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Why? Freedom! Mrs. Ansley, take note.
The Atlantic Journal-Constitution recently published the following editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin):
The newspaper has now published the following response cartoon created by 17-year-old Danielle Ansley:
To read the moonbat response to Danielle's cartoon, click here.
In her letter to the newspaper, Danielle wrote, "The first time I saw Mike Luckovich’s drawing of the word “WHY?”, made up of the names of 2,000 troops killed in Iraq, was when my mother was putting it up on our refrigerator. It bothered me that no one did a response showing how others feel."
Regarding her mother's response to the reply cartoon, Danielle wrote, "I didn’t take it home and show it to my mother until I had prints made. She and I have different views of things. She said that, as a mother, she didn’t like it that so many people have been killed. She was not happy when I placed my work next to Luckovich’s “WHY?” on the fridge, but it hasn’t been taken down."
Whereas Danielle responded to Luckovich's cartoon, this blogger wishes to respond to the attitude of Danielle's mother.
First, no loyal American likes the deaths of American soldiers. However, it is the job of American soldiers to lay down their lives if necessary, and the soldiers who died all volunteered for military service.
Second, Danielle's mother doesn't seemed to be bothered by the fact that Saddam's regime slaughtered hundreds of Iraqis, or bothered by the fact that Saddam provided sanctuary for terrorists, or bothered by the fact that Saddam gave monetary rewards to the families of suicide bombers. Perhaps Victor Davis Hanson can straighten Mrs.Ansley out on a few facts.
Third, if Danielle's mother wants to know why American soldiers were sent to Iraq in the first place, then she needs to read the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq that was passed by both houses of Congress.
Here are portions that resolution that Mike Luckovich and Danielle's mother need to read (emphasis added):
Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things . . . supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
Congress authorized military action in Iraq for reasons other than because Congress believed that Iraq had WMDs. Let Danielle's mother stick that fact on her refrigerator door.
Posted by Dodo David at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ten Worst Americans
Alexandra von Maltzan of All Things Beautiful has invited the blogosphere to name the ten worst Americans in American history. The Dodo has accepted the invitation.
Without further ado, the Dodo presents his list of the Ten Worst Americans.
10. John L. Stevens
On January 14, 1893, while serving as an American diplomat, Stevens caused a small, peaceful, sovereign nation to lose its sovereignty. Acting without authority from the U.S. government, Stevens ordered members of the U.S. military to provide back-up for the people who led the coup against that nation’s lawful government. As a result of Stevens’ action, the natives of that nation lost their independence.
Six days later, during his 1893 State of the Union Address, President Grover Cleveland stated that the government of that small nation “had been subverted with the active aid of our representative to that Government and through the intimidation caused by the presence of an armed naval force of the United States, which was landed for that purpose at the instance of our minister.”
President Cleveland went on to say, “Upon the facts developed it seemed to me the only honorable course for our Government to pursue was to undo the wrong that had been done by those representing us and to restore as far as practicable the status existing at the time of our forcible intervention.”
As it turned out, the U.S. government failed to undo the wrong that had been done by Stevens. The nation that lost its sovereignty because of John L. Stevens ended up becoming the 50th state of the USA.
9. Lee Harvey Oswald
Although Oswald didn’t live long enough to be tried for President Kennedy’s assassination, the federal government has convincing evidence that Oswald indeed assassinated President Kennedy. Yet, before the assassination took place, Oswald proved himself to be anti-American when he tried to defect to the USSR. However, Oswald was so bad that not even the USSR wanted him. It has been speculated that Oswald shot President Kenney in order to win the favor of the Soviets.
Normally, killing just one person wouldn’t be enough to warrant inclusion on the “Ten Worst” list. However, by assassinating President Kennedy, Oswald very likely changed the course of American history. Furthermore, he deprived U.S. citizens of the right to have their leader of choice.
8. John Wilkes Booth
Ed Morissey of Captain’s Quarters gives an excellent explanation of why Booth deserves to be among the Ten Worst Americans.
7. Raymond Washington
Washington co-founded the Crips gang. Click here to discover the result of Washington’s action.
6. William Randolph Hearst
Near the end of the 19th Century, Hearst used yellow journalism to stir up American hatred toward Spain. Hearst sent artist Frederick Remington to the Spanish colony of Cuba to report on an alleged war taking place there. Hearst was hoping that stories about war in Cuba would boost sales of his newspapers.
When Remington sent word to Hearst that there was no war, Hearst sent the following reply: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war.” In short, Hearst wanted a war to take place because he believed that a war would benefit his newspaper empire.
When the U.S.S. Maine battleship mysteriously exploded while visiting Havana, Hearst quickly used the incident to promote an American war against Spain. In the end, Hearst got the war that he wanted, resulting in the loss of human lives.
