First and foremost, please be sure to give thanks to all of the men and women in uniform serving today or who have served in the past. It is because of them that we continue to be free. And maybe you could take some time out to show your support. Is there a veterans cemetary or memorial in your area? Go visit it. Leave some flowers. If you haven’t yet done so, log on to Soldiers Angels and adopt a soldier. If you see someone in the military, whether active or retired, take a minute and shake their hands. Tell them thank you. We need to remember how much more this holiday is than just barbecuing, beer, and fireworks.

Over at Michelle’s, she’s reprinted the full text of the Declaration of Independence, from the National Archives. I’m unashamedly stealing that idea because, let’s face it, we all need to be reminded of just what this country stood for upon it’s founding, and of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Happy Independence Day, everyone. May our flag always fly, and freedom always ring.

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North Korea fired seven ballistic missiles off its eastern coast Saturday, South Korea said, a violation of U.N. resolutions and an apparent message of defiance to the United States on its Independence Day.
The launches, which came two days after North Korea fired what were believed to be four short-range cruise missiles, will likely further escalate tensions in the region as the U.S. tries to muster support for tough enforcement of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution imposed on the communist regime for its May nuclear test.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said three missiles were fired early Saturday, a fourth around noon and three more in the afternoon. The Defense Ministry said that the missiles were ballistic and are believed to have flown more than 250 miles.

“Our military is fully ready to counter any North Korean threats and provocations based on strong South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

It’s better than a Taepodong-2, but let’s not get too excited just yet. He’s been defying UN sanctions left and right. These latest missile launches are yet another act that defies the sanctions against him, and the only apparent reason he hasn’t launched a T-2 is because he hasn’t gotten it up and running yet.

It doesn’t mean he won’t in the near future, though. Just because a T-2 isn’t coming our way for the Fourth of July doesn’t mean we should let our guard down. Clearly, Kim Jong Il doesn’t much care about UN sanctions or the strongly worded letters of condemnation he’s been getting. And while I’m glad that we’re ready to intercept any missiles that come our way, it’s frankly not good enough.

Here’s the million dollar question: how long do we allow this to go on before we take action? UN sanctions against him are not working. Threatening that North Korea will “lose the respect of the international community” hasn’t fazed him, either. This is not going to stop until we make him stop. And if we don’t, I fear that a T-2 will indeed be coming our way. If Kim Jong Il is smart (which he is) he’ll wait a few months without launching any missiles to get our guard down, and then BAM. That’s all it would take. And I get the feeling that our idiot president won’t do anything to prevent that from happening.

I mean, come on. Let’s face reality. North Korea just launched seven missiles in defiance of UN sanctions and specifically the United States. And what will Obama do to stop it? Send another strongly worded letter? Issue a UN resolution? I bet Kim Jong Il is just shaking in his boots thinking about it.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

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Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor’s Picnic at the end of the month, Palin said.

There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Palin made the announcement flanked by Parnell and most, if not all, of her cabinet.

More details and commentary to come as this story develops. I will be twittering about this all afternoon. Be sure to follow me at @cassyfiano.

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Of course, that means nothing to the DUmmies. Across multiple posts, she is being smeared and insulted. Here’s a sampling.

From one post asking why should she care, since she’s a Christian and Christianity is all for polygamous marriages:

Just what is Jenny Sanford’s issue? The bible allows for concubines (& multiple wives). And it doesn’t say the first wife has to agree.

Yes, I agree, she is being unreasonable.

I have no idea. I’ve often wondered why so many fundie-types want to post the 10 Commandments everywhere because Jesus pretty much annihilated them with his Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount.

Right wingers only cherry pick the versus they can use to gain votes.

Jeez – don’t give those sexist troglodytes any ideas.

Another post said that she was “just as strange as Mark”.

Jenny Sanford may be as strange as Mark.

South Carolina’s First Lady Jenny Sanford issued a statement Thursday following recent revelations that the governor had an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman as well as inappropriate contact with other women. In an interview with the Associated Press, Sanford said the mistress was his “soul mate” but that he was trying to fall back in love with his wife.

