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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Gathering of Eagles

    I gotta tell ya, I haven’t felt so much at home before in DC as I feel today. I’m going to leave the crowd counting to the experts – but not the Washington Post who wrote this crap this morning;

    Thousands of protesters, marking the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq, began gathering this morning for a march to the Pentagon, but many of them were met by a peaceful rally of veterans groups and war supporters near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

    It was a classic example of grass-roots politics in Washington and of the strong emotions that the Vietnam War still exerts more than 30 years after fighting there ended.

    Get that? THOUSANDS of protesters were met by a “rally” of veterans. Sounds like the veterans were outnumbered, doesn’t it?

    The only “grassroots” were on the side of the veterans who had come at their own expense and with very little organization. I met four veterans who had driven up in a car from the Florida Gulf Coast and got into town the night before – that’s grassroots!

    Anyway I got there at about 8:30 this morning (after my regular Saturday morning breakfast of SOS at the Walter Reed messhall) and here’s the video I took of the THOUSANDS of protesters. As opposed to this video I took of the Gathering of Eagles a few minutes before. Quite a difference from what the Post reported, huh?

    Here’s what the protesters saw across the street that separated the two sides;

    There were this many veterans;

    And this many protesters;

    Pretty intimidating huh?

    As the morning went on the crowds on both sides grew and the Park Police began putting up barracades to keep the sides separated;

    Let me just pause here to tell ya’all that the Park Police were real pros. The Wall was well protected – they’d set up metal detectors and hand searched everyone who went to the Wall. This in effect kept the protesters away because they didn’t want to wait in a long line to get to the Wall. The Park Police stayed out of the way, but kept a close eye on the event. Real pros.

    Now, back to the event.

    Apparently age doesn’t always bring wisdom, in the case of these folks;

    And despite the fact that ANSWER and the coalition of weasels have tried to deny that the Truthers are a part of their movement, the Truthers were there;

    And I don’t even want to think about what makes some “Queers” more radical than others;

    The only TV interview I saw being taped was with a supposed “Iraq veteran” who opposed the war. He looked a little old and pudgy to be a recent veteran, though, so I have my doubts. We all remember the Stolen Valor vets of the Vietnam Era, and the media that was more interested in their anti-war comments than their acceditation.

    A few times, the veterans would chant “USA” so loud it could probably be heard at the White House. The protesters tried to shout them down (in those testosterone deficient high pitched squeals that make them the moonbats that they are), but when that failed, they just turned up the music on their speakers – a weak answer to the real passion they faced over the police barriers.

    I’ve been to veterans rallies before. The “Kerry Lied” rally in September 2004 outside the Capitol comes to mind. But this one was so different. There was so much more backslapping, hugging, handshakes, “Welcome home” wishing than I’d ever seen.

    In my opinion, this Gathering of Eagles rally has done more for the healing of the wounds these veterans have been burdened with for forty years than any wall or memorial could ever. It was if they’d finally been given the opportunity to face their oppressors. There were no sorrowful stares, no sympathetic words. It was all smiles and laughter.

    All of those years of anger that had been bottled up was directed against their common enemy – moral and intellectual laziness. The world had to listen to them, the citizens who had sacrificed and paid the price and came home to the disapproval of the citizens who had never spent an uncomfortable moment in their lives.

    One veteran told me, “We’re here because those guys who are fighting in Iraq deserve better than what we got when we came home. No one stood up for us, but by God, we’re standing up for them. And if we don’t, who will?”

    Welcome home, brothers.

    UPDATE: Welcome LGFers and Sweetness and Light folks

    Michele Malkin has photos up on her “blog burst” now. Curt at Flopping Aces has a round up of several blogs.

  • Another shot in the dark

    I’ve been following this story about the Justice Department lawyers for a couple of days, but I’m still confused about what the big deal is. I even emailed the Washington Post reporters on Tuesday, Dan Eggan and Paul Kane, and mentioned the Clinton purge. Dan Egan emailed me back and tried to explain that they had mentioned the Clinton purge in their article, but that they were more focused on the Karl Rove connection and the political undetones of the firings.

    Like there were no political motives in the Clinton purges. Sweetness and Light reprints the New York Times article about the Reno firings.

