Category: Politics

According to the Washington Times and Congressional GOP members, these two are related in yesterday’s passage of the minimum wage bill. Pelosi’s constituent, Starkist tuna, benefitted by having it’s plant in Samoa exempted from the minimum wage hike the Democrats have been whining about for a decade. If it’s OK for employers as far away as the Mariannas to be subjected to the hike, and if the hike is needed for all Americans, what’s wrong with Samoans? Is this how Pelosi intends to “drain the swamp” in Congress? Can you imagine if a Republican had done this?

UPDATE (7:16 AM 1-13-07): According to the Washington Times, Pelosi is moving to close the Samoan loophole now that she’s been busted on it. The most important part of the story, though is the reaction of non-voting Rep. Eni Faleomavaega of Samoa;

A “decrease in production or departure of one or both of the two canneries in American Samoa could devastate the local economy, resulting in massive layoffs and insurmountable financial difficulties,” he said in a statement provided to The Times.
    “The truth is the global tuna industry is so competitive that it is no longer possible for the federal government to demand mainland minimum wage rates for American Samoa without causing the collapse of our economy and making us welfare wards of the federal government.”
    Melissa Murphy Brown, vice president for Del Monte, warned in a statement yesterday that applying the minimum wage at the tuna packing plants in American Samoa would “severely cripple the local economy.”

Now the Democrats have claimed that raising the minimum wage wouldn’t hav an adverse effect on our economy, but here they are defending NOT raising the minimum by warning of the impact it would have on the economy. So which is it?

Its bad enough when intellectually vacant Democrats make intellectually vacant statements but when Republicans start doing it. I was reading the Washington Times story about Democrats opposing the now-famous SURGE. Things like;

“Escalation of this war is not the change the American people called for in the last election,” Democratic Whip Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois said last night in his party’s response to Mr. Bush’s prime-time presentation of his Iraq strategy changes.
    “Instead of a new direction, the president’s plan moves the American commitment in Iraq in the wrong direction.”

And;

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Americans want to know whether Mr. Bush’s strategy is a “change of course.”
    “Or is this simply more of the same with slightly different rhetoric?” Mr. Schumer said.

And then I ran into this paragraph;

Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican and a favorite of conservatives, last night said Mr. Bush’s troop surge is not the answer.
    “Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution,” he said.

Well, I thought maybe Mr. Brownback had more to say on the subject, because I wasn’t going to impugn him on a one-line quote in a newspaper article, so I went to his website to see what could be missing from the story. I found more, well, word-wise but still intellectually vacant;

“I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer,” said Brownback. “Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution. In the last two days, I have met with Prime Minister Maliki, with two deputy presidents and the president of the Kurdish region. I came away from these meetings convinced that the United States should not increase its involvement until Sunnis and Shi’a are more willing to cooperate with each other instead of shooting at each other.”

Brownback continued, “The Kurdish leadership does not wish to get in the middle of a sectarian fight between the Sunni and Shi’a, and the United States should not either. Instead of surging troops, we must press the Iraqi government to reach a political solution. We cannot achieve a political solution while a military solution is imposed. The best way to reach a democratic Iraq is to empower the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own nation building.”

He sounds like a Democrat. Where have these people been for the last forty years. People in that part of the world don’t understand words. They don’t tell the truth and as soon as your back is turned they’ll run a dagger through your backside.

The only thing people in that part of the world understand is force. No amount of surrender talk, no amount of concession will yield even a moment’s respite from the violence there. The people who are killing each other will only stop when they’re dead, or when they’re backed into a corner, weaponless with a bayonet to their throat.

Brownback is apparently over in the area now and has cutsey blog going about all of the people he’s met and how wonderful they are to him, but I honestly don’t think he’s had his eyes open the entire he’s been there if he can’t get these notions of negotiation and political solutions out of his head.

Lessons of the past are lost on Presidential candidates I guess. When Saddam Hussein was beaten soundly in 1991, Yassir Arafat couldn’t get to the negotiation table fast enough. When Hussein’s defenses were destroyed again in 2003, Qaddafi couldn’t surrender his weapons of mass destruction fast enough. When Sadr and Iran meet the same types of defeat, the rest will come along willingly – maybe fast enough to shut Chavez up for a day or two, as well.

But until Brownback yanks his head from his fourth point-of-contact, he’ll get no support here from me.

Meanwhile REAL Republicans like Mitch McConnell are supporting the President’s plan;

President Bush’s decision to deploy more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq drew fierce opposition Thursday from congressional Democrats, but the Senate’s top Republican threatened a filibuster to block any legislation expressing disapproval of the plan.

“Obviously, it will … require 60 votes,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as senior administration officials made the case for Bush’s new policy in Congress, at news briefings and the morning television programs.

Powerline did an interview with McConnell here.

Trying to get out before the President has a chance to talk, Democrats are scurrying towards any venue that will have them. Dick Durbin begs the KosKids to give him an agenda since the Democrats don’t appear to have one past the first 100 hours. He gives them a series of drop down boxes so they don’t have to type all that much (we already know that the KosKids are allergic to the Shift key).

Ted Kennedy gives a perverted lesson in what he thinks the Constitution says to those same KosKids. He claims that “people elected Democrats to show some backbone”. Apparently backbone means to cut-and-run in Massachusetts.

