Kitty Litter

 
FOLLOW THE MONEY

Time is a precious commodity for me today, so I'm going to post an eye-popper of an article in its entirety. If you know of anyone who is even thinking about sitting out the coming election, have them read this article. God bless President Bush.

Former GOP Staff Attorney Says 'Profit Motive' Drives Judiciary Battles
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 20, 2004

(Editor's Note: Adds comments from the National Abortion Federation.)

(CNSNews.com) - The former Republican counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee has told CNSNews.com that the quest for money, more than liberal political ideology, is what drives the most effective special interest groups - abortion lobbyists, trial lawyers and labor unions - fighting against President Bush's conservative judicial nominees.

"What would be truly shocking to the American people is the profit motive that is involved," Manuel Miranda said.

Miranda resigned under pressure from Democrats angry that he read memos on a shared government computer detailing Democratic senators' and liberal activists' plans to derail those nominees.

He told CNSNews.com Wednesday - during the first in-depth interview since his resignation - that the abortion industry and trial lawyers are behind the most powerful efforts to keep conservative jurists off the federal bench.

Miranda said many Americans would be stunned to learn what he claimed was the driving force behind the groups' efforts.

Many prominent conservatives believe that philosophical and moral differences of opinion are the primary reason liberals try to keep conservative nominees from being confirmed to the federal bench. But Miranda said those are actually secondary incentives.

"It isn't just about 'abortion rights,' the battle is about abortion profits," Miranda explained. "The axis of profits that undergirds the fight in the Judiciary Committee is the axis between trial lawyers - who want particular types of judges who rule in particular ways on their cases - and, not the 'abortion rights' lobby, but the abortion clinics ' lobby.

"The 'abortion rights' lobby is just a front for something much worse," Miranda continued, "which is the abortion clinics' lobby, represented by the National Abortion Federation."

Miranda claimed abortion clinics make, on average, $1,000 profit for every abortion they perform.

"That's where the money is," Miranda insisted. "That's what is really happening here."

In an emailed response to CNSNews.com's request for an interview for this article, National Abortion Federation President and CEO Vicki Saporta did not address Miranda's allegations.

"The battle over judicial nominees is about preserving a fair and balanced judiciary that will protect the rights and freedoms that mainstream Americans hold dear," Saporta wrote.

Another common misconception, Miranda said, is that Republicans have greater access to financial resources to fight such battles.

"There is an appearance that 'big money' is not behind the Democratic Party and that is absolutely false," Miranda said.

"The abortion clinics' lobby is an industry as large as any industry that lobbies in Washington and, when combined with the single-mindedness of trial lawyers in trying to obtain a particular kind of judge, the enormity of the money that is behind the Democratic push is astounding and shocking," he added.

Carlton Carl, spokesman for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), disputed Miranda's accusation Thursday.

"The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has never been involved in federal judicial nominations or confirmation fights, and to suggest otherwise is a blatant lie," Carl said.

Upon clarification that Miranda's comments referred to "trial lawyers" in general, not ATLA specifically, Carl responded, "I believe, in the United States of America, individuals can do what they want in terms of contacting their members of Congress to achieve whatever outcome they desire."

Asked about whether individual trial lawyers and firms might have contributed to a particular politician or party in an attempt to influence the judicial confirmation process, Carl responded that "the money devoted to attempting to influence the judicial process, as well as the political process, by any group pales in comparison to that of corporate wrongdoers."

But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit organization that tracks political contributions, ATLA and its members rank fourth on the list of the top 100 political contributors since 1989. Since then, ATLA and its members have given $22,413,466 in political contributions, 85 percent of it to Democrats and 11 percent to Republicans.

With the exception of the National Association of Realtors, which comes in at number two, and Phillip Morris at number eight, ATLA's companions among the top nine contributors are government employees and other labor unions. Altogether, they contributed 92 percent of a combined $154.3 million to Democrats and only five percent of the total to Republicans.

