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

Category: Politics

  • Do we really want eight more years of this? (Updated)

    After dealing with real scandals from the Clinton Administration (as opposed to overblown, fake scandals of the current administration), do we really want to subject ourselves to a replay? Have we already forgotten how they cleaned out the White House after they left and had to send stuff back – like some damn hillbilly family getting evicted from the trailer park?

    Here we are a year from the election and already we have Chinese criminals driving truckloads of money into the Clinton compound and Sandy Berger, the Clinton Administration’s own Maxwell Smart, is back on the payroll. Link from Little Green Footballs.

    From Bloodthirsty Liberal, I get the story that Clinton herself is pulling out the “vast right wing conspiracy” ploy again (retooled as “someone sent you that question” as if the questioner wasn’t smart enough to ask the question himself) to avoid answering questions that she doesn’t have the political huevos to be straight forward (while CNN admires the “heated exchange“). Video from Hot Air.

    Oh, and I had two heart attacks during the Clinton Administration and none during the Bush Administration. That should be reason enough for ya’all to stop her.

    Update:

    Continuing in the same vein, I read from the Wall Street Journal’s Jackie Calmes that Clinton, pandering to the ignorant masses, as per usual, is promising “savings incentives”;

    Mrs. Clinton will travel through Iowa and New Hampshire on a bus dubbed the “Middle Class Express” to propose new savings incentives so more Americans have 401(k) retirement plans, revenue bonds so states can refinance mortgages for those facing home foreclosures, and expanded college scholarships.

    Savings incentives? According to the Motley Fool columnist, Selena Marajian, our savings rate for 2005 averaged .05% of our national earnings. It’s been declining since 1984. you couple that with the fact that we feel the need to pay for health insurance for families with $60,000/year of income and it seems to me that government (specifically Democrats) are creating a climate of entitlement and dependence that’s nearly irreversible.

    President Bush cuts taxes – marginal rates for low income people were cut from 33% to 100% depending on their income, married taxpayers got another 20% reduction – yet the savings rate declined. Why? Because those low income people spent their tax reduction. (Actually, my tax reduction went straight into savings – but that’s me).

    So my point is; how does government think they’re going to influence people to save? They get a 20-30% raise from tax cuts and spend it. It’s just talking smack – what she does best. 

    Michele Malkin writes about another pyramid schemer shoveling thousands into the Clinton campaign. 

  • The rush to press

    I read and watched incredulously the CNN broadcast of the “Reliable Sources” bit on why the media isn’t reporting lower casualties and successes in Iraq. Noel Sheppard from Newsbusters transcribes;

    After introducing the subject, Kurtz asked, “Robin Wright, should that decline in Iraq casualties have gotten more media attention?”

    This was Wright’s amazing answer:

    Not necessarily. The fact is we’re at the beginning of a trend — and it’s not even sure that it is a trend yet. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq.

    That’s funny because two days into the invasion of Saddam’s Iraq, our troops ran headlong into a sandstorm – immediately the media called Iraq a quagmire and wondered if we’d ever remove the Hussein regime from power because of one little sand storm.

    The media had no problem trotting out the Hadditha story before the facts were known in order to smear the American soldiers, and now according to Little Green Footballs, Gateway Pundit and Michele Malkin, it might have been an al Qaeda plot – because they knew the media would pounce all over it without any real investigation.

    al Qaeda used the treacherous media against our struggle for national security with articles entitled “The Shame of Kilo Company” and “Did Marines Kill In Cold Blood?”. The New York Times even ferreted out a law professor who allowed them to quote that even though there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute the Marines, it doesn’t mean they’re innocent. Despite the fact that our Bill of Rights guarantees us the right of being innocent until the government proves otherwise; 

    “We can’t say those guys didn’t commit a crime,” said Michael F. Noone Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer and law professor at Catholic University of America. “We can only say that after an investigation, there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute.” 

    And still there’s no apparent shame from the media.

    Here’s another example; Abdul Sattar Abu Risha met with President Bush after he led the Sunni effort to run al Qaeda out of his little fiefdom – nary a word about the meeting in the press. Two weeks later the sheik was killed and it was in headlines across every newspaper as proof that al Qaeda was unbeatable in Iraq. Then we saw the pictures of the sheik and Bush. Apparently the media was wrong – it only reinforced efforts in Iraq against al Qaeda among the Sunnis – that’s not being reported either.

