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Saturday, July 4, 2009
RULE 5 SATURDAY: Independence Day 2009In compliance with Rule 5, the TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee presents....
ALL-AMERICAN GALS...
The original pinup girl: BETTY GRABLE...
The ultimate girl-next-door: OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND...
The #1 hockey mom: SARAH PALIN...
Superwoman & Wonder Woman all in one: PAM GELLER...
The ultimate guy's gal: CAROLE LOMBARD...
Every man's dream team: THE GOLDDIGGERS...
Tough, passionate, stands by her man: BARBARA STANWYCK...
The kind of woman who tamed the frontier: TAMMY BRUCE...
And finally, the lovely and wonderful GINA ELISE,
who created the PINUPS FOR VETS
Calendar:
Please click here to read all about her, the calendar, and what it means for our Wounded Warriors.
Normally, at this point in the Rule 5 posting, I would list the lyrics from some romantic song,
but, as this is Independence Day, I think the following lyrics are fitting...
In 1989, fed
up with rock songs about America that put her down or looked at her negative side [ex: Born In The USA, Pink
Houses], I sat down and wrote the following tune that my band Shadowplay recorded in the summer
of that year:
The cattledriver sits on his mare
The smell of tobacco
fills the air
The covered wagon that's filled with holes
Keeps on moving to find that dream
The sheriff stands
in the midst of town
The outlaw readies to shoot him down
The draw is quick - the black hat falls
Justice
wins - a hero's made
And the Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
The Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
The trains roll daily filled up with ore
Cross the flatlands the engines roar
The eighteen wheels roll on
their course
And Georgie Patton has never died
Duke Wayne's sittin' out on his porch
The Stars And Bars are
in his sight
And Robbie's still laughin' and writin' songs
And Sonny Boy's playing and swiggin' gin
And the Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
The Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
The wheatfields full of
growth and size
The lovers kiss between the stalks
The summer night with silent breeze
The stars that light
- the dew that glows
The Fourth Of July brings on a smile
The banners wave and the flag shines on
And Jean
Shepherd sits on his stoop
He tells you a tale that makes you grin
And the Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
The Marlboro Men have
no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
Barry Goldwater's there standin' tall
He tells
you that there's still a dream
And the lovers walk still hand-in-hand
Down some old road, cross freedom's land
And the Marlboro Men have no place to go
These
favorite sons ain't got no home
The Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
And the Marlboro Men have no place to go
These favorite sons ain't got no home
The Marlboro Men have no place
to go
These favorite sons ain't lost their hope
[©1989
Odd/Belvedere]
4 jul 09 @ 7:48 pm edt
INDEPENDENCE DAY
Happy Independence
Day
Quoting and linking to others celebrating to follow...but
first...
To all the Residents of The Camp Of The Saints and The Beloved
City, Greeting...
Today we celebrate the creation of The United States Of America which was voted into
being by free men who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the struggle. Today we also celebrate
the victory won in The War For American Independence. I never use the term 'American Revolution'.
This was a war for the restoration of rights recently denied, not a revolution. Our struggle with the British was not
in the same league as those revolutions that occurred in 1789 France, 1917/18 Russia, late 1940's China, or in
any other such conflicts since. The war we fought was not a cause that sought to crush and destroy the existing order
and The Permanent Things. The war we fought was for the restoration of our rights as free Englishmen.
When the mother country refused to guarantee these basic rights, we had no choice but to declare our separation from it.
The vast majority of those involved in this 'treason' did so reluctantly and most certainly with no desire to ravage
the land and set the calendar to the Year One, as if our glorious English heritage had never existed.
The
past year was not a good one for those of us on the Right. The outcome of the war to preserve Western Civilization
is much in doubt. The battle to save America has just begun and, so far, it has been a tough fight and we are losing.
But fight on we must because it is the right thing to do. We have to summon the courage and fortitude for the coming,
relentless battles against those in power who seek nothing less than to subvert the system we inherited from the Founding
Fathers.
So here's a toast to The United States Of America and all she stands
for. Never despair.
Now to quoting and linking...
1) Michelle Malkin has up the text of The Declaration and provides some TEA Party info here. She has some heartening info to pass along about GoDaddy.com here. Yesterday here, she published the following excerpt from a letter that John Adams wrote to his wife on 03 July 1776 [included
is a link to the full letter]:
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations,
as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God
Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations
from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported
with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain
this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light
and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction,
even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
2) Over at The Other McCain, Smitty's wisdom spans 233 years in one sentence:
On the Fourth of July, consider those who've gone before, the wisdom of the founding
documents, and the foolishness of those attempting to hijack the most exceptional system of government in history.
3) The JammieWearFool site has up a video showing a PSA from the Muslim terrorists on firework safety.
Please click here.
4) Speaking of fireworks: check out this posting by Donald Douglas. From the top of it:
Fireworks
Suck: This Year's Leftist Attack on Independence Day
July
4th is practically sacred, so on this holiday, they can't come right out and call America a racist imperialist abomination
without looking like total creeps.
Or can they? Yep. No problem, attack fireworks....
5) Over at The Liberty Papers, Brian Warbiany has up an essay that provocative and well-worth
perusing. A highlight:
On this anniversary of the date of American
Independence, it is right to celebrate. It is right to remember the valiant and principled action of the Founding Fathers
to take on the world’s great superpower and assert their rights — many lost their lives in the effort. We have
a nation worth celebrating.
But in remembrance of those who we are celebrating, it
is important to understand their significance in a historic context (again, see the books recommended above). It is important
to remember that the principles they are fighting for are again in peril. And it important to realize that in order for those
principles to be recovered, we must tirelessly call the United States Government for what it is — illegitimate.
6) From The London Daily Mail, Tom Kelly reporting, we learn[tip of the fedora to Ed Morrissey]:
An original first print
of the American Declaration of Independence has been discovered gathering dust in Britain.
The document that changed history was approved on July 4, 1776, and this is one of only 26
copies known to have survived out of 200 printed that night.
The
poster size proclamation is in perfect condition and is said to be worth £5million.
Pictures
of it are provided.
7) Over at Red State, Warner Todd Huston thinks we should not be celebrating 'July 4th' and
he's spot-on in his reasoning:
Why forget that title? Aside from the fact that we aren’t
celebrating the numerology of the day, calling it “July Fourth” does nothing toward informing the world and our
fellows of what it is we are celebrating. Do we celebrate December 25th, or do we Celebrate Christmas? Worse than a lack of
identification, calling this sacred holiday merely “July Fourth” also dims from our minds the great purpose of
what the holiday stands for.
Yes, Independence Day is more than a
number and more than just a birthday party. It is the heralding of a new set of principles by which all men everywhere can
declare their own freedom. It is the assertion that all men are created equal and have been given that status by God. Further,
that because these rights are bestowed upon us by God, men have the right to insist that their government serve them, not
that men be yoked to serve government.