… I really thought she had more sense and more class than this. It sounds like she is trying to help him hold onto his job.

Just as whack as he is.

A couple of fundies airing their dirty laundry in public.

Pathetic.

Fundie Undies on the Clothesline…nice image.

That way, everyone can see how dingy and stained they are.

Bingo!

Let me be clear right wing evangelical american christianity is whacked….and I do mean whacked…they are all over the map.

With that being said and have not belonged to organized religion in 15 years as a progressive liberal and barely believes anymore ….all christians are to blame for empowering these whack jobs…we let them bully the whole nation….we allowed 3 million of them to lock step vote for Prick Dubya.

She’s a fucking Xian whack job, just like her husband.

Any person who finds “offenses” against an imaginary entity (that would be god) to be “far more egregious” than the acts one committed against their family is a person steeped in a self-loathing of their own humanity, a loathing imposed upon them by their religious beliefs.

It’s sickening. The elephant in the Sanford living room isn’t hypocrisy or infidelity, it is Christianity, a belief system that is itself built upon lies and hypocrisy. Why is anyone surprised that this shit is stock-in-trade for those who follow Xianity’s BS?

Would that the world could be rid of this scourge.

I think you are on to something….I said this a couple of days ago on Huffington Post

got some bricks my way but I called Jenny Sanford a “complex bitch”

I agree – I’m from SC and the talk here is that she is VERY shrewd

and calculating. Shes got him by the short hairs and she is getting her pound of flesh with his public humiliation. She may make a run for governor – would not surprise me.

Yet another post accused her of manipulating the affair behind the scenes so she could continue on as a governor’s wife.

she likes being wife of a governor. Wife of an “ex-gov resigned in shame career over” would suck.

So Jenny wants to keep being the First Lady

of South Carolina..I wonder if it was on her advice that he wouldn’t take the Stimulus/Recovery money from the O admin to make political points for the repuke presidential primary?

guess some married partners like that shit…maybe it’s a turn-on for her?

She likes the status –

doesn’t care for him, but likes him having that job.

Nice lady. Great example for four sons, all of whom now have license to grow up and be horndogs.

Well done, Sanfords………..

All of this vitriol, and for what? Because she didn’t instantly leave her husband and go crying to the DNC to save her? Of course, the Kossacks are jumping in with both feet as well. In http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/24/746489/-Jenny-Sanford-issues-statement>this post, the OP gives Jenny Sanford kudos for being the only person involved in this affair to escape with dignity intact, but the commenters ran wild.

It’s reasons like this that so few Christians identify with liberals and Democrats. They insult Christianity, yet want Christians to vote their way. They slam a Republican politician for his moral failings, but only because it’s “hypocrisy”. On their side, it’s perfectly acceptable because they have no morals! And perhaps most despicable of all, they’re slandering a woman who did nothing other than be married to a man who entered politics and had an affair.

I really wondered as I read these posts… how did these people get this way? I’m serious. How do you get so angry, deranged, and hate-filled? What happened to them? There must have been something.

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And 233 years ago today, a man who would one day become president wrote a letter to his wife Abigail. John Adams expressed poignant thoughts about the founding of our great country, of the blood and toil it would cost to make it, and how the price was almost too great. Here is an excerpt from that letter:

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

There are two things I want you to get out of this letter.

First and foremost is a reminder not to lose hope. I know that these are dark, troubled times for us. I know that a lot of Americans are looking at their futures and the future of this country thinking, How are we ever going to get out of this? It seems bleak, hopeless.

It’s not.

