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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Students are generally idiots

    I remember when students were people who recognized that they knew nothing and they sought out schools which were accredited, and hired learned, trustworthy people to teach them the things they do not know. But that’s all changed now, I guess. Students think they know what’s best for them to learn, and who are the people that are the best to teach them. (Washington Times)

    It’s going to take more than getting fired to stop former professor Ward Churchill from teaching at the University of Colorado.

    The ex-professor was back on campus Tuesday at the invitation of students to teach an unsanctioned course, “ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide and Formation of the U.S. Settler State.”

    Always a popular figure on campus, Mr. Churchill, 52, was met with applause by the 30 or so students and well-wishers who attended the first session.

    “This course is an entirely voluntary exercise for all parties involved,” Mr. Churchill said. “It carries no credit, fulfills no institutional requirements, involves payment of no tuition, entails no paycheck to its instructor.”

    Student organizers reserved a classroom at the Eaton Humanities Building for the unofficial course. According to the syllabus, Mr. Churchill will teach every Tuesday evening through the month of October, with class topics to focus on colonialism, genocide and racism.

    So, despite the fact that Churchill is a lying, plagerizing, phony soldier, phony Indian, there are still some students that think he has something to offer them in the way of an education. The students have decided who best can teach them and what they want to learn. That’s why we have a generation of Psychology majors and Art History majors who can’t write and form an intelligent thought – because the inmates are running the asylum.

  • Robert Kaplan: Modern Heroes

    The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Robert Kaplan this morning entitled “Modern Heroes” that attempts to repair the disconnect between the American public and the US’ volunteer military;

    The cult of victimhood in American history first flourished in the aftermath of the 1960s youth rebellion, in which, as University of Chicago Prof. Peter Novick writes, women, blacks, Jews, Native Americans and others fortified their identities with public references to past oppressions. The process was tied to Vietnam, a war in which the photographs of civilian victims “displaced traditional images of heroism.” It appears that our troops have been made into the latest victims.

    Oh, I agree – Michael Moore used them in his so-called documentaries, every night on the news is a clip of a legless or armless veteran trying to learn how to walk or eat again. I’ve met these “victims” still dirty from their encounters with the enemy and they’re ready and willing to return to their units – they don’t want to be pitied, they just want to do their jobs.

    Kaplan continues;

    The first Medal of Honor in the global war on terror was awarded posthumously to Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith of Tampa, Fla., who was killed under withering gunfire protecting his wounded comrades outside Baghdad airport in April 2003.

    According to LexisNexis, by June 2005, two months after his posthumous award, his stirring story had drawn only 90 media mentions, compared to 4,677 for the supposed Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay, and 5,159 for the court-martialed Abu Ghraib guard Lynndie England. While the exposure of wrongdoing by American troops is of the highest importance, it can become a tyranny of its own when taken to an extreme.

    Although Kaplan gives the media a pass in the first few paragraphs, I don’t. The aging editors decide that the American public needs to only see the ugly side of war and not the side that rescues children from death and injury, the side that valiantly crashes through a door, not knowing what’s on the other side and drags wounded comrades out of the line of fire.

    In particular, there is Fox News’s occasional series on war heroes, whose apparent strangeness is a manifestation of the distance the media has traveled away from the nation-state in the intervening decades. Fox’s war coverage is less right-wing than it is simply old-fashioned, antediluvian almost. Fox’s commercial success may be less a factor of its ideological base than of something more primal: a yearning among a large segment of the public for a real national media once again — as opposed to an international one. Nationalism means patriotism, and patriotism requires heroes, not victims.

    But, see, recognizing that there are heroes means recognizing that there is something greater than Man worth fighting and dieing – something beyond this existence here on this planet. Recognizing heroes means you have to admit that there are better people than yourself – that we’re not really all equal in all things, and there’s no government program that can level that particular playing field.

