Just think of left wing logic like this. 5 x 8 = 73. Then get really mad about it! Once you can do that, you will be able to understand them. -- Don_cos
"Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.
Another message:
Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.
And this one:
Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool."
The good news is that we may have a chance to retain the seat, although the rules sound a little wacky:
"Florida Republicans planned to meet as soon as Monday to name a replacement in Foley's district, which President Bush won with 55 percent in 2004 and is now in play for November. Though Florida ballots have already been printed with Foley's name and cannot be changed, any votes for Foley will count toward the party's choice."
The bad news is that Foley is a gay pedophile who sounds as if he has been trying to use the House page program as a dating service. Hopefully, there will be a thorough investigation and if it turns out that Foley broke the law -- and it sounds as if some of his comments could be construed as sexually soliciting a minor -- here's hoping that Foley will be prosecuted to fullest extent of the law.
"In the future, I'd very much like to get disengaged from politics," Soros said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting on the Upper East Side. "I'm interested in policy and not in politics."
There's a lot of wiggle room in that and somehow, I doubt that it means he's going to stop funneling money to liberal candidates and causes.
-- Believe it or not, Oprah has named Kos as one of the sexiest men alive. Kos -- from the Daily Kos. There's no need for me to write commentary about that, because the commentary practically writes itself.
-- Here's the latest quote about George Bush from Democratic Senator, Ted Kennedy:
"Why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and its allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people's sons in order increase your profits?"
Oh wait...that was actually from Al-Qaida's 2nd in command, Ayman al-Zawahri. Sorry about the mix-up, it's just a little hard sometimes to tell the difference between liberals Al-Qaeda when they're talking about Bush or Iraq.
-- The cretins at Wonkette actually posted a photoshopped pic of Michelle Malkin in a bikini today, suggested to their readers that it was real, and then, even after Michelle bluntly told them it was fake, their sister site Gawker posted the photo as if were real, too. That sounds like a clear cut case of libel to me.
Then, even after the fact, neither blog apologized for maliciously smearing Michelle. That just goes to show you that anti-Christian zealot Ken Layne and the rest of the clowns at Wonkette and Gawker are real scumbags.
Update #1: I received this email Saturday night,
From: Mary Hughes (malia3000@*******.com)
Subject: GOP news
"John:
I searched all over your website but couldn't find your response to Foley's resignation. Why not? I'd like to read your comments about this. As the family values party, why are so many Republican congressman doing such bad things? Foley is a predator of teen age boys. Ney just resigned because he's corrupt. Cunningham, too. My, my, if your party is so keen on values, why are you people such abhorrent human beings?
Question: "Are term limits for Congress just a pipe dream? If not, what will it take to make this a major election issue again, as it was in 1994? If so, what are the long term consequences of our inability to consistently unseat ineffective incumbent politicians on both sides of the aisle?" --President_Friedman on
Answer: Term limits aren't a pipe dream, particularly if they're not retroactively applied to members of Congress that are already in office, so as not to threaten the jobs of the people voting on them. However, if we are going to get term limits, it's going to take a groundswell of support from the general public to force Congress to act -- and right now, that's not happening.
However, this election cycle is showing us exactly why we do need term limits. Supposedly this is a "big wave year" and people are wildly unhappy with Congress and it's, "another 1994," etc., etc., etc. But, even with everything that's going on, there are 435 House members and maybe 50 competitive races in the House. So, in other words, maybe 80%+ of our representatives in the House have about as much chance of being voted out of office as Saddam Hussein did when he ran Iraq.
Obviously, that's not good for democracy because most people in the country don't have any sort of meaningful choice at the ballot box when they're selecting their Congressional representative. It also means that we're going to be stuck with a lot of arrogant, out-of-touch politicians who really don't feel a lot of pressure to represent their constituents because elections are nothing more than mere formalities for them.
That's the reality that we have to live with and term limits, along with putting an end to gerrymandering, would go a long way towards making sure Congressmen better represent the people who send them to Washington.
How about clicking on just a few of these ads? It helps support Right Wing News and it rewards advertisers for spending money on conservative blogs. So, hope you'll help out!
Question: "What do you think about the Senate approving the Detainee bill?" -- DarkConservative
Answer: Despite McCain and Company trying to stick a fly in the soup, we're going to have rules in place that give Bush 95% of what he wants on tribunals and interrogation rules. We're going to have clear rules in place, that allow us to effectively interrogate and try these terrorists without going over the line into torture, giving them classified info, or putting them through the civilian court system.
It's good for the country, good for the war effort, and it's good for the Republican Party -- which is why Bush handled it perfectly.
If he'd waited until after the election to bring this up, a lot more Democrats would have given in to liberal pressure and gone the wrong way. But now, right before an election, the Democrats have to either infuriate their base by voting for these measures or risk being portrayed as weaklings on defense to the voters by going against them. So, Bush made sure that he got what he wanted to fight the war on terror and put the Democrats in a lose/lose position politically at the same time.
In Virginia, the Senate race has turned into the battle of N-Bombs. You've got Democrats coming out of the woodwork to accuse Allen of using the N-word and now there is an accusation out there that Webb was calling black Americans, "racial epithets and pointed fake guns at blacks to scare them."
Of course, both sides are denying the charges. Are they lying? Are they telling the truth? Since we're talking about unverifiable accusations made by partisans about events that happened decades ago, it's difficult to say.
On the other hand, there is no argument that some of James Webb's books have used racist language in them -- which is intriguing given the situation. Here we have this debate over who said what to whom when, and yet, everyone acknowledges that Webb has used the N-word in print, but no one is printing exactly what he wrote...until today.
As all of RWN's regular readers know, I'm a big fan of putting together lists of quotations. Well today, I'm going to post just SOME of the most vulgar quotations from SOME of James Webb's books.
Now, I will grant you that these are works of fiction. But, certainly in the past, liberals at the Boston Globe & The New York Times -- among other MSM outlets -- have taken issue with things written by conservatives under similar circumstances, so it doesn't seem improper to put some of the vile racism and deviant sexual behavior that Webb has written about out there so people can make their own decisions about it.
Enjoy, or alternately, if you're with the Webb campaign -- cringe!
