A Free Republic correspondent, knowing the MSM isn’t going to be reporting this, posts a list of Abramoff Lobbying & Political Contributions to Democrats (source: FEC Records):

* Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) Received At Least — $22,500
* Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) Received At Least — $6,500
* Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) Received At Least — $1,250
* Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Received At Least — $2,000
* Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Received At Least — $20,250
* Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Received At Least — $21,765
* Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) Received At Least — $7,500
* Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) Received At Least — $12,950
* Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) Received At Least — $8,000
* Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) Received At Least — $7,500
* Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) Received At Least — $14,792
* Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) Received At Least — $79,300
* Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) Received At Least — $14,000
* Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Received At Least — $2,000
* Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) Received At Least — $1,250
* Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) Received At Least — $45,750
* Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Received At Least — $9,000
* Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT) Received At Least — $2,000
* Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) Received At Least — $14,250
* Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) Received At Least — $3,300
* Senator John Kerry (D-MA) Received At Least — $98,550
* Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Received At Least — $28,000
* Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) Received At Least — $4,000
* Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Received At Least — $6,000
* Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) Received At Least — $29,830
* Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) Received At Least — $14,891
* Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Received At Least — $10,550
* Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) Received At Least — $78,991
* Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) Received At Least — $20,168
* Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) Received At Least — $5,200
* Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) Received At Least — $7,500
* Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) Received At Least — $2,300
* Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) Received At Least — $3,500
* Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) Received At Least — $68,941
* Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV) Received At Least — $4,000
* Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) Received At Least — $4,500
* Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) Received At Least — $4,300
* Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Received At Least — $29,550
* Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Received At Least — $6,250
* Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) Received At Least — $6,250

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte $423,480
Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte $354,700
Democratic National Cmte $65,720

Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) $42,500
Patty Murray (D-Wash) $40,980
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) $36,000
Harry Reid (D-Nev) $30,500
Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) $28,000
Tom Daschle (D-SD) $26,500
Democratic Party of Michigan $23,000
Brad R. Carson (D-Okla) $20,600
Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich) $19,000
Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md) $17,500
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) $15,500
Democratic Party of Oklahoma $15,000
Chris John (D-La) $15,000
John Breaux (D-La) $13,750
Frank Pallone, Jr (D-NJ) $13,600
Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo) $12,000
Mary L. Landrieu (D-La) $11,500
Barney Frank (D-Mass) $11,100
Max Baucus (D-Mont) $11,000
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) $10,000
Democratic Party of North Dakota $10,000
Nick Rahall (D-WVa) $10,000
Democratic Party of South Dakota $9,500
Democratic Party of Minnesota $9,000
Ron Kind (D-Wis) $9,000
Peter Deutsch (D-Fla) $8,500
Joe Baca (D-Calif) $8,000
Dick Durbin (D-Ill) $8,000
Xavier Becerra (D-Calif) $7,523
Tim Johnson (D-SD) $7,250
Democratic Party of New Mexico $6,250
Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) $6,000
David E. Bonior (D-Mich) $5,000
Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ) $5,000
Democratic Party of Montana $5,000
Fritz Hollings (D-SC) $5,000
Jay Inslee (D-Wash) $5,000
Thomas P. Keefe Jr. (D-Wash) $5,000
Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md) $5,000
Deborah Ann Stabenow (D-Mich) $5,000
Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) $4,500
Tom Carper (D-Del) $4,000
Kent Conrad (D-ND) $4,000
Jerry Kleczka (D-Wis) $4,000
Sander Levin (D-Mich) $4,000
Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif) $4,000
George Miller (D-Calif) $4,000
Kalyn Cherie Free (D-Okla) $3,500
James L. Oberstar (D-Minn) $3,500
Charles J. Melancon (D-La) $3,100
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) $3,000
Cal Dooley (D-Calif) $3,000
John B. Larson (D-Conn) $3,000
David R. Obey (D-Wis) $3,000
Ed Pastor (D-Ariz) $3,000
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) $3,000
Richard M. Romero (D-NM) $3,000
Brad Sherman (D-Calif) $3,000
Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss) $3,000
Max Cleland (D-Ga) $2,500
Grace Napolitano (D-Calif) $2,500
Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif) $2,500
Bill Luther (D-Minn) $2,250
Gene Taylor (D-Miss) $2,250
Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) $2,000
Ken Bentsen (D-Texas) $2,000
Dan Boren (D-Okla) $2,000
Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn) $2,000
John D. Dingell (D-Mich) $2,000
Doug Dodd (D-Okla) $2,000
Ned Doucet (D-La) $2,000
Lane Evans (D-Ill) $2,000
Sam Farr (D-Calif) $2,000
John Neely Kennedy (D-La) $2,000
Carl Levin (D-Mich) $2,000
Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) $2,000
Nita M. Lowey (D-NY) $2,000
Robert Menendez (D-NJ) $2,000
Adam Schiff (D-Calif) $2,000
Ronnie Shows (D-Miss) $2,000
Adam Smith (D-Wash) $2,000
Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif) $2,000
Mike Thompson (D-Calif) $2,000
Maxine Waters (D-Calif) $2,000
Peter DeFazio (D-Ore) $1,500
Norm Dicks (D-Wash) $1,500
John Kerry (D-Mass) $1,400
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) $1,000
Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif) $1,000
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) $1,000
Jim Costa (D-Calif) $1,000
Susan A. Davis (D-Calif) $1,000
Eliot L. Engel (D-NY) $1,000
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) $1,000
Tim Holden (D-Pa) $1,000
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) $1,000
Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) $1,000
Jim Maloney (D-Conn) $1,000
David Phelps (D-Ill) $1,000
Charles S. Robb (D-Va) $1,000
Brian David Schweitzer (D-Mont) $1,000
Pete Stark (D-Calif) $1,000
Gloria Tristani (D-NM) $1,000
Derrick B. Watchman (D-Ariz) $1,000
Rick Weiland (D-SD) $1,000
Paul Wellstone (D-Minn) $1,000
Ron Wyden (D-Ore) $1,000
Bob Borski (D-Pa) $720
Shelley Berkley (D-Nev) $500
Howard L. Berman (D-Calif) $500
Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) $500
Democratic Party of Washington $500
Barbara Lee (D-Calif) $500
Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif) $500

