Ronald Reagan - Greatest American

The results are in & the winner is - ta-da: Ronald Reagan.

The Discovery Channel concluded its "Greatest American" program & with millions of votes in, Ronald Wilson Reagan was the winner, edging out Abraham Lincoln, who came in a close second.

Arguably, there are others who could have or should have won. We, ourselves, though a die-hard Reagan fan, would more likely select Lincoln or Washington, though Reagan would certainly be in the top five. However, we are more than pleased that Reagan won if for no other reason than to drive the Libs-Lefties nutz.

It is summed up best by the reaction of some on the AOL "Greatest American" message board: "Reagan?...You must be kidding!!!"

Of course, we half expect the lib nuts to scream that Reagan stole the vote because there was voter fraud in Florida & Ohio. They will demand a recount, which will prove that Al Gore beat Reagan. They can't have a war-for-jelly beans President beat out good ol' Al.

We love it. It wasn't enough for Reagan to cause apoplexy amongst the loonie left crowd when he was President. Now he reaches out from beyond the grave to touch them again & remind these frazzled, fizzled fools that he is here to stay in American history & in the hearts of millions. Reagan is the lib's Freddie. Pleasant dreams liberals.

$upreme Court: It's Okay to $teal Property From Private Citizen Peter & Give to Private Developer Paul

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that local government can seize people's homes & businesses for private development projects. The case involved the town of New London, Conn., which wanted to bulldoze homes & businesses so that a private developer could build a hotel, health club & offices. New London officials argued that such development would boost economic growth (code word for more tax revenue) & outweighed homeowner's property rights. Egregiously, the Supreme Court agreed. This is outrageous.

This is an ominous ruling which strikes at the heart of the concept of private property ownership in America. Property ownership has been the foundation & roots in establishing this free & democratic country of ours. Communist governments owned all property. There was no such thing as private ownership in those countries. There was no such thing as freedom, either.

Owning land has always been an absolute in America, except in the realm of "eminent domain." Eminent domain is an accepted concept enumerated in the Constitution whereby private property is confiscated, with "just compensation" to the owner, if the land is for public use, i.e., a new highway built or a public recreation center or park built. But note - for public use. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says in regard to property, "....nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation". Nowhere does it say "taken for private use". The dullards on the Supreme Court have contorted, bent & rationalized the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to fit their own purposes, just like Roe v. Wade & just like the non-existent "Separation of Church & State" clause they themselves put into the Constitution. This is liberal judicial activism at its worse.

The New London case involves turning over privately owned land to a private developer who will make a profit on his investment with the land taken from you. This is not a blighted area of New London either. Decent Victorian homes & businesses that have been there generations are getting the heave-ho.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor disagreed with the ruling, stating, "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

She is right. The ruling opens the door to influence peddling & corruption & ahem, political "contributions", whereby developers exert pressure on or pay off city officials to get condemnation of private property that the developer wants.

If Burger King wants your property & the city decides that it is in the economic interest of the public, goodbye to your house. You may have been willing to sell to Burger King at a high price if BK was willing to pay. But now you are robbed of even that bonanza. Instead, you get "just compensation" & the developer saves a lot of money. Of course, the city will make the tidy profit you would have made when city sells your land to the developer. Now towns, cities & developers will be licking their collective chops at the opportunities the Supreme Court availed them.

No more will a hospital or casino or strip mall have to dicker with you for a lower asking price. They just whisper the words "eminent domain" in your ear as a threat. You give the town council a hard time over some issue? Payback time, baby - your house is now a gas station. And what of churches? They get the heave-ho also? The potential for abuse is real thanks to the jackasses on the Supreme Court.

In the 5-4 ruling, we wonder how 5 supposed intelligent justices could come to their conclusions. But then, we're talking liberal judges here. These 5 justices have done immeasurable harm to the cherished belief of land ownership. It is the "1,000 cuts" doctrine; freedom taken away one cut at a time, hardly noticeable, until we wake one day with little or no freedoms.

