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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • The most ethical Congress deadlocked on earmarks

    The Democrats (in the person of Nancy Pelosi) established the lowest bar possible by promising “the most ethical Congress ever” if Americans would give them the majority this year in Congress. That’s not hard to promise, really – how hard is it to be cleaner than a groundhog? Slimmer than a hippo? And they may be the most ethical Congress ever, for all I know, but I don’t think the American voters want to grade something like ethics in Congress on a sliding scale in 2008.

    But, anyway, this “most ethical Congress ever” is deadlocked to a standstill on the issue of earmarks – earmarks are how politicians get reelected by paying off their constitutency with public works projects. Mainly useless public works projects like bridges that go nowhere built in one state with the tax dollars from the other states. Projects that local governments don’t feel are worthy of spending local taxes to build.

    Earmarks are why everything in West Virginia is named “Robert C. Byrd” – after all of the useless crap that Senator Byrd forced the Federal government to build in that State.

    Well, earmarks are the way that Democrats held on the House for more than 50 years – despite the fact that their majority voted against stuff like the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, the fact that they approved the Democrat President’s combat forces being introduced into Vietnam in 1965, despite the fact that they raised taxes so high that the upper marginal tax rate was 70% by the time Ronald Reagan became President. Earmarks kept them in office despite the fact that they pretty near destroyed the country. Anyone remember the debt Congress ran up before the Republicans took over in 1995 and dragged Bill Clinton kicking and screaming into fiscal responsibility?

    Well Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma tells us, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal yesterday, what happened to Pelosi’s legislation;

    When we considered ethics and earmark reform in January, Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S. C.) ingeniously forced our chamber to vote on a strong earmark-reform package — written by none other than House Speaker Pelosi herself. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially blocked the “DeMint/Pelosi” amendment, but after it was “modified” in a face-saving exercise it passed largely intact.

    The DeMint/Pelosi language would disclose backdoor earmarks, often called report language earmarks, that are tucked away in non-binding, staff-written appropriations committee reports. Ninety-five percent of all earmarks are written as “coercive suggestions” to agencies in these explanatory reports that accompany bills. DeMint/Pelosi would make public the sponsors of earmarks, requiring members to file a public disclosure statement stating that neither they nor their spouse will benefit financially from a pork project. Finally, it would give members new procedural tools to block bills that violate these rules.

    However, the underlying legislation, S.1, a central Democratic campaign promise, has gone nowhere since it passed five months ago. House and Senate conferees have not even begun meeting to iron out a final bill. Each day, it looks more like another expired promise.

    Sen. Reid and top Senate Democrats have had two other opportunities to enact Ms. Pelosi’s earmark reform language. They blocked both attempts, arguing that ethics reform must be done comprehensively, not in a piecemeal fashion — conveniently making the perfect the enemy of the good and doable. Some members of Congress seem to be hoping the public will lose interest in earmark reform. That isn’t likely. Voters and taxpayers continue to be enraged — Congress’s approval rating is an abysmal 27%, in part because reform hasn’t happened. Presidential politics will keep the issue front and center, and the army of bloggers who have long led on this issue are ratcheting up their criticism of the status quo.

    Good old Harry Reid again. That spineless little goofball. So, apparently, because they can’t restrain themselves, the San Francisco Chronical writes that the House, even though they’ve passed the earmark reform bill, have inserted 33,000 earmarks in this year’s spending bills;

    Republicans cried foul over a plan by Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., for the House to pass all of the dozen spending bills without any earmarks.

    Obey said House members from both parties — even while expressing concern about rising government spending — had inundated his committee with 33,000 earmark requests. He said it would take the committee’s staff four weeks to study all those pork barrel requests and pare them to a manageable level.

    Obey proposed to put the earmarks into the bill as the House prepares to confer with the Senate to reconcile the two chambers’ different versions of the spending bills. Obey promised to disclose the list of the earmarks a month before such a conference, which Democrats hope to hold by late summer, so members and the public will have time to scrutinize and react to the projects.