    Well in their own article, on Page 2 this morning, Eggan and Kane admit that Rove was opposed to the firings;

    The three e-mails also show that presidential adviser Karl Rove asked the White House counsel’s office in early January 2005 whether it planned to proceed with a proposal to fire all 93 federal prosecutors. Officials said yesterday that Rove was opposed to that idea but wanted to know whether Justice planned to carry it out.

    Of course they (Kane and Eggan) don’t believe that.

    The first e-mail, dated Jan. 6, 2005, is from a White House counsel’s office assistant. It indicates that Rove had stopped by that office to ask lawyer David Leitch whether a decision had been made to keep the U.S. attorneys in their jobs. The e-mail does not suggest that Rove advocated one outcome over another.

    So if there’s no evidence he was opposed or not, then we must assume the worst (or best, depending on your perspective and who butters your bread).

    And ABC News buries the fact that these firings are really no big deal in the middle of their story making a big deal of the firings;

    Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Gonazales “has no recollection of any plan or discussion to replace U.S. attorneys while he was still White House counsel.” She said he was preparing for his attorney general confirmation hearing and was focused on that.

    “Of course, discussions of changes in presidential appointees would have been appropriate and normal White House exchanges in the days and months after the election as the White House was considering different personnel changes administration-wide,” Scolinos said.

    Curt at Flopping Aces lays the whole thing out better than I.

    Jon Ward at the Washington Times tells us that Howard Dean and Chuckie Schumer are taking advantage over the confusion the public has with this;

    Democrats smell blood — and campaign cash — in the uproar over the Justice Department’s firing of eight federal prosecutors last year.
        “This could be George Bush’s Watergate,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean wrote in an e-mail soliciting campaign funds yesterday.
        Senate Democrats said their investigation into the firings is intended to preserve independence for federal prosecutors and keep them from being used as political foot soldiers for the executive branch.

    If this is President Bush’s “Watergate”, is that all they’ve got? They get exercised over a non-covert CIA agent being “outed” (while her husband has been outing her all over town), some dusty buildings on an Army base and now this? If only they’d get this exercised about their own shortcomings. Like FBI files lost for years that suddenly turn up with the fingerprints of an unelected, uncommissioned person, or the travel office employees getting fired to pay off political allies.

    Arlen Specter discovers he’s still a Republican and speaks out against Schumer’s conflict of interest in the Senate’s investigation;

    Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, was using information gained in congressional inquiries he directed to attack Republicans through the Senate Democrats’ fundraising arm, which Mr. Schumer chairs.
        “I believe there is a conflict of interest between Senator Schumer’s position as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the leader of this inquiry,” said Mr. Specter, the Judiciary Committee’s top Republican.
        Mr. Schumer rejected Mr. Specter’s criticism during a low-key but tense exchange in a Senate Judiciary Committee session.
        “I fail to see any conflict whatsoever,” said Mr. Schumer…

    Yeah, well, we’re used to Little Chuckie Schumer not seeing a conflict of interest on his side of the aisle.

    If ever there was “much ado about nothing”, this is it.

  • 36 hours until the Gathering of Eagles

    If you can get here, be there. Here’s the link for their website and all of the “paragraph 4” info you’ll need. I’ll be there about 0830 coming in on the Red Line to Farragut North station. I lifted the map from their website;

    UPDATE: The weather here has turned nasty and there may be snow on the ground by tomorrow, but the hippies are still crowding into town. I’ve seen large groups of them wandering the streets with their handlers for two or three days now.

    Two I talked to this morning were attending a conference on how to effectively protest. They were looking for a barber – sheesh, who’d have guessed a hippie would need a haircut to protest. the weather may make many stay in their cozy hotel rooms (paid for by their parents) or in the countless coffee shops on Pennsylvania Ave.

    And the Washington Post takes a nostalgic look back 40 years. Of course they mention the veterans that will be with the smelly hippies, but not a word about the Gathering of Eagles.

  • Republicans find their voice in the Senate

    I see from MyWay (AP in drag) that the Senate Republicans have figured out which side of their bread is buttered;

    In the Senate, after weeks of skirmishing, Republicans easily turned back Democratic legislation requiring a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days. The measure set no fixed deadline for completion of the redeployment, but set a goal of March 31, 2008. The vote was 50-48 against the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed for passage.