While we're at it: I've thought for a long time now
that 17 September should be a national holiday. I think the passage of our Constitution is ever more important [if you
don't want to add another holiday day-off to the calendar, you could always get rid of Labor Day which I always think of as
a socialist holiday].
8) Here are some links to other Independence Day postings by some of the best bloggers
out there in the ether:
-Pundit & Pundette
-The Sundries Shack [video of Ray Charles, great performance]
-The Pirate's Cove
-Paco [click on the pic]
-Gateway Pundit
-No Sheeples Here! [check out the video clips at the bottom]
-Atlas Shrugs
9) Mark Steyn has posted the Song Of The Week entry he did on America The Beautiful. From his opening:
In 1893, a Massachusetts professor called Katharine
Lee Bates was giving a series of summer lectures on English literature at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs. "One
day," she recalled, "some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired
a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I
saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there."
Professor Bates had not previously traveled in the Rockies or seen much of her country at all beyond New
England, and the unbounded beauty of the land awed her - and inspired her. It was "the most glorious scenery I ever beheld,
and I had seen the Alps and the Pyrenees," she said. "My memory of that supreme day of our Colorado sojourn is fairly
distinct even across the stretch of 35 crowded years," Miss Bates wrote a year before her death in 1929. "We stood
at last on that Gate-of-Heaven summit, hallowed by the worship of perished races, and gazed in wordless rapture over the far
expanse."
Though she insisted "the sublimity of the
Rockies smote my pencil with despair", she was not "wordless" for long. "It was then and there, as I was
looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines
of the hymn floated into my mind":
Oh beautiful for spacious
skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
She put them down on paper that evening in her
room at the Antlers Hotel. Today you'd be hard put to find a quatrain known to more Americans....
10) I'll
end with this link to a song as sung by the character of John Adams [as brilliantly played by William Daniels] from the
film 1776: Is Anybody There? Seems rather appropriate this year.
Take heart conservatives. And God Bless America.
THE GOLDEN BOY
4 jul 09 @ 4:34 pm edt
MUST-LINK LOVE
4 jul 09 @ 3:32 pm edt
Friday, July 3, 2009
BATTLING CAPTAIN SUBTEXTVictor Davis Hanson has published a very good essay on our 'Schizophrenic Society'
over at Pajamas Media. As someone who has worked in government for over thirty years, I really appreciated
the part of it describing why the government of California is in such trouble. This part, in particular, resonated strongly:
Worse, when the inevitable budget cuts came, these same four [incompetent bureaucrats]
would send us memos, advise us to warn the public, and terrify the electorate with stories of social collapse if taxes were
not raised to “save the kids.” In response, they would lay off the Russian professor, cut the part-time history
teachers (all gifted, teaching for us for ten cents on the dollar), and then decry a “greedy voter.” (California
Rule Two: To save the superfluous, the essential will always be cut.)
We in the state soon were used to the modus
operandi. A well-paid functionary threatens financial Armageddon unless taxes are raised, issues edicts cutting
essential services, and then sort of chuckles when proposed cuts incur hysteria: the subtext being that you will burn in your
homes, be mugged on the street, have no garbage service unless you continue to pay me $150,000 a year–with a $100,000
pension for life to administrate, counsel, adjudicate, pontificate, and excoriate.
Fear is one of the most
successful tools used everywhere, at every level of government, by these cynical, greedy, and useless feeders
at the government teat. Know the enemy's tactics and act accordingly. Don't let their message be the one that
triumphs. Always remain vigilant. And, if you need motivation, remember: its all a big joke to them.
Please take the time to click here and read the full essay.
3 jul 09 @ 7:28 pm edt
BUT, WHAT IF I HAVE CAT SCRATCH FEVER?Over at ReasonOnline, John Stossel gives us a peek at one of
the sad absurdities that awaits us if we adopt a system of government-run health care like Canada's:
Canada and England don't pay the price because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their systems,
we could worry less about paying for health care, but we'd get 2009-level care—forever. Government monopolies don't
innovate. Profit seekers do.
We saw this in Canada, where we did find one area of medicine that offers easy access
to cutting-edge technology—CT scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients didn't have
to wait.
But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that
hasn't been taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people, the waiting list is a month.
Well, at least the folks at PITA will be happy.
Please take the time to click here to read the full article.
3 jul 09 @ 7:05 pm edt
YOU DUMMY!I have refrained from commenting on the SANFORD & HON situation for over a
week now. After his embarrassing press conference last week, I had a feeling Governor New Agey Mid-Life Crisis wouldn't
be able to restrain himself and that he would grant an interview wherein he would provide further fodder [I figured Larry
King, Oprah is for when the book comes out]. I adopted the strategy an old CBS news reporter told Charlie Rose
many years ago he used on Dan Rather when the latter still hosted the CBS Evening News: the reporter [whose
name, sadly, escapes me now] would stand every night just behind the cameras during Rather's newscast staring at the anchorman;
he said he did it because he knew that at some point Rather would lose it and he wanted to be there when he did. So
explains my actions vis-a-vie Mark Sanford. Well, I didn't have long to wait: in interviews over two days
with the AP, the Governor of Love justified my silence. You've probably read or heard of the things
he said, but here is a highlight from the story filed by Tamara Lush and Evan Berland of the AP:
In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die "knowing
that I had met my soul mate."
Sanford also said that he "crossed the lines" with a handful of other
women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with his mistress.
"There were a handful of instances
wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn't have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line," he said.
Sanford insisted his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur, whom he met at an open air dance spot in Uruguay eight
years ago, was more than just sex.
"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,"
Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."
Even with the
latest revelations, Sanford maintains he is fit to govern and has no plans to resign.
"I've been able to do
my job and in fact excel at it," Sanford said, while acknowledging he is a spectator at his "own political funeral."
During more than three hours of interviews over two days at his Statehouse office, Sanford said he is trying to fall
back in love with his wife, Jenny, even as he grapples with his deep feelings for Chapur.
I still stand
by my statements in my initial posting on the matter [click here and look at (1) and (7)], but, in that posting, I reserved the right to extend my remarks, so here goes:
-Jesus Christ and General Jackson,
Governor! If you have any shred of decency and honor left, resign, re-enter private life, and spare your family your
narcissistic working-out of you mid-life crisis in public. Jump in your new Corvette [you must have bought one], put
on the Hai Karate, slip on those disco shoes, hit the road Jack, and dontcha come back no more.
-Thank God this happened
now and not during the next Presidential Campaign because, after his anti-bailout stance and his principled battle to preserve
state sovereignty, he was starting to look pretty good to many of us. We dodged a bullit; we're going to have enough
problems in 2012.
