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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Surprise; Democrats target tax cuts

    Despite the fact that tax cuts have played a huge part in strengthening our post-9/11 economy (just try to imagine the growth of the economy over the last six years if we hadn’t had to fight terrorists), Democrats are coming for our earnings.

    Steven Dinan in the Washington Times tells us;

    Democrats said President Bush’s new budget is a “missed opportunity” to find common ground, but they are left with few good alternatives other than tax increases if they hope to boost spending and match the president’s goal of balancing the budget by 2012.

    Some economists (like Larry Kudlow) think that the budget will be balanced by 2009 if the economy continues at it’s current rate because of increased revenues. Even the Congressional Budget Office projects a decrease in budget shortfall;

    Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office yesterday said if Congress passes the new war-spending bill for 2007, but does not otherwise increase spending before October, the deficit will drop to about $200 billion this fiscal year. That’s down from the actual 2006 deficit of $248 billion, and lower than the administration’s $244 billion projection for this year.

    Of course, the Washington Post sees children starving and the elderly living on the street;

    The $2.9 trillion budget blueprint contains little to appeal to, but much to infuriate, the Democratic majority, Democrats said. In a series of hearings, they rattled off a list of their objections: More than $100 billion to be sliced from projected Medicare and Medicaid spending. Further restrictions on the federal food-stamp program. Insufficient cash to maintain health coverage for millions of children. And deep cuts proposed for a range of programs that help communities put police on the street and fund community projects.

    And Charlie Rangel, always the poster child for bipartisanship;

    “They’re playing politics at a time that I’m trying to be bipartisan,” Rangel said later. “I don’t think that I can tell the president what to put on the table and not to put on the table. But I can tell him: Don’t pick a . . . fight.”

    And from the WashTimes story;

    “It sounds to me like this is pre-campaign talk,” Mr. Rangel said of Mr. Bush’s call to make the tax cuts permanent. “I just want someone at the White House to know that Democrats won and we want to work with Republicans.”

    We’ll do so much better with this year’s budget because there are no earmarks;

    Stepping out from behind the lectern and hefting a foot-thick stack of congressional reports, which Congress uses to attach add-ons to spending bills, Mr. Bush challenged lawmakers to drop most pork-barrel spending projects called earmarks. 

    And Joe Lieberman thinks that we should all do our part in the War Against Terror by paying higher taxes;

     “People keep saying that we’re not asking sacrifice of anybody but our military in this war, and some civilians who are working on it,” said Mr. Lieberman, a former Democrat who supports the war in Iraq. “When you put together the [Department of Defense] budgets with Homeland Security budgets, we need to ask people to help us in a way that they know when they pay more it will go for their security.” 

    That’s just specious. If the CBO says we’re coming in $200 billion under budget, why are Democrats scrambling to raise taxes? Because they want more porkbarrel spending to solidify their hold on their ample, straining seats. Just once I’d like to see a Democrat find a way to balance the budget without taking money out of my dusty pockets. Just once. Why do they think that “fiscal responsibility” means curtailing my personal spending and increasing theirs?

    And we already know how Pelosi stands on budget restraint since she’s still pushing for her own private government-sponsored jet.
     

  • Politics of surging

    Over at Sweetness and Light Steve Gilbert shows us how the media has twisted the results of the vote over the spineless, half-assed resolution in the Senate yesterday. The Democrats were trying to craft a purely anti-Bush message without appearing to be spitting on the troops. Republicans finally summoned the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective. But I’d much rather hear it from Charles Hurt and the Washington Times;

    Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a resolution that would have condemned President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.
        On a 49-47 vote that largely followed partisan lines, Democrats fell 11 “ayes” short of the 60 needed to bring about a vote on the resolution, which is nonbinding but is widely viewed as a declaration of no confidence in the continued mission of the Iraq war and Mr. Bush’s handling of it.
        Among those who voted against last night’s motion was Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, who wrote the resolution but joined other Republicans in opposition to holding a vote because the new Democratic majority is not allowing votes on other war resolutions.
        Only two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Norm Coleman of Minnesota — backed voting on the resolution, and there was opposition from only two members of the Democratic caucus — independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and, in a parliamentary maneuver that gives him the right to bring the resolution back up for debate, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

    To Jonathan Weisman’s and Shailagh Murray’s credit (Washington Post), they at least got the headline right; GOP Stalls Debate on Troop Increase. And they got the debate right, too, even though Dingy Harry Reid got it wrong;

    “What you just saw was Republicans giving the president the green light to escalate in Iraq,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said after the vote. Reid contended that Republicans “are trying to avoid a debate on this matter.”

