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

Category: Media

  • Mas Pollo Rico: AP deliberately lies to create fear

    I’m sure most of you read the post I wrote on Saturday about the El Pollo Rico owners who were arrested for money laudering over $7 million. Well, check out this story from the Associated Press;

    July 15, 2007 – 6:39am

    WHEATON, Md. (AP) – Things are quieter around the El Pollo Rico restaurant.Immigrant employees and patrons of local shops are shying away from the area after an immigration raid on the Peruvian restaurant Thursday morning. Nine employees were seized and four members of the family that owns the restaurant were arrested.  

    Most lunchtimes, a line of customers would wind outside the door onto the sidewalk for El Pollo Rico’s spicy roasted chicken.

    Now, immigrant workers and customers are staying away from the shopping center for fear that the scene will repeat itself.

    One man who said he entered the country legally says he quit his job at a nearby business because he feared immigration officials.

    But members of groups opposed to illegal immigration say they welcomed the bust of the illegal immigrants, adding that they feel the effort should even be stepped up.

    Others in the community worry that the bust makes the whole Hispanic community look bad.

    —

    (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

    That’s it, in it’s entirety. The business wasn’t raided for immigration violations, it was raided because of large money transactions that had been tracked for more than year. No mention that the owners were US citizens who were involved in human trafficking and money laundering schemes – just that the poor LEGAL immigrants were afraid to come to work because the jackbooted thugs of the ICE would scoop up everyone and send them to prison.

    I guess the LEGAL immigrants in Wheaton have seen Cheech Marin’s “Born in East LA” too many times.

  • John Edwards – one-note Charlie

    The prettiest girl in the Democrat Presidential lineup, John Edwards claims he wants to remind America about poor people, according to the Politico’s Richard Allan Greene;

    Edwards, a consistent third in the polls for the Democratic nomination, is swinging through 12 cities in eight states over three days “in order to bring attention to the 37 million Americans living in poverty.” 

    Now, the Edwards’ camp claims that this isn’t part of the campaign – and if we believe that there’s some real estate development opportunities in New Orleans they’d like to talk with us about.

    The Edwards camp says their man is “taking a break from [his] normal campaign schedule” and emphasizes that the tour does not include any of the early-voting states.

    But campaign manager Joe Trippi did send out an e-mail on Friday under the header “George Bush doesn’t care about poor people.”

    Is George Bush running for President again in ’08? Apparently Joe Trippi thinks that’s true. So why would John Edwards be focusing on poverty in the US (aside from emmulating Robert F. Kennedy in the ’68 election)? Because Edwards is a typical Liberal Democrat – he’s playing to Democrats’ guilt for their successes in what ever endeavor they’ve chosen. Like Edwards himself who channels the ghosts of dead babies into the courtroom to the tune of millions of dollars.

    Edwards made a half-million dollars as a consultant to a hedgefund while learning what hedgefunds do (it’s always been my understanding that consultants know more about the business they’re hired to advise than that business – but what do I know). Edwards funds a charity for the poor that doesn’t do anything for the poor except send John Edwards out to talk to groups of rich Liberals about the poor (with whom Edwards has never met, by the way – ask his middleclass neighbor in North Carolina) at meals that the poor couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams.

    But we all know that the media will follow him around like a fricken puppydog and record every word that falls from his pretty mouth. 

    “While we’re pleased that a presidential candidate is showing an interest in Eastern Kentucky, we’re a little cautious about Edwards’ visit since the theme of his tour is poverty,” Tony Fyffe wrote in an editorial titled “Visit is welcome but could have negative impact” on Wednesday.

    He predicted “news footage of rundown homes, trash-ridden roads and streams, etc.” and complained that  “Kentucky is nothing more than a poverty-stricken state, according to the national media.”

    If Edwards does make his way to the White House, Fyffe wrote, “we hope Edwards returns to the region and puts his poverty action plan to work. Something tells us, however, that we’ll be just a memory as soon as the tour bus leaves the region next Wednesday.”

    I guess Fyffe is just writing these predictions based on Edwards’ past performance as the prettiest girl in the campaign.