We can't stress enough how enormous this ruling is. Who will be affected? The poor homeowner & poor renter, the middle-class homeowner & the middle-class renter & the small businessman will be the victims. But at least we have liberal 5 justices who can be certain that where they live there will never be a "Burger King Soon to Come" sign.

These 5 justices have sold out American citizens for the greedy manipulations of local governments & businesses. Congress needs to rectify this travesty with appropriate legislation or a Constitutional Amendment. We'll wait & see if the dullards in Congress really want to serve the citizens.

Sen. Durbin Apologizes (Wink, Wink)

Sen "Turban" Durbin has "apologized" for his speech last week comparing our military in Guantanamo with Nazis, Soviet gulags & Pol Pot's murderous regime (see June 16 post below).

When the effluvia first hit the fan as a reaction to his speech, Durbin unapologetically said, "This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure."

Now with even more effluvia hitting the fan, Durbin decided to cut his losses & pretend to apologize. The key point in his "apology" was this: "Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."

Slick - the non-apology apology. "Some may believe"? Clintonian parsing & word play. You are not sorry Senator. Only in the context that you are catching hell are you sorry.

American Values has answered his "apology" here.

The Great Ground Zero Heist

This is the title of an article written in the Wall Street Journal by Debra Burlingame. Debra is a member of the board of directors of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Read it here.

What she has to say is extremely alarming - that there are plans afoot to minimize & overshadow the tributes to & memories of the 911 victims & heros at the Ground Zero Memorial. Rather, a much larger "International Freedom Center" (IFC)at Ground Zero is in the planning stages & just drips with political correctness, tolerance, diversity & inclusiveness.

While the tribute to 911 victims is relegated to basement level, the Freedom Center will be prominent at ground level & include exhibits from different eras, such as the Nazis & the Holocaust, the Soviet gulags, slavery in the USA, Native American treatment by the USA & God knows what other causes. In fact, one radical professor who is an advisor to this Freedom Center thinks that Abu Gharaib & perhaps Guantanamo should be included in the displays. This is the same advisor who wrote just three weeks after 9/11 that "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." So you know where this jackass is coming from.

The Board of Directors of the IFC reeks with leftist anti-Bush people. Of course George Soros, the billionaire who slanders Bush & is buddies with Michael Moore, has his hand in it too.

The Freedom Center will host conferences to discuss any number of issues in the world that don't relate to 911. There will be "dialogue & debate" they say. This is code for trashing & bashing America. Center President Richard J. Tofel said the center would not bar criticism of the United States and its actions. "Part of the way we celebrate freedom is to acknowledge that even the greatest societies in the world and those that have made the greatest contribution to freedom are not perfect," he said. Code talk meaning "trash & bash America conferences" are coming, while 3,000 victims lie buried beneath.


We cannot understand how in the world a "Freedom Center" can take preference over a 911 memorial or be included with it. The 911 memorial should stand alone without grafting a politically correct Freedom Center to it which will include every other nasty event in world history & then debate them. Especially since millions of taxpayer dollars are going into it.


Take Back The Memorial - families of 911 victims web site. Read their story, sign the petition.

Senator Dick Durbin: G.I.'s = Nazis American Values: Sen. Durbin = A**hole

Senator Richard Durbin (D. Il), Democrat whip & 2nd in command of the Dems, spoke on the floor of the Senate recently & equated American interrogation techniques & treatment of prisoners/terrorists at Guantanamo Bay with Nazis, Pol Pot & Soviet gulags.

Durbin made the comparison after reading an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the Naval base in Guantanamo Bay as being chained to the floor & sometimes put in temperatures outside of norm.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.

Despite outrage from the White House & Republican Senators (& nary a word of condemnation from fellow Democrats or the news media, although the Boston Herald said Durbin should resign & the Jewish Anti-Defamation League demanded that Durbin apologize), Durbin refused to apologize for his incredible statements.