This country, no matter how hard the struggle to preserve it may be, is still worth fighting for and it can still be saved. Think about the battle that our Founding Fathers had to fight to make this country a reality. It should put things in perspective for you. Our Founders were great men and women, yes. And their greatness and wisdom should serve as an inspiration to us. What would have happened to our country had more men not stood up to follow in their footsteps, like Abraham Lincoln did? Most of the people we look at as ardent patriots are just Americans who love their country and the ideals it stands for, and wanted to keep the American dream of freedom alive. What will happen to that American dream if we become dejected and hopeless? In this generation, we need more than just Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal to step up and be the conservative voices for the wisdom expressed in our Constitution. Every single person reading this — it is your responsibility as well to defend America and her ideals. We all know that. You can do it in small ways and large ones. Some people do it by joining the military to fight to defend our rights. Some get involved in freedom-loving organizations like the NRA or the Daughters of the American Revolution. Some run for office in an effort to keep the right principles in politics. Others simply stay involved, and make their voices heard. However you choose to do it, it is your duty to defend this country, just as our Founding Fathers saw it as their duty.

Do not give up. Do not lose hope.

The other thing I want all of us to remember is just what the Fourth of July stands for. It’s more than a day for cook-outs and fireworks. It’s more than a national bank holiday. It’s more than just listening to a few patriotic country songs while you’re grilling burgers in your backyard. Remember the ideals and principles this country was founded upon. Remember the patriots who have fought and died defending those ideals and principles over the last 233 years. Give thanks to God that you were so blessed to be born and to live in the greatest country that this world has ever seen. That’s what the Fourth of July is truly about. Be unashamedly patriotic every day, and not just on the Fourth… but tomorrow, be sure to take some time to reflect on what this country stands for and how much we’ve fought for and sacrificed to get where we are today.

No matter how bad things may seem, we are still the luckiest people alive. We are Americans. And I’m still proud.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

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“I’m everthing they are afraid of. Everything they hate. Everything they try to hide. Besides, I speak my mind and show people what’s out

there in reality” – Marilyn Manson

pretty much why hardcore conservatives hate me so much, keep calling me RINO bitches

Meghan, Meghan, Meghan. We call you RINO because you are a RINO. If you don’t like being called that, then maybe you should start being a legitimate member of the Republican Party and stop trying to kiss the asses of the mainstream media, Democrats, and progressives all at the same time.

I know, I know. You’re supposedly a cool, hip, progressive Republican. You love sex! You’re all for gay marriage! We should emulate you and stop being such stuffy, cranky, prudish conservatives and see the light in you, our new leader, Meghan McCain.

Uh, sorry. No thanks. We’ll just stick with being hated by the liberal Obama-ass-kissers in the media for standing by our principles. You keep on bleating to them about how much the GOP sucks and needs to change to be more progressive like you, all so that you can be well-liked. Which road is really the higher one there, Megs?

What Meghan McCain fails to realize is that no one on the Right could care less that she loves sex (trust me Meghan, most of us conservatives love sex, too) or that she supports gay marriage (plenty of other GOPers do, too). It’s the fact that she goes onto The View and The Colbert Report and Larry King Live and bashes the Republican party. She paints this picture of Republicans as old fogeys who are too square to wake up and realize that this is the year 2009. She makes us out to be homophobic prudes who are fearful of anything edgy or cool.

Take her recent statements about her book, and the movie that she apparently thinks should be made out of it.

Meghan McCain hasn’t even released her first book, but she’s already planning the movie version.

“I want Hilary Duff to play me. I think she’s really hot – hotter than me – but I’d still want her to play me,” Sen. John McCain’s daughter confided to us at the Trevor Project’s summer gala on Monday night at Capitale.

But the young Republican isn’t dead set on Duff. “Really, I’d take anyone who’s blond,” she joked, adding that one actor in particular would certainly be welcome to join the cast. “Bradley Cooper is so hot,” McCain swooned. “If he can be in it, he will. I’m obsessed with [his film] ‘The Hangover!’”

The Daily Beast blogger also revealed that Sarah Palin will be coming to life on the big screen. “I just wrote a chapter about her, so she’ll definitely be in it, too,” McCain said. “But I don’t know who would play her.” Guess she’s not a fan of “Saturday Night Live” – or she’d know that Tina Fey is practically synonymous with the Alaskan governor.