    Need more? The Washington Post has avoided reporting on increased security and the lessening lethality of terrorists in Iraq by running a four part series on the front page last week on IEDs – typical act of avoidance. Today the Washington Post runs the headline that “Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key US Goal“;

    For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.

    Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

    Nevermind that broad leaps have been made in the last few weeks towards Iraqi unity – nevermind that Iraqis rejected Joe Biden’s plan to divide their nation into pieces nearly unanimously.

    Sister Toldjah writes that Omar from Iraq the Model – an Iraqi on the ground in Baghdad – has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal detailing the signs that al Qaeda is losing in Iraq. Wonder why it’s not in the Washington Post. Oh, because today, they’re predicting political defeat for the Iraqis. That would be inconvenient to provide competing opinions, wouldn’t it?

    Who does the Washington Post, Robin Wright and the rest of the ignoramouses that claim to be the guardians of our freedoms think we are? They deride the blogs, just like they derided talk radio – but the mainstream press created the alternate news sources – by pompously deciding what we need to know and when we need to know it.

    Curt of Flopping Aces sums up;

    They struggle to explain why this news isn’t being reported but we all know why.  If it doesn’t fit their narrative, that being the “we’re losing in Iraq” storyline, then they want nothing to do with it.  If they were true reporters they would report this stuff because it IS news.

    Well, given that CNN never reported Hussein’s atrocities and continues to ignore atrocities in Cuba to save their precious access to propaganda, who can be surprised that they’ll continue to focus on the US shortcomings since Constitutionally we can’t restrict their access. CNN is just taking the route of least resistance. I don’t what is eating the Washington Post, besides a bad case of the dumbass – playing to these goofballs.

  • Sorry state of the Left; the politics of bad taste

    I’m tired of the “phony soldiers” story and that seems all that’s on the blogs this weekend. Even EJ Dionne at the Washington Post blogs that (surprise!) he’d take the word of Media Matters over that of the cacophonous opposition of those of us who’ve listened to Rush for decades.

    Wes Clark (h/t Hot Air) has decided that Rush shouldn’t be on Armed Forces Radio – but it was because of the popular demand of the troops that Rush was added to AFRTS broadcasts back in 1994 (when they were abandoned by the then-current administration). Shouldn’t it be by popular demand that Rush is removed by the line-up or is Wes Clarke the sole arbiter of what the troops should have for entertainment?

    But regardless, Kos diarist dlawbailey has taken Rush’s “phony soldier” controversy as a signal that the Left can bash troops at will now (h/t to LGF, Uncle Jimbo and Sparta. dlawbailey even takes potshots at Pete Hegseth’s wife’s appearance in an attempt to undermine the good works of Vets for Freedom. And spouting off about stuff he doesn’t understand (like ROTC training and military service) including the one glaring point that Uncle Jimbo caught the weasel on – the 101st hasn’t been a parachute unit since the early 70s. When I was stationed in Panama, they used to show up for the unit training at Jungle Operations Training Center in their blue berets instead of the maroon berets of every parachute unit in the Army. I was stationed there 1976-1978, so it’s been that long that the 101st has been “dopes on a rope” (a derisive phrase used only by paratroopers when referring to the 101st and their special training requiring them to slide down a rope to arrive at the cutting of battle by air. I’ll add that it’s not acceptable for non-airborne personnel to use the term and my use of the phrase is not a signal for Leftist diarists to begin referring to the noble troopers of the 101st Airborne Division as “dopes”).

    Since I also spent a few years teaching ROTC (at the University of Vermont), I can also add that not every cadet gets to go to Airborne School – the detachment is assigned a number of slots and there aren’t ever enough slots for everyone. Participation in political organizations while in an ROTC detachment isn’t limited by Army regulations – so cadets can join any organization to which they are drawn just like any other college student. Cadets aren’t confined by the UCMJ – dlawbailey should do a little research before wrapping himself/herself in minutae he/she doesn’t understand.