Snake sees his mother on the bed: "She looked as if she were carefully attempting to re-create a picture from some long-forgotten men's magazine...She was naked underneath the robe....and the robe fell loosely away, revealing her. Snake shrugged resignedly." -- P.9
"N*ggers, Jesus Christ. I never thought Cannonball was like that. Get 'em back in the rear and they turn to sh*t." -- p.217
"He saw the invitation with every bouncing breast and curved hip...He was thirteen...She was fifteen...In a few moments she drew him to her and he murmured in his quiet voice, 'I am still small.' 'You are large enough,' she answered. And he found he was." -- P.280-281
"...(T)hey want stupid n*ggers, they'd all pay to see a dumb*ss n*gger." -- P.302
"Fogarty...watch[ed] a naked young stripper do the splits over a banana. She stood back up, her face smiling proudly and her round breasts glistening from a spotlight in the dim bar, and left the banana on the bar, cut in four equal sections by the muscles of her vagina." -- P.36
"We're on our way to becoming the world's recreational center, a nation [USA] not to be taken seriously. Where are we still the undisputed leader? Music. Movies. Fast food. Drugs. . . . the billboards fifty years from now as you come over the bridge and stop at the tollbooths outside Manhattan: A smiling beautiful naked woman, and the sign saying AMERICAN *SS IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT." -- P.199
"Don't know why I crave watermelon the way I have over the past few weeks. Jimmy says I must have a n*gger in the woodpile." -- P.34
"You're so nice, sometimes I forget you're a Yankee. What you all don't understand is, some of my best friends really are n*ggers. N*ggers are just different, that's all. What's wrong with that?" -- P.34
Jimmy: "He got that n*gger band in there again. It sounds like a d*mn juke joint."
Red: Personally, "Jimmy, I like n*gger music. In fact, I even like Negroes!"
Jimmy: "Well, so do I. I think everybody should own at least one." -- P.42
I'm an Old South n*gger, he thought suddenly, smiling and nodding to Ambassador somebody or other. Yes, massa. Smilin over here, massa. Pickin it up over her, massa. Whooee. My mind right, massa." -- P.122
Discussing retiring to Miami, FBI agent Drought says: "and the n*ggers are everywhere, you're not going to get away from them." -- P.208
Two North Vietnamese nurses attended Red in the hospital, flirting with him coyly, until one day when one of them came to him, took off her top, stuck her breasts in Red's mouth, and masturbated him." -- P.398
Again, these aren't all of Webb's books and there are a lot more quotations that could have been added if I wanted to post every n-bomb or sex scene, but I thought it was better to just hit the high spots.
PS: I would happily pay $10 to the first reporter who will read the, "cut in four equal sections by the muscles of her vagina," quote to Webb during a press conference and ask him if he thinks that's an appropriate topic for a United States Senator to write about.
PS #2: Can anyone even try to pretend that a Republican candidate who wrote this sort of material wouldn't absolutely be ripped to shreds by the mainstream press?
Question: "Will the Bush administration do what is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, or will it continue on its current course and pass the problem along to the next president?" -- DavidC
Answer: The problem with evaluating our policy in Iran is that there are so many things the general public simply doesn't know.
-- We don't really know what the Bush Administration is doing in Iran to ferment a revolution.
-- We don't really know how close the Iranians are to developing nukes.
-- We don't know if there's some sort of internal coup in the works that the Bush Administration may be keeping an eye on.
Moreover, if the Bush Administration believes that they have a while before Iran develops nukes, it's to our advantage to wait a little longer before bombing them in order to let Iraq continue to stabilize, so that the UN's total incompetence on the matter will be more apparent, and because we'd prefer to see the Iranian people overthrow their regime.
Also, keep in mind that whatever Bush's faults may be, one of them is not reluctance to confront difficult foreign policy matters. I'm very confident that if Bush felt like we needed to go ahead and bomb Iran to stop their nuclear program, he'd order it done and then he'd be willing to deal with the consequences.
Q&A Friday #50: Was Bubba's Explosion On Fox Deliberate?
Question: "Was Bubba's performance on Chris Wallace's show rehearsed or did he really go into meltdown mode? I tend to think the latter: not only was his voice quavering, but his mouth was bone dry. Listening to the audio portion of Clinton's performance indicates that his mouth was dry to a degree typically only seen (or more precisely, heard) when someone is under a lot of stress." -- Cartman
Answer: I don't think Clinton faked it at all. I think it's simply that...
#1) Clinton has been famously concerned about his "legacy," and how history will view his presidency.
#2) He didn't do much of significance to fight against terrorism during his presidency and he knows that it makes him look bad. Of course, the same could be said of the Bush Administration pre-9/11, but they have had a chance to redeem themselves while Clinton is out of office.
#3) Liberals like Clinton are used to getting a free pass from the MSM on certain issues. As Chris Wallace noted, that's what happened to Clinton before his Fox interview:
"Trying to explain Clinton's hot reaction, Wallace said he read the transcripts of the ex-President's other media appearances in the last few days -- on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' CNN's 'Larry King Live,' FNC's 'On the Record with Greta van Susteren,' among other programs. Wallace said he was "astonished" that none of the others even bothered to raise the terrorism question with Clinton, particularly with his team's attacks on ABC's "Path to 9/11" docu-drama."
In Clinton's case, he was put on the spot about an issue that he was very sensitive about and because he hadn't really had to answer a lot of tough questions about it previously from the liberal media, he handled it poorly and blew up.
And all Clinton's little temper tantrum did was convince people to focus like a laser on his pre-9/11 record on fighting terror which, quite frankly, doesn't make him, or for that matter, the Democratic Party, look very impressive.
Q&A Friday #50: Why Can't The New Media Measure Up To The Mainstream Media?
Question: "Do you agree or disagree that the alternative media is failing to properly inform the American people on the War on Terror because it is being sucked into the same overly partisan mentality that has dominated the liberal MSM since the 2000 election?
Talk radio and the blogosphere has been great at calling out the MSM on its failures, but they are failing to shift the focus of the debate." -- Mike_M
Answer: The new media just doesn't have the reach of the old media yet. The reality is that most people still get their news from their local papers, their local news shows, and the big 3 networks, all of which are going to slant to the left in most cases.
In other words, you have to actively seek out conservative news sources like Rush Limbaugh or Right Wing News, while liberal news sources like ABC, NBC, CBS, The Washington Post, LA Times, New York Times, etc., etc., etc., are still the default news options for a lot of people.