"When you combine it then with the interests of the labor movement," Miranda observed, "then you start seeing that the effort to control the judiciary is really an enormous and well orchestrated profit-making business."

Miranda said the difference between the way many Republicans perceive the judicial confirmation battles and the reality of those battles "boggles the mind."

"The reason conservatives are upset with Republicans currently and normally," Miranda concluded, "is that they give the appearance of not knowing that this is a war and not a garden party."

(Editor's note: During CNSNews.com's interview with Manuel Miranda, he explained why he believes he and other Republican staffers were legally, morally and ethically authorized to read Democrats' strategy memos on the judicial confirmation process. Those memos, Miranda charged, contain evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. A second article, based on that portion of the interview, will be published Monday, Feb. 23.)

 
THE JOHN F***ING KERRY FILE

This is a goodie: “Does Teresa Heinz Trust John Kerry? If not, why should we?” Excellent question, don’t you agree? Contrary to her ditzy image, Teraaaaaaza is very savvy about matters of money and men … especially scraggly-looking gigolo-types. “Heinz Kerry must have had some inkling that the day might come when her second husband would need her money. And knowing that, she didn't make it available. That doesn't make her a bad wife. But it does raise a disconcerting question for voters. If Teresa Heinz Kerry won't give John Kerry the keys to the car, why should we?”

Y’know, with all her money, she could have chosen any number of men; why this sorry wannabe (see next article)?


SHADOW FIGURE

Anything Ted Kennedy did, John F***ing Kerry did, too, right down to casting identical votes. It’s called KENNEDY ENVY. Yeah, that’s what this world needs more of: Kennedy idolatry.


NASTY NETSKY

“The second version of a two-day-old virus, NetSky, has started spreading more successfully than its parent, antivirus researchers said on Wednesday.
The new variant, NetSky.b, uses e-mail to sends copies of itself to potential victims--people with computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. It also stores copies of itself in shared directories, apparently to facilitate its propagation via file-sharing networks.”


Check back later; I may have more. In a hurry this morning!
Myerskatt@aol.com

 
ANYBODY ORDER A MATTRESS?

Strange day yesterday. I ran some errands and came home to find a new mattress and box springs in my kitchen! I asked the neighbors, but they hadn’t ordered them. So I called DogMan who said that there was a delivery truck cruising the area as he was leaving for work. According to the delivery man, this happens a lot with this particular store.
"How?"

"Well, sometimes the store gets the address wrong and sometimes the customers do."

"Huh? How can a customer NOT know where they live?"


TALK ABOUT STRANGE …

Lately, Rush has been feeling as though he was in the Twilight Zone, until he finally figured it out the other day. I’m including the link, but in case it has been timed out, here is the pertinent part:

“Our official screener of calls put his finger on it for me. All of this razzmatazz, all of this media stuff about John Kerry is just that, it's just razzmatazz. There isn't any genuine excitement for this guy out there. There are no really excited people for John Kerry because he doesn't affect people that way.

Last night, Edwards almost won, yet they couldn't find more than 75 people to fill the hall for his speech. There was a bowling alley next door, and they were thinking about moving it over to the bowling alley just so there would be a lot of people in there. I don't think there's any excitement in this at all. I think this is all trumped up, and I think the media are complicit in this. There's just something about this that has not made sense to me from the moment Howard Dean started tanking.

I mean these are low-caliber candidates, all of them, and even the Democrats don't like them. The voter turnout is not big on the Democrat side, and they're each getting a small percentage of the vote in these races. This is all about Hillary in 2008. This is all a big sham, and it's all a big game, and I am sorry for losing sight of what I knew two years ago was going to be going on now, or a year ago at least. This is all a sham. This is all a joke, John Kerry couldn't be elected president any more than Boris the clown.”


NEVERMIND

Apparently William Peterson was not entirely serious when he threatened to leave “CSI.”


