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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Same old leftist solutions; just let me rant

    Just browsing through the Washington Post, I found an opinion piece entitled “A plan to cut poverty in half” by Mark Greenberg and Elisa Minoff. Man, I’d like to see that happen so I began reading. Turns out, it’s about a report from the Center for American Progress. Hey, I’m all for American progress, so I flipped over to the report. What did I find? The same old “progressive” clap trap. The same failed “Great Society” programs except with more money thrown in. How is that progress?

    It was the same old drivel about raising the minimum wage, increasing child tax credits, the government providing more safety nets and pouring more money into our failing education system. All of the mediocre proposals the Democrats have been clinging to like grim death since the LBJ War on Poverty days.

    I guess that’s what passes as research for Leftist think tanks – dust off some decades old failed program and multiply the cost figures by the inflation rate and add in a fat grant check.

    Want to reduce poverty in this country? Put schools back in the business of teaching instead of indoctrinating. Put schools back in the hands of parents and pry them away from administrators whose only function is to expand local union membership. Make schools actually teach stuff that’s relevant to the workplace instead of just passing on students to colleges where they have to take remedial-fricken-English, f’pete’s sake.

    You don’t need to raise the minimum wage if you make students employable and attractive to employers. If you educate them properly, students won’t be having so many children and they won’t need your paltry $100/year (that’s what your stupid $1000 tax credit works out to be – $100/year. Big damn deal, Leftist elistist scum). If you made students more valuable to employers, they wouldn’t be taking those minimum wage jobs after they graduate from high school.

    Maybe if we shut down half of the colleges in this country and only sent people to college who needed to be there, we wouldn’t have so many Philosophy PhDs making important-sounding French-style coffee drinks at Starbucks. Maybe we’d have fewer Psychology graduates stocking shelves at A&P.

    My current job required a college degree, but the skills I learned to perform at this job, I learned in high school – back when high school taught stuff. Why can’t high schools train our kids for jobs instead of teaching them to put condoms on a banana?

    Instead of providing useless jobs at outrageous pay for over-certified teachers, teach our kids to read and write and to be part of a functioning society without all of the Leftist drivel about everybody pooping and some poor child’s two mothers.

    If our schools did their job and educated our children, we wouldn’t be pulling our hair out worrying about job training programs for adults – adults would be smart enough to absorb employer-provided training when they started their new jobs.

    The truth is; we already pay enough money to the Federal goverment to lift Americans from poverty, but it all gets funneled out to “experts” and “non-profits” to “study” the problem. Why do you think the Center for American progress did this study? They’re taking advantage of the Democrat-controlled Congress to siphon off some more money and perpetuate their own useless jobs.

    Apparently, American Progress means “we cleave to the same old failed philosophies – but with a pretty website now”.  And the problem is; we’ve lost two generations to Leftist indoctrination and those generations don’t realize what morons they’ve become.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: I should have said something before, but please read the last line again and recognize how I might apply it to your emails. Sorry, for some of you it’s too late. My email server already sorted you into the moron file.

  • More common sense from Joe Lieberman

    This morning’s Washington Post has another op/ed from Joe Lieberman – one that I find hard to argue with.

    Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians — innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

    If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

    Well, if it had been perpetrated in the US, it would depend on which party was running the White House that would determine where the blame would be placed. When Bill Clinton was president and the World Trade center was attacked, Americans generally blamed Islamic terrorists. When the WTC was attacked a second time while George W. Bush was President, Americans generally disagreed about who was at fault. Not that anyone is playing politics with American lives or anything (eyes roll skyward).

    Fortunately, former Democrat Joe Lieberman sees the same political game playing out in this case, too;

    Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus’s security strategy has failed and that the war is “lost.”

    In fact, a skeptic might say that al Qaida and the Democrats are acting in tandem to defeat our policy in Iraq.

    And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.

    This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.

    What is needed in Iraq policy is not overheated rhetoric but a sober assessment of the progress we have made and the challenges we still face.

    Unfortunately, overheated rhetoric is the only thing we get from Democrats because the place politics before our national security. That was illustrated in the 218-208 vote in the House yesterday to pass a bill that the President has declared dead on arrival. The Democrats know what the President will and will not sign, they’re the ones who are constantly whining about the lack of bi-partisanship, so why didn’t they craft legislation that they know the President will sign instead of some political payment to the extremes of their party’s contituency?

    Lieberman also summarizes what no one else on the Left cares to admit;

    Al-Qaeda’s strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission.

