All data from Open Secrets:

What happened to Sidley Austin LLP? Employees (almost all attorneys) donated $189,832 from 3/17/07 to 5/30/08. Since then, nothing. Perhaps, though, they had just maxed out?

What about Samir G. of Sidley Austin LLP? He donated 8 times to Obama. All on March 26th, 2008. Totalling $2,600.00. And then there’s the other oddity – on the same date, Obama sent back to G. $1,400.00.

He also donated 5 times on March 25th, 2008. That day he got back $200.00, so his net to Obama was $1,700.00. Between March 25th and 26th, that works out to $2,900.00. Couldn’t he have just written one check for that amount? Kind of a hassle to donate 13 times in two days, isn’t it? Was his leg tingling more intensely the more he gave? Is donating to Obama kinda like smoking crack? Or did he just forget that he’d already donated that day?

Lawrence K. of Sidley Austin LLP was also a generous donor – donating 8 times totaling $5,050.00. But don’t worry about any campaign finance violations here – I don’t think you’re allowed to give that much to a candidate, but as Obama sent back $1,250.00, we’re golden.

James D. of Sidley Austin LLP was a bit less generous – donating 6 times for a total of $2,800.00. Obama sent him back $500.00. But to make up for this lack of audacious hope on the part of Mr. D. there is Mrs D., who donated 6 times for a total of $2,700.00. Obama sent her back $200.00. That works out to $4,800.00 from the Ds.

Anyone besides me find anything odd about the employees of a Chicago law firm recently forced to shell out $27.5 million in an EEOC case being so wierdly generous with a Chicago politician who may be the next President of the United States?

Perhaps the Democrats are worried they don’t have enough voters for November?

E-Verify (the effective program to keep illegal aliens out of U.S. jobs) now is facing danger in the Senate, as well as the House.

The NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team has been told that Sen. Menendez (D-N.J.) has put a “hold” on legislation to reauthorize the E-Verify workplace verification program. That means the Senate is barred from voting to keep it alive. Without a vote, E-Verify will die in November.

Our understanding is that Sen. Menendez is blocking the most effective tool against illegal immigration in order to get something else that he wants. He will allow an E-Verify vote if he is allowed to give hundreds of thousands of skilled American jobs permanently to hundreds of thousands of additional immigrants.

At a time when skilled Americans and students aspiring to those jobs are finding a depressed job market, Sen. Menendez is insisting on flooding their occupations with even more foreign workers. And if he doesn’t get his way, he will take away the best tool that employers have to keep illegal foreign workers from taking jobs at every rung of the ladder, but especially at the lower-skilled job level.

Our liberals have it that they are the selfless defenders of the Little Guy against Big Corporation but what they fail to understand is that Big Corporation is in many ways just like Big Government. Human life is properly lived at human-scale – smaller communties of people who know each other; bound to a larger community through ties of nationality and affection, but fundamentally looking after their own affairs through family, church and social group. We see in this action by Menedez what happens when people become mere cogs in a socio-economic machine. Menedez wants more guest-workers to please part of his constituency and thus is blocking the enforcement of a law which prevents the ruthless exploitation of illegal immigrants as well as protects the wage levels of legal residents – a lot of people are happy with Menedez’ action: people who are de-facto advocates for illegal immigration, large corporations looking for maximised profits, the national Democratic party which wants hispanic support. Who isn’t happy? The guy trying to have a stay-at-home wife to raise his three children but can’t do it because wage levels are depressed due to the importation of cheap labor. The small business trying to do the right thing by the community but being forced out by his competitors who exploit cheap, illegal labor. The local community suddenly burdened with an influx of people who don’t speak the language, are prey to gangsters, have no insurance (health, auto, life, home) and who use emergency rooms as their primary health care providers. And, of course, the illegals, themselves, who’s skills are not being used to build up their homeland but which are being used to provide a slightly higher corporate profit and a little extra political clout in the United States.

Here, also, we see the arrogance of liberalism – an arrogance bred of the conviction, largely correct, that no one will ever call a liberal to account. Any Republican who points this out? He’ll be called a racist and the MSM will go along with the accusation. Will the people of New Jersey force him out? The people of New Jersey elected him in the first place even though he had ethical troubles going in. Will his fellow Senate Democrats call him to account? The same Democrats who gave William “Cold Cash” Jefferson (D-LA) a standing ovation? Yeah, right.

