Happy New Year

I'll be "enjoying" a nasty case of strep throat that has more or less ruined my holiday trip to the in-laws in New York, but I sincerely hope that everyone has a Happy New Year... well except for liberals, who I expect will have another long disappointing year of paranoia, outrage, and failure.

Hey, everybody can't be happy...

The "Ghost Coast" Is Not Forgotten

Four months after Hurrican Katrina slammed ashore, the catastrophic destruction of the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coasts have been all but forgotten by the media (and Wikipedia).

On December 14, the Sun-Herald posted an editorial, Mississippi's Invisible Coast asking for at least some media attention by focused on those outside of New Orleans.

It begins:

As Aug. 29 recedes into the conscious time of many Americans, the great storm that devastated 70 miles of Mississippi's Coast, destroying the homes and lives of hundreds of thousands, fades into a black hole of media obscurity.

Never mind that, if taken alone, the destruction in Mississippi would represent the single greatest natural disaster in 229 years of American history. The telling of Katrina by national media has created the illusion of the hurricane's impact on our Coast as something of a footnote.

The awful tragedy that befell New Orleans as a consequence of levee failures at the time of Katrina, likewise, taken by itself, also represents a monumental natural disaster. But, of course, the devastation there, and here, were not separate events, but one, wrought by the Aug. 29 storm.

There is no question that the New Orleans story, like ours, is a compelling, ongoing saga as its brave people seek to reclaim those parts of the city lost to the floods.

But it becomes more and more obvious that to national media, New Orleans is THE story - to the extent that if the Mississippi Coast is mentioned at all it is often in an add-on paragraph that mentions "and the Gulf Coast" or "and Mississippi and Alabama."

Read the whole thing.

The mainstream media has once again dropped the ball. It is up to us to tell the tale of a battered land and a proud people outside of New Orleans.

The Powers of President George

What this NSA executive order matter will boil down to in the end is a separation of powers issue.

Did Congress have the legal authority to bind the Office of the Presidency in conducting warrantless searches performed for national security reasons, stripping the executive branch of an inherent constitutional power?

Every President from the dawn of international wire communications well over 100 years ago until 1978 assumed this right, and the courts have always deferred to this particular power inherent to the Presidency. This is supported by case law and precedent, and is summed up in the five-page Department of Justice briefing (PDF) delivered last week. In short, the Department of Justice seems willing to make the case that Bush was well within his constitutional powers. If anything, Congress may have exceeded their constitutional powers in passing FISA.

Even after passing FISA, Carter himself did not feel strictly bound by it, nor has any President since, from Reagan, to George H. W. Bush, Clinton, to George W. Bush. They have all asserted (and over the past two weeks, their DoJ attorneys have as well) that the Office of the Presidency has the Constitutional authority to authorize warrantless intercepts of foreign intelligence. This power has been assumed by every president of the modern age before them, dating back, presumably to the Great Eastern's success in 1866 of laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable. From Johnson, then, through Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, through Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, to FDR and on to Truman, Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and into the Carter administration, the Presidency has had the inherent and unchallenged power to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign powers for national security reasons.

This is a simple, unassailable fact, not matter how loudly demagogues shriek.

FISA is a case of Congress infringing upon the inherent power of the executive branch, and if it comes up as a direct constitutional challenge, FISA will most likely be struck down as Congress infringing upon the constitutional authority of the executive branch to perform foreign intelligence functions.

By creating and using this executive order, Bush merely used a right the executive branch has always maintained since the very first "President George" in 1789.

Note: While I've made the specific case of warrantless wiretapping authority by the President back to Andrew Johnson in 1866, Robert F. Turner in WSJ.com's OpinionJournal takes the case back 216 years to another George's Administration, and beyond that back to Ben Franklin the Continental Congress in 1776.

Cheering for the Wrong Team

Like addicts jonesing for a fix, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the NY Times just can't help themselves:

Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.

If I understand things correctly (and let's be honest, no blogger nor journalist has seen the executive order), the President's order was for national security-related wiretaps, not criminal-prosecution-related wiretaps.

Odds are that all of those terrorists convicted were done so using information from criminal wiretaps obtained via 5,645 requests that were made to FISA courts. This distinction is an important one, and if accurate, utterly undermines the case made by Risen and Lichtblau.

Woe be to Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger.

His reporters are putting the paper in a position where casual (and many not so casual) readers are going to think that the Times utter disregard for the nation's security has morphed into grandstanding, even cheerleading support for convicted al Qaeda terrorists, while not offering any support for either the Times long-running political case against the president, nor the terrorist's attempt to slip prosecution by any means necessary.

Karl Rove simply isn't paying him enough.

Thunder Over Iran

David Bernstein notes over at The Volokh Conspiracy that there is distinct possibility that Israel will strike Iran within the next few months in an effort to disrupt or destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions. As Bernstein himself notes, "this is hardly an original insight."

The Iranians certainly know this, which is why they've entered into a deal to buy 29 TOR-M1 mobile air defense missile systems (another source strongly suggests that the actual number is actually 32 TOR-M1 systems, or the equivalent of two regiments).

Despite the deployment of these new systems however, Israel will not only probably engage Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with the international community falter, they will likely succeed.

Despite the commentary of some "experts," to the contrary, the Israeli Air Force has significant deep strike capability. According to Global Security, the IAF currently has 25 advanced multi-role F-15I "Ra'am" (Thunder) strike fighters, a custom built Israeli variant of the American F-15E Strike Eagle that can carry the 5,000 pound GBU-28 "Bunker Buster" capable of penetrating 20 feet of concrete or more than 100 feet of earth. Congress was alerted to the possible sale of 100 GBU-28s and supporting equipment in in April of 2005, and did not object, making it reasonable to conclude that the IAF probably has both the strike aircraft and the weaponry to take out the most heavily-fortified of Iranian facilities.

IAF F-16I "Soufa" (Storm)

In addition to the deep strike/deep penetration capability of GBU-28-armed F-15Is, the IAF also has "nearly 50" of the highly advanced F16I "Soufa" (Storm) two-seat, long-range interdictors most recognizable for two conformal fuel tanks mounted on the upper fuselage as seen in the image above. These F-16Is are equipped with long-range AMRAAM and short range Python 5 imaging infrared-guided high agility dogfighting missiles in an air-to-air role, or a mix of HARM anti-radiation missiles, Maverick air-to ground missiles, and a large variety of unguided and guided bombs

If Israel opts for a aerial assault, these roughly 75 planes should be more than a match for any air defenses Iran can project. Iranian airpower has suffered significantly since the shah's regime in the 1970s, and land-based radar and SAM capabilities are probably insufficient to the task of defending against modern strike packages.

If Israel opts for an early March strike as some sources suggest, we will know both Israel's and Iran's capabilities in very short order.

Neo-Cops Grow Ever More Unhinged on NSA Story

The kerfluffle around Bush's executive order to the NSA just keeps getting more and more interesting…

On Christmas Eve, Stewart Powell of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer released a column showing that the secret FISA court that is supposed to approve government surveillance efforts was apparently exceeding its authority, forcing the Administration to go around a judicial roadblock to protect the American people:

Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.

If the FISA court was being dangerously obstructionist in the Administration's view, then the President would appear to not just have a right, but a Constitutional responsibility to go around the court if he felt American lives were at risk. To act otherwise would be criminal negligence, would it not?

Today's neo-copperheads can't be trusted in matters of national defense, and seem more intent on proving that fact for the foreseeable future. Marshall Grossman vividly proves that point in this article today at The Huffington Post.

Grossman—University of Maryland English Professor Marshall Grossman—apparently doesn't possess the reading comprehension needed to discern the meaning of the following sentence and apply it properly to today's world:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The above is of course the Fourth Amendment, which Grossman goes out of his way to misunderstand.

He breathlessly intones:

That's it: the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, complete and entire: One, single, gloriously clear, and grammatically explicit sentence. If some enterprising entrepreneur will put it on a tee-shirt, I'll wear it proudly.

In my naiveté I thought a few of us wearing those tee-shirts would be enough to put an end to the inane discussion of whether or not the President has the right to order the NSA to sustain a vast, warrantless, data-mining operation aimed at the international telephone and e-mail communication of Americans. On my stupid reading, the fourth amendment says no twice: no search or seizure without a sworn warrant and no warrant without specifying the places, persons or things sought.

But wait. On the Op Ed page of this morning's New York Times, a couple of strict constructionists from the Reagan and H. W. Bush Justice Departments are out to set me straight. These guys are lawyers. I'm just a guy who makes his living reading and understanding the English language.

But you are not understanding the language Professor Grossman. Either you canot understand it, or you are trying to cleverly lie with it. I'll leave the reader to decide which.

The Fourth Amendment purposefully does not outlaw all searches and seizures as Grossman would intentionally mislead readers, it only outlaws those that would be regarded as unreasonable, nor does it outlaw warrantless searches as legal precedents have shown time and time again. His entire position is predicated upon misrepresentation and ignoring the professional opinions of Justice Department lawyers from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton Presidential administrations, applicable case law, legal briefs, and judicial precedent, all of which which inconveniently seems to refute his purposefully obtuse position.

Ever out of his depth from a legal perspective, the good professor cannot even hold his own in an honest reading of the language. Professor Grossman should stick to 17th century English literature.

21st Century national policy matters are clearly beyond his understanding.

Victims of the Wave

Today marking the one year anniversary of what much of the world knows as the Asian or Boxing Day Tsunami, which took over 200,000 lives in South Asia. Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of roundups on his site.

Please say a prayer for those that never returned home, and for those that were left behind to face a shattered world without them.

The Reason for the Season

⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

⁵ To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

⁶ And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

⁷ And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

⁸ And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

⁹ And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

¹⁰ And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

¹² And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

¹⁴ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Happy birthday, Jesus, and a Merry Christmas to all.

I'll see you all again on the 26th.

Google Mocks Christ on Christmas Eve

While trying to find a nativity image for my last post before Christmas, I did an search for "baby jesus" on Google.

This is the result.

