I’m typing this from Chicago’s Midland Airport, but I’m gone for the weekend to San Diego. See ya’all on Monday morning.
Author: Jonn Lilyea
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“I am not an emperor or a queen. But neither am I a fool.”
With those words, Nancy Pelosi fired William Jefferson from his House Ways and Means Committee posting according to the Washinton Post’s Michael Grunwald and Juliet Eilperin;
To House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the answer was obvious: Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) had to give up his coveted spot on the Ways and Means Committee. But at the closed-door caucus meeting, several black Democrats complained that Pelosi was not their emperor or queen, while Jefferson implored his colleagues to keep him on Ways and Means for the sake of Hurricane Katrina’s victims. No one spoke up for Pelosi — except Pelosi.
She began by praising Jefferson’s wife and five daughters: Jamila, Jalila, Jelani, Nailah and Akilah. But she quickly made it clear that Jefferson’s legal problems had become her political problem: “I am not an emperor or a queen. But neither am I a fool.”
Pelosi explained that Democrats should be the party of ethics, that appearances count, that dealing forcefully with Jefferson’s scandal would help everyone else in the room. “You didn’t elect me emperor or queen,” she said. “You elected me leader.”
But the two writers, later in the story wonder aloud the same questions we have;
But it is not yet clear whether Jefferson’s ouster heralded a new era of honesty and accountability, or just a one-off political calculation inspired by the 2006 campaign. After the midterm elections, Pelosi ignored the ethical cloud around Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to support his bid to be majority leader, and she nearly chose Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.) to chair the intelligence committee even though the House once impeached him when he was a federal judge. And, in December, when Jefferson faced a fight for his political life in a runoff against state Rep. Karen R. Carter, a black Democrat with none of his ethical baggage, Pelosi refused to get involved.
When she beats down allies like Murtha, I’ll believe Pelosi’s really there to change Congress’ image. But in the interim, I’ll take the WaPo’s image of her as Zena the Warrior Princess battling the CBC and the other opposing, partisan forces in Congress with more than one grain of salt.
Barack Obama finally gets something right in the Washington Post today;
The truth is, we cannot change the way Washington works unless we first change the way Congress works. On Nov. 7, voters gave Democrats the chance to do this. But if we miss this opportunity to clean up our act and restore this country’s faith in government, the American people might not give us another one.
As Little Green Footballs points out, we now have a Klansman third in line of succession to the Presidency. Flopping Aces comments and quotes Victor Davis Hanson on the ethics of the Democrats.
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The folly of the Iraq Study Group
The Iraq Study Group counseled the President that he should open a dialogue with the Iranians to bring peace to Iraq. Now the New York Sun tells us that the Iranians are supplying both sides of the sectarian violence there.
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms “that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups.” The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran’s revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
Another American official who has seen the summaries of the reporting affiliated with the arrests said it comprised a “smoking gun.” “We found plans for attacks, phone numbers affiliated with Sunni bad guys, a lot of things that filled in the blanks on what these guys are up to,” the official said.
And why would the Iranians support both sides? Because failure of democracy in Iraq is failure of the United States to have a positive influence in the region. Iran’s only foreign policy is the complete and utter destruction of the United States and all of the people who live here, regardless of their political persuasion. Failure in Iraq would be one more step towards that end.
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Moonbattery in high gear
Turns out that the moonbats get nuttier when they think they influenced an election. Cindy Sheehan and her crowd busted up Rahm Emmanuel’s policy press briefing yesterday. The last line of the story is the funniest;
Before the chanting started, Sheehan got a hug from Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
I wonder if Conyers would’ve hugged her if he’d known she was going to interupt. Of course, the Democrats will kowtow to the anti-war crowd because the Democrats have assembled the largest coalition of crackpots as constitiuents ever. From the “stop circumscision” crowd to the “surrender now” crowd – they all take credit for the Democrats winning Congress and they all want their slice of the pie – just like the MoveOn crowd who threatened to take over the party after their 2004 loss.
And for those of you who don’t get to come inside the Beltway like I do every morning, there are super-lifesized posters of Nancy Pelosi on bus stops everywhere congratulating her for “her†win in the last election. I wonder who put those up.