  • “History will judge us, my friend”

    Apparently, Senator from Virginia and turncoat Reaganite, opportunist extraordinaire Jim Webb, possibly the largest cranium in the US Senate, faced off with Momma’s boy Lindsey Graham on Meet the Press yesterday. I dunno, I haven’t watched Russert’s Democrat-lovefest since he had useless-ass John Kerry on the show to talk about different the world would be if we’d only had foresight to elect Kerry two years earlier instead of someone who could do the job without advice from Jabba the Kennedy.

    Anyway, according to the Associated Press writer Calvin Woodward, Webb found it particularly easy to be the cool one for a change when his opponent is linguine-spined Lindsey Graham;

    “Just wash your hands of Iraq,” an animated Graham said to the war critics, including the Democrat seated to his immediate right. “History will judge us, my friend.”

    “It’s been a hard month, Lindsey,” Webb commiserated, wearing a tight smile. “You need to calm down, my friend.”

    “Lindsey’s had a hard month,” Webb repeated.

    “It ain’t about Lindsey having a hard month,” Graham snapped.

    “History will judge us, my friend”. Just like History has judged the anti-Vietnam crowd of being wrong in the thirty-plus years since the end of that war. The dominos did fall in Southeast Asia, just like it was predicted – but it only cost a couple of million asian lives. As long as it’s only brown people, it doesn’t matter that much to the Democrats like Webb, I suppose.

    Of course Associated Press couldn’t help but throw in a reference to Webb’s Vietnam service (while at the same time ignoring the fact that Graham is currently in the Army Reserves). And Graham, to his credit, confronted Webb on his observations and decision-making from his Ivory Tower;

    “Have you been to Iraq?” Graham demanded.

    “I’ve covered two wars as a correspondent,” Webb said. “I have been to Afghanistan as a journalist.”

    Graham: “Have you been to Iraq and talked to the soldiers?”

    Webb: “You know, you’ve never been to Iraq, Lindsey.”

    The Republican pointed out he’s been there seven times.

    “You know,” Webb said dismissively, “you can see the dog and pony shows. That’s what congressman do.

    Dismissively. As if there was nothing to see in Iraq, that relying on the AP is probably a better idea than going to see for Webb’s self. Especially since Webb can’t seem to believe his lyin’ eyes anyway.

    Graham tried to ease the tension. It didn’t work.

    “Let’s—something we can agree on,” he said, placing his hand on Webb’s arm. “We both admire the men and the women in uniform. ”

    “Don’t put political words in their mouth,” Webb interrupted.

    The exchange ended with Graham praising the troops: “God bless them and let’s make sure they can win because they can.”

    And Webb getting the final, combative word:

    “I’ll let them judge what you said.”

    The implication, of course, is that Webb speaks for the troops better than Graham. Webb references polls and history as if he reads either. History has always judged anti-war activists hashly. From the Civil War-era draft riots, through today’s misguided misfits of the anti-war, History has proven time-and-again that war is a necessary evil, and that avoiding war only leads to greater, more destructive wars.

    The anti-war movement, and apparently the naive and unread James Webb, is simply an opportunistic movement to elect otherwise unelectable candidates to office. Someone as ignorant of history, and unwilling to seek his own answers to complex problems as Webb appears, never would have been elected to his office by a responsible constituency.

  • El Pollo Rico esta cerrado; Illegal Immigrants deported

    I saw this story initially on Telemundo’s local news last night and to hear it told on the Spanish language channel, you’d have thought that Federal agents were persecuting hispanic-Americans. I didn’t hear anything about the money laundering until I searched the web. This from the Washington Post;

    Four members of a family that owns popular chicken restaurants in the Washington area were arrested by federal agents yesterday for knowingly employing illegal immigrants and laundering the money earned from that business, according to immigration officials.

    Francisco Carlos Solano, 55, and his his wife, Inos Solano, 59, of Germantown; Consuelo Solano, 69, of Arlington County; and Juan Faustino Solano, 57, of Kensington were charged with employing and harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and structuring deposits to avoid financial reporting requirements, according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday. Nine employees of their El Pollo Rico restaurant in Wheaton were taken into custody and will be placed in deportation proceedings, authorities said.

