn't come off looking too good in this latest account. a) The memo was apparently not "distributed to Republican Senators by party leaders," as Allen's initial story, sent out through the Post news service to other papers, reported. It was--at least judging from today's account--handed to one Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, by one freshman Republican senator (who isn't in the party leadership); b) Allen doesn't explain why he told Howie Kurtz he "did not call them talking points or a Republican memo" when he had in fact done just that in the news service draft; c) Even the later, more "carefully worded" account Allen published in the Post itself was apparently wrong.

Power Line adds this:

A reader asks a good question: Where has Tom Harkin been for the last two and a half weeks? If he had come forward on March 19 or 20, there never would have been a "talking points memo" story, or at least not much of a story. The truth--that an obscure Republican staffer wrote a dumb memo that hardly anyone saw--would scarcely have created a ripple. The whole point of the story, as initially reported, was that the document was an official "GOP memo," created by the party's leadership and broadly circulated to the party's Senators. If Harkin had told what he knew promptly, that story never would have been written, or would have been promptly spiked. So it seems likely that Harkin stayed quiet because he wanted the false account to circulate; indeed, he may have been the source of the misinformation promulgated by ABC and the Post. But then, why did Harkin come forward yesterday? Again, the most obvious answer does Harkin no credit: with speculation increasingly focusing on the Democrats as the likely source of the memo, it was in his party's interest to come forward, even at the risk of exposing the falsity of the early reporting on the memo.

There are still several unanswered questions, of which the most important is: Did Harkin (or possibly someone else) misinform the reporters about the source, nature and distriubtion of the memo, or did the reporters see the memo and leap to the wrong conclusion? I have posed this question to Mike Allen of the Post, and will pass on any reply that I receive.

The far-left love bash

I wanted to go to Vermillion Tuesday to see what former Senator Tom Daschle had to say. Unfortunately I couldn’t get away from work and paying taxes. Fortunately, there has been a lot of coverage. The Argus Leader provided us with insight into how deep the far-left ideology penetrates the Gannett organization via the words of Gannett mogul Al Neuharth:

Neuharth took a sharper tone. He criticized South Dakota voters who turned against native sons Hubert Humphrey and McGovern in the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections.

"Everyone knows now our country would have been much better off if either Hubert Humphrey or George McGovern would have beat Richard Milhouse Nixon," said Neuharth, who likened their defeats to Daschle's last year.

"I say in that election, shame on those selfish, special-interest out-of-staters who pumped large money and bigger lies into South Dakota to mislead voters and defeat Tom."

But it was Daschle who was lying in the 2004 election. Today, David Kranz provides us with some insight:

Regardless of how the speech was intended, Daschle seemed more comfortable speaking his mind Tuesday than he did during his 2004 re-election campaign.

Jon Schaff provides more details on that point:

Let’s set a couple of things straight right now. I don’t want to hear anymore Daschle supporters telling about how Tom was just a middle of the road guy who was tarred as a left-winger. All that Thune stuff about how Daschle said one thing in DC but another thing in South Dakota was a lie, they say. Well, here is Tom Daschle embracing an extreme "progressive" (read: left wing) view of freedom and America. Look at the title of his speech. Daschle is aligning himself with "progressivism." Lest anyone be confused, progressive is now what the left-wingers call, well, left-wing politics. He is aligning himself with the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party. Also, Daschle is taking a very Progressive stance, harkening back to the Progressives of the early 20^th Century. Daschle is positing a notion of freedom unrecognizable to the American Founders. This is not a freedom where we pursue happiness free of government interference, but a freedom which demands government provide us with all sorts of material needs as a precursor to "real" freedom. These ideas were popular in the works of Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Croly. The two explicitly rejected the American Founding, the Constitution in particular. The Progressives where highly influenced by German philosophy (e.g. Max Weber) with notions of science, social evolution and historicism as their grounding, as opposed to constitutionalism and natural rights. I don’t wish to turn this into a treatise on American political thought. And this is not to say that Daschle’s views are good or bad. I will leave that to the reader. But there is no doubt that Daschle has aligned himself with notions of freedom and the role of government that have more in common with the radical social democrats of the early 1900s than they do with the American Founders. Dorothy, I think he’s not from South Dakota anymore.

