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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Stunning strategy change; DC cops arrest criminals (Updated)

    The Washington Post announced today that over this last weekend, DC Metro police changed their tactics and began arresting criminals;

    The District’s stepped-up campaign to fight crime brought 492 arrests in its first two days, including 51 for felonies, a 70 percent increase over the previous weekend that has left city leaders hopeful about the new strategy.

    […]

    Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced last week that all of the force’s 3,300 sworn officers would work longer hours this weekend to give the summer crime-fighting program a jump-start. The plan, which cost $1.3 million in overtime pay, was intended to help prevent an increase in homicides, robberies, car thefts and gang activity that typically comes in the summer.

    It’s not all good news, though. They aren’t changing their strategy so much that they’ll stop relying on useless surveillance cameras;

    Police are also expanding their network of neighborhood surveillance cameras, adding five last week and 24 by the end of June, for a total of 72 across the city.

    Surveillance cameras haven’t done a thing except push criminals into areas that aren’t surveilled – or into Prince Georges County, Maryland.

    Cops got so excited that they could actually investigate crimes and catch criminals, they started running into each other;

     A police chase after a murder suspect ended in a violent crash Sunday. Two DC Police cruisers slammed into each, other injuring the officers inside, all while horrified residents looked on at the intersection of 13th and K Streets in southeast.

    And of course the City Council is on board…well…sort of;

    “I’m assuming all are valid arrests,” said D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary. “Some neighborhoods are enormously frustrated with ongoing criminal activity. If police are cracking down, I’m sure residents are pleased to be feeling a bit safer.”

    Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) agreed that the more aggressive tactics could be a good start to tamping down crime. “If these arrests are warranted, I’m happy it happened and they’re getting people off the streets,” he said.

    But councilmember Brown had a proviso;

    “The questions become, ‘How do you take those arrests and deal with them on the front end and back end?’ ” Brown said. “People arrested — fine. But at the same time, we need to focus why they are out there getting arrested in the first place.”

    Um, probably because they’re criminals, Council Member. I know you see it as an opening for convincing the already over-taxed, working residents of DC that you need to increase their taxes so you can “solve” poverty in the District, or you can blame over-crowded classrooms or some other equally vacuous platitude about how tax money can prevent crime. The Council and Mayor’s office have consistently prevented police from doing their jobs, and call for half-measures that mask their incompetence and disregard for the safety of law-abiding citizens.

    Like those idiot “Police Emergencies” that old Ramsey called last year that were nothing more than police doing their jobs for a few weeks and getting overtime pay for doing it. I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t the only one who could see through that ploy.

    There’s no revenue in catching criminals. They’d rather have cops writing tickets and putting boots on car wheels. That brings in cash. They think government is their own little business which doesn’t have it’s excesses and abuses regulated. The City Council is just too secure in their jobs – they know the voters will vote them back into office not because of what they’ve done, but because of what they are. Voters don’t hold the City Council responsible for their incompetence, because City Council blames everything on Congress and the President – and because the citizens are willfully blind and ignorant, they throw their votes away on lazy and incompetent government.

    As soon as arrests become politically unpopular, the City Council will jump back off board, I’m sure. 500 arrests means 1 in 1000 residents of DC were arrested this weekend (if they were indeed all DC residents). I expect to see angry parents and spouses on TV soon complaining that their criminal relatives were framed by over-zealous cops and the cops will go back to solving crimes at the drive-through window of the Popeye’s chicken joints.

    Not related to the sweep, but a trial that begins tomorrow for – guess who;

    DC Council member Marion Barry is expected to be in court Tuesday to face several traffic charges stemming from traffic stops that occurred last year in the District.

    In September, Barry was stopped by Secret Service officers near the White House after he allegedly ran a red light. Police also said he smelled of alcohol.

    Barry was charged with driving under the influence after refusing to take a urine test. A breath test came in below the legal limit.

    In December, Barry was stopped by US Park Police in Southeast for driving too slowly. He was charged with misuse of temporary tags and operating an unregistered vehicle.

    Barry insists the charges are unfounded.

     

    See, there’s the damn problem. This criminal is a council member, too. He’s delinquent on his taxes for seven years (and the federal prosecutors can’t force him to pay, because the judge won’t force him) and he’s a menace to society and the entire city.

    And do you know how hard it was to find links to these stories about Barry? I guess the local media is burying the criminal behavior of it’s most [in]famous resident.