Notice that the top search result is for a sex toy that mocks Jesus.

Other results on this search results page have more link traffic. A quick review of page's code shows no HTML meta information that should give it a favorable ranking. The page itself has a raw relevance ranking (search word divided by total words) of less than five percent. The only conclusion I can draw is that this page position ranking was done manually by a Google staffer.

Google's message to the Faithful seems obvious:

"Merry Christmas, assholes."

Update: Some folks have made the argument that this is the result of Googlebombing or other SEO tricks. Others say that it is merely the result of Google's search programs. They would absolve Google of all responsibility.

I do not.

Google's algorithms are man-made, coded by human programmers, as are any exclusionary protocols. These people ultimately decide if search results are relevant. I think it is fair to say that a butt plug is not a relevant search result for 99-percent of Google users searching for information on Jesus Christ as a baby.

So either Google has manipulative coders, or a fouled algorithm in their baseline technologies that suggests their massive capitalization is based upon a a house of cards. I'll leave individual readers and investors to make the call.

Update 2: Crooks and Liars calls this post 2005's Worst Post of the Year. Coming from such a den of delusion and paranoia (not to mention abject political failure), I consider it a compliment.

Also, I guess he didn't see this, though technically it isn't a blog post, just the worst idea of the year.

Good Friday Update: As I said previously:

Google's algorithms are man-made, coded by human programmers, as are any exclusionary protocols. These people ultimately decide if search results are relevant.

A current Google search reveals that Google has changed their search algorithm to exclude the sex toy site from at least their top 50 results in a unfiltered search. I was right, liberals were wrong.

Not that this comes as a shock to anyone...

A THIRD Surveillance Scandal

First there was the Bush Executive Order to have the NSA intercept messages outside the country to and from the terrorists that upset liberals. Then the NEST surveillance of predominately Muslims sites for dirty bombs which made them livid.

And then there is this, perhaps the most intrusive surveillance of all.

The ACLU will not be happy.

Which Side Are They On?

You've got to wonder just how fast today's mainstream media would have leaked the breaking of Enigma to the Germans.

From U.S News & World Report:

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

I would certainly hope that U.S. mosques, where terrorists have already attempted to purchase surface to air missiles, are under surveillance for radiological weapons. I should hope they are being monitored for suspicious chemicals and biological agents as well.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the main ingredient in the U.S. News story is the "surprising" fact that - get this - some suspicious Muslim sites were monitored without obtaining warrants. The rest of the story - including the "omitted details of how the monitoring is conducted" - has been public knowledge at least since June 9 of 2002 when much of this same ground was covered by the Boston Globe:

[NEST] teams have been driving around urban areas in vans known as ''Hot Spot Mobile Labs,'' armed with instruments that detect alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron radiation. Other teams are equipped with backpacks that hold smaller detectors...

...

Though the effort has relaxed somewhat since the October scare, one official said NEST units still go on random, weekly search missions in different cities, focusing on ports, warehouse districts, and other locations where a smuggled weapon might be housed.

NEST teams may have driven their vans onto mosque property to sniff the air for radioactive isotopes. Backpack-equipped NEST team members may have walked through a neighborhood or apartment complex.

The government holds that these sniff tests are legal. Not surprisingly, U.S. News was able to find a dissenting expert.

Georgetown University Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert, disagrees. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, he argues, but not private offices or homes: "They don't need a warrant to drive onto the property -- the issue isn't where they are, but whether they're using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause."

U.S. News might have also mentioned that Georgetown University Professor David Cole, "a constitutional law expert," is also the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a far left liberal magazine.

It gets worse.

Cole points to a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. vs. Kyllo, which looked at police use -- without a search warrant -- of thermal imaging technology to search for marijuana-growing lamps in a home.

Because of course, sensors used for national security are the exact same thing as local cops making a pot bust. Brilliant comparison, Professor Cole.

Perhaps because of his politics, Cole does not bother to mention the blatantly obvious fact that these radiation-sensing technologies should not violate the "unreasonable search" clause of the Fourth Amendment because of the "special needs" exception.

Nor does Cole mention that going into publicly-accessible driveways and parking lots without a warrant is not necessarily unconstitutional.

You would think that Cole or U.S. News would have tried to seek a more balanced approach to this story.

Of course, if they did, there wouldn't be a story, would there?

ConLaw Scholar: Bush has the Authority For NSA Wiretaps

This segment of a radio talk show transcript is interesting, especially coming from self-described liberal Constitutional law Professor Cass Sunstein on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show:

Hugh Hewitt (HH): ...First, did the authorization for the use of military force from 2001 authorize the president's action with regards to conducting surveillance on foreign powers, including al Qaeda, in contact with their agents in America, Professor?

Cass Sunstein (CS): Well, probably. If the Congress authorizes the president to use force, a pretty natural incident of that is to engage in surveillance. So if there's on the battlefield some communication between Taliban and al Qaeda, the president can monitor that. If al Qaeda calls the United States, the president can probably monitor that, too, as part of waging against al Qaeda.

Hugh Hewitt (HH): Very good. Part two of your analysis...If...whether or not the AUMF does, does the Constitution give the president inherent authority to do what he did?

Cass Sunstein (CS): That's less clear, but there's a very strong argument the president does have that authority. All the lower courts that have investigated the issue have so said. So as part of the president's power as executive, there's a strong argument that he can monitor conversations from overseas, especially if they're al Qaeda communications in the aftermath of 9/11. So what I guess I do is put the two arguments together. It's a little technical, but I think pretty important, which is that since the president has a plausible claim that he has inherent authority to do this, that is to monitor communications from threats outside our borders, we should be pretty willing to interpret a Congressional authorization to use force in a way that conforms to the president's possible Constitutional authority. So that is if you put the Constitutional authority together with the statutory authorization, the president's on pretty good ground.

Radioblogger has the entire transcript.

FISA Court Could Disband After Briefing

The FISA Court in the center of the Bush/NSA surveillance kerfluffle just got interesting, as the presiding judge is apparently setting up a briefing for her fellow judges next month, according to the Washington Post.

The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.

Is it just my reading of this passage, or does this article seem to suggest that presiding judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly—attempting to assuage their concerns, as the passage states—has knowledge of the Bush executive order and it's legal justifications, and buys into it enough to sponsor a briefing for other FISA judges?

It is also interesting to note that “protest resignation” of Judge James Robertson occurred before the briefing, lending some degree of credibility to the theory that his divorce from the FISA court was political in nature.

Among the more interesting bits of information in this WaPo article is how the FISA judges could chose to react after the briefing, which is expected to be made by NSA and Justice Department attorneys.

The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the answers, demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous wiretaps were not tainted, according to government officials knowledgeable about the FISA court. Warrants obtained through secret surveillance could be thrown into question. One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.

Bold in the above is mine.

I would think that the step of disbanding the court would prove to be an emphatic acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the FISA law itself, and would be seen as an affirmation of the Article II powers inherent to the Office of the President.

If this is the final decision of the court—and at this point, it is simply impossible to tell—it will have to be seen as a huge blow to the credibility of the “impeach him now, ask questions later” faction of the Democratic Party running in the 2006 elections, and to the Jimmy Carter-era “Dazed and Malaised” Congress that brought FISA into existence.

Thank a Soldier Week

In case you haven't heard, December 19-25 is Thank a Soldier Week.

Motives and Madmen

No wonder President Bush has been at ease the past few days.

While details of Bush's NSA Executive Order to conduct warrantless surveillance on suspected terrorist operatives remains classified, the "smoking gun" case of Presidential misconduct made by the New York Times is showing signs of falling completely apart under the weight of Constitutional law and similar national security precedents made by previous presidential administrations.

President Jimmy Carter's Executive Order 12139 approved electronic surveillance above and beyond FISA to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order as long as it was certified by the attorney general. This executive order issued by Carter has never been challenged, and seems to be very close to the content of Bush's current still classified order.

President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12949 expanded upon Carters provisions to include warrantless physical searches.

So what damning new information does the Times crusading book promoter James Risen and his faithful sidekick Eric Lichtblau bring us today?

The most evil of all horrors: the accidental surveillance of international cell phones and email addresses suspected to belong to terrorists once they've crossed into the United States:

A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."

Telecommunications experts say the issue points up troubling logistical questions about the program. At a time when communications networks are increasingly globalized, it is sometimes difficult even for the N.S.A. to determine whether someone is inside or outside the United States when making a cellphone call or sending an e-mail message. As a result, people that the security agency may think are outside the United States are actually on American soil.

Jump to:

But in at least one instance, someone using an international cellphone was thought to be outside the United States when in fact both people in the conversation were in the country. Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified, would not discuss the number of accidental intercepts, but the total is thought to represent a very small fraction of the total number of wiretaps that Mr. Bush has authorized without getting warrants.

Say a Canadian al Qaeda suspect checks his email on his laptop in a flat in Fort Erie, Canada. He takes a short bus ride across the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, New York, grabs a gingerbread latte at the Starbucks on Delaware and Kenmore, and he checks this same email account again. By monitoring this same email account accessed on the same computer, the NSA committed the kind of accidental illegal intercept that Risen and Lichtblau are complaining about.

I don't know about you, but I'm just livid with outrage... but not at the NSA, nor President Bush.

The Times has been reduced to complaining that a handful of suspected terrorists targeted for international surveillance got into the United States and were accidentally still monitored.

Ahem. I never suspected that NY Times reporters would ever be charged with being Administration cronies, but by advocating against the best interests of the United States over such trivial details, Risen and Lichtblau give us every reason to doubt their true motives and allegiances.

Hail to the Thug

Quadruple murderer and co-founder of the violent drug-dealing Crips street gang Stanley "Tookie" Williams was eulogized and buried today. News coverage was often as sickening as his crimes.

ABC News runs the apologetic headline Activists, Rap Star Say Farewell to 'Tookie' Williams.

The San Francisco Chronicle almost makes him sound like the victim, proclaiming Throng gathers in LA for funeral of executed former gang leader.

