Of the six recent rulings, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' affirmation of Nebraska's marriage amendment has been most reassuring to conservative lawyers. The Nebraska amendment, passed in 2000, defined marriage as the union of opposite-sex couples and outlawed recognition of homosexual unions. On July 14, three 8th Circuit court judges upheld the amendment, saying it and other state marriage laws "are rationally related to legitimate state interests and therefore do not violate the Constitution of the United States."  The Nebraska ruling makes clear there isn't a fundamental right to same-sex "marriage," said Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Chris Stovall.

Marriage backers hail month of rulings Washington Times July 24 2006

The Nebraska Marriage Amendment was a ballot initiative that was passed by an overwhelming majority of voters.  Because it was the most restrictive of any DOMA legislation in the courts---it also banned civil unions---this court decision is especially significant.  If a DOM law as restrictive as this one can pass judical muster, it can pass anywhere.  

The Gay Marriage Advocates in Blue State havens like San Francisco or Massachuetts have shot themselves in the foot with their effort to force gay marriage down the throats of the public. Many states are reacting to this potential assault on their social values by enacting legislation that bans bands civil unions and/or the awarding of any of benefits to domestic partners. Right now, with the addition of Nebraska and Louisiana and Virginia, a total of 11 states ban civil unions or the awarding of benefits to domestic partners: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah.

If I were running the gay rights campaign, I'd have steered clear of traditional marriage in the first place, and joined forces with the growing Alternative to Marriage movement.   A more practical strategy would be to join forces with elder advocates and critics of traditional marriage to pursue the option of private contract rights as an alternative for those for whom the defination of marriage just doesn't fit.

I'm not sure how the gay marriage advocates can claim that gays have NO recognition of their partnerships in our legal system.  It was gay men during the AID crisis that pioneered the acceptance of co-habitation contracts, living wills and extending the power of attorney to medical decision making. Society is right to bestows special rights and benefits to traditional children and family.  Stable marriage and family is the root of our freedom, stability, and even our prosperity.  We are right and just to protect it from those radicals who would redefine it by judicial fiat.

But like everything, there is a balance. In our free republic, no one has the right to deny those with alternative lifestyles freedom of association, private property, privacy and legal recognition of the same.  Contract Law is rational way to recognize the rights of people with "alternative" lifestyles without undermining the special place that is reserved for traditional marriage and family.   

"At an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting requested by Lebanon, special envoy Nouhad Mahmoud warned that Israel's destruction of vital bridges, roads and buildings and the killing and maiming of hundreds of Lebanese civilians "will not resolve the problem, but will further complicate it." ----Lebanon Special Envoy Nouhad Mahmoud to U.N. Security Council Meeting.

It's seems obvious that Israel's strategy in attacking civilian infrastructure in Lebanon is to intimidate the citizenry to turn against Hezbollah. This page out of the Joseph Stalin Manual of how to suppress a civilian uprising hasn't worked to well in Palestine though. So I wonder why the Israelis think it's going to work in Lebanon. If anything, the attacks on civilian infrastructure are uniting the Lebanese population to resistance.

Which brings up the question of how to resolve this conflict. Since Hezbollah's capture (NO--it was not kidnapping) of 2 Israeli soldiers was in support of Palestine's offer for a prisoner exchange. The Palestinans offered to release Corporal Gilad Shalit in exchange for the release of 400 Palestinian women and children held by Israel. Israel can stop the Hezbollah rocket attacks by just agreeing to this prisoner exchange. If fact, given the history of prisoner exchanges between Israel and Palestine, one wonders why they didn't do this in the first place.

This is the most logical sequence of events: 1) Israel agrees to the Palestinian offer of a prisoner exchange. 2) Israel agrees to stop their attacks on the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. 3) Hezbollah stops it's rocket attacks and returns its two prisoners of war.

An alternative to a prisoner exchange might be a financial settlement of some time with Palestine. The US could agree to offer financial aid to Palestine. And Israel could agree to turn back on the money spigot to Palestine.

Of course, Corporal Gilad Shalit might just be a pawn in Israel's greater objective of removing Hezbollah from Lebanon.  Obviously Israel is not going to stand down unless the US demands it. Without US military aid, Israel is an empty shell in a military sense.

Unfortunately, President Bush acts like the US is the client state of Israel, and not the other way around.

The cussing, spitting, open-mouth chewing Bush

The cuss word that Bush used was not nearly as offensive to me as the way he chomps on a buttered roll while speaking with Tony Blair, his most important ally.

Is this how George Bush represents the America people to the world leadership? Tony Blair comes down to speak privately with Bush on his idea of putting a international peacekeeping force in Lebanon.  And Bush couldn't even stop chomping on his roll to talk to him.  And what's this, "Yo Blair"! 

From transcript, Bush said couldn't wait to go home where he said he had important work to do...like messing up some more on the job?  

I've always suspected that the invasion of Iraq was about protecting Israel's security, not our own. The blueprint for the invasion of Iraq was public information way back in 1996, and it talked about neutralizing Syria and Iran with a permanent U.S. Military force in Iraq. The goal of course, was to give Israel a free hand in getting rid of it's "Palestine Problem" and expand it borders into Lebanon, Jordan, Sinai, Syria and Iraq.

With President Bush besiged by negative public opinion and U.S. Occupation force on the defensive from a growing Iraqi Insurgency, the first phase of the blueprint was acknowledged as a total failure.  Desperate times call for desperate measures as they say. 

So it seems awfully suspicious that Israel would respond to a simple POW exchange with retaliation against unarmed civilians. And use it to incite a full blown war with Lebanon to provoke Syria or Iran to intervene. With certified right-wing nuts running around calling for "World War III", and the Bush Administration's reputation for lying about anything remotely connected to Mideast, it's not that crazy to believe this is the next step in the conspiracy to incite the world to war.   