5. Timothy McVeigh
This domestic terrorist lit the fuse to a bomb that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In doing so, McVeigh killed 168 people – 19 of them small children – and injured hundreds more.
4. John Milton Chivington
As an officer in the U.S. Army officer during the 19th Century, Chivington was responsible for the Sand Creek Massacre, in which Chivington led his men in the slaughter of 200 peaceful Native Americans after those Native Americans signed a peace treaty with the USA.
It is speculated that Chivington’s deed provoked some Native Americans to join the fight against the U.S. Army at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
3. Andrew Jackson
As President, Jackson did everything within his authority to remove Native Americans from their lands.
In 1830 Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which called for the Cherokee Nation to leave its home in Georgia. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against such a forced removal, Jackson took advantage of a treaty signed by a small group of Cherokees who had no authority to sign such a treaty. Jackson sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, knowing that if the Senate ratified it, then Jackson could carry out his plan to remove the Cherokee Nation from Georgia.
Jackson’s action resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Cherokees as they walked 1,000 miles along the Trail of Tears.
2. Nathan Bedford Forrest
Long before the USA had to battle foreign terrorists, U.S. citizens had to fight a domestic terrorist organization founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest. His terrorist group expanded throughout the southern USA, frightening and and murdering U.S. citizens in order to deny those citizens their civil rights. Forrest named his terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan.
1. James Warren Jones
As an American minister, Jones founded the religious cult called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. Jones and members his church moved to the nation of Guyana, where Jones founded a colony called Jonestown.
In November of 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a delgation to Jonestown in order to investigate allegations of human rights abuses taking place there. On November 18th, while Congressman Ryan was boarding a plane to leave, a group of armed men from Jonestown attacked Ryan’s delegation, killing Ryan and 4 other people.
Later that same day, Jones ordered the mass killing of Jonestown’s 900+ residents, including the colony’s 276 children. The killings were done either by suicide or by murder. Jones was among the suicide victims.
Posted by Dodo David at 12:41 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
2006 Predictions: First Three Months
I am going to be lame and do the predictions game. I know that news turns on a dime, so I will only make predictions regarding the top 5 news stories for the first four months (1/3 of the year) in 2006.
1. President Bush's SOTU address will be described by the MSM as the speech that will determine if he has become a lame duck president. There will be over-analysis and much punditry. Bush will deliver a speech less grand than last year, but it will be just as powerful. Look for less concessions to the liberals. He will discuss these things the most: winning in Iraq, renewing the Patriot Act (tied to domestic eavesdropping), improving the economy by making tax cuts permanent, making our energy secure through ANWR, child sex predators (no steroids this time), New Orleans, and finally...the border (and he will not mention his guest worker program).
2. The hearings on Judge Sam Alito, Jr. to the SCOTUS. Democrats will try to filibuster his nomination, but when the democrats realize that the republicans have enough votes to invoke the "constitutional/nuclear option," they will back down--but only after they have called Judge Alito a racists, sexist, anti-abortion, right-wing extremist bent on "turning back the clock" on civil rights. Ultimately, he will be confirmed with only 5-10 democratic senators voting in his favor and 2-3 republican senators voting against.
3. The investigation into the NSA leaks regarding eavesdropping on people within the US in contact with suspected terrorists overseas. Arlen Spector will hold hearings that will resemble the 9/11 commission hearings (5-network coverage) that will ultimately backfire against liberal republicans (no effect to democrats); liberal republicans will overreach wanting to pose and preen for the camera but ultimately look like fools. One conservative senator will have enough sense to subpoena Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, Judith Miller and Michael Cooper to ask if the NSA leaker should be pursued as vigourously as the person that leaked the identity of Ms. Plame.
4. The Republican Study Committee will push the issue of immigration so far that even the Bush administration will sign an enforcement only bill (but with a promise to revisit the guest worker program in 6 months). President Bush will utilize this issue with the most embattled senators (Kyle and Santorum) and it will help only one of these senators. Tom Tancredo and JD Hayworth, as well as other congressional members on southern border states, will become more vocal in 2006. Immigration will become a national plank for each party with the democrats accusing republicans of racism (trumpeted by the international community after Vincente Fox files a petition at the UN where the US will be compared to Zionist occupiers). Ultimately, republicans will punk out in the Senate and there will be no bill for Bush to sign.
5. The democrats will still play the same yarn about no plan and demand timetables. This will not fly with the American people. The democrats will see many of their Iraq war vets they are recruiting to guilt-trip the public begin to stumble or find greater opposition than they thought by the incumbents. The mood in April of 2006 will be that the Dems have a chance to win the senate and the house, but that will be the same mood of early 2004 with Abu Ghraib and will be forgotten later in the year.