Reuters UK proclaims, Executed Calif. killer Williams hailed at funeral.

Fox News ran the Associated Press story and its too generous headline Hundreds Gather for Tookie Williams' Funeral, but the Fox News Web Team voiced their opinion with their Web link from the home page.

It's nice to knew that someone remembered Tookie Williams for the craven murderous thief he really was, and not some sort of martyr.

Bush: Roving the Times?

With James Risen presumably off reading the galley proofs of his forthcoming book Screwing Over America (For Fun and Profit), David Sanger joined in the next installment of Eric Lichtblau's year-long fevered pursuit to tip al Qaeda to the nature of NSA-run surveillance operation authorized by a White House executive order in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Despite the ill will of the Times, the present administration is standing firm. Law professor/blogger Ann Althouse even notes of Bush's impromptu press conference Monday morning:

I'm just reading, but it seems to me that he's awfully relaxed, joking like this, when he's under fire about not complying with FISA restrictions...

And later:

I'm watching the C-Span replay of the press conference now, and I'm even more impressed by the strength of Bush's confidence. This man is happy.

It does seem like very odd behavior for a man that is, if the Times is correct, on the edge of not only losing one of American's most effective surveillance tools, but of facing a political firestorm that have some of his fevered foes calling for impeachment.

As some of the nation's top legal minds spent Monday building an unfavorable case against him based upon what the Times has leaked, and what his own administration had confirmed... hey, wait just a cotton-pickin' minute.

I think I've seen this film before.

Indulge me, please, for just a moment.

The NY Times discovers a top secret internal spying effort by the Bush Administration. The Times presumes that their sources are accurate (indeed they may be), and presumes to know most if not all of the facts. They then hold onto this information for approximately one year, flushing it out with information from confidential sources, before finally breaking the story last week. Bush's only known attempt to quash publication?

As a breathless Jonathan Alter explains:

I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president's desperation.

Indeed. Bush was so desperate, in fact, that he gave two of his most relaxed press conferences in recent memory. Perhaps the NY Times can't see it, or perhaps I'm just a bit fevered, but the Bush Administration appears to be writing this story in the national media as much as they are starring in it.

Let me offer up these simple thoughts for you to consider:

The Bush administration has known for a year that the New York Times was investigating and intended to run at some point a story about the executive order NSA.

The government probably figured out exactly what James Risen and Eric Lichtblau knew about the program within the first week of their investigation coming to light.

The government could easily "turn" any of Risen's and Lichtblau's informants with the very real, legally valid threat of long-term accommodations of the government's choosing. It could then use these turncoats to feed "fake but accurate" information to the NY Times.

The result?

The release of a story with just enough truth to be thought credible by enemies both "foreign and domestic." The story causes a cascade of irregular signal activity that "paints" terror cells as clearly as active sonar on a submarine. Unwittingly, the Times contributes to the NSA project.

If you are willing to go that far, one then has to ask this question: is the NSA program mentioned in the Times the program actually being run, or was the Times misled into being "useful idiots" for an entirely legal program out of the reach of FISA entirely?

My contention? Military intelligence operates outside of FISA restrictions that control domestic surveillance organizations, and if the NSA is collecting intercepted information offshore and is feeding it directly to the military to kill or capture bad guys overseas, the Bush's AUMF justification is both crystal clear and perfectly legal. If this is true, teh seemingly murkey explanations the Adminstration had been giving for the past week would be perfecty accurate, as well, would they not?

The fake civilian spying program can run its course to be "shutdown," while the real military program continues to run and provide for our safety in the cover of its own apparent grave.

This is of course, all just wild speculation…

Isn't it?

¿Cómo se dice, "Stupid?"

Mother Sheehan was on the whine in Madrid. via Breitbart:

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan led a small protest Saturday outside the U.S. Embassy to denounce the war in Iraq.

About 100 protesters carried banners criticizing President Bush.

Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, called Bush a war criminal and said, "Iraq is worse than Vietnam."

Of course it is, Cindy. This time we're winning.

Cindy apparently still has grass in her eyes from her last stomach-churning photo op.

Reid: I'm not Corrupt, and I'm Keeping the Money

How is that again, Harry?

"Don't lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal," Reid told Fox News Sunday, saying he never received any money from Abramoff.

Reid, like many members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients. Some lawmakers have returned those donations, but Reid gave no indication he would do so.

He never received any money, and he won't give back the money he didn't take in the first place. What is the definition of a honest politician again?

Risen's New Lows

New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau continued their assault on America's domestic security today in an article that sensationalizes the scope of Bush's executive order, studiously avoids the Administration's legal justification for NSA surveillance of terror suspects, and avoids addressing their own moral culpability in the almost certainly illegal leaking of classified intelligence information in on-going anti-terror operations.

Risen (who just happens to have a book coming out very soon) and Lichtblau start their article with this bit of willful misdirection:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended President Bush's decision to secretly authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without seeking warrants, saying the program was carefully controlled and necessary to close gaps in the nation's counterterrorism efforts.

To read Risen and Lichtblau today one might get the impression that any and all Americans are subject to a warrantless search. That is not the case, as Risen and Lichtblau themselves state just a few days ago:

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said.

Only those people thought to be communicating and collaborating with al Qaeda terrorists overseas were subject to surveillance. Risen and Lichtblau purposefully conflate the limited number of people affected to drum up hysteria in the American people their nation is spying on them.

This is a dishonest attempt to engender fears (and no doubt advanced book sales) that a narrowly-tailored executive order targeting just a few hundred or few thousand terrorist-linked email addresses and phone numbers, is general surveillance of all citizen communications in a nation of 295 million.

Legally Blind
Risen and Lichtblau are more than willing to mention that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) requires a court order to seek surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies, but somehow, they seem unable to find a legal precedent from 2000 entitled U.S vs. bin Laden (h/t Instapundit) that says in part:

“Circuit courts applying Keith [that's the FISA law] to the foreign intelligence context have affirmed the existence of a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for searches conducted within the United States that target foreign powers or their agents.”

While I'm no lawyer (nor do I play one on television), it would seem to me that that U.S. courts have an established judicial precedent for bypassing FISA in certain circumstances - the circumstances that two Attorney Generals, Justice Department, lawyers and White House Counsel all seem to affirm that President Bush was within his constitutional authority in addressing with his executive order to the NSA.

Other useful bits of information the Times crack reporters seem to have trouble finding—or at least reporting—were Executive Order 12333 issued while Ronald Reagan was in office, stipulations of FISA itself, and the President's constitutional authority, as noted by Hugh Hewitt:

Overlooked in most of the commentary on the New York Times article is the simple, undeniable fact that the president has the power to conduct warantless surveillance of foreign powers conspiring to kill Americans or attack the government. The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction from a critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to so limit that authority.

"Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country."

That is from the 1972 decision in United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al, (407 U.S. 297) which is where the debate over the president's executive order ought to begin and end. The FISA statute can have no impact on a constitutional authority, any more than an Act of Congress could diminish the First Amendment protection provided newspapers. Statutes cannot add to or detract from constitutional authority.

In short, a truthful, competent year-long investigation of President Bush's executive order regarding surveillance of terror suspects should have reflected the legal basis from which the authority was drawn.

It is a shame that honest reporting, or for that matter, the safety of the American people, are of little apparent concern for the Times and its reporters.

George Bush Hates White People

Why, the next thing you'll here is that Bush didn't order the levees blown up.

Against the conventional media wisdom of the day comes this report from the L.A. Times:

New Orleans was the site of most of Katrina's fatalities; the state reported that 76% of storm deaths statewide occurred in the city. Of the 380 bodies from New Orleans that have been formally identified, a moderately disproportionate number are white. New Orleans' population was 28% white, yet 33% of the identified victims in the city are white and 67% black.

"The affected population is more multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural than one might discern from national media reports," said Richard Campanella, a Tulane University geographer who has studied which parts of the city were hit the worst by flooding. His research showed that predominantly white districts in the city were almost as likely to flood as predominantly black ones.

Many of the dead were older and were quite capable of leaving, but made the conscious decision not to evacuate in advance of Hurricane Katrina's impending landfall. They chose... poorly.

Kanye West could not immediately be reached for additional comment.

Against Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Interesting:

President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night.

***

...Each time, the White House counsel and the attorney general certified the lawfulness of the program, the official said. Bush then signed the authorizations.

During the reviews, government officials have also provided a fresh assessment of the terrorist threat, showing that there is a catastrophic risk to the country or government, the official said.

"Only if those conditions apply do we even begin to think about this," he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the intelligence operation.

"The president has authorized NSA to fully use its resources — let me underscore this now — consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution to defend the United States and its citizens," the official said, adding that congressional leaders have also been briefed more than a dozen times.

If true, Bush's executive order authorizing streamlined NSA surveillance procedures was not a blanket endorsement, but apparently a specific series of case-by-case authorizations designed to save American lives from specific terrorist threats. What's more, congressional leaders were updated "more than a dozen times" on the use of these orders.

It would appear that President Bush operated well within his Constituional rights as Commander in Chief, and America's civil liberties were not threatened in any way while the ability to respond to specific terrorist threats was greatly improved. I think we call that a "win-win" situation, folks.

The knee-jerk reaction of the political left to cry out over apparently non-existent civil liberties violations is shameful, as is their two-faced hypocrisy regarding this leak of intelligence information to news sources.

Hinderaker called it right:

Under the Plame precedent, this case is a no-brainer. The intelligence officials who leaked to the Times should be identified, criminally prosecuted, and sent to prison.

Several decades in Club Fed is exactly what justice demands for those that would compromise America's national security concerns for partisan political vendettas.

Drudge Discovers <font FACE="ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA"size="+7" color="red">

He also discovered that according to the New York Times, President Bush didn't want to wait for terrorists to catch us with our pants down again, and authorized the National Security Agency to immediately conduct surveillance of suspected al Qaeda terrorists without waiting for a specific court order:

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

In a time of extraordinary circumstances, while the remains of murdered Americans were still being recovered from Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and a field outside Shanksville, the President decided that stopping terrorists from killing more Americans was more important than entertaining the delicate sensibilities of the ACLU.