Jason Heppler, the newest blogger at SDP, says this about the Daschle speech:

Notice the lack of ideas presented; the only talk was about how great they are. Daschle never talked about "vision." He basically said we need to keep propping up the welfare state--Liberals have been saying that for 70 years. Daschle exemplifies why the Democrats keep losing: they have no ideas.

Daschle said following the election he wanted to be a "quarterback" getting laws over the goal line, but his legacy became that of a "defensive lineman." He was right: his legacy is blocking anything from getting done. The Wall Street Journal didn't call the Senate "Daschle's Dead Zone" for nothing. Again, what has he accomplished after 10 years as Senate leader? Nada.

Yes, the Thune campaign did a masterful job of showing the people of South Dakota the true DC Tom Daschle. Al Neuharth still can’t accept the fact that the people of South Dakota are smart enough to figure what is true and what is far-left propaganda. Many of the South Dakota Democrats also haven’t accepted that fact. Also, Neuharth’s colleagues in the MSM haven’t figured out that Americans are smart enough to see through the MSM’s far-left propaganda.

The First Amendment

Rush Limbaugh discusses the Knight Foundation study that showed 49% of American students "newspapers should not be able to publish stories without government approval." Of course the MSM blames the results on conservatives:

When this story first hit the media had a conniption fit, a lot of places in the media did. "Why, this is outrageous," and they tried to blame it on right-wingers. They tried to blame it on right-wing parents who were inculcating their little skulls full of mush at home with the fact that the media is hideous. I think I even got in some of these stories as being to blame for this because I was of course informing the mind-numbed robot parents. These parents can't think for themselves, either. They have to get their anti-media bias somewhere, and guess where they get it? Here, the EIB Network.

Rush then points out the usual tactic of the left, blame the right for problems created by the left:

If 49% of American school kids think that the government ought to approve stories before they run, something's wrong in America's classrooms." Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, someone at the Knight Foundation heard me because they've put together this group of 75 educators, journalists and students to "form a steering committee that will promote the First Amendment and curriculum. "They're going to have to promote it which means they're going to have to go out there, they're going to have to put together PSAs; they're going to have to do all kinds of things to convince those who run the public schools, "Hey, teach the Constitution. We've got a problem here."

…

This is not going to be easy to force the Constitution, which is occurred a right-wing plot, into the public school system at the expense of some liberal mind-expansion curriculum such as anti-corporatism, pro-animal rights, whatever is in there, feminist studies. This is not going to be an easy fight. (interruption) Well... I've just been asked by my chief of staff, "Will this steering committee urge the study of free speech as well as freedom of the press?"

The answer is no, as evidenced by the media exemption to the campaign finance reform law:

You know, the First Amendment does mention free speech as well. I think they should, of course, freedom of speech has already been impinged upon unconstitutionally by the Congress, upheld by the US Supreme Court, signed by the president of the United States. I think they ought to teach it all. But the media likes campaign finance reform -- the media likes any other voices but theirs being silenced on political speech.

May I say that the "left" likes any other voices but theirs being silenced on political speech".

Lets not forget the report on the school refusing a student to display a photo because the photo contained a gun. That’s how the public education system undermines the First Amendment.

Tony Dean continues feud

Tony Dean continues his feud with the South Dakota west river ranchers. First he posted their mission statement followed by an email in which he responded to [excerpt]:

I found this on their website, the name of which I respectfully withhold because I am not about to send more visitors their way.

Looks like the feathers Tony Dean is wearing these days come from a chicken. What are you afraid of Tony? The sdlockout web site also has a link to Sibby Online. Tony Dean should be worried that his Kool-Aid drinking visitors might learn the truth about his far-left anti-American ways. They might just learn that he is the greedy guy who uses the leverage of the environmental extremists to have the government fund public land so he has a free stage on which to film his shows. He whines about how the ranchers pay cheap cash rent on public lands, but he certainly doesn’t pay any rent when he films his shows on public land or public water ways.

One of the west river folk emailed Tony Dean and thanked him for posting their mission statement. Excerpt:

Thanks for posting our mission statement on your website. That was really nice of you!

I do get the distinct impression that you have problems with parts of the statement though. Care to elaborate?

Instead of answering the question, Tony Dean’s response included this:

Don't hurt your arm patting yourself on the back.

I already know that Tony Dean is a hypocrite, and he just proved it again by patting himself on the back just a day before he made the above statement:

It's fine if they want to ridicule me too, but what bothers them most is that I reach a lot of people, and they don't.