    In other words, just as Petraeus and his troops are working to empower and unite Iraqi moderates by establishing basic security, al-Qaeda is trying to divide and conquer with spectacular acts of butchery.

    It makes all of us intellectually honest people wonder why the Democrats would buy into such a defeatist and ill-considered strategy if their motives weren’t purely political.

    Senator Lieberman sums his piece up nicely;

    Al-Qaeda, after all, isn’t carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn’t to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it.

    The Democrats know that, even if the Code Pink and KosKids don’t. But their answer to complex problems is simple. S.A. Miller of the Washington Times quoted David Obey this morning in the Washington Times;

    “This bill gives the president the exit strategy from the Iraqi civil war that up until now he has not had,” said Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat and House Appropriations Committee chairman.

    See? The war in Iraq is just politics as usual. Disregard the lives, disregard that the downtrodden and oppressed of the world will toss away all hope when we leave the Iraqis to the will of the Islamist extremists – like we left the South Vietnamese in ’75, the Iraqi Shi’ites in ’91, the Somalis in ’93, the Haitians in ’95. Just to appease al-Qaida and the Code Pink crybabies.

    John Murtha as much as admits that its purely political to AP’s Anne Flaherty (via the Washington Examiner);

    Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said Democrats were still considering their next step. He said after Bush’s veto, one option would be funding the war through September as Bush wants but setting benchmarks that the Iraqi government must meet.

    “I think everything that passes will have some sort of condition (placed) on it,” he said. Ultimately, Murtha added, the 2008 military budget considered by Congress in June “is where you’ll see the real battle,” he said.

    So they sent this to the President knowing it’d get vetoed. If they were serious about ending this war successfully, they would have hammered out something the President would sign, or something they could over-ride his veto with a 2/3 majority. Instead, they want to make empty political, pointless statements. Just wasting time. How many troops will get killed, how many more attacks will be planned against us while the Democrats play partisan towel-snapping? 

  • Democrats; Bush won’t veto defense bill

    Obviously, Democrats haven’t been paying attention lately. They honestly think that the president won’t dare use his veto to block their pork-laden, cowardly spending bill for Iraq. Why? I’ll let the head moonbat tell you – from Anne Flaherty of AP via the Washington Examiner:

    “For the first time, the president will have to be accountable for this war in Iraq,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday. “And he does not want to face that reality.”

    Hey, Blinky! Ya’all have been calling this “Bush’s War” since the first sandstorm slowed our advance on Baghdad. There have been two elections since the war started and the only thing you ran against was the president and the war. How is he avoiding responsibility?

    Ya’all are avoiding the responsibility of accepting the fact that there was no alternative to this war, and you’re not taking responsibility for the troops you get killed because of your careless words and your anti-American rhetoric.

    Ever since the war started you Democrats have been running away from your vote for the war. Ever since 9-11, you Democrats have been avoiding your responsibility to the citizens of this country by placing personal politics ahead of our national security.

    As Dick Cheney said yesterday, as reported in the S.A. Miller and Jon Ward of the Washington Times;

    Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for making “uninformed and misleading” statements about the war in Iraq.
        “What is most troubling about Mr. Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism,” the vice president said in a rare Capitol Hill press conference. 
        “Indeed, last week, he said the war is already lost, and the timetable legislation he is pursuing would guarantee defeat.”

    Hear the Cheney rant at Flopping Aces, courtesy of Curt, read it in it’s entirety at the White House website or watch part of it thanks to Big Mo at Hang Right Politics.

    That’s all there’s been from the Left – hell, since before the war actually when the Bonior/McDermott surrender mission went to Iraq six months before the “rush to war” and declared that Hussein was more reliable than our own President.

    Luckily, the President doesn’t show signs of backing down, according to Bill Sammon of the DC Examiner;

    “I’m disappointed that the Democratic leadership has chosen this course,” Bush told reporters on the South Lawn. “Instead of fashioning a bill I could sign, the Democratic leaders chose to further delay funding our troops, and they choose to make a political statement.”

    Bush reiterated his vow to veto the bill, which would provide $100 billion for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus billions more in unrelated “pork” spending. The bill also orders the administration to begin withdrawing forces from Iraq by Oct. 1.

    And Captain’s Quarters reported yesterday that the Democrats slipped in a minimum wage hike to insure the President wouldn’t sign the bill. What does the minimum wage have to with Iraq?

    It’s a purely partisan political exercise and the Democrats aren’t afraid to admit it. Why should they be ashamed, they’ve got their willing accomplices in the press;

    Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic caucus, said, “We feel very good about where the caucus is.”