    That’s why the Left raises up it’s own heroes like Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clarke – two people when combined couldn’t make a pimple on the lowliest recruit’s ass. What the Left does isn’t at all heroic – the worst thing that could happen to them for the choices they make is a couple of hours in a sanitary holding cell waiting for arraignment in a society that forbids that anyone in authority even raise their voices at them. That’s not heroism – it’s gradeschool playground rules for the weak of spirit.

    Kaplan warns;

    The media is but one example of the slow crumbling of the nation-state at the upper layers of the social crust — a process that because it is so gradual, is also deniable by those in the midst of it. It will take another event on the order of 9/11 or greater to change the direction we are headed. Contrary to popular belief, the events of 9/11 — which are perceived as an isolated incident — did not fundamentally change our nation. They merely interrupted an ongoing trend toward the decay of nationalism and the devaluation of heroism.

    When that second event happens, there’d better not be leftists at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

  • Children Health Insurance Program hyperbole

    The President vetoed the Children’s Health Insurance Program legislation from Congress today – he said he would, didn’t he? But the Democrat Congress sent it to him anyway. The President even offered to negotiate with the Democrats over the bill – they refused. From the Wall Street Journal;

    Democrats “made their political point” by sending Mr. Bush a bill they knew he would veto, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. “What the President said is, look, send me the bill, I will veto it, and then we will get about the business of trying to find some common ground and reach an agreement on a way forward.”

    House Republicans were virtually locked out of the discussion over the bill, and the White House was actually locked out.

    House Republicans complained that they were left out of the negotiations on the legislation, and they and the White House said the veto will open a chance to revisit the specific provisions. 

    It was a tax increase – pure and simple. And Democrats were immobile on funding the health insurance of people who could afford it – the President said he’d go for funding on families who made less than 200% of the poverty rate, while Democrats insisted on 300%. So Democrats were in for funding an entitlement program – for people who didn’t need assistance. Um, an entitlement program for the wealthiest Americans, if you will.

    Dana Perino went on (Washington Post);

    She added: “I think the president is willing to talk to anybody about how we continue to move forward on this program, with the focus being on how do you get back to the original intent, making sure that the neediest children get taken care of first.”

    That makes perfect sense – but no one ever accused Democrats of having much sense. They wanted an issue – like I’ve said countless times in these pages, Democrats aren’t in the business of solving problems, they’re in the business of sustaining issues. The WSJ makes my point;

    Groups affiliated with Democratic causes plan to drive that message home in coming days. MoveOn.org, along with labor groups, plan rallies in more than 200 congressional districts Thursday, to urge action on the legislation. The groups’ message was clear in the headline of a press release from Americans United for Change shortly after the veto: “Bush Shafts Kids.”

    No, actually, Democrats shafted the neediest kids by sending a bloated bill to the President – just like they shafted the troops when they sent the same bloated Defense bill to him three times.

    Speaking of bloated, Ted Kennedy chimes in with his own brand of strawman logic;

    “Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away a half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

    “The Congress has done its job, passing a bipartisan bill that meets a critical need without adding a penny to the federal deficit. The president has broken his promise to America’s children.”

    No, Jabba the Kennedy, Democrats have broken a promise to be bi-partisan. When I wrote to my Senators Cardin and Mikulski about CHIP, Cardin didn’t bother to respond, Mikulski responded that it was for the children…blah, blah, blah. Mikulski even told me that if I didn’t like the tobacco tax, I should quit smoking. Well, suppose I did – suppose we all did. How would your health insurance program get funded then? Suppose we all cut our habit in half? How would your program get funded? Shortsighted morons that you are. 

    Powerline says “Well Done, Mr. President” and I echo that sentiment.