That's why a paper like the New York Times can shift the debate by merely putting a story on their front page, while a blog like Right Wing News can't have a significant impact unless a bigger outlet or columnist picks up on something I write and broadcasts it to a wider audience.
The good news is that even if the left still has an edge, it's much more balanced than it used to be. Moreover, the drive by media is still losing audience share, while the new media is taking tiny bites out of the MSM day in and day out. Talk radio, the blogosphere, Fox, etc., will never replace the old liberal lions, but we will do an even better job of evening out the playing field for conservatism. It's just a matter of time.
Q&A Friday #50: Why Are You A Fan Of William Tecumseh Sherman?
Question: "Why would a southerner put Sherman on his list (of Greatest Americans)? I assume Hawkins is from the South?" -- libliever
Answer: First of all, I am from the South. I was born, raised, and live in North Carolina today. However, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate talented generals on both sides of the Civil War. After all, they were all Americans -- and Sherman was brilliant. You can actually see his influence on the strategies of generals like Patton and even Tommy Franks.
Next, I think Sherman actually did the South a big favor by rampaging through the countryside, although most people don't realize it. Grant may have been a brilliant general, but he was content to beat the South in a war on attrition. In other words, he intended to keep forcing men and materials on both sides into a sausage grinder because he knew the South would break first.
On the other hand, Sherman broke the South's will to fight without having to needlessly butcher Southern soldiers. The Southern troops out in the field were fighting to protect their homes and after Sherman made it clear that they couldn't, it helped bring the war to an end. You can rebuild cities and houses, but you can't bring back men who die on the field of battle. Because of Sherman's actions, a lot more Southerners lived to reunite with their families.
Last but not least, some people think Sherman's style of total warfare was some sort of illegitimate or dishonorable tactic. However, I'm not among them. If anything, I think that over the last few decades the Western world has given far too much deference to civilians who support our enemies. In my book, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with trying to break the will of the enemy's civilians, especially if, like Sherman, you refrain from massacring them.
Put it all together and you can see why I'm a big fan of Sherman, even if that's a bit unusual amongst Southerners.
So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective; heck, it can even be about movies, music, literature, or TV. Then, later today, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them.
Bloggers Select The Greatest Figures In American History (Version 2)
Out of all the titans in American history -- Presidents and generals, inventors and entrepreneurs, reformers and revolutionaries -- have you ever wondered who the best of the best were? Well, RWN decided, for the first time in more than 3 years, to email more than 225 right-of-center bloggers to get their opinions. Representatives from the following 41 blogs responded...
All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-20 unranked selections. Rank was determined simply by the number of votes received. Without further ado, the greatest figures in American history according to the right side of the blogosphere are as follows (with the number of votes following each selection)...
Honorable Mentions: John F. Kennedy (4), Lewis And Clark (4), William Tecumseh Sherman (5), Jonas Salk (5), John Marshall (5), Milton Friedman (5), George Washington Carver (5), Susan B. Anthony (5), Audie Murphy (6), Douglas MacArthur (6). Patrick Henry (6), Andrew Carnegie (6)
25) Alexander Graham Bell (7)
23) Thomas Paine (8)
23) Frederick Douglass (8)
22) George W. Bush (9)
18) Wright Brothers (10)
18) Mark Twain (10)
18) Harry Truman (10)
18) Bill Gates (10)
17) Dwight D. Eisenhower (12)
15) George Patton (13)
15) Albert Einstein (13)
12) Teddy Roosevelt (14)
12) Franklin D. Roosevelt (14)
12) Ulysses S. Grant (14)
11) Alexander Hamilton (15)
10) Henry Ford (16)
9) John Adams (17)
8) Thomas Edison (21)
7) James Madison (22)
6) Thomas Jefferson (29)
5) Martin Luther King Jr. (30)
4) Ben Franklin (32)
3) George Washington (35)
2) Abraham Lincoln (37)
1) Ronald Reagan (39)
20) William Tecumseh Sherman
19) Douglas MacArthur
18) George S. Patton
17) Albert Einstein
16) Henry Ford
15) Martin Luther King
14) Alexander Graham Bell
13) Thomas Edison
12) John Adams
11) Ulysses S. Grant
10) Alexander Hamilton
9) Teddy Roosevelt
8) Tom Paine
7) Andrew Jackson
6) Ronald Reagan
5) James Madison
4) Ben Franklin
3) Thomas Jefferson
2) Abe Lincoln
1) George Washington
Unfortunately, the article is behind the WSJ's subscription wall, but here's the part that mentions Right Wing News:
"Episcopal Life, the official monthly newspaper of the Episcopal Church, has scheduled an ad to run in November. Conservative Web site rightwingnews.com also took an ad. "I have a policy of running ads unless they are egregiously offensive, say racist or homophobic," says John Hawkins, the blog's owner. Mr. Hawkins says he has donated 10% of the money he has received from Knopf to the Salvation Army. "I love the idea of taking money from a militant atheist and giving it to a Christian charity," he says."
Speaking to reporters, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said "we have taken impeachment off the table."
Most of the responses seemed to alternate between people that were outraged that Pelosi is ruling out impeachment and people who believe she's lying through her teeth purely for political purposes. Both the fury over the possibility that the Dems might not try to impeach Bush and the cynicism that Pelosi means what she says, are strong indications that she's not telling the truth....but of course, you already knew that, didn't you?
The liberal base will absolutely demand that the Dems try to impeach Bush for something, it really doesn't matter what, and no matter what Pelosi says today, the Democrats will try to go through with an impeachment if they take over.
That's enough pointing out the obvious. Here are some of the comments from the DU thread, "Pelosi: "we have taken impeachment off the table."
FSogol: until November 8th", right? n/t
bullimiami: i dont know if I hate the b*stards more or the spineless losers that keep letting us down.
Xipe Totec: If impeachment is off the table, tell me what my motivation is to go to the polls?
rumpel: Argument does not fly with me. We have to impeach bush, cheney, rumsfeld, rice and certain others.
The "swamp", if she means members of Congress, has to be dealt with in Congress as well as in the traditional courts
This leadership just does not have the guts to seek truth for the people.
