Sibby Online

Iraqi celebration...for most

Today was a historic day as the Iraqi people looked tyranny in the eye and courageously took the giant step toward democracy. But there our two groups that are not celebrating with them. One is the Islamic terrorists, and the other is America’s Democrats. Here is a comment from David Horowitz:

This "anti-war" movement has not contributed any effort to the winning of the war on which the freedom of eighteen million Iraqis hangs, and on which the very lives of thousands and tens of thousands of future terrorist victims in Iraq and all over the world may be said to depend. In the war between terror and democracy in Iraq, the political left -- including the entire left wing of the Democratic Party, whose leaders are Kennedy, Carter, Dean and Gore, and the entire left wing media whose leaders are the New York Times and the network news -- have put their weight on the scales of the other side. Never in the history of this country has so great a segment of its population so defected from its national mission. When their children ask "What did you do in the war daddy and mommy?" what will they say?

Here is more from Hugh Hewitt:

Superb coverage from Instapundit, RogerLSimon, Powerline, and Friends of Democracy. I turned on the television when I got up this morning and after just a couple of minutes concluded that I would learn nothing from CNN or the other cable shows beyond the death toll of 25. The blogopshere has rendered the nets almost irrelevant on big stories like this one. These four blogs will provide you with many more links and thus information than any combo of the nets. Fast and trustworthy versus old and distrusted.

So I unwrapped the Sunday Los Angeles Times. The cover story on the magazine? "Who's Dying in Our War."

Given that these stories are planned and their covers budgeted weeks and months in advance, can anyone imagine the thought process that accompanied this selection for this morning? A story on the sacrifice of the nearly 1,500 Americans killed and 10,000+ wounded is almost always appropriate, unless it isn't intended to be a story on their sacrifice and the suffering of their families, but is instead a crude manipulation ala Michael Moore of grief and loss to serve a political end that exploits that sacrifice to diminish it.

That's my reaction to this cover this morning. Some jerk or jerks at the Los Angeles Times decided to use the death of Americans to detract from the victory they secured over fascism and terror. They knew it would be a day of celebration in Iraq, but rather than celebrate with the Iraqi people, they chose today to run a story designed to diminish American appreciation of the achievement won at such a high cost.

Michelle Malkin also noticed the same problem with the left blogosphere:

With the exception of Sullivan, the top bloggers on the left side of the blogosphere have decided to mark this historic day by hiding under their bedcovers.

As of 1:45pm EST today,

Talking Points Memo is silent on the Iraqi elections.

Atrios is silent on the Iraqi elections.

Crooked Timber is silent on the Iraqi elections.

And Daily Kos has one post today from "Armando," who sneered:

This Election is simply, in my estimation, an exercise in pretty pictures.

Update: Wizbang and Protein Wisdom spot a left-wing blogger who decided to show his face...or another anatomical part.

More from Malkin:

While Iraqis rejoice, Ramsey Clark weeps.

John Kerry pouts.

Feminists are AWOL.

And, via Kathryn Lopez at the Corner, the unhinged members of the Democratic Underground, fume.

What a day.

Gun rights

My previous post concerned the gun issue and how it was discussed during the 2002 Senate race. I did not mention how much the gun issue separated the two candidates during the 2004 South Dakota Senate, but a Washington Times report did. This was in regard to the failed attempt at tort reform and the stoppage of frivolous lawsuits toward gun manufacturers and dealers. There are some that believe that this may be still difficult to pass, and there are some who say we have a better chance:

"There were a number of obstacles in 2004, not only the political climate and the 'poison pill' amendments, and we worked in good faith with [Senate Minority Leader] Tom Daschle, who didn't work in good faith with us," said Chris Cox, federal director for the National Rifle Association.

Mr. Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat who voted for all three amendments, has been replaced by Sen. John R. Thune, South Dakota Republican and an avid supporter of the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The South Dakota Legislature has two pro gun bills on its plate:

1): HB 1189 clarify the application of certain provisions pertaining to the sale of pistols.

2). HB1190 provide for recognition of certain valid nonresident permits to carry a concealed pistol.