    A quick perusal of Technorati gives me headlines like “Dear Mr. President: Private Medicine means no medicine if you’re poor” (read that: if government doesn’t do it, it won’t get done for me) and “God told him to spend the money on killing children not helping them” (read that: those God-worshippers love war and hate children) and “THEY NEED YOUR HELP!” (all caps and an exclamation point meaning they didn’t need help this morning, but as soon as the President vetoed the bill, they did need your help). Here’s a really good one; “The President and Jesus; two differing views on children“. Apparently Jesus wouldn’t have vetoed the CHIP – although I don’t remember any mandate in the New Testiment for government-funded health insurance for people that make 300% of the poverty rate.

    Like Newsbusters’ Julia Seymour says; “When the story’s got children, who needs facts?”

  • Neverending trouble in Burma

    As the world’s attention shifts elsewhere this week, things are looking bad for the Burmese. The UN official tasked with seeking a solution to the Myanmar government’s brutal suppression of protests last week, finally met with the junta leader, Than Shwe, after waiting four days and got a whole 15 minutes, according to Gateway Pundit.

    Spanish Pundit writes, from Burmanet News that the Burmese monks, which have survived, could be forced into hard labor.

    Among those detained are young monks aged between 16 and 18, and novices as young as 5 to 10 years old. Nuns are also being held at the compound, along with 140 other women. All monks and nuns have been disrobed and made to wear civilian clothes.

    Yahoo’s India News reports that thousands may already be in concentration camps;

    Thousands of pro-democracy protestors, including several hundreds monks in Yangon have gone missing, and are reportedly being lodged in secret government buildings which have been converted into concentration camps, according to a London daily.

    Seventeen hundred protestors, including monks, women and children, have been reportedly confined inside the former campus of the Government Technology Institute.

    Blogmeister reports that now that junta has rounded up monks and safely dealt with them, the Myanmar government is now hunting Burmese bloggers – the major source of reports of events there. An AP report tends to suggest that’s true;

    The government has ordered local officials and hotels to be on the lookout for key pro-democracy activists, sending out their names and photos, said a local official who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

    “We have been instructed to inform higher authorities immediately if we sight any of these people in our area,” he said. The list of dissidents includes at least one member of the 88 Generation Students group, the most active in carrying out nonviolent anti-government protests, the official said. Most of the group’s top members were arrested Aug. 21, two days after the first of the current round of protests.

    And the Myanmar government has learned from Noreiga and Chavez to use civilian thugs to do the dirty work;

     “I believe the junta does not use uniformed personnel because they don’t want to be blamed for their action,” said a diplomat who asked not to be identified because of protocol. “Now that they are using civilians, they can claim, as they have done in newspapers, that it was the agitated public that stopped the protesters.”

    Times Online tells the story of one Myanmar soldier’s decision to flee instead of shooting Monks. And just now, more than week after the brutal killings in Rangoon, the UN starts shifting around in it’s collective ample seat.

    CNN quotes an aide worker’s account of the violence last week;

    “There was a body lying on the road, there was another body slumped over the back of the truck,” said the woman, who did not want to be identified for security reasons.

    “There were crowds gathered approximately 400 meters away but they were not coming closer to help out. And it just looked like (the bodies) had been left there for people to witness, for people to see what they were capable of.”

    And Myanmar’s foreign minister charges political opportunists;

    Myanmar’s foreign minister U Nyan Win on Monday blamed intense pro-democracy demonstrations in his country on “political opportunists” and declared that “normalcy has now returned to Myanmar.”

    Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Win defended what he called the government’s “seven-step road map” to draft a new constitution and hold elections.

    “Recent events make clear that there are elements within and outside the country who wish to derail the ongoing process so that they can take advantage of the chaos that would follow,” he said. “They have become more and more emboldened and have stepped up their campaign to confront the government.”

    Bloodthirsty Liberal and Christopher Hitchens (ya know, I saw him at the protest last week, I recognized him as someone I should know, but I couldn’t figure out who Hitchens was – I realize it was him now – but he got a haircut since last time I saw him) identify the common thread that runs through every brutal regime in the world, including Burma - China;

    China, a key trading power and importer of gas from Myanmar, has refused to take sides in the unrest so far, and Premier Wen Jiabao called Saturday on “all parties” to exercise restraint and seek stability “through peaceful means”.