From The Hill:

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain on Sunday asserted that his Democratic rival’s positions on Iraq were politically motivated.

“Sen. Obama doesn’t understand,” the Arizona senator said regarding Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) opposition to the troop surge. “He doesn’t understand what’s at stake here, and he chose to take a political path that would have helped him get the nomination of his party.”

McCain added that, if the path that the Illinois senator advocated had been pursued, there “would have been chaos, genocide, increased Iranian influence, perhaps al Qaeda establishing a base again” in Iraq.

The GOP standard-bearer hopes that his foreign policy and military experience and support for the surge will help convince voters in November that he is the right choice to lead the country.

McCain, in an interview with ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” consistently hammered Obama on security-related issues and defended a remark he made earlier in which he said that the Democrat is willing to lose a war to win a political campaign.

The Arizona senator argued that, while he broke with President Bush and his party to demand that more troops should be sent to Iraq, Obama “made the decision [to oppose the surge], which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party.”

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who went on the trip to the Middle East with Obama, criticized the attacks on the Democrat and said McCain is “treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives and when we start to get into, ‘You’re less patriotic than me. I’m more patriotic’.”

Hagel, true to form for the anti-war people, is trying to say that any criticism of war criticism is an accusation of being unpatriotic, and thus beyond the pale. This bit of nonsense, I think, will not fly anymore – its clear that McCain does not impugn Obama’s patriotism – just his motivation and his judgement, both of which are highly questionable. For all we know Obama is deep down inside the most Yankee Doodle of all Dandies – what is at issue here is his manifestly wrong position on the troop surge and how that relates to his prospective ability to be President of the United States of America.

The anti-war point of view has been proven wrong from start to finish – it is wrong because it believes that war is just a misunderstanding which can be resolved by patient diplomacy. War, though, is usually the result of a very good understanding – especially on the part of the aggressor, who is usually convinced that his more aggressive nature is the result of inherent superiority. The so-called “peace movement” nearly added another charnel house to its record (for a more complete list of the peace movement’s victims, see my “20th Century Victims of Peace“) – but at the urging of Senator McCain, the calls for surrender by Obama and his Democrats were ignored, and victory has now been secured. And now it is Senator Obama who is seeking maximum personal advantage out of this.

First he used Iraq to wow the left, now he’s trying to use the victory in Iraq as a support for his withdrawal plan (updated, again and again as Obama needs to shift here and there on the political landscape) – he’s trying to have it both ways. Obama wants lefty support due to his anti-war rhetoric, and he wants center support for his call to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan…he’s a peaceful warmonger, I guess.

We can’t afford four years of a President who adjusts his views to his personal, political needs – we need a President who will take an action even when assured it will be unpopular and may, indeed, cost him the White House. Senator McCain is that man; lets keep Obama in the Senate where for the next four to eight years (or ten, if you ask Obama) he can learn from President McCain what it takes to hold the most powerful office in the world.

This would be, of course, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, published on July 25th, 1968. Even for Catholics, this is the most misunderstood, misinterpreted and denigrated encyclical of modern times. It is also, as it turns out, one of the most important, and one which daily proves itself prescient about what we now call the “culture of death” would lead to. In dealing boldy with matters of contraception, abortion and sex in general, Paul VI entered into a hornet’s nest during the so-called “sexual revolution” – a time when a few men, joined by a few rather foolish women, actually convinced most people that its ok for a woman to just have sex with any guy coming down the pike, as there is contraception and abortion to remedy any ill effects. The sexual catastrophe we see around us – massive illegitimacy, increased poverty and crime and, of course, the absolute horror of millions upon millions of murdered unborn children – is the result of that sexual revolution, and all of it would have been averted had people just paid heed to Paul VI.

Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife…

…We take this opportunity to address those who are engaged in education and all those whose right and duty it is to provide for the common good of human society. We would call their attention to the need to create an atmosphere favorable to the growth of chastity so that true liberty may prevail over license and the norms of the moral law may be fully safeguarded.