And the Kos Kids respond in kind;

This country has faced no graver threat than the one posed by the rogue sociopath currently occupying the Oval Office.  Thousands of lives stand to be lost if no one curbs this president from his intended path, and we thank you — as patriots to patriots — for taking this stand.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Bush and his henchmen are trying to provoke a Constitutional crisis — I hope you and your fellow Democrats in the Senate –and any Republican  who may choose to ally with you — are prepared to do whatever it takes to win if that is what it comes down to.

Way to show some backbone, ya smelly hippie freak.

In the meantime, the rest of the Democrats are backpedaling away from Kennedy’s rant at the National Press Club yesterday according to the Washington Times.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland also cast doubt on the proposal. The Constitution’s Article II, he said, “probably does” give the president authority to prosecute a war.

Showing his own version of “backbone”;

Mr. Kennedy’s proposal, Mr. Reid said, “is an idea, and we’ll certainly look at it in an intelligent way.”

But then there the axis of cowards;

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Mr. Reed will hold a press conference today with retired Gen. Wesley Clark, to call on the president “to end our open-ended commitment in Iraq.”
    But not even Mr. Kennedy’s proposal, however, goes far enough to please hard-line war opponents.
    Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio on Monday called for Mr. Bush to withdraw all troops from Iraq and close all military bases there.
    “A U.S. declaration of an intention to withdraw troops and close bases will help dampen the insurgency which has been inspired to resist colonization and fight invaders,” he said in his announcement.

Now the New York Times reports that Democrats will hold votes on the President’s proposal as early as next week. Hours before the President even makes his proposal. The Times claims that Democrats want to isolate the President and make this “his” war. Right out of Teddy Kennedy’s speech yesterday. That’s fine, they can do that. But what about those supposed Blue Dog Democrats that ran as conservatives and claimed that their first priority would be national defense. Can Pelosi and Reid hold them together? And will the people who voted for them stand for it?

Makes you wonder how Americans elected these clowns doesn’t it?

Hat tip to Sister Toldya.

From the Washington Times we get threats Congress is making towards our National Security;

“If the president chooses to escalate the war, in his budget request we want to see a distinction between what is there to support the troops who are there now. The American people and the Congress support those troops. We will not abandon them,” the California Democrat said during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
    “But if the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it. And this is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given him a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions.”
    Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat and House Appropriations Committee chairman, echoed his party leader’s warnings and some of her wording, saying, “There are certainly going to be no blank checks” from his panel.
    “I think we’re going to scrub his request and, at the same time, use it as a chance to really discuss whether or not the policy behind that request makes any sense,” he said.

So, based on purely fiscal policy, disregarding our security, the Democrats have declared themselves more knowledgeable about what we need to win than the generals they appointed to their positions. Obey seems to have already made up his mind with none of the testimony he claims he requires. So why should the Administration and the Pentagon appear in front of his farce of a committee, except for Obey’s own political benefit?

Yeah, the previous Congress gave the President a blank check, because the President and his advisors are more intimate with the facts than a bunch of mouthy impudent, self-important clowns who care more about themselves and their personal wealth than they are about the welfare of the nation. The President is the Commander-in-chief while Congress holds the purse strings.

Imagine the sigh of relief from the enemy this morning after reading this article.

According to an article in the San Diego Union tribune, the Democrats are looking for a way to “pay” for middle class tax cuts. That’s the same kind of wordsmithing that allowed Bill Clinton to raise our taxes after campaigning on a middleclass tax cut in 1992. I remember the “targeted tax cuts” of the Clinton years – the targets were few and far between.

They aren’t “paying” for tax cuts – the only people paying here are the taxpayers. It’s the taxpayers’ money, not government’s money – hence the name “taxpayers”. The fact that Democrats demand that taxpayers “pay” for their taxcuts implies that we are buying something we don’t necessarily deserve. And who, exactly, are we paying? The government? For what? For bloated Federal programs that cost more than their private equivalent would cost? The Democrats are being disingenuous by using the phraseology of the fiscally responsible to cover up the fact that they don’t want to cut any of their spending programs and it’s all in preparation for tax increases.

Remember the famous Clinton line about he had worked harder than he ever had in his life to find us a middleclass tax cut, but couldn’t find any – so he raised our taxes instead?

Remember how Bill Clinton balanced his spending (he never balanced the budget, contrary to popular urban legends – there was still a deficit when he left office)? By downsizing the military and cutting defense spending – one of the only functions of government clearly mentioned in the Constitution that we don’t need a judge to “interpret” for us. Well, the Party of Cut-and-Run are contemplating the same;

Bush’s spending decisions also came under fire from the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.

“How can you ever expect to get to a balanced budget if you’re spending $100 billion a year on Iraq borrowing the money to do it, if you’re giving $50 billion a year in tax cuts to people who make over a million bucks a year and paying for that with borrowed money?” Obey said.

At least some Republicans still have a backbone;

The Senate’s top Republican said most GOP senators oppose this budget rule because “it almost guarantees that the majority, if it enacts it, will try to raise taxes.”

“The last thing we need to do is to be raising taxes in this country, and ‘pay-go’ is the first step toward raising taxes,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “I think there will be very few, if any, Republicans who will support raising taxes.

But according to Robert Novak, not all of the Republicans are quite so stiff-spined – including the President.

Curt at Flopping Aces compares the Democrats on the Sunday shows to the RNC-rejected Zucker ads.

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.