    Republicans said they have no desire to avoid a debate, asserting that they simply want a fair hearing on their proposals.

    “We are ready and anxious to have this debate this week,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). 

    And while the Congress indulges in mental masturbation, the Iraqi government is asking us to hurry up;

    Iraq’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, also called on the United States to speed up its the deployment of extra troops, telling the British Broadcasting Corp. that he wanted the plan in place “as soon as possible, because people cannot tolerate in fact this sort of chaos and the killing around the clock.”

    While Crotchety Old Bastard hears from his sources that the surge is already on.

  • They’re coming for our wallets

    I listened to Hillary on Fox News and Larry Kudlow proclaiming that she wants to take $36 billion in profits from the oil companies;

    The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence.

    The only links I can find to this quote are at right blogs, not a whisper anywhere in the news. The quote above came from NewsBusters. There’s a blog about Hillary’s Energy Agenda at Pajama Media by “Anonymous”.

    But doesn’t that seem odd that the main media isn’t reporting this any degree? Usually they’re is reporting every fricken syllable the woman speaks regardless from which orifice that syllable is expelled.

    Then we have Edwards on Meet the Press promising to raise our taxes to pay for his healthcare scheme.

    The bottom line is we’re asking everybody to share in the responsibility of making health care work in this country. Employers, those who are in the medical insurance business, employees, the American people — everyone will have to contribute in order to make this work.

    Nevermind that most Americans are paying for their own health insurance already. Do the rest of us get rebates because we’re responsible enough to plan for our own healthcare while the minority Edwards is trying to cover won’t?

    $120 billion/year cost to working Americans. God help us if Healthcare Hillary and this froo-froo form a party ticket next year. And since Edwards is always a bridesmaid and never a bride, that makes sense.

    So just take a wild guess what gas would cost us if Hillary seized oil company profits (actually she sounds a bit like Hugo Chavez, doesn’t she?) and then tack on Edward’s healthcare tax. I really don’t think working Americans will be able to afford to live in this country any longer after that election.

    This all so reminiscent of the 1984 when every talking head praised Walter Mondale for his “courage” to admit he was going to raise taxes in 1984 Convention acceptance speech (by falsely claiming that Reagan would raise taxes, too, Mondale was proving his honesty by telling the voters he would raise taxes up-front. To head off any stupid comments by my Leftist readers, Reagan didn’t raise taxes - he closed loopholes in then-current tax legislation.)

    I sure hope Dick Morris is wrong about the outcome of the next election. But I have a feeling he’s not.

  • WaPo blames US for “refugee crisis” in ME

    A front page story in the Washington Post by Sudarsan Raghaven reports, in a piece titled “War in Iraq Propelling a Massive Migration”, that the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East in 60 years is happening because of the war in Iraq. The insinuation is that same lie instigated by Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 myth of a peaceful Iraq before the evil neo-cons invaded.

    The beginning of the story focuses on a former Iraqi recording star, Saad Ali, who hides, penniless, in a tiny apartment from the Jordanian police because he left Iraq during the war.

    In the second paragraph, is the real reason he left;

    Six months ago, near his home in Baghdad, two men threatened to kill him. Singing romantic songs, they said, was un-Islamic.

    And then two paragraphs later;

    “They will behead me. What else can I do? I have no choice.”

    Now, I’m no mind reader, but I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about American soldiers.

    The whole piece comes off like somehow the United States is responsible for this exodus of refugees from Iraq because we unseated Hussein – instead of the real culprit. Islamsofacism.