-I don't think Mr. Sanford is a real person. I think he is a replicant created by The Tyrell Corporation [come on now, you do know they exist...don't you?] and implanted with memories and a personality created by Harold Robbins. Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform, man.
I think Mark Steyn was dead solid perfect when he wrote recently:
...I don't think he can survive his weirdly exhibitionist public meditations on
the adultery. I doubt many of his constituents share his view of the gubernatorial office as a personal growth experience
the entire state can benefit from, and he might at least run some of the talking points of his thrice-daily confessionals past the staffers: South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford may be sleeping in the doghouse permanently after telling the AP that his
mistress is his soulmate, but that he'll try to fall back in love with his wife.
As Lisa said the other day, put not your trust in princes. I support the governor on limited government, spending,
and taxes, but sorry, his talents are not so unique that it's worth putting up with a narcissist buffoon.
Jonah Goldberg's message to this southern-fried Romeo [emphasis on the middle word all mine] is spot-on as well:
...Jeez-O-Peet it's time for this guy to step down. Go in the woods and bang drums,
wear dresses at the shopping mall or become a Trappist Monk — whatever you need to do to get your act together on your
own dime and on your own time. South Carolina, it seems to me, is not a state where politicians are expected to air out their
"personal journeys" from the Governor's mansion and I know the Republican Party doesn't need to become an unseemly
hybrid of est seminar, Plato's Retreat and Bible Camp. Invoking King David as your inspiration for hanging around like a lech at
a strip club after last call was stupid enough, but if you're going to do that, you can't start crying (again) about your Argentinian girlfriend or blathering on in a way that might cause John
Belushi to descend from heaven just to smash your guitar against the wall.
Go away 'till the Twelfth of
Never.
In a related item, intrepid reporter Doug Powers reports from the Greenroom: WASHINGTON, DC (PNN):PNN has learned that the heads
of several mainstream media outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, MSNBC, ABC and others, have accused Mark Sanford
of plagiarizing some of their reporters in love letters the S. Carolina Governor wrote to his mistress in Argentina.
The media
outlets are accusing Sanford of stealing the moving and emotional words he emailed to Maria Belen Chapur last year, line for
line, from various articles that reporters covering the 2008 election campaign wrote about then presidential candidate Barack
Obama.
Ya don't say....
3 jul 09 @ 6:32 pm edt
IG-GATE: The Privileged EditionI just added two more links to IG-GATE
part of the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS Section of the WWU-AM Page.
One of them is the latest from Byron York from over at The
Washington Examiner:
After lawmakers demanded an explanation, the White
House said Walpin had been “confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions” at a May 20 meeting with the
board of the Corporation for National and Community Service. The Johnson case was discussed at that meeting, with Walpin
harshly criticizing board members for their support of a decision to let Johnson off easy.
There’s no question
that members of the board, both Democrat and Republican, were unhappy with Walpin’s criticism of them. They agreed
that Alan Solomont, the Democratic fundraiser appointed by President Barack Obama as chairman of the board, should tell the
White House what had happened.
But now, at least three board members have told congressional investigators they
did not specifically recommend that the administration fire Walpin. Instead, they simply wanted the chairman to express
their concerns.
The White House claims it investigated the matter; Eisen told House and Senate aides that officials
did an “extensive review” of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to fire him. But
there are serious doubts as to whether the White House did, in fact, conduct a serious investigation before getting rid of
Walpin.
The three board members have told Congress that the White House did not contact them during the review.
(One was told about Walpin’s firing at about the time it happened, and the other two were contacted days later.)
No one from the White House contacted Walpin himself, or his top assistant, as part of the review.
All were present
at the contentious May 20 meeting. If officials at the White House were really trying to discover what happened at that session,
congressional investigators say, it would have wanted to hear their version of events. But no questions were asked.
Please take the time to click here and read the full report.
3 jul 09 @ 4:54 pm edt
Thursday, July 2, 2009
WWU-AM JUST KEEPS ROLLING ALONGWWU-AM—The Voice Of The Restoration—never
rests in keeping a watchful eye on the Administration and the Congress...
As mentioned earlier today, over in the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS section, I've linked to the latest on IG-Gate by Robert Stacy McCain.
Over in THE
ROAD TO SERFDOM section is a new entry in the Give 'Em Enough Rope series chronicling duped
and fellow-travelling businessmen.
Over in the JUST THE FACTS, MAM section...
-Two
new links have been added to the Socializing Health Care subsection
-A link to background
information on the little known Travel Promotion Act of 2009 has been added
-A new analysis of
the Cap And Trade Bill has been linked to
-A very useful link to THOMAS.GOV has
been added: it provides the text to each version of the Cap And Trade legislation. This one will be update each time
a new version is approved.
Check in regularly with WWU-AM for the latest info on the attempts to destroy all that America has stood for.
Speaking
of the obnoxious, monstrous, and unconstitutional Cap And Trade Bill, two comments are very much worth
quoting...
1) Mark Steyn over at The Corner [worth quoting nearly in full]:
I confess I'm finding it harder and harder to see why
you fellows bothered holding a revolution. Under this bill, it will be illegal for me to sell my property to a willing buyer
without first bringing it into line with some twerp bureaucrat's arbitrary and ever shifting "environmental" regulations
originally designed for California, and which have helped turn the Golden State into the foldin' state, but which are nevertheless
now to be applied from Maine to Alaska. And no matter what you spend a couple of years down the road the standards will be
"revised" and you'll be out of compliance all over again.
In my part of New Hampshire, come the late
fall you'll drive around and see many homes with plastic sheeting over windows and the less-used doors, and bales of
hay round the foundation. I doubt that would pass muster with the twerp bureaucrat, but it's what self-reliant people of modest
means do to get through the winter. Without that attitude there would be no United States.
This is an assault on
property rights, and, more fundamentally, like so much of the Obama program, an assault on citizenship. It seems an odd way
to mark "Independence" Day.
Indeed—these are very odd times.
2) From Pundette:
Madness. I mean, thank you, Dear Leader, for giving us the guidance we need.
[Please check out this other good posting of her's on Cap And Trade by clicking here]
2 jul 09 @ 9:13 pm edt
THE RASPAIL INQUIRYHere at TCOTS, when the item quoted and linked to fits, we like
to ask a certain question. It is a rhetorical one and meant to prompt one of those 'Ah-Ha' moments in the reader.
Two items courtesy of the great folks over at Jihad Watch qualify today...
1) From Robert Spencer:
The Swift company has been working hard to accommodate its Muslim workers, but they
are still not satisfied, and are demanding even more accommodation. They are not demanding equality of treatment -- no other
religious group has special accommodation at Swift. Rather, they are demanding that they be given privileges above and beyond
those granted to other employees. Previously the company has adjusted its schedule to accommodate the Ramadan fast, over the objections of non-Muslim workers. Swift also committed the grave sin of firing Muslim workers who were most active in trying to strong-arm and intimidate the plant into further concessions.
