Say "NO" to the Illegal Alien Day Labor Center

Wednesday's the day the city may move forward with this plan to connect illegal aliens with employers who would then illegal employ them (using undoubtedly their illegally obtained ID, stealing someone's ID).
If they weren't illegal they could use one of the 200 temporary worker agencies within the city of Portland.
Contact Tom Potter here. Be nice please.

Hillary's Cleavage

The Harlot has shown her cleavage before. Here's a screen shot from 2006.

Michael Vick: Dog Hater or Victim?

Sports columnist Dan Wetzel has played the race card:

"Not long after Vick got inside the courthouse – and in a scene that was repeated when he left less than two hours later – the two sides clashed in shouted voices and dueling signs.

White people screaming for justice; black people asking if they still remember everything justice entails.

That a case involving dog fighting can break so quickly along racial lines is a testament to how it bubbles below just about everything in this country. We all wish it wasn't so, including both sides here. No one wanted this. Almost no one even wanted to acknowledge it. But it was there, plain as day in black and white.

"I wouldn't say it's a racial thing," said David Williams, an African American, in a hopeful tone. "It's not racial. But for these animal rights people to take one person and crucify him isn't fair."

The thing is, the "animal rights people" here were an estimated 90 percent white. The pro-Vick/due process crowd was probably 95 percent black."

Dan, here's a clue: The animal rights protesters don't worry about their jobs, their next meals, their bills or whether they'll be discriminated against. Their beliefs are followed with fanatical religious fervor. They're in the Taliban wing of the professional protester crowd. But in this case, Michael Vick is wrong and dog lovers are right.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

Thanks to Rush Limbaugh for the photo shop!

Tom Joscelyn of the Weekly Standard on Iraq and Al Qaeda and why the democrats refuse to acknowledge that's who we fight! Here it is.

Take Over of Guv's Office by Union Friends Complete

After installing two big union bosses as right hands in his front office, now Governor Kulongoski has paid back another political promise by installing Patty Wentz, a former Willamette Week reporter and mouthpiece of all things waaaay left of center,as his official spokeswoman for Governor Kulongoski while Anna Richter Taylor is on maternity leave. Read it here and here.
Among the issues Wentz and her union backed group "Our Oregon" were involved with this past legislative session:

• "Predatory" lending practices which put out of business dozens of pay day loan companies which loaned money to people who can't get bank loans. Where do poor people go to borrow money now? (Patty Wentz probably will set up a loan business with the state tax money.)
• The "Healthy Kids" plan which would have imposed an 85 cent tax on every pack of cigarettes to "fund" universal health care for kids whose parents earn more than 80K a year. By funding we mean less than half of this money grab dole would have been used to fund the universal health care plan.
  
• The subprime mortgage market felt Wentz's wrath. She sought to make individual mortgage lenders personally responsible for customers who couldn't make their payments---for 3 years.

There's much more. Just call her Patty "redistributionism" Wentz.

Free Ryan and Cory

The 7th grader spanking case is falling apart under the scrutiny of the media and common sensical folks who can tell a crime from a crock! Brad Berry, Yamhill County DA, should drop the charges. Now.
More later.

Over and Out: Ward Churchill

From the Rocky Mountain News:
The University of Colorado Board of Regents on Tuesday fired Ward Churchill, the professor whose remarks likening some Sept. 11 victims to Nazi Adolf Eichmann provoked national outrage and led to an investigation of research misconduct.
Churchill vowed to sue after the 8-1 vote was announced, saying: "New game, new game.

Behind the move to dismiss Ward Churchill are questions about the accuracy and integrity of his scholarly works. Findings of a faculty investigative committee released last year:

Historical facts: Churchill manufactured events in which European Americans intentionally spread smallpox to kill Indians. In one such event, the Army is said to have distributed tainted blankets to Mandan Indians. But no evidence backs the claim.

Elsewhere, Churchill claimed the United States adopted a formal racial code to identify Indians, similar to the code used by the Nazis to identify Jews. U.S. law includes no such code, legal scholars say.

Plagiarism: Churchill published an essay on water issues in Canada that closely resembles a pamphlet by a Canadian environmental group. He also borrowed a work on fishing rights originally published by Canadian scholar Fay Cohen.

Falsifying sources: Churchill wrote essays under the names of other people, which he then cited as independent sources in his footnotes.

The investigative panel described the charges as serious.

Is This Generation Better Than the Boomers?

Yes, accoding to a piece in the Weekly Standard. They answered the call to fight for liberty instead of tuning out and turning on.

n the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn't answer the phone.