    The rich began trickling out of Iraq as conditions deteriorated under U.N. sanctions in the 1990s, their flight growing in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Now, as the violence worsens, increasing numbers of poor Iraqis are on the move, aid officials say.

    How about the millions who fled Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War? Or the millions who fled Iraq after Hussein’s bloody purges  to maintain his hold on power?

    Buried on the fourth [internet] page of this story is the real problem;

    “Who expected it would turn out like this — Sunni against Shia?” [refugee Widad Shakur] continued. “We were like brothers. Why is this happening?”

    And on the fifth page;

    “Is the government targeting us for being Shiites? No. But from individual policemen, we feel this,” said Ateih, 36. “They say, ‘You betrayed Saddam.’ “

    So it really isn’t the war that’s “propelling” them out of Iraq, it’s their own people and their own petty biases. The war just provides a convenient excuse for the Washington Post to take potshots at the US. And the whacko Left takes it’s cues.

  • Criminally disingenuous

    I’m watching Fox news Sunday’s Chris Wallace interviewing turncoat professional backbiter Jim Webb. When confronted with his 1985 quote “The lesson I took away from Vietnam was that you can’t debate a war while you’re fighting it”, Webb sputtered that what he’s doing today does not contrast with his current behavior; “When do we debate this? 20 years from now?” That’s a disingenuous question. Period.

    Webb knows, and anyone being rational knows, that the Left’s current behavior is encouraging our enemies in the Middle East. Is it any wonder that two massive explosions rocked Baghdad just a week after “tens of thousands” marched in Washington last weekend?

    Webb then went on to deny that he was comparing Viet Nam to the war in Iraq by comparing his experiences in Viet Nam to Iraq. In advocating a diplomatic solution to Iraq’s war, he claimed that China’s involvement in the Vietnam didn’t exclude them from being a solution to the end of our participation in Viet Nam.

    Anyone who has spent more than a minute studing the Vietnam War knows that China and Vietnam were enemies. Vietnam was a client of the Soviet Union who was also an historical enemy of the Chinese. Nixon exploited the mistrust between the Soviet Union and China to limit Soviet support of the North Vietnamese.Need proof?? Who was it that, by military force, ended Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in the early 1980s? Who was it that checked Vietnam’s expansionist policies in the Far East? It was China, in case you hadn’t guessed it by now. A better comparison would be our outreach to Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, than to Iran and Syria.

    Webb went on to claim that Syria and Iran weren’t really allies. Which explains why Hezbollah, a client organization of Syria, was firing Iranian-made missiles into Israel last summer.

    If this is an example of the tone of the debate we’re going to see over the next year-and-a-half, conservaives can rest assured that we’ll win the White House in 2008. Webb is being intentionally disingenuous because of the inconvenience of his own words.

    Personally, I hope we see more of this;

    But this illustrates what the President meant yesterday when he said this war is sapping our national soul; the extent to to which the Left has to lie to justify it’s anti-war position is costing us dearly.

    The Left, and Webb is the posterchild of the extremist Left, has reached the point where they are really no longer useful in a thoughtful and genuine discussion of the issues we face in this new millenium. Their politics are rooted in failed policy and a distorted version of history. Their hearts are blackened with their culture of personality over service to the People.

  • Casey breaks with Administration

    This morning, Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times reports;

    The outgoing U.S. commander in Baghdad yesterday broke with his superiors, including President Bush, by telling a Senate committee he does not agree with their dire assessments that the Iraq war is failing.
        “I do not agree that we have a failed policy,” Army Gen. George Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee in confirmation hearings for him to be the next Army chief of staff.

    It’s the same thing I’ve been saying all along – just because the Democrats took the majority in Congress by a razor-thin margin, that doesn’t mean that we all need to admit that the war in Iraq is failing. That’s the general feeling I get from the Bush Administration lately, and journalists and Democrats are jumping on it.

    For some reason, it’s now a foregone conclusion in any discussion that the war is going badly. Yeah, the American people are dissatisfied with the results and it may have something to do with the elections last November but that’s only because they are misinformed by the radicalized media who wouldn’t report good news in Iraq with a gun at their head.