"Turban" Durbin is either an idiot & thus does not warrant being in the Senate or he is so anal about the Bush Administration that he cares little about his reckless, malignant, malevolent comments & the damage it is doing to American interests throughout the world. If the latter, then he certainly does not warrant being in the Senate.

As a reminder to Sen. Durbin; Pol Pot slaughtered 2 million Cambodians in the most atrocious ways & tortured millions more; the Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews in the most atrocious ways & caused the death of millions of non-Jews; Lenin & Stalin killed 20 million citizens in the most atrocious ways & used unspeakable tortures on millions more in their gulags, killing over 2 million.

For Durbin to compare this with Guantanamo shows him to have a such a callous disregard for the memory of the millions who were tortured & killed under those regimes that he is totally unfit for the title "Senator" before his name. For Durbin to liken American soldiers to Nazis & gulag guards, Durbin deserves a solid punch in the mouth from the soldiers he besmirched & a kick in the ass to boot.

The recent issue of Time magazine lists some of the "torture" techniques on the suspected 20th highjacker of 9/11, thought to have important intelligence information. It included long periods of solitary confinement, shaving facial hair off, standing for long periods of time, pouring water on his head, poking a finger into his chest, watching a puppet show in which the puppets berated him for his failed part in fighting the USA; & cruelest of all - playing Christina Aguilera music for not cooperating. How low can you go? Incinerating Jews is nothing compared to this. Using Jewish skin for lamp shades equals shaving off facial hair. Ukrainian children forced to eat bark off of trees for want of food equals Muslim-approved delicacies for detainees.

Durbin & like-minded Democrats who are whining & pissing & moaning about detainee "abuses" seem to care little that such people gladly fly planes into buildings, eagerly behead innocents & callously car-bomb women & children. But the Dems don't care about that. They have been trashing & dissing the war on terror, the Iraq War, President Bush & American honor since 9/11. Just last week Rep. Charles Rangel compared the Iraq war to the Holocaust. They will use any method & any reason to hysterically rant against Bush, not caring that they are hurting Americans, American credibility in the world & the soldiers in the field. They are pathetic & reprehensible representatives of the American people.

We at American Values detest such pondscum - they are borderline traitors, elected fifth-columnists, opportunists & hypocrites of the first order. They need to spend a week in a Cuban jail or a Turkish prison or a Chinese cell to discover what real abuse & torture is about.

Maybe they should just take a walk through the emptiness that was once the Twin Towers, kneel, then run their hands through the flesh & blood-enriched soil of 3,000 souls who died there because of the likes of terrorists now kept in American gulags & Nazi-styled concentration camps.

Say hi to Sen. Dick "Turban" Durbin here

New Jersey - The Garden State: A Cornucopia of Corruption

NJ's leading daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger, today ran a front page report, "Paid adviser to UMDNJ, no record of his advice". UMDNJ is the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. UMDNJ has a $1.6 billion budget of which $350 million comes from state funding (aka taxpayer money). UMDNJ awarded more than $718 million in no-bid contracts the past five years.

The story reports that Chip Stapleton, a leading Republican consultant in the state & friend of the NJ Senate President Donald DiFrancesco, was hired by UMDNJ in 1995 to advise the school's board on ways "to enhance the state recognition and reputation of the university," according to his contract. Over the next 10 years Stapleton was paid $1 million for his services. But as the Star-Ledger reports, "school officials cannot supply a single memo, letter or report showing any work from Stapleton during the 10 years they paid him. " Stapleton's no-bid contract was ended last year (you'll learn why later).

Stapleton with a straight face & a lot of chutzpah responded by saying, "I don't have the type of business that requires a lot of stuff in writing." Formal reports or memos "were not required of me," he said. "They were not necessary. They could have been counterproductive (!! -ed.)." "I met with them a lot," he said. "I went to every single board meeting. I would have discussions with them with respect to the pathway the university would be taking. I didn't write anything down, and I rarely do ... They needed me, yes. I was very good at it. I have a track record that is second to none." "I think I have justified it," Stapleton said of his pay. "You have to take my word for it." (wink, wink-ed.). His partner in a different firm is Jeff Michaels, who was DiFrancesco's chief of staff. In 2001, during the final days of DiFrancesco's interim gubernatorial administration.

