Unfit for Command co-author and Swift Boat mastermind Dr. Jerome R. Corsi announced on the front page of today's Human Events that he will be joining TheVanguard.Org staff to help direct a major effort against the left in 2008. It's a story you won't want to miss!

America's most respected conservative journal, Human Events, asks on today's front page whether TheVanguard.Org is in fact "The Next MoveOn.org? Another PayPal Alumnus Makes His Move. If His Peers Are Any Indication, It Could Be a Big One." You don't want to miss it.

Jerry Ford was not merely the last RINO President (which is, in fact, an anachronism, whether modern conservatives remember that or not): he was the last gasp of the liberal northeastern establishment's hold on the Republican Party. And while conservatives' takeover of the GOP has gone as slowly and imperfectly as the conquest of Canaan, the progress from Ford's era is truly astounding.

There are lessons here, lessons we better learn quickly if we are to avert disaster -- not to mention achieve real victory -- in 2008.

We are launching a new series of blogs at TheVanguard.Org which we hope you will find both interesting and useful. ArcherMartin.TheVanguard.Org and Salt and Light join our official blog Blog.TheVanguard.Org in bringing you up to the minute conservatism. More important still, they are testing the software we will shortly be announcing which will allow all our members to have their own blogs at TheVanguard.Org. Stay tuned!

We have added extensively to the Theology & Religion, Children's Books, and Marriage & Family sections of TheVanguard.Org Bookstore. Take a look around!

There was a question often asked in 2004, which went like this: "For whom do you think Osama bin Laden would vote?" Naturally, the Democrats didn't appreciate this too much, since anyone over the age of three knew the answer was them.

Now our enemies are telling us outright.

Yes, you read right: it took about ten seconds for the Euro crowd, fully in bed with Pelosi et al., to announce plans to indict just-resigned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and possibly Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former CIA Director George Tenet, for war crimes, presumably involving Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

George W. Bush has given us the single worst imaginable Defense Secretary pick, with the possible exceptions of John Murtha and Jane Fonda. Jack Wheeler has the inside scoop on this retread from Bush 41's time and why we need to send him packing (more on that part shortly).

Hugh Hewitt states:

The post-mortems are accumulating, but I think the obvious has to be stated: John McCain and his colleagues in the Gang of 14 cost the GOP its Senate majority, plus any chance of reshaping the judiciary from here on in. They must be held responsible.

We couldn't agree more. Consider this the beginning of conservatives' Presidential campaign against John McCain. If anyone is guilty of the current debacle, the leader of the Gang of 14 and the father of the Alien and Sedition Acts, er, Campaign Finance Deform, is the man.

The lean, ascetic, ideological purity of the Gingrich Republicans of 1994 had yielded to the corrupt, feather-your-own-nest psychology of the current Republican congressional leadership. They assumed that the partisan gerrymandering of 2000 left them invulnerable and they dipped into the till to get earmarks for their favorite lobbyists in return for contributions and free vacations. It's time to get rid of this kind of leadership and to bring in people with a fine, tough partisan and ideological edge.

Dr. Jack Wheeler, TheVanguard.Org board member and architect of the Reagan Doctrine:

"Republicans should tactically exploit the certain fracturing on the Left: we have the Blue Dogs, the Hillary crowd, and radical leftists -- one of whom is about to be speaker. Even the Left's backers like Eleanor Clift (current article on MSN) see trouble ahead. I laughed all day hearing the talk about consensus building and getting along -- there ain't gonna be none! Not with this crew. The Dems have essentially a three way split. The Republicans need to widen it."

THIS WEEK: What Happened? And What's Next? The GOP took a beating but conservatives have hope. Rod D. Martin says "A Turnout Program Is Not A Message", Jack Wheeler on where to go from here and also on the disaster of Robert Gates, plus vital insights from Dick Morris and Hugh Hewitt.

Rush Limbaugh explains how we all feel: "People have been asking me all day, 'How do you feel, Rush?' I feel liberated...because I don't have to carry the water for people who don't deserve it."

We must have a leadership change, now. Call your Congressman and DEMAND he vote for Mike Pence for Minority Leader and John Shadegg for Whip. It's time for a good old fashioned head roll.

With the zeal of converts, Republican leaders thought they'd found the magic bullet. They could ignore the big, visionary stuff that characterized Reagan-era campaigns -- and Bush's presidential runs too -- because they could turn out the vote.

They couldn't have been more wrong. A turnout effort cannot be better than the message motivating the turnout. This is Rule Number One.

But make no mistake: there's much hope for conservatives in all this.

My message to TheVanguard.Org's membership: we're fed up, and we're going to do some very specific not-taking-it-anymore.