    House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Democrats will send Bush the bill with the hope that the president has a change of heart. But, Hoyer added, they don’t expect it.

    “We are very, very hopeful that the president will sign that bill, will change his mind and come to the recognition that this bill does in fact set off a new policy for our engagement in Iraq,” Hoyer said.

    See? They’re hopeful – very hopeful. And we all know how the Left measures success by intentions, not by results. So what if more troops are dying this week in Iraq as a propaganda move by al Qaida to influence public opinion in the US during this debate. Jules Crittenden has the backstory on the 9 killed yesterday that none of the wire services have deemed important enough to tell us yet.

    Vice President Cheney isn’t afraid to tell the truth, however;

    “Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics,” Cheney told reporters at the Capitol after attending the weekly Republican policy lunch. “Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election.”

    “It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage,” Cheney said.

    He’s being kind – it’s criminal to declare the war lost to gain a political advantage. Like Uncle Jimbo says – treasonous. Punishable by hanging. But I’ll go along with David Broder’s idea of Reid’s canning (via Crotchety Old Bastard). Too bad Broder is too politically correct to advocate for the firing of Nancy Pelosi, too.

  • Obama in his own world

    Reading Stephen Dinan from the Washington Times today, I see that Obama thinks that the US has let the world down – whatever that means. But he’s going to pick the world back up. How? Why, with your tax dollars – he’s going to buy friendship like that pathetic little rich dork in grade school who handed out nickels to people to act like he’s their friend;

    Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama said yesterday that the United States has let the world down under the leadership of President Bush, who he said has been a “disappointment” to other countries, as he proposed doubling the foreign-aid budget as a way of recapturing global leadership. 

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure the Euro-weenies miss the days Bill Clinton would show up with a bag of goodies to hand out to them – and he’d ignore the goodies they had stacked in the corner from Saddam Hussein.

    Obama had more pie-in-the-sky stuff;

    Mr. Obama called for boosting the size of the U.S. Army and Marines, training more troops in language skills and expanding efforts to contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And he called for doubling U.S. foreign assistance spending by 2012 — a move that he said would mean $50 billion a year — noting that doing so would help meet the goal set by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. 

    I thought the military was having trouble meeting recruiting goals as it is, how’s he going to expand the military without a draft? Does he think we have a secret farm where we get soldiers bred for the job and all we have to do is increase production a hair?

    And it’s nice to see that he plans on meeting our contribution goals set by foreign governments. Maybe the Euro-weenies can dictate policy to us again, too, like they when they committed us to Kosovo and Bosnia.

    He claims that $50 billion isn’t all that much – it’s only 1% of our GDP. he sounds like a used carsalesman telling us that we can afford the monthly payment on that BMW when we know we really can’t.
     

  • La Shawn Barber’s latest

    I read La Shawn Barber’s Corner almost every morning to get an uncommon dose of common sense to start my day. But today, she’s outdone herself. There’s nothing more to say.

  • Fences make good neighbors

    I’m beginning to wonder what the Left has against walls and fences. Reading the most partisan hack in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, on the subject of the “gated communities” in Baghdad makes me think that the Left has never liked a fence or wall;

    Basically, we’re turning Baghdad into Belfast.

    This is supposed to be a temporary expedient, a way to tamp down Iraq’s sectarian civil war — in the capital, at least, the ostensible goal of George W. Bush’s fraudulent “surge” policy — by making it harder for the antagonists to get at each other’s throats. The “peace lines” in Belfast, separating Protestants from Catholics, were supposed to be temporary, too. That network of walls was begun in the 1970s.

    The construction of barriers and checkpoints that turn Baghdad neighborhoods into what U.S. officers sardonically call “gated communities” is another sign — as if more evidence were needed — that Bush’s “surge” is nothing more than a maneuver to buy time. His open-ended commitment for U.S. forces to patrol those barriers and guard those checkpoints will become the next president’s problem.

    But the Left is adamantly opposed to walls anywhere, as near as I can tell. Republicans want a wall along our southern border to keep illegal immigrants from infiltrating into our country and then dying of thirst or from bands of roving preditors.

    The Left also oppose the Israelis building a wall to protect themselves from Palestinian baby-killers. And it almost seems to be working.

    If the Left are peace-mongers, as they claim, wouldn’t building protective walls be a reasonable alternative to snipers and armed paramilitary police forces enforcing curfews at the point of a gun? It almost seems reasonable to me.