That botox-filled mug greets me every morning in front of my office – and seeing it in the early-morning darkeness frightens me. Wonder why I’m always in such a bad mood? The posters have been up since mid-November, by the way.
And this from the Washington Times;
After calling herself “the most powerful woman in America,” Mrs. Pelosi flexed her right muscle like a weight lifter to much applause at an event yesterday titled a “women’s tea.”
    “All right, let’s hear it for the power,” she screamed as the jubilant applause continued.I guess she’s forgotten about the Howard Dean scream. Too bad it’s not on video somewhere for all to see every 30 minutes on cable news.
Elsewhere, it’s being reported that “rising star” Barack Obama has admitted that he used cocaine after he graduated from law school. Of course, all I hear on the news is how brave he is for admitting it, and how strong he is for not becoming an addict. From the same people who accuse President Bush of cocaine use with absolutely no evidence or an admission.
To me, bravery would have been avoiding drug use as recently-graduated law student who should have had more respect for his chosen field. But I guess laws are supposed to be selectively broken by our betters.Â
And Joe Lieberman’s party (Connecticut for Lieberman) has been taken over by a moonbat political science professor who plans on running another candidate against Joe in the next Senate election. Anything to keep lawyers employed, I guess.
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Ethics panel closes Conyers case
Do Republicans honestly think that Conyers would extend them the same slap-on-the-wrist? The same John Conyers that tried to influence the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1973 to delay their “advice and consent” of Vice-President appointee Ford until the Congress could impeach President Nixon and then seize the White House with the Democrat Speaker of the House, effectively reversing the 1972 election.Â
In the same postion, and given the opportunity, John Conyers would hand any Republican their ass. I give Conyers two weeks before he returns to his slimey ways.
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LA PD busting terrorists the old fashioned way
President Ford is keeping me busy today, but I’ll drop off part of this article from the Wall Street Journal;
In September 2004, just days after Chechen rebels raided a school in Beslan, Russia, killing 331 men, women and children, the Los Angeles Police Department summoned senior officers to its decaying downtown headquarters. The issue on the table: What would they do if a similar attack took place here?
Most of the talk that morning was about where to deploy SWAT teams if terrorists ever took over a local school. Detective Mark Severino, one of the city’s counterterrorist investigators, then asked his colleagues: “Do we even have Chechen extremists in Los Angeles?” Blank stares and silence filled the room. His boss at the time, Deputy Chief John Miller, told him to go find out.
Within weeks, Detective Severino, working with a team of LAPD intelligence analysts, tapped Russian underworld informants, and uncovered an international car-theft ring that wound its way from the streets of Los Angeles to the Chechens’ doorstep in the Republic of Georgia. The California racket was disguised as a charity group sending aid to the region. Based on other information, Detective Severino suspected that the operation was more than just a fraud scheme. His theory: The proceeds from stolen cars might somehow be financing Chechen terrorist operations around the world.
On Feb. 15, 2006, the LAPD busted eight people for fraud in connection with the alleged scam and issued arrest warrants for 11 others. Chechen terrorist financing was never mentioned in the indictments or in the press release that trumpeted the takedown of the operation. There were no news conferences claiming victory in the war on terror. Yet Russian police, U.S. intelligence and State Department officials familiar with the case today all say that they believe the LAPD’s breakup of the ring was a setback to international terrorists.
Los Angeles police say that since 9/11 they have arrested nearly 200 people, both American citizens and foreign nationals, with suspected ties to terrorist organizations. These included a group of North Africans that LAPD and federal officials are convinced were part of an al Qaeda support cell living in Los Angeles. The charges against them have ranged from marriage fraud to identity theft to illegal weapons possession.
Each arrest was the result of a conventional criminal investigation using California state law with no need for warrantless phone taps or secret court orders. None of the cases ever mentioned terrorism at all. Trials are still pending in many cases but there have been dozens of guilty pleas. In some cases, suspected foreign terrorists arrested on fraud charges have been scooped up by federal agents and deported on separate federal immigration charges before their criminal trials got under way.
Hats off to them.