Confronted with a generation-defining conflict, the cold war, the Boomers--those, at any rate, who came to be emblematic of their generation--took the opposite path from their parents during World War II. Sadly, the excesses of Woodstock became the face of the Boomers' response to their moment of challenge. War protests where agitated youths derided American soldiers as baby-killers added no luster to their image.

Few of the leading lights of that generation joined the military. Most calculated how they could avoid military service, and their attitude rippled through the rest of the century. In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, military service didn't occur to most young people as an option, let alone a duty.

But now, once again, history is calling. Fortunately, the present generation appears more reminiscent of their grandparents than their parents.

Read the rest here.

Planning Poohbahs Propose Moving Sauvie Island Bridge to the Pearl --but Just for Bikes and Peds

I don't know for sure if this is the Portland Business Journal's annual joke edition or not. Could someone please tell me if this story is for real? The content seems like it's a parody of the so called "sustainability" * mindset.
*sustainability: whatever that means

Pearl wants Sauvie Bridge

Sauvie Island Bridge may find new life as a bike/pedestrian span
Portland Business Journal - July 20, 2007
by Andy Giegerich
Taking sustainability to drastic new levels, the city of Portland wants to spend $5 million to move the Sauvie Island Bridge to the Pearl District. That's twice the cost it would take to build a new bridge in the Pearl altogether.
The neighbors and the city aim to create an Interstate 405 overpass connecting the Pearl and the Northwest 23rd Avenue area at Northwest Flanders Street. Once installed, the structure would limit its traffic to bicycles and pedestrians, serving as the centerpiece of a proposed Flanders Street "bike boulevard."

Oregon Planning Poohbahs Mystified by Free Market Successes

From the spectacular success of Bridgeport to the "gridlock" expected at the IKEA store, the planning class is called out as ineffectual in two stories (here and here) in the Zero today.
As well they should.

Buried in section D in the Zero today, the Bridgeport Village success is recounted by the reporter puncuated in a story with a variety of sniffs from a couple central planning acolytes. Why turn up their nose at one of the most elegant and happening places to be in the area? Not enough high density, affordable housing. Planning Czars and Czarinas now believe that Bridgeport needs to be REDESIGNATED as a regional shopping center in order to force upon developers high density housing and to attract mass transit (apparently buses don't count). If you play with the planners they throw federal dollars at developers; that's the carrot.

The rub is that a developer is already planning high density apartments within a mile of the place---and he didn't need to be paid off.

Like the situation at Bandon Dunes, it looks as if planners want to go back, reclassify a privately planned and developed area and claim the job creation, transportation "successes" (when they lay the train tracks somewhere around there) and the high density planning as their planning success. Plus they'll throw money at them.
Why don't you guys save the tax dollars and just stay out of it?The other story is the one about IKEA. It's a well known story. Central planners planned a high density center and even gave away taxpayer land, rights of way, and money to Bechtel to do it in exchange for a light rail contract. Part of the deal, of course, was that big box stores were not allowed. No WalMart. No Costco. Nuttin, honey. But the location, lack of planned parking and other "amenities" were so antithetical to making money in that crummy location that nobody came to the party. IKEA made a pitch, and, the planning poohbahs, elected officials, et al looked the other way, removed some of their mandates and said ok. Now we have Randy Leonard complaining about their sign. Gads.
IKEA has been trying to get into the Portland market for awhile. Costco wants to expand as does WalMart.
Planners: you have "Peter Principled" your way out of your relevance.
Bonus question for Walmart haters: From what countries are most of the items in IKEA imported?
China and Poland.
For extra credit check out the story about Portland's "Smart" Growth by the Cato Institute here. It's great reading.

Monday Question: Why Do Liberals Hate Rich People?

Oh, sure, I know there are a lot of rich liberals but why do they play the class envy card when it comes to public policy?
State big brains are talking about tax changes which might include a switch from property tax to sales tax unless you own more than $5 mil worth of property and then you get stuck with both.
Between this idea and the M 37 so called "fix" it seems as if Oregon liberals are trying to make it as unattractive as possible to amass land or even keep the stuff you had and had designs on developing at some point. Large lots are discouraged.
Is it because they think it unseemly to own that much land or is it because they want more control over private property--or is it both?

You Heard it Here First (Again): Will Wyden Now go After Big Grocery?

Ethanol is creating higher prices for groceries part two:

What’s the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?

Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.

This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.

The rest of the story here.

Jim Webb Cheapshot

Just because their opposition to the war is political in nature and has nothing to do with national security, doesn't mean you attribute Lindsay Graham's comments to politics. Obviously, after reading the polls Graham's comments are clearly less "political" in nature. Webb's been outed as a cheap shot artist and a phony.