    I don’t want anyone to get me wrong. I don’t blame the DC Metro Police for their inability to stop criminals and arrest criminals and jail criminals. I completely blame the local government. I know and I’ve met great dedicated cops on the Metro DC police force (there are some useless turds, too – they know who they are) – but the politicians won’t let them do their jobs the way they should because the criminals run the media like sock puppets and the media run the politicians like sock puppets. So, politicians; guess who’s hand is really up your…um…sock.

    UPDATE: The Washington Times reports this morning that;

    The Metropolitan Police Department made more than 650 arrests last weekend as part of a kickoff to the District’s summer anti-crime initiative, Chief Cathy L. Lanier said yesterday.
        “I think overall we hit our goal of what the initiative was,” Chief Lanier said during a press conference announcing the arrest totals. Now, we “take those examples and then determine how we turn that around, listen to what people have said to us.”
        The 650 arrests were made from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Sunday. That was more than twice the average number made during the previous five weekends, police said, and the arrests also resulted in a drop of about 10 percent in serious crime compared with the previous weekends.
        The adult arrests included 109 on narcotics charges, 11 for aggravated assaults, 14 for unauthorized use of a vehicle, nine on robbery charges and four from three homicide cases.
        Police also arrested 33 juveniles on charges ranging from weapons offenses to narcotics.

    I wonder where the Post got it’s numbers; 24% more arrests from the Times is pretty significant. Now the Post is conceding the 650 number;

    D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said yesterday that crime across the District dipped 10 percent last weekend as a result of her “all hands on deck” initiative, in which 3,300 members of the force worked a pair of overtime shifts.

    I guess they rushed yesterday’s story to print. But the fact remains that if DC deployed it’s police force more effectively, they could fight crime better. Giuliani put cops on beats pounding the pavement and it worked fine then.

  • The anti-Israel rally in DC

    We went to the rally against Israel this afternoon. We got there at about 2:30 and went by the pro-Israel group first (I had to get my bearings and I knew where the good guys were going to be). All-in-all they were a small, rational group;

    Before we left home, I checked the opposition’s websites and they predicted hundreds of thousands of partcipants. I’m sure they were fairly disappointed because there seemed to be only a few hundred. This was the view of their rally from the Pro-Israel rally;

    Most of the anti-Israeli group were crowded around the entrance. There were “marshalls” there that censored the signs that people brought themselves. I guess they were looking for overtly racist signs. The organizing moonbats brought scores of signs to hand out to participants. Too many it seems. These are the crews bringing the extras in after the rally started;

    This is about the size of the crowd at the mainstage just before it started;

    Not really hundreds of thousands was it? But as always at these events, it’s more important to see who’s on the periphery of the main rally;

    Ask us about socialism – that has to be my favorite line. As if any of the attendees were confused about the tenets of socialism.

    Here’s another little bit of hypocrisy. If the Bible isn’t a deed, then why is the Koran a deed?

    It’s a great day when you can wrap your kids in an Arafat scarf and make them a poster supporting the “next generation” of suicide-bombing haters.

    And you can muddy the debate with an accidental friendly fire incident

    And the fat cow coalition supports impeaching AIPAC, an organization that can’t be impeached. But it sure sounds stern, doesn’t it.

    And I don’t know who this guy is, but I’m fairly sure that there aren’t any Palestinians waving any flags for him or his clerical collar;

    Here’s my favorite guy. Guess what he is. That’s right, he’s a “twoofer”. His type are easily recognizable by the portable beer coaster he sports under his shirt and the aire of an intellectually superior being.

    And the dollar bill he’s holding? Well, my wife snatched it from him (before I could grab his  stubby little paw that he thrust in my face) and here it is;

    And the back;

    Isn’t that cute? That’s a real website, too, if you have the stomach for it. But I’m not driving traffic there.

    Well, we went back had a couple of gallons of ice tea at the Dubliner where we could keep an eye on foot traffic to the rally and as near as I can tell, not more than a few hundred more showed up, in dribbles and drabs (anti-democracy people are easily recognizable among the tourist foot traffic in DC when you’ve lived here as long as I have). So I’m not sure how the media is going to call this one, but I’d put attendance at about a thousand – tops.

    The pro-Israel rally was only about a hundred or so, but the Left had big expectations for their rally, guessing by the internet support. The Left generally pooh-poohed the low attendence at the March on the Pentagon back in March because of cold weather, but today was a gorgeous spring day. It was probably near 80 degrees and overcast – so what’s the excuse this time?