I predict both bills will pass without a lot of problems. It is refreshing to see a U.S. Senator from South Dakota and the South Dakota State Legislature working in the same direction on an issue. Especially when the issue affects our freedom.

Should we raise taxes?

Social Security Choice has a couple of posts today on the left’s idea of raising taxes, but only on the rich. The first is by Louis Woodhill:

A number of Liberals, including Robert Kuttner (writing in the February 7, 2005 issue of "Business Week") and Matt Miller (writing in the February 7, 2005 issue of "Fortune") are advocating repealing Bush’s 2003 tax cuts and devoting the additional Federal revenue to Social Security. Kuttner estimates that doing this would bring in an additional $105 billion a year.

The Liberals are correct that Bush’s 2003 tax cuts were largely for the top earners in the economy. Everyone else got their tax cut in 2001. Let’s look at the actual impact on Federal Revenues of the 2003 tax cut.

As can be seen in the above graph, Federal revenues began a scary decline in the last days of the Clinton administration and fell for three fiscal years in a row. What got Federal revenues and the economy growing again was the Bush 2003 tax cut. If this tax cut were to be reversed, Federal revenues would go down, not up.

For better or worse, the top 1% of income earners are the people who make the economy go. They are the ones who employ most of the rest of us. If you try to tax them more than they think is fair, they respond by earning less, saving less, investing less, and hiring less.

The Bush 2003 tax cuts reduced the top income tax rate from about 40% to 35%. Economic research suggests that a top income tax rate of about 22% would maximize economic growth and bring in the most Federal revenue in the long run. Accordingly, even the current 35% top income tax rate is counterproductive. Raising it back to 40% would be just plain stupid.

Then there is this from Andrew Roth:

John Kerry said the solution to Social Security reform is to RAISE TAXES. On Meet the Press this morning, he said:

"And all you need to do to move Social Security into safety, well into the 22nd century, into the next century, is to roll back part of George Bush’s tax cut today."

Kerry believes we live in a static world where incentives don’t matter. He believes that if you raise taxes by 10%, you receive (cha-ching) 10% more in tax revenue. This, of course, is contrary to the Laffer Curve (a mathematical verity) and empirical evidence.

Stealing elections

David Kranz’s column began with some Steves from Mitchell. Steve Hildebrand, Steve Jarding, Steve Erpenbach, and Steve Kinsella. But there is another Steve from Mitchell that Kranz would like to forget about…that would be me! Let me demonstrate by destructing Kranz’s ending from his column today:

Weyrich continues promoting in the article a point refuted by Thune, former Attorney General Mark Barnett and former Secretary of State Joyce Hazeltine.

"Clearly the election had been stolen from Thune," Weyrich says of the 2002 election, which Johnson won by 524 votes.

John Fund has a lot of documentation in his book, "Stealing Elections", that deserve attention and says otherwise. Also why did Daschle decide a last minute lawsuit to keep the GOP out of the reservations in 2004? But I would like to bring forward the argument that David Kranz himself helped steal the gun issue from John Thune in the 2002 Senate race. Here is what I said in a June 9, 2003 post from my old web site (not all the Argus Leader links are still their):

On 5/5/03, the Argus Leader ran an editorial criticizing the negative tone of the 2004 campaign by singling out Paul Erickson for name-calling. Now that the Washington Post has reported on Steve Hildebrand’s plan to personally attack Tom Daschle opponents, will the Argus Leader editorial board give the same treatment to Hildebrand?

The editorial made this demand:

"Nothing could stop this runaway train of a campaign from starting too early. But we must start it off right. With attention to issues, not personal attacks. With attention to records, not name-calling."

I say what?!!! On 9/24/02, David Kranz covered the NRA endorsement by including name-calling in the form of claims by Tony Dean and Clark Butler that the NRA members were lying about Tim Johnson's lack of second amendment support. I know I have made this point before, but I can’t get this off my mind. The NRA endorsement was largely based on voting records, including the two Johnson made on 5/17/2000. Not only did he vote against the 2nd Amendment with vote 104, but just minutes earlier, he voted in support of the Million Mom March and its organizers and supporters. The organizer was Handgun Control Inc. The emcee was Rosie O’Donnell. Why didn’t Kranz bring up these details?