"Cartoonist" Compares US Soldiers to Suicide Bombers

...another Ted Rall hit piece.
Like calling US Soldiers and Allies no better than Nazis, Viet Cong, Taliban.

Necessity? Meet Invention. Bonus: OFIR a "Restrictionist" Group

Interesting story in the Zero this morning about a new piece of equipment that would pick wine grapes in record time without scores of field workers. Strangely, the story is not so much a laudatory tale about man's mastery over nature or necessity being the mother of invention or streamlining an old fashioned business. No this story is cautionary and borderline sad (not to mention pedantic on the part of the reporter). Why? Because this piece of machinery will put some ILLEGAL aliens out of business.
Plus, as a bonus part of the story, Oregonians for Immigration Reform is described as a "restrictionist" group. Wow, being against illegal behavior is now 'restrictionist.' Imagine being a group opposing drinking and driving, for instance. Would MADD ever be referred to as a "restrictionist group" because they wanted to enforce the laws against drinking and driving?
The following is an excerpt from the story and a picture of the new wine grape picker.

Suddenly, vineyard owners were calling Capps to schedule demonstrations, saying they couldn't cope with worsening worker shortages -- or immigration raids. Their concerns were heightened after a U.S. Senate immigration bill that would have offered legal status for up to 900,000 undocumented agricultural workers failed, and immigration officers detained nearly 200 workers at a Portland produce processing plant.

Oregonians for Immigration Reform, a restrictionist group, touted the European machine as a beacon of a future without illegal labor.

"As soon as word about this got out, the immigration issue was the first thing that came up," Capps said. "The bloggers are all over it. They're saying, 'Finally, see? We told you that you could get by without all this immigration.' "

He's an Illegal Alien, Rapist, Suspected Murderer...and a Voter in Washington State

The Shark at Sound Politics found that the man suspected of kidnapping and murdering 12 year old Zina Linnik of Tacoma is not only an illegal alien, pervert but a registered voter. Gosh, when they're not sending dogs ballots they're letting felonious pervert illegal aliens cast ballots. Lovely.

County

Last Name

First / Middle Name

M/F

Number

Street

City

Last Voted

Birthdate

Registered

PAV

Status

Cong.

Leg.

Prec.

PI

ADHAHN

TERAPON D

M

82e APT

173RD ST S

SPANAWAY

1964-AUG-30

2002-MAR-08

N

A

9

2

2012

Data is from Secretary of State's Voter Registration Database public release of Jan. 26, 2007

The Orb says the illegal alien pervert and suspected child kidnapper/murderer may be wanted in connection with other cases. Surprise!

If You Pass the Laws...Illegal Aliens Will Self Deport

It's happening in Georgia. It could happen here too if our elected officials just had a little spine.


Earl Bluenauer

Let Me Get This Straight: Nuremberg Files "Wanted" Posters Bad. Anti Cop "Wanted Posters" Good?

The Mercury is all over the story here and I thank them for these images.
Richard Prentice here was stopped by a cop while he was putting up that wanted poster. Multnomah county has decided not to charge him for 'advertising on the street.'

Kim Kagan, author of the Iraq Report, on the Victoria Taft Show Today

Get the latest on Operation Phantom Thunder (the surge) here.
I'll probably be taking a couple of calls but would prefer your questions via email at victoria@victoriataft.com.
She'll be on at 7:05. Stream the show here.
John Bohner calls the Democrats, Smith, Snowe et al "wimps."
The president spoke today:

In my address to the nation in January, I put it this way: If we increase our support at this crucial moment we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home. The real debate over Iraq is between those who think the fight is lost or not worth the cost, and those that believe the fight can be won and that, as difficult as the fight is, the cost of defeat would be far higher.

I believe we can succeed in Iraq, and I know we must. So we're working to defeat al Qaeda and other extremists, and aid the rise of an Iraqi government that can protect its people, deliver basic services, and be an ally in the war against these extremists and radicals. By doing this, we'll create the conditions that would allow our troops to begin coming home, while securing our long-term national interest in Iraq and in the region.

The fight in Iraq is part of a broader struggle that's unfolding across the region. The same region in Iran -- the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe Israel off the map is also providing sophisticated IEDs to extremists in Iraq who are using them to kill American soldiers. The same Hezbollah terrorists who are waging war against the forces of democracy in Lebanon are training extremists to do the same against coalition forces in Iraq. The same Syrian regime that provides support and sanctuary for Islamic jihad and Hamas has refused to close its airport in Damascus to suicide bombers headed to Iraq. All these extremist groups would be emboldened by a precipitous American withdrawal, which would confuse and frighten friends and allies in the region.