JOHN F***ING KERRY

This is from a NewsMax.com newsletter:

Sean Hannity Book: Kerry Objected to Reagan's Bombing of Terrorist Gadhafi

Special from NewsMax.com
By Carl Limbacher
Sean Hannity's book "Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism" has just been released this week, and it offers explosive revelations about Sen. John Kerry.
The Fox News Channel star and nationally syndicated radio host has unearthed a letter Kerry wrote harshly criticizing President Reagan for his retaliation against terrorist leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Specifically, the Massachusetts Democrat objected to a retaliatory strike by President Ronald Reagan against the Libyan dictator in 1986. In a never-before-published letter written shortly after Reagan ordered the strikes, Kerry complained that Reagan had overreacted to the bombing by Libyan terrorists of a Berlin disco frequented by American troops.
The Libyan-sponsored bombings killed one U.S. soldier and wounded 51. Kerry claimed that the April 1986 U.S. air strike that nearly killed Gadhafi was not "proportional."
"While I stated that my initial inclination was to support the President," Kerry wrote, "I pointed out that two essential tests had to be met in determining whether or not the U.S. action was appropriate. First, the United States had to have irrefutable evidence directly linking the Qadaffi [Gadhafi] regime to a terrorist act and, second, our response should be proportional to that act."
Though Kerry admitted that the evidence tying Tripoli to the disco bombing was "irrefutable," the U.S. had failed the proportionality test, he insisted.
"It is obvious that our response was not proportional to the disco bombing and even violated the Administration's own guidelines to hit clearly defined terrorist targets, thereby minimizing the risk to innocent civilians," he complained.
Kerry said it was a "mistake" for Reagan to have targeted the "head of state of another country - no matter how repugnant we find the leader." "We are not going to solve the problem of terrorism with this kind of retaliation," he warned. "There are numerous other actions we can take, in concert with our allies, to bring significant pressure to bear on countries supporting or harboring terrorists."
The senator's comments seem even more dangerously flawed considering the outcome of Reagan's actions. After the bombings, Gadhafi hemmed in his terrorism. In the 1990s, as NewsMax reported, he opened secret ties with the CIA to cooperate with the U.S. in counterterrorism. And just this past year, terrified of being toppled like Saddam Hussein was, Gadhafi, in a stunning move after U.S. and British negotiators applied pressure, opened his nation's nuclear and weapons programs to international inspectors.


THE ODIOUS KATIE COURIC

Couldn’t have happened to a more-deserving obnoxious twit!


E-MAIL

From Blue: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ted Kennedy *( and he was afraid you'd ask )

From LoanCat: Net users hit with two new worms:
Random e-mails infected with Netsky, Bagel hard to spot

From BD:
TAXES
Not one of the 52 following taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)
Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state & local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring & non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state & local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

What the hell happened



Myerskatt@aol.com

 
KERRY WON’T QUIT

That’s the headline, but KERRY CAN’T QUIT would be more accurate.
“The key concern for Kerry and the Democrats is that if he resigns — or even if he does not and goes on to win the White House — Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney would appoint an interim replacement.
Under Massachusetts law and the constitution, if a vacancy occurs Romney would appoint an interim senator, who would serve until the next state election in 2006. There would then be an election to fill the final two years of Kerry’s term, which ends in 2008. And in 2008 there would be an election for a full six-year term.”



TEMPUS FUGIT

Dick Morris urges Dubya to attack John F***ing Kerry NOW! Because, “ Right now, Kerry can't answer in paid advertising, no matter how much he wants to. His resources are fully engaged with the primaries. But he'll soon be free for the combat.”


A YANKEE IN DUBYA’S COURT

“[T]he Oliver Stone wing of the Democratic Party has just been blind-sided by the biggest hidden conspiracy of this entire election.
That's right - I'm talking about how George W. Bush personally engineered the A-Rod trade to the New York Yankees in order to sink John Kerry, his likely opponent.”


IT CAME OUT IN THE WASH

Yesterday Rush discovered that the Washington Post has been doing some laundry. They “bleached” one of their reporters’ quotes so as not to stain their creds with the Dems. Since this link may be timed out before you get to it, I’m printing Rush’s entire piece.