MissMarple: She can't speak for the next Congress...and she knows that. It is off the table for this currently elected set of representatives.
alternativethot: Agreed...try to get control first then start talking about legal options. It may be more advantageous
leesa: They don't have a choice. Bush has committed impeachable offenses. Their job is to impeach him. Why are you and our "democratic leadership" pretending this is optional????
patrioticliberal: F*cking b*tch
The Backlash Cometh: Well. Another reason why I don't have to donate to the Democratic Party.
LynneSin: I'm not sure if that's what they are doing. Let's not use the impeachment as a campaign ploy before the election, hear me out.
There are several districts out there where we have extremely tight races in districts that have republican leanings. Impeachment still has a bad taste to many Americans because of that joke from 1998. Take the impeachment off the table but you know - stuff happens AND minds are changed
zulchzulu: It's off the table and stored away in the fridge for later consumption. You can bet Nancy wants to impeach the Chimp. This is just election year shuffling...
flaminbats: maybe I should take voting off the table! what else will these cowards say.."Bush is a national hero, national healthcare must be stopped, crime is ok for those in power"?
Pelosi has almost convinced me not to vote. I will now only vote under one condition...if the Democrat running for Congress in my district promises to never support Pelosi for Speaker of the House. Then I know my vote will not be leaving such a loser in a position to give Republicans even more power. Otherwise I will stay home this November!
"The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.
We must act now; the future is in the balance.
Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this. There is not going to be some magical "pendulum swing." People who steal elections and believe they're on a "mission from God" will not go without a fight. There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.
But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn - or be forced - to accept. There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it. And there is a way. We are talking about something on a scale that can really make a huge change in this country and in the world. We need more than fighting Bush's outrages one at a time, constantly losing ground to the whole onslaught. We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history. Acting in this way, we join with and give support and heart to people all over the globe who so urgently need and want this regime to be stopped.
This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop. The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined."
Given that Bush isn't going to have a third term, what else can they mean by saying things like the Bush Administration, "will not go without a fight." Bush must be "driven from office.""If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us."
...Protest doesn't make a d*mn bit of difference if it's "protest as usual". Protest that trims its sails to the political terms set by electing Democrats, or that tries to be respectable, or that doesn't convey that THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND MUST BE BROUGHT TO A HALT. No, protest like that doesn't really amount to much. Never has and never will.
We're talking about tens of thousands going into the streets with a clear standard -- BRING THIS TO A HALT -- and a spirited call to others to join this. Our recent statement envisions "a great wave of people unleashed from the huge reservoir of people who are deeply distressed over the direction in which the Bush regime is dragging the country and the world, moving together on the same occasion, making, through their firm stand and their massive numbers, a powerful political statement that could not be ignored: refusing that day to work, or walking out from work, taking off from school or walking out of school -- joining together, rallying and marching, drawing forward many more with them, and in many and varied forms of creative and meaningful political protest throughout the day, letting it be known that they are determined to bring this whole disastrous course to a halt by driving out the Bush Regime through the mobilization of massive political opposition."
...Face it. The political will of the people is not going to find expression through the elections. Look at the state of official politics and how unacceptable the whole process and logic is. There is no other way this fall for people to make manifestly clear that they want the war ended, that they want the right of abortion protected, that they think torture is completely immoral and unacceptable, that they regard a government that abandons and then uproots the Black population of New Orleans as unconscionable.
Although they don't have the guts to come right out and say it, it seems pretty clear that they don't want to beat Bush at the ballot box, they want to violently overthrow the government. After all, it doesn't matter how many people go to a protest rally, Bush isn't going to simply resign because of it.
Of course, nobody but a few fringe kooks could support this sort of thing, right? Well, according to their home page, if you believe them, the people who have endorsed this coup attempt include:
Edward Asner, Ed Begley Jr., Harry Belafonte, Margaret Cho, Ward Churchill, US Rep. John Conyers Jr., Steve Earle, Jane Fonda, Jesse L. Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rickie Lee Jones, Casey Kasem, Jessica Lange, Lewis Lapham, Rabbi Michael Lerner, US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Mark Crispin Miller, Viggo Mortensen, US Rep. Major Owens, Sean Penn, Harold Pinter, Boots Riley, US Rep. Bobby Rush, Susan Sarandon, Rev. Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Martin Sheen, Gloria Steinem, Lynne Stewart, Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, US Rep. Maxine Waters, Cornel West, & Howard Zinn.
Have these people really endorsed trying to overthrow the government on October 5th? If they have endorsed this group, do they know what kind of language is contained on the website? That's unknown.
But, if liberals don't support this sort of tacit endorsement of a violent coup attempt, they should step up and say so.
Teleconference With Dennis Hastert + Energy Independence
Today, I was fortunate to get in on a teleconference with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On the other hand, it was a live meeting in a noisy room and I was on a speaker phone, so I had a lot of trouble hearing what he had to say. However, here's the gist of what he said:
-- Hastert claimed that the House has held the line on spending except for National Defense, which has gone up since we're in war. Obviously, that's just not true. If it were true, we wouldn't have been running such a large deficit throughout the Bush administration.
-- He also added that if the Democrats are in charge, they will cut and run in Iraq and raise taxes.
-- Hastert said the House wants more earmark reform.
-- He also emphasized that we need to protect our borders.
-- Another thing he said that I disagree with is that we need to be energy independent. This is something that sounds good in theory -- but in practice isn't possible given the size of our economy, the technology that's out there, and the amount of natural resources we have.
That's not to say that there aren't things we can -- and should -- do to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But, let's take a quick look at reality:
-- We have significant natural oil resources in this country, but the Democrats and environmentalists are blocking us from drilling them.
-- We're starting to build nuclear power plants again, but we haven't completed a new plant since 1976.
-- Ethanol is a sop to farmers, not a replacement for gasoline. Sugar would work much better, but the American sugar industry can only exist because of heavy protectionism and subsidies. So, they're not capable of replacing ethanol.
-- New technologies, like electric cars, fuel cells, wind power, solar, etc, aren't even close to being able to compete on even terms with proven energy sources like coal, oil, and nuclear power.
So, could we do a lot more to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy? Sure, but unless there is some sort of significant technological breakthrough, we're not going to be "energy independent." Moreover, unless we can make some political breakthroughs, we're not even going to be able to make real strides toward reducing our dependence on other nations for our energy needs.