    Well, the Washington Times’ Eric Pfeiffer writes that Republicans scored a small victory over Democrats – and a victory for the American taxpayer;

       The Democrats had planned to allow earmarks only during the conference process, when a limited number of lawmakers from each chamber meet to hammer out differences between the bills passed, while barring them during committee hearings and on the floor.
        Under current rules, earmarks must be made public while an appropriations bill is going through each chamber. Republicans complained that allowing earmarks to be added during conference undermines their “sunshine” reforms and they claimed victory last night.
        “Democratic leaders finally surrendered to our demands because supporting secret earmarks in appropriations bills is indefensible and the American people won’t stand for it,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
        “House Republicans worked together to demand an end to slush funds for secret earmarks and the right to challenge wasteful spending on the House floor — and we won,” Mr. Boehner said.
        As a result of the compromise, several of the House appropriations bills will now be delayed until more than 32,000 requested earmarks can be publicly disclosed before coming to the House for a vote.

    Imagine that – the elected representatives of the American people wanted to spend our money without telling us how they planned  on spending it. I’m not blaming Democrats exclusively in this – Republicans are just as guilty of doing the same damn thing in the last twelve years. What I am blaming is the system – and the voters.

    Voters have come to expect giveaways from the government, and they reward politicians who give them stuff – not neccessarily the people who come to Washington to protect us from foreign enemies, or protect us from local whackos.

    The House of Representatives was supposed to made up of ordinary people off the street who wanted to do their part for the country and return to private life. Instead we built Congress a rich retirement plan that rewards them for longterm service, so naturally, they’re going to do everything in their power to stay in those jobs and reap the financial rewards instead of reaping the philosophical rewards and getting the Hell back to real life.

    The Washington Post today, writes about the wealthy local politicians in the Metro DC area and the one that really got me was DC’s delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton;

    In the District, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) reported assets valued at $823,036 to $2.2 million, including annuities and other retirement investments.

    For what? She can’t vote in Congress. All she can do lobby Congress for the interests of the District, yet she’s got the net worth of the annual income of about 50 of her constituents. For doing what? Helping former Mayor Williams getting that stupid “Taxation without representation” slogan put on license plates? That’s the only thing I’ve seen her do in the last eight years, besides complain that no one told her that the Federal Government sent all of it’s employees home on 9-11.

    We’ve come to expect experienced people in our legislatures and executive offices, but I’m not convinced that we need people with experience more than we need people with common sense and a common touch.

  • Hamas pulls out the plugs

    Fighting is raging across the Gaza strip today as Hamas decides it’s more fun to kill Palestinians than Israelis. the Washington Post reports;

    Palestinian hospital officials said at least 14 people were killed and 70 wounded in the hours-long fight for the Fatah-run Preventive Security headquarters in the center of Gaza City.

    Witnesses said Hamas fighters led Fatah officers from the building, some bound and dragged. Television reports from the scene showed groups of shirtless Fatah fighters being marched through the street.

    The best way to get your guys worked up into a fighting frenzy is to dehumanize the enemy;

    The Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing that has begun referring to Fatah as the “Jew American Army,” has given the Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Forces across northern Gaza until Friday evening to surrender their weapons and turn over their posts.

    USAToday has an after-action report;

    A survivor of the Hamas assault said the Fatah forces were outgunned and that reinforcements never arrived. “We were pounded with mortar, mortar, mortar,” the Fatah fighter, who only gave his first name as Amjad, said excitedly and out of breath. “They had no mercy. It was boom, boom. They had rockets that could reach almost half of the compound.”

    No mercy. From UK’s Telegraph;

    “They’re firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We’re not Jews,” the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

    Minutes later both men were dragged into the streets and riddled with bullets.

    These are the guys with whom we’re supposed to negotiate? They shoot their own neighbors in the street. How do we talk to them, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? Maybe you two should go to to Gaza and talk to them.

  • Know what today is?

    Yeah, I know it’s Flag Day, and Pamela does a great job at Atlas Shugs celebrating that particular recognition, but that’s not all it is today.