'BBC Scubs Quote February 17, 2004
On Tuesday, I cited a Monday BBC story on the Kerry affair story quoting the Washington Post's Glenn Frankel (right) as saying that the paper is "extremely reluctant to follow" this stuff, and that they wouldn't cover it even if they had pictures. Frankel also remarked, "[A]ll we have at the moment is the woman's parents who are Republicans and they don't like Senator Kerry."

I pointed out, of course, that the young woman's parents are actually Democrats. They didn't retract the woman's father's characterization of Kerry as a "sleazeball," but a statement attributed to them claimed they'd vote for the senator in November. Now get this: when I went back to read Frankel's quote on the BBC during Tuesday's program, it was gone! The version I printed Monday at 3:26 Greenwich Mean Time has the quote (version one), but it had been sanitized from the one posted Tuesday (version two) – despite bearing the same time stamp!

Who got to who here? Did the Post hear about this, get hold of BBC and say, "What the hell?" Did the paper get hold of Frankel, or did Frankel call the BBC and say, "Whoa! That doesn't look good!" It could even be that the BBC decided to rewrite the column themselves. We'll never know. Clearly, from the October Surprise to Clarence Thomas to Bush's National Guard service, we see the double standard at play. When a charge is made against Republicans, the press doesn't need any evidence at all to cover it. No, it's "the seriousness of the charge that matters" in those cases.'


RETREADS

DogMan and I both cringe when network pinheads take a great show and do formula retreads. I’ve been reading gossip page rumblings for a year now about how William Peterson seethes over “CSI: Miami,” which is a retread of his very popular and innovative “CSI,” of which he’s an executive co-producer as well as its star. So guess what? CBS is slating yet another retread for the fall called “CSI: New York.” As a result, Peterson is threatening to leave his show. What a shame.

Then I read in Page Six today a similar story: ‘February 18, 2004 -- NBC's "The Apprentice," starring Donald Trump, is so successful that the reality show's creator, Mark Burnett, is plotting a West Coast version starring DreamWorks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg (above). "It will obviously have a different name," says our source, "and Jeffrey will be in the Donald role. [Katzenberg's DreamWorks partners] Steven Spielberg and David Geffen have supposedly signed off on it." The new show will be for CBS, and the duo are meeting with network chief Les Moonves this week. A manager for Burnett said: "We are talking to them about things, but not 'The Apprentice.' They are buddies."’


Myerskatt@aol.com

 
The Facts

The following appeared in a local paper as a letter to the editor. This will put things in perspective:

"Some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war. They complain about his prosecution of it. One person recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.

Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember. It [the war] was started by terrorists on 9/11. [Terrorism has been festering and growing, steadily becoming a threat to the U.S. through many presidents, particularly Bush Sr. and Clinton.]
Let's look at the "worst" president and mismanagement claims [and compare him to some of his predecessors].

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us. Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.
[Nixon ended the Vietnam War, only to shroud his achievement by the stigma of the Watergate scandle]


Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us [on foreign soil and here at home] on multiple occasions.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us on our home soil and killed thousands of Americans, President Bush [went to war on Afghanistan and Iraq] has liberated [those] two countries, crushed the Taliban, [and] crippled al-Qaida. [He] put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people. We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.
[ This is not the worst president we've ever had. It is one of the best. But it is the worst political climate we've ever had. At the expense of the safety of Americans, the progress this President has made against Terrorism is being undermined in the quest of political power. ]


PASS IT ON!
Myerskatt@aol.com

 
FUHGEDDABOUDIT?

I’ve been skeptical from the beginning about this bimbo eruption in Camp Kerry. Don’t misunderstand me: I believe that John F***ing Kerry most definitely cheats on his wife. (I’ve heard that Teraaaaaaza, in true HRC fashion, looks the other way.) However, whether he lived up to his middle nickname with Alex Polier or not was the question.