PS: Afterwards, Brian Bilbray and John Shadegg spoke. Unfortunately, since there was no way for me to tell which one was which on the phone (if they identified themselves, I didn't catch it because of the background noise) and since I didn't want to mistakenly attribute comments to one of them that the other had made, I didn't write up their comments.
Update #1: I rewrote the sentence that mentioned electric cars to better reflect the point I was trying to get across.
Democrats have been coming out of the woodwork to make dubious accusations that George Allen used the N-Word and unfortunately, those are difficult charges to fend off. After all, how do you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you didn't say something 30 years ago in a one-on-one conversation?
"Webb's comments to the Times-Dispatch prompted Allen campaign officials to direct a reporter to Dan Cragg, a former acquaintance of Webb's, who said Webb used the word while describing his own behavior during his freshman year at the University of Southern California in the early 1960s. Webb later transferred to the U.S. Naval Academy.
Cragg, 67, who lives in Fairfax County, said on Wednesday that Webb described taking drives through the black neighborhood of Watts, where he and members of his ROTC unit used racial epithets and pointed fake guns at blacks to scare them.
"They would hop into their cars, and would go down to Watts with these buddies of his," Cragg said Webb told him. "They would take the rifles down there. They would call then [epithets], point the rifles at them, pull the triggers and then drive off laughing. One night, some guys caught them and beat . . . them. And that was the end of that."
Cragg said Webb told him the Watts story during a 1983 interview for a Vietnam veterans magazine. Cragg, who described himself as a Republican who would vote for Allen, did not include the story in his article. He provided a transcript of the interview, but the transcript does not contain the ROTC story. He said he still remembers the exchange vividly more than 20 years later.
...Cragg, a former Army sergeant major, described himself as a longtime friend of Webb's who worked for him when he was assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan. Cragg said he approached the Allen campaign through a friend after hearing Webb's answer to the Times-Dispatch reporter's question about using the N-word.
"The fact is he has. He used it in my presence," Cragg said. "I don't think he's a racist any more than George Allen is. But he's not frank in admitting that he grew up in a culture where that was common and he used it."
Now, both candidates in the Virginia Senate race have these accusations fluttering around their heads and frankly, it hurts Webb a lot more since as a Democrat, he would be expected to capture the overwhelming majority of the black vote. Are black voters going to turn out in large numbers to vote for a guy who has had these sort of accusations leveled at him? That certainly seems unlikely.
Still, while this buffs up Allen's chances of getting reelected to the Senate, his presidential ambitions have taken an enormous hit. That's not only because of all the racial allegations swirling around his campaign, but because he has been having such a hard time with a political novice like James Webb. If, as a politician, you can't easily dispatch someone like James Webb in your home state, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence that you can win a presidential campaign against a more experienced opponent.
Angela Merkel: Don't Back Off On Beheading Mohammad
I think more Western leaders need to take this attitude when the crazed Muslim mobs start howling for blood:
"Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.
"I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam," she told reporters. "It makes no sense to retreat."
...Berlin's Deutsche Oper said on Monday it had pulled performances of the opera, which features a scene depicting the severed heads of the Prophet Mohammad, Buddha and Jesus, after police warned it could pose an "incalculable" security risk."
Be careful with your cartoons! The Muslims might murder people if you draw something that offends them! The Pope needs to be more careful about what he says! Doesn't he realize Muslims might murder people if they get offended? We need to cancel the opera! Muslims might not like it and they'll murder people!
Enough of this!
When you have people actually curbing what they say about a religion not because of fear of criticism, but out of fear of violence, that's simply not acceptable and it's great to see Angela Merkel speaking out about it. Perhaps other Western leaders, especially George Bush and other politicians in the United States, will wisely follow her lead.
Update #1: How's this idea for an Islamic wacko counter-protest sign?
Do you think it's too much? Yeah, it probably is...
The New York Post Laughs Off A Death Threat Aimed At Olbermann
Keith Olbermann isn't the most likable guy in the world, but the tone of this column in the New York Post is unneccessarily nasty:
"MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment."
You know, members of the press have received powdered anthrax in the mail before. So, was Olbermann acting unreasonably when he called 911 and got himself checked out by a doctor? Not at all.
That's why the "lollipop" comment was really out of line...
Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face, Conservative Style
If your son hadn’t studied quite as hard as he should have for a history test, would you hope that he flunked badly in order to, “teach him a lesson?” If you goofed off at work a few times, do you think it would make sense for your employer to fire you and hire someone who spends all day sleeping in your place? If your favorite football team lost a few games to mediocre opponents during the season, would you root for them to lose the Super Bowl in hopes that they would be better the next year?
The answer to all those questions is, "no." You still want your son to pass the test, you want to keep your job, and you want to see your team win -- which brings us to the Republican Party in the 2006 elections. Why do we have Republicans publicly hoping that the GOP loses in order to, "teach them a lesson?" Does taking that attitude really make a lot of sense? Does it really make sense to say,
"I'm angry at the Republicans because they didn't do what I wanted them to do on a few issues, so I am going to withhold my vote and help the Democrats get into office. Then, instead of having Republicans in office who don't represent my views on a few issues, I'll be represented by Democrats who also disagree with me on those same issues and another 40 or 50 issues besides!"
Aren't there any other ways to punish the Republican Party other than not voting? How about not contributing money or declining to volunteer for candidates you disagree with? How about just hitting them with full-throated criticism when they don't do the right thing?
You'd think that would be enough, but it's not for some people. No, these diehard conservatives have got to stay home and encourage everyone else to do the same thing. Why? Because supposedly, that's what the GOP understands! Losing elections.
The problem with this attitude is that it is incredibly short sighted. There's an assumption that lost seats can easily be recaptured in another election, that spending would go down if Democrats ran the House, and that the Democrats can't do that much damage if they're in office. None of these assumptions is necessarily or even likely true.
If the GOP loses a Senate seat, they don't even get another crack at it for 6 years. Even then, there's no guarantee that the GOP can pick the seat back up. If you don't believe that, just look at West Virginia, which has gone Republican in the last two Presidential elections. Meanwhile, who is their senior representative in the Senate? Robert Byrd, who was first elected in 1959. Is that really the best way to, "teach the Republican Party a lesson?" By not voting in 2006 and watching Democratic Senators take office who may still be there in 2050?