There is something else I want to ask you about as well. If the American people are so sick and tired of this war, and they are, if they're sick of the wanton killing by al qaeda and extremists, don't you think they would be even more disgusted, angered, and unwilling to have that kind of violence in the United States?
From the press conference this morning occured this exchange:

Toby.

Q Mr. President, in addition to members of your own party, the American public is clamoring for a change of course in Iraq. Why are you so resistant to that idea, and how much longer are you willing to give the surge to work before considering a change in this policy?

THE PRESIDENT: First, I understand why the American people are -- you know, they're tired of the war. There is -- people are -- there is a war fatigue in America. It's affecting our psychology. I've said this before. I understand that this is an ugly war. It's a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective. It doesn't surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people.

Part of that concern is whether or not we can win; whether or not the objective is achievable. People don't want our troops in harm's way if that which we are trying to achieve can't be accomplished. I feel the same way. I cannot look a mother and father of a troop in the eye and say, I'm sending your kid into combat, but I don't think we can achieve the objective. I wouldn't do that to a parent or a husband or wife of a soldier.

Earl Blumenauer

Livin' the Nightmare: Now Everybody Will Know...

The Cato Institute 'outs' Portland's fraud as a livability mecca. Find the report here.
Here are the Five Myths as pointed out in the report:
Myth #1: Portland "loves" transit
Myth #2: Transit Oriented Development (doesn't happen unless the government builds it)
Myth #3: Development Oriented Transit
Myth #4: Portland "curbed" sprawl--they just went to Vancouver, Beaverton and Gresham!
Myth #5: Portlanders "love" planning!

Earl Blumenauer

Retreat Now, Annihilation Later

On the "panty waisted" Senators now calling for retreat from Iraq beginning in 120 days, Tony Blankley (read here) has a message for you:

...senators who today proudly call for retreat will then be hiding their faces in shame. And deservedly so. And the public will remember.Our staying power, unflinching persistence in the face of adversity, muscular capacity to impose order on chaos and eventual slaughtering of terrorists who are trying to drive us out will do more to win the "hearts and minds" of potentially radical Islamists around the world than all the little sermons about our belief in Islam as the religion of peace. As bin Laden once famously observed -- people follow the strong horse.
We have two choices: Use our vast resources to prove we are the strong horse or get ready to be taken to the glue factory.

Earl Blumenauer

Why Are the Democrats Lying?

The democrats have been calling for the reinstatement of the "Fairness Doctrine" for years now, and at the point at which the volume of that demand has reached a Spinal Tap "11" they pull back and claim naw, we never called for that.
What's with the lying, anyway?
In 2002 the Oregon Democrat Party passed a resolution calling for an end to what they derisively call "hate radio." Remember? It read:
Resolutions adopted by the Democratic Convention
March 10, 2002
1. Democratic Party Call to Action
Where as, extreme right-wing talk radio dominates nearly 90% of the talk-radio market, and democrtic, environmental and labor issues are lambasted 24 hours a day without challenge, Whereas, the Government and Political Reform Legislative Agnda from theis convention call for the reinstatement of the "Fairness Doctrine."
It goes on to commend D's to monitor hate radio and keep a data base.

From the Eugene Register Guard in 2002:

"And last month, the Oregon Democratic Party's central committee passed a resolution calling for the reinstatement of the "fairness doctrine" to require equal time for all sides of political debates on the air. The resolution also urged fellow party members to monitor talk-radio hosts for anti-Democratic bias, increase participation by calling into talk shows, and pressure radio stations and their advertisers to "restore balanced discourse to the public air waves."

And of course there's the discussion recently about how Senators Clinton and Boxer discussed a "legislative fix" to talk radio. Listen to the discussion of that here.
And as World Net Daily compiled, a bunch of lawmakers who think that the only way to win the debate is to stifle it said:

"In my view, talk radio tends to be one-sided. It also tends to be dwelling in hyperbole," she said. "It's explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot of information."
Pressed by Wallace about whether she is for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, Feinstein said, "Well, I'm looking at it."
Following that exchange, others were more direct.
"It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine," said Durbin. "I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision."
Kerry, the 2004 presidential nominee for the Democrats, also came out swinging.
"I think the Fairness Doctrine ought to be there, and I also think equal time doctrine ought to come back," he said on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. "These are the people that wiped out ... one of the most profound changes in the balance of the media is when the conservatives got rid of the equal time requirements and the result is that they have been able to squeeze down and squeeze out opinion of opposing views and I think its been a very important transition in the imbalance of our public eye."