And that effort has not ended.
Mr. Spencer then quotes from an article published on 29 June in The
Denver Post by Bruce Finley:
JBS spokesman Chandler Keys said the company has
attempted to accommodate religious practices by installing foot washes in locker rooms for foot-cleansing prior to prayer
and bidet-type spray devices on toilets to assist with cleansing after using the rest room. Keys would not discuss the complaints or the investigation.
He said company officials "are in discussions" with Somalis regarding Ramadan this year.
"It's an
ongoing, flowing information dialogue that's going to keep us on our toes in working with these people," he said.
JBS: Could this be one explanation?
2) In another posting, Mr. Spencer reports that CAIR is sending Barack Hussein Obama a Koran:
Well done, good and faithful servant, say the Hamas-linked unindicted co-conspirators
to Obama for his disastrous Cairo speech. Will he refuse their gift of this Koran, in light of their unindicted co-conspirator
status, their refusal to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups, the jihad terror convictions of several of their
former officials, and the Islamic supremacist statements made by some of their other officials? What do you think?
I fully expect Tiberius Obamacus to except it graciously. When I find out he has, I will only respond, if asked
what I think: Could this be one explanation?
2 jul 09 @ 8:39 pm edt
D O N ' T..... Y O U.....D A R E !From Barbara Hollingsworth at Beltway Confidential, we learn:
At Wednesday's Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board meeting, chairman
H.R. Crawford - a former District Council member and Marion Barry confidante - told fellow Board members that he has heard
talk on Capitol Hill about yanking former President Ronald Reagan's name off the local airport and returning it to its previous
generic moniker: National Airport.
"It was just a discussion. We're not aware of anything specific,"
MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton later told The Examiner.
Not yet, at least. Give 'em time. When
it does happen, what do you think: candidate for a Friday afternoon news dump?
The airport is named National
Airport;
The airport has always been named National Airport.
IG-GATE: The 'Wacht Am Potomac' EditionI just added another link to IG-GATE
part of the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS Section of the WWU-AM Page.
Its a link to the latest from Robert Stacy McCain. A highlight:
The bailout was unpopular on a bipartisan basis, so if the
SIGTARP situation heats up, there will be plenty of Democrats willing to vote to hold hearings so they can grill Geithner
about taxpayer cash for "Wall Street fat cats." While Attorney General Eric Holder may get some scrutiny in the
AmeriCorps IG case, it's the SIGTARP case that has the most potential to send a Cabinet member under the Obama bus. And trying
to lie your way out of a scandal is a very dangerous thing, when it involves a federal investigation.
2 jul 09 @ 11:11 am edt
GOD BLESS OBAMERICA
2 jul 09 @ 10:58 am edt
AT LEAST THE SPERM HAS A CHANCE OF BECOMING A HUMAN BEINGRobert Stacy McCain has a new posting up over at The Other McCain that is an instant RSM classic. This time he takes off after lawyers. A highlight:
How do you become a lawyer? By being the kind of goody-two-shoes apple-polishing teacher's
pet who excels at homework, who complies happily with all the rules, who accumulates a perfect-attendance record and daily
gold stars from kindergarten onward, cheerfully filling out application forms, becoming vice-president of various student
clubs, and devoting every effort to writing admissions essays -- that is to say, by being the kind of obedient twerp universally
despised by normal human beings.
You trod that twerpish path until you get a law degree and pass a bar exam and
then -- presto! -- your fellow lawyers grant you the awesome power that you will then exercise to inflict punishment
on the rest of mankind until that day (which won't come soon enough for me) when you die.
Please take the time to click here and read the full rant [and hit his damn tip jar!].
Permanently linked in the TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT section of the IN GENERAL page.
2 jul 09 @ 10:40 am edt
UPDATE SCHMUCKDATEOver the past several weeks, what with the IG-Gate, Iran, and other hot topics
taking up a lot of time here, I've not been updating the other sections of this site. Starting this morning, I'm trying
to play catch-up, and will be continuing to do so over the next few days.
So far this AM...
THE
FLAMES OF ALBION = 2 updates
PREPOSTEROUS ALBION = 5 updates
ON
LOCATION = 3 updates
TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT = 4 updates
IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA
= 4 updates
To visit these pages, please go down to the blue box in the right-hand column.
2 jul 09 @ 9:14 am edt
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
IG-GATE: The 'Miss You' Edition
1 jul 09 @ 8:32 pm edt
BANGS & WHIMPERSThe essay by Caroline Glick I quoted from in the Iran Upate in the previous posting
touches on not just Comrade Obamnin's policy towards Iran, but also his foreign policy towards the world in general.
It is a brilliant dissection and I am compelled to present a few more highlights...
On the situation in Honduras:
And how did Obama respond? By seemingly siding with Zelaya against the democratic forces
in Honduras who are fighting him. Obama said in a written statement: "I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of
Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of president Mel Zelaya."
His apparent decision to side with
an anti-American would-be dictator is unfortunately par for the course. As South and Central America come increasingly under
the control of far-left America-hating dictators, as in Iran, Obama and his team have abandoned democratic dissidents in the
hope of currying favor with anti-American thugs. As Mary Anastasia O'Grady has documented in The Wall Street Journal,
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have refused to say a word about democracy promotion in Latin America.
Rather than speak of liberties and freedoms, Clinton and Obama have waxed poetic about social justice and diminishing the
gaps between rich and poor. In a recent interview with the El Salvadoran media, Clinton said, "Some might say President
Obama is left-of-center. And of course that means we are going to work well with countries that share our commitment to improving
and enhancing the human potential."
But not, apparently, enhancing human freedoms.
All this
talk of 'social justice' and forced equality are straight out of the Marxist playbook. When The Anointed One meets with
the Pope, I wouldn't be surprised if he spouts the bromides of the discredited 'liberation theology' to the Holy Father.
Further...
FROM IRAN to Venezuela to Cuba, from Myanmar to North Korea to China,
from Sudan to Afghanistan to Iraq to Russia to Syria to Saudi Arabia, the Obama administration has systematically taken human
rights and democracy promotion off America's agenda. In their place, it has advocated "improving America's image,"
multilateralism and a moral relativism that either sees no distinction between dictators and their victims or deems the distinctions
immaterial to the advancement of US interests.
While Obama's supporters champion his "realist" policies as a welcome departure from the
"cowboy diplomacy" of the Bush years, the fact of the matter is that in country after country, Obama's supposedly
pragmatic and nonideological policy has either already failed - as it has in North Korea - or is in the process of failing.