Unfortunately, the former UMDNJ administrators who were associated with Stapleton were either unavailable or had no comment (ya think?).

Stapleton first came to light when The Star-Ledger reported in March that UMDNJ had awarded a $75,000 contract, without competitive bidding, to a top McGreevey fund-raiser soon after McGreevey's election as governor in November 2001. That contract went to Philadelphia power broker Ronald White, and university officials have found no evidence White, now dead (good riddence), did any work for the money.

Stapleton said he originally was brought into UMDNJ by late board member Ed FitzPatrick, a founding partner of the prominent law firm of DeCotiis FitzPatrick Cole & Wisler. University records show Stapleton's no-bid contract was subsequently extended on the authority of former UMDNJ Chairwoman Isabel Miranda, another partner at the DeCotiis firm. DiFrancesco -- who later nominated Miranda for state treasurer -- said it was Stapleton's idea that Miranda be appointed to lead UMDNJ's board. (Yes, the very same Miranda who renewed his contract with UMDNJ, wink, wink).

Here comes the kicker:

Christy Davis Jackson, the current vice president for government affairs, said she terminated Stapleton's contract at the end of 2004 because Stapleton had been retained "to provide strategic advice and counsel to the board of trustees -- which was, frankly speaking, not the priority the department should be focused on."

But Stapleton's termination coincided with a change in gubernatorial administrations, when Senate President Richard Codey succeeded McGreevey, who resigned in a gay sex scandal. Davis Jackson replaced Stapleton with Public Strategies/Impact, a Trenton firm headed by Harold Hodes. Public Strategies was given a no-bid contract worth $12,500 a month; it runs through the end of this month. (Why Jackson hired Hodes when in the above paragraph she said Stapleton's consulting service was terminated because it was not the priority of the department is a mystery)

"Obviously, there were no checks and no balances," acting Gov. Richard Codey said. "That seems to be the pattern of accounting. No checks, no balances, except the checks go out and the reports don't come in. Somebody has to step forward soon to say what he (Stapleton) did."

Who is Harold Hodes you ask?? Gov. Codey's top political adviser. Have you noticed that everyone is interconnected in some way? Law firms, board members, legislators, aides, political hacks, Governors?

New Jersey's garbage can of patronage, payoffs, good-old-boy networks, no-show jobs, bald-faced corruption & thievery is overflowing. This is just the tip of the iceberg. But NJ has been this way since dinosaurs ruled the state & they were probably corrupt too. Billions have been stolen from taxpayers. And these are the people that work for the taxpayer or use the taxpayers money! The Mafia is nothing compared to these thieves.

Multiply the money stolen from taxpayers in NJ by corruption as well as waste in the other 49 states & throw in the corruption & waste in the Federal government. There would be no national debt, no federal budget deficits, no state deficits. Just maybe poor people could get some real relief & help, maybe taxpayers could get some relief from the thieves who plan to use their money for their own gain. A kid can't afford college, but the college can pay $1 million for a no-show job.

Just like the Mafia, these thieves think they are big deal crap showing off their expensive homes with the pools & fancy cars & sending their kids to private schools, courtesy of the taxpayer. Like they "earned" it, right?

Until these thieving waste products are shot against a wall or given big time prison sentences there will be no relief.

We recommend that you stay away from the garden that is NJ. Too many rats & snakes.

See No Good, Hear No Good, Speak No Good: What The Mainstream Media Doesn't Report About Iraq

The American mainstream news media loves to talk up Iraq in terms of car bombings, suicide bombings, Coalition deaths, Koran abuse, Abu Gharib & Guantanamo "torture" & Allah knows what else they lick their chops over & salivate about. If it's bad news, if it's a chance to bad mouth Bush or a chance to further depress American morale while inciting Arab hatred, you can bet your last Dinar that they will report it. Good news coming out of Iraq is anathema to them.