    My guess; the Left is just tired of pointless rallies. There were no puppets on stilts, no wildly dressed malcontents. Even the Socialist recruiting tables were less-attended than usual. I think the Left is losing it’s fire. Too bad really – I wanted some more pictures of puppets – I miss those little buggers.

    Ah, heck here’s one from last years Code Pink Mother’s Day rally for old time’s sake. (I know the date stamp is wrong – I’m no technical wiz)

    Solomonia and djca.org agree that today’s rally was pretty pathetic. More commentary from Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs.

    UPDATE: More pictures and a much better commentary at The Age of Hooper.

    Oh, ya know what? I forgot to mention that the were a couple of thousand people at the Capitol (Gay) Pride festivities (basically a street festival) just a few blocks away that generally just ignored the fact that their allies on the Left were having a rally that day. So I guess the lesson is that you can’t count on the Gay community for your goofy Leftist rallies. I’m sure the anti-Israel forces were counting on the Gays incidental appearances to swell their numbers. But it didn’t work out for ’em.

  • Speculation is speculation

    I don’t give investment advice anymore since everyone stopped paying me for my advice. But I used to give advice to people for a living, it was a tough living, though. Many people thought they knew more than I knew because of the popular culture of investing. In fact, I spent my evenings and weekends reading and watching the garbage on magazine racks and on the pop-culture CNBC to be able to counter prospective clients’ know-it-all-isms. Many (many, many, many) never became my clients because it’s nearly impossible to overcome the twaddle that passes as investment advice, especially in the 90s when the Democrat Administration announced that they’d done away with down strokes in the business cycle.

    The know-it-alls were buying stocks on their margin accounts, paying 9-13% in interest in hopes of turning a huge profit in stocks that were selling at 85 times earnings – the same stocks everyone else was buying. It was a fine strategy for a while, but then when stocks melted down in the Spring of 2000 and margin accounts came due, investors had to pay the accounts by cashing out stocks for which they had paid a lot more – which drove stock prices down even further.

    One of the first things I read about the history of investing was a story about how Joe Kennedy knew there was an impending stock market correction in 1929 because he listened to his shoe-shine guy running down the list of stocks the bootblack owned and many matched Kennedy’s portfolio. I guess the lesson is that you shouldn’t be investing with the crowd.

    For about four years now, I’ve heard about the “housing boom”. It became the barometer of the economy on pop-culture CNBC (yes I still watch it – for reasons that will become apparent, if they haven’t already) – the welfare of companies building multi-million dollar houses drove the excitement on those ridiculous programs. Ray Charles could’ve seen this one coming. When housing starts and existing home sales dipped last year, CNBC and $400 haircut guys warned that a new recession was coming. A few years before that, it was the consumer confidence reports that rocked the market (while we were inundated with reports from retailers) after years of pinning the hopes for the market to B2P (business to people sales) while the tech-boom had been tied to B2B sales.

    But this year, it’s the mortgage/housing market that is causing fear among investors. Bond yields have been fairly depressed the past several years and it was inevitable that yields would begin to rise pretty soon, especially since all of those “savvy” investors who listened to CNBC and used their homes like ATMs while they refinanced for lower variable rate mortgages – but what goes down (interest rates) must go up and the interest rate chickens are home to roost. Everyone was doing it, new mortgage companies sprang up overnight to handle the business. Didn’t they see it coming?

    No, they pooh-poohed the doomsayers in favor of the blatherskites who promised instant cash at low interest rates – especially the jabberwocky that CNBC was pushing on people daily.  

    The Wall Street Journal reports what happened in case you missed it last week;

    The drop in U.S. government bond prices this past week is expected to cause pain for some homeowners and mortgage shoppers, and bring fresh opportunities to income investors.

    The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves in the opposite direction to the price, jumped above the psychologically significant 5% threshold, ending Friday at 5.119%, up from 4.955% a week earlier. The 10-year’s yield is now at its highest level since July 2006.

    In fact, when the 10-year note jumped above 5.2% early Thursday morning, I actually heard Michele Caruso Cabrera squeal with delight on CNBC’s pre-7 am international market program (whatever clever moniker it has been christened this week).

    Well, anyway, it’s affected all of those savvy investors who re-fi’d their homes and spent the cash on remodeling their homes to improve the value – so they improved the value of a home that they can’t sell. Like owning millions of dollars of Confederate money or Enron stock. One mortgage company, Counrywide, had a default rate near 20% in April mainly from people who refi’d to varibale rate mortgages who’s payments creeped higher with interest rates.