    Peckerwood dlawbailey complains about Hogseth’s lack of training – anyone who has spent a month in a TO&E unit knows that a bright and shiney new El-Tee has already had a few years of training at whatever college they attended, six weeks at Advanced Camp (if they’re ROTC), six months of their Basic Officers’ Course and ancillary training (Ranger School, Airborne, etc.).

    It’s not unusual for someone in a National Guard unit (like Hegseth) to not be Airborne or Ranger because of the rare times those particular officers get a slot at school. Unlike the idiots at Kos, the Army puts more stock in experience than schooling. The Basic Airborne Course – although it’s a great honor to be among the finest soldiers in the history of the world – isn’t a leadership school. Aside from being physically and mentally rigorous, the main prerequisite for the course is the student’s ability to obey the Law of Gravity at varying heights – nothing about leading troops in combat. I’ve even had leg Ranger LTs; they’d graduated from Ranger School, but not the Basic Airborne Course. Just the luck of getting school slots – that’s all.

    It seems that the “phony soldier” phony signal has turned loose the moonbats everywhere. Newsbusters reports that one-in-five Democrats thinks it’s a good thing if the US loses the war in Iraq. Wha??? Unless one-in-five Democrats are al Qaeda sleeper operatives, that should make the DNC think whether they want the votes of that constituency or not.

    Newsbusters also reports that members of the mis-named “Think Progress” have taken to praying – that the President and Vice-President die. In the words of a member named ‘Uncle Ho’ (clearly a misinformed person just for chosing that nom de plum); “I pray for Bush, and Cheney too. I pray that both die suddenly to free us from their neo-Nazi rule”. Yep, neo-nazi rule. Even after viewing the repression of the monks in Burma, the Left still thinks we’re ruled by nazis here.

    Speaking of which, Kate took pics of the latest Buddist protests in DC at the Myanmar, Chinese and Indian embassies yesterday. Why aren’t more of the Left getting involved against REAL injustice instead of this manufactured phony soldiers crap?

    But that’s not it. Crotchety Old Bastard (who tells us his son is still kickin’ ass in Iraq as a member of the Red Falcons – best wishes to him from this old trooper, too) writes that Medea Benjamin, the head shriveled up, barren old bag of Code Pink has made the brave decision to forego the protections she recieves from the Constitution. Who does she think she’s kidding? Does she think we’re going to put her on a raft in the Pacific Ocean and tie it off with a 12-mile rope on the Santa Monica pier? Dumbass.

    And Code Pink has taken to bravely assaulting recruiters who, generally can’t defend themselves the way they’ve been trained according to Marooned in Marin. And those goofballs in front of Walter Reed every Friday night protesting the war? Well, it turns out that because we’re winning the war in Iraq, their voluntary participation has waned and according to Chickenhawk Express, Michele Malkin and the Free Republic, protesters are being drafted by the unions and forced to participate – even though they’re not exactly sure why they’re there.

    As I predicted three months ago, the Left and their anti-war politics are failing and they’ve succumbed to the same tactics of al Qaeda – attacking innocent people who can’t defend themselves (apparently, according to Crotchety Old Bastard, al Qaeda is even adopting the tactics of Democrats and attacking the dead, too). Just like the tactic isn’t working for al Qaeda, it’ll bring a ugly end to the anti-war screwballs, too, but not before there are a bunch more casualties – on both sides.

    UPDATED: It seems Uncle Jimbo, a retired special warfare operator of some reknown, started a diary on Kos and has been banned for – get this – being a pedophile. All he did was bust on the Koskommies for the aforementioned diarist’s post busting on an honest-to-goodness bronze star awardee’s career (and wife, by the way). The comments on Jimbo’s diary post are really beyond the pale. The closest comment to anything supporting the troops is when one commenter called Markos a “a f*king veteran”. Like I said – the politics of bad taste.

  • Children Health Insurance Lies

    Perhaps Washington Post’s most partisan hack writer, Eugene Robinson, who is either the most stupid person on the face of the Earth, the most free of common sense, or the biggest liar on the planet, has written a bit of projection this Friday entitled Bush’s Veto Lies;

    Bush’s veto Wednesday of a bipartisan bill reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program was infuriatingly bad policy. An estimated 9 million children in this country are not covered by health insurance — a circumstance that should shock the consciences of every American. Democrats and Republicans worked together to craft an expansion of an existing state-run program that would have provided coverage for about 4 million children who currently don’t have it.