I want to encourage everyone to get their up-to-the-minute election results next week at World magazine's website. No one -- and I do mean no one -- will have more complete, state-of-the-art results, and TheVanguard.Org will be sponsoring the effort in conjunction with World.

As you probably know, World is the fourth-largest-circulation newsweekly in America, a distinctly Christian publication, and its founder (Joel Belz) and editor-in-chief (Marvin Olasky) are TheVanguard.Org board members. This will be our first major online collaboration, with quite a few more interesting things to come.

For more daily coverage of events -- especially during this election week -- we encourage everyone to frequent (and link to) Blog.TheVanguard.Org. You don't want to miss it.

TheVanguard.Org's mission is unique: to create a conservative MoveOn, to build a better conservative movement, and to apply advanced technologies to achieving real victory in 2008 and beyond. This year's beta test has been very successful; but this week's election news shows we -- all of us -- have a whole lot more to do.

TheVanguard.Org Chairman Rod D. Martin's pre-election column:

"Nor, as evangelicals’ long history building this nation illustrates so well, are they some new, “scary” Iran-like force in our politics. They are the backbone of America, and always have been. And without them, the Republican Party is toast.

"But without the Republican Party, they’re toast too."

THIS WEEK - Rod D. Martin on "Evangelicals at the Crossroads", an examination of Christians' place in American life and necessary relationship (in both directions) with the Republican Party. Bottom line: turn out on Tuesday or lose more than you're prepared to pay. Plus: an Action Alert on the PBA ban; Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter give pre-election analysis; Pat Poole on the large Muslim contributions to help Dems; the word on Justice Stevens' health; Marvin Olasky's look at the cost of abandoning our promises in Iraq (and other places past); and Jack Wheeler on the hope for Islam represented by Indonesia and the danger to us all from the Chinese infiltration and soon-to-be takeover of Siberia.

Pat Poole exposes (in David Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine) the sleeper story of the year: the top Muslims are funnelling big bucks to Democrats' coffers. As with the Chinese campaign cash scandal in 1996, there's no doubt who America's enemies want to win. Will Americans catch on this time?

Our focus in the War on Islamic Terrorism has been the Middle East, then secondarily with fears that Europe is becoming Eurabia. But it may well turn out that this war will be won or lost in Indonesia.

The Jihadis are desperate to radicalize Indonesia's Moslem millions. But 400 years of Sufi Islam has provided Indonesia with a healthy anti-Islamist immune system. If the Jihadis fail, and the Sufis led by men like Wahid and Dhani prevail, Jihadi Islamism may suffer a mortal blow - not just in Indonesia but throughout the Moslem world.

Ann Coulter knocks it out of the park again with this dissection of the Democrats' claims to "support the troops" and "support the war in Afghanistan" but not the war in Iraq. A real eye-opener, even for those who think they're familiar.

THIS WEEK - My column on the new leadership in a Democratic Senate; plus, Jack Wheeler's CNP speech on "Imploding Iran", Larry Kudlow on Democrats' Pay-Go trap, Thomas Sowell on the growing liberal crackdown on free speech, plus much much more.

Much has been written (including by me) about the perils of the party of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel capturing the U.S. House of Representatives this November.

But losing the Senate would have a far greater effect. And the particular Senators who would lead the new regime are among the most extremist ever elected in this country.

The Supreme Court will rule on November 8th on the constitutionality of the ban on partial-birth abortion which Congress overwhelmingly passed in 2003. Three lower federal courts have ruled the ban unconstitutional.

Exercise your First Amendment right to petition: tell them how we -- the vast majority of Americans -- feel, today.

The larger question for American society is, as Joan Rivers has often said: "Can we talk?" Political bigwigs in San Francisco say "No." In San Francisco, no one is supposed to criticize anything done by homosexuals.

And increasingly, this attitude is neither confined to San Francisco nor to gays.

Phyllis Schlafly writes the grim story of freedom crushed but not extinguished, and what it means for us today.

Breaking News: Dr. Jack Wheeler explains the scientific and geopolitical meaning of the North Korean "fizzle". It's more significant than you think, and a lot more than the media (or the Administration) is letting on.

Michael Barone argues that even a Democratic sweep would not -- and could not -- represent a realignment.

Dr. Jack Wheeler's speech to the Council for National Policy on (proactively) imploding Iran.

"So it was with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, so it is today with Iran. But the opportunity to implode Iran, to cause it to collapse from within without a war, without risking the lives of American soldiers in a military attack - this opportunity is being handed to us on a golden platter."

Henry Mark Holzer reports: "In a stunning reversal of United States policy that has been in place since the end of World War II, turncoat citizen Adam Gadahn has been indicted for the constitutional crime of treason. (The second count of the indictment charges him with the crime of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.)"