    I have the privilege of eating breakfast every Saturday morning with our wounded heros at Walter Reed – you know the guys and gals who’ve lost limbs and friends to the enemy. A more up-beat group has never existed. See, I get my optimism about the war from the folks who are fighting it and making the big sacrifices, not from some “scientific poll” with misworded questions.

    I’d say that General Casey gets his optimism from the same people I get mine from.

  • Disgusting Senators

    The wrangling over the means-nothing nonbinding resolution in the Senate to condemn the President for giving the troops what they need to fight and win has reached the level of “disgusting” according to Jim DeMint;

    “This resolution is a resolution of defeat and disgrace,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican who, as a member of the House, voted in 2002 for the war.

    John Cornyn, Texas Republican explained it best yesterday;

    “We can’t claim to support the troops and not support their mission,” he said in a floor speech yesterday. “If we don’t support the mission, we shouldn’t be passing nonbinding resolutions. We should be doing everything in our power to stop it.”
        Instead, Mr. Cornyn said, “we should send them the message that, yes, we believe you can succeed and it’s important to our national security that you do.” He has been drawing up a resolution to do that.

    But then we get faux-war hero Tom Harkin with his overpriced 2 cents;

    “That’s just nonsense,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who voted for the war in 2002. “What undermines the troops is keeping them fighting in a civil war, to keep them fighting for a mistake.”

    What undermines the troops is criticising their mission and allowing Iraq to fall into the same hole as Somalia, Haiti and Viet Nam. Where did Harkin stand on Haiti? That was a mess.

    If we can’t find some more Senators like Cornyn with a fricken backbone, who’ll admit that there’s more at stake here than keeping political campaign promises to a bunch of pussies who don’t recognize that this more than just a civil war. 

    Iraq IS the War on Terror. Period. Iran was the enemy in 2001 and they’re STILL the enemy. And anyone who can’t see that Iran is using Iraq as a sort of proxy war is blind, deaf and intentionally ignorant. And disgusting.

    According to the Washington Post, Democrats and RINOs united behind Virginia’s Warner last night;

    Democratic and Republican opponents of President Bush’s troop-buildup plan joined forces last night behind the nonbinding resolution with the broadest bipartisan backing: a Republican measure from Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced the shift, hoping to unite a large majority of the Senate and thwart efforts by the White House and GOP leaders to derail any congressional resolution of disapproval of Bush’s decision to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500.

    Although the original Democratic language was popular within the party, it had little appeal among Republicans. Warner’s proposal drew support from both sides, and it was retooled last night to maximize both Democratic and Republican votes.

    The revised resolution would express the Senate’s opposition to the troop increase but would vow to protect funding for the troops. The resolution does not include the Democratic language saying the Bush plan is against the national interest, but it also drops an earlier provision by Warner suggesting Senate support for some additional troops.

    Still disgusting. We all know what it means regardless of what the resolution says. Republicans, if they had gonad between them, should have stood back and let the Democrats write and pass any resolution they want – and live with the political fallout.

    I can’t get over the fact that Republicans still have the idea that they can “get along” with Democrats – especially in the Senate. Must be a character flaw.

  • William M. Arkin needs a lesson (Updated 2x)

    Everyone is blogging about William Arkin’s Homeland Security blog entry titled “The Troops Also Need to Support the American People“. I first read about it at Crotchety Old Bastard then Blackfive. I don’t usually pile on, but some of Little Billy Arkin’s paragraphs need a response that I don’t think have been sufficient enough yet.

    These soldiers should be grateful that the American public, which by all polls overwhelmingly disapproves of the Iraq war and the President’s handling of it, do still offer their support to them, and their respect

    Grateful? What are you talking about? Every stupid newspaper and news show disparages the troops at every opportunity. Like the wall-to-wall coverage of a few thousand drooling idiots on the National Mall this last weekend. Where was the Washngton Post and Little Billy Arkin’s outrage at Joshua Sparling’s incident on the Mall? Is that what you call something to be grateful for, ya spoiled little brat.

    Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.

