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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • General Pace on “don’t ask, don’t tell”

    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, responding to a question from a reporter from the Chicago Tribune, expressed support for the Administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy;

    “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Pace said in a wide-ranging discussion with Tribune editors and reporters in Chicago. “I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.

    “As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior,” Pace said.

    So because a soldier supports the policies of his commander-in-chief, and the commander-in-chief before him, the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network, which claims to represent 65,000 servicemembers who are in violation of that policy thinks he should apologize;

    “General Pace’s comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces,”

    Now, let me get this straight; they think he should apologize for merely having a view that doesn’t jive with their’s? Apologize for having an opinion that is the legal opinion and not the opinion that supports criminals in violation of that policy?

    Nevermind that there are more important things going on in the world that people (including the Chicago tribune, by the way) shouldn’t be getting exercised about who puts what where in the privacy of their homes, but demanding an apology for having an opinion is just ridiculous and childish. I think the Servicemembers’ Network should apologize for thinking they deserve an apology.

    And the AP, by way of the Washington Post quotes the Human Rights Campaign;

    Louis Vizcaino, spokesman for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, said Pace’s comments were “insulting and offensive to the men and women … who are serving in the military honorably.”

    “Right now there are men and women that are in the battle lines, that are in the trenches, they’re serving their country,” Vizcaino said. “Their sexual orientation has nothing to do with their capability to serve in the U.S. military.”

    That’s exactly right, Lou. So why can’t they just serve and obey the policy?

  • The easy answer is always the wrong answer

    My half-century of living has taught me one thing; the easy answer is always wrong. Whether it’s deciding what to do on a Saturday afternoon, or assaulting an armed, dug-in enemy force.  The corrollary to that would be; if it looks like the easy answer worked – duck!

    So Congressional Democrats are trying to forge an easy answer to the Iraq War and the easy answer is wrong according to the Washington Post editorial board;

    In short, the Democratic proposal to be taken up this week is an attempt to impose detailed management on a war without regard for the war itself. Will Iraq collapse into unrestrained civil conflict with “massive civilian casualties,” as the U.S. intelligence community predicts in the event of a rapid withdrawal? Will al-Qaeda establish a powerful new base for launching attacks on the United States and its allies? Will there be a regional war that sucks in Iraqi neighbors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey? The House legislation is indifferent: Whether or not any of those events happened, U.S. forces would be gone.

    The Democrats have given not a thought to the future – what the consequences of their demands will bring. Not to the Iraqis, not to American citizens and interests. Just a timeline, at the end of which there will be no American troops in Iraq – regardless of the situation in Iraq or the world. It’s the easy answer. Crafted by simple people who’ve been cloistered in their little world of rhetoric and performance theater.

    They’ve even stripped out their provisions forbidding action against Iran (thankfully);

    Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

    Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy.

    Stripped it out because they’re looking for more easy answers. Rather than working with the Administration to come up with a plan that everyone can unite behind, the Democrats think that their slim majority in Congress gives them the mandate to dictate to the Administration. The president even invited them to the White House to discuss options back in January. What did he get for his effort? Snippy little punk-ass Jim Webb and his crybaby tantrum.

    And it appears that their slim majority is getting slimmer every day as the membership discovers that they didn’t win the election so they could surrender. They mistook the very loud MoveOn.org and Kos Kids as their base and they’re beginning to realize that their real base is the American voter – not some bunch of whining-ass punks with more money than brains.

    “Dingy” Harry Reid kowtowed to the “easy answer Left” on the Fox News debate issue and it seems that Democrats will not have a snowball’s chance in Nevada now. Says the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board;

    So the Democratic Party of Nevada has decided to kill its planned debate among Presidential hopefuls on Fox News, and the left-wing bloggers who precipitated the coup are whooping like Howard Dean in triumph. We wonder if Democrats have really thought through the implications of this capitulation.

    The MoveOn.org and DailyKos crowds had no doubts about their motive for seeking to bar Democrats from debating on Fox News. The left blogosphere thinks the most popular cable-news network leans too far right, and so Democrats should not legitimate it by appearing. The bloggers got their way last Friday, when Nevadan and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled his state party out of the debate. 

