Today, for the first time in two weeks, I find myself alone on my journey, not spending the night in a hotel with my family or in the homes of my friends (and family).  After leaving Atlanta this morning where I had a wonderful dinner with some of our readers (including one non-conservative fan of the blog) last night, I am making a pilgrimage (of sorts) to the Western Hemisphere shrine to the goddess Athene, the owl-eyed Olympian, and subject of my dissertation.

Me being me, I actually brought a bound print-out of the first six chapters of the paper into the temple.  Now, I sit in Centennial Park, looking up at the reproduction of Phidias’ classic building, grateful for my wireless card which allows me to blog and confident that the battery on my laptop will last long enough to allow me to post this.

Accountability.

The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill.

Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.

At $13 trillion, that figure has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. That’s almost three times the daily average of $1.7 billion under the previous administration, and led Republicans on Wednesday to place blame squarely at the feet of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats.

“A $13 trillion debt is an alarm bell and a wake-up call combined, but Democrats are not even trying to pass a budget,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. “How out of touch can Washington Democrats get? Instead of continuing to pay lip service to this issue, President Obama should call on congressional Democrats to pass a budget that provides the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create jobs and grow our economy.”

The White House would not comment for the record, but an official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the administration is “committed to restoring fiscal responsibility.”

Spokesmen for the Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees didn’t return messages Wednesday.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In her letter to supporters yesterday, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to replace California’s failed Senator wrote:

While you and I are looking forward to June 8 and to the end of the primary, we will be afforded no time for celebration as the Barbara Boxer attack machine will immediately launch their negative campaign against me. 

Emphasis in original.  Carly’s right.  

With far more Californians disapproving of her record in office than approving and with her polling in the low 40s, well behind the Democratic president who remains popular in the (once-)Golden State, Barbara Boxer knows that the only way she can win is by doing what Gray Davis did in 2002 to Bill Simon–attack, attack, attack, and then attack some more.

This hyperpartisan Democrat has a record of going nasty and going negative.

I’m glad to see Carly’s campaign recognizes the challenges that lie ahead.  If she can successfully parry the attacks in the next weeks, she stands in good stead to succeed the sourpuss from San Francisco in the U.S. Senate.

Those who have actually read my various posts on Jack Abramoff know that I see my charismatic former College Republican colleague as a complex man.  I have never once defended his activities as a lobbyist, indeed, have criticized his behavior from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.  

But, just because a man engages in criminal activists does not mean that he himself is entirely lacking in good qualities.  Were that the case, world literature would be poorer and Francis Ford Coppola would not be considered one of the giants of filmmaking.  

Almost since the dawn of storytelling, our bards and playwrights have been exploring why good men go bad.  Indeed, it often seems that religious literature (including ancient myth) serves to remind us of human weakness in order to prevent us for falling prey to our darker passions.

With that in mind, I ask you to consider a comment from one of our critics in response to my post on my old drinking buddy Ralph Reed and our past association with the aforementioned Abramoff.  It offers an insight into the narrowness of certain narrow-minded liberals who blind themselves to the complexities of human conduct when it comes to conservatives caught in corrupt and criminal activities:

I mean this and the Abramoff piece from a couple of days ago. Coming out to the world as a friend and admirer of the absolute lowest corrupt scum in American politics.

You have zero credibility when it comes to criticizing anyone in politics, on just about anything. And judgement???? my gawd….

Yes, I once admired Jack and considered him a friend.  But that was long before he had engaged in corrupt and criminal activities.

I wrote about Jack both to share my experiences with a man who suddenly found himself in the spotlight and to join in the conversation of the ages in attempting to understand human weakness, why men with such great potential do bad things. (more…)

Lost in the media coverage of the media stunt organized under the aegis of the government of Turkey with the participation of various terrorist organizations to run the Israeli blockade of the terrorist-ruled enclave of Gaza is the fact that Israel is willing to deliver the humanitarian aid on the ships to that enclave’s beleaguered population.

Instead, the media, world governments and even our own Administration, have been buying into the propaganda of the enemies of Israel, that the Jewish State is somehow denying aide to the Palestinian people.  Well, you gotta give the folks who organized the flotilla credit.  They know how to play world governments and world media.

Wonder how they would have reacted had there been a similar attempt to provide relief to the Kurds who, unlike the Palestinians in Gaza, are not ruled by a government of their choosing, but instead suffer under Turkish tyranny.  It takes some cheek for Turkey to chastise Israel for refusing to provide aide to the Palestinians — when it’s actually the manner of the delivery, but not the aide that’s the problem.

Yet, while Vice President Joe Biden “said the United States also needed to ‘put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can’ to allow in aid shipments such as building materials“, it’s Hamas not Israel who is preventing the aide from entering Gaza:

As of right now, the State of Israel has loaded 20 trucks with various types of aid found onboard the flotilla. Expired medication, clothing, blankets, some medical equipment and toys were among the aid found on the ships.

Unfortunately, the Hamas terror organization is unwilling to accept the cargo and the trucks filled with humanitarian aid have not been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. It appears that Hamas is in fact stopping the transfer of the humanitarian aid.

Wonder why the media and world governments are all but ignoring that .  Guess that they don’t want the facts to interfere with their narrative.

UPDATE:  Barbara Hollingsworth reminds us just who’s behind this flotilla and concludes:

And if there’s any doubt that this was a political set-up instead of a  humanitarian mission, the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised to join a future convoy should dispel any doubts.

UP-UPDATE:  Wonder if the international community will show any outrage over Hamas’ raid of international NGO’s in Gaza.  And they just didn’t raid the offices:

After conducting a thorough search of the offices of the organizations, the Hamas security agents confiscated files, documents, computers, fax machines and other equipment.