I’m heading out for an Independence Day weekend vacation.  OK, my weekend is starting Wednesday instead of Friday afternoon…bite me!

Anywho, enjoy your Independence Day, feel free to comment on anything (whether off-topic or not, since I won’t be posting anything new), and I’ll be back on Monday.

This kind of economic ignorance is what you can expect when you let the left control the credit cards.  From Chicago:

The highest sales tax in the nation is now found in Chicago, and it’s costing Cook County residents more to buy just about everything.

As CBS 2’s Joanie Lum reports, a 1 percent sales tax hike approved by the Cook County Board for its 2008 budget went into effect on Tuesday. The hike is not sitting well with consumers or businesses.
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The 1 percent increase hikes the sales tax in Chicago to 10.25 percent. By comparison, the sales tax in Lake and Will counties is 7 percent, and in DuPage County, it’s 7.25 percent.  (The neighboring counties are LOVING this! - Ed.)

A sales tax of 10.25 percent is also significantly higher than the sales tax in other major cities. The next highest rate in the country is in Memphis at 9.25 percent. (Friggin’ wonderful. My hometown is the SECOND most expensive city in America, in term of sales tax. - Ed.) New York, Los Angeles and Dallas all have a sales tax of less than 8.3 percent, Phoenix has a tax of 6.3 percent, and Denver’s sales tax is only 3.6 percent.

The Cook County Board voted to raise the sales tax at the end of February, after a five-month stalemate on the 2008 budget. Board President Todd Stroger and his supporters ultimately prevailed, saying the tax hike was necessary to provide health care and other services.

The tax hike applies to everything but groceries, medicine, cars and boats. For larger purchases like furniture or appliances, the taxes can add up.

It will definitely be cheaper to shop in the suburbs. Buy a $500 TV in DuPage County where the taxes are 6.75 percent and you’ll pay $534, in Chicago where the taxes are 9 percent, you’ll pay $545 for that same television, and when taxes increase to 10.25 percent, you’ll pay $551.

“It’s kind of frustrating,” said David Ashmalla. “I go to Best Buy or something, and high-priced electronics – it adds like $20, $30 to a TV I bought.”

Ashmalla said he plans to avoid it.

“I’m not going to be purchasing in Chicago much more – not electronics or anything high-priced,” he said. …

Every time, liberals will expect you to get by with less money long before they expect government to get by with less money.  Why, it’s as though it’s your patriotic duty to suffer…or something.

From Harry Reid (D-NV), on why America shouldn’t be energy independent:

“Coal Makes Us Sick, Oil Makes Us Sick.”

Reid makes us all sick. Idiot.

For those who harbor delusions that the Obamessiah will steal a state or two from Dixie, dream on.  This column does a great job explaining the numbers, while conceding one point that I also concede, which is that there is one semi-Southern state that Barry O stands a reasonable chance of winning: Virginia.

But NC, MS, or GA?  Fuggetaboutit.

Freshman Dem Tim Mahoney, the guy who won pervert Mark Foley’s seat in ‘06 and is in danger of losing the seat himself this November, isn’t helping his re-election cause too much, is he?  But a faux pas like this is certain to endear him to the nutroots.  From Red State:

Tim Mahoney, freshman Democrat Congressman from Florida, really, really loves the troops. Remember last March, when he responded to questions about whether or not the ’surge’ in Iraq would work by famously saying “So what“? Well, forget it — Tim Mahoney loves the troops, and don’t you dare think otherwise.
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Take a quick look at that mailpiece. Ignore, for a moment, the possibility that picture of the troops shown in uniform was taken in Iraq — something that would be quite the faux pas on a Democrat’s mailer “Honoring Those Who Defend Our Freedom,” since we’ve all been told for quite some time now that Iraq is the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and that it has nothing to do with “defending our freedom,” or anything else besides getting cheap-as-free oil and acting on Israel’s subliminal directives.
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Look closely at his medals. As any American veteran can tell you, it’s as easy to spot the fact that those aren’t American medals as it is to tell the difference between, say, an M4 and an AK-47.

In particular, take a look at the top right medal in the gentleman’s array. Then, take a look at the image below at left. See a resemblance?

The medal is the “Order of the Patriotic War” — “an Order (decoration) of the Soviet Union,” which “was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to partisans for heroic deeds during the Great Patriotic War” [Auth. -- the Soviet designation for WWII].

The rest of the medals being worn by the gentleman on the mailer are identifiable as Soviet awards, as well.

The takeaway from this? Freshman “Blue Dog” Democrat Congressman Tim Mahoney, FL-16, loves the troops so much that neither he nor his staff could tell the difference between an American veteran and a former soldier in Iron Joe Stalin’s Red Army.