They are not the unbiased, faithfully-reported news media they claim to be. They have an agenda & it includes not reporting the good news coming out of Iraq. By listening to or reading only them, you would think Iraq is a hell-hole of bombings & killings all across the country & that there is only death & destruction. Their focus on the bad, while willfully not reporting the good, is not only professionally unethical & a disservice to the American public, but it is also intellectually dishonest.

They are not the mainstream news media anymore. Rather, they have become the managed news media. They report only what they want you to know - because it fits into their agenda of being anti-Bush. Some are Globalists first, rather than Americans, as a few have admitted.

To get a better perspective of the good things happening in Iraq, go here to Chrenkoff & read his "Good news from Iraq" post. He is a world popular blogger with indefatigable research on the good news in Iraq. It is an extremely long post with dozens of links. But if you want a clearer picture of what is happening in Iraq, what the managed news media is not telling you, then it is well worth the reading. Don't just rely on a media which filters the news to you.

First It Was Moose, Now Illegals: Real Border Signs. Unbelievable

Read the story here

Carl's Jr Restaurants: It's Not Their Burgers Anymore - It's Her Buns

Paris Hilton, that paragon of sleaze, stars in the latest Carl's Jr Restaurants commercial on tv. This demur icon of clean-cut womanhood is seen in the commercial in a skin-tight, scanty outfit soaping up a car & climbing all over it in suggestively sexual ways before taking a provocative bite out of a Carl's Jr Spicey BBQ Six Dollar Burger. Carl's Jr Restaurants are only located west of the Mississippi River, primarily California & the Southwest.

We already knew that Hilton eagerly dropped to her knees for any loose dollar that came her way, no surprise there. What surprised us & disappointed us was the eagerness of a family-oriented restaurant like Carl's Jr to readily stoop to tacky & tawdry gimmicks for the same dollar. However, they don't stop there. They now have "The Girls of Carl's Jr" in Maxim magazine, kind of a hungry guys Playboy. Carl's Jr website (slow load) runs the Hilton commercial & has a link they proudly announce as "SpiceyParis.com", where you can see the further adventures of Paris the Pig, the Sultress of Slutness.

The website also boasts their most stunning accomplishment for the 1990's: "Carl's Jr makes a name for itself with memorable commercials that appeal to young, hungry guys." Elsewhere, they play up the Six Dollar Burger for "young guys on the move", if ya get the drift, wink, wink. Add some Hilton buns & some Hilton spice & voila, semi-porn burgers your way.

The tv watchdog group, the million member Parents Television Council, complained to Carl's Jr & its parent company, CKE Restaurants, which also owns Hardees, that the commercial was "soft-core porn." Carl's Jr CEO, Andy Pudzer, answered that the group "needs to get a life." So much for corporate sensitivity toward 1 million people. In fact, Pudzer was kind of proud of the fact that its website crashed due to so many visitors (Doesn't the name Pudzer sound like a porn movie director?). CKE is planning a commercial for its Hardees Restaurants starring none other then, ta-da, Miss Soap-My-Buns.

As we said, for a family-oriented restaurant, Carl's Jr's commercial is tacky, tasteless, salacious, tawdry & totally inappropriate. But money over morals, stockholders. You can contact CKE here.

In response, we at American Values recommends that Carl's Jr be boycotted until they remember that what started as a Mom & Pop eatery is fit again for Mom & Pop & the kids.

We do not need a 2-bit ho' to sell their Six Dollar Burger.

Now we know the real reason why Carl's Jr Happy Star is always smiling.

The Koran Controversy in Perspective

We are tiring of all the b.s. that is coming about from the America-haters & bashers who think that an isolated incident or two of "mishandling" a Koran by our U.S. military is equivalent to our nuking the United Nations (or preferably France).