    During the 60s, 70s and 80s, the Left resigned themselves to the fact that the Communists had erected a deadly barrier across Europe to keep the Soviet population enslaved. The Left continues to tolerate the barrier that slashes the Korean pennisula’s two opposing ideologies. 

    In fact, the Left trembled when Ronald Reagan demanded that Soviet Premier Gorbachov tear down his wall from the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate.  And they lamented the end of history, and the failures of their ideology when that wall finally fell.

    I guess walls are only a good idea when they’re used to preserve Leftist ideology against evil capitalists instead of a bulwark for peace.

    Omar from Iraq the Model (writing on Pajamas Media) gives his thoughts on the walls from an Iraqi point of view – not from a partisan-hack-masquerading-as-a-journalist-point-of-view.

    Maybe Robinson should have taken the time to ask Iraqis what they thought of the walls instead of just going off-cocked against the Administration, specifically, and Republicans, generally, in his usual modus operandi. 

  • Ahmadinejad; deal or no deal

    All of the wire services seem to be enthralled in the news that Iranian President Ahmadinejad has offered to have a media-circus style talk face-to-face with President Bush. From AP:

    “Last year, I announced readiness for a televised debate over global issues with his excellency Mr. Bush. And now we announce that I am ready to negotiate with him about bilateral issues as well as regional and international issues,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on the Web site of Al-Alam.

    The Iranian leader did not elaborate on what specifically he wanted to talk to Bush about, but he said the talks “should be held with media present.”

    Of course the media should be present from his point of view. While the US would have to be polite and smile, the Iranian can flail his arms about and sound tough in President Bush’s face. What a wonderful propaganda piece that would be for the tyrants of the world.

    So Ahmadinejad wants to talk peace – the why does he make veiled threats?

    Ahmadinejad also told Al-Alam that he thought the U.S. was “unlikely” to use military force against Iran because of its nuclear program.

    Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful energy production, ostensibly, yet Ahmadinejad sees it as a defensive weapon. So which is it, Amie, boy? Above his viewing stand last week at a military parade, according to the Hindustan Times, was this sign;

    “Peaceful nuclear technology is a fundamental and basic need for our country.”

    But then he threatens the rest of the world with his real or imagined nuclear power.

    Then out of the other side of his mouth, the Iranian thug refuses to comply with EU preconditions to a talk with them. According to AFP;

    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday vowed that Iran would not give up its “right” to enrich uranium, ahead of key talks between its chief nuclear negotiator and the EU foreign policy chief. 

    “The suspension of uranium enrichment is not legal and the Western demands for this are political,” Ahmadinejad told Iran’s Arabic language channel Al-Alam television, according to a simultaneous translation of the live interview.

    Of course the reasons are political. That’s what political preconditions for poltical discussions are – political. Want them to be religious?

    I wonder when the nations of the world are going to admit that Iran is no longer a rational actor. Certainly not as long as they make idiot statements like this one reported by Reuters;

    But Ahmadinejad said: “Iran will not accept it because the sanctions are not legal, so you cannot ask a country to suspend its legal activities in return for a suspension of an illegal move.”

    How can sanctions against Iran be illegal since it is the policy of every organization of governments to stop the expansion of nuclear weapon availability, but Iran is not only trying to build on their own program, but they’ve offered aid to other Gulf States in building their own nuclear programs.

    “Our doctrine is a defensive one. Iran will not attack any country in the world. I repeat we will not attack any country in the world. But if we are attacked we will respond,” said Ahmadinejad.

    That’s all well and good, except that they don’t recognize Israel as a country, do they? From Ace of Spades, we learn that Iran’s “defensive doctrine” includes commanding Hizbollah’s attacks in Lebanon and against Israel;

    “The religious doctrine which dictates Hizbullah’s actions in general and those relating to the Jihad in particular, is based on the rulings of the spiritual leader in Teheran. The spiritual leader has the power to permit our actions, and the spiritual leader can forbid them.

    “In order to know what is permitted and forbidden regarding the Jihad, we ask for and receive overall permission and only then do we carry out the operation.

    “Even with regard to the suicide bombings, no one is allowed to kill himself without religious authorization.

    “Even the rocket attacks on Israel, against the civilian population [Aug 2006] … in order to apply pressure, even this required overall religious authorization.”

    From the AP article again;

    The Iranian leader said a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was a wrong approach to solving the issue.

    “If some think that by resorting to threats they (can) change the world in favor of themselves, they are wrong,” Al-Alam quoted him as saying.