Grand Total $1,541,673

Looking to watch ambitious schemers competing to win a job as apprentice to an tyrannical egomaniac presiding over an enormous empire? Mouseclick here.

Klingon Personal Ads.

The expatriate edition of the Telegraph offers a fine collection of anecdotes of politically correct stupidity during 2005 in Britain and abroad:

• A market trader in Derby was banned from selling candles – unless they carried a notice warning that they can burn.

• A constable who saved the life of a man who was high on drugs by stopping him jumping from a window was reprimanded. PC Amerjit Singh, who had been summoned to a house in Cambridgeshire to prevent the potential suicide, had used “undue force” in holding the man back from killing himself. The man’s father complained.

• Labour’s election slogan – Forwards Not Backwards – sounded ironic to most Germans. The words were the East German government’s standard election cliché and slogan, just before the Berlin wall came down and Communism collapsed in 1989. Germans still use the term as a bad joke…

And so on.

The St. Louis World Aquarium is planning to sell its two-headed albino rat snake (Pantherophis, formerly Elaphe, obsoleta?) on eBay.

Clarice Feldman, in her latest, is experiencing schadenfreude at the plight of the New York Times.

When my wife and I go to the cineplex in a nearby California municipality, it is not easy to park legally. All legal street parking (and the great majority of spaces in the nearby municipal parking garage) features two hour limits. Any ordinary movie, with promotional and coming attraction trailers, more often than not will run longer than two hours. Arrive anytime past early morning, and the extra time slots (located on remote upper garage floors) will typically all be occupied.

A cynic will readily guess that this particular municipality, like many others, deliberately makes legal parking impossible in order to use parking tickets as a form of supplementary taxation. Anarchists like myself often just tear up tickets issued by dollar-snatching localities that we do not live in. But, as the Wall Street Journal warns, the days when this kind of payment compliance was semi-voluntary may be nearing an end:

A growing number of routine municipal fines and fees — including unpaid parking tickets, library fines, and trash-collection charges — are starting to damage consumer-credit scores.

In the face of budget crunches, major cities, including New York, Chicago and Miami, are hiring private collection agencies to chase down small debts that are frequently shrugged off by consumers. Since an outstanding account handled by a private collection company can wind up in a credit file, more consumers are discovering that niggling government fees — like unpaid speeding tickets or dog-catcher fines — are marring their credit. It’s up to each city to decide whether such information will end up in a consumer’s credit file.

Claude DaCorsi, a management consultant in Portland, Ore., used to pride himself on his near-perfect credit rating. But during a recent routine credit check, he discovered his credit scores had plunged to “below average.”

The reason: Two late library books, including a picture book taken out for his two-year-old son. The library had turned over the $40 late fee to a private collection agency.

Mr. DaCorsi, who says the black mark affected his interest rate on a home loan, has since barred his children from visiting the library. “We go to Barnes & Noble now,” he says. “We can get books there without fear of retribution.”