    So here comes the Democrats. Hillary came out in March and called for a revision of government programs to bail out these “savvy” investors;

    The presidential candidate also said she will soon reintroduce legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Clinton said she also favors raising FHA loan limits for high-income areas to help more low-income home buyers.

    “I also propose a stop to prepayment penalties designed to trap borrowers,” Clinton said in a speech to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

    But the Bush Administration was already on the job;

    Federal banking regulators are negotiating with lenders to restructure high-interest rate mortgages given to home buyers with poor credit.

    The effort by the Office of Thrift Supervision is aimed at softening the impact of the housing market’s slowdown and bolsters the argument of lawmakers who say mortgage reforms may not be needed.

    While it may also result in accounting charges on quarterly earnings reports of public companies with mortgage lending units later this year, it could limit any broad economic damage from the risky mortgage practices of the past few years.

    So, homeowners might get a break from the government for being so damn stupid that they they listen to the morons on CNBC. They don’t deserve it. Easy money is never easy forever.

    Not that he gave any advice to invest in mortgages, but why anyone listens to that Jim Cramer, I’ll never know. He had as much to do as anyone to do with the losses from Enron’s collapse. Still thousands invest using his one-size-fits-all prattle everyday.

    But, here’s the only investment advice I’m ever going to give you. Print it out if you need to remember it; there’s no easy way to make millions, unless you’re a crook (ex. Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, Kenneth Lay). Invest only that which you can afford from your earnings  (notice I didn’t say savings) and don’t chase returns. Slow and steady wins the race; develop an investment strategy (with a professional if you need one) and stick to it – avoid investing in trendy investments. With a proper diversification of your portfolio, you’ll be in the “trendy markets” before everyone else. Keep your savings separate from your investments – that’ll keep you from dipping into your investments at inopportune times.

    And most importantly; borrowing money is never any part of sound investment strategy.

  • Cities want to lead global warming fight

    Today, the Washington Post’s front page story is about “Cities Take Lead On Environment…” as if that’s a bad thing that the Bush Administration hasn’t done enough to curb “global warming” Now I’m not going to discuss whether or not global warming is real – I’m not a scientist, but I have my own opinions on it. What I’d rather point out is that this should be local issue and not a job of the federal government. It’s the essence of what separates the Left and the Right.

    The WaPo piece, excerpted;

    To the long list of evils being blamed on global warming — hurricanes, heat waves, melting ice caps — tack on the smaller interior of Steve Benesoczky’s cab. Inside, his passengers can already feel the squeeze of climate change in their knees.

    “Of course it’s less comfortable. Look, there’s less leg room,” said Benesoczky, 55, as he pointed to the back of his new taxi — a hybrid Ford Escape.

    The company Benesoczky works for has started complying with a new directive ordering New York’s entire fleet of 13,000 yellow cabs to go green over the next five years — part of an effort by the nation’s largest city to cut its carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030.

    Most taxis here are now roomy-if-gas-guzzling Ford Crown Victorias. But hundreds of boxy hybrid cabs have already hit the roads, gradually altering the autoscape of Manhattan’s glittering byways.

    “Some people are complaining — especially the tall ones — but most are saying, ‘Finally, you’re doing something for the environment,’ ” said Benesoczky, a Hungarian émigré and New York City cabbie of two-and-a-half decades. “Look, people will make a little sacrifice if they have to. They already are.”

    New York is among a faction of U.S. cities from Boston to Portland, Ore., that are racing ahead of the federal government in setting carbon emission targets and developing concrete strategies to deal with climate change. Their solutions are already beginning to alter the fabric of life for millions of urban dwellers.

    It is a direct consequence, municipal officials and analysts say, of the growing perception inside city halls that the Bush administration has largely ignored an issue that has reached a tipping point in American culture.

    Well, that’s the way it should be – if local government doesn’t think the Feds are doing enough for their communities, they absolutely should take the lead. The same with unemployment and welfare and the whole myriad of issues facing individual communities. Why should they sit around and wait for some fat bureuocrat to make a sweeping decision that should only be applied to a small area instead of the whole country?

    Why should a family in Arkansas pay for the environmental cleanup of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, NY? Why can’t the Feds push responsibility down to the people who have the greatest stake in their local environment? And it gives locals a greater say, and more political control, in what the priorities should be on local problems instead of waiting for a years-long administrative process waiting for the feds to make decisions?