The only place where Obama may soon be able to point to a success is in his policy of coercing Israel to adopt his anti-Semitic
demand to bar Jews from building homes in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. According to media reports, Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu has authorized Defense Minister Ehud Barak to offer to freeze all settlement construction for three months during
his visit to Washington this week.
Of course, in the event that Obama has achieved his immediate goal of forcing
Netanyahu to his knees, its accomplishment will hinder rather than advance his wider goal of achieving peace between Israel
and its neighbors. Watching Obama strong-arm the US's closest ally in the region, the Palestinians and the neighboring Arab
states have become convinced that there is no reason to make peace with the Jews. After all, Obama is demonstrating that he
will deliver Israel without their having to so much as wink in the direction of peaceful coexistence.
This
is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but
a whimper [?]
Her conclusion is chilling and prophetic:
Like Carter before him, Obama may succeed for a time in evading public scrutiny for his
foreign-policy failures because the public will be too concerned with his domestic failures to notice them. But in the end,
his slavish devotion to his radical ideological agenda will ensure that his failures reach a critical mass.
And
then they will sink him.
I strongly urge you to take the time to click here and read her full article and also check out her other work.
What a treasure she is.
1 jul 09 @ 8:00 pm edt
IRAN XIIMy previous eleven postings of links to reports on and analyses of the situation
may be found by clicking IRAN I, IRAN II, IRAN III, IRAN IV, IRAN V, IRAN VI, IRAN VIIa / IRAN VIIb, IRAN VIII, IRAN IX, and IRAN X., and IRAN XI. [And please check out this special posting here.]
1) The best continuing coverage still remains here...
-Atlas Shrugs [Day 18 coverage here / Day 19 coverage here]
-Gateway Pundit
2) The brutal crackdown by the Muslim thugs running the Iranian
Regime continues apace. Both Pam Geller [Atlas] and Jim Hoft [Gateway] have
linked to this report from The Jerusalem Post, Sabina Amidi reporting:
As the Iranian authorities warned
the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a
report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election
victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took
place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.
Also...
On Monday, witnesses said thousands
of policemen and Basij militiamen carrying batons were deployed in Teheran's main squares to prevent any recurrence of the
opposition protests. Drivers who so much as shouted "Allahu Akbar" or beeped their horns had their windows smashed
by the Basiji and riot police.
Women police, better known as the Sisters of Zeynab, are also now out in force,
the witnesses said.
"Some people are still going out into the streets, but there is despair and sadness,"
said one source. "Now we are told that [pro-Mousavi] green bands are illegal, which is ironic because it symbolizes the
color of Islam."
On Monday, the daughter of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, spoke a gathering of opposition
protesters in Teheran's Enqelab Square, sources said. "Mrs. Faezeh Hashemi arrived and tried to give the people some
words of encouragement," said one, "but the police broke up the rally within minutes."
He added,
"My nephew saw one of these Sisters of Zeynab beat down an elderly woman with no mercy. When he tried to intervene, saying
to her, 'Miss, she is like your grandmother,' the woman turned around to get a Basiji to deal with him."
3) Over at The Corner, Michael Ledeen excoriates the Western governments and reminds us what is going on in individual areas, whether it be in
Iran or Iraq or anywhere in the Middle East, are part of a larger conflict:
For
those who wish to think clearly about Iran, there are two fundamental facts:
* the leaders of the Islamic Republic
of Iran have been at war with us ever since the overthrow of the shah in early 1979;
* the savagery they have unleashed
on the people of Iran is precisely what they want to do to us.
The Iranian leaders and their terror instruments,
from Hezbollah to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have been killing Americans for 30 years, from the Marine barracks in Beirut in
the 1980s to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces are operating
against Coalition forces. Both the history and the contemporary facts are abundantly documented.
The mullahs’
war is unrelentingly and barbarically waged. When they organize demonstrations of hatred against the United States, and lead
chants of “death to America,” they mean exactly that. It is not a slogan playing to a domestic audience (we have
seen in recent days that the regime is enormously unpopular), but a statement of intent. They aim to kill us, humiliate us,
and eventually dominate us. Just listen to President Ahmadinejad’s words to President Obama last Saturday: You should know that if you continue (to criticize the repression) the response of the Iranian nation
will be strong. . . . The response of the Iranian nation will be crushing. The response will cause remorse.
Such language is of a piece with stories alleging that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered an
all-out attack on American, British, French, and German targets wherever possible.
Meanwhile, the same forces deployed
against us and our allies have taken to the streets to attack freedom-seeking Iranians. The same Revolutionary Guards who
operate in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the usual foreign thugs and proxies (Der Spiegelreported five-thousand
Hezbollah “fighters” had been sent into the streets of Tehran, and there are many other stories of sadistic Arabic
speakers all over the country) have been beating, axing, shooting, stabbing, gassing, and clubbing unarmed peaceful protesters.
As of late last week, Evin Prison in Tehran, long the regime’s Bastille, had run out of space for arrested citizens.
The brutality in Iran today foreshadows what the mullahs intend for us. It is what the world will look like if they
prevail. Iran’s Middle East neighbors know this, and dread it (with the exception of Syria, which is playing Mussolini’s
Italy to Khamenei’s Nazi Germany). Yet every American president from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama has convinced himself
that we can reach a workable, long-term modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic. They refused to see the mullahs’
Iran for what it is: a ruthless and determined enemy, at war with the United States.
It is an old story....
And old and sad story. I very much fear we will not learn our lesson until its too late, until thousands,
and maybe hundreds of thousands, in The West are dead. We are in a War to the Death with Islam.
4) Our glorious and extremely talented Secretary Of State has finally weighed in on Iran as Seth Leibsohn reports in a spot-on
commentary:
For some days now we've been wondering where Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has been
on the Iran crisis. She was, for one thing, the most hawkish-sounding Democrat in the 2008 presidential race. She has found her voice now, saying yesterday: Obviously,
they have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process. . . . And I don't think that's going to
disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively-small number of ballots. But clearly, these internal matters
are for Iranians themselves to address. And we hope that they will be given the opportunity to do so in a peaceful way that
respects the right of expression. And it has been my position and that of our administration that we support the fundamental
values of peoples' voices being heard, their votes being counted. And we'll have to see how this unfolds.
Is this some cruel joke, or merely an insult? "These internal matters are for Iranians themselves
to address;" "we hope they will be given the opportunity to do so in a peaceful way;" "we'll have to see
how this unfolds." If James Baker had said anything so purblind about Tiananmen, the media and the rest of the country
would be demanding his resignation for being so out of touch.
Memo to the Secretary of State: The Iranian people
have decided — by the millions they've been marching, by the thousands they've been getting clubbed, arrested, and beaten.
