We’ve got a star-studded line-up of troops, military charities, celebs, and talk radio stars — from Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to Dr. Laura and Laura Ingraham to musician John Ondrasik and “Lone Survivor” author and Navy SEAL hero Marcus Luttrell — who’ll be joining us in our eight-hour marathon fund-raising drive to help send the largest number of care packages in history to our men and women in uniform serving overseas.

Sean Hannity announced yesterday that he’s personally donating $15,000 to the From the Frontlines effort. Awesome. Here’s my challenge to regular readers and commenters of this site and Hot Air. At the end of the web-a-thon, I’d like to see you collectively match that donation. Can you take up the challenge and make a pledge? Can you all help me walk the troop-supporting walk and raise $15,000 by the end of the night? Can we do it? Yes, you can.

You can sponsor a care package right here, with items ranging from $15.99 to $899.99. Let me know what you picked out (leave it in in comments or e-mail me) so I can keep a running tally.

By: Christopher G. Adamo:

Liberals inadvertently delivered a telling message in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In essence, it is the same message they have sent on the heels of every major calamity, whether natural or man-made, to befall the nation during the past several decades. Let a heat wave hit or a bridge collapse, and their first impulse is to assign guilt, invariably among their political opposition. But by their immediate and hysterical finger-pointing, they telegraph their desperation to avoid any culpability for the real problems at hand.

Thus, we were told, the hardship and suffering resulting from Katrina was not to be blamed on the lavishly funded but totally corrupted local and state governments that did almost nothing worthwhile prior to the catastrophe, despite having received enormous supplies of money to prepare for the inevitability of a major hurricane. Instead, the negative attention was directed at the lack of a sufficient federal response once the area had been devastated by the thoroughly anticipated storm.

So, years of liberal/Democrat graft and misuse of funds in Louisiana suddenly metamorphosed into accusations of racially motivated indifference within the Bush Administration. Worse yet, the success of this heinous ploy meant that those truly responsible would escape any accountability, virtually guaranteeing that New Orleans will suffer a similar fate whenever the next major storm makes landfall there.

This past spring has seen a profusion of tornadoes across the American heartland, much as is the case during most springs in recorded history. Nevertheless, any comparative increase in the number of violent storms is, we are told, a clear sign of “global warming,” and ultimately, evidence of the need for the Congress to confiscate more of the nation’s wealth in order to fund more pork barrel projects.

The ostensible “connection” between the event and the liberal political reaction is far from coherent, and in truth represents a criminal exploitation of misfortune, heartbreak, and loss of life. Nevertheless, dire predictions are invariably offered in the wake of each tragedy, complete with grim promises that the disasters will continue until Congress acts.

Yet even when weather patterns become more benign, as has been the case with the current lull in Gulf Coast hurricanes since 2005, nobody suggests that the weather situation is improving, or that perhaps government plans to encroach on Americans’ freedoms need to be curtailed. Instead, some inane excuse is offered for the respite, followed by promises of even more devastating events if American citizens do not immediately heed the warnings, fork over their earnings, and elect Democrats.

However, all is not lost. The “playing field” appears to be shifting, as it almost always does whenever the devices of the left are allowed to advance unchecked for too long and people begin to feel their real consequences. Americans in particular, but also the rest of the world, are being exposed to a not-so-bright future that the current crop of leftists would impose on all of society if they get their way.

Even as recently as last year, when too few were sufficiently vigilant to notice all of the liberal/enviro meddling in their lives, it seemed entirely worthwhile and reasonable for average people to “save the planet” through the meager effort of purchasing and installing those funny little curly light bulbs. But the picture looks far more grim these days, with gasoline prices bolting beyond four dollars per gallon.

Worse yet from the perspective of the left, the general public is finally “connecting the dots,” recognizing that surging costs of fuel results from the limitations in its supply. And this condition can itself be directly linked to the stranglehold the environmental extremists have on any exploration or drilling for new fossil fuel sources. The general public is beginning to grasp the hardships it could eventually face, once electrical power providers are forced to compete for a limited supply of kilowatts in the same manner that gasoline distributors now must contend for each available gallon of gas.

Meanwhile, the earth’s climate has, in the past decade, stubbornly refused to cooperate with all those apocalyptic predictions. Absent from current weather measurements is any evidence of actual increase in atmospheric temperatures, an “inconvenient fact” that has forced many among the global warming alarmists to regroup. They claim now that any stark increases in global temperatures will be delayed until some time after the next two presidential election cycles.

According to Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Keil Germany, although the International Panel on Climate Change predicts a paltry .3 degree C increase in global temperatures over the next decade, the current pattern suggests no ensuing changes until 2015, after which the scorching of the planet will ostensibly begin in earnest.

During especially dark and troubling times, people tend to show their true colors-good or bad, loyal or disloyal. While many Americans responded to the events of September 11 with acts of patriotism and prayer for the victims, a small group blamed the terrorist acts on years of "oppression" allegedly perpetrated by the United States against the rest of the world. "While self-hating Americans make up but a fraction of the population," notes Dan Flynn in Why the Left Hates America, "their influence is great." "They are museum curators, journalists, college professors, librarians, and movie stars."

It is important to understand that such hatred for America is not only unpatriotic, but it is misguided and irrational. "There is a rational basis for Americans to be patriotic," notes Flynn, the editor of this publication, essentially stating the thesis of Why the Left Hates America. The teachings and ramblings of much of the Left (which is comprised not of ordinary liberals or Democrats such as Tom Daschle and Dick Gephart, but of left-wingers such as Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal) contend that America is an inherently racist, sexist, homophobic, and wholly oppressive nation. When considering such harsh accusations against any country, one must compare and contrast that country to the rest of the real world, rather than to some utopian vision.