    But Russia’s not much help, either;

    Russia’s ambassador to the council did strike a more moderate tone, saying that Myanmar’s problems should be solved by peaceful dialogue and democratic changes without any pressure from outside.

    With rumors of tens of thousands of dead, negotiation hardly sounds reasonable at this point. Kate of A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective writes that there’s another protest at the Myanmar Embassy Friday.

  • Obey: War tax to end the war

    David Obey, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee has decided since the Democrats can’t get a draft started, they’ll charge Americans a tax to fan anti-war flames (Washington Times);

    Rep. David R. Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, yesterday threatened unilaterally to block President Bush’s $189 billion emergency war-funding bill to force a U.S. pullout from Iraq and called for levying a surtax to cover the war’s costs.

    Mr. Obey, breaking with the Democratic leadership that has failed repeatedly to end the Iraq war, said unless Mr. Bush establishes a goal to abort combat operations in Iraq by January, he would act alone to cut off war spending.

    “Future generations should not be saddled with paying for an ill-advised war in Iraq that seems to be never-ending,” said the Wisconsin Democrat, who could use his powerful post to lock up the funding bill in committee. “If this war is important enough to fight, then it ought to be important enough to pay for.”

    The proposed income-tax surcharge — a progressive tax ranging from 2 percent to about 15 percent — would net $150 billion a year to cover the cost of the war in Iraq, said Mr. Obey.

    That’s the solution to every problem, I suppose – tax stuff you disagree with.

    Mr. Obey’s proposals did not target the war in Afghanistan, which he said was a justifiable war because the Taliban supported al Qaeda before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

    “It is to draw a meaningful line in the sand,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and an outspoken war critic. Mr. McGovern and Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, were at Mr. Obey’s side when he announced the surtax plan.

    Yep, the war in Afghanistan is justifiable as long as you look at the war as pure revenge (an emotional response, not a rational response) instead of considering the fact that those 19,000 jihadists we’ve killed in Iraq could’ve been running all over the planet blowing themselves up along with innocent people. But the Democrats can’t just get past the fact that war is not a legal action – it’s a defensive action. All war has a preemptive nature.

    The Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers writes;

    House rules permit Republicans and prowar Democrats to try to go around Mr. Obey and force action on spending. But the chairman’s stand, blessed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), represents a significant escalation of the conflict with the administration.

    It came as moderates in the war debate enjoyed a rare triumph on the House floor. By 377-46, members approved requiring the Pentagon to report regularly to Congress on the status of planning for the redeployment of troops from Iraq.

    Supporters argued it was a first step to end partisan sniping, but many House Democrats remain frustrated by the pace of change in Iraq policy.

    In the past, they have approved Iraq funding with restrictions, only to see these amendments watered down in the Senate because of White House veto threats and Republican filibusters. Ms. Pelosi doesn’t hide her impatience: “We can’t go as slow as that ship” she said of the Senate last week.

    Mr. Obey gives her more leverage. Choosing not to move legislation is “our strongest card at this point,” he said.

    So, not surprisingly, Murtha (Mr. Pink Badge of Courage) and Pelosi are behind this latest end run around the Administration’s honest attempts at winning this war in our favor – as opposed to the Democrats who want to lose this war so they can win the presidency next year. All of this despite the fact that the war in Iraq is being won (as reported by Gateway Pundit and Bill Roggio and Bill Roggio again)

    So why would Democrats try these end runs around the administration? Because it’s their last chance to make splash – it’s their last chance to look like they’ve done something in this war against terror – even though it helps the terrorists. Just to stroke their critics on the extreme left wing.