That's my take, and I might be totally wrong, but I win many hands of poker so I might pull this off :-)
I hope everyone has the safest, healthiest and most prosperous new year in 2006 than they've ever had. God bless you, God bless our soldiers, God bless our president and God bless America.
Posted by Aaron at 11:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
John Kerry Meet Baby Noor
More American soldiers terrorizing Iraqi women and children:
When troops from the Georgia National Guard raided a Baghdad home in early December, they had no idea that their mission in Iraq would take a different turn.
As the young parents of an infant girl nervously watched the soldiers search their modest home, the baby's unflinching grandmother thrust the little girl at the Americans, showing them the purple pouch protruding from her back.
Little Noor, barely three months old, was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal column fails to completely close. Iraqi doctors had told her parents she would live only 45 days.
But she was tenaciously clinging to life, and the soldiers in the home--many of them fathers themselves--were moved.
"Well, I saw this child as the firstborn child of the young mother and father and really, all I could think of was my five children back at home and my young daughter," Lt. Jeff Morgan told CNN from Baghdad. . . . So Morgan and his fellow soldiers began working to get Noor the help she needs.
Fox News reports that Baby Noor is headed the United States and will receive treatment free of charge. I hope, when this baby is older, that she will seek out and meet with John Kerry.
Posted by Aaron at 09:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Major Security Flaw in Microsoft Windows
Please take the time to read this article about safeguarding your computer from a very serious flaw reported by Microsoft/Secunia.
Microsoft Corp. has issued a security advisory for what Secunia is deeming an "extremely critical flaw" in Windows Metafile Format (.wmf) that is now being exploited on fully patched systems by malicious attackers.
Websense Security Labs is tracking thousands of sites distributing the exploit code from a site called iFrameCASH BUSINESS.
That site and numerous others are distributing spyware and other unwanted software, replacing users' desktop backgrounds with a message that warns of spyware infection and which prompts the user to enter credit card information to pay for a "spyware cleaning" application to remove the detected spyware.
Vulnerable operating systems include a slew of Windows Server 2003 editions: Datacenter Edition, Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition and Web Edition.
Also at risk are Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional, making both home users and businesses open to attack.
The article includes instructions for a partial work around, but it will disable the autostart of your Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.
Posted by Aaron at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WaPo Creates News; Undermines War Effort
You know what you're in for when you read a Dana Priest article/editorial that lies in the lead: Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor: Anti-terror program authorized by Bush after 9/11 has expanded in size and ambition, despite a growing outcry over its clandestine tactics. - Dana Milbank
What growing outcry? Am I missing something? Last time I checked, 64% of adults are fine with wire-tapping people in the US talking to terrorists outside the US.
The "New Furor" or "growing outcry" is what Priest finds in the newsroom--not in America. So the WaPo is attempting to create outcry. And in so doing they are jeapordizing our national security.
In the article, Priest describes a secret CIA program called GST (the full name is not known). So the WaPo has now identified our undercover airplanes, our undercover prisons, piggy-backed the NYTimes piece on the NSA program, now it reveals the GST program. Why don't they just print the instructions to build a nuclear device?
Thank God we have a president that is decisive and will stick to his guns no matter what dirt is thrown at him. I am catching up on season 4 of 24, and to compare the utter incompetence of VP Charles Logan as he refuses to allow CTU rough up a terrorist to find a nuclear warhead, then botches a raid where the terrorist is because he orders secret service to arrest Jack Bauer because Bauer roughed up the terrorist anyway? Then realizes his decision helped the terrorist escape...then he almost cries about it and just a disgusting vision of "what if" someone like John Kerry assumed the presidency.
We will win this war in spite of the MSM's aiding the enemy.
Posted by Aaron at 11:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Funniest NRO predictions for 2006
In Manhattan, the New York Times will do a fashion item on the faux Western sheep-cowboy look and "Why can't I quit you?" will be discussed at Columbia as a serious philosophical question and distributed as a Podcast. - Denis Boyles
Chelsea Clinton gets engaged. Howard Dean gets enraged. Cindy Sheehan fades. - Kellyanne Conway
Hillary Clinton is seen reading Kate O'Beirne's best-selling Women Who Make the World Worse. While reading, a lamp is thrown. - K-Lo
The feminists will hold another "Equal Pay Day" event to complain about the so-called "wage gap" on April 25, 2006 and no one will care. - Carrie Lukas
Brokeback Mountain becomes the first winner of a new Academy Award category, "Gayest Movie." Winners note that it's fabulous just to be nominated, girlfriend.