When one compares America to countries that actually exist, Flynn contends, the idea that America is the world's greatest oppressor is suddenly disproved and turned upside down. Instead, it becomes abundantly clear that American society is as close to a "utopian" society as one can find in the real world. Among the key reasons why the Left does indeed hate America, Flynn argues, is that they have essentially been raised and taught a number of lies throughout their lives about America and the remainder of the world. Though some of the lies might have a grain of truth in them (albeit a miniscule one), they are, for the most part, intended to make Western society appear highly oppressive. This is accomplished by vastly exaggerating or concocting American and Western ills while ignoring not only the copious accomplishments of the West, but the failures of the non-Western world as well. When compared to non-Western societies, the foundations on which these lies are constructed simply fall to pieces.

The notion that slavery and racism are uniquely Western is one of the Left's favorite and most repeated mantras. Yet when one's judgment is guided by facts, rather than by obscure political ideologies, what is quickly realized is that it was not slavery that was unique to Western Civilization; nor was it the mere abolition of slavery that was unique, but rather the abolition of slavery by eligible slaveholders. As Flynn points out, Western Civilization is indeed the only culture in the history of the world to do such a thing. American women are oppressed under the American patriarchy, says the Left. Yet, as Flynn points out, "If women in the United States live under a 'patriarchy,' what term could accurately describe the situation faced by women in other parts of the world?" Noting some of the truly patriarchal traditions practiced in many countries throughout the world today, such as genital mutilation, arranged marriages, forced abortions, and "honor killings," Flynn also contends that in many ways, women in the United States are better off than their male counterparts. He points out how they are "healthier, better educated, and less susceptible to various cultural pathologies than are American men."

The Left perceives that America as an imperialistic, power-hungry, and greedy nation. Just the opposite is true. "The major wars involving the United States since it became the world's preeminent military power," Flynn writes, "have been fought to prevent empires-Nazi imperialism, Japanese imperialism, [and] Communist imperialism. After all these wars, America's territory remained essentially the same." Flynn also notes that for such an "imperialistic" nation America donates large sums of its citizens' money to foreign countries in need. In addition to giving far and away the highest amount of money to foreign countries, the U.S. also gives one of the highest percentages of GDP for foreign aid. Having received very little in the form of foreign aid itself, the U.S. has proven time and again to be the world's most generous donor of foreign aid-not just to its allies but also to some of its most bitter enemies.

Another "big lie" embraced by the Left is the notion that "America is the world's leading threat to the environment." Although especially convenient for those critical of the free-market capitalist system, this idea is far from the truth. For example, America has more trees today than at anytime during the past 100 years. Additionally, Flynn writes, "Americans breathe cleaner air and drink cleaner water than almost anyone [in the world]." That is not to say that the United States should halt its successful environmental efforts and programs, but it is certainly a gross mischaracterization of U.S. environmental conditions to say that America is the world's leading environmental threat. The premise that America has some sort of a caste system, where mobility between classes is impossible, and the idea that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, are other demonstrably false but deeply held beliefs by the Left. "A U.S. Treasury Department study tracking class movement from 1979 to 1988," writes Flynn, "discovered that 86% of 1979's poor no longer remained in the lowest income quintile in 1988." Unlike many countries throughout the world, Americans are not destined to remain in one class based on their birth.

The picture painted by these various Leftist lies attempts to show just how oppressive, corrupt, and unsuccessful capitalism is. Unfortunately for the Left, and fortunately for America, this is not the case. The American free-market way has been extremely successful, not just in bettering the lives of Americans, but also in improving lives throughout the world. Americans have much to be proud of. "The quality of life for nearly all six billion people on the planet," Flynn writes, "would be unimaginably worse if not for the ingenuity of the American mind." From such basic inventions as the light bulb, to such groundbreaking ideas as the Internet, Flynn notes, "when America creates, all humanity benefits."

John Walker Lindh once asked his mother, what "America has ever done for anybody." Flynn mockingly asks, "apart from the telephone; the Internet; the computer; the television; air-conditioning; the laser; serving as a place of refuge for immigrants; [numerous] vaccines, generous allotments of foreign aid; nearly all popular entertainment; basketball; baseball; surfing; football; the lives of its own servicemen defending the freedoms of non-Americans; the example of self-government; economic prosperity; a more enlightened world order; the Panama Canal; the discovery of DNA; and other medical, scientific, and technological advances, what has America ever done for anyone?" As Flynn points out, America has indeed done more than its fair share for mankind; yet, the Left's demonization of America persists in a vain attempt to discredit American values.

"So why does the Left hate America?" Flynn posits, "the answer is because America stands as a massive refutation of every pet theory the Left has ever held." "Capitalism is a failed economic system, the Left incessantly pronounces," notes Flynn; yet, America is unquestionably the wealthiest nation in the world. The Left claims that America oppresses women; however, women are treated far better in the United States than in any other nation. While the Left espouses the belief that America is inherently racist, millions of "immigrants of color," as Flynn points out, "flock to our shores and borders by the millions instead of spending their lives being ruled by people of the same hue or ethnicity."

And of course, the Left's favorite symbol of intolerance-Christianity-is the dominant religion in the United States and the basis for many traditional American principles and values. "Every predominantly Christian nation in the West protects the freedom of conscience of practitioners of the other major faiths," Flynn explains, "There is little reciprocation." This unavoidable fact is especially inconvenient for the Leftist agenda. In essence, "what the Left touts in theory," writes Flynn, "the American experience refutes in practice."