With a war going on in Iraq and with Iran next door moving steadily toward a nuclear bomb that could change the course of world history in the hands of international terrorists, the question for this year's elections is not whether you or your candidate is a Democrat or a Republican but whether you are serious or frivolous.

Indeed, it is that dangerous frivolity which defines most current political debate.

THIS WEEK - Rod D. Martin on the Foley scandal and why Republicans need to go on offense (on this and everything else) now; plus Jack Wheeler's astonishing analysis of the North Korean nuke fiasco and what it means for us, Larry Kudlow's reality check on the economy, more Jack Wheeler (specifically, an account of his just-completed trip behind enemy lines with the Peshmerga in Iran), and a special treat: Thomas Sowell's lengthy but brilliant essay on the dangerous frivolity of the current political debate. You won't want to miss a bit of it.

When Democrats had a known pedophile, Massachusetts' Gerry Studds, in their midst they did nothing. And then they re-elected him not once but six more times.

When Republicans found Foley's IMs, he was gone within a day.

That's the difference. Republicans clean their house. Democrats don't. And that should be the TV ad everywhere the Foley case is an issue.

There's a difference between a party with principles not doing a good job executing those principles and a party with no principles. Anyone who thinks that turning the reins of power over to Democrats will raise the country's moral bar should take a cold shower.

This is the very definition of political opportunism. If Republicans had decided to spy on Foley for sending overly friendly e-mails to pages, Democrats would have been screaming about a Republican witch-hunt against gays. But if they don't, they're enabling a sexual predator.

Talk to us Monday. Either we'll be furious that Republicans violated the man's civil rights, or we'll be furious that they didn't.

My experience inside Iran with the RUK guerillas convinced me that there are Kurds willing to fight for real freedom. Such folks need to be supported. Upon my return to Arbil/Hewler, I learned that while I was dodging mullah mortars with Kurdish Peshmerga inside Iran, at that very time on Saturday, September 30, President George Bush was signing into law the Iran Freedom and Support Act.

We will not have peace in the Middle East, we will not be free of Islamofascist terror, until there is regime change in Iran. The Kurds are the key to achieving it.

As the November elections draw near, the triumph of fact over Democratic-propelled fantasy is becoming all the more evident. On topics as diverse as national security, the economy and the legislative success of the Republican-controlled Congress, nearly all Democrat talking points are being outed for what they really are: partisan nonsense that is disconnected from reality.

It's not just the invertebrates of the State Department allergic to regime change in principal - it's even astute folks like Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes who say on Fox News they don't know of an alternative to the only choices they see: militarily attack Iran or capitulate to the Mullacracy and make the best deal we can.

They, like most everyone else, are unaware of the potential of the Kurds to liberate Iran.

In an attempt to find out how viable this third alternative is, I am about to be taken inside Iran with a group of RUK guerrillas. Surreptitiously crossing a heavily-guarded border with armed guerrillas is not something to be undertaken lightly. But it is the only way to see for oneself.

THIS WEEK - My column on the new House leadership should Democrats win control; plus David Limbaugh on the New York Times handing terrorists a needless victory, Star Parker on Rosie O'Donnell's insane comparison of "Radical" Christianity and Radical Islam, Jack Wheeler on the Kurds and the unique role they could play in bringing Middle East security and peace, and Thomas Sowell on the dangerous surrender of free speech to Islamists highlighted by reaction to the Pope's speech.

The New York Times has again selectively leaked sensitive national security information, this time cherry picking an April National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report to support the left's template that our attack on Iraq has spawned more terrorism. In response, President Bush declassified other portions of the report to complete the picture.

The report emphasizes how critical Iraq is to our ultimate victory in the war on terror. But how dare Bush defend himself?

Mad at "the Republicans"? Thinking about sitting home this fall, or even casting a protest vote?

Well before you do, meet the leaders of your new Democrat House of Representatives. This is no time to take your toys and go home.

This past week has told us more than we wanted to know about ourselves and about our enemies.

There was far more controversy over remarks made by the Pope than over the violence unleashed by Muslims against people who had nothing to do with what the Pope said.

That our enemies do not understand the significance of free speech in a free society, where things that offend us can be denounced without indiscriminate violence, is bad enough. But that we ourselves seem headed further down the slippery slope of self-censorship is chilling.

You would think that even Rosie O'Donnell could grasp that there is indeed a difference between "radical Christianity" and "radical Islam."

No doubt conservative Christian evangelicals were who Rosie had in mind as "radical" Christians.

But, really Rosie, it must mean something, even to you, that no Christian leader has suggested that you be executed, or even that your house should be blown up.

THIS WEEK - New polls show massive Republican momentum: are they right? Analysis by TheVanguard.Org chairman Rod D. Martin, Michael Barone, Jack Wheeler and Donald Lambro. Plus: Jack Wheeler on "Our Secret Victory in Afghanistan", Marvin Olasky says Compassionate Conservatism is alive and kicking, and Thomas Sowell looks at the Senate's misapplication of Geneva Convention rules in "Suicidal Hand-Wringing".