    Democrats’ spinlessness gives hope to every jihadist in the world – especially those arrayed against our troops in Iraq. I’m sure Pelosi, et al. hope to spark courage in the Mahdi Army again so Democrats can point and call it a civil war – since it hasn’t been a civil war for months and the Iraqis are helping US forces to drive al Qaeda out.

  • This Dog Don’t Hunt

    This is an unashamed plug for a book by a long-time good friend (and he was a pretty good El-Tee in his day, too – well, as El-Tees go), J. Danny Strickland (also known as Crotchety Old Bastard). He’s had a hard-on for Lindsey Graham for at least this entire year, and he finally decided to do something about it – he wrote a book called “This Dog Don’t Hunt“.

    Now, apparently, I’m not so close to author that he saw fit to send me a promo copy (hint-hint, Danny), but what I’ve read of it in the excerpts is a good old fashioned smackdown – that only a former-Army-Ranger-sergeant-turned-90-day-wonder-turned-field-grade-officer can deliver.

    Apparently, the book comes out on October 19th – just in time for me to take it on vacation – and since I’ll be on vacation, you’ll need something to read. So pre-order the book now at Paypal – I have.

  • Phony soldiers

    Yeah, I heard the story about Rush Limbaugh calling people “phony soldiers”, I’ve watched the video, I’ve read the blogs – I know what he said, I don’t need it explained to me. He was talking about Jesse Macbeth – the best known fake veteran of this war, so far. Prairie Pundit is waiting for a Macbeth phony soldier squad to embrace him. Who thought this scrawney twirp was a Ranger?

    And who thought this was the career of an E-fricken-four?

    Limbaugh was talking about Scott Thomas Beauchamp who told phony stories about impossible events that happened to him before he set foot in Iraq. You’d think The New Republic would be smart enough to steer clear of the Limbaugh controversy, but, nope.

    Limbaugh was talking about Tom Harkin, the Senator who likes to tell war stories about a war he was never in. He’s talking about Harry Reid, who suddenly feels like the troops have been slighted (not when he called them losers and suggested they quit fighting, though). They can’t condemn Iran for killing our troops, but they can summon the guts to condemn Limbaugh (Hot Air) – how fricken brave.

    Limbaugh is talking about John Kerry who took a movie camera to Viet Nam (at a time when even most really rich people didn’t have movie cameras) and “re-enacted” his battles – and threw someone’s medals over some fence. And made up stories about what he’d wished he done in Viet Nam. Then makes a “botched joke” about how stupid the troops are. More on the original phony soldier, John Kerry from Sweetness and Light.

    Limbaugh was talking about John Murtha who hides behind his fake 30 years of service (half of which he spent in Congress, and all except one year, he spent defending Johnstown, PA from being awash in beer in his “special infantry” unit) while taking pot shots at the folks who are actually doing the heavylifting he couldn’t summon the testicular fortitude to accomplish. Need I mention his “pink badge of courage“?

    Here’s another phony soldier, Al Gore who had a body guard either because he was an E-4 journalist or a Senator’s son. I spent a year in Panama as an Army journalist and I never had a body guard. My friend, Gary, spent a few years as a journalist in Germany and didn’t get a body guard – so you tell me;

    Apparently his bodyguard was to protect Gore from himself.

    Limbaugh is talking about Jon Solz, who flew off the handle at a soldier in uniform at the Yearly Koz, yet a picture of Solz in his uniform is on his website (which is now closed because Solz has apparently foresaken his own band of phony soldiers) – doing nothing more than the young buck sergeant at the Yearly Koz.

    Limbaugh is talking about Adam Kokesh – the dimwitted bubblehead who claimed he’d been discharged when he hadn’t, who made false claims about the war all because he’d been busted smuggling an Iraqi pistol back from the war and the Marines wouldn’t extend him the honor of returning to the war. And then makes false claims about the recruiter that recruited him. Kokesh still calls himself “Sergeant Kokesh” even though he was busted to private years ago. All the while he’s using his GI Bill to get an education.