But hey, they “support the troops”, right?

So due to the non-recession, people are resorting to…grave robbery?  In a newsroom in St. Louis, someone needs to lay off the “sensationalism” bong.

Anytime you hear some dimwit regurgitate DNC talking points about the oil companies refusing to drill on lands they already lease, debunk that lie with this.  Read the whole thing, but savor the excerpt:

Oil companies take leases not because they know there’s oil on the land (or under the sea), but because they think there might be oil and need the lease in order to explore that possibility and to secure the legal right to pump it if they do find it. It’s simply ridiculous to assume, as the Democrats’ talking points do, that each and every lease actually contains a huge amount of recoverable oil, and the oil companies are simply refusing to drill there. Instead, the claim goes, the oil companies are clamoring for the right to grab up additional leases… which then, of course, they will also leave untouched.

Why are oil companies securing leases for oil they know is there but have no intention of drilling? If their goal is to not drill, why bother with the expense of a lease at all? They’re all in on it together, in this conspiracy theory, so they can all just agree to not drill at all. They hardly need to pay the government money for the right not to drill.

From Confederate Yankee:

Too bad they worship someone other than the Obamamessiah:

Prosecutors said Craig’s victims met him through a shared interest in Satan worship. They alleged Craig shackled his victims to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them inside his Albany Street home.He was charged with beating one victim with a cane and a cord and with raping a woman.

Johnson, who was third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair for the Young Democrats, was charged with two counts of aiding and abetting. Prosecutors said she knew her husband planned the crime and watched as they were committed.

She has resigned her positions with the Democratic Party, said state Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham.

When reached for comment this afternoon, Obama said, “this is not the Satan-worshiping third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party that I knew.”

Heh…for the snark, not for the crime.

When he’s not busy patronizing professional women by calling them “Sweetie”, the Obamaliar likes to spend his time engaging in some bold-faced lying laced with shameless hypocrisy.  From CNS News:

While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men.

That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s Senate office, where women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men.

Obama spoke in Albuquerque, N.M. last week about his commitment to the issue and his support of a Senate bill to make it easier to sue an employer for pay discrimination.

“Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his service. But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer,” Obama told the audience in New Mexico, a voter-swing state. “It starts with equal pay. Sixty-two percent of working women in America earn half or more than of their family’s income. But women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2008. You’d think that Washington would be united it its determination to fight for equal pay.”
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On average, women working in Obama’s Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. That’s according to data calculated from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate, which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007. Of the five people in Obama’s Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one — Obama’s administrative manager — was a woman.

The average pay for the 33 men on Obama’s staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama’s staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama’s staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)

McCain, an Arizona senator, employed a total of 69 people during the reporting period ending in the fall of 2007, but 23 of them were interns. Of his non-intern employees, 30 were women and 16 were men. After excluding interns, the average pay for the 30 women on McCain’s staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in McCain’s office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.

The Obama campaign did not respond to written questions submitted on the matter Thursday by Cybercast News Service.

Maybe his H.R. person “isn’t the H.R. person I know”!

Apparently, the leftosphere thinks this will be an effective campaign technique.  Hey, tinfoilers, knock yourselves out.  They already think it’s funny to make fun of his teeth (yanked out in the Hanoi Hilton) and his blinking, so why stop there?

Exit question: If McCain’s service, which consisted of being a bomber, qualifies as “war crimes” to the left, how exactly do they square that circle with Kerry’s shooting of a Vietnamese kid in the back?

What a sleazy son of a b#tch!  From FNC (via Michelle Malkin):

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a key military adviser for Barack Obama, dismissed John McCain’s war record as a qualification for readiness to be president.

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Clark downplayed the plane crash that led to McCain’s captivity during the Vietnam War, and said the squadron McCain commanded “wasn’t a wartime squadron.”

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility,” Clark said.
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When asked by host Bob Schieffer how he came to describe McCain as “untested and untried,” Clark said it was “because in the matters of national security policy-making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions,” adding, “He hasn’t made the calls.”

When Schieffer noted Obama has not had wartime experiences, Clark said: “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

Retorts libertarian blogger QandO:

A squadron command doesn’t become “executive experience” only if the squadron is in a combat situation. It is either an executive experience or it’s not executive experience whether at war or during peace.

Does commanding NATO not count as executive experience if NATO isn’t at war? And btw, does getting fired from his NATO command negate Clark’s claim to executive experience?

…if the willingness to fight for your country, put your life on the line and suffer the brutality McCain suffered as a POW doesn’t make the cut as far as qualifications go, how far below that does a “community organizer” show up on the list of non-qualifications?