In 1998, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich confidently predicted that the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Bill Clinton's sale of U.S. military secrets to China for campaign cash would net Republicans 25 House seats in November. When the all-Clinton-all-the-time approach actually produced a GOP net loss of 5, Gingrich had the joy of resigning.

As surprising as it may seem, the latest Gallup poll indicates Nancy Pelosi may get that same one-way ticket home.

The Democrats' failure to connect with values voters has not been the result of a poorly articulated message. Their problem is precisely the opposite: They have communicated their values message all too well. They don't have much respect for traditional values, and even less for those who promote them. And these chickens are (yet again) coming home to roost.

No one has suggested that we disregard the Geneva convention for people covered by the Geneva convention. The question is whether a lawless court shall seize the power to commit this nation to rules never agreed to by those whom the Constitution entrusted with the power to make international treaties.

The much larger question -- the question of survival -- is whether we have the clarity and the courage to go all-out in self-defense against those who are going all-out to destroy us, even at the cost of their own lives.

Here, Michale Barone says Democrats' chances this November are fading, and for once, it's because Republicans are successfully framing the issues.

This year, as Washington's spending spree has continued, several conservative pundits have sat in air-conditioned offices and written about the death of compassionate conservatism, which they say has become a euphemism for big government spending.

But in fact, the truth is very different.

The last thing America's Traitor Media would report is that we are winning in Afghanistan. Yet that's what's happening. NATO forces - combining US, Canadian, Australian, Polish soldiers plus 1,000 French (!) - have been rolling up the Taliban in a ball over the last several months.

The "resurgent" Taliban that Democrats like John Kerry claimed today (9/14) are "running amok across entire regions" of Afghanistan are in reality being wiped out. It's being called The Great Taliban Turkey Shoot.

According to Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), nothing more focuses one's mind than the prospect of hanging.

The House GOP minds seem quite focused now. Conversely, however, nothing freaks one's mind out more than believing you are to be the hangman, only to discover you are the one to be hung.

THIS WEEK - TheVanguard.Org Chairman Rod D. Martin on "September 11th: Moral Clarity and the War on Terror"; plus, as the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame storyline crumbles a new narrative emerges, David Horowitz decribes in detail how the Left undermined U.S. security -- deliberately and otherwise -- in the years just before 9/11, Star Parker reports her dim impressions of Bob Casey, and Thomas Sowell examines the new (green) nomenklatura.

There are certain events that seem to alter history's course irrevocably. Radical Islam's unspeakable attack on our homeland and its depraved slaughter of our civilians five years ago is a prime candidate.

More than anything, September 11th exposed the utter unreality and moral bankruptcy of cultural relativism, the refusal to render moral judgments on societies -- especially non-Western ones -- and their beliefs.

David Horowitz gives a thorough look at how we got to 9/11, and exactly what the Clinton Administration and its allies in Congress did and did not do. He also looks at the enemy -- its true nature and the nature liberals pretended it had. An excerpt:

"In the 1990s, America mobilized its military power to go to the rescue of Muslims in the Balkans who were being ethnically cleansed by Serbian Communists. This counted for nothing in al-Qaeda’s calculations, any more than did America’s support for Muslim peasants in Afghanistan fighting for their freedom against Red Army invaders in the 1980s. The war against radical Islam is not about what America has done, but about what America is.

With the recent revelations by Richard Armitage, it is now clear that every single claim made by or for Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame was a lie. This is not disputed by anyone on either side who has examined all the evidence, including relevant Congressional committees. It's just that it doesn't matter so long as the media trumpets the one (false) narrative relentlessly and downplays the other (true) one so much that few know it even exists.

Despite this, Michael Barone here looks at that new narrative and what it means for, well, everything.

Prospects for Senator Rick Santorum's reelection bid are looking much better these days. Polls show that Pennsylvania State Treasurer Bob Casey's lead in their race has shrunken to about six points, down from well over twenty points a few months ago.

According to Pat Buchanan, tough ads that Santorum is running opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants are what have struck a responsive chord among Pennsylvania's voters.

But after watching last week's debate on "Meet the Press" between Santorum and Casey, I wonder if this can really be the whole story.

They don't have nearly the power that the Soviet dictatorship had. But they use whatever power they do have in the same spirit. The green ideology of today, like the red ideology of the past, takes it for granted that other people do not have the same rights as the new nomenklatura.

It took George W. Bush to bring Qadaffi to heel. After Bush chased Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad and into a spider hole, Qadaffi called up Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and told him he didn't want to end up like Saddam.