    After my kids’ birthdays and my anniversary, it’s probably the only date I have hammered into my head. It’s the Army’s Birthday – 232-years old today. In fact, it was 32-years ago today, I performed my 10th jump, it was on Fort Benning’s Fryar Drop Zone for President Gerald Ford. Actually, we dropped the 13th for our parade for the President on the 14th – the 200th Birthday of the Army.

    Today, the US Embassy in Baghdad thanked the US Army with this cake (photo courtesy of the US Army);

    Â

    Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston and some less important guys cut the cake in Washington, DC (courtesy of the US Army, photo by SSG Christina O’Connell)

    From the Center for Military History;

    The June 14 date is when Congress adopted “the American continental army” after reaching a consensus position in The Committee of the Whole. This procedure and the desire for secrecy account for the sparseness of the official journal entries for the day. The record indicates only that Congress undertook to raise ten companies of riflemen, approved an enlistment form for them, and appointed a committee (including Washington and Schuyler) to draft rules and regulations for the government of the army. The delegates’ correspondence, diaries, and subsequent actions make it clear that they really did much more. They also accepted responsibility for the existing New England troops and forces requested for the defense of the various points in New York. The former were believed to total 10,000 men; the latter, both New Yorkers and Connecticut men, another 5,000.

    So, to all of my brothers-in-arms, all of those Dogfaced Soldiers, past, present and future, I send out this ditty;

    I Wouldn’t Give A Bean
    To Be A Fancy Pants Marine,
    I’d rather Be A Dogface Soldier Like I Am.
    I Wouldn’t Trade My Old O.D.’s
    For All The Navy’s Dungarees
    For I’m The Walking Pride Of Uncle Sam;
    On All The Posters That I Read It Says
    The Army Builds Men
    So They’re Tearing Me Down To Build Me Over Again
    I’m Just A Dogface Soldier
    With A Rifle On My Shoulder
    And I Eat Raw Meat For Breakfast Everyday.
    So Feed Me Ammunition,
    Keep Me In The Third Division,
    Your Dogfaced Soldier Boy’s Okay

    (edited to rectify grotesque politically correct language-alterations)

    Please stand for the Army’s Song;

    Intro: March along, sing our song, with the Army of the free
    Count the brave, count the true, who have fought to victory
    We’re the Army and proud of our name
    We’re the Army and proudly proclaim

    Verse: First to fight for the right,
    And to build the Nation’s might,
    And The Army Goes Rolling Along
    Proud of all we have done,
    Fighting till the battle’s won,
    And the Army Goes Rolling Along.

    Refrain: Then it’s Hi! Hi! Hey!
    The Army’s on its way.
    Count off the cadence loud and strong (TWO! THREE!)
    For where e’er we go,
    You will always know
    That The Army Goes Rolling Along.

    Verse: Valley Forge, Custer’s ranks,
    San Juan Hill and Patton’s tanks,
    And the Army went rolling along
    Minute men, from the start,
    Always fighting from the heart,
    And the Army keeps rolling along.
    (refrain)

    Verse: Men in rags, men who froze,
    Still that Army met its foes,
    And the Army went rolling along.
    Faith in God, then we’re right,
    And we’l fight with all our might,
    As the Army keeps rolling along.
    (refrain)

    Unashamedly stolen from the Military Motivator (h/t Blackfive)

  • Surrender Fever hits new high among Democrat “leadership”

    I learned about this from Crotchety Old Bastard to whom I’ve immediately shipped some of my blood pressure meds. 

    In a joint letter to the President, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi noted that, even though the final troops aren’t even deployed in Iraq yet, the surge is ineffectual. From AP;

    Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop “surge” policy was a failure.

    Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.

    “As many had forseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results,” the two leaders wrote.

    “The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.

    It has not enhanced Americas national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased.

    In fact, the last two months of the war were the deadliest to date for US troops.

    The letter appeared to preview a fresh showdown over Iraq between anti-war Democrats and the president, just a few weeks after Bush forced his foes to strip troop withdrawal timelines from a 100 billion dollar emergency war budget.

    It also came a few days after the US military mourned its 3,500th soldier killed in action in Iraq.