Thank God we have you, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times to guard our civil liberties! I just wish that you had been able to get this information when it was fresh and still of use to al Qaeda. Oh wait, it still might be, and you don't care:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Some, but not all.

Thank you, Pinch Sulzberger and the New York Times for putting your egos and biases ahead of our national security.

And nice job, Matt, of missing the real story.

Update: And for the 1984 conspiracy theorists Fox News reports that there was indeed Congressional and judicial awareness of the NSA program, despite the ACLU claims to the contrary:

The Bush administration had briefed congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that handles national security issues.

Black Republicans, White Democrats

Proud Members of the Democratic Party in Wilmington, NC
after murdering dozens of black Republicans in November, 1898.

Via the News and Observer, from Appendix N, page 2 (PDF) of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report released today:

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were several attacks by white mobs on prosperous black communities resulting in the killing of black citizens and the destruction of black homes and businesses . Most notable among these riots are the Danville, Virginia Riot of 1883, the New Orleans, Louisiana Riot of 1900, the Atlanta, Georgia Riot of 1906, the Rosewood, Florida Riot of 1923, and the Tulsa, Oklahoma Riot of 1925.

Although all of the above riots were devastating to their local black communities, the Wilmington Riot of 1898 was unique in America history.¹ In November, 1898, an organized white mob massacred an unknown number of black citizens in Wilmington and at gunpoint forced the resignation of most of the local municipal government. This riot represents a turning point in the history of riots by white mobs on blacks because it is the first time in American history that a legal democratically elected government was overthrown by a government recognized organization, the Democratic Party, with no response by federal or state government officials.

This inset map (PDF) shows where 42 blacks were cornered and cut down by murderous machine-gun wielding white mobs of the Democratic Party.

I can only assume this is what Cary Tennis has in mind for today's Republicans.

It is a good thing that these days people like Mr. Tennis no longer have the majority of the guns.

Last Chance

Look, I hate to do this.

I really do.

But if I don't get a few, okay, a lot more votes by midnight tonight...

...well, I might just give Brady here to Glenn Reynolds.

Now we wouldn't want that, would we?

Does “Sovereignty” Translate into Spanish?

Vincente Fox has been sampling product from the coyotes along the border again:

Mexican President Vicente Fox denounced as "disgraceful and shameful" on Wednesday a proposal to build a high-tech wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants.

Concerned about the huge numbers of illegal immigrants streaming across the border and worried it could be an entry point for terrorists, a U.S. lawmaker has proposed building two parallel steel and wire fences running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said a wall running the length of a border would cost too much.

Mexico has expressed indignation at the idea.

Fox, speaking in Tamaulipas state across the border from Texas, said such extreme security measures would violate immigrants' rights.

"The disgraceful and shameful construction of walls, the increasing enforcement of security systems and increasing violation of human rights and labor rights will not protect the economy of the United States," he said.

Immigrant's rights? I've got a news flash for you Vincente, coming into this country illegally is -- I'll type slow so you can hopefully get it -- i l l e g a l. Foreign nationals do not have the right to enter this country when and where they want, choosing to obey the laws they want, when and if it suits them.

Only Kennedys do that.

The fact that Fox would even back such an asinine argument also shows how shortsighted his leadership has become. By encouraging illegal immigration, Fox is encouraging the most motivated members of his society to leave the country.
That is not only stupid policy, but long-term cultural suicide.

If America wants to keep Mexico a strong and stable ally, we need Mexico to stay independent and viable on its own merits. Siphoning away it's most ambitious workers in not in Mexico's best interests, nor ours. For the long-term benefit of both countries, a solid border must be maintained, and that means developing walls.

Fox should brush up on his Robert Frost.

"Good fences make good neighbors."

Into a New Dawn

As the sun comes up over Mesopotamia this morning, an estimated fifteen million Iraqi voters will their select their own government and decide their own futures by ballot for the first time in history.

Pajamas Media, led by Iraq the Model will be providing first-hand, on-the ground coverage from eight Iraqi provinces.

As somebody said in the last couple of years, "Freedom is on the march."

And no, he wasn't a Democrat.

Cindy Sheehan: Liberal Necrophilia

Necrophiliac:

Figuratively, the term "necrophilia" describes an inordinate desire to control another person, usually in the context of a romantic or interpersonal relationship; the accusation is that the person is so interpersonally controlling as to be better-suited to relationships with nonresponsive people...

...Virtually all human societies condemn abuse of the dead as a form of symbolic disrespect...

In the analytic social psychology of Erich Fromm necrophilia is a character orientation which shows an increasing tendency toward destructiveness.

Normal mothers don't use their children's graves for a photo op. Cindy... seek help. Now.

More at The Corner and Protein Wisdom.

Did NY TImes Bias Lead to "Wishful Thinking" On Bogus Forged Ballots Story?

Late last night, the NY Times decided to run a story alledging major ballot fraud on the eve of the Iraqi elections:

Less than two days before nationwide elections, the Iraqi border police seized a tanker on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at the Interior Ministry said.

The tanker was seized in the evening by agents with the American-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra, after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found several thousand partly completed ballots inside.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border.

But there is one problem with the Times article... the single-sourced story appears to be totally false:

The head of Iraq's border guards denied police reports on Wednesday that a tanker truck stuffed with thousands of forged ballot papers had been seized crossing into Iraq from Iran before Thursday's elections.

"This is all a lie," said Lieutenant General Ahmed al-Khafaji, the chief of the U.S.-trained force which has responsibility for all Iraq's borders.

"I heard this yesterday and I checked all the border crossings right away. The borders are all closed anyway," he told Reuters.

Pinch... you have some explaining to do.

Note: Cross-posted to Newsbusters.org.

Iran Bungles Bid to Sabotage Iraqi Election

Update: Lieutenant General Ahmed al-Khafaji, the head of the Iraqi border police, denies that trucks carrying ballots were seized, noting that Iraq's borders have been closed in advance of the elections. The single-source NY Times article appears to be false.More here.

A truck carrying forged ballots have been caught trying to sneak across the Iranian border into Iraq on the eve of Iraqi elections.

Via the NY Times:

Less than two days before nationwide elections, the Iraqi border police seized a tanker on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at the Interior Ministry said.

The tanker was seized in the evening by agents with the American-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra, after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found several thousand partly completed ballots inside.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border.

As the Times notes later in the article, the Iranians support two main Shiite political parties in Iraq - the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party.

An Iraqi soldier gives the 'V' sign before voting in the national election, at Kirkush Military Training Base, northeast of Baghdad, December 12, 2005 Reuters

But it seems highly suspect that these forged ballots were actually intended to influence the outcome of the election. Kurd Sunni, and Shiite alike are very much influenced by clan and community loyalties, and large swings in voting in voting patterns would almost certainly be noted.

It seems for more likely that these ballots were intended to undermine the credibility of the Iraqi election in the eyes of international observers than influence its eventual outcome.

6th?

Look, I know it's an honor just to be nominated, but come on...

Update: Bumped to top...

Update 2: Bumped. Ahem.

All Lathered Up with Nowhere to Go

It is fascinating to sometimes simply watch liberal bloggers in their "reality-based" environment, and how they reflexively strike out against anyone who would change the fragile balance of their self-imposed isolation, even if that change is minimal.

The absolutely incoherent frothing by many in response to this post Sunday by Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell is an excellent case in point.

Howell noted that the Washington Post newspaper and Washington Post.com (Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive, or WPNI) are two separate entities, and that White House reporters from the Washington Post are against WPNI writer Dan Froomkin's column being titled “White House Briefing” when he is not, in fact, a White House Reporter.

Howell writes:

Political reporters at The Post don't like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing," which is highly opinionated and liberal. They're afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter.

John Harris, national political editor at the print Post, said, "The title invites confusion. It dilutes our only asset -- our credibility" as objective news reporters. Froomkin writes the kind of column "that we would never allow a White House reporter to write. I wish it could be done with a different title and display."

Harris is right; some readers do think Froomkin is a White House reporter. But Froomkin works only for the Web site and is very popular -- and Brady is not going to fool with that, though he is considering changing the column title and supplementing it with a conservative blogger.

Howell and Harris are of course correct. A columnist should never be confused with a reporter. By blurring that line, Froomkin's opinion column was intruding on the credibility of the Post's print journalists. Changing his column's name and recognizing the fact that his bias is left of center should not even be an issue. Adding a complementary conservative blogger to balance out WPNI's political blog coverage would seem to be an entirely justifiable move.

Yet liberal readers and bloggers created such a tempest in a teacup that Harris felt the need to clarify the Post's position once more:

…there is not really a debate: washingtonpost.com should change the name of his column to more accurately present the fact that this is Dan Froomkin's take on the news, not the observations of someone who is assigned by the paper to cover the news.

People in the newsroom want to end this confusion…

In his comments, Dan pleads with reporters to stop complaining about him and start doing more to hold the White House accountable. The reporters on the Post's White House and political teams every day push through many obstacles and frustrations to do precisely this kind of accountability reporting--as I'm sure Dan would agree. But these are the very same reporters who are raising objections to "White House Briefing." The confusion about Dan's column unintentionally creates about the reporter's role has itself become an obstacle to our work.

Reporters should report the facts of the story as best they can, and columnists are free to state their opinion about what those facts mean. It seems to be a simple enough division to separate facts from opinion, but the left-side of the blogosphere is getting riled up all the same, including some people that should know better.

The usually sharp Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine completely misses the boat:

What a terrible insult and slap at a colleague who writes a very good, respected, and journalistic column for online. What a slap from a newsroom snot. But that is what newsrooms are like.

Jarvis is wrestling with a strawman, and losing; the argument isn't about whether or not print or online is better, it is about separating reporting from commentary. As off-focus as Jarvis is in this post, his commentary is still far more coherent than most of the liberal blogs.