So Qadaffi came clean on his WMD program, the extent of which stunned the clueless CIA. He invited international inspectors to Libya, where they removed several tons of chemical weaponry, and dismantled an active nuclear weapons program. But even so, Libya remained a dictatorship.

Until this week.

The August jobs report should put to rest any fears that the economy is burning out. Following upwardly revised increases for June (134,000) and July (121,000), companies added 128,000 nonfarm payrolls last month. Meanwhile, the all-important but rarely mentioned household survey of people working gained by 250,000, sending the unemployment rate back to 4.7 percent from the July reading of 4.8 percent.

The cult of the bear, fussing about a housing-related recession, has once more been proven wrong. And that's just the beginning.

THIS WEEK - Michael Barone says there is a change in the winds; plus, Jack Wheeler looks at the philosophical roots of fascism and modern liberalism and finds them to be the same, Larry Kudlow says the Democrats never learn when it comes to the economy, and Star Parker looks at "Katrina, Lies and Videotape".

Doesn't it seem odd that the kids who started the 60s anti-establishment protest riots on college campuses with the Free Speech Movement (Berkeley, 1964) are the college professors or politicians today who most vehemently suppress free speech among their students or constituents in the name of political correctness?

How can this be? How can worshipping at the shrines of Diversity, Tolerance, and Multiculturalism result in trials and expulsions for students, or jail for citizens, who express ideas with which the worshippers are not in agreement?

The answer is the intimate connection between Subjectivism and Fascism.

Spike Lee took his cameras and crew to New Orleans to film a documentary about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Unfortunately, the four-hour production, which aired on HBO, is about as destructive as was the disaster it depicts.

Earlier this summer, I thought that voters had decided that the Republicans deserved to lose but were not sure that the Democrats deserved to win, and that they were going to wait, as they did in the 1980 presidential and the 1994 congressional elections, to see if the opposition was an acceptable alternative. But events seem to have made that a harder sell for Democrats.

Major overhaul of the Health Savings Accounts Center in our Issues section launched today. Come see why HSAs are the future of health care -- and of liberty -- in America.

THIS WEEK - Marvin Olasky on the media's doctored-photo scandal, cheerleading for Hezbollah and libeling Israel; plus, Jack Wheeler paints a sad picture in Cuba, Michael Barone on America's fifth column, Larry Kudlow says Bush getting the message right on our amazing economic boom, and Thomas Sowell asks whether we're at the point of no return on Islamofascist nukes.

Some conservatives are alleging that the president suffers from an inability to communicate with the American people, and there may be some overrated truth to this. But in a news conference last Friday, we saw George W. Bush at his communicating best.

He certainly should be. This economy is the greatest story never told.

What kind of people provide a market for videotaped beheadings of innocent hostages? What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish? What kind of people would fly planes into buildings to vent their hate at the cost of their own lives?

These are the kinds of people we are talking about getting nuclear weapons.

We have always had our covert enemies, but their numbers were few until the 1960s. But then the elite young men who declined to serve in the military during the Vietnam War set out to write a narrative in which they, rather than those who obeyed the call to duty, were the heroes. They have propagated their ideas through the universities, the schools and mainstream media to the point that they are the default assumptions of millions.

Our covert enemies don't want the Islamo-fascists to win. But in some corner of their hearts, they would like us to lose.

Marvin Olasky on the truly unbelievable revelations of Reuters, AP and other press agencies publishing hundreds of doctored photos to impugn Israel and promote Hesbollah. Does it seem sometimes that the media is rooting for the terrorists, Saddamites, et al.? Well guess what: they are.

Needless to say, the Dan Rather-ization of the media continues on unchecked. But people are beginning to realize it, it's beginning to sink in, and in another decade, the "old media" may well be swept away.

In the meantime, read Olasky. You need to know.

There has been some fretting of late among Republicans that the death or fall of Castro would provoke a mass exodus of (conservative) Cuban-Americans from Florida, tipping this most divided of battleground states forever into the Dum column. Our own Jack Wheeler (whom the Washington Post has described as the architect of the Reagan Doctrine), describing his, er, unique trip to meet Fidel Castro shows why this -- and a lot of other myths about the future of Cuba -- isn't so likely: Cubans, unlike Eastern Europeans, have been thoroughly ruined by Communism. A sad, but important, read.

THIS WEEK - Michael Barone on how the London terror plot exposes the left, in the very same week as Ned Lamont; plus, the economic boom rolls on, liberal propaganda as a high art, and the difference between traditional marriage and gay marriage (it's not what you think).

From "revenues" to "redeploy", the left is quietly inventing a new language to promote their agenda. It is a language quite common now in Washington and in liberal political circles, and it's designed to substitute softer or neutral words for harsher ones with political implications. It is a language of euphemism and, at times, deception.