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Edwards preparing to beat a whole herd of dead horses
According to a Wall Street Journal story by Jackie Calmes, John Edwards is planning on running his presidential campaign on his “Two Americas” theme of Edwards’ failed 2004 campaign. It didn’t work for him then and it won’t work for him now. Claiming that there are 37 million Americans living below the completely arbitrary and artificial poverty line, Edwards propses to lift those 37 million out of poverty over the next 30 years, 1/3 every decade. Sounds like a real warm and fuzzy plan doesn’t it?
How many of those 37 million will be alive after thirty years? How many more people will have been born or lost jobs or otherwise fallen into poverty? Is that 37 million really a static number? And poverty is such an arbitrary expression. What is poor in Washington, DC isn’t all that poor in the rural areas so how can bureaucrats in Washington set a single number as a one-size-fits-all barometer for poverty?
But what’s really funny is his plan to raise the poor up;
His “Working Society” agenda would mean a higher federal minimum wage, reduced taxes for low-income workers, universal health care, and one million new housing vouchers for working families, to help them find homes in neighborhoods with better schools.
First, raising the minimum wage; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2005 only 1.8 million workers made minimum wage and less than 800,000 are over the age of 25. That seems to be a drop in the bucket out those 37 million poor people doesn’t it?
Reduce taxes on the poor; President Bush cut taxes on the poorest workers in 2001 when he lowered the lowest marginal tax bracket from 15% to 10% and he lowered the annual income requirements for people who have to pay taxes which moved thousands more off the tax rolls. But of course, Edwards is talking about raising the Earned Income Credit and paying poor back the money they pay into Social Security, but he doesn’t want to say that out loud where the labor unions could hear him.
Universal health care is a non-starter. We have universal healthcare already. Anybody been turned away from a hospital because they haven’t bought health insurance?
Housing vouchers so the poor can move to better neighborhoods? So who will live in those neighborhoods that the poor abandon? Is Edwards going to force the rich to move to those neighborhoods and send their kids to underperforming schools? Kind of like putting the cart before the horse isn’t it?
Actually, it’s all just populist drivel. Edwards thinks his time worn, bogus antecdotes about “Two Americas” can win him the election, when all it might do is win him his party’s nomination. Conservatives are too smart to buy into his “progressive” guilt trip policy.
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President Ford’s passing and Democrat drive-bys
Last night, watching the various news programs, I noticed that Democrats were taking the opportunity at one last swat at President Nixon while eulogizing President Ford. It seems every compliment of the 38th President was accompanied by criticism of the 37th.
Then this morning, I find this at Captain’s Quarters and a link to the WaPo Woodward interview from more than two years ago;
“I don’t think I would have gone to war,” [Ford] said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford’s own administration.
Aside from the fact that the Washington Post printing this before President Ford’s body is cold is the journalistic equivalent of ambulance chasing, I’m pretty sure Mr. Ford wouldn’t have gone to war either.
Anyone who remembers the Reagan campaign of 1980 remembers that Republicans called themselves neoconservatives back then (before the term was hijacked by the Left six years ago to mean something entirely different) because the Reagan Revolution was about returning to the values of the Party. The previous three Republican Presidents had acted more like Democrats than Republicans.
President Eisenhower continued massive spending policies of the prior twenty gluttonous Democrat years, Nixon had his idiot “wage and price freezes” and Ford had his “Whip Inflation Now” campaign of beating inflation by wearing shiny buttons (see Powerline). Nixon and Ford bought into the detente lie as foreign policy. So the 1980 campaign was about getting back to the basics of being Conservative (which attracted me from the Conservative Party of New York State).
Carter had played like a Conservative in the 1976 campaign and that’s why President Ford lost. Carter promised to keep the Panama Canal and to stop Soviet expansion. He promised to slash taxes and cut government - of course, he lied on all counts. We all remember his Playboy interview where he touted his religion while admitting he’d “lusted in his heart” for women other than his wife – playing to both sides.
So I’m pretty sure President Ford wouldn’t have gone to war in Iraq, either. But that’s not a plus. I’m pretty sure that’s a lot easier to sit on the sidelines and criticize the players than it is to play the game.Â
And here’s another Democrat drive-by from the Queen of drive-bys, Cindy Sheehan, brought to you by Flopping Aces. Apparently, she claims that if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon, our current President wouldn’t have attacked Saddam Hussein. Funny how everything is about her, huh?