    It was one of those art-of-the-possible compromises designed to advance the ball toward what has become a national goal.

    First of all, Eugene, there might be nine million children without health insurance, per se, but all nine million of those children have government-provided health care through medicaid. And if Democrats wanted to “advance the ball” as you put it, why does the Washington Examiner today report that Democrats aren’t in the mood for compromise with the White House?

    Bush, who vetoed the bill on Wednesday, told a Pennsylvania crowd he is willing to increase his funding proposal for the program if it will lead to a deal with Congress.

    But both House and Senate Democrats insisted there is no room for compromise.

    House Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Bush’s overture “an insult” and said he is a president out of touch with reality who used his “macho pen” to hurt children.

    “If he thinks he can waltz in here, with his secretary of Health and Human Services, and sweet-talk us, he can’t. We’re not going to compromise. If he’s hoping for that, he’d better hope for something else,” Reid said.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “We have compromised all we can compromise,” but then added, “We’re always willing to talk.”

    Seems to me that the President has been willing to compromise since the beginning of this discussion, but the Democrats froze House Republicans and the White House out of the negotiations. The only reason the Senates Republicans were asked to participate was because of the 60% needed to pass legislation in the Senate these days.

    In fact, the President said he’d have signed the bill if Democrats had made CHIP available to children who live in households with an annual income of 200% of the poverty line – but the Democrats intentionally made the goal for families with an annual income of 300% (about $60,000) of the poverty line. I’m pretty sure a family with $40-60,000 of annual income can afford their own health insurance without the government. So Democrats let it fail because they’re trying to hand out entitlements to the wealthiest Americans – how’s that feel Eugene?

    Well, Eugene Robinson – disingenuous person that he is, says the people between $40-60,000 “fall into a perilous gap”;

    The program Congress voted to expand provides health insurance for children who fall into a perilous gap: Their families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but don’t make enough to afford health insurance. 

    How can they not afford health insurance when the family is making more money than I have most of my life – and I always had insurance for my kids. I considered it part of my responsibility as a parent. In fact, I made sure they had health insurance until they were 21. Maybe the problem isn’t President Bush – maybe it’s the Democrats (and Eugene Robinson’s) fault for making it seem as if it’s Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare instead of parents.

    Robinson repeats this idea throughout the piece;

    Health care is arguably the biggest domestic issue in the presidential contest and, while the candidates and the country may be all over the map in terms of comprehensive solutions, there’s a pretty broad consensus that some way has to be found to ensure that children, at least, are covered.

    The only candidates talking about it, at any length are the Democrats – but I understand Robinson’s failure to admit that, as I’m sure this supposed journalist is only listening to the Democrats and those are the only candidates this journalist will accept as “his president”.

    And more ignorance from partisan hack Robinson;

    The president said Congress was trying to “federalize health care,” even though the program in question is run by the states.

    The why is the federal government paying for it? The Federal government doesn’t just hand over money to the States without strings attached, or haven’t you read even a page of Title 21 (Public Health) of the Code of Federal Regulations which contains 9 volumes of text in regard to state-run programs.

    And so what if 72% of Americans were “for” the program according to the Washington Post survey – how many understood what was in the bill and what was in dispute? Do you think I trust the Washington Post to honestly survey Americans? Has that ever happened?

    More Robinson drivel;

    Bush seems to be upset that Congress didn’t adopt his pet idea to tackle the health insurance issue through — guess what? — tax breaks. None of the major players on Capitol Hill thought this would work.

    Um, Eugene, no one “on Capitol Hill” thought any of his other tax cuts would increase revenues and stabilize a failing (Clinton) economy – but they did. To ask anyone in Congress to approve of a tax cut or a tax break is like asking a crack addict to go cold turkey. Or haven’t you lived in Washington DC long enough to know that? You have, but you’re not honest enough to tell the truth, are you?

    The actual truth is; the Democrats need an emotional issue to take the focus off of their dreary record of national defense – and this is the one they’ve chosen.