It occurred to me that if John F***ing Kerry had wanted to diffuse the bimbo bomb preemptively, a good way to do it would be to facilitate a rumor of infidelity but with the wrong woman. Make certain there is a connection in some way to Kerry, such as dating someone who works(ed) for Camp Kerry. Alex Polier dated longtime Kerry Finance Director Peter Maroney. As added rumor-goosing, “She would joke that she was dating the next president of the United States, says a source. Polier's flippant remarks and flirtatious manner, according to friends, fueled the intrigue.” But according to Ms. Polier and John F***ing Kerry, they never ever.

So, all reports of a “shaken” Kerry aside, he has been publicly vetted for bimbos. The next time a bimbo erupts, the press will be even more reluctant to report it, and they certainly didn’t report this one until the denials sprang forth. Camp Kerry could have used Alex Polier as a preemptive strike. Her father was quoted earlier as referring to Kerry as a “sleezeball” and now says he’ll vote for him. Go figure! But it’s possible he received something to salve his humiliation.

This is all just speculation on my part … but I do wonder. After all, Monica and Bubba both lied about their affair until the infamously icky blue dress came out of the closet.


A’NOFFER HE CAN’T REFUSE

I’ve been wondering how the Clintons will react to Kerry’s rising polls. They were hoping that the Dem nominee would give Bush a run for his money but still lose in November, because Her Royal C can’t run against an incumbent in ’08. Well, John F***ing Kerry looks to be the nominee, and as it stands right now, he has a chance to beat Bush. IF that happens, Her Royal C would have to either run against Kerry in ’08 (Oh, NO, Mr. Bill!) or wait until 2012, at which time she’ll be 65 years old. Not a pretty picture. Fear not; the Clintons always have a Plan B.

‘“If Bill wants Hillary on the bottom of the ticket, all he has to do is make a few phone calls -- Kerry would have little to say in the matter if it got that far," says a DNC fundraiser. "Kerry may think he's going to be running things, but he's in for a rude awakening.”’


LARRY “LUCA BRASI” FLYNT

My apologies to Luca Brasi. Henchman Luca Brasi actually had some scruples; Larry Flynt doesn’t. I’m alerting you to even more slime to come. “Larry Flynt says he plans to market a Bush abortion story as genuine - in a book to be published this summer by Kensington Press.”

KEEP THE FAITH

As I have said all along, have faith in Dubya. No one ever won an election underestimating him, as John Podhoretz reminds us. “THE misunderestimators are back, dripping with their old familiar condescension and contempt for President Bush. Liberals who were forced by bitter circumstance over the past two-plus years to face the truth about the very formidable George W. Bush are now retreating into their old comfortable ways.”

Read it and then thank John. John Podhoretz's book "Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane" (bush-country.com) is out today.
E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com


#1 SON

From the Washington Times:

“Inconsistent candidate
What could birth order have to do with this year's presidential campaign? Perhaps more than you think. Dr. Kevin Leman, a medical psychologist and best-selling author, reveals that 23 out of 41 U.S. presidents (56 percent) were firstborns (natural leaders, highly motivated to achieve, reliable, conscientious, perfectionists and don't like surprises). President George W. Bush is the firstborn of three brothers. Sen. John Kerry, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, is the second of four children.”


#2 CANDIDATE

From that irreverent satire site ScrappleFace:

‘Dean Says NASCAR Photo Links Kerry, Bush
(2004-02-16) -- Just a week after an old photo showed presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry and actress Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally in the 1970s, Howard Dean's campaign today released a new image which appears to link Mr. Kerry with President George Bush at a NASCAR event this weekend."George Bush and John Kerry are cut from the same cloth," said Mr. Dean as he distributed copies of the picture to reporters. "A vote for Kerry is a vote for Bush." The photo appears to show Mr. Kerry, in a racing suit among a group of NASCAR drivers clustered around Mr. Bush. A spokesman for the Kerry campaign said, "The Senator is a big racing fan, and was just hanging out in the pits at Daytona as he often does at NASCAR events."’


Myerskatt@aol.com

- Kitty, 2/17/2004 10:20:00 AM