Homosexuals were on their strongest ground when they said that the law had no business interfering with relations between consenting adults. Now they want the law to put a seal of approval on their behavior. But no one is entitled to anyone else's approval.

And the rationale for "straight" marriage has nothing to with approval at all.

Tuesday and Thursday. On Tuesday, anti-Iraq war candidate Ned Lamont beat Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary. On Thursday, British authorities arrested more than 20 British Muslims who were plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic Ocean.

Tuesday was a victory for the angry antiwar Left that set the tone in the Democrats' 2003-04 presidential cycle and seems likely to set the tone again in 2007-08. Thursday was another matter entirely.

The great American consumer has been written off so many times in the last couple of years, just like the rest of the economy. But he/she is alive and kicking. In fact, the economy is roaring ahead at a phenomenal pace.

And much to the consternation of the left, it is just the latest chapter in the greatest economic story never told.

This Week: Grover Norquist on how to cut government spending in half, this generation. Plus, Action Item on WMD reporting, Larry Kudlow on why investors are cheering the Israeli advance, Bobby Eberle on Democrat disarray and how it could save the Republicans this fall, and Marvin Olasky on the media, the Democrats and Katrina, one year later.

Just two years ago, President George W. Bush was on his way to reelection, with the country sending a clear message that they wanted Washington in Republican control. The House, Senate, and White House all remained squarely in Republican hands, and the potential for significant progress on conservative issues was vast.

Fast-forward to today, and the picture is not quite so rosy. But the saving grace for Republicans may be the fact that the Democrats are in even more disarray than they are.

With lots of media specials on tap this month as the first anniversary of the Katrina disaster approaches, it's time for an inoculation against some of the propaganda that will arise.

You might not know it from the actions of certain Congressmen, but a key goal of the modern conservative movement is to cut government in half as a percentage of the economy in this generation.

We're closer than you think. TheVanguard.Org board member and Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist shows us how.

For a long two weeks Israel and Hezbollah have been going at it hard, and world stock markets have chosen to climb. The backward-looking media pessimists won’t see this, but the real world, real money votes of the global investor class should be noted and digested by all the rest of us.

The wartime stock market is saying that things are better than most people believe.

This Week: Newt Gingrich on winning the argument about the Third World War; Star Parker on "Pulling Black America Out of Oblivion"; Marvin Olasky on the chaos in the Kansas Republican primary; plus action items on the Death Tax and WMD coverage.

Some public relations pros don't twist and shout. They truly subscribe to John Milton's faith from the 1640s that truth and falsehood should be allowed to grapple, for truth would not lose "in a free and open encounter." But others try to snuff out that "open encounter".

That's the trouble with what's happening on the eve of Kansas's Aug. 1 GOP primary.

"One week ago, on NBC's "Meet the Press," I described the scale of terrorist attacks and plots, world conflicts, and the hostile declarations by rogue states and their pursuit of nuclear weapons as an emerging Third World War. In the intervening week I have taken advantage of a number of opportunities to set out in detail why I believe it is so important that America confront this reality.

"One skeptic I encountered -- at least initially -- was Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC's "Today Show.""

Despite the discovery of more than 500 WMDs in Iraq and compelling evidence that many more were smuggled out of the country before and at the end of the Iraq War, the MSM refuses to cover the story. Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center comments.

It should be clear that the problem is that America's black community is now suspended in a moral vacuum. Life is cheap and meaningless, and murder, sex, abortion and robbery are viewed with the same gravity as ordering a Big Mac and fries. There is no accountability, only blame. And this mindset continues to be nourished in both the street language of Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and now the fancy Harvard prose of Sen. Barack Obama.

There is only one hope for pulling black America out of oblivion.

Though many of us would contend that the war (too often referred to as "Cold") between the USSR and its colonial empire vs. the United States and its free world allies was in fact the third world war, nevertheless, Speaker Gingrich's case (released today) that the clash of civilizations now in progress is the next one is compelling, regardless of its number.

No one except God knows how many Christians there are in China, but 100 million (out of the total population of 1.3 billion) is a commonly-offered guesstimate. The rapid, recent spread of Christianity among urban professionals poses a particularly difficult problem for a government used to jailing uneducated rural people but unwilling to persecute those who are engineering China's rapid economic progress.

Right now, Chinese Christianity is surging.

Did you know that just over the past 11 quarters, dating back to the June 2003 Bush tax cuts, America has increased the size of its entire economy by 20 percent? In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy, and much larger than the total economic size of nations like India, Mexico, Ireland, and Belgium.

This is an extraordinary fact, although you may be reading it here first.

This July 4th, Kofi Annan convened a summit of despots in New York City to negotiate a global gun ban. But America's 80 million gun owners stood together and stopped them cold, and you were a big part of it.