Lean Left is absolutely hysteric, announcing in its headline "The Defeat of Journalism." For renaming a column? Hyperbole, much? The Huffington Post is no better, with Marty Kaplan trying to justify the blurring of Froomkin's commentary as journalism, and perhaps predictably, blames Fox News (and Karl Rove?) in the process.

Why is the left fighting so hard to keep the title of Froomkin's column as "White House Briefing" if deception isn't their intention?

One might start to think that among the "reality-challenged" community, a little stolen credibility is better than none at all.

Shamus MacHussein: Your Cover Just Got Blown

Okay, I love the fact that these Iraqi soldiers are so jazzed about voting that they spontaneously break out with a chorus line.

But I've gotta think that the guy spying for Scotland might have blown his cover...

Blanco: Michael Brown in Liz Claiborne

It looks like disgraced former FEMA foul-up Michael Brown wasn't the only government official worried more about fashion than folks. This gem surfaced in a an email document dump.

Via Brietbart:

"Gov. Blanco might dress down a bit and look like she has rolled up her sleeves," press consultant Kim Fuller of Witt Associates wrote in a Sept. 4 e-mail to aides including Bottcher, Mann and Kopplin. "I have some great Liz Claiborne sports clothes that look kind of Eddie Bauer, but with class, but would bring her down to level of getting to work."

"She would look like a woman, but show she is MOVING MOUNTAINS," Fuller wrote.

She can't move mountains. She can't even move buses.

No, no matter what she wore, Blanco would look like what she still looks like today: a woman completely incompetent to hold her office.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has got to go.

Call it: "Springtime for Mrs. Hitler"

It seems that Mother Sheehan is now the subject of a one-woman play. Via al-Reuters:

U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who won wide attention with a vigil outside President George W. Bush's ranch in the name of her soldier son killed in Iraq, is the subject of a new play by Nobel laureate Dario Fo.

"Peace Mom" received its world premiere in London on Saturday night, starring British actress Frances de la Tour, with both Sheehan and Italian dramatist Fo in the audience.

The one-woman show is based on extracts from Sheehan's letters to Bush and other writings. De la Tour delivered the monologues beneath large pictures of Sheehan's son Casey and a tank in the Iraqi desert in front of a plume of fire.

"Frances did such an amazing job of conveying my feelings of anger and betrayal," a tearful Sheehan said after the play.

But did they quote you accurately, Cindy?

Are we going to get this gem?

"You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."

Are they going to take the show on the road? This ought to go over great in the USO tour:

"You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East. You tell me that, you don't tell me my son died for freedom and democracy."

And I certainly hope that Dario Fo worked in the part where you were an opening act for a convicted terrorist supporter.

Somehow, Cindy, I just don't think they're painting a full, accurate picture of what you really represent.

Killing Tookie

Via CNN:

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the execution Monday of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, clearing the way for him to die by injection shortly after midnight.

The high court was the former gang leader's last chance to avoid death by injection after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied him clemency earlier Monday and a federal appeals court panel rejected a request to stay his execution.

On the upside, all those death row push-ups gave Tookie great veins.

Update: Apparently that wasn't even true. According to ABC News, it took more than 20 minutes to insert the needles. In any event, at 12:35 AM he became an ex-Tookie.

An Urgent Christmas Mission

I just got this in from Marine Corps Moms:

Please forgive the mass e-mail. I've never done it before but this is for our deployed troops. For the last 3 months, volunteers all over the country are making sure that our Marines receive a touch of home for Christmas. We've sent over 12,000 hand sewn Christmas stockings filled with food, games, socks, handwarmers, and other useful items. In addition, we've sent boxes filled with candy, beefsticks, cheese, DVDs, board games, and other things for the guys to share. For troops stationed on the Syrian border and who have been eating MREs for 7 months, we sent pancake mix, syrup and griddles, so that the Battalion Commanders could throw a pancake feed for their Marines. Little things, compared to what they're doing for us. We have no corporate sponsors and we are funded through the donations of parents and military supporters.

On Friday, I got an emergency request from an Army contact who has been in contact with the 1107th AVCRAD, a company of 250 soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their MWR dollars didn't come through and they are facing a bleak holiday. If I priority mail packages tomorrow, there is a high probability that they will get them by Christmas. I've received $500 in funding from a couple of parents, and that might be enough to mail part of the packages. But, I still need to buy the stuff to put in the packages. While I won't have individual Christmas stockings, I do have holiday decorated Ziploc baggies and am trying to fill 250 today. If you could put out an appeal to your readers to help fund this final request, it would be so appreciated. If folks want a tax deduction, they can hit the Paypal button at the Marine Corps Family Foundation site: http://www.marinecorpsfamilyfoundation.org/santa.html

If they don't need a receipt, they can use the Paypal button on my site: Marine Corps Moms. Those funds would be immediately available to me instead of waiting. (Connie holds the checkbook for our foundation and she's out of town until next week.) I've been using my own money, thinking that I can fundraise later, but I think filling this request is going to exceed what I can do personally. Each of you have readerships on your websites that I will never achieve. If you could link to the following post on my site:

http://marinecorpsmoms.com/archives/2005/12/last_minute_ope.html

or just mention it on your site, I would so appreciate it. And, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Deb Conrad
Proud Marine Mom
www.marinecorpsmoms.com

Help Deb out if you can, folks. They're not only taking care of our Marines, their taking care of our soldiers, too.

Gone Broke

According to Drudge:

Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement:

"As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it's like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President's plays no part in it.

"The Republican Party's latest ad is a shameful and disgusting attempt to distract the American people from the problems in Iraq. It may improve the President's political fortunes, but the American people and our troops will pay the price. I hope that President Bush realizes how shameful it is to play politics when what we really need is leadership, and that he will direct his Party to take down this ad immediately."

Senator Inouye was once part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit in United States military history.

According to his Medal Of Honor Citation:

Second Lieutenant Daniel K. Inouye distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 21 April 1945, in the vicinity of San Terenzo, Italy. While attacking a defended ridge guarding an important road junction, Second Lieutenant Inouye skillfully directed his platoon through a hail of automatic weapon and small arms fire, in a swift enveloping movement that resulted in the capture of an artillery and mortar post and brought his men to within 40 yards of the hostile force. Emplaced in bunkers and rock formations, the enemy halted the advance with crossfire from three machine guns. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Second Lieutenant Inouye crawled up the treacherous slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Before the enemy could retaliate, he stood up and neutralized a second machine gun nest. Although wounded by a sniper's bullet, he continued to engage other hostile positions at close range until an exploding grenade shattered his right arm. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken and his men were again deployed in defensive positions. In the attack, 25 enemy soldiers were killed and eight others captured. By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance, and was instrumental in the capture of the ridge. Second Lieutenant Inouye's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.

The fearless 20 year-old 2nd Lieutenant Inouye refused to stop, refused to even think about yielding even when under withering fire. Instead he attacked, and even when wounded twice he continued the fight until the day was won.

2nd Lieutenant Inouye knew how to win wars, Senator.

You win wars by killing your enemy or driving the fight out of him, which is something he knew on an Italian ridge 60 years ago when facing the best Hitler had to throw at him. The side that breaks, loses.

Democratic Party courage, by comparison, offers nothing but disgrace and retreat. Your party doesn't know how to win, Senator Inouye. You haven't known how for a long, long time.

And Then He Shot A Man Just For Snoring

Doug Thompson of Capital Hill Blue, the liberal version of the National Enquirer, offered up this gem yesterday:

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don't give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It's just a goddamned piece of paper!”

Thompson has cited three whole (yeah, you guessed it) anonymous figures "that were there that day" as his sources.

Perhaps I am alone, but does anyone really buy that a single senior White House staffer or senior Republican leader would come complain to this off-kilter Kenny Rodgers wannabe, much less three of them?

Mr. Thompson should perhaps check into a hospital. His Bush Derangement Syndrome is apparently reaching terminal levels.

Update: Mr. Thompson himself (or one of the other 435 residents of Floyd, VA who might be interested in Technorati links to Capital Hill Blue) dropped by, and left just as quickly without a word in rebuttal.

Apparently he couldn't think of a good reason anyone would call him, either.

Belay that Model!

Drudge reports:

Scientists: Earth's Magnetic Pole Drifting Quickly...

All I could think of was putting a line on Aleksandra Matuszak. You don't want such magnetic Poles drifting away...

Update: Turns out that if you actually click on the link that they were talking about another kind of cold weather beauty drifting away.

Who knew?

He Was Sick As A Parrot?

Tom Elia has a quite amusing find: a British Embassy "Hooligan to German" phrase dictionary created just in time for the World Cup.

It includes such gems as:

"Ihm war kotzuebel" (He was sick as a parrot) and;
"Er kotzte wie ein Reiher" (He puked his guts up)

See my friends at The New Editor for the rest.

There is a downloadable PDF.

As a side note, I was a fairly formidable striker in my playing days, with a rather wicked Bananenschuss before my knees went south...

Solving the Tookie Problem

Apparently, some weak-willed folks in California are concerned that executing a convicted quadruple murderer and failed children's book author (I've sold more bumper stickers than he's sold poorly-written books) might generate some animosity among the criminal element:

With less than four days to go before Williams' scheduled Tuesday execution, sporadic-yet-credible threats of civil unrest have prompted the council members and representatives from the city and county human relations commissions to ask religious leaders to emphasize a message of peace during weekend services.

"We picked up information that led us to believe that there were some planned and intentioned acts of violence that could occur in the wake of the decision or the execution planned for Stan "Tookie" Williams," Robin Toma, executive director of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, said during a news conference at City Hall.

Toma declined to list the affected communities or elaborate on the threats.

Councilman Bernard Parks said he spoke earlier today about potential civil unrest with Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Earl Paysinger of the South Bureau.

Parks said Paysinger assured him the LAPD would remain "vigilant" this weekend, but there was no immediate need to put the city on tactical alert.

I've got a better solution: Hold your own, you spineless liberal cowards. God forbid that you take responsibility for your own lives instead of counting upon over-worked, over-sued law enforcement officers to do it for you.