    “As predicted” they said. Isn’t that just childish and moronic. Before it’s begun, they’ve declared it a failure. Because the impatient crybaby hippies of the anti-war movement are disappointed. Apparently Harry’s “set the bar too high” explanation didn’t go over well with Code Pink.

    Meanwhile, AP also reports that the Senate will begin destroying more military officers’ careers for the Democrats’ own political benefit;

    On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the stunning announcement that he would not recommend Pace to serve a second two-year term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Marine Corps four-star general had not been a target previously of Democrats’ ire on the war, but Gates said lawmakers made it clear the confirmation process would be ugly.

    “It would be a backward looking and very contentious process,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.

    […]

    “General Casey knows Iraq and the challenges the Army faces there,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in February. “The principal failures that led to the chaos in Iraq were due to the civilian leaders.”

    But when it came to Pace, Levin signaled a new era in which uniformed officers close to the president would be held accountable.

    In an interview with reporters this week, Levin said Pace’s nomination would have been more contentious than other uniformed officers because he was the closest military adviser to the president on a failing war.

    Well, you know this is coming from the Code Pink/ANSWER bunch. Their most recent protests have deflated the egos of their members because, not only have they been poorly attended, but there have begun anti-anti-war protests which are increasing in numbers and strength. The anti-war movement is afraid that their decreasing popularity might make it into the media unless the politicians can win them some victories.

    And once Congress starts beating up the generals, it’ll be a signal to the Hippies-on-the-street to start mistreating the Joes and their families. I remember the playbook from the 60s, see.

    How do I know Code Pink and ANSWER are driving Reid and Pelosi? Well, there’s this in the Politico;

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “incompetent” during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

    Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

    This is but the latest example of how Reid, under pressure from liberal activists to do more to stop the war, is going on the attack against President Bush and his military leaders in anticipation of a September showdown to end U.S. involvement in Iraq, according to Democratic senators and aides.

    Yep, cuz there was the blog interview with Think Progress (for some reason I can’t get to Think Progress’ website this morning, but if you can, check out the comments on the Reid interview) the other day and now this one. And we all know there are no moderates with blogs – on either side of the political spectrum. And what fuels the Left? Well, how about dumbass reports like this one from the Washington Post this morning;

    Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday.

    The report — the first comprehensive statistical overview of the new U.S. military strategy in Iraq — coincided with renewed fears of sectarian violence after the bombing yesterday of the same Shiite shrine north of Baghdad that was attacked in February 2006, unleashing a spiral of retaliatory bloodshed. Iraq’s government imposed an immediate curfew in Baghdad yesterday to prevent an outbreak of revenge killings.

    Yesterday’s attack adds to tensions faced by U.S. troops, who are paying a mounting price in casualties as they push into Iraqi neighborhoods, seeking to quell violence that the report said remains fundamentally driven by sectarianism.

    Iraq’s government, for its part, has proven “uneven” in delivering on its commitments under the strategy, the report said, stating that public pledges by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have in many cases produced no concrete results.

    Now, there may be a point in pointing out Maliki’s failures, but the Post absolutely negates the war the US military has been waging against al Qaeda which has seen a steep rise in damage to al Qaeda in Iraq’s leadership – as pointed out nearly everyday by Blackfive and the other Milblogs. But I guess the Washington Post and the other hippies can’t be bothered to check out the truth.

    And of course the WaPo instantly translates “new fears of sectarian violence” into American casualties that haven’t happened yet. I guess they never figured I’d check another source and notice that the Wall Street Journal reports that the military suspects that al Qaeda were behind the attacks – which doesn’t support the Washington Post’s “fears of sectarian violence” claims;

    After yesterday’s destruction , several Iraqi police were detained, indicating the possibility of an inside job. The pattern of the attacks — both yesterday’s and last year’s — suggests that insurgents could have slipped past the security cordon to place their explosives. Top U.S. military and civilian officials in Iraq place the blame on al Qaeda, saying it was trying “to sow dissent and inflame sectarian strife.”

    Attacks by al Qaeda militants — including car bombs in crowded areas, destruction of bridges and a recent suicide bombing inside the Iraqi parliament — have become among the biggest challenges to the U.S.-led security plan.

