America fiddles while Paris burns

For many days now, America’s rapt attention has been focused on the non-news behavior of a spoiled child overcome by her own narcissistic persona. She is Paris Hilton, heiress to a hotel fortune.
Finally, on Friday, June 8, Paris’ saga flared up when her “get-out-of-jail-free card” expired and she was handcuffed by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and carted off to the downtown Twin Towers jail.
The high drama of the moment was recorded by Linda Deutsch of the Associated Press: “It’s not right!” shouted Hilton, who violated her probation in a reckless driving case. “Mom!” she cried out to her mother.
America’s chief sniffer of racist issues, the Rev. Al Sharpton, was on the next plane to Los Angeles, determined to detect any odor of racism in the affair before all the dust had settled.
There was only one morning for nearly a week that Paris was not at the top of the news, and that was the morning after the last episode of the very popular TV show, “The Sopranos.”
Tony Soprano, a leading character in the series, to the dismay of TV viewers, had not been “whacked” as expected. Tony walked into a restaurant and the lights went out. The End.
The Paris Hilton saga continues.
For the dominant media, Paris Hilton was Heaven sent. Such inconsequential news events make great distractions for the dominant media when major events are occurring that run counter to far left policies. In other words, things the dominant media doesn’t want to talk about.
While the Paris saga unraveled and Tony Soprano escaped “whacking,” two of the far left’s darling programs received substantial “whackings” the far left media found difficult to report.
The G-8 meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, last week, focusing on global climate change, ended with the Kyoto Protocol being laid to rest. A new protocol was not agreed upon; however, the leaders of some of the developed countries signed a declaration that sets a new goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2050.
Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which had 120 signatories, the new declaration mentions only the European Union, Japan and Canada as accepting the target. The United States and Russia gave only “serious consideration” in not accepting the compromise.
The Malaysia Star described “this messy G8 ‘deal’ on climate change as a compromise that was struck to save the Group of 8 Summit from major failure.”
Meanwhile, here in the United States, the far left suffered another “whacking” when the U.S. Senate voted 50-45 to defeat the Kennedy-McCain 800-page comprehensive reform immigration bill. A majority of Americans viewed the legislation as an amnesty bill with no protection provided from the continuing influx of illegal aliens.
The bi-partisan vote was a major defeat for the Bush Administration.
While the dominant media may not have wanted to talk about it, U.S. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott of Mississippi did. Fox News reported that “throughout the day, Sen. Lott had challenged other senators to answer whether they were ‘mice or men.’” As he left the floor, he called out to reporters: “We are a bunch of rodents.”
Perhaps Sen. Lott had spent too much time “Herding Cats,” (the book title of his years as majority leader of the U.S. Senate), allowing the mice to multiply unhindered.
While the media focused on the Paris Hilton saga, another 1,000 or more illegal aliens crossed the U.S.-Mexican border every day. The daily number must be increasing dramatically as the scent of amnesty drifts south across the border into Mexico. The word has to be: Hurry!
Every day an illegal alien crosses the border in advance of the passage of the present immigration legislation, the more secure he is in being granted citizenship in the United States.
Instead of developing plans to build barriers across the entire border and begin a plan for identifying all illegal aliens so that the hardened criminals at least can be deported and the remaining numbers be documented as workers with specific time limitations in the United States before return to their home lands, the U.S. Senate has occupied itself with witch hunts such as the investigation of alleged wrong doing by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Finding no evidence of wrong doing, a no-confidence vote was called for on Monday, June 11. Then, following two hours of debate, the Senate failed to reach the 60 votes needed to bring the resolution to a final vote.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, described the vote as “an exercise in poltical meanness,” adding that since the decision was that of the President and not the Congress, it had been “a waste of the Senate’s time and taxpayer’s money” to debate the issue.
The present energy crisis in America looms larger every day as America’s suppliers of imported oil drift farther into camps of nations that express increasing hostility toward the United States.
The U.S. economy, as well as America’s capability of waging war, balances on a razor’s edge in a world that becomes more unstable with every passing day.
Continuing distractions and inaction of the U.S. Congress, and the inability of the American public to demand that the United States develop its own petroleum resources both at ANWR and offshore while there is still time, threatens the continued existence of America.

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Mr. Hostetter welcomes comments at admin@americanfarm.com.