    * * * * *

    This may be a good strategy for the blogosphere, where the echo-chamber is often the message. But we doubt it’s the way to win the Presidency. Whatever one thinks of Fox’s news coverage, its research shows that about half its viewers age 18-54 are either Democrats or Independents. And since Fox News has about twice the audience as CNN, refusing to appear on the channel means missing a big potential voter pool. The Congressional Black Caucus was smart enough to figure this out in 2004, when it co-sponsored two Democratic debates with Fox News. (We have our own weekend show on Fox News, and Mr. Reid is welcome to come on any time.)

    The larger issue is the message this episode sends about who is running the Democratic Party — its candidates or the bloggers with pitchforks. We still recall the famous boast from the “MoveOn PAC team” in 2004 that “Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.”

    Read the unbelievable process Reid arrived at his new opinion at Little Green Footballs. Apparently he conference calls the nutroots to find out what he thinks about stuff.

    Dick Cheney is still out there calling the Democrats’ bluff on their “we support the troops” hypocrisy;

    “Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it’s time to provide the money,” Mr. Cheney said during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
        Mr. Cheney said Congress is “undermining” U.S. troops when lawmakers “pursue an anti-war strategy that’s been called ‘slow bleed,’ ” prompting applause from the crowd of about 6,000 at the Washington Convention Center.

    And Hypocrit Harry Reid responds;

       The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, fired back that Mr. Cheney was “spouting overblown and overheated rhetoric directed toward the critics of his administration’s failed Iraq policy.”

    Of course we’ve not heard any overblown, overheated rhetoric from the critics of the administration, have we, Harry? More easy answers from the simpletons.

  • Haliburton moving to Dubai

    From the Fox News article;

    “Halliburton is opening its corporate headquarters in Dubai while maintaining a corporate office in Houston,” spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “The chairman, president and CEO will office from and be based in Dubai to run the company from the UAE.”

    Lesar, speaking at an energy conference in nearby Bahrain, said he will relocate to Dubai from Texas to oversee Halliburton’s intensified focus on business in the Mideast and energy-hungry Asia, home to some of the world’s most important oil and gas markets.

    “As the CEO, I’m responsible for the global business of Halliburton in both hemispheres and I will continue to spend quite a bit of time in an airplane as I remain attentive to our customers, shareholders and employees around the world,” Lesar said. “Yes, I will spend the majority of my time in Dubai.”

    So what’s the big deal? Who’s surprised? Haliburton is an oil services company – the US isn’t interested in drilling for our own oil over here, so why shouldn’t they move to Mid-East? If Congress would get off their dead asses and authorize the US to drill, pipe and refine our own oil again, I’m sure Haliburton will reconsider.

    As the Wall Street Journal says;

    Halliburton’s decision is another sign of shifting alignments in the global oil order. Houston remains the center of the global Western oil trade, yet Dubai has grown in recent years as a rival — a hub for trade, investment and oil-patch deals, especially for national oil firms expanding beyond their home turf.

    Why would a bookseller open a shop in a neighborhood of illiterates? 

  • Fred Thompson in ’08

    I watched Fox News Sunday yesterday and I gotta tell you Fred Thompson looks like my candidate. He’s a conservative candidate with the voting record to back it up, he’s got the presence and the professional training to communicate with the people over the cacauphony of the left and their willing accomplices in the media.

    I actually met Senator Thompson, accidently one afternoon. I was walking through the park beside the Senate offices on my way to a John McCain booksigning in a bookstore on Capitol Hill on my lunch break. I recognized Senator Thompson coming towards me (only one guy on the planet looks like that). In those days I was a bit shy about stopping personalities on the street and engaging them, so I just kept walking. Senator Thompson stopped me and shook my hand and introduced himself (as if he needed introducing). I was stunned and I can’t remember our conversation, but we talked for a couple of minutes and then he excused himself, offered his hand again and strolled off. I almost forgot where I was going. I guess that’s why I’ve always thought of Fred Thompson as a regular guy.

    Well, if Fox ever puts up the transcript of Chris Wallace’s interview with him I’ll post it here. In the interim, I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that he decides to run.

    Well, there’s no transcript yet, but here’s a summary from Fox News/AP;

    On the issues, Thompson said he:

    —Is “pro-life,” and believes federal judges should reexamine the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 which established a woman’s right to an abortion.

