Red State has the breaking news of Gov. George Pataki’s endorsement of Doug Hoffman:

Statement from Governor George E. Pataki

As someone personally engaged in the way of life in the Adirondacks and Northern New York, I’m deeply concerned about the course of our nation and the outcome of the election in the 23rd Congressional District.

Simply put, we cannot afford to give another vote to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid we cannot afford another vote for higher taxes, we cannot afford another vote for government run health care and we absolutely cannot afford another vote to take away from hard working men and women the right to secret ballot.

That is why tonight, I’m proud to endorse Doug Hoffman, a Republican, running on the Conservative line for Congress in the 23rd Congressional District.

Doug Hoffman will stand up to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He will fight for all the residents of northern New York. He will fight for our proud servicemen and women at Fort Drum, our dairy farmers in Lowville and our manufacturers in Plattsburgh.

As a businessman, and as a life-long resident of the North Country Doug Hoffman understands the need to lower taxes on working families, the need to stand tall against terror and he won’t back phony stimulus programs that fail to create the jobs we need and leaves a mountain of debt to our children.

When elected to Congress Doug will work to reduce our taxes, he will stand tall against those who despise our freedoms and he will be a vigilant stalwart against those who would substitute government programs for individual initiative.

And Doug Hoffman can win.

I urge all the voters of the 23rd Congressional District – Republican Democrat, Independent and Conservative to come out and vote for Doug Hoffman for Congress.

So, just so we are clear, Doug Hoffman is endorsed by:

• Fred Thompson

• Club For Growth

• Police Benevolent Association

• Concerned Women

• Citizens of the Republic

• Susan B. Anthony List

• American Conservative Union

• Citizens United Political Victory Fund

• Campaign for Working Families

• NYS Right to Life PAC

• GING-PAC

• Conservative Victory Fund

• Eagle Forum

• 912candidates.org
• Nat’l Organization for Marriage
• America’s Independent Party
• Dick Armey
• Steve Forbes
• Sarah Palin
• Rick Santorum
• Wholesaler-Distributor Political Action Committee
• Freedoms Defense Fund
• U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas)
• James Dobson, PhD
• Dana Rohrabacher
• Right Principles
• Tim Pawlenty
• Jim Demint
• Atlas PAC
• National Conservative Fund
• Gun Owners of American-PVF
• Life and Liberty PAC
• Minuteman PAC
• Right Principles PAC
• Term Limits America PAC
• Congressman Jeff Flake – AZ
• Congressman Linder – GA
• The Heart PAC
• Republican Majority PAC
• Family Research Council PAC
• Leadership for America’s Future
• Conservative Opportunity Leadership & Enterprise
• Associated Builders & Contractors
• Citizens United Political Victory Fund
• Freedom First PAC
• Congressman Steve King – IA
• Catholic Families for America PAC
• The American Conservative Party
• Rep. Mary Fallin (R-OK)
• Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)
• Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)
• Rep. John C. Fleming (R-LA)
• Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
• Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ)

And Dede Scozzafava is endorsed by the GOP establishment, the founder of the Daily Kos and ACORN.

But we’re the misguided ones…

Back in February of 2008, I wrote a five part series on illegal immigration. Part four was titled, “The Human Cost of Illegal Immigration: Importing Pedophilia.” I concluded:

We have enough sex offenders in America without allowing a quarter million of them to crash the border and make a million victims. We don’t need to import pedophilia.

Over a year later, the borders are still as porous as they were then, if not more. Which is why you can understand why this really infuriates me:

An illegal immigrant in Palm Bay faces multiple counts of sexual battery after officers say he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl. David Sanchez, 28, investigators say, used a family friendship to rape the child.

Sanchez is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who has already been deported once for doing the same thing to another child in Alabama. Investigators say he returned to the U.S. in mid-2008 where he began having an unlawful sexual relationship with a then, 12-year-old child.On Sunday detectives arrested Sanchez after the girl’s father found him having sex with his daughter in her bedroom.

I’m hoping that the subhuman caught raping a 13 year old had to make a trip to the emergency room before he could go to PMITA jail. Kudos to the dad for having the self control not to kill him. Which brings me to what should be done with this creature. Don Surber thinks he should have been imprisoned the first time rather than deported.

I say bullets are cheaper than prison cells, especially for two time losers like Sanchez. And know this: no sex offender gets caught his first time. None. This guy has a pile of victims.