And we are seeing how it unfolds: Those in the government with the guns and riot weapons are using those weapons against those
on the streets who don't have them. It does not take much complicated crisis analysis to realize how things will unfold.
Memo to the American People: Like Obama, SHE DOESN'T CARE. 5) O=mc2: Caroline Glick, per usual, is dead solid perfect in her analysis: For a brief moment it seemed that US President Barack Obama was moved by the
recent events in Iran. On Friday, he issued his harshest statement yet on the mullocracy's barbaric clampdown against its
brave citizens who dared to demand freedom in the aftermath of June 12's stolen presidential elections.
Speaking
of the protesters Obama said, "Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice.
The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government's efforts to keep the world from bearing witness
to that violence, we see it and we condemn it."
While some noted the oddity of Obama's attribution of the
protesters' struggle to the "pursuit of justice," rather than the pursuit of freedom - which is what they are actually
fighting for - most Iran watchers in Washington and beyond were satisfied with his statement.
Alas, it was a false
alarm. On Sunday Obama dispatched his surrogates - presidential adviser David Axelrod and UN Ambassador Susan Rice - to the
morning talk shows to make clear that he has not allowed mere events to influence his policies.
After paying lip
service to the Iranian dissidents, Rice and Axelrod quickly cut to the chase. The Obama administration does not care about
the Iranian people or their struggle with the theocratic totalitarians who repress them. Whether Iran is an Islamic revolutionary
state dedicated to the overthrow of the world order or a liberal democracy dedicated to strengthening it, is none of the administration's
business.
Obama's emissaries wouldn't even admit that after stealing the election and killing hundreds of its own
citizens, the regime is illegitimate. As Rice put it, "Legitimacy obviously is in the eyes of the people. And obviously
the government's legitimacy has been called into question by the protests in the streets. But that's not the critical issue
in terms of our dealings with Iran."
No, whether an America-hating regime is legitimate or not is completely
insignificant to the White House. All the Obama administration wants to do is go back to its plan to appease the mullahs into
reaching an agreement about their nuclear aspirations. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Obama and his associates believe
they can make this regime -- which as recently as Friday called for the mass murder of its own citizens, and as recently as
Saturday blamed the US for the Iranian people's decision to rise up against the mullahs -- reach such an agreement.
6) I'll leave you with this screenshot from Atlas Shrugs: 
1 jul 09 @ 7:32 pm edt
IG-GATE: 'Ridin' That Train...' EditionI just added one more link to IG-GATE
part of the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS Section of the WWU-AM Page.
It's the latest from Michelle Malkin:
Watchdogs are
an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak Inspector General Fred
Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly "retired" this month -- just as the government-subsidized
rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes.
Question the timing? Hell, yes.
Considering
the holiday coming up, I suspect we not may get much more this week, but I'll keep looking.
1 jul 09 @ 6:47 pm edt
...AND IN DARKNESS BIND THEM [updated][UPDATED at 1816hrs: added missing links]
You've
probably already have heard about Todd Purdum's profile of Sarah Palin in the latest Vanity Fair and you
probably are aware of the widespread buzz it's generating. But have you deemed to read it yet? I hope not: from
everything I hear it is a typical hit piece aided and abetted by some of John McCain's campaign people. I was thinking
of making the attempt to slog through it, but, you know, life's just too damn short to waste feeding on crap sandwiches being
handed out by the sniveling scribes of 'the beautiful people'.
Fortunately for me and all of you who feel
the same way, Robert Stacy McCain and Jim Geraghty have braved this sea of puked pablum in a skiff made of courage and have
provided us with the essentials. Herewith, two highlights, one from each:
From RSM:
If none of McCain's aides had the foresight to anticipate his selection of Palin -- which would explain the lack
of "serious vetting" -- whose fault is that? And if choosing an unvetted running mate was a blunder, whose blunder
was it?
This is what the Blame Sarah First crusade by McCain campaign staffers is about: Exculpating them for their
own bad judgment, including their decisions to join the McCain campaign in the first place. Make her the scapegoat, so they
can walk away pretending that they're perfect.
Of all the decisions for which Sarah Palin has been criticized,
saying "yes" when asked to be Maverick's running mate was most clearly a misjudgment. I'm sure she sits home in
Wasilla late some nights and thinks of the answer she should have given: "Are
you kiddingme? That guy's nuts. Besides, he's going to get stomped in November. Why would I want to associate with
a RINO loser like that?" Well, hindsight is 20/20,
eh?...
Mr. McCain's multiple postings may be read by clicking here, here here, and here.
From Mr. Geraghty:
[quote from the article] Her first trip to Washington since the election was to attend the dinner of the Alfalfa Club, an elite group
of politicians and businesspeople whose sole function is an annual evening in honor of a plant that would “do anything
for a drink.”
Ah. How the group got its name is very important to this story; otherwise it might that
Palin appeared at a traditional get-together of prominent political figures, instead of the insinuation that she's hanging
around with a bunch of lushes. The fact that President Obama spoke to the group is strangely omitted.
The continued bashing of Governor Palin [and, in some cases, her family] by members of the McCain campaign since November
last has gone from being simply dishonorable behavior to being loathsome behaviour. These oily weasels apparently
have no shame and are so wrapped up in their own narcissism that they cannot believe any fault for the campaign attaches to
them. Shame on John McCain for not defending his VP pick against the petty whining of a bunch of losers.
Moe Lane issues what I hope is a promise and not merely an empty threat:
...If you were one of the people who participated in that Vanity Fair hit piece, and
we find out your name, you will be a net drag on any national campaign for the rest of your professional career. Not
because you helped the Left go after Governor Palin, but because you are an untrustworthy sneak who is dedicated to propping
up the elitist system in DC, not fixing it. Any candidate that hires you will have to overcome the base’s
natural reluctance to work with a campaign that would hire someone like you. This can be done; but it’s
much easier to hire people with your skill set and a name for basic party loyalty.
Over at Cold Fury, Mike provides more proof for a belief I'm slowly coming to[tip of the fedora to RSM]:
So now Palin Derangement Syndrome has supplanted Bush Derangement
Syndrome as the most prevalent pathology among demented liberals. For committing the shocking crime against humanity of running
for vice president on the RINO ticket, the monster Palin will never again know a moment’s peace; bottom-feeding media
scumbags will forever be rummaging through her trash bins; vicious, depraved lunatics like Andrew Sullivan will continue demanding
that she allow them to insert a speculum into her vagina on CNN to determine once and for all that Trig was actually fathered
by a space alien, and whelped by the family dog. And mouth-breathing boobs like Todd Purdum will continue to come out with the occasional hatchet job that takes fifty thousand words
to say the same thing: we hates her, preciousss! We hates them all!
