This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Hoping against hope

    Unbeknownst to this blogger, there was an anti-war protest yesterday – the Associated Press is a little skimpy on details  ;

    SAN FRANCISCO — Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: “Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die” or “Drop Tuition Not Bombs.”

    The streets were filled with thousands as labor union members, anti-war activists, clergy and others rallied near City Hall before marching to Dolores Park.

    As part of the demonstration, protesters fell on Market Street as part of a “die in” to commemorate the thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens who have died since the conflict began in March 2003.

    The protest was the largest in a series of war protests taking place in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, organizers said.

    No official head count was available. Organizers of the event estimated about 30,000 people participated in San Francisco. It appeared that more than 10,000 people attended the march.

    “Other US cities” – too many to name? “Largest in a series” – that can’t be hard. Protest attendence has been falling off this past year – and in human-speak 30,000 is really about 3,000 given the miscounts by ten-fold I’ve see “organizers of the event” give here in DC. Marathon Pundit reports dreary numbers in Chicago and New York, too.

    Yesterday, Wordsmith at Flopping Aces wrote “What the anti-war movement is really fighting against“  – that answer of course, is that they’re just protesting war, in general. Every war is illegal, every war is immoral and there are no good causes that justify war – recent Left revisionism even has begun arguing that World War II wasn’t a just war.

    You can factor in that the US is winnng the war against the thugs (link to The Redhunter) in Iraq who’ve taken to bombing and beheading civilians just for the shock value. Michael Yon writes ;

    I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus’ testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (I’m told) unusually concentrated, it’s a wonder my eardrums didn’t burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.

    Even today, with the stunning successes in the last few months over the psychopaths in Iraq, the Associated Press tries temper the good news that trickles down to the American public with an unsourced rumor that al Sadr may bring his goat-roping minions out of retirement;

    Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could end a ban on his militia’s activities because of rising anger over U.S. and Iraqi raids against his followers, an aide said Friday amid concerns about rising violence and clashes between rival factions in the mainly Shiite south.
     
    Al-Sadr’s call for a six-month cease-fire has been credited with a sharp drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies that turn up on the streets of Iraq and are believed to be victims of Shiite death squads.

    “An aide” – some guy who says he’s al-Sadr’s aide. And the AP credits al Sadr’s non-participation in the campaign against Americans as the reason the “surge” worked. al Sadr was afraid he’d lose his entire Army – that’s why he stopped opposing the Americans. He was getting his ample butt kicked.

    And from the Washington Post we get “I don’t think this place is worth one more soldier’s life” – another newspaper article based on the fact that soldiers bitch;

    Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don’t worry much about those.

    “I hate this road,” someone says over the radio.

    They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.

    I guess that’s more important than the fact that violence against our troops and Iraqis is down over 70%. Soldiers complain – that’s what they do when they’re not fighting for their lives. It’s not exactly worth a front page story. It wasn’t news in 1944, and it’s not news now.

    Any mention of the fact that Karbala and several other provinces have been turned over to the Iraqis?

    U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shi’ite province of Karbala tomorrow, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens.
    Karbala will become the eighth of Iraq’s 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control, despite President Bush’s prediction in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November.

    The public has to go on line to find support for the war, support for troops, and to discover the truth about conditions and successes in Iraq. Americans are shut out of the discussion by misleading editorial boards and the politics of misinformation.

    Scott Malensk at Flopping Aces wrote that the Democrats in Congress are trying to take credit for our planned withdrawals from Iraq next;

    Then it hit me like a shot o’ Irish Whiskey in the java! U.S. forces are already scheduled to be withdrawing in that time frame. Cutting the funding to force a withdrawal is moot. There’s no point. Just a few weeks ago General Petraeus told Congress (including specifically Senator Carl Levin who is trying to cut funding for the war next year). I searched for his speech, and there it was:

    The fact is; the reason we’ve been in Iraq for nearly 5 years is because the insurgents and the other malcontents in Iraq thought they had a shot at defeating us politically. The Iraqis themselves weren’t helping either because they were pretty certain we’d abandon them like we had in 1991 and the dozens of times we’ve abandoned struggling people in the past decade or so.

    Want to know why the “surge” worked? Because even after the loud-mouthed Democrat Congress won the election last year and promised to abandon the Iraqi people to their tormentors, President Bush did the opposite, increased presence and took the fight to the enemy. The Iraqis saw that as long as President Bush was in office, they would get our unwaivering support, despite the political climate. That’s what’s winning this war.

    I suspect that by this time next year, the Democrats in Congress are going to have egg on their faces when Americans come out of their polling places.