George and Laura Bush file their 2005 income-tax returns, listing Cindy Sheehan as a dependent. - Ned Rice
Posted by Aaron at 10:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Surely, Andrew Sullivan Fainted after Reading that Torture Works
UPDATE: after reading comments to this post, I agree that the column/article conjectures that warterboarding MIGHT be what broke KSM. I read it too quickly and I apologize.
I don't know if I would consider "waterboarding" outright torture. I typically think of things like the rack and the Iron Maiden when someone says "torture."
But here we have evidence that waterboarding works waterboarding might work.
Moral and legal aspects aside, conventional wisdom is that torture simply isn't practical: that someone who is being tortured will say anything to make the torture stop, and that information gleaned through torture is therefore not reliable.
Some former military and intelligence officers say, however, that physically aggressive interrogation techniques that some human rights groups consider torture can be effective in the short term. When asked for specifics, the technique they cite is "waterboarding," in which water is poured over a subject's face to create the sensation of drowning.
Consider Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 39-year-old former al-Qaida operative who was the Sept. 11 mastermind and bearer of many al-Qaida secrets.
...He ultimately had so much to say that more than 100 footnoted references to the CIA's interrogations of KSM are contained in the final report of the commission that investigated Sept. 11.
Posted by Aaron at 03:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
A Tale of Two Leaks
Columnist Linda Chavez poses an interesting question:
Within days of the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, Sen. Chuck Schumer was demanding a full-scale investigation into the incident, and others soon followed suit. So where are Sen. Schumer and his fellow Democrats in demanding a similar investigation and prosecution of a far more egregious leak of classified material involving the National Security Agency? Instead of demanding to know who leaked information that could jeopardize both sources and methods for intelligence gathering that will protect American lives, Democrats -- and some Republicans -- are busy accusing the president of wrongdoing. Response to the two leaks reveals a stark double standard.
Posted by Pam at 09:21 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Well That's Just Great
The NYTimes demonstrates precisely why they are seditious and dangerous:
Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.
The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.
The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.
Isn't it bad enough that the DNC is providing its tactics to the "disinfranchised" in Iraq and to Saddam's legal defense team?
Posted by Aaron at 04:22 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Gun Violence in Canada is U.S.'s Fault
Blaming your own problems on the U.S. has become a popular pastime in other countries. Now Canada has come up with a doozy:
TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Canadian officials, seeking to make sense of another fatal shooting in what has been a record year for gun-related deaths, said Tuesday that along with a host of social ills, part of the problem stemmed from what they said was the United States exporting its violence.
...
"It's a sign that the lack of gun laws in the U.S. is allowing guns to flood across the border that are literally being used to kill people in the streets of Toronto," [Toronto Mayor David] Miller said.
Miller said Toronto, a city of nearly three million, is still very safe compared to most American cities, but the illegal flow of weapons from the United States is causing the noticeable rise in gun violence.
"The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto," he said.
Lack of gun laws? We have gun laws. Unfortunately, there are criminals who flaunt our laws. Illegal flow of weapons from the U.S.? If Canadian criminals didn't want them, our criminals wouldn't be able to sell them.
Fortunately, there is a voice of reason from the Great White North:
John Thompson, a security analyst with the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute, says the number of guns smuggled from the United States is a problem, but that Canada has a gang problem -- not a gun problem -- and that Canada should stop pointing the finger at the United States.
"It's a cop out. It's an easy way of looking at one symptom rather than addressing a whole disease," Thompson said.
Yep. It's a whole lot easier to blame the big, bad United States than to look at the real reason for the problem. Let's get one thing straight: I am not advocating the flow of illegal arms across our borders, no matter what the direction. What I dislike is one, the knee-jerk finger pointing at the U.S. and two, the fact that politicos seem to forget that for a gun to kill someone, another person has to be pulling the trigger.
In other words, it's a people problem, not a gun problem. Obviously there are criminals in Canada who have decided that they'll use guns. If they didn't get them from their criminal pals to the south, they'd find another way to get them.
Blaming us for your issues isn't going to solve them, Paul Martin and David Miller. Once you figure that out, you might have a chance of actually finding a way to combat these thugs.
tagged: toronto canada guns paul martin canada
Crossposted to Blogmeister USA
Posted by Pam at 11:56 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Fake But Accurate, still
It never ceases to amaze me about how liberals just don't care about facts:
"The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for 'The Little Red Book' by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story," reports the Standard-Times of New Bedford, Mass.:
The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.
Among those who fell for the story, as we noted Friday, was Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who cited it in a Boston Globe op-ed piece (though he claimed the book in question was "the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto"). According to a Globe news story on the hoax, the Globe interviewed the shifty student--whose request for anonymity both papers have respected even though he lied to them--"but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity."