In other words, getting fired from NATO for nearly starting a war with the Russkies is more honorable than enduring torture for your country, and a guy who has misjudged everyone around him while toiling away being a “community organizer” has more “executive experience” worthy of being commander-in-chief.  Got it.  Thanks for the clarification.  #sshole.

Continues Wicked Wes:

…But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, `I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly?

Ed Morrissey has a summary of the Obamaliar’s qualifications in those areas:

 In “the matter of national security policy making.” Barack Obama hasn’t ever done anything.

In the matter of gauging your “opponents”, Obama wants to meet with them without preconditions despite having no national-security, military, or diplomatic experience.

Barack Obama hasn’t been on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Barack Obama hasn’t had any executive experience.

Barack Obama hasn’t commanded anything, in wartime or not.

Barack Obama hasn’t dealt with diplomats in any capacity at all.

Barack Obama hasn’t ordered the bombs to fall, although to be fair, he has associated himself with someone who has — William Ayers.  (Ouch!  Score 1 for Morrissey! - Ed.)

Look, what Clark may have “inartfully” tried to say is that POW status in and of itself is not a reason to vote for someone.  That is true.  But for that disgusting waste of oxygen to suggest that Barry O’s flimsy record devoid of any substantive achievements is more noteworthy than anything McCain has done is not just partisan hackery…it’s pure, unadulterated, shameless moonbattery.

The wussification of America continues:

BEACHWOOD, Ohio — A local community has canceled an all-star game for youth baseball players because it doesn’t want to exclude anyone.

The city of Beachwood and its recreation department drew the line at age 12.

The phone lines lit up on WTAM on Thursday morning as parents and sports fans called to voice their opinion on the city canceling its all-star game for 9- to 12-year-olds.

For decades the game has been played on July 4, but in a letter to the coaches, the parks and recreation department said the tradition is over, saying its not their desire to exclude any child from participating in a recreation event.

The letter sites an article written by the CEO of the National Alliance for Youth Sports that says all-star games bruise young egos.

It’s a thought he issued to WTAM host Bob Franz.

“Below the age of 10, children don’t care. What they really care about is having fun and playing,” said Fred Engh.

Franz has one father call in whose child would have played in next week’s all-star game. He said his son is very disappointed because this was the first year he was selected and he’s worked hard all year to get this honor.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that achievement is being phased out of our culture, all in the name of political correctness.

Not surprisingly, the MSM is going crazier than a Reynolds Wrap vendor at a Kos convention over the Supreme Court’s upholding the Second Amendment last week.  The Chicago fishwrap penned an editorial calling for a repeal of the Second Amendment, which they acknowledge will never happen.  Details here.

But here is probably the line that annoyed me the most from that editorial:

The damage in this ruling is that it takes a significant public policy issue out of the hands of citizens. The people of Washington no longer have the authority to decide that, as a matter of public safety, they will prohibit handgun possession within their borders.

The left just doesn’t get it, do they?  It doesn’t amount to a fart in a whirlwind what the residents of a city or state want if the end result is a trampling on the Constitution!  This is a nation of laws, and the supreme law of our land is the United States Constitution.  We are not a democracy, but we are a constitutional republic.  That may suck for the Chicago fishwrap newsroom, but it’s good news for normal America.

Only in Liberal World would the following poll make any sense:

A recent poll in the state of Texas by The Texas Lyceum shows John McCain with a surprisingly small 5% lead over Barack Obama in the race for the presidency, 43%-38%, and also shows incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn with a razor-thin lead of 2% over Democratic Party challenger Rick Noriega, 38% -36%, in the race for a US Senate seat.

However, as usual, it’s important to look at the poll’s demographic break down — particularly by party affiliation.

The Texas Lyceum poll’s respondents self-identified 44% Dem and 32% Repub.

As we wrote back in April, a little historical perspective is in order:

Not only has a Democratic Party presidential nominee not carried Texas since 1976, but in the seven subsequent presidential elections since 1980, only Bill Clinton has come within 5% points of the Repubs’ presidential candidates (in 1992 and 1996). The five others lost by between 12.5% and 27.5% points.

But the Democratic Party’s weakness in Texas is not just about presidential races.

Since 1996, the Dems have not won a single statewide race in 74 tries. During that time, only nine Dem candidates received more than 45% of the vote (four in 1996, four in 1998, one in 2002); only three Dems have come within 5% points of their Repub opponents; only two have come within 2% points; only one has come within 1% point.

In the three Texas gubernatorial races since 1998, the Dems’ candidates have not received even 40% of the vote. In the three US Senate races since 2000, the Dems’ candidates have received more than 40% of the vote just once (43.32% in 2002).