The book, due next spring from Hyperion, will examine “what it means to be a progressive Republican in the party today,” according to McCain.

“It’s half political, and it’s half a memoir,” said the 24-year-old. “It’s like ‘Primary Colors’ meets Tori Spelling’s ’sTori Telling.’ I want young women to actually be able to read it.”

Get that? Young women apparently can’t suffer through other Republican women’s stuffy old political books, I guess because they’re just too boring. We need that celebrity flare! And Republican superstar authors like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Laura Ingraham just can’t attract us young gals, huh? (Meghan better not look at my library… she’d be terrified.)

But as if that weren’t bad enough, she then goes on to make some very idiotic comments about the Secret Service. They were just so, like, overprotective, and, like, none of them were even, like, cute!

“The Obamas are doing very well – their popularity is very high – but I’m just happy it’s nothing my family has to figure out,” she insisted. “I’m so relieved. I did not get along with the Secret Service, so it’s good that I’m not living there. You know those Disney movies [where princesses are always well guarded]? Life in the White House is just like that, except there were no cute guards. Seriously, none of them were cute at all!”

Wow. Maybe if the guards had been cute enough for you, you could’ve shown them firsthand your pro-sex viewpoint, huh? They’re not there to, you know, protect your dad and his family or anything, they’re solely Meghan McCain’s eye candy. And without attractive enough men in the Secret Service, they apparently have no use in her book.

And she wonders why Republicans don’t like her. She continually goes out of her way to say ridiculous things like this, and bash Republicans and conservatives. Democrats and the media love her, but conservatives don’t, and she honestly can’t figure out why? Is she that stupid? (That was a rhetorical question.)

Well, sorry Meghan, but there are more important things in life than being cool or well-liked by the ladies on The View, or making sure the guys in the Secret Service are cute. And I hate to break it to you, but your dad tried to anti-conservative route, and look where it got him. Sure, the media loves you now. But they can and will turn on you faster than you can blink, and all of that selling out will have gotten you nothing. Do you really think idiots like Perez Hilton care about or respect you? If you want to test your newfound friends’ mettle, then just for fun, say you changed your mind on gay marriage. And watch the fur fly.

Meghan McCain is not called a RINO because she likes sex or is for gay marriage or because she has tattoos. It’s because she continually bashes the GOP in order to make herself look better. And for that reason, she’s despised. She can pout about it all she wants, but sometimes the truth hurts, sweetheart. Maybe it’s time for you to wake up to reality, because you’re the one living in a dream, not us.

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On July 30th, Conservatives are “Going Galt”. On that date, we are asking Conservatives all across the nation to “Call in Conservative”. On July 30th, Conservatives will not work, we will not buy. Instead, we will spend time with our families and friends. We will show President Obama and Congress who REALLY drives this economy. For more information on “A Day Without Conservatives , contact Judson Phillips at judson@teapartynation.com.

Now, I support the tea parties. Hell, I planned one of them. But this, frankly, is stupid. It’s just as stupid as the Day Without An Illegal Alien and the Day Without A Gay. Now, even the gays didn’t turn out to support the Day Without A Gay, so why in the world would hard-working conservatives support this?

I know that it’s supposed to be part of the “Going Galt” movement, but not working or spending money for one day will accomplish nothing. The entire problem with these movements is that it is the economic equivalent to a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. After July 30th (which is my birthday, by the way) and this “movement” is over, the economy will go on just as it did July 29th. It will literally make no difference to the economy or to business owners. We might as well all sit in a corner together and scream until Obama gives us our bottles. If we wanted to actually Go Galt and have a lasting effect on the economy, we would need to stop working or spending indefinitely. One day will not make a difference. The thing is, conservatives won’t do that. They’re too responsible and hardworking by nature. Not to mention that many of the people this idea is targeting work for or own small businesses. They like and respect their bosses. They like their customers and want to keep them. Most conservatives are not about to blow off their responsibilities just for a temper tantrum. This kind of immaturity and ill-conceived planning is something I’d expect from the Left, but not from the Right.