Kennedy, meanwhile, apologized for slandering America's dedicated law-enforcement agents by portraying them as totalitarian thugs.
Ha ha, we fooled you! Here's the actual Kennedy response as reported by the Globe:
Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ''public reports" in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy's broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.
This follows the non-apologies from Al Shaprton, Jesse Jackson, Kerry F. Dunn, and Paul Mirecki.
Posted by Aaron at 05:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Liberal Judges Play Games, Bush Gives them the Finger
I wonder what this means:
U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.
A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Heart newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.
The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.
But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.
I want to know who these judges are and who appointed them and why they feel the need to give Bush a harder time while we are at war than during previous adminstrations.
Posted by Aaron at 01:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Legislative Successes for GOP in 2005
Jayson at Polipundit has a nice round-up of GOP successes in 2005 that is not frequently mentioned in the MSM.
Posted by Aaron at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Why I Don't Celebrate or Support Kwanzaa
I don't celebrate Kwanzaa for several reasons:
1. It is not an African Harvest celebration that is what many black American's believe.
2. The holiday is completely made up (it's not even 40 years old) and is used to instruct people in collective Marxism.
3. It is designed to further segregate black Americans from American culture.
4. It is simply an excuse for a bunch of haughty blacks to don African costumes and parade around being "African."
5. It's lame.
Posted by Aaron at 10:41 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Daschle Helps Jose Padilla
You may recall Jose Padilla. Former gang member and murderer who reportedly offered to help Al Qaeda explode a dirty bomb in a United States city?
Tom Daschle's recent op-ed in the Washington Post is going to be used by Padilla's lawyers in their attempt to free the dirty bomber wannabe.
Whatever its impact on the domestic surveillance controversy, the ex-senator's description of the previously unknown rebuff of the White House immediately caught the attention of lawyers working for the release of alleged Al Qaeda prisoners detained by the American military in this country, but outside the traditional criminal justice system.
"I actually was sitting in my office when it came out in the Post, and somebody called and said, 'You've got to see this,'" a Manhattan attorney, Andrew Patel, said. Mr. Patel is a member of the legal team representing Jose Padilla, an American who was arrested at a Chicago airport in 2002 and later confined to a military brig in South Carolina after Mr. Bush designated him as an enemy combatant.
Perhaps after being freed, Mr Padilla could stump for Daschle during his run for the Democratic nomination? Lord knows, he'd be bound to help Mr Disappointed with the kook antiwar base of the party?
Posted by pat at 10:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Steyn On Dems: We Aren't the World
Mark Steyn produces another priceless gem focusing on Vermont, whom he calls "America's leading Canadian province." Actually, Vermont is the springboard for his discussion of today's Democrats in general:
You can understand why the Dems miss the Nineties. There was nary a word about war. Okay, you’d get the odd million-man genocide in Rwanda, but you tended to hear about it afterwards, usually as a late-breaking item in the Clinton teary-apology act. Instead, it was an era of micro-politics, a regulation here, an entitlement there, a recycling program everywhere you looked. Venusian Americans assumed they’d entered an age of permanent post-Martian politics, and they resented 9/11 as an intrusion on their minimalism. When you’re at an event for the “anti-war” movement, you realize it’s no such thing: it’s an I-don’t-want-to-have-to-hear-about-this-war movement.
Read it.
Posted by Pam at 01:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Happy Kwanzaa!
December 26th is first day of the seven-day holiday called Kwanzaa, created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, a professor of Black Studies at California State University - Long Beach.
One promoter of Kwanzaa wrote the following:
Kwanzaa seeks to enforce a connectedness to African cultural identity, provide a focal point for the gathering of African peoples, and to reflect upon the Nguzo Saba, or the seven principles, that have sustained Africans.
Posted by Dodo David at 10:49 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
INTERBLOGATORY RECAPS & REMINDERS
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Posted by kitty at 10:20 AM | Comments (3)
Happy Hanukkah!
Hanukkah First Night Blessing (quoted from Torah.org):
"Baruch ata Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Melech ha'olam, She'hecheyanu, vekiyemanu vehigi'anu laz'man hazeh"
Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.
Posted by Dodo David at 09:40 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Christ the Lord
The birth of the Saviour should be on our hearts and minds this season. I want to thank God for coming to earth to become man and die on the cross for all sin in human history. I am grateful that inso doing, the Christ conquered death so that we may all have the free gift of eternal life--regardless of pedigree, nationality, party--but by the simple belief that we are all saved through grace by believing that Jesus is our saviour.
I also want to thank God for blessing me with the protection of the US Armed Forces and for our president.
I want to wish our readers a very Merry Christmas.