To recap: Not only have Texas Dems lost their last 74 consecutive statewide races since 1996, they have fielded only three candidates who have come within 5% points of their Repub opponents in that 74-race stretch.

In light of these facts, in what world is it realistic for a pollster to assume that the Dems have a 12% advantage over the Repubs in party affiliation in the state of Texas?

Increasingly, it seems some pollsters need to put down the bong, the pipe, or that fourth martini glass before they decide to do a political poll — either that, or they need to see the doc about that fall when they hit their head perhaps much, much, much harder than they’d like to admit.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

A new poll by Time mirrors the one I linked to yesterday, which shows a virtual tie.  Again, let me reiterate my distrust of polls, especially at this stage of the game.  At any rate, note this snippet from the story:

McCain, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, edged out Obama on national security issues. When asked who “would best protect the U.S. against terrorism,” 53% of respondents chose McCain to just 33% for Obama.

Wow…a 20% lead is considered “edging out” Barry O?  Upon examining the parts of the poll where the Obamaliar leads by a smaller margin, such as his 6% lead over McAmnesty in female support or his 17% lead in Latino support, conspicuous by its absence is the expression “edging out”, dontcha think?  But I’m sure that’s just an editorial oversight.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Bad news for the left: Another Al Qaeda leader dies.

Worse news for the left: We’re winning the war on terror on every front.

Sorry ’bout that.

Something critical of the Obamessiah Obamaliar…from NPR?  Someone turn on the Weather Channel and see what the forecast for Hell is, pronto!

“Can someone raise questions about the experience of a candidate who’s only been a US Senator for four years and who does not have a prodigious legislative record without being stained as a bigot?”

Heartache for the socialized medicine proponents, eh?  The left has wanted us to emulate Canuckistan’s health care system, but even the “Father of Canuckistan Socialized Medicine” (unofficial title, mind you) sees his pet project as the abject failure that it clearly is.  From IBD:

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”

“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

Well, well, well!  Say it ain’t so!  Who’d have thunk it, a Canuck realizing the wonders of capitalism and the free market and recognizing the pitfalls of socialism?  Pitfalls like these:

What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.
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Sick with ovarian cancer, Sylvia de Vires, an Ontario woman afflicted with a 13-inch, fluid-filled tumor weighing 40 pounds, was unable to get timely care in Canada. She crossed the American border to Pontiac, Mich., where a surgeon removed the tumor, estimating she could not have lived longer than a few weeks more.
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De Vires is far from unusual in seeking medical treatment in the U.S. Even Canadian government officials send patients across the border, increasingly looking to American medicine to deal with their overload of patients and chronic shortage of care.

Since the spring of 2006, Ontario’s government has sent at least 164 patients to New York and Michigan for neurosurgery emergencies — defined by the Globe and Mail newspaper as “broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain.” Other provinces have followed Ontario’s example. …

In closing:

However the candidates choose to proceed, Americans should know that one of the founding fathers of Canada’s government-run health care system has turned against his own creation. If Claude Castonguay is abandoning ship, why should Americans bother climbing on board?

But yeah…let’s base our health care system on Canada’s, eh?

Which U.N. council, you ask?  Hey, I’m glad you asked!  It’s the U.N. Human Rights Council.  No doubt the irony is lost on these numbnuts.  Observe:

Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, the representative from Pakistan, echoed the ever-echoing refrain of all Islamic apologists in the West, when he complained that Littman’s initiative on genital mutilation, stoning and child marriage amounted to an “out-of-context, selective discussion on the Sharia law.” He asked that Littman not be allowed to speak: “I would therefore request the president to exercise his judgment and authority and request the speaker not to touch issues which have already been debarred from discussion in this Council.”

Apparently, free speech isn’t considered a human right…unless an American flag is being burned, that is.

Barry O last year, while courting the moonbats needed for the Dem nomination:

“. . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he ‘…believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.’”

The Obamaliar today, right before the predictable outcome of the Supreme Court - DC gun ban - Second Amendment case:

With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.’s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an “inartful” statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.

“That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator’s consistent position,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.

If, by “consistent”, you mean “Changing my mind, or at least my rhetoric, within an seven-month window”, then yeah…”consistent”!

Notes Ed Morrissey:

Suddenly, with the general election looming, Obama discovers that his campaign’s statement was inartful.  This seems rather puzzling, because before he ran for public office, Barack Obama was supposed to be a Constitutional law expert.  One might expect the “inartful” excuse on wetlands reclamation or some other esoteric matter of public policy, but the Constitution is what he supposedly studied at Columbia and Harvard.  One has to wonder whether Obama has any competence even in his own chosen field to have seven months go by before realizing that he got the Constitutional question wrong.

Wait, wait, lemme guess: “This is not the Constitution I knew”, right?