    Or maybe the American public realized that not everyone in the military is a criminal. That’s not “indulging”, that’s called the rule of Law. Even though you and your fellow journalists have tried to lump the troops into a pigeonhole, the Real American People konw that they are our sons and daughters that we raised in our communities. They weren’t the result of some government project to breed warriors on a secret base somewhere.

    We just don’t see very man [sic] “baby killer” epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

    See the Joshua Sparling link above, smartypants.

    So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

    No, the troops want all of you know-it-all yuppie pansies to shut up while they’re putting their lives on the line for you until they finish the job – then you can criticize until the cows come home. The longer you yap about shit you don’t understand, the more emboldened is our enemy, and the more troops die. Is that too hard to understand, weinie-boy?

    But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

    Mercenary, huh? If you summoned the testicular fortitude to talk to a soldier, you’d find out they do it for their country, not because of the pay. They volunteered to serve their country and the country compensates them for their sacrifice so little gutless worms like you can spew your ignorant vomit.

    That was the most cowardly and lowest paragraph of the whole piece – taking shots like that at people who can’t answer you in person.

    Of course, Little Billy Arkin, if you want to discuss this further, I work just a few Metro stops from the WaPo and I’d love to discuss this in person with you – I’ll even buy lunch. Given how gutless your writings are, it shouldn’t cost much to fill you up.

    UPDATE: Arkin responds to the criticism by calling us arrogant and intolerant. Oh, apparently he’s a veteran who served as a secret squirrel in Berlin in the years 1974 – 1978. Military.com’s Buddy Finder lists a William E. Arkin 0-5 in the Navy, but no William M. Arkin. Hmmmm.

    His bio claims he was an intel weinie who “engaged in a number of covert intelligence collection projects” which means someone let him debrief an infantry patrol occasionally – which is probably why he hates real soldiers. Why would an intelligence analyst go to work for Greenpeace as their “military specialist”? His email address is on the Institute for Global Communications network;

    Beginning in 1987, the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) played a formative role in bringing advanced communications technologies to grassroots organizations worldwide working for peace, human rights, environmental sustainability, women’s rights, conflict resolution and worker rights. Our flagship global computer networks — PeaceNet, EcoNet, WomensNet, ConflictNet, LaborNet and AntiRacismNet — became trademark names in the struggle for democratic use of the media and the world’s communications infrastructure. At its peak in 1998, IGC had over 35 full-time staff members.

    I guess there’s no agenda there is there? The guy is an America-hater in a southern Vermont snowbank, shaking his fist at the folks who keep his neighborhood safe.

    Must be a case of cabin fever. Having spent a few winters in Vermont myself, I understand. I also understand how out-of-touch with the realities of the world Vermonters live. William Arkin is a kneejerk, emotional ex-pat flatlander – the type of Vermonter that keeps sending idiots like Howard Dean, Pat Leahy and Bernie Sanders to Washington.

    UPDATE II: Arkin is back again and anything I’d have to say about him this time could be found much more eloquently expessed at Old Crotchety Bastard and Flopping Aces. I’m pretty sure Arkin has officially joined the ranks of Ward Churchill and Cynthia McKinney as extreme moonbats.

    I equate this drivel with the non-flying imams in that both are preparing for the “Big One”; they’re desensitizing us in preparation for a larger more prolonged strike from their respective allies. Arkin is just pointman for the rest of the legions of journalists who will, as I predicted back in 2001 on another discussion forum whose archives are conveniently gone, shit openly on our fighting forces. 

    There is only one fighting force in the world that has defeated Marxism on a grand scale twice in history – the US military. Since they can’t be defeated on the field of battle, the Left and the Islamofacists have decided it must be defeated at it’s source – the American public.

    Arkin is the Left’s most recent standard bearer, but watch for an even larger and more broad assault.

    James Lileks sums up Arkin’s first blog very succinctly;

    The pith of the gist seems to be “shut up and bleed,” but I’ve only read it once, and subsequent study might yield additional nuance.

    The best “fisking” I’ve seen to date was done by the Anti-Idotarian Rottweiler while Iowahawk debates “Should Washington Post Military Analyst William Arkin Be Beaten Like the Repulsive Sack of Shit He Is?”Â