I'm becoming convinced that Sarah Palin is the conservative's Frodo—an ordinary person of the type who, when tasked
with a thankless and dangerous mission, will inevitably rise to the occasion.
I think now is a good time for this:
Sarah Palin in shorts; patriotic Sarah Palin; Sarah Palin's legs; Sarah Palin, babe; Sarah Palin running shorts. God
Bless America. [picture taken from Don Surber's blog]
[with sincere apologies to Jamie Jeffords over at Eye Of Polyphemus—its a blog eat blog world out there (thanks for meme-ries)]
1 jul 09 @ 2:22 pm edt
IF YOU ACT NOW...Too often we forget to honor those who make small, but important, contributions
to the life of The West, generally, and America, specifically. I'm speaking of those individuals who provide examples
to be emulated and who contribute to our enduring prosperity and cultural health. In these awful days, when the forces
of anti-freedom, are seeking to destroy, finally once and for all, everything that made The United States great, I think
it worthwhile to honor those who have made these kind of small contributions. One such person was—and you may
think me crazy—Billy Mays.
As Robert Hahn put it over at Red State:
We need to do better. If we who celebrate free enterprise, capitalism, and The American
Dream will not pay attention to his passing, why should we expect anyone to admire his achievements? Why would any young person
want to emulate him?
Billy Mays started out hawking a washer-in-a-bucket on the Atlantic City boardwalk. He was
a shameless pitchman, became an entrepreneur and a capitalist, and died a multimillionaire… all on the back of his
skill as a salesman. Is there anything more quintessentially capitalist than that? Does anyone’s life better represent
the promise of free enterprise? Does Billy Mays not belong in the American Dream Hall of Fame?
We’re told
daily that “the free market has failed.” Instead of having people like Billy Mays on its cover, Newsweek tells
the public “We’re All Socialists Now.”....
And from Jimmie over at The Sundries Shack:
...I can’t say that I know much else about him except that he was one hell of
a salesman. I’ve bought a couple or three things he’s pitched over the years and none of it was garbage, which
made him an honest salesman, too. He could have made even more money hawking absolute trash, but that didn’t seem to
be his way. I have to admire that.
I especially like Mr. Hahn's last
sentence:
I’m hoping that when Billy got to the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter told
him, “But wait! There’s more!”
SIDENOTE: I try in my small way to honor such men and women
when they pass over in the TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT Section of the IN GENERAL Page by posting their informative obits.
1 jul 09 @ 11:49 am edt
A SEWAGE-LIKE STREAMAs I stated in my immediately previous posting:
...the past six months
have been horrible for those of us who believe in the American Republic and all she stands for. The President and the
Congress have been actively seeking to subvert The Constitution on scale never witnessed before here, even during the dark
days of FDR's first two terms. A flurry of proposals have created a whirlwind of activity that has morphed into
a raging tornado that is slowly ripping of the roof of House USA.
Over at The Other McCain, Smitty assesses the situation and nails it:
I submit that there will never be a more critical period, and few equals, as
the next 18 months of US history. Since we've now crossed the imaginary legislation horizon, we've a sewage-like stream of
liberal nightmares moving towards us. That which we do or fail to do is going to have grave consequences. I submit that the
seemingly empathetic twist with which shenanigans in Iran and Honduras are viewed by this administration may be a hound of
ill omen for our own future.
We cannot allow them to succeed. The America we know and love is teetering
on the precipice. Smitty is dead solid perfect.
SIDENOTE: No doubt about it: the Damien
prophecy is being fulfilled....
Satbam shall be loosed out of his Chicago and
shall go out to deceive the people which are in the four quarters of America...to gather them together to battle: the
number of whom is as the sand of the sea, or fifty-two percent. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed
with their sewage the Camp of the Saints...and the Beloved City.
—The
Book Of Revolutions, 20:7-9 [believed to be authored by St. Saul of Alinsky]
TAKING THE TENTHTo make a gross understatement: the past six months have been horrible for those
of us who believe in the American Republic and all she stands for. The President and the Congress have been actively
seeking to subvert The Constitution on scale never witnessed before here, even during the dark days of FDR's first two terms. A
flurry of proposals have created a whirlwind of activity that has morphed into a raging tornado that is slowly ripping of
the roof of House USA. Freedoms are never a very secure things and their anchors must be constantly strengthened,
lest they corrode and break during one of the constant storms that rage against them. We are, right now, battered
and depressed.
However, take heart; there is some clearing on the horizon: from CNS News, Frank Lucas reporting, we learn some good news:
Voters in Arizona will decide next year whether residents will be subject to
mandates in the pending health care reform that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are promoting.
At least five other states – Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming – have considered proposals
to take pre-emptive action against the pending federal mandates, but those proposals have either not made it out of committee,
failed to get enough votes from one side of the legislature, or are still being crafted.
Only the Arizona Legislature
introduced an initiative (HCR2014), which if passed, would amend the state constitution to codify that no resident would be
required to participate in any public health care option. Arizonans will vote on the initiative in November 2010.
...
What happens in Arizona could spur other states to pass similar laws or constitutional amendments, said Wisconsin
State Rep. Lea Vukmir, a Republican, who sponsored similar legislation in 2008 that passed the House but failed in the Senate.
If the Obama administration’s “public option” becomes law before Arizonans vote in November 2010,
their initiative would still allow the state the challenge the Obama plan.
Vukmir said that the Obama proposal
could be unconstitutional, under the Tenth Amendment, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Let's hope this is a portent of things to come. We would have a greater chance in our battle to
preserve The Republic if we could fight back from the state level. We need state legislators to form Committees Of Correspondence to coordinate efforts. Perhaps, The Patrick Henry Caucus could be the forum for this—although the site appears not to be that active. However, its a good idea. Perhaps, we'll find we can't
count on these elected officials to do the work, but its worth a shot. There's always the TEA Party organizations.
Now, for some possible bad news related to the above...
As William Teach writes:
Good for them, but, I suspect it could end up in a Supreme Court showdown with any
federal legislation, which is certain to include language similar to what ended up in the House cap and tax bill, which, in
Section 189(a)(2) made it clear that any State law could be ignored.
We have to be prepared
with the right ammo.
The Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
1 jul 09 @ 10:43 am edt
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
IRAN, IG-GATE, ETCI haven't finished preparing the latest Iran update, so it will not be posted
until tomorrow.
Nothing new on the IG-Gate Scandal, so no new postings over in that section at
WWU-AM today. I'm still on the hunt.
However, please check hop over to WWU-AM because I've been updating three sections...
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
THE
ROAD TO SERFDOM
JUST THE FACTS, MAM has three updates in the Socializing Health
Care section and two other on Cap & Trade.
I've got a number of interesting postings planned for tomorrow.