    —Opposes gay marriage, but would let states decide whether to allow civil unions. “Marriage is between a man and a woman, and judges shouldn’t be allowed to change that.”

    —Supports President George W. Bush’s decision to increase troops in Iraq. “Wars are full of mistakes. You rectify them. I think we are doing that now,” he said. “We’ve got to give it a chance to work.”

    —Would pardon former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice now, rather than waiting until all his appeals are exhausted.

    UPDATE: Figures the one day I don’t check Sister Toldya she’s doing the same story – only better. She has links to the video and transcript.

  • DC’s Mayor Fenty speaks out against citizen’s rights

    Everyone knows by now that, in a rare act of confidence in DC residents, the DC Circuit Court struck down the District’s draconian 1976 gun law that forbade citizen-owned handguns and only allowed owners to have rifles in their home (not shotguns, rifles) if the rifle was disassembled and separated from it’s ammunition.

    According to Washington Time’s Tarron Lively and Daniel Taylor, newly-elected Mayor Adrian Fenty (that’s him on the left in the picture above) was “outraged”;

    D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said he was “outraged” by the court’s decision, which overturns a law that “has been unquestioned for more than 30 years.”
        “Today’s decision flies in the face of laws that have helped decrease gun violence in the District of Columbia,” he said. “The ruling also turns aside longstanding precedents and marks the first time in the history of the United States that a federal appeals court has struck down a gun law on Second Amendment grounds.”

    Scott McCabe of the DC Examiner quoted the new mayor;

    “I am strongly opposed to the court’s decision,” Fenty said. “District residents deserve every protection afforded to them under District law.”

    The District has banned handgun ownership since 1976. In 2004, a lower-court judge told six D.C. residents that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns.

    I’d remind Mayor Fenty that the longevity of a law doesn’t neccessarily protect it from challenge. Otherwise slavery and Jim Crow Laws would be common practice since they were unchallenged for decades. As for helping keep DC gun violence down, according to the Metro DC police’s own count, they’ve confiscated 9046 guns since 2002. I’m guessing that they’re only scratching the surface of illegal guns in the hands of criminals in the District. There have been 30 murders in DC already this year – that’s over 3 per week.

    According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,  209 kids (between the ages of 0-19) were murdered by gun violence 1999-2004 in our nation’s capitol. Doesn’t sound like this law has been doing much good. Nor does it sound like the District can protect it’s half-million citizens with the eight thousand law enforcement officials on patrol from various local and Federal agencies in this city.

    Crime has been on the rise over the past two years in DC and it’s largely because the law-abiding population isn’t armed and the criminals are armed. Car-jackings and home invasions are becoming more prevailant – two crimes that would virtually end if criminals weren’t quite so sure that their intended victims are unarmed.

    We moved from Northeast DC last year because crime was becoming a daily event in our neighborhood – gun crime. Two people were shot on different occasions in our upscale apartment complex. Two carjackings at gunpoint and a home invasion at knifepoint finally drove us to the suburbs. Having my Ruger Mini-14 in the closet was some comfort, But not being able to brandish it in an emergency was becoming a concern. I can only imagine the nightmare of a trial I would be forced to endure if I’d actually shot an intruder.

    And just because another court has never struck down a gun law on Second Amedment grounds, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be struck down. That’s what the Bill of Rights is supposed to do, Junior. It’s supposed to protect the minority from the ill-considered over-reactive policies of the majority.

    The Washington Post does it’s level best to paint the plaintiffs in this case as right-wing gun nuts;

    Gura declined to say how he assembled the plaintiffs, who came to the case with different backgrounds and motivations.

    Some of the plaintiffs grew up with guns in and around their homes and belong to the National Rifle Association. A few are involved with libertarian organizations, including the Cato Institute, which provided legal assistance in the lawsuit.

    To us on the Right it sounds innocuous enough, but to the Leftists in DC (who voted 90% for Kerry in the 2004 election) invoking the boogey-creatures the NRA and Cato Institute (which a DC resident recently explained to me was a front organization for the KKK) is fear-mongering. This case (to which I’ve contributed money since 2003) didn’t garner much attention outside the Cato Institute’s membership and the Washington Times until this court decision. I suppose it’ll take front-and-center in the gun-grabbing Washington Post’s columns from now on, though.