As one of the commenters said, “Send his ashes back to El Salvador.”

What say you? Is child molestation a capital offense?

Finally there is a study that actually serves a purpose, rather than one of those studies that discovers that sleeping less leads to increased fatigue.

The military looked at which personnel were more likely to see a deadly roadside bomb and which personnel were simply poor at it. What they found kind of surprised me. But then, when you look at it, it makes sense at the same time:

Military researchers have found that two groups of personnel are particularly good at spotting anomalies: those with hunting backgrounds, who traipsed through the woods as youths looking to bag a deer or turkey; and those who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods, where it is often important to know what gang controls which block.

…

The findings do not surprise Army Sgt. Maj. Todd Burnett, the top enlisted man with the Pentagon-based Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, which conducted the study. He’s made multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and ridden in more than 1,000 convoys and, on 19 occasions, been in a vehicle hit by a roadside bomb.

Ok, stop right there. This dude is major league All American. Do you know anyone else who has been hit by 19 IEDs? Is that some kind of record? Give it up for the Sergeant Major. And for the people who make the vehicles he rides around in.

The best troops he’s ever seen when it comes to spotting bombs were soldiers from the South Carolina National Guard, nearly all with rural backgrounds that included hunting.

“They just seemed to pick up things much better,” Burnett said. “They know how to look at the entire environment.”

Troops from urban backgrounds also seemed to have developed an innate “threat-assessment” ability. Both groups, said Army research psychologist Steve Burnett, “seem very adaptable to the kinds of environments” seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For those folks who spend all their free time donning the headset, logging into XBOX Live and playing HALO, believe it or not, you will not see the roadside bomb that takes out your truck. You spend too much time narrowing your vision to the confines of a television screen:

Video game enthusiasts are narrower in their focus, as if the windshield of their Humvee is a computer screen. “The gamers are very focused on the screen rather than the whole surrounding,” said Sgt. Maj. Burnett (no relation to the research psychologist).

It’s interesting that rather than give an increased awareness, video games instead create a habitual limited field of vision.

What’s more interesting is how our military is taking what they have learned in Afghanistan and Iraq and implementing it in their training:

There is one last group of people who are very good at finding roadside bombs:

To the two desirable background categories found by the research, Gouak, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, thinks one more group should be added as particularly dedicated to spotting bombs.

“Anybody who has lost a buddy to an IED,” he said. “They never stop watching.”

And for those men and women, I’ll never stop praying. God bless the American military.

Cross posted at Right Wing News.

Walter Williams dissects the whole peace prize travesty in this article, but it’s the gem at the end that hit one out of the park:

President Obama could rise several notches in my book if he refused the Nobel Peace Prize, with a nice letter to the Nobel Committee that might read: Since you did not see fit to award Ronald Reagan, the U.S. president who did the most for world peace in this century, by peaceably shutting down the Soviet Union, I respectfully decline your offer.

There’s no chance of Obama turning down another opportunity to address a body as a “citizen of the world.”

However, it is worth noting that large part of the world felt the award was a bit ridiculous. The best we can hope for is a subdued, humble Obama accepting an award he did absolutely nothing to earn.

On a related note, there is still controversy over whether he can accept the money without Congressional consent.

I had fully intended to write more than I did tonight, but there is only so much time in an evening, and I know my priorities. Here’s what I did instead:

It was a lot more fun that building links. Here’s what the lanterns look like lit up:

As I have noted in previous posts concerning our wonderful Second Amendment, not only has Great Britain banned guns in the country, but they continue to prosecute those who actually defend themselves.

For example, Omari Roberts stopped by to visit his mother. When he entered her house, he found to teenage boys. He chased one away, but when he returned, a 17 year old was still there. They scuffled and the boy ended up with a stab wound to his chest.

Prosecutors have decided to charge Omari with murder for defending his mom’s house:

The Crown Prosecution Service said the decision to charge Roberts months after the incident in March had been taken after ‘careful consideration’.

Its lawyers believed he had used ‘excessive and gratuitous force’.

The case echoes that of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin, who became a cause celebre when he was jailed for life for murder in 2000 after shooting dead a teenage intruder at his dilapidated Norfolk home.

His conviction was reduced to manslaughter on appeal and he was released in 2003.

Yesterday the court heard that Roberts’s mother Jacqueline McKenzie-Johnson, 46, a senior official at Nottingham City Council, was not at home when her son arrived on the afternoon of March 13.