It seems I'm not the only one who is suspicious. It's all too convenient. 

World Net Daily talks about a new study on why Bush's claim that his tax cuts resulted in less of a deficit GROWTH then predicted is a little irrelevant.  Using annual deficits as a percentage of GDP as your measure of success doesn't take into account the 60 years of accumulated debt and obligations we have to deal with. 

What's really got me worried is what happens when China, Japan and Asia decide that it's not in their interest to continue to finance our budget deficits. Here's a interesting debate on this.  

Bush is now claiming his tax cuts have reduced the deficits. The reduction he's bragging about is a reduction against the 2004 deficit estimate.  In other words, Bush is claiming that his tax policies have reduced the deficit to a level that it never (thankfully) even reached.

The jist of the Bush argument is that estimated budget deficits as a percentage of GDP fell from 3.2% to 2.3%, even with huge projected expenses from Katrina and the Iraq War. In other words, no need to cut spending, because the tax cuts pay for themselves.

But the devil is in the details. One problem with that line of thinking is that it ignores the TOTAL federal deficit as a percentage of GDP under Bush is as high as it was under Clinton's tax-and-spend policies and twice as high as it was under Nixon.  In other words, the total debt per American citizen is at record high under Bush's policies.  Another way of looking at it, is that Bush has added $3.75 of long term debt for every dollar he's given the U.S. taxpayer in a tax cut.   Bush's "supply side" economic plan of giving a short term tax breaks financed with long term debt has resulted in LESS revenue growth not more.

The Laffer Curve was always used as sucker bait for fools who think that you can get something for nothing.  But the fact remains that the additional tax revenue that may result is NEVER more then the deficits they create. 

We've been listening to President Bush's LIES about Iraq for 3 years now.  So when this blundering fool starts talking about Israel's right to defend itself, any rational individual begins to wonder what the truth is.  Supposedly, the  brutality of the Israeli "retaliation" is for the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.  However, the truth is that Israel is holding over 9,000 Palestinan prisioners.  A lot of them are adolescent boys whose "crime" against Israel was throwing rocks at an Israeli tank.

Let's all remember that the motivation for the kidnapping was the desperate hope of the release of women and children held by Israel.

Your heart goes out to the brave Palestinan people whose lives have been made so desperate by the Jewish occupation of their homeland, can still muster the will to shout defiance at their oppressors. The fact that the Israelis are inflicting this suffering using U.S. made tanks and aircraft paid for by the U.S. taxpayer should make any Patriotic American ashamed of his country. 

As everyone knows, the bulk of Bush's tax cuts went to the top 20%.  Essentially, the Bush tax cut took the surplus from the Social Security payroll tax and redistributed it from the middle class to the Leisure classes.

Bush and the Repblicans have been touting tax cuts to Americans stuck between the rising costs of housing, health care and education and their shrinking salaries.

But the tax issue is a edge that cuts in both directions.  Here's a tax plan that would give the middle class and the working class the tax break it deserves. It's based on the Tobin Tax which taxes speculative activity instead of labor.

Excellent article by Steve Sailor in the upcoming issue of American Conservative Magazine on the sickness in the Democrat Party that has been electing Republicans for the last 35 years.

 Excerpt from What's Wrong with the Democrats

The Democrats' fundamental weakness is that even after four decades of their strenuously celebrating the moral supremacy of every organized minority, our political system remains, more or less, one of majority rule. It's hard to win a majority if you don't personally want to be part of the majority because your ego centers around visualizing yourself as better than the average American. If you don't like the American majority, either in principle or in person, the majority won't like you.

The GOP, in contrast, presents itself as the party of normal Americans -- or, at least, of normal American voters, whose demographic transformation lags decades behind the raw population totals... The President carried 58 percent of the white vote, and, perhaps most importantly, 66 percent of married white men and 61 percent of married white women....

Crucially, the Democrats garner the votes of merely one out of three of America's wedded white guys -- the demographic segment that, to a fair if impolitic approximation, not only runs the country but also keeps the country running. Because Democrats have increasingly alienated the group who, more than any other, gets things done in America, it's become implausible for the Democrats to portray themselves as the natural governing party. Thus, they have become dependent upon Republican miscues, which, luckily for the Democrats (although not for the country), have been abundant.

This relegates the Democrats to trying to lash together unwieldy coalitions of minorities united mainly in their alienation from majority attitudes. This is possible, but it's harder than the GOP's task of mobilizing a fairly cohesive body of supporters. The Democrats resemble the ramshackle, squabbling multi-tribe army of the Persian Empire and the Republicans the relatively cohesive phalanxes of Alexander.

Looks like the propaganda commissars of the Republican Party are slipping little factoids into the media stream here and there so the party apparatchiks have something to feed the "base"---the true believers in the Red States who are beginning to wake up to the fact that Bush lied to them. 

Piles of old and out-of-date munitions buried in the desert over 10 years ago does not redeem the lie that Bush made in his State of the Union speech that Saddam possessed 30,000 munitions and 500 tons of Sarin gas. The CIA predicted that US forces would find piles of old munitions buried here and there---so what?

The evidence that George W. Bush approved of a criminal conspiracy to incite the world to war seems clear enough to me.   When reality sets in for a lot of Red Staters, the sense of betrayal will be deep. We are seeing the tip of the iceberg in the outpouring against Bush's Immigration Amnesty Plan.

Whether enough of the Bubbas in the Red States will hold their nose and vote in the Democrats remains to be seen. But if the Democrats can seize the House or the Senate, the Bush Administration will spend the last 2 years of it's term defending itself in investigations and hearings.