Well Tony, I don’t believe you reach as many people as you used to. In 2002 most learned just how phony you really are. Your far-left agenda is no longer a secret.

In case you missed it

The Sandy Berger scandal is getting lttle MSM play. Here is what the mainstream is missing:

On Thursday, March 31, just hours after Terri Schiavo died, the Justice Department announced that former Clinton national security adviser, Sandy Berger, was about to get his wrist slapped.

Among the "mistakes" that triggered the slap was Berger's hand-shredding of several critical documents with a pair of scissors. Another "mistake" that Berger acknowledged was lying to all and everyone about what he had done when first questioned. He now admits the destruction of these documents was "not inadvertent."

With both Schiavo dead and the pope dying, the media were free to downplay the Berger story, which they eagerly did. They provided almost no answers and asked few questions. The Washington Post, however, did manage to pose a conundrum, "It remains unclear," asked the Post, "why [Berger] destroyed three versions of a document, but left two other versions intact."

In an earlier article on Berger, I suggested an answer to this question – the president's handwritten notes on a document make one version entirely more dangerous than an identical document without those notes. My source for this process was Col. Buzz Patterson, author of "Dereliction of Duty."

Patterson carried the "nuclear football" for the president during the fateful summer of 1996 and as such had almost total access. One morning that Patterson identifies only as "late-summer" 1996, he was returning a daily intelligence update to the National Security Council when he noticed the heading "Operation Bojinka." As Patterson relates, "I keyed on a reference to a plot to use commercial airliners as weapons." As a pilot, he had a keen interest in the same.

Washington Post bust update

Hindrocket has a response to the Washington Post reaction to Power Line’s disclosure on memogate.

Limited government triumphs

During last week’s town hall meeting in Mitchell on social security, Senator Tim Johnson mentioned that those who are in favor of private accounts were advocates of limited government. Rush Limbaugh noticed this about the Democrats' position on Terri Schiavo:

Now what did we hear all last week? All we heard last week was the split in the Republican Party, right? Yeah. It was the split over Schiavo and the split over Social Security. There are some Republicans who don't like Bush's plan. So there was a split on Social Security. Republicans are split on Schiavo; the Republicans are falling apart. The Democrats are even saying, "You know what? We can take this country back by putting ourselves out there as the party that believes in limited government, because we want government out of the Schiavo nursing home or hospice or whatever." Now, the fact... That is B.S. It's in their dreams they could do this. But, but the fact that the Democrats think there is something to be gained by being seen as the party of smaller government, what does it tell you? It tells you the idea of smaller government has trumped and triumphed over the opposition, because if they are eagerly embracing -- and they are; you can see it and you can see it in news stories today -- if they are eagerly embracing the possibility that they may become to be seen the party of limited government. Ha, ha, ha! Not that they can believe that, just that they think they can do and capitalize that way. But it tells you the idea has triumphed, folks, and this is something that Republicans ought to listen to, too. Some of them are still in the position in my mind of not getting it on a number of things, primarily this filibuster business.

Its funny how the Democrats want a limited government when constitutional rights such as the right to life are at stake. But when it comes to implementing socialism, the bigger the better.

They also are not liking the latest poll results on the Schiavo issue:

Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.

"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.

A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.

Todd Epp take note

First we hear about San Francisco banning guns and now this:

Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.

Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.

UPDATE: Daily Pundit has an update. (via Instapundit)

Obstructing gun rights

While it seems the Senate Democrats will continue the legacy of their fallen leader in regard to judicial nominations, the question turns to gun rights:

"The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" was introduced this year as S. 397 in the U.S. Senate, and H.R. 800 in the U.S. House. This critically important, NRA-backed legislation would protect law-abiding firearm manufacturers from reckless, predatory, and potentially bankrupting lawsuits.

In 2003, the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" passed the U.S. House of Representatives on an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 285-140, enjoyed more than 50 Senate cosponsors, and had the full support of President Bush. Sadly, the legislation was torpedoed in the Senate in 2004 by anti-gun zealots, including former Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who helped his fellow anti-gun Senators attach a number of anti-gun amendments to the underlying measure.

Let’s not forget Daschle campaign’s hunting ad where he looks into the camera and claims he supports the Second Amendment. That was among the biggest lies of the 2004 elections.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds found this great web site that I am blogrolling.