    But it’s funny how the Washington Post suddenly decides the “surge” isn’t working on the same day Reid and Pelosi head to the White House, ain’t it?

    But, it’s nice know that the counter-protests are working. The Left is getting desperate and they need the war to end soon so they look like they have sway to their benefactors. That’s why Republicans in Congress need to hold their ground for a couple more rounds – the Left is in it’s death throes.

    Bloodthirsty Liberal wonders aloud how the Democrats felt about the increase in violence after the Normandy invasion. And Soldier’s Dad has some interesting charts related to the violence and Iraqi Security Force readiness. Bill Roggio has compiled more on the “minarets” attack.

    UPDATED: Hot Air discusses whether or not and whom Reid called “incompetent”.

  • Communist Victims Memorial unveiled

     

    Yesterday, President Bush dedicated the new memorial to Victims of Communism here in Washington, DC. From the Washington Times‘ Kristen Chick;

    President Bush yesterday told hundreds of people whose countries had emerged from the grip of communism that their sacrifices would not be forgotten as he dedicated the Victims of Communism Memorial to the millions oppressed and killed by totalitarian regimes.
        “We’ll never know the names of all who perished, but at this sacred place, communism’s unknown victims will be consecrated to history and remembered forever,” he said to more than 500 people just blocks from the Capitol. “We dedicate this memorial because we have an obligation to those who died, to acknowledge their lives and honor their memory.”
        The memorial is the only such monument in the world, according to its founders, who estimate that communist governments have killed more than 100 million people.
        Mr. Bush compared the Cold War to the fight against terrorism, saying that the “evil and hatred” that inspired totalitarian regimes to kill millions is shared by terrorists today.  

    I took this picture about 20 years from a hill over looking part of the East German border about 20 miles north of the town of Coburg;

    This was one of the legal border crossings into East Germany – that narrow road in the bottom of the picture. This picture is the East German checkpoint on that same road;

    That’s how I remember Communism – a giant prison walled-in from the North Sea across Europe to Yugoslavia. Everyone remembers that Berlin was walled, but people tend to forget that there was a wall across all of Europe.

    I remember in the early 80s when there were Claymore-type mines attached to the razor-wire fence which would slice-to-shreds anyone above the weight of a sparrow who disturbed the fence. An entire population isolated from the world by mine fields and fences. It’s hard to imagine that even today, just a decade or so later.

    Oddly, at least in my mind, the world seems to have forgotten about the evil that men do to each other. In fact, people have ho-hummed Communism for years now – despite the cost in human lives. Books like Martin Ami’s Koba the Dread; Laughter and the Twenty Million  and the meticulously researched and footnoted Black Book of Communism should be required reading in schools everywhere – to teach the horrible lessons of the past that we should never forget.

    But, I guess it’s inevitable that Mao’s and Stalin’s deniers should crop up – just like Nazis’ Halocaust deniers. Jimmy Carter certainly didn’t learn his lesson from the Pol Pot regime. While Carter ranted and raved about arpartheid in South Africa, millions of Cambodians were butchered by Communists and millions of Vietnamese were “reeducated” or escaped in rickety boats. 

    If communism was really remembered as it actually was, no one would be forming a new communist bloc of nations in South America today unopposed.

    And, to prove they aren’t Mao’s China anymore, China threatens to step up war preparation against Taiwan because President Bush shook hands with Taiwan’s representative at the ceremony, Joseph Wu. 

    More on the lack of media coverage of the event from Newsbusters’ Michael Chapman.

    I may put some more pictures of the Inter-German border on this post tonight if I can remember which file I put them in when I get home.

    Well, I couldn’t find where I hid my scanned photos of the Border, but I found an early draft (in .pdf) of a book I started years ago that includes a bunch of photos and some stories tentatively titled Hier Grenze.

  • Harry Reid; holding the President’s feet

    I guess Harry Reid awoke from his 20-year coma this week because I see his footprints all around the internet. He’s forgotten the drubbing he withstood just a month or so ago from the President and began his insane ramblings anew. Apparently, he’s pandering to his far-left pals, according to good, ole, Anne Flaherty of the AP;

    “We’re going to hold the president’s feet to the fire,” Reid, D-Nev., told reporters after emerging from a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats.

