Eminent Domain

Since the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, I've already seen several instances of "eminent domain" being used to confiscate private property. One of the guests on Hannity & Colmes tonight formerly owned a small tire shop but was forced to sell his property so Sears could move in and take his place. This should be intolerable for both liberals and conservatives alike. Private property is the foundation of our freedoms, and the Kelo decision has bastardized the entire concept.

Herding Cats: A Life in Politics, by Trent Lott

Question: Senator, do you think in our congress we'll ever be able to get rid of the pork situation?

Senator Trent Lott: Well, first of all, you'd have to define what is pork. I have quite often defined it as federal spending north of Memphis.

Mary Mapes, OMG

RUSH: Okay, gotta hear this. We got a lot more sound bites of this, but this is the money sound bite. Brian Ross today talking to Mary Mapes of CBS says, "After 12 years of defending him, CBS and Dan Rather later admitted they couldn't vouch for the authenticity of the documents, Bill Burkett's documents, and that they should not have been used and the story should not have aired. Do you," Mary Mapes, "still think the story was true?"

MAPES: The story? Absolutely.

ROSS: This seems remarkable to me that you would sit here now and say you still find that story to be up to your standards.

MAPES: I'm perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there's proof that I haven't seen.

ROSS: But isn't it the other way around? Don't you have to prove they're authentic?

MAPES: Well, I think that's what critics of the story would say. I know more now than I did then, and I think -- I think -- they have not been proved to be false yet.

ROSS: Have they proved to be authentic, though? Isn't that really what journalists do?

MAPES: No, I don't think that's the standard.

RUSH: No, she doesn't think that's the standard! Do you understand what you just heard? Mary Mapes, Dan Rather's producer, 60 Minutes II: no, the standard is not on us to prove they're authentic. What she's saying is the standard is on critics to prove that they're not. She can take anything she wants, put it on the air, without authenticating it, without verifying it, and it's up to critics to disprove it. Now, I think what's going on here, I don't think she's that far out when it comes to all these people in the mainstream press. I think this is the way they look at things. I really do! It's up to the critics to prove this is not true. That's why Rather is out there still saying he wishes he could pursue the story. He still believes it's true even though the documents may be forged. He still thinks the story is true because nobody's proven the story isn't true even though they've proven the documents are forgeries, which Mary Mapes still can't admit. I mean, this is a true basket case in front of your eyes.

Daily Journal Entries

• Tax Gouging – $.63 = taxes (local+state+federal) on 1 gallon of gasoline in NY; national average = ±$.45/gallon. If "Big Oil" is making 10% profits on each gallon of gasoline sold, and that is considered excessive, what do we make of government profits that are 4-6 times that?
• 3 bombs detonated in American hotels in Jordan; one suicide bomber blew himself up after walking into a Muslim wedding party — illustrative of terrorist outlook. In my opinion, this contradicts those who are of the mindset that Americans are primarily responsible for the terrorists' actions. Why would they deliberately murder fellow Muslims if they were simply "insurgents?"

Federal Income Taxes Charts (updated)

The Content of Our Character, by Shelby Steele

"Social victims may be collectively entitled, but they are all too often individually demoralized. Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change." p. 14.

"Personal responsibility is the brick and mortar of power." p. 33

"Another liability of affirmative action comes from the fact that it indirectly encourages blacks to exploit their own past victimization as a source of power and privilege. Victimization, like implied inferiority, is what justifies preference, so that to receive the benefits of preferential treatment one must, to some extent, become invested in the view of one's self as a victim. In this way, affirmative action nurtures a victim-focused identity in blacks. The obvious irony here is that we become inadvertently invested in the very condition we are trying to overcome." p. 118

"It is certainly true that white maleness has long been an unfair source of power. But the sin of white male power is precisely its use of race and gender as a source of entitlement. When minorities and women use their race, ethnicity, and gender in the same way, they not only commit the same sin but also, indirectly, sanction the very form of power that oppressed them in the first place." p. 141