The House can produce some startling results, too. If you don't believe that, look to Utah's 2nd District where George Bush crushed John Kerry 66% to 31% in 2004. So, which Republican represents that district? Actually, since 2000, the representative for that district has been Democrat Jim Matheson, who is an odds-on favorite to win again in 2006. The fact that a Democrat can hold a district like that tells you a lot about the power of incumbency. That advantage that incumbents have means that the Democrat who gets into office in 2006 may be there decades from now, especially if that district only leans Republican by a few points or is split evenly.
Then there's spending. A lot of Republicans assume that because divided government in the nineties produced a balanced budget, that divided government in 2006 would do the same thing. Unfortunately, that’s a very foolish assumption. The Reaganites that came into power in 1994 were fiscal conservatives who got elected, in part, because they promised to clamp down on spending. The Democrats are the party of big government and they're not running on slashing spending. If anything, it's likely that we would see the size of the deficit increase significantly if the Democrats took over as they raked in more pork for their constituents and pushed to expand the size and power of government. Sure, the Democrats may hate Bush. But, they don't hate him so much that they're going to stop spending money just to spite him. That's just not part of their nature.
Also, consider the enormous consequences of which Party is in power. At the presidential level, think of Lyndon Johnson rapidly escalating the war in Vietnam while simultaneously putting rules in place that made it impossible for our troops to achieve victory. Then there's Jimmy Carter, the man who gave away the Panama Canal and set in motion the conflict that has led to our current standoff over nuclear arms with Iran. Next up, what about Bill Clinton, the guy who allowed North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons? Furthermore, while it would be unfair to blame the "Big Dog" for 9/11, it is fair to say that if a Republican had been in office, it's highly unlikely that he would have rejected Sudan's offer to turn over Osama Bin Laden wrapped in a bow, as Clinton did back in 1996. Does that mean that if George Bush, Sr. had not been turned out of office in 1992 because Republican voters wanted to, "teach him a lesson," that there might not have been a 9/11? In a word, "yes!"
The House is just as important as the Presidency. We've already discussed spending, but what about illegal immigration, which is the other big issue where the GOP has let down Conservatives? Well, it was the Republicans in the House who stood like blocks of granite and prevented an amnesty plan from becoming the law of the land. Moreover, Roy Blunt, a member of the House Leadership, has already pledged that the House Republicans will continue to take an enforcement-first approach to illegal immigration after the election. In other words, whether we end up stopping the flow of illegals into this country or have another amnesty is entirely dependent on whether the GOP stays in control of the House.
Then there are the judges. If another Supreme Court seat opens up and the GOP isn't in control of the Senate, you can forget about getting another Alito or Roberts. Instead we're going to get another Kennedy or O'Connor. Could we see the funds for our troops cut off in Iraq if the Democrats take over? Yes. Will they try to raise taxes? Yes. Will they try to impeach George Bush? Yes. In other words, if you're a conservative and you're “against it,” that's what the Congress will be “for” if the Democrats take over.
Last but not least, look at it like this: there is a huge guaranteed downside to putting the Democrats back in power and no guaranteed upside. Furthermore, if anyone thinks that taking Republicans like Rick Santorum, Jim Talent, and Conrad Burns out of power and replacing them with Ted Kennedy clones is going to make things better for the Republican Party and the country, he’s making a serious error in judgment. Flawed though they may be, the Republican Party is the tool with which conservatives advance our agenda in Washington. If we want to see that agenda implemented, we need more Republicans in Congress, not less. That's why it's far better for conservatives to get Republicans into office and cajole them into toeing the line -- than to stand by as they're replaced by Democrats that we have no influence over whatsoever. So, a setback for the Republican Party is a setback for conservatism, like it or not. That's something every conservative would do well to remember when November rolls around.
The Pro-Wrestling Take On Illegal Immigration Part 2
I've talked about this before, but it's worth noting that the illegal immigration debate has gotten so hot and heavy that it has actually spawned professional wrestling characters.
Last night, when I was watching TNA wrestling via TiVo, these guys had hung a dummy up in the ring that looked like Uncle Sam and they were caning it while their leader, Konnan, ranted about America and white people (Incidentally, if you're trying to make pro-wrestling fans hate you -- and they were -- that's a pretty good way to go about it).
Whether you're a fan of pro-wrestling or not, it's worth your time to watch the video above because the characters appear to be nothing more than a personification of what people didn't like about those illegal immigration rallies. Listen to the rhetoric that they use and keep in mind that when a politician supports comprehensive immigration reform AKA amnesty, a significant percentage of the American electorate will see it as nothing more than a thumbs up to the sort of thing they're hearing from those wrestlers.
Quote Of The Day: The Mainstream Media's Selective, Pro-Liberal Protest Coverage
"So much for strength (or newsworthiness) in numbers. Inside Wednesday's Washington Post, reporter Michelle Boorstein covered a tiny protest inside the Hart Senate Office Building yesterday, where 35 were arrested. Last week, as many as 35,000 people protested in New York in support of Israel and against Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, featuring speakers like U.S. Ambassador John Bolton and Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel -- which the Post ignored.
The Boorstein article, complete with cover photo of a protester being removed in handcuffs, was strategically placed on A-14, just above the continuation of a heartbreaking article on the first female West Point graduate, a local woman, being killed in Iraq -- also accompanied by a color photo, of the burial. Boorstein reported on the Hart building protest in a typical way, where no one in attendance was the slightest bit liberal: "Dozens of police streamed into the atrium and arrested about 35 people, including Rick Ufford-Chase, who until recently was a top official of the Presbyterian Church (USA)." -- Tim Graham
35,000 people rallying to support Israel? The Washington Post thinks it's not even worth a mention. But, if a few anti-war protesters get together? For that, the WAPO comes running. That sort of selective attention, that always seems to be somehow favorable to liberals, is just standard operating procedure in the mainstream media.
"No matter what the evidence, liberals insist that only their tender ministrations are capable of calming murderous dictators. Negotiation and engagement are said to "work" because, after Democrats spend years dillydallying with lunatic despots who threaten America, eventually a Republican president comes in and threatens aggressive military action. In a fascinating fifty-year pattern -- completely indiscernible to liberals -- murderous despots succumb to "engagement" shortly after a Republican president threatens to bomb them. This allows liberals to hail years of impotent negotiation and engagement as a foreign policy 'win'."
"Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, says he contemplated war with the United States in 2001 but opted instead to forsake the Taliban and become President George W. Bush's ally.
"I war-gamed the United States as an adversary," the Pakistani leader wrote in his martially titled memoirs In the Line of Fire, published yesterday. It apparently didn't take the general, then an international pariah for having staged a coup to toppled his country's democratic government, very long to conclude that Pakistan would lose.
"The answer was a resounding no," he wrote, having concluded that the world's most powerful military would wipe out his forces, destroy his nuclear weapons, wreak havoc on Pakistan's threadbare infrastructure, help India seize disputed Kashmir and then turn to his archrival in New Delhi for the support and bases it needed to topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
In the days after suicide hijackings destroyed New York's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, Mr. Bush warned that countries harbouring or helping terrorists would share their fate.
Related to this article
At the time, Pakistan backed the Taliban's Islamic government in Kabul. In the book, Gen. Musharraf says former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell called him with an ultimatum, but the Pakistani leader has also said that one of his aides was bluntly warned by a top U.S. diplomat that Pakistan would "be bombed back to the Stone Age" unless it sided with Washington.
Mr. Bush's administration has denied having made such a threat."
Do you know what the difference is between pre-9/11 Pakistan and Iran, Syria, and North Korea? Not much, really. The moment that the thugs and fanatics that run those countries become afraid that they might end up dead as a result of tangling with us, they'll start to get interested in making nice. In other words, like it or not, when you're dealing with hostile dictatorships, diplomacy and potential violence go together like eggs and bacon.
Well, apparently RWN wasn't the only place to comment favorably on Abdullah's article because a reporter from the Review Journal got in touch with me to discuss the reaction this piece received. Apparently, Abdullah's piece generated a wave of positive publicity -- which if you think about it, is rather telling. An American Muslim loudly and openly denouncing terrorism shouldn't be so unusual that it should draw a lot of attention.
Which brings me to a point that I was making to the reporter. Columns like the one Abdullah wrote that feature a moderate Muslim strongly condemning terrorism and extremism? They're not common. But, Islamic fanatics behaving badly? That's almost an every day thing.
Well, I'd like to do it again, but for September of this month. Here are just some of the headlines from the Daily News archives of RWN this month:
Pakistani Lawmakers Threaten To Quit If Islamic Pro-Rape Rape Laws Are Changed
Sudan Man Forced To 'Marry' Goat
Dubai's Ruler Accused Of Slavery
Pope's Speech Stirs Muslim Anger
Italian Nun Slain In Somalia, Pope Link Speculation
Arab Op-Ed: Pope’s Remarks May Lead To War
The Pope Must Die, Says Muslim
Honour Killing Claims Life Of Six-Year-Old
Last Night On The Amazing Race, Two Muslim Contestants Refused To Shake Hands With Some Female Fellow Racers
Muslims Demand Pope Convert To Islam
Shiite Militias Are Encouraging Children — Some As Young As 6 Or 7 — To Hurl Stones And Gasoline Bombs At U.S. Convoys, Hoping To Lure American Troops Into Ambushes Or Provoke Them Into Shooting Back
Pakistani Clerics Demand Pope's Removal
Taliban Gunmen Carried Out Their First Assassination Of A Female Afghan Government Official Yesterday
Those headlines you just read? They're what the Islamo-Fascists are telling the world that Islam is all about day in and day out and the moderate Muslim response is....crickets chirping and complaints about words like, "Islamo-Fascists."
Moderate Muslims who really believe the whole, "Islam is Peace," thing may be in the majority, but the Islamo-Fascists dominate the debate while moderates, with a few exceptions, are sitting on the sidelines. Aslam Abdullah's column? It was great. But, there should be 5 or 6 Aslam Abdullahs out there in the public eye for every extremist and for whatever reason, since that's not happening, the reputations of moderate Muslims are taking a terrible beating as a result.
It's still not too late for more moderate Muslims to start vocally condemning these terrorists and extremists, but the longer they wait, the harder it will be to turn around hardening attitudes towards Islam. That's unfortunate, but it's also a fact of life and it's really troubling that so many moderate Muslims still haven't woken up to that reality more than 5 long years after 9/11.
Today was a big day for the blogosphere, because to the best of my knowledge, it's the first time the White House has ever invited bloggers to a signing ceremony.
Anyone who reads Right Wing News regularly knows that I'm the one who got the ball rolling for Rightroots and that I support all the candidates listed there.
However, there are some candidates that I'm rooting hard for that aren't endorsed by Rightroots. One of them is Vernon Robinson, who's from my home state of North Carolina.
Here's his latest ad, which is another brutally effective attention grabber:
There are no poll numbers I've seen from the district yet, but here are some of the relevant statistics:
Cook Partisan Index: D+2 2004 Election: Kerry 52% vs. Bush 47% Latest Cash On Hand Numbers: Brad Miller $540,736 Vs. Robinson $466,768
Make no mistake about it: Defeating an incumbent is always tough, but Robinson is definitely capable of winning this district.
The New York Times has done a hit piece on asking people to provide ID to vote, which is a simple, common sense measure that anyone who cares about the integrity of our elections should support. The Times builds the whole dishonest piece around a woman named Eva Charlene Steele:
"Eva Charlene Steele, a recent transplant from Missouri, has no driver’s license or other form of state identification. So after voting all her adult life, Mrs. Steele will not be voting in November because of an Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register.
“I have mixed emotions,” said Mrs. Steele, 57, who uses a wheelchair and lives in a small room in an assisted-living center. “I could see where you would want to keep people who don’t belong in the country from voting, but there has to be an easier way.”
...It was during a registration drive at her assisted-living center, Desert Palms, that Mrs. Steele learned she could not vote. Disabled, with a son, an Army staff sergeant, on active duty, she left Missouri recently to stay with her brother and subsequently moved into the center.
Lacking a driver’s license, she could get a new state identity card, but she said she had neither the $12 to pay for it nor, because she uses a wheelchair, the transportation to pick it up.
Setting aside the fact that it's hard to see how someone could make it to the age of 57 years old in the United States without having some kind of photo ID, there are two years between elections in this country, and I just don't believe anyone who tells me that they can't get their hands on $12 to get an ID card in that period. You can work 3 hours at minimum wage, collect that much money, and still have the cash left over to get a cheeseburger.