    Under Reid’s plan, the Senate will cast separate votes on whether to cut off funding for combat next year, order troop withdrawals within four months, impose stricter standards on the length of combat tours and rescind congressional authorization for the Iraqi invasion.

    I don’t know exactly how falling on your sword for the empty-headed crybabies of the Left is holding the President’s feet to the fire.

     

    Michigan Democrat Carl Levin makes another baseless prediction;

    “I think the ground is going to continue to shift,” said Levin. “I think that by September, if not earlier, enough Republicans will be joining us to change course in Iraq. And if there’s enough Republicans joining us, the administration will see that handwriting on the wall.”

    “I think” and “if” are just empty qualifiers. All the Democrats are doing is holding off the inevitable defection from the Democrat party – they’re trying to convince the hardcore anti-war groups that they’re doing something. But I’m pretty sure that even with a few Republican defections from the RINO crowd, the Democrats don’t have the firepower – or the will power – to hold the President’s feet to anything.

    Of course it’s the Democrats’ own fault, completely. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that the President is governing against the will of the People – that he’s not listening to us. That comes from this “mandate” the Democrats claim they have from the November election. There was no mandate – and they promised impeachment and big changes in direction of the war that they knew they couldn’t deliver. Now the crybabies in the anti-war movement are driving them over the edge.

    And Reid, for his part, admits that he deceived the Left;

    Reid spoke Tuesday on the phone with a group of liberal bloggers he acknowledged helped drive the anti-war debate.

    “I understand their disappointment,” Reid said. “We raised the bar too high.”

    Because you don’t have the mandate that you claim to have – you were successful in a few districts and States. Not so successful to have any real effect on the entire country. It’s just an exercise in fanning the anti-war Left’s ego to think they have a real impact on the Congress. The President is still in charge of the country.

  • WHAT you are vs. WHO you are

    So I guess for all of the reasons that perky Katie Couric gave us for not watching her host the nightly news, the reason her boss chose to blame is good old convenient “sexism“;

    “I’m sort of surprised by the vitriol against her. The number of people who don’t want news from a woman was startling,” Mr Moonves said of the audience’s reaction to Ms Couric, who this month brought ratings for the CBS Evening News to a 20-year low.

    It couldn’t be because she presents Leftist commentary as hard news, could it? Or maybe her perkiness plays well to stay-at-home moms early in the morning, but not to working people who watch evening news. Nope, it’s gotta be because she’s a woman.

    Just like when the Democrats charged America with being anti-Semites when we didn’t elect Joe Lieberman as Vice-President. (But somehow it isn’t racism when they treat him the way they have the last few years) The Left is more concerned about WHAT a person is than WHO a person is.

    If you speak ill of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton it’s because you’re a racist – not because you can recognize a hustler when you see one (or two). If you report suspicious behavior of a group of imams, it’s because you’re an Islamophobe, not because you’re scared of crashing into a building during your flight home.

    When I was in college (at the age of 39), I mentioned to my professor that I’d leave the country if Hillary Clinton became President. A co-ed overheard the comment and charged me with being a sexist. I tried to explain that I’d leave the country because I don’t want to live under a socialistic government – but of course there was no explaining – I was a sexist because I didn’t like Hillary Clinton for WHAT she is, rather than WHO she is. But now I see that women support her 2:1 over Obama’s female support. I guess there’s no sexism or racism involved there, huh?

    I know it’s only natural for people to avoid confronting their own shortcomings by blaming them on other people’s shortcomings, but sometimes people don’t like you for WHO you are. Trust me on this – alot of you are jerks and no one has ever told you.

    Nah, sorry, Les, but CBS bet on the wrong pony – perky Katie Couric is a poor newsperson. That’s not America’s fault; it was a bad business decision from the get-go. And it’s not like you weren’t warned.