    I guess the Congressional Democrats are valuing rhetoric over substance;

    Anti-war Democrats prevailed on a near-party line vote of 36-28 in the House Appropriations Committee, brushing aside a week-old veto threat and overcoming unyielding opposition from Republicans.

    “I want this war to end. I don’t want to go to any more funerals,” said New York Rep. Rep. Jose Serrano.

    I called Representative Serrano’s office and I asked the young lady how many funerals of his constituents who died in Iraq he’s been to - she couldn’t tell me. When asked if he’d been to even one, her answer was “One is too many, isn’t it?” So you tell me how many he’s attended. Sounds to me like he may or may not have attended one funeral. That wasn’t even worth the bandwidth it took to post.

  • Congressional voting for DC

    Congress is debating Congressional voting for the DC delegate this week. From Washington Time’s Gary Emerling;

    Legal analysts yesterday debated before a House committee the constitutionality of a bill that would give the District congressional voting rights, wrangling over the right of Congress to enact the change and sparking concern among lawmakers that the measure might violate the Constitution.
        “Is it possible … that we are about to step into a huge constitutional problem?” Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked the panel. “Can we all have good will and not be able to do anything on this [because] the Constitution has us tied in knots?”

    Yeah, Conyers – that pesky Constitution thing is always getting in your way, ain’t it?

    Honestly? I don’t think the District’s residents deserve a vote in Congress. Pretty harsh, huh? Well, look at their record of choosing politicians. There’s Marion Barry who after serving a sentence for crack possesion and whore-mongering while mayor of DC returned to run again and win. And now he’s a council member and a tax evader who hasn’t paid his taxes on time since 1998.

    When the District thought that a Democrat Congress and a Democrat president would give them representation in Congress, they elected straw-candidates in anticipation of their new status – they elected Jesse Jackson, resident of Chicago, IL, as a Senator.

    When Mayor Anthony Williams’ campaign was fraudulently submitting petitions for his nomination for reelection in 2004 (with thousands of forged signatures including Donald Rumsfeld and Oprah), his own Democrat Party removed him from the ballot. He ran as an independent and won. As his corrupt political appointees were fired, investigated and jailed, he was still beloved by the voters.

    I was a resident of DC for more than seven years and never once did I feel left out because my neighbors didn’t have a voice in Congress. In fact, I was glad they didn’t. I was willing to sacrifice my voice, because my neighbors were morons.

    DC went 90% for Kerry in 2004, in the straw primary they held that year, Howard Dean won with Al Sharpton second – the straw primary was held before the Dean Scream. Now, after the Dean Scream, in the real primary, DC went to Kerry. So, they allowed themselves to be swayed by the media and the talking heads. And these are the people we want to have an uninformed voice in Congress? Nope, not me.

    They (dumbass DC voters) vote time-and-again to keep the status quo – poverty, filth, corruption – with no thought of changing things for the better – for very stupid, shallow and racist reasons. Then after they’ve voted and nothing changes, they (dumbass DC voters) blame the Federal government for not giving them enough money.

    I’ve lived in enough third-world countries to recognize a third world country when I see it – and DC is a third world country. Massive power outages, government officials on the take, exploding manholes, mentally deranged people roaming the streets, rampant and generally-tolerated crime on every corner.

    I’d be more inclined to give the vote to El Salvador than the District of Columbia.

    Update; Well it passed out committee according to the Washington Post;

    The House Judiciary Committee today passed a bill giving the District a vote in the House of Representatives and the measure is expected to go to the House floor late next week.

    The committee approved the bill by a vote of 21-13 with no amendments, a victory for D.C. voting rights advocates. The Democratic leadership is hopeful that the bill will pass the full House. It would then go to the Senate.

    Well, it might make through the House, but the Senate will be a different story – I hope.

  • Senate ready for Iraq debate – again

    Apparently the GOP will allow the Senate to debate the Iraq War today. From the Washington Times’ S.A. Miller and Christina Bellantoni;

    Senate Republicans yesterday pledged not to block the beginning of debate on a Democratic resolution that calls for all U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 2008.
        “I think we’re going to proceed because we don’t mind having the debate,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, adding that Republicans still have misgivings about the bill.
        “It moves us down the roads towards further micromanaging the troops and having a date specific for an exit,” said the Kentucky Republican. “It’s not at all clear at this point how this week’s debate on Iraq is going to play out.”