    How realistic is it for the Feds to declare that taxis should all be hybrid cars when it doesn’t make sense for a guy driving a country hack in Backwoods, Idaho or Turkeyfoot Hollow, West Virginia? If these local governments want to regulate their citizens, they don’t need the feds’ blessings. That’s what this government is all about, any-damn-way.

    What does the Labor Department in Washington, DC know about training unemployed workers in Eugene, Oregon? Why does it make sense for Congress to mandate a minimum wage that’s applied nationally, despite the varied cost-of-living across the country? A business trying to pay the minimum wage in DC wouldn’t have any employees since even McDonald’s starts workers a few bucks-an-hour over minimum wage.

    A national environmental policy is just as useless. It’s about time States and municipal governments did their job instead of passing stupid no-smoking bans and cell-phone-usage-while-driving laws. The Code of Federal Regulations’ biggest titles are the Environmental Protection and Public Health series – maybe we could cut Federal taxes if more local governments took up leadership on these two problems that aren’t even mentioned in the Constitution as Federal government responsibilities.

    Oh, and if global warming is such a serious problem, why is the Federal government still working under the same regulations as the Clinton-GORE administration? Did it just become a problem when this administration moved to Washington?

    And if people are so ready to make sacrifices, why haven’t they? Governments wouldn’t have to regulate if that statement were true. Where are the hybrid cars on the road?

    And it’s a little bit funny that almost the whole country mandates recycling, except the residents of Washington, DC don’t. I haven’t seen fewer cars on DC streets or an increase in public transportation use here.

    I guess it’s the responsibility of the rest of the country to make sacrifices for the denizens of DC. That would explain the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude here.

  • The big “Duhs” of the week

    I love it when brainiac journalists make what they think are stunning discoveries, but those discoveries are just accepted facts for the rest of the planet. The two that really struck me today were one from Joe Klein (Time Magazine) and the other from Dave Balz (Washington Post). Both articles deal with the super-polarized political scene, but different aspects.

    Joe Klein is shocked, shocked I tell you, that the left end of the blogosphere is;

    …a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn’t move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable.

    But, of course, it’s not their fault, according to poor little victim Joe;

    …the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

    Yep, it’s Rush Limbaugh’s and the Bush Administration’s fault. Poor little leftists forced to “ape” those evil Republicans. Before the Bush Administration even got into office, there were political ads in Missouri that warned citizens that electing Bob Dole to the Presidency would result in more church burnings.

    There were political ads in Texas that accused then-Governor Bush of being responsible for the dragging death of James Byrd because he wouldn’t sign “hate crime” legislation. Who was it that accused Republicans of wanting to starve the children and elderly in the first months of the Republicans’ reign of terror in Congress back in 1995?

    Who accused Republicans of wanting to poison the air and the water – hell, as recently as 2001 when the Bush Administration yanked back regs that imposed impossible arsenic on communities that hadn’t done any damage in the previous eight years of the Clinton Administration – and your side used that as evidence that Republican were evil beings setting out to destroy the world. Remember that, Joe?

    Who’s side went to Iraq on the eve of our war and stood on the terrace of Saddam Hussein’s palace and declared that Hussein was more trustworthy than our own President?

    Hell, I got banned from the Democratic Underground on my very first post back in 1999 – and all I asked was “You guys don’t really believe this do you?” That was it and my account was flung off into the cybertrash. That was certainly before the Bush Administration did all of the nasty things you and the others claim they’ve done.

    I got named “Idiot of the Week” by some Leftist website I’d never heard of – in fact google my name and you’ll see how my fame that week was spread out to several websites as they repeated the honorary title (I think it was really less than a week, though – which is false advertising – there was a new idiot up there within a few days). My point being – I don’t call people names from other blogs. I’ve called politicians idiots and morons, but not someone on another blog, randomly. OK, William M. Arkin, but he doesn’t really count – he’s paid to blog by some small newspaper on 15th and Eye Streets here in DC.

    So, Joe, you tell me who the mental midgets (most of whom can’t spell and have trouble with the “Caps” key, too – speaking from experience) on Left are “aping”.

    Now, let’s get to Mr. Balz;

    The collapse of comprehensive immigration revision in the Senate last night represents a political defeat for President Bush, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill’s most prominent sponsors. More significantly, it represents a scathing indictment of the political culture of Washington.

    The defeat of the legislation can be laid at the doorstep of opponents on the right and left, on congressional leaders who couldn’t move their troops and on an increasingly weakened president and his White House team. But together it added up to another example of a polarized political system in which the center could not hold.