  • Islamic Republic dismisses chance of an US airstrike

    AP reports that the Islamic Republic dismisses any chance of a US airstrike against Islamic Republic nuclear facilities or the Qods Forces;

    The head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards dismissed the possibility of a U.S. military action against Iran and warned that his forces would respond with an “even more decisive” strike if attacked, an Iranian news agency reported Friday.
     
    The comments by Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari came after the United States announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran focusing on the Revolutionary Guards, a force that is tasked with protecting Iran’s Islamic government and reports to the country’s supreme leader.

    CNN reports that the Iranian foreign ministry called the Bush Administration’s latest sanctions “doomed”;

    An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also said sanctions were “doomed to fail,” calling them “worthless and ineffective” and criticizing the U.S. for pursuing confrontational policies.

    Yeah, how far down the third world food chain can you go?  

    Meanwhile, speaking Thursday in Kuwait, Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi warned that any military attack on Iran would be met with a “crushing response.” 

    I hope my friend Kamangir won’t mind if I steal more of his pictures today to illustrate the Islamic Republic’s idea of “more decisive strikes” and “crushing response”;

    306825_orig.jpg

    Anyone else think these guys look a little too old and too fat to be called part of a decisive strike? I guess when your revolution ages 30 years, so do it’s soldiers.

    And I don’t think anyone is too worried about being hit by a “Retard Missile”;

    19_8607030607_L600.jpg

    Maybe the Islamic Republic should remind themselves of what used to stand on this knoll in Syria before they start talking smack (photo from Sweetness and Light);

    weapons_600_2.jpg

    Kamangir also writes that the Islamic Republic may have found a new ally to help them build their nuclear arsenal;

    Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store has urged the West to dismantle their nuclear arsenals instead of exerting pressure on Iran.

    That almost makes sense – in fact why don’t we just hand over our weapons to the Islamic Republic, the same way the KosKids think we should all just convert to Islam (from HotAir). 

    Update: Kamangir just emailed me that the Islamic Republic news agency reporting of the Norwegian Foreign Minister was probably tampered with at it’s source. The line I quoted above doesn’t appear in the orginal transcript of the Norwegian’s remarks.

  • Higher taxes imminent in Maryland

    Well, when the electorate votes in Democrats they get higher taxes – that’s just the way Democrats work – it’s how they insure their jobs. Here in Montgomery County, we have Democrats as far as the eye can see – the governor proposed raising taxes and the Montgomery County legislators are falling right in line behind him, according to the Washington Examiner;

    Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett praised the governor for offering “a fair and comprehensive solution” to the state’s budget problems, and he said the counties would suffer by “shifting responsibility” for education and public safety.

    “We can’t use this as a scare tactic,” Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said of the possibility of reducing funds.

    But “citizens need to understand” the consequences of cutting local aid, she added. “It could take us back two, three steps” in the progress made in the city.

    “A fair and equitable solution” – raise taxes. Fair and equitable to whom? Especially when one takes into account, in another Examiner article, Governor O’Malley wants to increase  Medicaid spending $250 million by adding another 100,000 people to the roles. Doesn’t that seem a bit at odds with his threats to slash spending by $1.7 billion?

    The proposal hinges on passing new taxes and slot machine gambling in a special session of the General Assembly that begins Monday, O’Malley said Thursday. The plan comes two days after he disclosed $1.7 billion in budget cuts he would have to make if the legislature does not raise taxes, including doubling the cigarette tax.

    “They are really part of the same mission to make our state a better place,” O’Malley said. “There is broad consensus in the General Assembly” for health care improvement. “If we’re unable to make progress, we will continue to backslide” on this issue.

    So, the truth is; O’Malley doesn’t really want to cut spending, he just wants to spend my tax money on paying off constituents for their votes. “Backslide” must mean that he’ll lose the elction in three years unless we fund his campaign with tax dollars.

    “It is very easy to be against tax increases in the abstract,” Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said. “We’re all making progress. The people in Howard County do not want their library system eroded. It’s time for the structural deficit to be solved at the state level.”

    In the abstract? The abstract being, I suppose, that I can’t afford to pay higher taxes and still be able to fund my retirement savings. When you’re talking about a state solution for your library in Howard County, you’re telling me to fund your library in your county where I don’t live. You’re shaking me down for your stupid library.

    In yet another Examiner article, a spokeman for Ike Leggett, the County Executive, touched briefly on the impending problem for the State of Maryland;

    “Our concern is not whether people making that much could or should pay more taxes,” Lacefield said. “… But one unintended consequence could be that people might not choose to live in Montgomery County. They can move across the district line, they can move to Virginia.”