I suppose Murtha will be on the tube tomorrow, calling for a full and immediate withdrawal from California. He should. California lost more people last year to gunfire than the U.S. military has done in two years in Iraq.

NY Times Magazine: Liberal Blogs Accomplish Little

The top liberal blogs are up in arms over an impending New York Times magazine article by Michael Crowley that has been reported in Editor & Publisher. E&P claims the article will declare:

...that conservative blogs continue to best liberal blogs in political and electoral influence.

The title of the piece by Michael Crowley in the magazine's 5th Annual Year in Ideas cover package says it all: "Conservative Blogs Are More Effective."

Crowley, a New Republic writer, claims that with the 2006 elections approaching, Democrats are now "trying to use blogs more strategically." But he concludes by embracing the view of Matt Stoller, an activist who ran a blog for Sen. Jon Corzine during his 2005 race for governor of New Jersey, who believes that next year conservative bloggers "will certain have an upper hand." Crowley adds: "Again."

Armando at Daily Kos wails:

Well if you define effective as being a part of the Mighty Wurlitzer, having no respect for the facts and shilling for the Republican Party, Crowley is 100% correct.

Markos no doubt will have some insights on this. For me, I am proud to say we will never be "effective" in the way the Right Blogs are.

On cue, Kos adds:

Good. Let people think that. People have always been naysayers. Instead of getting riled up about, we'll keep doing what we're doing. And at the end of 2006 we'll be able to take stock of the situation and declare, definitively, that the conservative blogosphere is merely a redundant extension of their noise machine.

And "doing what we're doing" has been very effective so far.

Another leading liberal blogger, Duncan Black whines:

In a sense conservative blogs are more effective because both the massive right wing media and the mainstream media (remember Kurtz inviting Assrocket on to discuss his picked entirely out of his ass theory that the Republican Schiavo talking point memo was a Democratic forgery) are willing to pick up and retransmit their bullshit. So, the right wing wankosphere are yet another cog in the massive right wing media operation, and in accordance with the self-similiarty of the wingnut function, basically identical in all but scale.

But the liberal blogosphere is a much greater value added for our side because we have such a shitty media infrastructure. If all the wingnut blogs disappeared tomorrow it really wouldn't have any impact on the national discourse. Sure they're there and the Right is better at using them but they don't really *need* them. They have plenty of other ways to launder their horseshit.

Why, with language like that and such thoughtful commentary, don't you wonder why moderates aren't flocking there in droves for serious discussion?

Not only is their language unnecessarily abrasive, but Black has certain... shall we say, believability issues when he starts claiming that the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, Time, Newsweek, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the Associated Press, Reuters and the majority of the international press constitute what he crassly regards as a "shitty media infrastructure."

Is this conservative media bias from CNN? (h/t Sister Toldjah)

By their own freely-given, self-selected admissions, most members of the media are politically liberal. So why are liberal blogger-supported national political campaigns in America complete (0-16) failures?

Ace-of -Spades sums it up nicely:

Unlike the liberal bloggers and readers, conservative bloggers and blog-readers are not, as a rule, diagnosable paranoid schizophrenics and general lunatics.

Conservative bloggers tend to discuss live, real issues. They take reasonable positions, certainly mainstream among conservatives, and reasonable even to moderates. (Even if moderates don't agree with this or that, it's not as if the position is simply absurd.)

Liberal bloggers tend to be obsessed with conspiracy theories, criminal investigations unlikely to result in convictions (and unrelated to actual policy debate, in any event), and general moonbattery. The basic dynamic of the sinestrosphere is everyone attempting to out-crazy each other, and, last time I checked, it's a million-way tie for first place.

Liberal belief in a right-wing dominated media plays to that most special kind of delusional behavior that the far left proudly refers to as their "reality-based" view of the world. The fact that have had to spin this alternate, fantasy-based reality is just one symptom of their underlying problem.

Update: The author, Michael Crowley , is wrong about much of his thoughts about why the conservative blogosphere is more successful. QandO and Professor Bainbridge explain.

One down....

several more to go.

Earlier this week Ward Brewer of Beauchamp Tower Corporation and The Mexican Navy signed the official Document of Transfer Agreement for the transfer of the USS John Rodgers(aka E-01 CUITLAHUAC).

As Ward stated "It should be noted that this is the first time in history that the Mexican Government has donated a ship to a United States organization for a museum and the Mexican Navy takes this donation very seriously--as do we."

And so Ward's transcendence to the top of the Gun Blogging world begins. Sure there are folks with "Commie Cannons" and other large guns, but does anybody have a destoyer? I think not.

With USS John Rodgers is secure, it's time to hammer MARAD for trying to scrap the USS Howard Gilmore before it can be utilized to aid in hurricane relief. YOU can stop them with a call to your Senators and Congress people.

USS Orion (AS-18) left. USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16) in dazzle paint on Navy Day Celebration, Hudson River, October 27, 1945.

Our first post about Operation Enduring Service was almost a month ago and the calls you've made have helped. Things are progressing. However someone is standing in the way:

...yesterday I received an overnight letter informing me that we had until January 6, 2006 to tow the USS Howard W. Gilmore out of the fleet or they were going to scrap her. That is two months ahead of our donation hold schedule and only gives us two weeks to move her due to the Christmas holidays. MARAD knows that this is impossible and only offers this time because they know it can't be done--you can't get a tow company that fast during the holidays. This way, they can look like they are "trying to work with us" and still make sure we can't perform.

Individuals at the Maritime Administration (MARAD) are intentionally speeding up the process of trying to scrap a ship earmarked to be donated to a disaster recovery mission that has the stated goal of saving American lives.

Call your Senators and Congress people today.

Be sure to tell your elected representatives. that the men responsible for this travesty at MARAD are William H. Kahill, Deputy Director, Office of Ship Operations (202-366-1875 ext. 2122), and Eugene Magee, Division of Reserve Fleet Chief (202-366-5752 ext. 2112).

Captain Meltdown Stars in a Neocop Production of "Howard the Schmuck"

Howard Dean has just become the new posterboy for the... Republican Party?

Via Drudge:

The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.

The ad is in response to the controversial comments Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean and 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry made earlier in the week.

A Democratic strategist who had the web ad described to her said, "This is way over the top but we have no one to blame but Dean, Kerry and others who continue to pander to the anti-war activists within our party."

I could forgive the Democratic leadership--if you want to call it that--for being anti-war, if being against the war that was truly their case.

But it isn't.

The neo-copperheads do not care about the American military or the 27 million Iraqi people they would abandon with their soft bigotry, and in many cases, they have nothing but disdain for the men and women who guard their freedoms and the freedom of others.

These "neocops" have one over-riding goal: to defeat George Bush and the Republican Party, no matter what it takes, or who has to die. The want badly to lose Iraq in the hopes that they can score political points from the blood of the Iraqi people and the Democrat-driven defeat of American servicemen.

The defeatists deserve defeat, and any hell they have unleashed on their ignoble souls.

Update: The video can be downloaded here (WMV).

Signed, Sealed...

...and with the blessings of the U.S. State Department, and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations, delivered back to the United States. The Mexican Navy's E-01 Cuitlahuac will once again become DD-574 John Rodgers, the most decorated surviving Fletcher-class destroyer of WWII in the Pacific.

DD-74 John Rodgers off Iwo Jima, Feb 15, 1945. Source

Did I mention that this entire chain of events took place becuase of the tenacity and hard work of a blogger by the name of Ward Brewer?

Go get the details of Ward's extraordinary story-in-the-making at the Operation Enduring Service weblog, and learn how you can lend a hand to help build what I've dubbed "the Salvation Navy."

An Innocent Cop Killer

(via Instapundit)

Sometimes under the strangest of circumstances, the man who guns down an honest cop in the line of duty, deserves to walk the earth a free man.

Cory Maye is one such man. I would have likely done the same thing myself...

Go For The Gift Baskets, Stay For The Child Abuse

Blogging has been a little lighter than usual over the past few days, largely due to Yankee Wife's dragging me into her involvement with our daughter's PTA and the elementary school's winter festival.

Yankee Wife got snared into being a "PTA liaison." Liaison" is a French word meaning "sucker."

Her responsibility as liaison was to coordinate with the teacher and other parents to create a "wonderful and unique" gift basket to be raffled off the night of the winter festival at the school, which for our purposes will remain nameless to protect the innocent and the soon to be acquitted.

This "wonderful and unique" gift basket raffle was to occur at the end of the night.

Well sports fans, after binging on candy and other sweets awarded as prizes during the first two hours, several hundred elementary-aged children were as twitchy and skittish as a gerbil in Richard Gere's house.

Naturally, the thing to do was herd the glucose-crazed mob of 5-7 year-olds into a cramped cafeteria and ask them to sit quietly with their parents as the assistant principal announced that at 7:30, they would begin the raffle of not one, not two, but forty-four "wonderful and unique" gift baskets.

Thanks to the excellent sadism of Vice Principal Mengele, the first gift basket actually got raffled at around 7:45, at a time when a lot of these kids are normally starting to wind down for the night. Now we had several hundred sleepy, whining sugar-addicts crammed into a small, increasingly warm cafeteria with tired, cranky parents that came straight to the school from a long, hard day of work, most after having to deal with an hour of brutal traffic.

The ambush was about to be sprung.

I don't know exactly when it happened... perhaps around the raffling of the "Pampered Mom" basket, or somewhere there about... but it was like an earthen damn giving way.

A trickle of flopping on the floor was countered with a stern, whispered warning, followed by a cascade of running around and jumping on seats and clenched-teethed "get over here NOWs."

Then, like a pistol shot, somewhere in the vicinity of the "Everything Duke Blue Devils" Basket, the first smack and whimper rang out. The slaughter began in earnest.

Custer, as he fell at the Little Big Horn, pierced by indian arrows, never faced such horrific screams, nor such exquisite carnage. By the time the vice principal read the winning ticket for "Death by Chocolate," it was clear that it had already occurred…

Unclaimed baskets piled up as victims and survivors limped or were dragged through the side exits and off the field of battle where so many had fallen.