    Yep, that’s who we’ll blame – the President and John McCain (then we’ll mention Fat Teddy just to seem bipartisan in the blame). But if you bother to scroll down the story, you get to this part;

    House Democratic leaders were tepid in their support, demanding that Republicans bring at least 60 to 70 votes so that freshman Democrats from marginal districts would be able to vote no.

    Um, excuse me? We’re going to blame a lack of bipartisan cooperation, the weakness of the President – and that cooperation includes Republicans helping Democrats get elected? 

    What planet is this? Since when do Republicans have a duty to the country to help “marginal” Democrats get reelected?

    But that’s hardly my point, Dan Balz’ whole contention is that Washington is polarized. As if he’s the only person who noticed. I didn’t see Dan balz writing stories about Jane Harmon being frozen out of a committee chair because she placed our national security above her party’s seat gains. Did you , Danny? Funny I searched your writings over the last six months and found nothing. When Democrats sent a broke-dick, half-assed, pork-laden, cobbled-together defense budget to the President because their whacko anti-war base were crying crocodile tears daily outside their offices – what did you write about their blind partisanship?

    Yet, when there are “Republicans responding to their base” somehow that’s wrong and indicates a “failure of leadership”.

    Then you wonder for the rest of us to read;

    If Washington cannot produce a solution to the glaring problem of immigration, they will ask, what hope is there for progress on health care, energy independence, or the financial challenges facing Medicare and Social Security? Iraq is another matter entirely.

    All of those issues are being blocked by Democrats who refuse to compromise even a little. Republicans have offered solutions to each of those problems and what do we hear from the Democrats – their only solutions are “raise taxes on the wealthy”, “roll back the Bush tax cuts”. That’s it. That’s all they have.

    I know you’re trying to excuse Democrat behavior, but anyone who has had their eyes even partially open since 1995, and is intellectually honest would admit it’s not a failure of leadership – it’s a failure of upbringing.

  • Venezuela’s students don’t let up pressure (Updated)

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    Even though the media has pretty much ignored events in Venezuela this week, Venezuela Llora and Venezueal News and Views reports that protests continued yesterday. From Venezuela Llora;

    Professors, workers and the students of the UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela) had called upon a march on Tuesday, the students from all the other houses of study answered. However the goverment refused to allow them to march that day, so the date was switched to Wednesday. Once again the goverment tried to not allow the march to happen, however this time the students decided that theyre were going to march.

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views writes that the Venezuelan police tried to stop bus loads of students from entering Caracas;

    …now that we are under a not that veiled military regime, some stupid Captain, thinking he had more power than he really did took upon himself to stop buses coming up to Caracas full of students wanting to join the march. So, this lout thought he would scare students but these just decided that if they could not go up to Caracas no one else could. Soon, as the ARC was falling into a deadly lock everyone was allowed to Caracas. I wonder what that Captain learned today: democracy or shooting first? And that sad scene repeated at many exits of the ARC. Funny detail: Iris Varela claims that the students were sabotaging, “esos niñitos” she said, while Globovision showed the Nazional Guard trucks blocking highway access! Then again Varela has been living in a parallel universe for quite a while.

    This photo is from Venezuela News and Views. The sign reads “Please excuse the inconvenience, we’re working for your liberty”

    The Devil’s Excrement has videos and narratives of yesterday’s events. 

    Mary Anastacia O’Grady explained in an article entitled “The Young and the Restless” from Monday’s Wall Street Journal why it’s so significant that students are protesting;

    Until now, students have not played a role in anti-Chávez activism. Eight years of property confiscations, the jailing of government adversaries and the manipulation of voter rolls and elections prompted almost no student response at all. But the attack on free speech hit a nerve and sent them to the streets. This has captured the attention of the nation because student resistance movements have an important history in Venezuela. In recent days many have been recalling that it was an uprising from the universities that precipitated the fall of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiminez in 1958.

    Still, it is not clear that this is a grassroots movement that will run Mr. Chávez out of town. It is true that the students who are out in the streets attend the large state-run schools and therefore probably do not come from Venezuela’s elite families. But they are not from the nation’s most destitute families either, where Mr. Chávez finds his strongest support. It is safe to say that they mostly represent the country’s middle and lower-middle income sectors. Yet it is notable that the protests have spread beyond wealthy Caracas to include public universities in poorer parts of the country where student bodies tend to be even more humble.