    And then there goes your source of revenue – while you’re still stuck with bloated spending. Just like planning on the tobacco taxes to fund soending – if people quit smoking, no more revenue – but still higher spending. Doesn’t it take just a little bit of common sense to realize that maybe the problem is revenue – it’s spending you goofballs!

    I’ve seen it devastate the economy of New York State, and it can happen in Maryland – of course if it does happen, I’ll be watching it from across the Potomac.

  • Democrat economic childishness

    So who’s surprised? The Democrats get the power of the sound of their own voice in Congress again and they try to hammer the economy to pieces. This morning’s Wall Street Journal Washington Wire reports that Dennis Kucinich wants to do awy with private health insurance;

    Kucinich is calling for a pretty dramatic overhaul of the health-care system — abolishing for-profit insurance, for one thing, and instituting universal coverage.

    “Is health care a right or is it a privilege?” he said. “If it’s a right then it’s appropriate for the government to have a role. If it’s a privilege, then we’re left to the predations of the market – if you can’t pay for it, you’re out of luck.”

    When the WSJ’s Laura Meckler asked what would become of insurance companies, Kucinich said the government would buy them out. “Where there is a conversion of a for-profit institution to not-for-profit, there would be a market-value compensation,” he said. “You’re not going to have an expropriation here of resources.” He didn’t say how much that would cost, but said it would be funded with Treasury bonds.

    His health plan would be paid for by a higher Medicare payroll tax, a tax on stock transactions and higher income taxes on top earners.

    Yeah, that’s pretty looney – how many doctors are going to want to work for a government system, because that’s the end result. When we lived on the Canadian border in New York, the local hospital was staffed with Canadian doctors and nurses who didn’t want to work for the Canadian government – they’d prefer to drive over the Saint Lawrence River to get a decent paycheck instead of the “fair” wages of the government.

    S.A.Miller of the Washington Times writes that Charlie Rangel has done some major tinkering with the tax code;

    The Democrats’ top tax-writer yesterday introduced a massive plan to give tax relief to 90 million working families, a long-anticipated tax-code overhaul that Republicans criticized as the largest proposed tax increase in U.S. history.

    The bill would expand income-tax breaks for the middle class while limiting deductions and adding taxes on high-end earners, increase the tax rate on “carried interest” fund managers earn on investments, and cut corporate tax rates. The Democratic plan also would repeal the alternative minimum tax (AMT), because it is set to penalize middle-income families this year.

    House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, said the changes would provide Americans a “greater sense of equity and fairness” about the tax system.

    Whenever a Democrat talks about “equity and fairness” in the tax system and middleclass tax cuts, I grab my wallet. I’m middleclass, but the Democrats idea of equity and fairness is me shelling out a couple of thousand dollars a year in taxes.

    Key provisions include a refundable child tax credit, an increase in the standard deduction and enhanced earned income tax credit — relief measures aimed at the middle class. It adds fairness, supporters say, by targeting rich Wall Street elites with the higher tax on carried interest, which is currently taxed at the lower capital gains rate of 15 percent but the Rangel proposal would put under the higher personal income-tax rate.

    I’m sorry, but my retirement savings is in the hands of those “rich Wall Street elites” and they’ve been doing just fine so far – please don’t get them upset.

    The bill would recoup some of the revenue lost by repealing the AMT — about $800 billion in 10 years — by adding a 4 percent surtax on individuals earning $200,000 to $250,000 a year and a 4.6 percent surtax on individuals making more than $250,000 and families making more than $500,000 a year.

    I wonder why they never go after people with trust funds – like the Kennedys and the Kerrys. It’s always people who EARN over $200,000/year. How about taxing those people who SPEND over $200,000/year and don’t pay any taxes on it because they didn’t EARN it? I’m not in favor of raising anyone’s taxes – but if it has to be done, don’t target the people who producing and working to keep the rest of us employed, f’Pete’s sake.

    Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the committee, said the “crushingly high” surtax would hit about 10 million taxpayers directly, including small-business owners and farmers who report business income.

    “The damage will ripple throughout our economy,” he said in a memo to Republican committee members. “This is a massive tax hike on the engine that drives job growth in this country.”

    He also said Mr. Rangel is “selling pure snake oil” by claiming the bill offers tax relief for 90 million families, since the Democrat counted taxes that most families currently do not pay, such as the AMT.

    Hmmm, the Democrats want to insure people who can afford health insurance and save them money on taxes they don’t pay. Sounds to me like they’re just engaging in a little pre-election class warfare.