    But he’s leaving us little choice, is he? He won’t comply with conditions for a peaceful resolution. He claims sanctions are illegal, he claims his program won’t be discontinued. What other choice does the world have?

    Since every civilized nation on the planet has proven, at one time or another to be weak-kneed in the face of Iranian anti-social behavior, what other conclusion can Ahmadinejad arrive at other than the fact that we’re a bunch of sissies who won’t stand up to his backward, backwater nation of sheepherders.

    They’re not backwards? Then why are they punishing women for the way they dress, like we’re told by Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs? They want to join the nuclear club while living in the 12th century.

    But I’m sure Harry Reid can save us. And Hillary is working overtime for the rights of women in Iran.

  • Harry Reid sucks canal water

    Reading Fox News Channel today, about Reid’s speech intended for this afternoon, I get the distinct impression that Harry “Walter Mitty” Reid thinks he’s got gonads;

    If the president disagrees, let him come to us with an alternative. Instead of sending us back to square one with a veto, some tough talk and nothing more, let him come to the table in the spirit of bipartisanship that Americans demand and deserve,” Reid will say according to excerpts of the speech to be delivered to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

    Reid will also criticize Bush for a speech last week in which the president asserted that the troop surge he proposed in January — and which is only three-fifths complete — is showing hopeful signs of progress.

    “The White House transcript says the president made those remarks in the state of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial,” Reid will say.

    Ho-ho. Funny fricken guy. I think Reid is in a catatonic state. By the way, Dingy Harry, it’s not the President’s job to write legislation, just like it’s not the Senate’s job to micromanage our National Security.

    On the “up” side, the Washington Post reports that Reid is steering clear of his “woe is us – all is lost” speech from last week;

    Reid did not repeat his assertion last week that “this war is lost,” a comment that drew sharp criticism from Republicans, who branded the Senate majority leader as defeatist. But according to the excerpts, Reid mixes sharp criticism of Bush with praise for Congress’s efforts to end the conflict and appeals to antiwar voters to be patient.

    But Reid wants to be a general so bad he can almost taste it;

    In defending his order to increase U.S. troop strength in Iraq by about 30,000 as part of a plan to secure Baghdad and western Iraq, Bush “tells us it’s ‘surge or nothing,’” and that the choice is to “stay the course or fail,” Reid said. “With all due respect, our president is wrong, and the new Congress will show him the way.”

    Despite Reid’s legal advice, which must be coming from the tearful Code Pink protesters, Congress has nothing to say to about fighting wars except to fork over the cash, or don’t fork over the cash. I cringe at the thought of those defeatists writing op orders for squad leaders in Sadr City.

    But Reid already knows that;

    As for antiwar voters who expect the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to take action to end the war, the Senate majority leader says, “I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January. But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief — and this is his war.”

    So this tough talk is all about appeasing the Kos Kids and Code Pink hags. Nice constituency you got there, Harry.

    Reid also calls Bush “the odd man out” on Iraq war policy and says meetings with him are not substantive but merely “carefully scripted sessions where he repeats his talking points.”

    He’s the “odd man out” on Iraq because he’s leading the country, not following the latest rant of squeakiest wheels like you’re doing, Senator. See, this is leadership;

    “And, therefore, I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job,” [President Bush] said. “I will, of course, be willing to work with the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, on a way forward. . . . But I also made it clear that no matter how tough it may look, that for the Congress to micromanage this process is a mistake.”

    I figured you missed that class, Harry, since you stick your crooked, wrinkled finger in the air to determine which way you go for the moment. Leaders lead despite what detractors and sideline quarterbacks might say. So sit down, shut up and get out of the way. But he can’t. from the AP via the DC Examiner;

    Reid said Bush was in “a state of denial” over the war, and likened him to another commander in chief four decades ago. “I remember when President Johnson, trying to save his political legacy, initiated the first of many surges into Vietnam in 1965,” he said.

    Reid said thousands more U.S. troops died in Vietnam in the years that followed. Now, he said, Bush “is the only person who fails to face this war’s reality – and that failure is devastating not just for Iraq’s future, but for ours.”

    Except that this President isn’t trying to save a legacy – he’s trying to fight a REAL WAR that is a REAL THREAT to the US and it’s citizens. Not some sorry-ass excuse of a “war for containment” fought for the glorification of the “best and the brightest” of Camelot to prove Democrats could be tough on Communism, too.

    And what brand of pussy releases his speech hours before he gives it? Another way to stick your finger in the air to tell which the wind is blowing, I guess.