Farm animals, not thoroughbred horses, were his first companions. He was placed in a manger, not a soft bed with silk sheets. None of this was expected, except by a few prophets and those who followed them. But then the idea that God would enter the world so that humanity might enter eternity wasn't expected either.
Modern politics is emblematic of these conflicting kingdoms.
Too many put too much faith in Democrats or Republicans to deliver us from evil, a word that serves more as a metaphor than as a diagnosis of our time. Those expectations are quickly diminished for most, once temporal power is achieved.
At Christmas we are given another opportunity to focus on One who never disappoints, assuming our expectations are in the right place and our faith in the right Person. --Cal Thomas
Posted by Aaron at 10:26 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
A Suggestion for Liberals
Here's one of those annoying columns from a liberal columnist suggesting that a more "just society" would spend more money on the poor.
The federal budget compromise passed this week illustrates how distorted rhetoric creates distorted policy. The budget that emerged imposes domestic spending cuts totaling almost $40 billion over the next five years. The cuts primarily come from safety-net programs that benefit the poor, such as Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or help low- and middle-income families send their kids to college. Few policy justifications were offered for the cuts. Instead, the primary claim is they're needed to reduce the deficit. That's rich.
The current budget deficit is $560 billion. The proposed cuts will save only about $8 billion. That's 1.4 percent, for those of you scoring at home. Surely, there are better ways to reduce the deficit. Say we cut defense spending a paltry 2 percent. That would save more money this year than all the domestic programs being cut -- combined. Better still, rescinding the Bush tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy would lop an impressive $253 billion off the deficit.
Let me make a simple suggestion. If liberals want more money spent on the poor, they should donate it to programs that work. If they want to cut the budget deficit, they should send in an extra payment with their tax returns. I don't know what the Chicago Sun-Times pays their columnists, but I suspect it is enough that the writer, Ralph Martire, got some sort of break on his income taxes from the Bush tax cuts. How about providing us an example of his personal sacrifice? It would make an excellent series of columns.
Posted by pat at 01:40 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Federal Court Supports Presidential Authority to Make Warrantless Searches
Former-senator Tom Daschle claims that Congress didn’t give President Bush the authority to conduct warrantless searches of people with links to foreign terrorists. Senator Ted Kennedy claims that President Bush has violated the law.
Well, here is a newsflash for both men and anyone who agrees with them:
Congress didn’t have to give President Bush authority to conduct the aforementioned searches because the President already had that authority.
In his op-ed piece, Sen. Kennedy wrote, “The president, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the attorney general tell us that the president can order domestic spying inside this country -- without judicial oversight -- under his power as commander in chief. Really? Where do they find that in the Constitution?”
Well, Sen. Kennedy will discover the answer to his question in a case decided on by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. The case is In re: Sealed Case No. 02-001. The court made its decision on the case on November 18, 2002. [Hat Tip: bulldogpundit of Ankle Biting Pundits]
Here is what the court says on page 48 of its decision:
“The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent on the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
According to the court’s decision, as long as the President is using warrantless phone tapping in order to obtain foreign intelligence information, the President is acting within the boundary of his constitutional authority.
On a related note, Michelle Malkin has an update on the controversy surrounding the NSA's activities.
Posted by Dodo David at 12:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah!
I haven't been posting as much as I'd like to of late...it's funny how real life gets in the way of one's hobbies! In any case, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish my co-bloggers Aaron, Kitty, Pat and David a Merry Christmas. I'd also like to wish our readers Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah. I'll be back from visiting relatives on Monday!
Posted by Pam at 10:39 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
¡Feliz Navidad!
Posted by Dodo David at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Loser & Liar
Wow. I am actually starting to believe this leak was planned and there is a timeline to promote this NON-story. Why? Because the lame Daschle has come out of the woodworks....
I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps.
Well, thank God you are no longer in office.
Posted by Aaron at 10:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Gooooood Day!
I don't know if this is 100% authentic, but my mother sent it to me and I thought it was very nice (she usually forwards a bunch of sentimental crap):
Paul Harvey's ON Air Prayer
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Amen!"
Ditto that Amen.
Posted by Aaron at 10:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Not Cowed by Kofi
Kofi Annan's attempt to embarrass journalist James Bone at a press conference the other day was surprising, to say the least, since Annan's public demeanor is usually quite cool:
Bone had just said that some of the UN leader's account of events in the oil-for-food scandal "don't really make sense" when Mr Annan interrupted him to say: "I think you're being very cheeky. Listen, James Bone, you have been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years.
"You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving, and please let's move on to a more serious subject."