A handful of cities, including San Diego and Chicago, have worked with collection agencies since the late 1990s. But the trend is spreading rapidly around the country as strapped local governments look for creative ways to boost revenue without raising taxes and fees. Over the past few years, local governments in places including Seattle; Anchorage, Alaska; Austin, Texas; and Florida’s Miami-Dade County have contracted with private agencies to collect late parking tickets and court fees. In New York City, Baltimore and Dallas, libraries use private collection firms to recover fines. New York state recently hired a collection company to pursue overdue E-ZPass toll bills…

Local governments are also using collection agencies to track down some more-unusual fees. In Florida, some municipalities have used a private agency to track down swimmers who fail to pay “beach rescue” fees after they are rescued by lifeguards. San Diego courts have used collection agencies to collect fines issued to people caught riding the trolley system without tickets, according to AllianceOne, a Pennsylvania-based collection firm that works with court systems around the country…

Some cities are using collection agencies to chase down debts that are over a decade old, which can lead to surprises for consumers. Last July, Phillip Remstein of King of Prussia, Pa., received a notice in the mail from a collections company requesting $53 for a Philadelphia parking ticket issued in 1993. “It was ridiculous,” says Mr. Remstein. “I didn’t hear from them for 12 years and suddenly they want to collect?”…

Even when the dollar amounts involved in the fines are small, any collections activity in a credit file can do serious damage to a credit score. “It’s a very serious negative item on your report, on par with a tax lien or a bankruptcy,” says Maxine Sweet, vice president of public education at Experian. “You will definitely pay more for your credit, in higher interest rates and higher down payments.”

A library fine reported to a credit bureau, for example, can knock as much as 100 points off a credit score, making it difficult for someone with previously good credit to get the best rate on a loan, consumers and industry experts say. (Credit scores calculated by Fair Isaac Corp., the leading provider of such scores, typically range from 300 to 850; any score above 700 will generally get you the best rate on a loan.) Collections activity can stay on a report for seven years.

There is a quotation unverifiedly attributed to both Lenin and Stalin which boasts: “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Microsoft has joined Yahoo in selling rope to the Communist Chinese regime. Rebecca MacKinnon reports that on New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the Michael Anti blog written by Zhao Jing. What you get when you attempt to visit his blog now is this. (The Google cache of his blog up until Dec.22nd is here.)

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Microsoft will, of course, have to go a little further to equal Yahoo, which earlier this year assisted the Chinese government in identifying and prosecuting the journalist Shi Tao, and sending him to prison for ten years.

The Music Genome Project.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Mark Steyn, in the course of a New Criterion essay on Der Demographic Untergang das Abendslandes, mentions in passing:

one day in 2004, a couple of Canadians returned home, to Lester B. Pearson International Airport in Toronto. They were the son and widow of a fellow called Ahmed Said Khadr, who back on the Pakistani-Afghan frontier was known as “al-Kanadi.” Why? Because he was the highest-ranking Canadian in al Qaeda—plenty of other Canucks in al Qaeda but he was the Numero Uno. In fact, one could argue that the Khadr family is Canada’s principal contribution to the war on terror. Granted they’re on the wrong side (if you’ll forgive me being judgmental) but no can argue that they aren’t in the thick of things. One of Mr. Khadr’s sons was captured in Afghanistan after killing a U.S. Special Forces medic. Another was captured and held at Guantanamo. A third blew himself up while killing a Canadian soldier in Kabul. Pa Khadr himself died in an al Qaeda shoot-out with Pakistani forces in early 2004. And they say we Canadians aren’t doing our bit in this war!

In the course of the fatal shoot-out of al-Kanadi, his youngest son was paralyzed. And, not unreasonably, Junior didn’t fancy a prison hospital in Peshawar. So Mrs. Khadr and her boy returned to Toronto so he could enjoy the benefits of Ontario government healthcare. “I’m Canadian, and I’m not begging for my rights,” declared the widow Khadr. “I’m demanding my rights.”

As they always say, treason’s hard to prove in court, but given the circumstances of Mr. Khadr’s death it seems clear that not only was he providing “aid and comfort to the Queen’s enemies” but that he was, in fact, the Queen’s enemy. The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, the Royal 22nd Regiment, and other Canucks have been participating in Afghanistan, on one side of the conflict, and the Khadr family had been over there participating on the other side. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister of Canada thought Boy Khadr’s claims on the public health system was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate his own deep personal commitment to “diversity.” Asked about the Khadrs’ return to Toronto, he said, “I believe that once you are a Canadian citizen, you have the right to your own views and to disagree.”