Lee Shepherd, prosecuting, said Roberts first discovered the 14-year-old, who was also stabbed during a confrontation.

Roberts chased him down the street before returning to the semi-detached house in Old Basford, Nottingham, to be confronted by Juett.

Applying for bail for Roberts, who is also charged with wounding the younger raider with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, Raj Chand, defending, said: ‘This must have been a dreadful situation for any law-abiding member of the public.

‘Someone said to me earlier that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I said that he was in the right place at the right time. An Englishman’s home is his castle.

‘He says he was in the right. He regrets what happened, but he was defending himself and his property.’

This is something I simply don’t understand. I would like to assume there are facts about this case that warrant this action, but based on prosecutions I have seen in the past in Great Britain, I doubt there are. This is more than likely a simple case of a person defending himself against a criminal and then having to defend himself against the state.

As I have always said when a youth ends up dead, it is sad and unnecessary. But understand this, it’s unnecessary because that youth did not have to choose to break into that woman’s house. He did not have to choose to stay in the house after Omari discovered them. And he most certainly did not have to choose to fight with him.

When I worked with adjudicated youth, I was trained to tell them, “To choose the act is to choose the consequences.” When he chose to break into that house, when he choose to stay and when he chose to fight, the youth chose to accept any consequences associated with those action.

None of this needed to happen, but it isn’t Omari Roberts’ fault that it did.

Hat Tip: Barking Moonbat Early Warning System

If you are  as confused as I am as I try to understand the President and his strange behaviour, perhaps this article by Herbert London will help.

Obama: A Man Apart

by Herbert London (more by this author)

Albert Camus was expert at describing a man apart, an existential man The Stranger, who didn’t belong in the society in which he found himself. He didn’t have emotional roots; in fact, this character was haunted by shadows — the real and the metaphorical. He is the quintessential rebel challenging normative standards.

At the risk of drawing literary comparisons, I am persuaded based on his performance that President Obama is a man apart. He seems to equate power with arrogance; pride with willfulness and exceptionalism with dominance. As a consequence, he has changed foreign policy perceptions. The America he leads is a nation like any other — no more, no less. In fact, as a Nobel laureate, he is considered by the Europeans as a man of the world, not merely a citizen of the United States.

When asked if the United States is exceptional, President Obama said America is exceptional and England is exceptional and Greece is exceptional. That the United States is sui generis didn’t cross his mind. How could it? He is pledged to a scenario in which America opts out of its traditional role as peace keeper, the balance wheel in maintaining international equilibrium. The war against terrorists is over along with the nation’s hegemonic role.

Unfortunately the war fatigue President Obama embodies is not embraced by our global enemies who see this shift in his policy attitude as a sign of weakness and retreat. I believe President Obama actually thinks that unilateral concessions to our real and putative enemies will result in reciprocal responses. But as his bizarre overtures to the Olympic Committee demonstrated, gestures directed at multilateralism and celebrity status do not result in favorable results. Real power as opposed to soft power still has meaning on the world stage.

A man with roots would know that wild policy swings of the kind that we’ve experienced with healthcare, cap and trade and education proposals cannot possibly fly, with the American people, even with those who voted for President Obama in the last election. Despite cultural shifts in the nation, the United States still fashions itself as a conservative nation. Only a man apart cannot sense that condition.

via Obama: A Man Apart – HUMAN EVENTS.

Yes, Obama does seem to be a man who is totally disconnected from mainstream Americans.  When almost 1 million Tea partiers and others descended on DC to tell him of their concerns, he made a hastily planned retreat to a friendly crowd of Democratic supporters in Minneapolis and pretended he did not know about the concerns of us Americans and had his spkesmen out calling the peaceful, orderly protesters an angry mob and racists.

We never dreamed we would be seeing someone so far apart from our values and our culture in the White House! We need our elected legislators to stand up and tell him what we are saying! And if they do not we need to replace them with people who will!

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich doubled-down on his backing of Margeret Sanger award winning liberal Dede Scozzafava by declaring that backing conservatives only would lead to Pelosi being “Speaker for life.” Apparently, holding Republicans candidates to certain standards isn’t helpful in achieving a Republican majority:

“This idea that we’re suddenly going to establish litmus tests and all across the country we’re going to purge the party of anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent; that guarantees Obama’s reelection, that guarantees Pelosi as Speaker-for-life,” he told Fox News last night.