    The Solanos were all legal immigrants from Peru and Columbia – but they were dealing with illegal immigrants. Now, to hear Telemundo’s news readers tell it, Federal agents were harrassing Hispanic businesses, but as it turns out, Federal agents were arresting criminals. Even if you disregard the fact that they were harboring illegals, there was still over $7 million dollars being laundered – and that could’ve been used in the drug trade or terrorist activities – or human trafficking. From the Post again;

    Federal agents say the Solanos deposited more than $6.6 million into a business account between June 2002 and September 2006 in increments of $7,000 to $9,000, which authorities say was done to avoid filing currency transaction reports that must be submitted with deposits that exceed $10,000.

    Now that’s supicious. From the local NBC4 news;

    On Friday, agents said they seized more than $3 million in cash and jewelry from residences of the defendants, and several vehicles.

    Investigators said the money was hidden but could easily be accessed at the residences in Germantown and Wheaton.

    “In one residence we found over $2 million concealed in various places, including kitchen cabinets. In the other residence we found about $1.5 million in various safes,” said James Dinkins, of Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

    Officials said their investigation began about a year ago because of suspicious banking activity such as a quick succession of high-volume deposits and withdrawals. Officials said the underlying immigration violations were revealed over the course of the investigation.

    Nine immigrant workers, employees of El Pollo Rico and residents of Guatemala, were arrested and charged with immigration violations in connection to the case. Officials said they face possible deportation.

    I’ll tell you why this story interests me; it’s about a quarter-mile from my home (I prefer to live among Latins and Asians than among the goofy yuppies and hippies in Chevy Chase and Bethesda). The smoke from the roasting chicken filled the air of the hill on which Wheaton sits and is a beacon to the passing hungry people. Apparently, I’ve been complicit since I’ve been a frequent customer of El Pollo Rico – y es la verdad que el pollo esta bien sabroso y rico. Pero…I mean…but that’s definitely criminal behavior.

    This morning I went to my local barbershop, where the haircutters are Latin and Chinese immigrants (legal, I’m sure) was empty. Usually the whole neighborhood is bustling with Latin customers, but not today. The Washington Post noticed, too;

    “There’s much hubbub right now because of what happened,” Juan Lopez, 27, of Wheaton said in Spanish. “There are many people who don’t want to return to work, because they think immigration will come back.”

    Lopez, who said he entered the country legally, said he quit his job at a nearby business because he feared immigration officers.

    Seems to me that a legal immigrant would have nothing to fear. And I wonder if Juan Lopez was his real name.

    What really pissed me off about the whole thing (besides the fact that I’ve been duped by El Pollo Rico into funding whatever illegal activity they’ve been involved in) is the Montogomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger on Telemundo last night explaining that Montgomery County cops were not involved in the raid and that the Hispanic community has nothing to fear from the Mont. Co. Police because they have no intention of enforcing the law in Montgomery County. There’s nothing on the Mont. Co. Police website of the television conference. I guess the statement was in reaction to things like this quoted from the Post story;

    [Luis] Lora also worried that the arrest would negatively impact the image of the Hispanic community. “They make the community look bad,” Lora said. “If he’s a minority, people will say every minority does the same thing.”

    And the arrests and the ensuing rumors caused a near riot at the small strip mall;

    Shortly after the raid, rumors of immigration arrests spread throughout the community, which is heavily populated by Latinos, causing several witnesses to become angry, News4’s Jackie Bensen said.

    According to Bensen, that anger appeared to boil over when a crowd in the shopping center where Pollo Rico is located witnessed a tow truck towing an SUV that belonged to a restaurant employee.

    The tow truck was taking the vehicle away because it violated the parking time limit, Bensen said. The move caused an angry exchange between witnesses and the tow truck driver.

    Friends of the SUV owner teamed up to pull the vehicle off of the tow truck, Bensen said. The owner then left the scene in the vehicle.

    That’s stupid. If the Latin community quit facilitating illegal immigration by equating it with legal immigration, and calling 4th and 5th generation Americans illegal immigrants, maybe they’d be taken a little more seriously. Legal immigrants helping illegal immigrants enter this country and setting up shop doesn’t help, either.