    I meet phony soldiers nearly everyday – they’re everywhere. Just the other day I saw some homeless bum walking around with a cammie jacket and a ton of patches sewn on it – none of which had anything to do with another. But the Left loves them – the Left defends them. The Left protects them. And this how they treat the troops with whom they disagree;

    So this Clinton-funded Media Matters gaggle with admitted liar David Brock at the helm doesn’t need to tell me what to think about Limbaugh – nothing Limbaugh says can compare to those phony warriors on Capitol Hill – and the ones the Left seems to attract.

    Michele Malkin is all over Tom Harkin and Crotchety Old Bastard is mopping up Harry Reid. Gateway Pundit is dragging out phony soldiers from every closet – here, here and here. Melanie Morgan at Move America Forward mentions a few more phony soldiers that I’ve forgotten,

  • Money for nothing

    Wall Street Journal’s Jackie Calmes writes to day that money from “big business” is shifting away from Republican politics;

    New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party’s identity — what strategists call its “brand.” The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.

    Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don’t share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.

    In other words, real Conservatives are leaving the fake Conservatives behind. And people who just don’t understand politics and government are going to the Democrats.

    New York Times’ Michael Cooper reports that Democrats are surpassing Republicans in the presidential race for cash;

    The Democratic presidential candidates continued to raise significantly more money during the last three months than their Republican counterparts, according to official and unofficial third-quarter fund-raising tallies that were released yesterday.

    Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, raised at least $20 million over the summer, more than $19 million of which could be spent on the primary — showing that he continued to be a formidable fund-raiser. It was unclear whether he still led in fund-raising, as he did this spring, because Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not release her tally. (Her aides had said that they expected to raise a similar amount.) John Edwards raised $7 million, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico raised $5.2 million.

    A race for cash – for what? Name recognition? Which of the Democrats have problems with that? Thanks to the mainstream press, Americans can probably name every one of them. And their agenda is just as easy to recite – get out of Iraq raise taxes and pay for anything a particular audience wants.

    No sooner does the Washington Times announce that Obama surpassed Clinton with $20 million, the Post announces that Clinton raised $7 million more. And Reuters quotes Clinton’s campaign manager;

    “Hillary wanted you to know that this was our best quarter yet,” her campaign manager, Patty Solis Doyle, said in an e-mail to supporters. “This is the moment when your dedication defied the skeptics.”

    Skeptics? Who was skeptical? Was there ever a Clinton donor who turned her or her husband down for money? They take money from every pyramid schemer and Buddist monk that’ll hand it over. So what’s the surprise?

    The problem is the candidates’ ideas. They worry more about our feelings than the realities of the world. They spend more time pandering to any group who’ll listen to their mindless rambling on about how they’ll spend other people’s money (read that: YOUR money) than they do about a plan to actually fix the problems facing us.

    They’re at the point where they’re promising to hand over $5000 to every child that escapes the bloody abortionists’ knives – there’s the cradle. Now when are they going to start promising us money for our dead kin?

    Money isn’t votes – the Supreme Court says it’s speech – that’s well and good, but the media is reporting it like it’s the election. Me? I’m out of the money donating business. Every time I hand over my cash for my candidate, I get disappointed.

    All of those millions of Democrats pouring money into those candidate coffers are going to be disappointed, too, when they discover that they’re pouring money down a dark hole. Hasn’t anyone else noticed that Democrats haven’t bothered to keep ANY of their campaign promises from the midterms – the issues they claim won them a “mandate”? Democrats aren’t in the business of solving problems – they’re in the business of making promises they don’t intend to keep – then excuse it away by saying “everybody does it”.

    When I voted for George W. Bush, I knew he’d keep his promises, whether you liked it or not – he hasn’t disappointed me, well, much. I can’t say the same for the Republican crop this year – they change their positions faster than a whip snake. If they win they’ll do it without my money. besides, I’ll need my money to pay taxes if the Democrats win.