    What is also new, and even more interesting, about this resistance movement is its focus on “freedom” and calls to end “the dictatorship.” Mr. Chávez’s beloved Revolution may have once claimed the moral high ground by asserting that its enemies plotted a nondemocratic coup on April 11, 2002. But now the president and his chavistas seem to be the ones on the defensive, with polls showing more than 70% of Venezuelans opposed to the closing of RCTV. This suggests that the dissatisfaction does indeed cut across economic classes.

    Please read these articles in their entirety, the writings of people on the scene and the very knowledgable Ms. O’Grady (who has been warning us for years about Chavez in the pages of the Wall Street Journal) are all we’re going to get on this important story, apparently. I’m disappointed that the Administration isn’t doing more to stop this two-bit thug – just like I’m disappointed that Congress won’t lift a finger to condemn Chavez.

    Associated Press (by way of Fox News) writes that Chavez is calling for a Latin American socialist defense bloc;

    President Hugo Chavez called for the creation of a common defense pact between Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia, while the leftist Latin American bloc announced the creation of a development bank to finance joint projects.

    Chavez said Wednesday that the four-nation Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, which began as a socialist-leaning trade group, should cooperate militarily to become more independent of U.S. influence.

    “It seems to be the moment to establish a joint defense strategy,” Chavez said. He called for joint military aid as well as intelligence and counterintelligence cooperation “to prepare our people for defense so that nobody makes any mistake with us.”

    I guess that way Chavez doesn’t have to worry about using Venezuelan troops to put down the protests in his own country, he can use the police and armed forces of other countries against his own people in the model of Robert Mugabe.

    Chavez also called the failed US call for an investigation of the Venezuelan government’s closing of RCTV “a great defeat for the empire” according to AP; 

    President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that the United States suffered a humiliating defeat in its move to condemn Venezuela internationally for forcing an opposition-aligned TV station off the airwaves.

    Chavez began a news conference by playing a video of heated debate between his foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at an Organization of American States meeting in Panama on Tuesday. The OAS declined to adopt a U.S. request to investigate his government’s removal of Radio Caracas Television from the air.

    “A great defeat for the empire,” said Chavez, who said OAS member countries had refused “to play (Washington’s) game” and instead backed his government.

    “It was the greatest defeat _ a moral defeat, a political defeat,” said Chavez, who maintains the government made a proper legal decision not to renew the channel’s license.

    Since the OAS can’t summon the testicular fortitude to stand up to this pompous shrimp, it is a defeat for all of the people of Latin America – their weak-kneed tacit approval of the silencing of Chavez’ opposition can only embolden Ortega, Correra and Morales to crush dissent in their own countries. Ultimately, it’s liberty that has been defeated.

    And at least some Cubans in the United States see the parallels between their plight and that of Venezuelans.

    Speaking of Cubans, I found this on Babalu Blog;

    Cuban workers are also the only ones working at that mysterious “city” that is being built near Carayaca. Those Cuban workers should be the concern of the local criollo unions.

    With the complicity of the Chavez Government they are being subjected to a truly savage exploitation, of the pre-capitalist savage style, a feudal savage style, which would make you laugh at the neoliberal type. They do not contract the workers; the Cuban state does it from them.

    They receive as payment less than the Venezuelan minimum salary and the Cuban Government charges for each worker US$ 600, of which the worker and his family in Cuba, see nothing but US$ 20, in pesos.

    I guess that’s what Venezuelans have to look forward to from the Chavez government. How long before Chavez starts exporting his opponents to work in Cuba to prop up that collapsing regime?  

    UPDATE: Daniel at Venezuela News and Views recounts today’s events at the National Assembly – the studaents had to be transported out by armored car for their own protection from the chavezistas – reminicient of Noriega’s Dignity Battalions.

  • How can ethical Democrats be split on Dollar Bill?

    In the Politico this morning, Josephine Hearn writes that Democrats are split on whether they should even investigate Willam Jefferson, the Congressional Democrat from Louisiana who was discovered to have 90 large in his freezer after being filmed taking a 100 grand for a bribe. This is after the two other people on the same film have already pleaded guilty and have been residing in the local hoosegow for more than a year.

    Ms. Hearn writes that;

    The simmering divisions were evident in the results of a vote Tuesday night, calling on the House ethics committee to investigate Jefferson and report back on whether he should be expelled from the House. Eighteen caucus members supported it, 13 opposed and three voted present. The resolution passed overwhelmingly, 373-26.