  • Democrats don’t want poor children insured

    I might as well say it outloud, because that’s what the debate over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) all boils down to now. The Wall Street Journal reports that President Bush compromised with Congress on a key point of the legislation he vetoed a scant few weeks ago – like he said he was willing to do;

    Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said the administration would be willing to let states cover health-care for children in families earning as much as 300% of the poverty level, or about $60,000 for a family of four, if certain conditions are met. That’s up from the White House’s previous threshold of 200%.

    But OMB said the new bill doesn’t cap income eligibility at 300% because it doesn’t close a loophole allowing states to enroll children in families with incomes higher than $62,000 a year by ignoring part of the family’s income.

    That’s the OMB talking – the same people whom Democrats line up behind when they point out failures of the Administration. So the administration is willing to compromise on a this most important point that Democrats whined the loudest about a few weeks ago. I don’t agree with the Adminstration’s caving on this, but the fact remains that they did.

    So why is the President threatening a veto again on this particular version of SCHIP – well, ask OMB;

    In a statement of administration policy, OMB complained that the bill would expand SCHIP coverage without assuring that poor children are already enrolled in the program, provide coverage for adults through 2012, move children away from private health insurance and cost more than the first SCHIP bill.

    So instead of providing the poorest children with health insurance first – the Democrats whole arguement for passing SCHIP in any form – they’re more interested in expanding coverage willy-nilly. In effect, beginning a national healthcare plan – and they’re willing to suffer another embarrassing veto to make an issue of it for the campaign.

    Seems to me, if Democrats were more interested in insuring children, they’d compromise – the President has comprised, why can’t Democrats? Well, because they want the issue more than they want actual results.

    Democrats say the revised legislation more clearly defines who is eligible for SCHIP and rules out illegal aliens from the program. It also would phase out adults receiving SCHIP benefits more quickly than the original bill.

    “Phase out adults more quickly”? What does the “C” stand for? If it was me writing this legislation, adults would be phased out tomorrow morning. Can you believe Democrats are whining “about the children” and they’ve got adults on the program now and poor children aren’t included?

    What planet is this?

  • Iran sanctions

    Pamela at Atlas Shrugs writes that the New York Times leaked news of the Bush Administration’s impending sanctions against the Iranian Quds Force this morning;

    The Bush administration will announce new sanctions against Iran on Thursday, accusing the elite Quds division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of supporting terrorism, administration officials said Wednesday. The administration also plans to accuse the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps of proliferating weapons of mass destruction. Both designations will put into play unilateral sanctions intended to impede the Revolutionary Guard and those who do business with it.  

    The Wall Street Journal’s Glenn Simpson writes;

    The sanctions hit Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps along with eight affiliated companies and five Guards officials and the elite Quds Force unit of the Guards, which was accused of backing the Taliban in Afghanistan and were designated proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic-missile technology. Also targeted are Iran’s defense ministry logistics unit, three officials in its ballistic-missile program, and two additional state-run banks.

    Of course, the reaction from the Left is predictable.

    At The Weekly Standard Blogs, Brian Faughnan writes that MoveOn hopes Iran can be trusted with nukes. It seems that MoveOn is trying to pre-empt a war with Iran because the president is “reckless” Brian reprints the whole solicitation letter. Yeah, it must be Bush’s fault if we go to war with Iran.

    So to help illustrate what a peaceful friend Iran is to us, I lifted this photo from my friend Kamangir; it’s a picture of a miltary academy graduation ceremony in Iran;

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    It’s a formation of soldiers – one group is marching in the form of the US flag (which has a swastika on it for some reason) and the other group is in the form of a scimitar piercing the US flag. That’s a peaceful image, isn’t it?

    Then Solomonia has posted one of Ahmadinjad’s speeches from October 6th;

    …An incident occurred on September 11, and look what they did afterwards. They used this pretext to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, they killed dozens of thousands of peoples, and they want to continue to kill. They are creating another incident like the Holocaust. We advise them not to create something sacred, not to fabricate another sacred lie, and to allow a group of truth-seekers to get to the bottom of things, to identify and expose those behind it, and get it over with.

    Got that? An incident on 9-11. And we used it as an excuse to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. For what? Their abundance of sand and goats?

    Lew Rockwell says the Qods Force is just like US Navy Seals – so why are we pickin’ on ’em? Yeah, just like SEALS, Lew – except the folks that our SEALs kill have all contributed or plan on contributing to the deaths of innocent people.