  • Obama; the President of what, then?

    This is the most ignorant drivel I’ve ever read. Barack Obama, a Democrat candidate for the President of the United States claims that wearing an American flag pin took the place of “real patriotism”;

    “The truth is that right after 9-11 I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9-11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.

    “I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest,” he said in the interview. “Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism.”

    Well, then when is he going to tell us what will make this country great, then, since all he’s done since he became a national figure is to talk down our economy, our way of life, promised to take more money from us, and tell us our national security isn’t worth defending.

    I’m sick of these half-witted Leftists and their sorry-assed yammering about this country and their brand of patriotism. If they like this country, even a little bit, why can’t they tell us what they like about it? Why is it they want to rewrite every paragraph of the Constitution? Why are they down on capitalism – our economy? Why are they constantly harping about the shoddy way we treat our “poor”? Why do they constantly claim that they’re embarrassed to admit they’re Americans?

    Everytime a Leftist tells me they love this country, I ask them what they love about it – they’re stymied. Why do they stay if they can’t find any reason that makes it worth living in? And why are so many other people from around the world flocking here if it’s so terrible?

    Obama is proving to be the most amateurish candidate ever to run for the Presidency – he makes wild foreign policy statements about negotiating with thugs while threatening our allies. He wants to do away with nuclear weapons by using grade playground tactics – “you first, then me – now you again”.

    I’ve got a flag on my desk – it’s been there since before 9-11. Our building manager gave out flag pins to everyone in our office. I wouldn’t wear it – the little bag it came in said “Made in China”. Now that’s a reason to not wear a pin, not some putred half excuse about uber-patriotism that sounds like it was written by an Art History major at the University of Vermont.

    Little Green Footballs says this bit of theater proves that Obama is Hillary’s stalking horse. Michele Malkin redesigns the Presidential seal for him. Ace writes that he’s patriotic to the Nation of Earth. Atlas Shrugs compares his statement to Katie Couric’s last week – a nuanced answer vetted by opinion polls? 

  • Robert Kaplan: Modern Heroes

    The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Robert Kaplan this morning entitled “Modern Heroes” that attempts to repair the disconnect between the American public and the US’ volunteer military;

    The cult of victimhood in American history first flourished in the aftermath of the 1960s youth rebellion, in which, as University of Chicago Prof. Peter Novick writes, women, blacks, Jews, Native Americans and others fortified their identities with public references to past oppressions. The process was tied to Vietnam, a war in which the photographs of civilian victims “displaced traditional images of heroism.” It appears that our troops have been made into the latest victims.

    Oh, I agree – Michael Moore used them in his so-called documentaries, every night on the news is a clip of a legless or armless veteran trying to learn how to walk or eat again. I’ve met these “victims” still dirty from their encounters with the enemy and they’re ready and willing to return to their units – they don’t want to be pitied, they just want to do their jobs.

    Kaplan continues;

    The first Medal of Honor in the global war on terror was awarded posthumously to Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith of Tampa, Fla., who was killed under withering gunfire protecting his wounded comrades outside Baghdad airport in April 2003.

    According to LexisNexis, by June 2005, two months after his posthumous award, his stirring story had drawn only 90 media mentions, compared to 4,677 for the supposed Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay, and 5,159 for the court-martialed Abu Ghraib guard Lynndie England. While the exposure of wrongdoing by American troops is of the highest importance, it can become a tyranny of its own when taken to an extreme.

    Although Kaplan gives the media a pass in the first few paragraphs, I don’t. The aging editors decide that the American public needs to only see the ugly side of war and not the side that rescues children from death and injury, the side that valiantly crashes through a door, not knowing what’s on the other side and drags wounded comrades out of the line of fire.

    In particular, there is Fox News’s occasional series on war heroes, whose apparent strangeness is a manifestation of the distance the media has traveled away from the nation-state in the intervening decades. Fox’s war coverage is less right-wing than it is simply old-fashioned, antediluvian almost. Fox’s commercial success may be less a factor of its ideological base than of something more primal: a yearning among a large segment of the public for a real national media once again — as opposed to an international one. Nationalism means patriotism, and patriotism requires heroes, not victims.