That’s the wonderful thing about multiculturalism: you can choose which side of the war you want to fight on. When the draft card arrives, just tick “home team” or “enemy,” according to taste. The Canadian Prime Minister is a typical late-stage western politician: He could have said, well, these are contemptible people and I know many of us are disgusted at the idea of our tax dollars being used to provide health care for a man whose Canadian citizenship is no more than a flag of convenience, but unfortunately that’s the law and, while we can try to tighten it, it looks like this lowlife’s got away with it. Instead, his reflex instinct was to proclaim this as a wholehearted demonstration of the virtues of the multicultural state. Like many enlightened western leaders, the Canadian Prime Minister will be congratulating himself on his boundless tolerance even as the forces of intolerance consume him.

The Telegraph reports:

Gazing through the telescopic sight of his M24 rifle, Staff Sgt Jim Gilliland, leader of Shadow sniper team, fixed his eye on the Iraqi insurgent who had just killed an American soldier.

His quarry stood nonchalantly in the fourth-floor bay window of a hospital in battle-torn Ramadi, still clasping a long-barrelled Kalashnikov. Instinctively allowing for wind speed and bullet drop, Shadow’s commander aimed 12 feet high.

A single shot hit the Iraqi in the chest and killed him instantly. It had been fired from a range of 1,250 meters (1367 yards), well beyond the capacity of the powerful Leupold sight, accurate to 1,000 metres.

“I believe it is the longest confirmed kill in Iraq with a 7.62mm rifle,” said Staff Sgt Gilliland, 28, who hunted squirrels in Double Springs, Alabama from the age of five before progressing to deer – and then people.

“He was visible only from the waist up. It was a one in a million shot. I could probably shoot a whole box of ammunition and never hit him again.”

Later that day, Staff Sgt Gilliland found out that the dead soldier was Staff Sgt Jason Benford, 30, a good friend.

The insurgent was one of between 55 and 65 he estimates that he has shot dead in less than five months, putting him within striking distance of sniper legends such as Carlos Hathcock, who recorded 93 confirmed kills in Vietnam.

M24 Rifle manufactured by Remington.

Leupold scopes.

Carlos Hathcock.
—————————————————————-

Isn’t it ironic that the British Telegraph is covering this remarkable feat of American arms, and the American so-called “newspaper of record” is too busy betraying its country to cover such a story?

ShrinkWrapped nails it.

It seems that almost every day the New York Times prints another story that is destructive to our war effort and threatens to damage its (the Times’s) swiftly declining, now almost negligible, credibility. Today’s example is a story, Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda, in which the reporters reveal that the United States, as part of our war effort in Iraq, used the traditional means of money to get opinion leaders in the Iraqi Sunni communities to come over to our side. This is not really news, but the story is prominently featured on the front page of the Times, it appears, primarily because it can damage our war effort, and endanger people who are working with the American forces in Iraq. If the story had been leaked by a foreign national spying on the United States, no one would question whether or not they deserve, at the least, a long jail term, but since the information is printed in the pages of the New York Times, we are all supposed to ignore the harm it can do and let it slide.

This is not an important story in the greater scheme 0f things. The Times campaign of leaks and innuendo which seems to have the goal of disarming the United States in a global (partly informational) war against Islamic fascists who want nothing more than to kill large numbers of infidels and destroy our country has been ongoing for months, perhaps years, and there have been many more dangerous stories, like the leaks about the NSA program that the Times has recently been bruiting about. No, the issue with this story is not its power to harm our interests, though it can and will, but the fact that it is such a minor story of so little import, without even a patina of justification based on the supposed concerns over civil liberties that so much of the left uses to legitimize their opposition to American self-defense. It begs the question: why would the Times print such a minor story on the front page at such a time?

The primary job of the editors of the New York Times, indeed, of any news organization, is deciding which stories among the plethora of news they collect everyday, deserves to be printed. Of even greater import, which stories should be on the front page. These are the stories that the derivative news organizations all the way down the line to the local news casts and local papers, will feature as their important news stories of the day. When the Washington Post and the Times printed stories about the NSA program to monitor communications, they could justify their breaches of national security by believing that civil liberties concerns trump national security concerns, and that any risk they might run in printing the stories was worth the benefit that would accrue from the American public knowing what was being done in their name. So far, the American public doesn’t buy their justification, if the polls are accurate, but at least they can claim to be standing on principle in printing the stories.

A story about using the time honored approach of bribing tribal leaders and religious leaders to support our policies, in a part of the world where this has been standard operating procedure for centuries, is a non-story, which can only harm our war effort and can in no way be justified by high minded rationalizations of supporting our civil liberties. This is anti-war, anti-American, behavior, and as such, adds to a mounting body of evidence that the Times has lost its way.