The answer is … it would have discredited Tony Dean. Tony Dean was a major part of the strategy of the Tim Johnson campaign. He was co-chairman of the turncoat Republicans. He was also charged with shutting down those who would bring up the aforementioned voting record. He did this by calling the NRA liars and then turned the gun issue into an environmental issue.

With Thune losing by only 524 votes, the bias of Kranz may have cost Thune the election. Kranz even admitted the importance of Tony Dean on 12/29/02(see Democrat future?) and 2/2/03. What he did not mention was for a guy who hunts and owns alot of guns, he doesn't know much about the second amendment. For him to neutralize the NRA, he needed help from ... David Kranz. Will the Argus Leader allow this conduct to continue in the 2004 Senate race?

Kranz had to know that Johnson losing the 2002 Senate race would mean that his long time college friend, Tom Daschle probably would lose his Senate Majority Leader position. Randell Beck failed to enforce his campaign pledge by not making his reporter clear up the accusations of lies by bringing forward to the people of South Dakota ... the voting records. At the first of this year, I confronted Randell Beck with this issue and he treated me the same way Jeff Gannon of Talon News is now being treated … by little to no response.

For more on what I sent Randell Beck, see this word file:

Download TonyDeanRole2.doc

Note there was no repeat performance by Tony Dean in the 2004 Senate race and it was not because he was running himself. I emailed Kranz and told him the readers of his column would like to know why Tony Dean decided not to run in 2004. I got no response. See my Tony Dean index for possible reasons why he laid low in 2004. You should find my confrontation with Tony Dean in Cabela's during February 2004 interesting.

After thought: The college connection between Kranz and Daschle was uncovered by myself in May 2003. I did not receive one cent from the Thune campaign. It's too bad all the focus is only on those who did. The purpose of my blog is to get out what the media refuses to disclose. It is not for sale, so you Democrats can forget about offering me money to change my tune and to spew your talking points. You have the MSM (including the Argus Leader) already to do that.

Sibby offers apology

Jon Lauck has a post on a NYT report that covers A Republican retreat that included John Thune:

In another presentation, Senator John Thune of South Dakota introduced senators to the meaning of "blogging," explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion.

This has caused concern among the mainstream media folks. I covered that anti-blogger from the Star Tribune, Nick Colemen, in a 1/12/2005 post. That post referred to the Coleman column that included comments made in a David Crisp column. Crisp is the publisher and editor of the Billings Outpost. I received this email from him:

In a Jan. 12 post, you quote a Nick Coleman column that in turn quotes me. You underline my quote and refer to it again in your comments in such a manner as to clearly imply that you believe I am a member of the "lying left."

If you intended this to be a serious charge and not just a mindless slur, then I anticipate that you will:

1. Indicate specifically when I have ever told a lie;

2. Demonstrate that I am now, or have ever been, a member of the left; or

3. Post a prompt and courteous apology.

My intentions were to portray Nick Coleman as a member of the lying left. I did not intend to include David Crisp. But I do see how readers could believe the implication. After sending and receiving emails, and researching the web, I have concluded that Crisp’s column does not contain any intentional lies. I also have not found enough evidence to say that Crisp is a member of the far-left Democrats. I sincerely apologize to David. He was only doing what he honestly thought was right.

My research did help me come to a conclusion about the true intentions of David Crisp’s column. I found a post from a Tom Watson being critical of a Jeff Jarvis. Excerpt:

Which brings me to Rather. Jeff's post yesterday had that whiff of satisfaction: "Dan Rather is stepping down from his pedestal in March. Yes, bloggers deserve some credit...." For what? For getting Rather to retire from the anchor desk? Credit? Sure, bloggers had a role in working with Republican operatives to nail CBS for its pathetically shoddy reporting on the National Guard "documents" - a story that quickly overtook the actual truth, that with or without those documents, the basic story of George Bush's Vietnam-era service hasn't changed much since the last time it came up four years ago. The disgraceful CBS document-based story was merely additive, not revelatory in the slightest; it never advanced the ball. Not only were some of the documents used in the story fakes, but the news judgment of the news division in running the piece was disastrous.