So, no offense to the “Tea Party Nation”, but this is quite frankly the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

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“I love the English lifestyle, it’s not as capitalistic as America. People don’t talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner.” Paltrow adds: “I like living here because I don’t fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans.”

Of course, when the idiot Americans who go to see her movies got angry over those comments complained, she quickly backtracked, saying her comments were taken out of context. But now she’s back at it again, bashing America in favor of Spain:

Gwyneth Paltrow says Spain has “became a second home.”

“It is so different from the United States. It seemed to have a history, and the buildings are years and years and years old. Here in the United States an old building is about 17 (years old), and over there it’s from 500 B.C., it’s incredible,” she tells the Associated Press.

“Also, the way people live over there. They seem to enjoy life a little bit more,” she continued. “They aren’t running around as much as in New York. They enjoy time with the family. They don’t always have their BlackBerry on.”

It’s interesting that she would say that. Perhaps if she, along with the other self-obsessed liberals in Hollywood, would step out of Hollywood or Manhattan and into the real America, she’d see Americans differently. Most normal Americans do not have the pampered egos of the celebrities that Gwynnie Paltrow likes to rub elbows with have. Most normal Americans do spend time with their families, unlike the spoiled celebubrats in Hollywood and Manhattan who let their children be raised almost exclusively by nannies. And in this economy, most normal Americans aren’t going out and buying Blackberries, let alone run around without ever turning them off.

And believe it or not, Gwyneth, American does have a history. There is rich history in the United States, and even before the United States was founded there was history and culture here. Perhaps actually reading a book, as opposed to learning your history from Oliver Stone movies or Michael Moore documentaries, could help Ms. Paltrow in this area. But then, ignorance is bliss, which is likely why so many celebrities parade around, wallowing in their own smug arrogance.

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Where are the jobs? It’s a question that needs to be answered by our Dear Leader, especially considering the unemployment rate has crept up to 9.5%. The stimulus package was supposed to save hundreds of thousands of jobs, and yet here we are. We’re losing thousands of jobs every day, and yet the Socialists Democrats in Congress still want to shove cap and trade down our throats, quickly followed by Obamacare. This should be a wake-up call to them, but of course it isn’t. Unfortunately, the job situation isn’t likely to change.

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When Ed Jordan hung two flags from his front porch, one for his country and one for the Marine Corps he once served in, he thought no one would take issue with his gesture to honor the troops during the Fourth of July.

He returned home from an errand Monday morning to find the flags burned, their cinders scattered amid his azaleas.

The 70-year-old veteran was shocked when police told him that a flag at another house in his quiet neighborhood just north of Valley View Mall was also incinerated.

“I’d have given them the flags if they wanted them,” he said, spreading a handful of remains out on his coffee table. “But to just burn them – I don’t understand that at all.”

A sooty sliver of red and white was all that remained of the American flag.

Another that had depicted a famous photograph of Marines at Iwo Jima had been reduced to shreds of melted nylon.

Jordan said he enlisted in the Marines out of high school and served as a corporal at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in the 1950s.

“When I was on active duty, the flag always meant something to me,” he said. “I’d always take pride when I saw it flying in civilian areas.”

… “When you damage something that so many have died for, the symbol it represents, that, to me, is intolerable,” he said.

Fortunately, there has since been a huge outpouring of support for him.

Since writing the article, I’ve been contacted by soldiers, civilians, a flag manufacturer and the agent for Kid Rock — all of whom want to help replace the burned flags. An Army veteran offered up an American flag he said had been flown over several camps and bases in Iraq.

… I would like to clarify one thing for those outraged by the vandalism: neither the police nor either victim could say whether the burnings were a political statement, a juvenile prank, or something else entirely.

Regardless the intent behind the flag burnings, the act was reprehensible. I’m glad to see, however, that the community is rallying around him. Vets should know that the majority of good, decent Americans stand behind them.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

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