    I’ve always admitted that I admire the work ethic many Latin immigrants bring to this country – and in Metro DC, the truth is that illegals do the jobs that the lazy-ass Americans who populate this welfare kingdom won’t do for any price. That may sound cliche` to many of you, but you have to live here to see it for yourself.

    However, I support the federal government enforcing the law and shipping every illegal they catch back to their own countries – I also hope that those who are deported and who want to come here and work hard come back legally.

  • Fear-mongers in the Associated Press

    Everywhere I turn this morning, some media outlet is telling me that some secret report was leaked and intelligence places al Qaeda back to it’s 2001 strength. At least from the Washington Post there’s no speculation about it’s pre-2001 strength;

    Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks, according to a new Bush administration intelligence report to be discussed today at a White House meeting.

    The report, a five-page threat assessment compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, is titled “Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West,” intelligence officials said. It concludes that the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network.

    But the Associated Press isn’t that shy;

    A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that Al Qaeda has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.

    In fact the Washington Post story,  goes so far that it points out that intelligence officials said that al Qaeda is “considerably weaker” than they were in 2001;

    While asserting that al-Qaeda is still considerably weaker than it was before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the new report concludes that the group is stronger than it has been in years. “There is heightened concern given al-Qaeda’s operational activity [and] . . . operational levels” along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the U.S. official said.

    WaPo is certainly no supporter of the war against terror. Despite the Washington Post’s contrary story, every radio and television news broadcast has repeated the silly AP headline as news.

    Need I remind the Associated Press and their assorted minions in broadcast news that in 2001 al Qaeda had their own country and at least the tacit support of three other countries. Not only have they lost Afghanistan, they don’t have the support of Pakistani government forces any longer. They’ve lost operational bases throughout the region where they enjoyed a virtual open range for training and operations.

    They may be stronger than they were in late 2001 – but that’s only because their willing accomplices in the media (that’s you, AP) make recruiting so easy.

    Elsewhere in the Associated Press story on MyWay;

    The official and others spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be identified because the report remains classified.

    I hope the Bush Adminstration sends “the official and others” out hunting with Dick Cheney – or hunting with me, for that matter.

  • It’s all about Vietnam, except when it’s about Vietnam

    Democrats can’t let go of the 60s. They think they actually won something when the US began pulling combat troops out of Vietnam in 1972. They forget the bloodbath that happened when Saigon fell in 1975, they forget the Vietnamese incursions into Laos during the Carter Administration (that were halted by the Chinese), they forget Pol Pot’s killing fields. All they care about is regaining their former bloodstained glory on the front pages of “their” media”. 

    In light of the reports coming out of Iraq by alternate means, like Michael Yon Online, since we can’t trust the media to tell us what’s happening over there, Jon Ward of the Washington Times reports that the President pleaded with Americans from Cleveland yesterday;

    “I believe that its in this nations interests to give the commander a chance to fully implement his operations,” Mr. Bush said, speaking at a downtown hotel to a local business group.

    Mr. Bush did not reveal any changes to his strategy or thinking on Iraq and did not talk about his hopes for withdrawing troops, despite reports that conversations on the topic are intensifying inside his administration.

    Instead, Mr. Bush said, “Congress ought to wait for General Petraeus to come back and give us assessment of the strategy that he’s putting in place before they make any decisions.”

    It sounds reasonable, but fairly unrealistic given the political backbiting that’s happening eve in the President’s own party. But, the Democrats, the party of Insanity (doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results each time), plan on running through the same bill they ran through a scant few weeks ago, hoping for different results. From Sean Lengell, Washington Times;

    Senate Democrats yesterday called for withdrawing most U.S. troops from Iraq by April 30 — less than two months after a similar measure was soundly defeated — as the White House dispatched its top war advisers to Capitol Hill to embolden Republican allies.

    Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said setting a troop withdrawal timetable will force Iraqi political leaders to take responsibility for their own country.

    “The legislation that we are proposing … would give commanders the flexibility to the pace of reductions and the units to be reduced, and I think it’s the appropriate way to go,” said Sen. Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, who co-sponsored the measure with Mr. Levin.

    Republicans leaders called the maneuver premature, saying that President Bush’s surge strategy is starting to pay dividends and that any major changes shouldn’t occur before Gen. David H. Petraeus provides his September report on the state of the war.