Rod D. Martin's "Missile Defense Arrives, Just in Time"; plus Action Items: the UN Gun Ban Conference, WMDs, and the Death Tax vote.

This Independence Day, little noticed even by those conservatives who hungered for its creation since long before Ronald Reagan's 1983 “Star Wars” speech, another Minuteman stands ready. And with North Korea preparing to launch its first true ICBM and (this Monday) directly threatening a nuclear attack on America, it's not a moment too soon.

This Week: Rod D. Martin on "Iraq's WMDs: The Russian Connection"; plus: Jack Wheeler on the Moonbat Right, Marvin Olasky Inside a Chinese House Church, and Libertarians vs. the Christian Right.

The National Ground Intelligence Center's newly-declassified report proves conclusively that Saddam Hussein lied -- and George Bush and Bill Clinton told the truth -- about Iraq's WMDs. And as John Loftus put it at the national intelligence summit, “Every senior member of a Western, European, or Asian intelligence service whom I have ever met all agree that the Russians moved the last of the WMDs out of Iraq in the last few months before the war."

But this doesn't square with the media's mantra of “Bush lied, kids died”. So you probably haven't heard; and if you're waiting on the New York Times, you probably never will.

The hype is that Bush is in cahoots with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in a secret plot to create a "North American Union," whereby Mexico and Canada would merge with the US to form one big borderless country with a single currency, the ‘Amero.'

Two words: Moonbat City.

No one except God knows how many Christians there are in China, but 100 million (out of the total population of 1.3 billion) is a commonly-offered guesstimate. The rapid, recent spread of Christianity among urban professionals poses a particularly difficult problem for a government used to jailing uneducated rural people but unwilling to persecute those who are engineering China's rapid economic progress.

Right now, Chinese Christianity is surging.

To borrow from Tocqueville, Republicans are great when Republicans are good. It's not enough to win elections, or “have a seat at the table”. They must stand for something; and not just anything, but those core values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; of an overarching national identity; of equal opportunity for all; and of a God-given freedom and human dignity for every person which cannot be compromised or legislated away. These are conservatism, and these are the values which make us who we are.

When Republicans have abandoned these things, they've descended into utter irrelevancy. When they have stood strongly upon them, at home and abroad, they have won the greatest triumphs of our time.

Week before last, the Dems were riding high. Bush's poll numbers were so disastrous Time Magazine ran a cover asking "How low can he go?" The liberal rag followed this with a cover story on the "massacre" of Haditha. Nancy Pelosi went on a speaking tour describing what she'll do as House Speaker next January. Harry Reid told his staff to start planning for when he becomes Senate Majority Leader.

Oh what a difference a week makes.

Good as his word, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) announced today that he will hold a new Death Tax vote "before the Fourth of July". It's all-out: we have one more chance to win. With only three more Senators between us and final victory, it's time to ring their phones or wring their necks! Act Now!

This Week: Rod D. Martin on "The GOP at 150"; plus: Frist calls a new Death Tax vote, Jack Wheeler on Democrat Hell Week, Marvin Olasky on Christian CEOs in China, and Jack Kemp's White Guilt.

WITH the formation of Iraq's new government, it's a good time to take stock of where we stand in our confrontation with Islamist terror. You wouldn't know it from the outrageously dishonest headlines, but we're winning.

IF ONLY HIS LAST NAME WERE SMITH. He'd not only attract national attention as the popular and successful governor of a difficult-to-govern state. He'd be viewed sympathetically as a leader who had dealt with family issues -- his wife's aversion to politics, his daughter's bouts with drug addiction -- without losing his grip on the governorship. And he'd be the prohibitive frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

But his last name is Bush. So Jeb Bush, nearing the end of his eight years as governor of Florida, has to settle for being the best governor in America.

What to do with the news that a terrorist master responsible for the murder of untold numbers of American servicemen and women has been killed? Well, for many Democrats, that was a question that actually required thought before being answered.

Iran is unraveling, with massive ethnic and pro-democracy protests -- turning violent -- you are hearing about nowhere else. Its existence as an intact nation-state is make-believe, as ephemeral as the Soviet Union's or Yugoslavia's, and is soon to break apart as did they. The trillion-dollar question: will George W. Bush play Reagan and push it off the cliff?

Olasky interviews Hugh Hewitt, who offers the GOP a simple strategy — "Win the war. Confirm the judges. Cut the taxes. Control the spending. Secure the border." — to reunify and re-energize conservatives and win victories that count in 2006 and beyond.

Our freedom in the United States should have that effect on us, as well.

This Week: Rod D. Martin on the week's "Top Ten Winners & Losers"; plus: Marvin Olasky with a strategy for real conservative victory, Jack Wheeler on the unraveling Iran, Fred Barnes on America's Best Governor, and Iraq After Zarqawi.