    But, see, recognizing that there are heroes means recognizing that there is something greater than Man worth fighting and dieing – something beyond this existence here on this planet. Recognizing heroes means you have to admit that there are better people than yourself – that we’re not really all equal in all things, and there’s no government program that can level that particular playing field.

    That’s why the Left raises up it’s own heroes like Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clarke – two people when combined couldn’t make a pimple on the lowliest recruit’s ass. What the Left does isn’t at all heroic – the worst thing that could happen to them for the choices they make is a couple of hours in a sanitary holding cell waiting for arraignment in a society that forbids that anyone in authority even raise their voices at them. That’s not heroism – it’s gradeschool playground rules for the weak of spirit.

    Kaplan warns;

    The media is but one example of the slow crumbling of the nation-state at the upper layers of the social crust — a process that because it is so gradual, is also deniable by those in the midst of it. It will take another event on the order of 9/11 or greater to change the direction we are headed. Contrary to popular belief, the events of 9/11 — which are perceived as an isolated incident — did not fundamentally change our nation. They merely interrupted an ongoing trend toward the decay of nationalism and the devaluation of heroism.

    When that second event happens, there’d better not be leftists at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

  • Children Health Insurance Program hyperbole

    The President vetoed the Children’s Health Insurance Program legislation from Congress today – he said he would, didn’t he? But the Democrat Congress sent it to him anyway. The President even offered to negotiate with the Democrats over the bill – they refused. From the Wall Street Journal;

    Democrats “made their political point” by sending Mr. Bush a bill they knew he would veto, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. “What the President said is, look, send me the bill, I will veto it, and then we will get about the business of trying to find some common ground and reach an agreement on a way forward.”

    House Republicans were virtually locked out of the discussion over the bill, and the White House was actually locked out.

    House Republicans complained that they were left out of the negotiations on the legislation, and they and the White House said the veto will open a chance to revisit the specific provisions. 

    It was a tax increase – pure and simple. And Democrats were immobile on funding the health insurance of people who could afford it – the President said he’d go for funding on families who made less than 200% of the poverty rate, while Democrats insisted on 300%. So Democrats were in for funding an entitlement program – for people who didn’t need assistance. Um, an entitlement program for the wealthiest Americans, if you will.

    Dana Perino went on (Washington Post);

    She added: “I think the president is willing to talk to anybody about how we continue to move forward on this program, with the focus being on how do you get back to the original intent, making sure that the neediest children get taken care of first.”

    That makes perfect sense – but no one ever accused Democrats of having much sense. They wanted an issue – like I’ve said countless times in these pages, Democrats aren’t in the business of solving problems, they’re in the business of sustaining issues. The WSJ makes my point;

    Groups affiliated with Democratic causes plan to drive that message home in coming days. MoveOn.org, along with labor groups, plan rallies in more than 200 congressional districts Thursday, to urge action on the legislation. The groups’ message was clear in the headline of a press release from Americans United for Change shortly after the veto: “Bush Shafts Kids.”

    No, actually, Democrats shafted the neediest kids by sending a bloated bill to the President – just like they shafted the troops when they sent the same bloated Defense bill to him three times.

    Speaking of bloated, Ted Kennedy chimes in with his own brand of strawman logic;

    “Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away a half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

    “The Congress has done its job, passing a bipartisan bill that meets a critical need without adding a penny to the federal deficit. The president has broken his promise to America’s children.”

    No, Jabba the Kennedy, Democrats have broken a promise to be bi-partisan. When I wrote to my Senators Cardin and Mikulski about CHIP, Cardin didn’t bother to respond, Mikulski responded that it was for the children…blah, blah, blah. Mikulski even told me that if I didn’t like the tobacco tax, I should quit smoking. Well, suppose I did – suppose we all did. How would your health insurance program get funded then? Suppose we all cut our habit in half? How would your program get funded? Shortsighted morons that you are. 

    Powerline says “Well Done, Mr. President” and I echo that sentiment.