    Well, we just can’t let the troops win too many battles, can we? So it’s time for the Democrats to do the sabateur work that al Qaeda can’t seem to do these days. With Cindy Sheehan breathing down her botoxed and stretched neckflaps, Nancy Pelosi is planning an entire month of intellectually bankrupt votes to undermine the troops’ victories in Iraq;

    House Democrats are planning a series of votes this month on Iraq that they hope will ratchet up pressure on the White House and congressional Republicans to change course on the unpopular war or suffer political consequences.

    Sensing that additional GOP members might follow the more skeptical path taken recently by Sens. Richard Lugar (Ind.) and Pete Domenici (N.M.) and Rep. John Doolittle (Calif.), Democratic leaders have decided to ignore White House requests that lawmakers wait until September to see how President Bush’s surge works.

    “I think you’re seeing signs that the dam’s about to bust,” said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), tapped as leadership’s coordinator for Iraq strategy. “Someone on the Republican side has to be like Fulbright during the Vietnam War.”

    Just like Vietnam, huh Larson – the anti-US Left wants to relive their golden days. It doesn’t matter that history has proven them wrong then, or that history will prove them wrong on this one, too. just so long as they get to see their name in the paper.

    The Washington Post still claims there’s a large defection of Republicans from the President’s war plans – but they can only name a few, oddly;

    Facing crumbling support for the war among their own members, Senate Republican leaders yesterday sought to block bipartisan efforts to force a change in the American military mission in Iraq.

    But the GOP leadership’s use of a parliamentary tactic requiring at least 60 votes to pass any war legislation only encouraged the growing number of Republican dissenters to rally and seek new ways to force President Bush’s hand. They are weighing a series of proposals that would change the troops’ mission from combat to counterterrorism, border protection and the training of Iraqi security forces.
     
    “I think we should continue to ratchet up the pressure — in addition to our words — to let the White House know we are very sincere,” said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who broke with the president last month.

    Voinovich and Snowe are the only two defectors in the article. Add in Domenici and Spector, that’s four. It’s hardly a defection, it’s barely newsworthy – cetainly not enough to write a whole column. But there’s the Post spending bandwidth on a stupid subject while they could write stories about the troops’ several victories this week, or the horror that al Qaeda has inflicted on Iraqis.  The Post could actually report on the war rather than those idiot conversations they have with useless politicians.

    In the meantime, Cindy Sheehan is zeroing in on the old SanFran Hag;

     Cindy Sheehan bid farewell to her former “peace camp” near President Bush’s ranch and began a nearly two-week trek Tuesday toward Washington, D.C., with her sights set on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
    Sheehan, a Californian, officially announced that she intends to run as an independent against Pelosi in 2008 if the San Francisco congresswoman doesn’t move to impeach Bush by July 23, the day she expects to reach Washington.

    “I know what Californians care about,” Sheehan said. “They don’t care about the ruling power elite.”

    Yeah, Cindy, you probably know about as much about what Americans care about as Nancy – but I wouldn’t embarrass myself by saying it aloud in public if I were you. I guess we can’t count on you to keep your promises, either. Promises like leaving the stage and letting the adults run the country. If ever there was someone less worthy of my attention, I don’t know who that would be.

    So I guess we peg our foreign policy to the whims of gutless coward and crazed dingbats.

    From yesterday’s Day By Day;

     

     

  • So what do we believe?

    On the one hand, we have Rowan Scarbourgh in the Washington Examiner telling us that the general concensus is that al Qaeda is losing ground in Iraq;

    U.S. intelligence officers in Iraq believe 2007 will be looked on someday as “the beginning of the defeat of al Qaeda,” an adviser to the command in Baghdad said Monday.

    Retired Army Gen. John Keane offered the assessment after being briefed by a senior intelligence official who is an expert on the insurgency. The upbeat view marked a shift from 2006 intelligence reports that al Qaeda in Iraq was growing stronger.

    […]

    First, Sunni sheiks are breaking alliances with al Qaeda and joining the coalition. “They are fed up with this barbarism and four years of war,” Keane said during a talk at the American Enterprise Institute.