Gingrich called Scozzafava a “liberal Republican” for her support of gay marriage and abortion rights. But he defended those positions as in-step with her district and her predecessor, former Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), who was tapped to be President Barack Obama’s Army Secretary.

But he said that her endorsement from the National Rifle Association, her signing a no tax-increase pledge, and her opposition to cap-and-trade and healthcare reform legislation made her “adquately conservative in an upstate New York district.”

Is this such a bad thing? Let’s purge the party of RINOs. Let’s get people like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins out of the party. We have a whole party of people working against us. Why bring them into the fold and then act shocked, SHOCKED when they vote against the best interests of the country.

There is a list of people I want out of the party, mainly because I don’t agree with them. It doesn’t guarantee an Obama victory. You know what guarantees that? Nominating one of the people that needs purged!

Put someone up against Obama who has the bold colors Regan talked about in 1975 and you will see Obama return to Illinois.

Michelle Malkin noticed Newt’s attempt at backhanding those conservatives who have come out in support of Hoffman by saying he’s not even from the district. She noted the New York Post’s endorsement of…Hoffman:

New York’s 23rd Congressional District lies near Canada, far to the north — but next week’s special election merits attention throughout the state.

That’s because the Republican candidate in that race, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, is the product of an obscenely corrupt political bargain by GOP bosses that sells out their party — and New Yorkers generally.

Because of that, and because so many of her positions ill-serve the interests of New York and the nation, The Post today endorses businessman Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party nominee.

No, Republicans needn’t toe the conservative line without any deviation. Moderate GOPers like Rudy Giuliani have managed to stray on some issues without wholly betraying their party.

But a Republican should adhere to certain minimum GOP principles. Scozzafava is just too far to the left too often.

And not only on social matters, like same-sex marriage and abortion. In Albany, Scozzafava has been such a profligate tax-and-spender, she can almost make Speaker Sheldon Silver blush.

With the backing of the ACORN-allied Working Families Party, she supports Big Labor’s favorite organizing bill — card-check — as well as the federal stimulus, opposed by every House Republican.

Hoffman, by contrast, understands the dangers of unchecked spending, monster deficits and ever-higher taxes — i.e., concerns of average working Americans.

For the record, there are now more people identifying themselves as conservatives than as moderates. Starting with that 40 percent, you try to skim away at the middle. You don’t go to the middle and try to skim away at the base. That’ is what we saw with the McCain candidacy. Now, these folks are trying it again in New York. It’s asinine.

Liberals should not be considered for inclusion in the party of Reagan and Goldwater. Purge away, conservatives. The Democrat party is more than happy to have another big government, abortion rights, ACORN and union plant working against the Constitution. We need more people like DOug Hoffman.

Rep. Alan Grayson, the left’s new favorite wildcard, may have finally gone too far. Grayson is the liberal who recently said the Republican health care plan was for people to “die quickly.” What could have been worse than that?

He called a woman a “K Street whore.”

Republicans and Democrats slammed Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) for calling Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a “K Street whore” in a month-old radio interview that circulated on Capitol Hill Monday night.

“There’s no call for that language. No call for it. That’s absurd. If he was standing here now, I’d say that to him,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.)

“He’s out of control,” added Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.

The remarks are the latest to surface in a string of controversial statements by Grayson, who said on the Alex Jones radio show that he believes Robertson, a former Enron lobbyist, is not qualified to pass judgment on intricate financial matters.

It’s clear that his colleagues’ opinion of him has suffered.

“Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?” asked Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer defended Robertson, whom he said he knows.

“I think it’s inappropriate and unfair,” the Maryland Democrat said. He decried the “heated rhetoric” that he said interferes with the ability solve problems.

Grayson has at least one supporter in the Democrat party. President Barack Obama gave him a shout out while he was in Florida:

Obama, in introducing the members of Congress in attendance, called Grayson – along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek – as “outstanding members of Congress.”

So much for bipartisanship.

A few other of Grayson’s great hits include calling Republicans “knuckle dragging Neanderthals” and referring to the current health care system in America as a holocaust, a move which drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.

A fry short might be a bit generous.

Update -

Grayson apologizes:

“I offer my sincere apology to Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke,” Grayson said in an emailed statement. “I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women.”

In the emailed statement, Grayson gave further context to the comment, saying it was made “last month in the context of the debate over whether the Federal Reserve should be independently audited, was inappropriate, and I apologize.”