  • Reid; Iran “invasion” would destabilize region

     

    Harry Reid in a blogged interview on Think Progress, in his infinite wisdom, and counting the times he’s been correct on any issue on one finger, determined that Joe Lieberman’s call for a strike against Iran would destabilize the region;

    “I know Joe feels strongly about that part of the world. I do too,” said Reid, rejecting Lieberman’s calls for ratcheting up tensions. “I believe our efforts should be diplomatic in nature,” Reid said, citing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and others to hold a regional conference to resolve security issues in the Middle East. Reid also noted that “we are so overextended” that the U.S. does not have the ground troops necessary for a war with Iran.

    “The invasion of [Iran] is only going to destabilize that part of the world more,” Reid charged. “I know Joe means well, but I don’t agree with him.”

    Well, Harry, Senator Lieberman recommended a retaliatory strike, not an invasion. And I don’t know how much more the region can be “destabilized” anyway. Turks are poised to attack the Kurda. Syria is gearing up for another Summer offensive against Israel for the Golan Heights, Iran is scooping up US citizens left and right knowing that you and Nancy Pelosi will throw yourselves in front of an airstrike against them.

    But, to your original statement, there’s a difference between what you’re saying and what Senator Lieberman said. According to Reuters, Lieberman said;

    Lieberman, appearing on CBS’ Sunday program “Face the Nation,” said the United States had “good evidence” that Iraqis were being trained to use the weapons at a camp inside Iran. He advocated a military strike in retaliation, saying much of the job could be done with air strikes.

    MSNBC also reported Lieberman’s statement;

    “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman said. “And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.” 

    As compared to your false assumption that the strike aircraft will be carried into Iran on the backs of infantrymen. How much aircraft is being utilized in Iraq and Afghanistan as opposed to the number of aircraft currently floating off the coast of Iran? Why do you think the three carrier groups were deployed to the Gulf?

    Reid just won’t let go of the Iraq Study Group recommendation;

    So I would think rather than talking about military action against Iran, we should do what the Iraq Study Group said. Have a regional conference where we sit down and the president himself is personally involved with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and yes, Iran. That’s where our efforts have to be.

    Reid’s child-like innocence is stunning. I guess he hasn’t noticed that Iran won’t even own up to what they’re doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, so how do we sit down and talk to them? The only thing they understand is unrelenting force. According to CBS News;

    Iran on Monday [February 12, 2007] rejected U.S. accusations that the highest levels Iranian leadership has armed insurgents in Iraq with armor-piercing roadside bombs.

    “Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence. Such charges are unacceptable,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.

    U.S. military officials in Baghdad on Sunday accused the Iranian leadership of arming Shiite militants in Iraq with the sophisticated bombs that have killed more than 170 troops from the American-led coalition.

    So while Harry is busy waving his current white flag, Iran has taken to threatening the US once again according to the Associated Press (On Fox News);

    Iran will make the United States “regret” its detention of five Iranian officials in Iraq, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday.

    Mottaki was referring to five Iranian officials detained in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil by U.S. troops in January, who still remain in U.S. custody. The U.S. military has said they are suspected of links to a network supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents — an accusation that Iran has denied.

    “We will make the Americans regret their ugly and illegal act,” Mottaki was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying. He didn’t elaborate on how Iran will make Washington regret the action.

    But ya see, the Iranians can just take hostages left and right, as reported by the Independent;

    Iran’s confirmation yesterday that it has detained a fourth Iranian-American – this one a peace activist from California – seems certain to further rile relations between the two countries, already tense over Iran’s nuclear program.

    The United States has sharply criticized the detentions but Iran insists America has no right to interfere.

    Mohammad Ali Hosseini, the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, confirmed at his weekly news briefing that Iranian-American Ali Shakeri had been detained.

    And the reason they think they can away with that kind of behavior? Because they have Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi carrying their water for them in Congress; Iran’s own ready-made lobbying team that operates free-of-charge in the intrests of the mullahs.

    Gateway Pundit points and giggles at Harry Reid’s poll numbers (19% approval rating) – the same poll numbers that Reid used to deride Vice President Cheney a scant few months ago. I guess that since Reid has taken to surrendering to the nutroots as well as the jihadists (or apparently anyone who gives him a disapproving look), he’s just not liked by anyone anymore.