    Yesterday, their editorial board called it a “Dangerous Ruling“;

    IN OVERTURNING the District of Columbia’s long-standing ban on handguns yesterday, a federal appeals court turned its back on nearly 70 years of Supreme Court precedent to give a new and dangerous meaning to the Second Amendment. If allowed to stand, this radical ruling will inevitably mean more people killed and wounded as keeping guns out of the city becomes harder. Moreover, if the legal principles used in the decision are applied nationally, every gun control law on the books would be imperiled.

    The 2 to 1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down sections of a 1976 law that bans city residents from having handguns in their homes. The court also overturned the law’s requirement that shotguns and rifles be stored disassembled or with trigger locks. The court grounded its unprecedented ruling in the finding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends beyond militias to individuals. The activities the Second Amendment protects, the judges wrote, “are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or continued intermittent enrollment in the militia.”

    Never before has a law been struck down on that basis. The Supreme Court, in its landmark 1939 decision United States v. Miller, stated that the Second Amendment was adopted “with obvious purpose” of protecting the ability of states to organize militias and “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Nearly every other federal court of appeals has concurred in that finding. The dissenting judge in yesterday’s opinion, Karen LeCraft Henderson, a Republican appointee like the other two judges on the panel, rightly lambasted the majority for its willful disregard of Supreme Court precedent.

    Yep, never before has the court ruled that a basic God-given right of an individual is to protect his property and his family. Way to misinterpret the Constitution, goofballs. I wonder if any of the members of WaPo’s editorial board or Mayor Fenty own guns, or if any of the people who protect them have guns. Don’t the rest of us deserve the same level of security?

  • Liberal Idiot Queen Maxine Waters

     

    The biggest of David Obey’s “liberal idiots”, Maxine Waters, the mouthpiece of the “Out of Iraq” Caucus was on Fox News Sunday this morning illustrating perfectly why the Left is so disengenuous about the whole Iraq War. She made a big point of announcing that Waters’ and Murtha’s slow bleed legislation is designed specifically to distance the Democrats from the Presient and shifting the whole load of responsibility onto the Administration. She even used the words “embarrass the President” when referring to the optional waivers he could use to certify combat units.

    But when confronted with Chris Wallace’s scenario that our abrupt exit from Iraq would bathe Iraq in blood with fractious fighting between Sunnis and Shi’ites, Waters said she and her tiny group of liberal idiots wouldn’t be opposed to an “over the horizon” force of American soldiers that could return and separate the warring factions. Do Democrats really mean that? They certainly didn’t mean it when they promised to protect the South Vietnamese from the Communists after US withdrawal. What have they done to keep their word to Somalians and Haitians?

    No, once we’re out, they won’t allow us to go back. It’s just empty blather from Congress’ Queen of Empty Blather. How do I know? Check out this Washington Post recitation from a meeting between Nancy Pelosi and Jerry “The Waddler” Nadler last week;

    A Pelosi aide disappeared from the meeting for a few minutes and returned with a few lines of legislative text offering what Nadler wanted to hear: Once troops are out of Iraq, no money would be available to put them back in, outside the narrow exceptions of targeted counterterrorism operations, embassy protection and efforts to train Iraqis.

    “You know,” Nadler said after a pause, “I think that’s okay.”

    Waters went on to say that the November election was about Americans wanting Democrats to extricate us from Iraq, she lied that every poll since reflects that sentiment. She’s in for a rude awakening next year. Especially if Democrats get their way and abandon the troops and their mission in Iraq.

  • ETA operating in Bolivia

    Geez, I nearly skipped over this one today from the Washington Time’s Martin Arostegui;

    Members of the Basque terrorist group ETA have been conducting financial and propaganda activities in Bolivia with the knowledge of President Evo Morales, according to Spanish intelligence reports cited by the Madrid newspaper El Pais and the local press.
        Officials in Bolivia have confirmed that six members of the Basque separatist organization traveled to Bolivia and met with high-level officials of the Morales government during the past year.
        According to these officials, Mr. Morales and his vice president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, have had relations with ETA members since 2005, predating Mr. Morales’ 2006 inauguration.
        “Members of ETA have been purchasing homes and creating a new refuge for the organization in Cochabamba, where they move like fish in water,” according to El Pais.
        Cochabamba, which is Bolivia’s narcotrafficking center and contains the country’s main legal coca plantations, is a stronghold of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).
        Mr. Morales denied in a Feb. 22 press conference any links with the Basque separatist group, which has been responsible for a number of fatal bombings in Spain. “I personally don’t know anybody in ETA,” he told Bolivian reporters.