Earl Blumenauer

Trains, Trams, Scams, but No ($ for) Automobiles

Thank you Portland Tribune for telling some of the story about how most of our transportation dollars go for light rail...and not roads. 97% of the people in Oregon do NOT use public transportation. They need their cars for work. Find the story here. Below is a telling excerpt:

Meanwhile, Commissioner Sam Adams recently wrapped up a series of neighborhood meetings on the city’s growing street maintenance problems.

During the meetings, Adams said Portland has a $422 million backlog of transportation maintenance needs that is increasing by $9 million a year. Problems include 127 miles of unpaved streets and 60 miles of arterial streets without sidewalks.

“The economy is suffering, and people are getting injured and killed because we can’t maintain our streets,” he said.

The reason? All the transportation dollars are going for light rail and train projects because THAT'S THE MONEY THEY'RE ASKING FOR---THEY'RE NOT ASKING FOR MONEY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE/ROAD IMPROVEMENTS.
Get this: people are dying because these social engineers won't even try to accommodate the 97% of Oregonians who use their personal automobiles to conduct their lives. I see a scandal here. Anybody? Anybody?

Earl Blumenauer and Operation Phantom Thunder

Earl, since the Oregonian article says today you get a 'ping' everytime someone blogs about you (read here) I thought I'd mention some reading you need to do before you blow up the chances of our winning in Iraq by calling for immediate troop withdrawal--again. Please read the Iraq Report here. No, really, read it.
Here's an excerpt since maybe your crackberry doesn't open attachments:
• Operation Phantom Thunder is the first coordinated campaign against the insurgency in Iraq. It has a greater chance of success than discrete operations. • Multiple, simultaneous operations throughout the belts should limit the movement of insurgents, who have been able to flee to other areas for safe haven in the past. • The number of U.S. casualties is likely to rise because U.S. troops are attacking enemy strongholds in Iraq’s most volatile provinces.
Conclusion • If the offensive in the belts is successful, Baghdad will be more secure because fighters and weapons will not flow freely from the suburbs to the city. • Engaging the Iraqi population in counterinsurgency efforts during clearing operations in Baghdad and the belts challenges the insurgency in Iraq. • A series of follow-up operations may occur in Baghdad or elsewhere in Iraq after Operation Phantom Thunder. • The Corps designed Phantom Thunder to last for several months, and it will take time to determine whether it has succeeded.

Crash the Taliban's Website?

The Jawa Report tells you how here.

Open Thread Monday

A new survey by an organization I've never heard of says there's more prattling on about impeaching the President over the Scooter Libby commutation. Read about the "American Research Group's" survey here. Yes, let's impeach a president for adhering to Article II, section 2 of the US Constitution (allowing a president to commute and pardon). Still beats Clinton's pardoning of CONVICTED PUERTO RICAN MURDERING TERRORISTS in the lead up to Hillary's senate race (for those of you who need the circle connected the Puerto Rican community in New York is, uh, big).
Here's a typical response by Oregon's astro turf libbies.
One of you lefties answer me this: how come you keep saying Scooter Libby dropped a dime on Plame when it was Bush hata Richard Armitage who did it?

The new surge/hold/diplomacy (ala Anbar Awakening) is working, just in time for Richard Lugar to want to pull out. For a dispassionate, non politically hewn take on what's going on in Iraq, you might want to read sources other than the NYT. Take for instance the Iraq Report here and the latest on what's worked and what's sucked so far here (if you can handle the truth). Before you gasp in mock incredulity at the fact the report is found in The Weekly Standard, maybe you should consider that they're the only ones willing to publish an outside look at the war. Yes, The Weekly Standard has been pro kill Saddam from the git go.

And finally, US authorities were able to prevent car bombing attacks by finding them before they exploded. In one case the car bomb was a dud.
Did this take place in the Al Anbar province of Iraq? Perhaps in the tribal areas outside of Kabul? No. LA. The car bombs were planted by ANIMAL RIGHTS TERRORISTS. Read here. Here's an exerpt:

The terrorists behind the American firebombs were not Islamic fanatics, but animal-rights jihadists bent on harming and intimidating scientists who conduct medical research on animals. They also have targeted employees of businesses that might work with researchers, as well as harassed the spouses and young children of researchers.
Last year, animal-rights activists went after another UCLA researcher by placing a firebomb at her doorstep -- except that they put the bomb at the wrong home. Fortunately, that bomb, too, failed to ignite.