Everything therefore in the modern means of social communication which arouses men’s baser passions and encourages low moral standards, as well as every obscenity in the written word and every form of indecency on the stage and screen, should be condemned publicly and unanimously by all those who have at heart the advance of civilization and the safeguarding of the outstanding values of the human spirit. It is quite absurd to defend this kind of depravity in the name of art or culture (25) or by pleading the liberty which may be allowed in this field by the public authorities…

…And now We wish to speak to rulers of nations. To you most of all is committed the responsibility of safeguarding the common good. You can contribute so much to the preservation of morals. We beg of you, never allow the morals of your peoples to be undermined. The family is the primary unit in the state; do not tolerate any legislation which would introduce into the family those practices which are opposed to the natural law of God. For there are other ways by which a government can and should solve the population problem—that is to say by enacting laws which will assist families and by educating the people wisely so that the moral law and the freedom of the citizens are both safeguarded.

There is very much more in it, and I do recommend that anyone with a genuine love of reason to take the time to go through it.

When Paul VI spoke of the evils which will come of making violations of moral laws easy amongst the young, he hit the target dead center. These days, we pass out condoms to kids and dare to say they are “protected” – what would at one time have gotten an adult a jail sentence has been translated into a supposedly decent act! For the love of God, good people, we’re treating children as if they were a legtimate part of extramarital sexual activity! I know we had the terrible scandal in the Church on this very issue – but does anyone think that only some failed priests started viewing children as legitimate sexual prey? How can we say we want to protect our children when we bombard them with direct and indirect appeals to loose the bonds of morality and throw their sexual lives on to the indiscriminate pile of depraved popular culture?

Also well taken to heart must be Paul VI’s assertion that a loosening of sexual bonds via contraception and abortion would lead more and more men to view women as mere objects of sexual gratification. We speak these days of men who won’t commit – why on earth should they? They are getting all the sex they can handle without having to commit to more than dinner and a movie (if even that much). I’m sure that most of us have known or at least known of a man who has several children by several different women – is this respecting women? Is this what sexual liberation was supposed to do? Turn a woman into a sperm bank for a roving man? How is all of this we see in 2008 superior to the old sexual morality we were eagerly casting aside as Paul VI wrote his encyclical?

Also, don’t think for a moment that I am standing on high as some pure man – heck no! I jumped into the sexual revolution feet first as soon as I got the opportunity. I have learned, now, that the only proper place for sex is between a man and a woman who have committed to completely self-donate one to the other. Only by such an act – such a promise – is sex liberated from the animal and partakes of the divine, and becomes far more than just the sex act. It is a terrible thing we’ve done in breaking down the family and instructing our children to be as sexual as possible as soon as possible – millions, literally, are dead because of this…and not just the aborted children. All of those who have died of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases must also be laid at the door of the sexual revolution. Millions of families have been destroyed, almost invariably to the severe detriment of the mothers and children. Never in human history – even during the most depraved periods of the Roman Empire – has a society so diligently sought out the means of its own destruction.

It is time to become true progressives here – understanding that if you’ve taken a wrong turning, the only way to progress is to turn back to where you first went wrong. We can’t add to the sexual revolution and get something good – it was wrong from the start, and we have to ditch the whole thing. Only by so doing will women find that liberation the sexual liberators promised…only by so doing will we recall men to their duty as husbands and fathers. Only by so doing will we rescue the family and thus save our civilization.

Obama’s excuses for canceling his visit with American troops during his European Let’s Pretend I Have Foreign Policy Experience Tour have changed on an almost daily basis.. but it’s quite obvious that Obama was only interested in visiting American troops if he could bring the media with him so he could exploit his visit for political gain.

I already refuse to watch even a moment of them – and will do my best to tune out even the barest mention of them. This due, of course, to the fact that China’s government is an anti-human, worst-sort-of-culture-of-death imaginable tyranny. But here’s another reason, if you need one – from NRO’s The Corner:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued the following statement in response to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to exclude Iraqi athletes from the Beijing Olympics:

“It is outrageous that the IOC would reject athletes from a democratic Iraq, and at the same time, from Saddam Hussein’s son Uday’s notorious, torture-based Iraqi Olympics team. embrace those from repressive regimes like North Korea, Burma and Sudan. This is the same Olympic organization that embraced the participation of athletes

“Rather than give the world the excitement of seeing Iraq’s athletes further unify their nation across sectarian boundaries in the spirit of Olympic competition, the IOC has chosen to spit in the eye of the athletes and people of this emerging democracy.

“I urge President Bush and the leaders of the free nations participating in the Beijing Olympics to put maximum pressure on the IOC to reverse course. Democratic leaders should not embrace the farce of watching athletes from some of the world’s most brutal regimes being paraded in front of them while athletes from new democracies are spurned.