This was one of the more politically significant weeks in recent history. A recap of the winners and losers:

Thank you to everyone who fought for permanent repeal of the Death Tax. Though today's vote did not turn out as we hoped, we learned who our friends are, we outed some key enemies, and we saw clearly what a Democrat-led Senate would mean. There's more to this story than meets the eye.

The oil shortage is a myth, and not a new one.

The talk of a Republican apocalypse this fall is likely premature, but very well earned. A White House that can't seem to communicate its way out of a paper bag surely can't lead. A Senate which forgets it was elected to cut spending, reduce waste and change Washington should expect to be sent home. This is just reality.

But there's more to this story than meets most eyes. There's also a real chance for redemption.

This Week: Rod D. Martin's "Republicans at the Crossroads, Part Two"; plus: the oil shortage myth exposed, the Death Tax vote is set for June 8th, Iraq now safer than D.C. or New Orleans, and commentary by Joel Belz and Marvin Olasky.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda, files a bogus $10 million suit -- in the taxpayers' name -- to punish legitimate free speech against his buddies. His target? TheVanguard.Org Grassroots Director and Oklahoma Republican Assembly President Tim Pope.

This is a story you need to read to believe.

From the American Thinker: "Something frighteningly ominous has been happening on the Internet lately: Google, without any prior explanation or notice, has been terminating its News relationship with conservative e-zines and web journals."

Republicans must quit hiding and start behaving like Republicans again. But that's not all they have to do. It's long past time Republicans began countering three deadly fallacies to which millions of Americans adhere. Until these lies are overcome, the conservative agenda will continue to face needless, powerful resistance, too often from within the Republican Party itself.

This Week: Rod D. Martin's "Republicans at the Crossroads"; plus why we fight the UN's Global Gun Ban, the Death Tax vote, corrupt Attorney General sues to silence pro-family Tim Pope, and Google censoring conservative websites.

The response to our UN Gun Ban petition has been overwhelming, but yet plenty of anti-gunners ask why we care. Julie's story answers that question.

This Week: Rod D. Martin's "President Bush vs. the UN's Global Gun Grab"; plus the Death Tax vote, Marvin Olasky on The Da Vinci Code's Gnostic ties, getting conservatives' mojo back, and Stopping Iran (without a shot).

Join America's 80 million gun owners in sending the UN a message they won't soon forget.

Like most conservatives, we're pretty upset with the Congressional leadership just now, or at least the Senate portion thereof. But make no mistake: conservatives are suffering just now from a strange selective amnesia. It's a malady they can ill afford.

Oh the travails of the "purest" party in town....

Memo to the GOP in Congress, the White House and the Statehouse: We (the United States) didn't cut taxes, we didn't cut tax revenues, we didn't pass tax relief for the rich; we lowered the tax rate on labor and capital. And that is why the economy and revenues have surged since 2003.

If Mexico's government can radically complicate our drug war, while aiding and abetting our massive illegal immigration problem as well, maybe it's time we returned the favor.

This Week: Rod D. Martin's "Reverse Amnesty: Mexican Drug Legalization Cannot Go Unanswered"; Lou Sheldon on what a Democratic Senate would mean for the courts; plus the Iran Letter, getting Republican's mojo back, and Natan Sharansky.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has announced the key vote to repeal the unfair and wildly unpopular federal Death Tax. The last few votes are within our grasp. We are just 2 to 3 votes shy of the 60 we need to repeal the Death Tax once and for all.

It's do or die time: We need your help now!

The Death Tax is a job and small business killer. Even Russia has tossed it on "the ash-heap of history". This week, the U.S. Senate must do the same.

Tell Congress: Make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent, Abolish the AMT and Death Tax. With action pending on the Hill, its time we tell Congressional Republicans to get their act together, and do what it takes to finish the job. Sign TheVanguard.Org's Tax Petitions today! We must urgently -- this week -- tell the Leadership we just won't take it anymore.

TheVanguard.Org Chairman Rod D. Martin on socialism's high holy day, and the true nature of Karl Marx's work: he was creating a religion.

Memo to the GOP in Congress, the White House and the Statehouse: We (the United States) didn't cut taxes, we didn't cut tax revenues, we didn't pass tax relief for the rich; we lowered the tax rate on labor and capital. And that is why the economy and revenues have surged since 2003.

George W. Bush is the worst President pro-abortion extremists could have imagined. By every conceivable measure, America is rejecting abortion on demand. And now, a new study shows that pro-lifers may be just four states away from the holy grail: a constitutional amendment safeguarding the unalienable right to life.

Abotion in a post-Roe world. USA Today reports (with accompanying map) that pro-lifers are within striking distance of being able to pass a Constitutional amendment banning abortion and protecting innocent life.