Normally I would think such a set-down was funny, as the press often deserves it. However, coming from Kofi Annan, whose son was involved in one of the greatest global frauds ever, it was a poor attempt to shut Bone up. Annan's own role has never been satisfactorily examined either. However, like most journalists, Bone won't shut up. From his article today on the TimesOnline:
For months journalists were told that the UN could not answer any questions because the scandal was under investigation by the Volcker inquiry. Since the Volcker panel issued its last report in October, the UN has refused to answer any questions because it says the matter has already been investigated. Yet the inquiry raised more questions than it answered, the most important being: what did Kofi Annan know and when did he know it?
Guess he's not ready to be cowed by Kofi. Read it!
Posted by Pam at 09:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Intelligent Design & Evolution Theory
Recently, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled “that a Pennsylvania school board violated the Constitution in requiring discussions of intelligent design in ninth-grade biology classes” [Info Source]. This ruling will not stop the feud pertaining to Intelligent Design and Evolution Theory. The irony is that proponents of Intelligent Design aren’t actually challenging Evolution Theory.
In order for the irony to be understood, an explanation of Evolution Theory is needed.
When stripped of the excess baggage that has been added to it over the years, Evolution Theory is summed up in the following two sentences:
A genetic population evolves whenever new genetic data is added to that population. New genetic data is added either by cross-breeding or by mutations.
That’s really all there is to Evolution Theory. It is nothing more than an explanation of what causes life forms to evolve.
Evolution Theory is demonstrated to be accurate whenever dog breeders produce a new breed of dog, such as when the monks at the Monastery of Bernard de Menthon cross-bred previously-existing dogs in order to produce the breed of dog call the Saint Bernard. The accuracy of Evolution Theory is demonstrated by the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections as the result of mutating bacteria.
Evolution Theory, as described here, isn’t disputed by proponents of Intelligent Design. Instead, ID proponents are disputing the theory of common descent, which is a theory about the evolutionary events that have taken place during the course of natural history.
Sadly, scientists and science teachers have done a piss poor job of explaining to the general public the difference between the two theories. As a result, Evolution Theory keeps being attacked by mistake.
In case you are wondering . . .
1) Evolution Theory doesn’t contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Evolution Theory pertains to living organisms, which are open systems. The Second Law of Thermodynamics pertains to closed systems. Comparing Evolution Theory to the Second Law of Thermodynamics is like comparing apples to oranges.
2) The theory of natural selection isn’t the same thing as Evolution Theory, although the former theory is also confused with the latter. According to the theory of natural selection, the species best equipped to survive in an environment is the species most likely to live long enough to reproduce. When an environmental change takes place, the species best equipped for the change will become the dominant species, while species ill equipped for the change will most likely die out. In other words, the environment (a.k.a. Nature) selects what species will survive.
3) Evolution Theory doesn’t explain how life began. The theory of abiogenesis is the theory about how life began.
4) Contrary to what Media members keep saying, Evolution Theory doesn’t require that all mutations be random. British zoologist Richard Dawkins wrote, “It is not critical to the theory that mutation must be random, and it most certainly provides no excuse to tar the whole theory with the brush of randomness.”
Posted by Dodo David at 09:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Transit Strike and Reagan
Oh, if only there were more Reagan's around:
On Aug. 3, 1981, nearly 13,000 air-traffic controllers defied President Ronald Reagan's warnings and federal law by going on strike. Nearly half of the nation's flights were grounded. Speaking from the Rose Garden, Reagan issued a 48-hour ultimatum.
REAGAN: ...It is for this reason that I must tell those who fail to report for duty this morning they are in violation of the law, and if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.
Q: Do you think that they should go to jail, Mr. President, anybody who violates this law?
Reagan: I told you what I think should be done. They're terminated.
Two days later, the president fired the 11,359 air-traffic controllers who had not returned to work.
WOW. I was only four year old and he was in office less than one year and showed people he meant business.
Posted by Aaron at 05:53 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Make Them Stay and REALLY Filibuster
I wanted House and Senate leadership to tell people filibustering the Patriot Act that they would need to cancel their holiday plans because no one was going anywhere until there was a vote. I wanted to see Feingold sit and talk for days through Christmas and Chanukah; I wanted to see Reid up there talk about how he "killed the Patriot Act."
Now I read that even Bush can keep them in session. Good:
That could happen this evening as senators were alerted last night they might be called back on Thursday evening despite adjourning until Jan. 3. President Bush also has the authority to call Congress back into session to prevent the expiration of the existing law before Dec. 31.
Let's stop this "threatened" filibuster nonsense and make them stand and talk for hours.
Posted by Aaron at 05:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ted Kennedy Vs. U.S. Constitution
In an opinion piece for the Boston Globe, Senator Ted Kennedy wrote the following:
THE PRESIDENT is not above the law; he is not King George. Yet, with sorrow, we are now learning that in this great land we have an administration that has refused to follow well-crafted, longstanding procedures that require the president to get a court order before spying on people within the United States. With outrage, we learn that this administration believes that it does not have to follow the law of the land.