    Second, the U.S. counteroffensive of more than 155,000 troops is simultaneously attacking al Qaeda safe havens around the country — a tactic not used before.

    But then you turn to the Associated Press’ Anne Flaherty (whose name turns up on nearly every anti-Bush story byline) and you get crap like this – a whole story pegged to an anonymous source, no back-up research, just quoting some guy like there’s no tomorrow (or no Google); 

     A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

    The “pivot point” for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush’s so-called “surge” plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion.

    So the military is winning (barely a month into the “surge”) and AP calls it a failure. Sound like Vietnam even a little bit? And for some reason, the Washington Post thinks that a couple of spineless GOP RINOs has the administration running scared;

    President Bush, facing a growing Republican revolt against his Iraq policy, has rejected calls to change course but will launch a campaign emphasizing his intent to draw down U.S. forces next year and move toward a more limited mission if security conditions improve, senior officials said yesterday.

    Top administration officials have begun talking with key Senate Republicans to walk them through his view of the next phase in the war, beyond the troop increase he announced six months ago today. Bush plans to lay out what an aide called “his vision for the post-surge” starting in Cleveland today to assure the nation that he, too, wants to begin bringing troops home eventually.

    The President isn’t explaining it to regular people because he’s afraid of a few pussies in the Senate – he’s explaining it to regular people because he has to talk above the caucaphony of idiots and morons in the press like Anne Flaherty.

    Yeah, I know, she probably thinks she’s being patriotic by publishing every bit of contrary information she can dredge up. Apparently dissent is back in vogue – no matter what kind of damage they do to our worldwide reputation or to our national security. But, you’d think every once in a while she’d try to publish the absolute truth just to balance out her prejudices.

  • Congress returns ready to battle the President

    I read that headline in the Washington Examiner this morning and the first thing I thought was “how is that news”? They might as well run a headline that says “Man biten by dog” or “Summer expected to be warm”.

    Congressmen returning from their Independence Day break are ready for battle with the White House, with Democrats decrying President Bush’s commutation of former aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence and fighting Bush’s latest claim of executive privilege.

    Both events occurred around Congress’ vacation, inflaming an intense battle between Democrats and Bush over his use of executive power. There was relatively high tension on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as majority Democrats – and increasing numbers of Republicans – challenged Bush’s Iraq war policy.

    In Roll Call this morning, it’s Stephen Dennis’ “Democrats Keep Focus on Libby“($);

    Incensed Democrats plan to use President Bush’s decision to spare Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, from prison to bolster their theme of a GOP “culture of corruption” with hearings this week and on the campaign trail.

    Democrats have few options to strike back at the president, given their slim majorities and the reticence of Democratic leaders to consider impeachment despite an increasing drumbeat from liberal activists and growing support in some polls. The number of Democratic co-signers to an impeachment resolution for Cheney introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is expected to inch higher this week but remains a tiny subset of the Democratic Caucus.

    But that doesn’t mean Democrats won’t try to score political points.

    According to Dennis, Conyers wants to start an investigation of the pardon and subpoena Libby (to what result, I can’t understand), a witness list is supposed to come out today. Wexler wants to censure Bush – what a crock of dung. Wasting time on stupid political popcorn farts. Meanwhile, Emily Pearce ($) writes, also in Roll Call, that Reid probably won’t get any of the spending bills he needs to pass this year;

    While July is often reserved for appropriations bills in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has set aside very little time to complete even one or two bills this month, despite the fact that the chamber’s conservatives appear in no mood to help smooth the way and President Bush is expected to veto the majority of spending measures that reach his desk.

    So, instead of doing their job in Congress, the Democrats are just making noise. Useless, pointless political noise.  

    Ya know what headline I’d reallly like to see? “Congress returns ready to battle terrorists”, or “Congress outraged by al Qaeda connections in Glasgow plot” or “Democrats Keep Focus on the War Against Terror”.

    Since when is it more important for our elected representatives to be more ready to do battle with our other elected representatives than they are ready to do battle with the enemies of our people? Or why is it more acceptable to the American people that the politicians are more focused on “scoring political points” than they are on scoring wins against the enemies that want to destroy us all?

    Me? I’ve returned ready to fight all of the enemies of our people – especially the ones in Congress.Â