If you read through the comments, (you should read then all, it was interesting to read Jarvis’s rebuttal) you real find this comment from David Crisp:

Glad to see somebody in the blogosphere is making sense of this story. Thanks.

Now here is the opening the Crisp column used by Coleman:

South Dakota just had its equivalent of the CBS forged documents story, and hardly anyone noticed.

Actually, what happened in South Dakota might have been worse. At least there’s a chance that CBS was honestly snookered. But the South Dakota case involved a deliberate breach of public trust, with the express intent of affecting a political race.

I believe Crisp’s intention was to defend his profession, journalism. I disagree with the opening of his column, but I do not believe that he intentionally intended to say something that wasn’t true. But I still do believe it is wrong to say that what Lauck and Van Beek did, came anything close to Rathergate. Let’s see something they said that was fraudulent. Let’s get off the ‘paid’ aspect and get back on to the content of their blogs. Perhaps Crisp and the partisan Democrats will do that after reading this NewsMax report:

While the media continue their quest to "expose" conservative pundits on the Bush administration payroll, reporters don't seem to have any qualms about the fact that the nation's top elected Democrats helped bankroll liberal commentators on Air America and North Dakota talker Ed Schultz.

Unlike the Armstrong Williams case, there's been no outrage over the fact that Sens. Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle and Debbie Stabenow lined up $1.8 million in funding for Democracy Radio, which underwrote Mr. Schultz's show.

According to the Washington Post, Democracy Radio is "a non-profit organization" run by Stabenow's husband, Tom Athans, "with a board composed of three Clinton administration veterans."

Last year, Sen. Mary Landrieu hosted a fund-raiser for Athans' operation at her Washington, D.C., home, which served as a kind of coming-out party for Schultz and Air America host Randi Rhodes. Clinton, Daschle and 20 other Democrat senators were on hand to encourage party fat cats to open their wallets.

Rhodes described the scene to the New Republic, which reported last February:

"[Florida Sen. Bob] Graham told the crowd about the many Democrats who had replaced Republicans in elected office in South Florida since Rhodes went on the air there; Graham went so far as to proclaim that no Republican could win wherever Rhodes was heard.

"It wasn't long before the money was rolling in," the magazine said.

"I heard people yelling out dollar amounts," Rhodes remembered. "I thought it was two hundred and fifty dollars, but it wasn't. ... They were pledging two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

Mr. Schultz decided to express his gratitude financially, contributing $2,000 apiece to Democrats Daschle and Sen. Byron Dorgan in last year's campaign.

Like Mr. Williams, Schultz insists that all that cash hasn't influenced his radio show's content, noting that before the election he criticized John Kerry as a terrible presidential candidate.

So it was just a coincidence that when his show debuted in February, Daschle, Clinton and Dorgan were his first on-air guests.

And the fact that he won't discuss his pro-life views on the air has nothing to do with fears that it would anger his Democrat backers. Schultz maintains instead it's "a lousy talk radio topic."

One big difference from the Williams case: Schultz's media friends aren't raising any ethical questions about whether his show's content has been bought and paid for.

Now with the above in mind, lets take a look at a Jason Van Beek post from September 28, 2004 regarding an Ed Schultz program with John McCain, a Republican, disagreeing with Republican John Thune. The Argus Leader used this (perhaps at a suggestion from the Daschle campaign), as the Argus Leader ignores Democrat Zell Miller being critical of Democrat Tom Daschle. This is not the first double standard that clearly exposed the pro-Daschle bias of the Argus Leader. There are scores of them.

The above proves that Jason Van Beek’s investigative research and political analysis is worth a lot more than what the Thune campaign paid him. Van Beek's post is right on the mark, as Dan Rather’s 60 minutes presented fake documents as being authentic. And how much did Rather get paid?

David Crisp did not lie. David Crisp may not be a member of the left, although the left has used his column to support their position. But David Crisp is wrong about insisting that bloggers should have to live up to his journalistic standards. We have our own way of getting to the truth. Just ask Dan Rather and the South Dakota Daschle supporters. But do that on a rare day when they choose to be intellectually honest.

I await those who were critical of Jon and Jason to either apologize or be just as critical of Ed Schultz.