    Yeah, I say give the Democrats enough rope to hang themselves. They want to take half-measures while avoiding committing themselves to what they know is complete failure. Let ’em go.

    But Dingy Harry Reid is going to sabotage the debate by putting an early withdrawal clause in his proposal. From the DC Examiner’s Anne Flaherty;

    “Agreeing to a debate is not enough,” said Reid, D-Nev. “Republicans must heed the voices of their constituents and the overwhelming majority of Americans and vote to change the president’s flawed Iraq policy.”

    Reid is pushing a resolution that would set a target date of March 31, 2008, for the withdrawal of combat troops. The measure says U.S. forces could stay beyond that date only to protect U.S. personnel, train and equip Iraqi forces and carry out counterterrorism operations.

    I guess Harry doesn’t realize that Republicans have a constituency quite different from his, apparently. While some of the morons that keep sending Harry The Sock Puppet to the Senate may be telling him they want out of Iraq, but the folks who sent Republicans back to the Senate aren’t. If Harry’d back off from the Kool Aid for a moment, he might realize that the majority of Americans don’t want to lose in Iraq.

    After yesterday’s scathing editorial condemning the Congressional Democrat’s proposal that doesn’t take into account what will happen to the Iraqis, the Washington Post criticizes the Republicans for taking into account what will happen to the Iraqis;

    The lack of debate inside the Republican Party reflects not just loyalty to the president but also a belief that Bush’s policies still offer a chance for success in Iraq, GOP officials said. But that has done little to calm growing fears that Republicans will be punished politically unless there is a dramatic improvement in the course of the war and Americans’ perceptions about it.

    “I don’t think there is a lot of Republican anxiety that we’re doing the wrong thing and it’s hurting us,” said Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman from Minnesota. “There’s a lot of feeling that we’re doing the right thing and it’s killing us.”

    That’s right. It’s like I wrote yesterday, the right answer is always hard. The easy way out never works for long. But, I guess you can’t tell the baby-boomer Leftists stuff like that.

  • Republicans dissatisified with candidates (d’oh)

    UPI is running a short piece about how nearly 60% of Republicans aren’t happy with their candidates;

     A new poll suggests U.S. Republican voters consider their party divided and are unhappy with the current candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination.

    The poll of 1,362 adults — including 698 Republicans — found that just short of 6 in 10 Republicans polled are not satisfied with the current presidential contenders from their party, The New York Times reported Tuesday. By contrast, about 6 in 10 Democrats expressed satisfaction with their party’s contenders.

    Imagine that. 18 months before the election – whatever will we do? Guess we ought to throw in the towel now. In the meantime, 60% of Democrats are happy with their field of weirdos – reminiscent of the bar scene in Star Wars. Shocker, huh?

  • Barry escapes jail time once more

    From the Washington Post; Marion Barry, the District of Columbia’s perennial repeat offender, escaped jail time again;

    Barry, 71, was sentenced by Robinson in March 2006 to three years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges. He could have been jailed for up to 18 months after admitting that he failed to file returns covering six years, 1999 to 2004. In giving him probation last year, Robinson ordered that he obey the law and file any outstanding tax returns.

    Prosecutors first alerted Robinson in February that Barry had failed to file his 2005 tax returns on time. Barry (D-8th Ward) did not dispute the basic allegations the prosecutors made. It was only after they went to court that he filed the federal and local returns.

    That’s just his most recent dust-up. He’s been arrested in Federal parks in the area numerous times after closing hours, at times with a “powdery substance” in his possession. After the initial reports in the local media, the story just dies without the public being informed of the outcome. Until now.

    The prosecutors have him cold on tax evasion, but apparently he has a judge on his side. This one is Deborah A. Robinson, a local magistrate since 1988. Wonder what Barry has on her. How long do you figure it’d take for Magistrate Robinson to lock you or me for seven years of tax delinquency?

    It’s bad enough that residents of DC’s Southeast see some value in having Barry represent them on the city council, but when the judiciary protects repeat and constant offenders – something is really rotten in the nation’s capitol. Besides Marion Barry