"Congressman flies U.N. flag" Sam Farr has done more in his six terms (about six too many) to undermine American sovereignty than former General Secretary President Klinton did in his eight years in office.

"If the U.N. didn't exist, we'd be inventing it right now," Farr told the San Francisco Chronicle, calling the U.N. "the only way to build up the infrastructure around the globe for the human rights, labor, environmental conditions that are fair and equitable." Gee, Representative Farr, just like the U.N. is doing in Iraq right now? Like it did so successfully in Vietnam? Somalia? Rwanda? "We've got to do everything in our power to make the U.N. the leadership body it was intended to be. ... This president has no respect for the United Nations." Nor should he. Representative Farr, name one conflict the United Nations has successfully mediated to a resolution that benefited all of the people involved. You have until the next election, and if you need more time, I'm sure we can give you all you need. After toppling Saddam Hussein with the assistance of about 40 other countries who formed a "coalition of the willing," the U.S. returned to the Security Council this month to resume international diplomacy over the issue of sanctions. On Thursday, the 15-member council appeared to smooth the rift over Iraq by passing a resolution that approved the U.S.-led administration of the country. Yes, after the U.S. and its allies did all the dirty work, the U.N. decides it wants to play ball. "Reform of the U.N. is impossible. The U.N. and its agencies are fatally flawed," maintains Phyllis Kaminsky, a U.S. delegate to the Human Rights Commission and a Reagan administration official. Indeed. The U.N. has demonstrated its ineptitude in handling the Iraq situation, including its mismanagement of the entire oil-for-food program, which did little to put food on the table of a majority of Iraqis, while continuing to line Hussein's pockets. Oh, and regarding your income-tax payments this year: "Americans should take notice when pro-U.N. forces in Washington recently spent $600,000 of taxpayers' money to renovate the kitchen of the ambassador's Waldorf-Astoria apartment," Snyder said. "I bet Julia Child's kitchen didn't cost 600 grand."

Colonel David Hackworth (USA-Retired) reports on the sissifying of the elite Army Rangers.

While the rest of the U.S. Army has lowered its standards to the point where seasoned war vets find today's combat training a joke and the crusty salts who fought at Anzio, Osan and Dak To refer to what passes for most training as "an invitation to get killed," Rangers have fought lowering the training bar and have consistently turned out hardened studs whom commanders in the field would fight to get.

That is until Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, the guy who runs Fort Benning today, was told by a few recent Ranger graduates that they were turned off by Ranger School because some of their RIs were meanies and actually yelled and cursed at them and even made them do pushups when they goofed up. Others complained in writing that they'd been sleep-deprived and that the training was too difficult.

For the record, the RIs--hardened vets who know what it takes to win and walk away alive--were merely following the battle-tested Darby practices of creating maximum stress, teaching attention to detail and passing on the proven tactics and techniques that have worked so splendidly for our Rangers in a bunch of bad scraps. Just for the record, applying for and attending Ranger School is strictly a volunteer activity, just like joining the Army itself. If you're not being physically abused or racially slandered, what are you complaining about? The old rumination on heat and the kitchen comes to mind. One can only hope that Eaton is retired--er, retires, soon, before he gets any of our boys killed due to ill preparation and training.

Too often during Memorial Day ceremonies, we tend to overlook those who survive the men and women who sacrificed their all for our nation. Michelle Malkin takes a look at some of the different organizations that assist military survivors, along with contact information, should you wish to lend financial or other support.

On this Memorial Day, please take some time out to remember those who have sacrificed all on behalf of our nation, as well as those they have left behind. Freedom is not free.

Despite ABC's upcoming fall show of the same name, the real Threat Matrix is a document the President reads each morning.

The crux of their briefings is the document formally titled "Terrorist Threats to U.S. Interests Worldwide," or more informally, the "Daily Threat Matrix."

[...]

The document is "a list of every threat directed at the United States in the past 24 hours," Mueller said.

Government officials familiar with the Matrix, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described it as a daily compendium of a few pages to 30 or more. Each threat is entered in tabular format, with those considered the most severe listed first.

Yet again, in light of all the whining coming from the Demobrats over the just-passed federal tax cut: * unconstitutional spending causes deficits * unconstitutional spending causes deficits * unconstitutional spending causes deficits Did I happen to mention that unconstitutional spending causes deficits? Putting money back in to the pockets of those actually paying taxes, i.e., the top 50% of all those collecting a paycheck, does not constitute a deficit problem. Speaking of those actually paying taxes, yes, these tax cuts favor "the rich," if you consider a dual-income married couple with two kids bringing in around $125,00 a year "rich." Those are the people actually paying taxes; a single-income married couple with two kids bringing in only $18,000 a year is paying very little, if any, income tax. Stop your whining, your leftist sociocrats, and work toward cutting out those programs and departments that the federal government is unconstitutionally funding. And this goes for several members of the Republican party as well. Cut the pork, and the deficit will go down. Speaking of bringing down the deficit, riddle me this: what was the Clinton administration doing to lead the country to better fiscal management? Clinton supporters have long pointed to how, during the Clinton administration, our federal government ran a "surplus." Government should never have a surplus--it says either the government doesn't have its fiscal priorities in order, or the citizenry is over-taxed, or both. Why wasn't this surplus going toward paying down the national debt? That would have shown good financial sense.