    A quick perusal of Technorati gives me headlines like “Dear Mr. President: Private Medicine means no medicine if you’re poor” (read that: if government doesn’t do it, it won’t get done for me) and “God told him to spend the money on killing children not helping them” (read that: those God-worshippers love war and hate children) and “THEY NEED YOUR HELP!” (all caps and an exclamation point meaning they didn’t need help this morning, but as soon as the President vetoed the bill, they did need your help). Here’s a really good one; “The President and Jesus; two differing views on children“. Apparently Jesus wouldn’t have vetoed the CHIP – although I don’t remember any mandate in the New Testiment for government-funded health insurance for people that make 300% of the poverty rate.

    Like Newsbusters’ Julia Seymour says; “When the story’s got children, who needs facts?”

  • Phony soldiers

    Yeah, I heard the story about Rush Limbaugh calling people “phony soldiers”, I’ve watched the video, I’ve read the blogs – I know what he said, I don’t need it explained to me. He was talking about Jesse Macbeth – the best known fake veteran of this war, so far. Prairie Pundit is waiting for a Macbeth phony soldier squad to embrace him. Who thought this scrawney twirp was a Ranger?

    And who thought this was the career of an E-fricken-four?

    Limbaugh was talking about Scott Thomas Beauchamp who told phony stories about impossible events that happened to him before he set foot in Iraq. You’d think The New Republic would be smart enough to steer clear of the Limbaugh controversy, but, nope.

    Limbaugh was talking about Tom Harkin, the Senator who likes to tell war stories about a war he was never in. He’s talking about Harry Reid, who suddenly feels like the troops have been slighted (not when he called them losers and suggested they quit fighting, though). They can’t condemn Iran for killing our troops, but they can summon the guts to condemn Limbaugh (Hot Air) – how fricken brave.

    Limbaugh is talking about John Kerry who took a movie camera to Viet Nam (at a time when even most really rich people didn’t have movie cameras) and “re-enacted” his battles – and threw someone’s medals over some fence. And made up stories about what he’d wished he done in Viet Nam. Then makes a “botched joke” about how stupid the troops are. More on the original phony soldier, John Kerry from Sweetness and Light.

    Limbaugh was talking about John Murtha who hides behind his fake 30 years of service (half of which he spent in Congress, and all except one year, he spent defending Johnstown, PA from being awash in beer in his “special infantry” unit) while taking pot shots at the folks who are actually doing the heavylifting he couldn’t summon the testicular fortitude to accomplish. Need I mention his “pink badge of courage“?

    Here’s another phony soldier, Al Gore who had a body guard either because he was an E-4 journalist or a Senator’s son. I spent a year in Panama as an Army journalist and I never had a body guard. My friend, Gary, spent a few years as a journalist in Germany and didn’t get a body guard – so you tell me;

    Apparently his bodyguard was to protect Gore from himself.

    Limbaugh is talking about Jon Solz, who flew off the handle at a soldier in uniform at the Yearly Koz, yet a picture of Solz in his uniform is on his website (which is now closed because Solz has apparently foresaken his own band of phony soldiers) – doing nothing more than the young buck sergeant at the Yearly Koz.

    Limbaugh is talking about Adam Kokesh – the dimwitted bubblehead who claimed he’d been discharged when he hadn’t, who made false claims about the war all because he’d been busted smuggling an Iraqi pistol back from the war and the Marines wouldn’t extend him the honor of returning to the war. And then makes false claims about the recruiter that recruited him. Kokesh still calls himself “Sergeant Kokesh” even though he was busted to private years ago. All the while he’s using his GI Bill to get an education.

    I meet phony soldiers nearly everyday – they’re everywhere. Just the other day I saw some homeless bum walking around with a cammie jacket and a ton of patches sewn on it – none of which had anything to do with another. But the Left loves them – the Left defends them. The Left protects them. And this how they treat the troops with whom they disagree;

    So this Clinton-funded Media Matters gaggle with admitted liar David Brock at the helm doesn’t need to tell me what to think about Limbaugh – nothing Limbaugh says can compare to those phony warriors on Capitol Hill – and the ones the Left seems to attract.

    Michele Malkin is all over Tom Harkin and Crotchety Old Bastard is mopping up Harry Reid. Gateway Pundit is dragging out phony soldiers from every closet – here, here and here. Melanie Morgan at Move America Forward mentions a few more phony soldiers that I’ve forgotten,