“First tortured by Uday, and now rejected by the IOC, the athletes of Iraq have suffered enough.”

There is something which continues to outrage – no matter how many times I see it – about bodies staffed with international elites which will grovel to tyrants but have all sorts of objections to imperfect democracies. We can forgive them, of course – cut off as they are from the wellsprings of truth, the global elite often can’t even tell when they are doing a horribly wrong thing…but forgiving them and understanding their sorry plight doesn’t make it any better for the people of Iraq, who have every right to be represented in Beijing if, for instance, the slaves of North Korea are allowed in…

From Rasmussen:

Voters who have served in the U.S. military favor John McCain over Barack Obama by a 56% to 37% margin.

This data, from a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, is based upon interviews with 3,000 Likely Voters, including 588 voters who have served in the military. Voters with no military service favor Obama 50% to 43%.

Its simple, really – those of us who served are much better as spotting someone who is shining us on. A lot of illusions about human nature are stripped away when one is serving in close quarters with hundreds or thousands of other human beings for months on end without a break. I think it pretty fair to say that each of us veterans knew one or two people in service who were complete phonies who sounded like they knew what they were doing…

While the lamestream press and rock-concert goers were salivating and tripping over themselves to touch their messiah’s garments on Obama’s recent European tour, others were not so impressed

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth – for the first time – to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

The Christians of Iraq have suffered doubly – from Saddamit tyranny, and then as the easy target of terrorists and criminals. Things have improved remarkably in Iraq, and now we’re starting to see some signs of life in the Iraqi Christian community:

Christians in the southern Iraq have begun a campaign to restore churches which have been rendered unusable due to war and neglect.

Father Imad Aziz Al Banna of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Basra told Iraqlaan News Agency that the local Christian community has requested government funding for the restorations and is collaborating with the Ministry of Planning and the Basra Governorate Council, BaghdadHope.com reports.

Built in 1880, one of the oldest churches in southern Iraq, the Chaldean Church of Um Al Ahzan (Our Lady of Sorrows), recently reopened. Father Al Banna celebrated a special Mass and baptism there on June 29, Ankawa.com reports.

It presently serves only 18 Christian families. In the whole Archeparchy of Basra there are reportedly only one priest, two permanent deacons, and two religious sisters among 2,500 of the faithful.

Father Al Banna said there is confidence among Christians that the government can preserve the Christian religious heritage in the area. Some families who fled the region have even returned because of the new security situation.

The Christian community in southern Iraq dates back to the fourth century and reportedly was the launching pad for the spread of Christianity to the territories of the Persian Gulf.

The final test for the new Iraq is whether or not the Christian minority will be allowed to flourish – elsewhere in the Moslem world, under pressure from tyrannical regimes, the Christian communities, already small, have shrunk rapidly over the past few decades. Much has justifiably been made of the way Iraq’s Christians have suffered – but in Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere in the Moslem world, it has been a long, dark night of persecution.

There are stirrings of change, however – this news story about Iraq is one of them, but I have it on first-hand account that Mass is celebrated in Moslem countries thought to be 100% Moslem, and I recently read a story where the Catholic Church is, very quietly, negotiating with the Saudi government to construct a church for Saudi Arabia’s large Christian community, mostly made up of foreign laborers imported to Arabia to do the work Saudis simply won’t do. The real end of the War on Terrorism is when Christians and Jews can live and work in the Moslem world without let or hindrance ffrom the Moslem governments, so let us take this small sign as an idicator of a much brighter future.

Geesh – all hail the Great Guiding Light Barack Obama, our Leader and Teacher….’cause if you don’t, you’re out…

Wisconsin Democrats have ousted a delegate to their national convention for saying she would vote for Republican Sen. John McCain.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party’s administrative committee voted Friday to strip Debra Bartoshevich of her status as a delegate to the Denver convention.

Bartoshevich was elected as a pledged delegate for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But after Clinton dropped out of the race, Bartoshevich told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she would support McCain.

Bartoshevich says she made the comments during an emotional time and she hasn’t made up her mind.

But the party says she violated rules requiring delegates to support its nominee.

Don’t try to convince her to support you, just force her out so that you can have complete unanimity, because we know how leftists hate deviationists and other Trotskyite wreckers. In our great task of defeating the forces of McCainite counter-revolution, there can be no room for those who are weak – to the wall with such traitors to the proletariat!