According to members of previous presidential administrations, Senator Kennedy is in error.
Georgetown University professor Raymond Tanter was a staff member of President Reagan’s National Security Council. In an opinion piece for USA TODAY, Mr. Tanter wrote the following:
Presidential authorization to intercept communications is not a case of power corrupting absolutely. This is a case in which the president already has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to authorize communications intercepts between foreign enemies and their suspected American collaborators. . . In addition to constitutional authority, Congress has authorized the use of force in the Joint Resolution of Congress passed in the aftermath of 9/11. That resolution charged the president to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to "prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States." These wiretaps follow logically from this resolution.
John Schmidt was Associate Attorney General of the U.S.A. during the Clinton Administration. In an opinion piece for the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Schmidt wrote the following:
President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.
. . . the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority."
The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. That law created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that can authorize surveillance directed at an "agent of a foreign power," which includes a foreign terrorist group. Thus, Congress put its weight behind the constitutionality of such surveillance in compliance with the law's procedures.
But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."
. . . I do not believe the Constitution allows Congress to take away from the president the inherent authority to act in response to a foreign attack.
If Mr. Tanter and Mr. Schmidt are correct, then William Kristol and Gary Schmitt are correct when they say, "To engage in demagogic rhetoric about "imperial" presidents and "monarchic" pretensions, with no evidence that the president has abused his discretion, is foolish and irresponsible." [Quote Source]
If Senator Kennedy is correct, then why didn't he complain when President Clinton authorized warrantless searches?
In a story for the Washington Times, reporter Charles Hurt wrote the following:
In 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects."
Perhaps Sen. Kennedy is using the selective amnesia that Times of London columnist Gerard Baker wrote about in his column titled "You don't have to be an amnesiac to be a Democrat, buddy, but it helps".
STORY UPDATE: John Hinderaker at Powerline has posted an analysis of the legality of warrantless searches authorized by American presidents. To read the analysis, click here. Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin
Posted by Dodo David at 12:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Nice little cartoon at Lucianne.com
Posted by Aaron at 11:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The Good Ol' Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which slammed the Bush administration for its allegedly slow and racially insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, has yet to spend any of the estimated $400,000 that it raised for the victims of the Aug. 29 storm.
"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday. The Foundation is an offshoot of the Congressional Black Caucus and was founded in 1976.
Posted by Aaron at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Huge Weapons Cache Found on Iraqi Tip
As the piles of missiles and rockets dug from the desert floor grew, smiles on soldiers’ faces turned to scowls of serious concern.
Working on a tip from an informant, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division on Tuesday dug up more than a thousand aging rockets and missiles wrapped in plastic, some of which had been buried as recently as two weeks ago, Army officials said.
...Vardaro would not comment on whether there were signs the caches had been used recently to make bombs, but the service records accompanying the missiles dated to 1984, suggesting they were buried by the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein.
Still, the plastic around some of the rockets — of Soviet, German and French origins — appeared to be fresh and had not deteriorated as it had on some of the older munitions.
Emphasis mine to illustrate the same trio of the axis of weasels.
Posted by Aaron at 10:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Her Tongue Be a Sword
Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on "Americans." I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.
But if we must engage in a national debate on half-measures: After 9-11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief.
And with that, my day became better.
Posted by Aaron at 10:28 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Woman Hit by Metro Bus
I haven't seen anything on the news yet, but a woman was just by a DC Metro bus on the corner of 3rd and C Streets, SW outside the Federal Center Metro Station. About ten cop cars, a fire truck and ambulance on the scene; the entire intersection is closed.
Posted by Aaron at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This is journalism ethics?
The News & Observer is reporting on the use of on-duty firefighters to stage a fake fire for the benefit of a TV news station.
Here is the beginning of the story:
The Bull City's hometown TV station is planning to promote its news team's ability to cover live news by faking it. WTVD ABC-11 has been staging fire, foul weather and other news events across Durham this week, shooting advertisements for its news operation that not only put its Eyewitness News team at contrived scenes but also have taxpayers footing the bill for on-duty firefighters and other emergency workers to give the ads a realistic flair.
The Dayton Daily News has gone ape over the new King Kong movie.
A recent edition of the newspaper has its front-page stories imposed on a full-page rendition of Hollywood’s most famous gorilla. The image has King Kong’s open mouth positioned above the headline “Ohio air among worst in U.S.”.
Upon seeing the newspaper, one blogger responded, “No wonder Ohio's air is so bad. There's a big-ass ape breathing all over everything!”
Click here to see the newspaper fit for a king . . . Kong, that is.
In