To hear tell it from the America-can-never-do-right crowd, the Koran is the holiest artifact on the planet Earth. More than the Ark of the Covenant, more than the original cross Christ died on, more than any other relic from any other religion & it is not only to be respected by the infidels, but venerated by them.

Give us a break! It is a book. Millions of them have been printed. Just like the Christian Bible. And for those who do not follow the religion of that book, it is only a stinking book. Respect in handling a religious book is a given, but when the clowns of the world bring a minor issue into the realm of odious, horrible behavior by the U.S. military, it is time to step back & gulp some fresh air for the brain.

The U.S. military is almost literally handling the Koran with kid gloves when it comes to the issue of the Guantanimo prisoners. There is an explicit policy on how to handle the Koran by U.S. military guards, including wearing latex gloves. The policy is so micro-managed as to be unbelievable.

We defy any one to find any other country that has such a strict standard on handling the Koran with prisoners or showing the hyper-sensitivity we do to those who were trying to kill us. Do you think Saudi Arabia has a like policy with the Bible? Do you think Muslim Iran has the sensitivities to placate its Muslim prisoners by handling the Koran as the U.S. military does? Hell, their prisoners are lucky to even be given one.

It is only the United States that is being held to impossibly ridiculous standards & when a mistake is made, then the effluvia hits the proverbial fan & the world screams. And the American news media is a willing tool by joining in on the feeding-fest of professed "outrage."

There is no outrage over Muslim prisoners defiling the Koran, as has been done. There is no outrage that these same Muslims who re-read the Koran a thousand times & supplicate themselves on their prayer rugs 5 times a day, every day, are the same Muslims who put bombs in dolls, who use car bombs to kill dozens of innocent men, women & children. There is no outrage that these Koran-loving worshipers are the same ones who behead innocents, put bullets to the head of those who disagree with them, who declared war against America & took arms against this country.

There is not a freer, more human-rights concerned country in the world than the United States. The blood of our citizens & the cost to our treasury will attest to that. But to be vilified by lesser citizens of this world, to be made monstrous by the very monsters of the world is the height of irony.

One only has to take another look at the videos of that horrid day of Sept 11, 2001. Spend an hour or two re-watching the planes hitting the towers or the Pentagon, re-feel the horror of the towers collapsing or the people burning & jumping, re-kindle the outrage & anger felt on this attack on America. One only has to remember the gleeful shouts of "Allah Akbar" as the highjackers aimed the planes toward their targets, more than likely incinerating the Korans they were carrying. Re-live it all.

Then tell us whether you really care if a Koran was placed on the ground by a soldier or handled without gloves. For Americans with the feelings of 911 still in their hearts, the Koran "abuse" stories are a non-issue. For Americans who still look toward New York & see the absence of the Twin Towers, the critics both national & foreign can go to hell.

Amnasty International

Amnesty International(AI) recently released its annual human rights report & unsurprisingly its harshest criticism was directed at the United States & its handling of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The organization called Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law."

AI is a very naive organization or they have a leftist agenda against the U.S. You guess which. To compare Guantanamo Bay with the Gulags of the Soviet Union is resprehensible at best. AI seems to think that slave labor & starvation, summary executions, beatings, torture & meager living conditions of millions at the Soviet gulags, as an official government policy of Lenin & Stalin, is equatible with Guantanamo Bay. President Bush rightly answered that the charges were "absurd."

When it comes to America, there is no sense of proportionality on the part of organizations with anti-American agendas to push. We don't recall Amnesty International calling N. Korean prisons gulags, nor Iranian, nor Chinese, nor any number of countries with atrocious prison systems & human rights abuses.

Amnesty International, along with the usual suspects, demands perfection on the part of the USA in war, prisons, whatever. Knowing that perfection is unattainable, they are chomping at the bit, waiting for the mistake, the faux pas. They are not so stingent with other countries. Countries with real human rights abuses they can tolerate, but America they truly hate. It is a rigged game with these clowns at AI.