    Morales is Hugo Chavez’ man, bought and paid for with Venezuelan petro-dollars. And it seems they’re in the terrorist business now bringing in Basque evil-doers from Spain for a little rest, relaxation and giving them room to train. I guess Zapatero’s capitulation to the Islamists hasn’t insulated him from his own domestic terrorists – as recently as December 30th Basques have detonated a bomb in Madrid in spite of peace talks.

    I’ll bet cash money that the ETA will also operate anti-democracy terrorist training camps in Bolivia to destabilize Latin America at the behest of Chavez and his puppets. Just as the IRA operated training camps in Columbia (in the late 90s) and the Palestinians operated camps in Libya (in the 80s). That’s why, from the beginning of this war against terrorists, I’ve been in favor of wiping out all terrorists from ETA to Shining Path to the Moros. Screw focusing on al Qaida – kill ’em all.

    Captain’s Quarters has a report on our own hunt for bin Laden in Pakistan.

  • Seinfeld politics

    In one episode of the 90s hit comedy series Seinfeld, George Costanza defends his liking for for one of Jerry’s stand-up comic competitors, Kenny Bania, with the line “I like stuff you don’t have to think about”. Dana Milbank, columnist for the Washington Post endorses Hillary Clinton as George Costanza’s candidate;

    Are you in it to win? Would you regard civil rights as the gift that keeps on giving? Do you believe in the American Dream, stupid?

    If you answered yes to any of the above, you might consider supporting Hillary Clinton, the person to send to the White House when you care enough to send the very best. More than any other candidate, Clinton has brought the sensibility of Hallmark greeting cards to the 2008 presidential race.

    Yesterday, the Democratic front-runner took a number of provocative stands as she spoke about soldiers and veterans at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank:

    “If you serve your country, your country should serve you.”

    “I’m here to say that the buck does stop with this president.”

    “Let us work . . . to take care of those who are taking care of us.”

    The controversy didn’t end there. She also offered her view that American soldiers are simultaneously “giving their all,” “holding their breath” and “stretched to the breaking point.” Candidate Cliche continued: “Who’s on their side? Who’s standing up for them? . . . We owe these young men and women the very best.”

    We do not owe them the very best rhetoric, however. Abraham Lincoln gave the last full measure of devotion to support-the-troops language 142 years ago, when he called on the nation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.” Yesterday, Clinton had this to say of the troops: “They don’t have the luxury of passing the buck to somebody else. They step forward and they step up.”

    While I let Milbanks deal with Clinton’s sloganeering for the mindless, slobbering morons who salivate at the thought of another shallow, empty pantsuit-wearing Clinton occupying the White House, I’d prefer to deal with her “support” for the troops.

    I guess that we should nevermind the walk of the Clintons, as opposed to the talk of the Clintons. Like when the Joint Operations Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana was converted from the premier warfighting simulation training to the “Meals-on-Wheels” training area for the various and sundry “nation-building” exercises that the Clinton Administration inflicted on our soldiers.

    From Haiti to Kosova to East Timor, the rapid deployment forces that had been honed to a fine edge pre-Clinton, were relegated to handing out bags of rice and beans. The specially trained and motivated 10th Mountain Division could count on the deployment of half of their 10,000 troops at any given time either in “nationbuilding” exercises or in preparation for the deployment at the JOTC.

    Troops and their families were stretched to their limits in the 90s, and for what? For a Clinton legacy. This was despite the fact that they all knew that their commander “disdained” them and their profession. They all knew that military liasons to their commander weren’t allowed to wear their uniforms, the distinctive symbol of their dedication and commitment to this nation, in his sight.

    They all knew that Hillary Clinton had made up some story about attempting to join the Marines in the 60s and being turned down because she was (is?) a girl – an obvious attempt at demeaning recruiters, in particular, and military men, in general.

    But, hey, as long as she can speak in empty platitudes about stuff we don’t have to think about too hard, she’s our candidate.