Moreover, the "right to vote" doesn't just mean you get to go to polls and pick the candidate you want. There are built in assumptions that go along with it. For example, you assume that illegitimate votes won't be allowed. So, what about the right the American people have to not see their votes cancelled out by fraud? If we have a case where fraudulent votes decide an election, then we could see the majority of voters in an election disenfranchised by the actions of a few dishonest people.
We see people on the left getting so upset because they believe electronic voting makes fraud more likely -- which incidentally, is ironic since it was liberals who demanded more electronic voting machines after the 2000 punch card voting debacle in Florida -- but then they turn right around and flip out over a security measure as basic as showing a picture ID.
Know why they really are upset? It's because they believe they're benefitting from fraud. They think there are activists out there voting multiple times for Democrats. They're hoping that there are illegal aliens pulling the lever for Democrats....and that's sad. I don't believe these wacky conspiracy theories that the left likes to circulate about the 2000 and 2004 elections being rigged. They're ridiculous. But, if I believed they were true, I wouldn't want to win elections like that. No matter who the candidates are or what office they're running for, I'd rather lose than see Republicans cheat to win. Unfortunately, as you can see by their reaction to voter identification, a lot of Democrats don't feel the same way.
However, there are some aspects of this issue that aren't getting enough attention.
#1) This is a classified report and leaking it is a crime. There should be people spending the next decade in jail breaking big rocks into smaller rocks as a consequence of this report. If that means putting reporters in jail for contempt until they give up their sources, so be it.
#2) Since this is an interpretation of a classified report, given by anonymous sources that presumably have axes to grind, we should be highly skeptical of any conclusions they claim were reached. After all, we have no way to verify that they're not simply cherry picking different parts of the report to reach politically motivated conclusions.
Which brings us to Spook86 from In From The Cold, which is a blog I had never heard of before today. Spook86, who claims to be a, "former member of the U.S. intelligence community," has quotes from the report that the MSM didn't give us.
Are they accurate? Are they cherry picked as well? Don't know. These quotations are from a classified report, so there's no way to verify them. Of course, I'd say the same thing about the info the mainstream media ran with. Moreover, I don't think people should be trying to make decisions about how well our foreign policy is working based on leaked quotes from classified documents, but, I suppose what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
In any case, here are the quotes:
Thankfully, the actual NIE is not the harbinger of disaster that the Times and WaPo would have us believe. According to members of the intel community who have seen the document, the NIE is actually fair and balanced (to coin a phrase), noting both successes and failures in the War on Terror--and identifying potential points of failure for the jihadists. The quotes printed below--taken directly from the document and provided to this blogger--provide "the other side" of the estimate, and its more balanced assessment of where we stand in the War on Terror (comments in italics are mine).
In one of its early paragraphs, the estimate notes progress in the struggle against terrorism, stating the U.S.-led efforts have "seriously damaged Al Qaida leadership and disrupted its operations."Didn't see that in the NYT article.
Or how about this statement, which--in part--reflects the impact of increased pressure on the terrorists: "A large body of reporting indicates that people identifying themselves as jihadists is increasing...however, they are largely decentralized, lack a coherent strategy and are becoming more diffuse." Hmm...doesn't sound much like Al Qaida's pre-9-11 game plan.
The report also notes the importance of the War in Iraq as a make or break point for the terrorists: "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves to have failed, we judge that fewer will carry on the fight." It's called a ripple effect.
More support for the defeating the enemy on his home turf: "Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq." President Bush and senior administration officials have made this argument many times--and it's been consistently dismissed by the "experts" at the WaPo and Times.
And, some indication that the "growing" jihad may be pursuing the wrong course: "There is evidence that violent tactics are backfiring...their greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution (shar'a law) is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims." Seems to contradict MSM accounts of a jihadist tsunami with ever-increasing support in the global Islamic community..
The estimate also affirms the wisdom of sowing democracy in the Middle East: "Progress toward pluralism and more responsive political systems in the Muslim world will eliminate many of the grievances jihadists exploit." As I recall, this the core of our strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Assuming these quotations are correct, they present a much different picture than the one that the MSM would have you believe.
Many commentators have pointed out the apparent hypocrisy: Muslims are outraged by cartoons satirizing Islamic extremism while in Muslim countries Christianity and Judaism are attacked viciously and routinely.
Many commentators are missing the point: These protesters — and those who incite them — are not asking for mutual respect and equality. They are not saying: “It’s wrong to speak ill of a religion.” They are saying: “It’s wrong to speak ill of our religion.” They are not standing up for a principle. They are laying down the law. They are making it as clear as they can that they will not tolerate “infidels” criticizing Muslims. They also are making it clear that infidels should expect criticism — and much worse — from Muslims.
I had exactly this thought last night. Many have observed the absurd contradiction in the implicit statement from the (Radical) Islamists: "Do not call us violent, or we will kill you."
Actually, it's not a contradiction. At least not how they mean it. They're not actually taking issue with being called "violent." They are violent, as they're all to willing to declare, and demonstrate by shooting nuns and burning down churches.
What they're really saying is, "We are the Masters of the Earth, and we are violent, and we will abide no criticism whatsoever, no matter how truthful. You are dhimmis, and must accept your inferior station, or we will kill you."
The argument is not over whether what the Pope said was true or not. Truth doesn't enter into it. The argument is really about whether or not we have the right to criticize at all those who Allah decreed are the Rulers of the Earth.
They say we don't, and we'd better get comfortable with our dhimmis status posthaste or there will be... problems.
"It takes 1.52 gallons of ethanol from corn to replace a gallon of gasoline. The federal government pays huge corn companies such as ADM 77 cents per 1.52 gallons in subsidies -- this is opposed to the 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline. Even at that, ethanol costs more than gasoline.
Switching to 85% ethanol fuel will cost drivers 23% more at the pump.
And now for the kicker: The U.S. slaps a tax of 54 cents per gallon on ethanol imported from Brazil.
So this is far from an environmental issue. This is pure protectionism and cornpone politics. Robert Bryce in Slate called it , “The stupidest federal subsidy.” Between 1995 and 2003, these corny ethanol subsidies cost taxpayers $37.3 billion." -- Don Surber