    And Maureen Dowd is wondering will crazy Cheney get his war with Iran;

    He may have lost his buddy in belligerence, Rummy. He may have tapped out the military in Iraq. He may not be able to persuade Congress so easily anymore — except for Hillary — to issue warlike resolutions. He can’t cow Condi into supporting his bullying as he once did, and Bob Gates is doing his best to instill some common sense.

    Besides, Cheney is running out of time to wreak global havoc; he’s working for a president who is spending his waning days on the job trying to prevent children from getting health insurance.

    I’m wondering if Crazy Maureen will ever win her fight with reality or common sense. “Wreak global havoc” – that’s a level of paranoia right out of a James Bond movie…or Get Smart.

    I guess the Left is still in denial that we’ve been at war with Iran for thirty years now – and we’re the only ones acting like we don’t know it.

  • Carter: Me-too-ism; Roz could’ve been Prez

    Jimmy Carter is making that last turn to get his musty ass all the way around the bend. According to the Washington Examiner, he claims Rosalynn, his wife, could’ve run for President and won;

    Speaking at Washington’s Motion Picture Association of America before a screening of Jonathan Demme’s new Carter documentary entitled, “Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains,” Carter said that, if Rosalynn had “gone home from Georgia and run for Senate” (a la Hillary), she would have been a formidable candidate.

    But “she didn’t want to do that,” he added, without a trace of regret.

    I guess he doesn’t remember that America was just worn out from the first and only term we suffered through his spotty leadership. His Vice president, Walter Mondale, lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan in 1984 after Carter had lost in a landslide in 1980. We were tired of being a laughingstock cowered in the corner from every tin pot dictator who shook their fists and took our citizens hostage.

    I suppose Rosalynn was a nice woman, but Presidential material? Not on your life – she’d have been no leader, just like her husband was no leader.

    And as for the “documentary” of The Man from Plains – what human being has so much time on their hands they’ll take time out to sleep through the story of his life – again. I had the misfortune to use his memoirs “Keeping Faith” for a paper in college on the Carter-Torrijos Treaty. Not only was it the most factually inaccurate drivel I’d ever read, it was a giant snooze fest. I’m sure this documentary will be no better.

  • CA BDS; Prez is wrong either way

    Yesterday I wrote about Barbara Boxer’s terminal bout of Bush Derangement Syndrome, apparently coupled with Tourette Syndrome, when she blurted out that they only had half of the National Guard troops they needed to fight the fire in California. The National Guard was quick to respond that they’d only drawn 1700 troops from their available 17,000 and there was no shortage of equipment – and Boxer’s staff scrubbed her statement on her official website to remove any traces of BDS.

    Well, Bill Sammon tells of another bout of BDS which struck another California politician in the Washington Examiner;

    President Bush is pushing ahead with a visit to fire-ravaged California Thursday, despite complaints from the state’s top Democrat that the trip is a “public relations” stunt that will distract firefighters.

    “I got some doubt about the value of President Bush coming out here,” said California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi on MSNBC. “How many times did he go to New Orleans and still made promises, but hasn’t delivered?”

    It was a pointed reference to Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans in 2005 and exposed weaknesses in the emergency preparedness of local, state and federal authorities. Although Bush was criticized by liberals for not visiting New Orleans soon enough, Garamendi accused the president of visiting California too soon.

    “It’s public relations,” Garamendi said. “OK, President Bush comes out, we’ll be polite. But frankly, that’s not the solution. How about sending our National Guard back from Iraq so that we have those people available here to help us?”

    [Emphasis mine]

    Can you imagine the uproar Garamendi would have made if the President hadn’t gone to see the fires? There would have been comments similar to the comments they made after 9-11 when he continued reading to children and then flew to Nebraska to his bunker. Did any Republicans disparage Bill Clinton for visiting disaster areas? Does anyone remember any Republicans complaining about the lack of equipment or funds to deal with the various natural disasters in the 90s? Nope.

    The Democrats used Hurricane Andrew against the first President Bush – there was no FEMA before Hurricane Andrew, that President Bush created it as a clearing house for emergency response coordination. And they continue to use Katrina against this President Bush, even though this President Bush and FEMA urged local government to EVACUATE THREE DAYS before the levees broke. What kind of “jackbooted thug” comments would we be listening to today if Bush had forcibly evacuated New Orleans with Federal troops?

    So I guess Garamendi will be running against President Bush for the governor of California this next year.

    Bloodthirsty Liberal asks “How much do these people suck”? My answer would be “Immeasurably”. Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard writes that Schwartzenegger is getting praised, though. Pam Meister at Blogmeister wants to know why it’s OK to talk smack about California residents after we had to be so careful not to disparage New Orleans’. Actually, I’d like to know, too (although I suspect we both know the answer).