As they neared the end of the evening's bloodbath, the Sportsman's Package lay unattended and unguarded. I made my move, and claimed the prize uncontested.

My daughter slumped over in a near-diabetic coma as her mother strapped her into her booster seat as I made room in the trunk for my new fishing tackle.

To the victor goes the spoils.

I can hardly wait until next year.

Parsing the Numbers

Is is surprising to anyone that the pathologically liberal New York Times would put the worst possible spin on any rise in President Bush's poll numbers? Bush's poll numbers have "improved markedly" since the last New York Times/CBS News Poll, but far be it for the Times to let that stand unchallenged.

According to the NY Times:

Despite his gains, Mr. Bush's 40 percent approval rating remains among his lowest, and is still substantially lower than that of Presidents Clinton (who was at 58 percent) or Reagan (who was at 68 percent) at comparable points in their second terms.

But is that entirely accurate?

According to the 10/17 USA Today story that I've noted in the past:

Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at one time or another that were lower than Bush's current rating. Those ratings include Lyndon Johnson's 35%, Richard Nixon's 24%, Gerald Ford's 37%, Jimmy Carter's 28%, Ronald Reagan's 35%, the elder George Bush's 29% and Bill Clinton's 37%.

A magical difference between the two polls is the highly subjective phrasing "at comparable points in their second terms." Had Bush been higher in the more polling, is their any doubt that the NY Times would change their definition of what comprises "comparable points?"

A Hero Comes Home

DD-574 USS John Rodgers, the most-decorated surviving Fletcher-class destroyer of World War II in the Pacific, is coming home.

More on wikipedia.

Don't Run, You'll Only Die Tired

Jean Charles de Menezes ran from London police that suspected he was a suicide bomber and was gunned down on July 22nd. Today in Miami International Airport, Rigoberto Alpizar was shot by a U.S. air marshall after he claimed to have a bomb and then reached into his carry-on bag.

Folks, just a friendly bit of advice... when a cop slips his finger inside the triggerguard, it is a very good time to listen.

Darwin, Ignorance, and the NFA

via USA Today:

Pen gun accident kills budding rap singer

Steven Zorn had put the pen gun to his head and clicked before, apparently thinking it was jammed and would not work.

But on the third try, the tiny silver pistol went off as the 22-year-old budding rap artist was drinking to celebrate an impending record deal. He died at a hospital.

The Nov. 18 shooting at Zorn's home in this rural village of 2,000, about 50 miles northeast of Dayton, is believed to have been accidental, according to family, friends and law enforcement officials.

"Steven had a career and his dreams all ahead of him," said Zorn's mother, Lisa McCoy-Horn. She said she wants lawmakers to outlaw pen guns, which are small-caliber, single-shot weapons that resemble pens.

Let's parse this tragedy, shall we? First, the headline:

Pen gun accident kills budding rap singer

When you put the barrel of a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger three times... well, it isn't an accident. It is stupid. It is a tragic waste of a promising life. But it is no accident when a product works as designed.

Let's read something else as well; the part that tells us why the media really cares:

"Steven had a career and his dreams all ahead of him," said Zorn's mother, Lisa McCoy-Horn. She said she wants lawmakers to outlaw pen guns, which are small-caliber, single-shot weapons that resemble pens. [my bold]

That sounds entirely reasonable.

So reasonable, in fact, that seventy-one years ago Congress passed the National Firearms Act of 1934, which specifically mentions weapons such as pen guns in the classification of "any other weapon" (AOW), and makes them as highly-restricted by the law as machine guns, bazookas, and land mines.

Pen guns are among the most restricted weapons in the country.

It is doubtful, very doubtful, that Steven Dorn shot himself with a legal weapon that is as rare and restricted as anti-tank rifles. Had he been arrested with it on the street, he could have faced the federal felony charges of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison.

Steven Zorn shot himself while drunk, after multiple attempts, with what in all likelihood was a highly illegal weapon.

As tragic as this death is, the ignorance displayed by both the media and law enforcement officers regarding this case is a tragedy all its own.

Crime Scene KC quotes Kansas City Police Capt. Rich Lockhart:

"We get officer safety bulletins on them periodically when we see them, just to remind officers that they are out there," Lockhart said. Are they legal? "It's no different from a handgun or any other kind of gun like that," he said. "It's a firearm, so if it's concealed you have to have a permit in Missouri to have a concealed firearm, and you have to be of age."

Greg Reeves who writes Crime Scene KC, even links to a pen gun for sale on Guns America in an attempt to establish just how easy they are to get.

Perhaps he should have read the fine print and explained what it means when an item such as this is restricted as "Class III weapons & are classified as AOW."

Class III AOW weapons are very "different from a handgun or any other kind of gun like that." That the police and the journalists covering them are ignorant of the law scares me, and it should scare you, too.

The Dayton Daily News ran a crusading anti-gun story about these firearms, as did CBS News, the Star-Tribune, among others who unquestioningly ran the Associate Press feed version of this story.

It's too bad someone couldn't waste a few minutes on Google discovering that legally made and sold pen guns are about as common as legal anti-tank rifles on the streets of America. Of course, you wouldn't want to spoil a good tragedy, especially if it serves your political agenda.

Making Cindy Cry

"Which wingnuts keeps voting for that awful Confederate Yankee?"

This is Terrorism

Gang rape in front of your family? Annoying.

Husband fed into woodchipper? Exasperating.

No clean underwear? Terrorism.

Saddam Hussein told the judge overseeing his trial in Iraq to "go to hell" Tuesday and threatened not to return to an "unjust court" when it reconvenes on Wednesday.

After five witnesses gave horrific testimony of torture allegedly overseen by Saddam -- there are two more witnesses to hear from this week before the Dec. 15 election in Iraq -- court was preparing to adjourn for the day when the deposed dictator jumped to his feet and complained that the court was "deliberately hauling defendants before the trial when they are exhausted."

He complained that he had no fresh clothes, and that he had been deprived of shower and exercise facilities.

"This is terrorism," he said.

I'm sure Howard Dean agrees...

WaPo Writer Seriously Injured in Collision with Reality

Washington Post Staff Writer Daniela Deane was seriously injured Monday in a collision between media arrogance and reality, when a disdainful article she wrote about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was impacted forcefully by a pair of sidebar items that refused to yield to stop for her partisan sarcasm.

Rumsfeld, speaking at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, delivered a blistering attack on the U.S. media, saying that in the present 24-hour news cycle, events in Iraq can be reported too quickly and without context.

He said there was a "jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people." The Iraqi people and the U.S. military deployed in the country, he said, were optimistic about the progress of the war there.

"Which view of Iraq is more accurate?" Rumsfeld asked. "The pessimistic view of the so-called elites in our country or the more optimistic view of millions of Iraqis and some 155,000 U.S. troops on the ground?

Caught in mid-article as her disdain increased, Deane was first hit by a contextless sidebar screeching "2,000 Deaths in Iraq" towing a death map. As her mangled syntax came to a rest, another sidebar blaring "U.S. Fatalities" hit her head on, crushing her with under a tangle of jagged irony.

Guarded by a point well-proven, Rumsfeld was uninjured in the collision.

"I Can't Believe It's Not Qatar!"

Even when a psychotic break during courtroom proceedings left an obviously disturbed Saddam Husseim shouting,"Allah Allah Oxen Free!" at the top of his lungs while holding a copy of the Quran for Dummies, he was stil viewed as being more credible than his defense adviser, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. *

Captain Meltdown Rides Again

WOAI (via Drudge):

Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."

And they're gonna lose in New Hampshire and South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico! They're going to lose in California and Texas and New York! They'll lose in South Dakota and Oregon! They'll lose in Washington and Michigan!

YEEEAARRGGHH!!!

Who's Your Webby?

Thanks to you, wonderful readers, Confederate Yankee is a 2005 Weblog Awards Finalist in the category: Best of the Top 251 - 500 Blogs.

Go Vote!

Voting begins today, December 5, 2005 and ends December 15, 2005. You may vote once per category every 24 hours.

There are roughly 550 blogs included as finalists in 37 categories in the 2005 Weblog Awards. A huge thanks goes out the Kevin Aylward at Wizbang! for organizing the Weblog Awards again this year, and to his volunteer staff.

Update: Voting is now working. So, like, go vote.

I Do Believe He's Got You Covered

Operation Enduring Service blogger and Beauchamp Tower CEO Ward Brewer is about to become the ultimate "gun blogger" on December 7, 2005 when he takes possession of the last serving Fletcher-class destroyer from World War II.

The USS John Rodgers (DD-574) under sail in an undated photo.

Armed with 5 5 in (127 mm) guns, 10 40 mm AA guns, 7 20 mm AA guns, 10 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes, 6 depth charge projectors, and 2 depth charge tracks, the USS John Rodgers (DD-574) was a last serving Fletcher-class destroyer. The 5.5 inch gun could hurl a 54 lb. shell at a surface target over 10 miles away, and the John Rodgers fired 3,600 such rounds at targets on Guam alone during WWII.

The USS John Rodgers (DD-574) will become a floating WWII museum. Read more about the Rodgers' history at Wikipedia. Read more about Operation Enduring Service on its home page or blog.

Good Deeds Punished

The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) intends to scrap the USS Howard W. Gilmore before it can be refitted for disaster response. YOU can stop them with a call to your Senators and Congressman.

Almost a month ago, Confederate Yankee got behind Operation Enduring Service, a frankly brilliant plan to convert a small group of mothballed Navy vessels into a state-of-the-art fleet of disaster response ships at absolutely zero cost. As a matter of fact, OES would save American taxpayers roughly $100 million dollars in costs associated with scrapping dozens of ships being sent overseas to be scrapped, and create thousands of shipyard jobs by scrapping and/or refitting those same ships here in the United States.