    Everyone was writing about Jefferson a few days ago which is why I resisted. Given my limited time to spend on this blog, I figure that I should concentrate on things other people might miss, but, Holy Moley…26 people in Congress – all Democrats – didn’t think there should even be an investigation? 16 people in the House Ethics Committee either voted against the measure or weaseled out with a “present” vote.

    Even a Republican-controlled Ethics Committee voted to investigate Tom Delay, f’Pete’s sake – with no real evidence that Delay even broke the law. But nearly half of the committee voted to not investigate a man caught on video accepting a bribe? Who can believe their lyin’ eyes?

    But, this is how Democrats “drain the swamps” I guess. So what possible reason could anyone have for not voting for the investigation?

    House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of Jefferson’s strongest congressional supporters, voted against the resolution. Asked about it Wednesday, he seemed to allude to the civil rights concerns.

    “I came out of the sit-ins, where you were guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “Let’s let justice run its course.”

    So because of what happened in this country more than 40 years ago, the race-baiters use it an excuse to tolerate corruption. Again, who can believe their lyin’ eyes? But Hearn writes that the Congressional Black Caucus doesn’t agree on what course to take;

    “This caucus has spent a lot of time talking about the culture of corruption and holding members of Congress to a higher standard,” said Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who supported the resolution. “You have to act on your rhetoric. There’s a separate question (from the Justice Department investigation) of whether he misused his office.”

    Oh, no kidding? The Democrats understand that actions speak louder than words? Since when?

    Speaking of ethics, the Washington Post front page was covered in daily non-stop Delay coverage during that dust-up that led no where, so where are the stories in the Washington Post about Jefferson’s 16 charges and the 1/2 million bucks in bribes? Today’s WaPo has one tiny little story in Paul Kane’s story about how this is a splendid opportunity for some other no-name Democrat to get a slot on the Homeland Security Committee. Huh?

    Everytime the Washington Post goes after this administration or the Congressional Republicans, it’s front pages for weeks. Now the biggest Congressional bribery case in the history of Washington, and the Post can’t be bothered with the story. Instead we get Immigrant Measure Survives Challenges and They Know How to Caucus instead of a front page layout on how the most ethical Congress is about as ethical as a pirate.

    But if you use the search feature on the Washington Post and search on “Libby” you find 25 DIFFERENT articles and opinion pieces in the last two days in the Post.

  • Republican candidates debate an absent Bush

    I have to admit, I haven’t seen any of the debates on either side yet. I know, I’m shirking my civic responsibility, blah, blah, blah…but this election season started last November and I want to stay at 100% through the whole thing. So I figure that if I work at about 50% now, everyone’ll think I’m still at 100% come next November – smart, huh?

    Besides, the Alma Awards were on last night, and given a choice between watching ten guys in dark suits standing at podiums trying to tell me they’re smarter than me or a half-naked Eva Langoria dancing to salsa music…well, you know how that one is going to end.

    But thanks to Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times, I can catch up on the hot doings I missed. The one line that hit me right out of the gate was from anti-gun, pro-abortion, wife-cheating Rudi Giuliani;

    Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas all said Mr. Bush’s biggest mistake in recent years was overspending and growing government.
    “Republicans became Democrats,” Mr. Giuliani said.

    I know Giuliani is trying to convince us that he’s conservative, but we all know better. Yes, Giuliani showed great leadership when he ran New York. I admire the way he cleaned up that city and cut welfare spending and cracked down on jay-walkers and littering inspite of the huge wave of criticism he endured, however, a Republican from New York is still a liberal.

    But I guess Republicans attacking the Bush Administration no more weird than the Democrat candidates all trying to prove that each is holier than the next candidate. I wonder which Democrat candidate Jesus would vote for?

    It’s bad enough that Democrats are all running against President Bush (apparently they haven’t noticed that he’s not running next year-but that didn’t stop them from running against him in the last midterm election, so…), but now the Republicans, smelling blood in the water, are circling him, too.

    That’s not going to earn them any points from the base. President Bush is much more popular among Republican voters than the polls give him credit, and if the Republicans are going to act like they’re running for a seat on the editorial board of the New York Times or the Washington Post, Fred Thompson will murder them all without even declaring.

    Curt at Flopping Aces provides a video of Thompson on Hannity’s show last night and he delivers the best line of the evening; “it’s a badge of honor being attacked by some of these bozo’s.”

    How is Fred Thompson NOT going to get the nomination with performances like that?

    By the way, if you haven’t read it anywhere else yet, Fred is taking contributions at I’m with Fred.