But someone is standing in the way:

...yesterday I received an overnight letter informing me that we had until January 6, 2006 to tow the USS Howard W. Gilmore out of the fleet or they were going to scrap her. That is two months ahead of our donation hold schedule and only gives us two weeks to move her due to the Christmas holidays. MARAD knows that this is impossible and only offers this time because they know it can't be done--you can't get a tow company that fast during the holidays. This way, they can look like they are "trying to work with us" and still make sure we can't perform.

Individuals at the Maritime Adminstration (MARAD) are intentionally speeding up the process of trying to scrap a ship earmarked to be donated to a disaster recovery mission that has the stated goal of saving American lives.

Call your Senators and Congressman today.

Be sure to tell your elected representatives. that the men responsible for this travesty at MARAD are William H. Kahill, Deputy Director, Office of Ship Operations (202-366-1875 ext. 2122), and Eugene Magee, Division of Reserve Fleet Chief (202-366-5752 ext. 2112).

This must not stand.

An Accidental Moment of Honesty

The NY Times tattles on the Democratic Party:

It was Thursday, Sept. 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina had ripped across the Gulf Coast. As New Orleans descended into horror, the top aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana were certain the White House was trying to blame their boss, and they were becoming increasingly furious.

"Bush's numbers are low, and they are getting pummeled by the media for their inept response to Katrina and are actively working to make us the scapegoats," Bob Mann, Ms. Blanco's communications director, wrote in an e-mail message that afternoon, outlining plans by Washington Democrats to help turn the blame back onto President Bush. [my emphasis]

Hurrican Katrina has ripped though the Gulf Coast less than 72 hours before, New Orleans was largely submerged, part so Mississippi earased, people were trapped and dying in the floodwaters and debris and the primary concern of state and national Democrats was poll numbers?

Finalists Announced Today

Finalists in 37 categories will be announced at 2:00 PM today for the 2005 Weblog Awards, and voting begins tomorrow.

Literally thousands of blogs were nominated this year, and I'd like to thank Confederate Yankee readers for nominating this blog in four categories: Best Blog, Best New Blog, Best Conservative Blog, and Best of the Top 251 - 500 Blogs.

It means a lot to me that you guys would nominate me... and that you take credit cards.

Update: Confederate Yankee is a finalist for Best of the Top 251-500 Blogs. Thanks!

Team Infidel Shoots... And Scores!

al Qaeda #3 (behind al Zawahiri and bin Laden) Hamza Rabia has just experienced Hellfire.

Literally:

The operational commander of al-Qaida and possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization, Hamza Rabia, was killed early Thursday morning by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials told NBC News.

Pakistan's president later confirmed the militant leader's death.

Chalk up another one up for the Predator/Hellfire UAV/missile combination.

If Osama bin Laden is possibly dead as a certain senator opined, then Ayman al Zawahiri is the last man standing in senior al Qaeda leadership from the 9/11 era.

Final Landings, First Flights

Two very different stories emerged December 2nd from part of the Iraqi military that most Americans don't even know exists -- The Iraqi Air Force.

The Chicago Tribune released a story about an Iraqi Air Force pilot that made history this past August, as Capt. Ali Hussam Abass became the first Iraqi service member honored with a hero's burial at Arlingon National Cemetery.

Abass saved the life of an American pilot after an emergency landing May 10, and was killed 20 days later a crash on May 30. His remains shared a crypt along with four American airmen that died with him.

He is one of only 63 foreign nationals interred In Arlington.

Baghdad International Airport, Iraq -- An Iraqi C-130E arrives here at New Al Muthana. It was the first solo mission flown by an all Iraqi aircrew.
(U.S. Air Force photo)

Back in Iraq, an all-Iraqi nine-man crew from the 23rd Iraqi Squadron flew a solo mission aboard a C-130E from Ali Air Base to New Al Muthana Nov. 28, it was released. It was the first flight of an all-Iraqi crewed plane in the new Iraqi Air Force.

Carnival of Cordite #40

It's up like Bob Dole after sampling the merchandise... *

Terrorist Activism By The Numbers

Four "peace activists" got pinched by terrorists, and are now said to be threatened with death. Good thing we've got a Blockbuster nearby, 'cause I already know the script for this one.

The same "peace activists" belong to a group that only became interested in Iraq about the time they discovered America was interested in readjusting the government. Interesting, isn't it?

As Steve H. notes:

Why didn't they protest Hussein's millions of atrocities, which were committed openly and as a matter of policy? Why are minor American sins worth protesting, when huge, egregious, Hitler-scale Iraqi sins don't even justify a press conference?

Answer: because peace isn't what these people are about.

He's right. That is why these "peace activists" are in no danger at all.

They've managed to make themselves public relations bargaining chips as they always intended. Their terrorist captors will make little movie, enjoy their moment in the sun, and make an outrageous demand or two that we will in no way be able to think about honoring, like asking all captured terrorists to be let go.

After a length of time, the activist's terrorist friends will let them go without so much as a scratch, just to show just how compassionate they truly are.

Congratulations, Christian Peacemaker Teams.

You've managed to get the attention you've always wanted.

RE: "Living Hand to Mouth"

Dear Congressman Murtha,

I would like to comment upon the horrors inflicted upon our Marines in the field in Iraq. It is just as you said, our military is truly living hand to mouth.

According to one of my readers who has just received email from a cousin in Iraq, just last week at Thanksgiving at Camp Corregidor in Al Anbar province outside of Ramadi, our soldiers were barely getting by with steaks, crab legs, lobster, turkey, pie and ice cream. Horror of all horrors (and this is a direct quote), it was "all frozen stuff that loses something in translation."

Truly, these are deplorable conditions. He literally did have to eat those crab legs "hand to mouth."

Also, soldiers have griped about the low stopping power of some of our weapons, which seem to be stymied by even the simplest concrete block construction, and we're reverting n part to early Vietnam-era and earlier firearms for some missions. Got any idea who on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee could have screwed that up?

Thanks.

Which President Were They Protesting?

This is CNN:

The caption claims that, "a protestor watches a presidential helicopter fly overhead," but I have a simple question for CNN and the Associated Press... president of what?

The helicopter pictured above is a CH-46 Sea Knight, which doesn't even remotely look like the Sikorsky VH-3D flown by Marine Helicopter Squadron One and used to transport President Bush, pictured here:

The helicopter in the CNN/AP photo has twin main rotors. Marine One, the helicopter used in presidential transport, has one main rotor, with a much smaller tail rotor.

While dramtic license certainly makes for a dramatic photo, I have ask again: Which president were they protesting? It certainly wasn't ours.

Rise of the NeoCop

I'm trying to formulate a "benefit of the doubt" defense for John Murtha's latest incredible statements that the U.S. military is "Broken, worn out," and "living hand to mouth."

I am failing miserably, as there seems to be only a handful of options to explain his behavior, and few of them are kind.

The first opinion is that Murtha is correct, that the military is falling apart. This statement is very hard to defend, as soldiers are re-enlisting at greater rates than targeted, and are optimistic about chances for success in Iraq.

The second option, highlighted by Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom, is that Murtha is one of a group of Democrats that has fallen prey to a sort of "insane calculus":

—which is the position of the Democratic leadership, at least in the House—argues, in essence, that going to war puts a strain on our troops, and that protecting ourselves is impossible if our troops are stretched thin from protecting us.

In other words, Murtha's unhinged defense is that the Army shouldn't be used to fight, because we might need them for war.

Another option highlighted by lawhawk at A Blog For All, is that of his own incompetence:

unless the Constitution of the US has been changed lately (and it hasn't), it's Congress' job to make sure that the Army is properly funded to provide for the common Defense (Article I, Sec. 8, Clause 1 and Clause 12). So, if there is a problem, it's up to Murtha and his colleagues in Congress to make sure that the military is properly funded so that it has the proper levels of equipment and supplies.

Congressman Murtha, ranking member and former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is admitting his gross incompetence.

Or perhaps there is another factor in play entirely.

Murtha is emerging as one of several Vallandigham pretenders in the modern Democratic Party, willing to undercut the nation because they lack to fortitude to finish a difficult and necessary task. For them, failure is a constant, a mark on their characters they would sear onto the soul of a nation.

In the 1860s a group of defeatist Democrats were willing to sell the Union and the God-given rights of men away because they felt that the cost of war with the Confederacy was too high, that states rights had been abused, that racial equality was being unfairly forced upon the states of Confederacy. The traitorous Peace Democrats proudly referred to themselves as Copperheads.

Today's neo-Copperhead (NeoCop) Peace Democrats feel another war is not worth the price we've paid to secure basic human rights. Certainly, the ethnicity of the downtrodden has changed--Arab for African--but the message of racial indifference remains shockingly the same.

Ted Kennedy's Spirited Moment

Via Reuters and Yahoo!:

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) (R) meets with Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern before their meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington December 1, 2005. The meeting was on the McCain-Kennedy plan for immigration reform and the peace process in Northern Ireland.

It is good to see Senator Kennedy, Foreign Minister Ahern, and the Rueters photographer could all enjoy the "spirit" of the occasion, which judging by this photo, must have been Bushmills.

Syria a "Source of Evil" For Iraq

While President Bush made his case from winning the War in Iraq in an Annapolis speech Wednesday, Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi made what some may interpret as a veiled threat by the Iraqi government against a Syrian government tolerant of cross-border terrorism:

"My brothers, this is historic, national and legitimate mission. You are protecting this gate at the western border that used to be a source of evil to Iraq and a source for the entrance of vampires into Iraq," he said during a visit to the western border town of Husaybah.

Dulaimi said: "We tell our neighbors, take care of your own affairs and don't interfere in Iraq's affairs ... Iraqis are heading for the future and they will not be stopped by a car bomb or a filthy body rigged with explosives," he said.

"You should not be a gate of evil to us. I hope you will be a good gate. I also tell them don't let our patience run out."

al-Dulaimi and the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, were making a ceremonial visit to the border town of Husaybah, where border guards returned to their posts after the completion of a combined U.S-Iraqi offensive "clear and hold" operation called Steel Curtain last week that killed 139 insurgents and detained 256 suspects.