30 jun 09 @ 8:23 pm edt
THE GANG THAT COULDN'T GOVERN STRAIGHT, SCENE II[Click here for Scene I]
The Scene: the Oval Office, Thursday evening June 25th...
Fearless Leader: Rahmbo,
my Man! Why the late meeting? Michelle and I were just sitting down to watch Reds again.
Rahm 'The
Enforcer' Emmanuel: Sorry for the interruption Boss, but I tink we've got a situation dat we shoudden let go to waste.
FL: A situation? Don't tell me my friends in Iran have been killing folks in the streets again? That's
all I need. I told Don Ali Barzini last week that I wanted him to either cool it for awhile or at least don't get caught
suppressing those clinging agitators.
R TE E: No Boss, nuthin' like dat.
FL: Don't tell me Byron York
or that Other McCain nut jub found out about the other fired IGs? I told you I wanted it to be like they never
existed.
R TE E: No Boss. Dere both unda control, bein' watched closely by my boyz. Who knows dey just
might have an accident.
FL: Well, then what is it? I'm really looking forward to seeing Lenin overthrow the
monarchy again. I get pointers off the film.
R TE E: Boss dis here is a good situation dat we can, you know,
take advantage of.
FL: Bam is listening.
R TE E: Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson is dead Boss.
Da news networks and daInternet are all flappin' dere jaws about it non-stop all ready. Now is da time for us to
act on dat ting we discussed walkin' on da golf course the udder day.
FL: About me not wanting to run all
the hospitals in the country?
R TE E: No, Boss. Dat ting 'bout doze guys down south of Florida joinin'
a certin social organization that we're members of, ya know, the cigar aficionados as it were and soforth and so on.
Ya know...'bout sayin' to the other American Families that we don't mind the odda guys becomin' members all official like and
all that, all official like.
FL: Now I get ya.
R TE E: I wuz just thinkin' wit everybody distracted
by daJackson ting and all, it might be a good time to, ya know, play hide the salami, so to speak. Avoid all
the attentin, if ya catch my drift? Slide it buy da VRWC mooks.
FL: [Laughs heartily] That's why you da man
Rahmbo. Let's do it.
[from down the hall]
MO: BARRY! I'M...WAIT...ING!
FL: Well,
if that's all conseligre of mine...
R TE E: One more ting Boss.
FL: Yup Kemosabe.
R TE E:
I tink our friend in Honduras is gonna be needin' our help soon. He's bout to pull a big heist and he may get nabbed
byin his Congress and dere Courts.
FL: You're not saying we'll have to use the military, are you?
R TE
E: Naw, I know how you hate doin' dat. No...I tink a kind word'll do...ya know, sayin' somethin' like 'Dis ain't kosher...I
mean legal'
FL: Are you saying they may depose him?
R TE E: We gotz to be prepared and such and soforth.
FL: You're right—you're always right Rahmbo. Have Ayers write up a statement just in case.
R
TE E: Sure ting Boss. Right away.
FL: Now, if there's no other business, I'll get back to watching my movie.
End Scene.
From Jay Nordlinger over at NRO, we learn:
...For 50 years now, Cuba has been the
odd man out in Latin America: a Communist dictatorship in a democratizing region. In 1962, the Organization of American States
expelled Cuba, on grounds that “Marxism-Leninism is incompatible with the inter-American system.” In 2001, the
OAS reaffirmed and strengthened its principles by signing a “democratic charter.”
What a difference a few years makes. The quasi-democratic Left is riding high in Latin America,
controlling Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and other countries. And the new leaders want Cuba into the OAS, pronto. They voted
to lift the ban, inviting Cuba to rejoin. The United States had no objection. As far as most members are concerned, Cuba may
rejoin immediately, without any change or reform at all. Our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, says that some reform will
be necessary. But these are empty, unenforceable words.
From Jimmie over at The Sundries Shack, we learn:
...less than 24 hours after the Honduran government legally removed Manuel Zelaya from
office, the President called the action “not legal” and said the United States would not recognize anyone by Zelaya as President. That position is identical to those taken by Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and the Castros
in Cuba.
SIDENOTE: The
Gang That Couldn't Govern Straight was inspired by these postings by Paco: here and here [please check out his latest by clicking here].
30 jun 09 @ 2:52 pm edt
R IS RIn a very well done posting today over at Red State, Warner Todd
Huston lays out a concise version of the case against Sonia Sotomayor [pronounced: sot-oh-mayer (as in: Meyer
Lansky, Mob Boss)]. It is a well-reasoned and non-hysterical brief against a person who is nothing but a racist.
A highlight from:
To begin with, it’s shocking that President Obama has nominated
for a spot on the Supreme Court a judge whose decisions have been reversed or rejected in five out of the six times her cases
appeared before that august body. Additionally and by her own admission, she was admitted to Princeton ahead of other law
students as a result of affirmative action despite having lower grades. She once gleefully called herself a “perfect affirmative action baby,” even
as her grades were “highly questionable.”
“My test scores were not comparable to that of
my colleagues at Princeton or Yale,” Sotomayor once said on a discussion panel during an event sponsored by a non-profit
law organization in the 1990s.
All that is bad enough. To be sure, high grades in law school are not in and
of themselves any guarantee of an ideal Supreme Court Justice and should not stand as a final qualification at any rate. One
must determine a candidate’s judicial mentality in order to find the most important benchmark by which to consider confirmation
and it is that mentality that should serve to disqualify Sotomayor immediately. Her judicial philosophy is a far more disqualifying
factor in her bid for the highest court of the land than her grades. Her views are racist, simply put. There is no way to
construe them otherwise despite what her supporters’ spin may be.
Please take the time to click here and read his full brief. If you come away from digesting it with a very sour feeling in your stomach, wondering how such a clearly unqualified
bigot could be so close to sitting on the SCOTUS, see the immediate posting below.
30 jun 09 @ 2:25 pm edt
CHERISHED FANTASIESOver at Pajamas Media, Andrew Klavan proves that he is a
true Renaissance Man. Not only is he a novelist, reporter, commentator, etc., he proves he's a first-rate psychiatrist
[Jung would be proud]:
Once, when I was a lad, I was verbally assaulted on the
streets of New York by a paranoid schizophrenic. This raving lunatic came at me waving his hands wildly in the air with spittle
and shrill curses spewing from his mouth in equal measure. I had been walking along lost in my own meditations and was so
startled by the attack that for a moment, I couldn’t process it. I wondered: had I unwittingly done something wrong?
It took me a moment to understand that, no, it had nothing to do with me, really. I had simply violated the borders of the
poor fellow’s internal world. The abuse was, in some sense, his way of defending his fantasies from the threat of my
reality.
Arguing with a leftist is something like that. Used to civilized debate with liberals and conservatives
alike, you can’t quite take in what’s happening at first. Your ideas and observations are met with screeching
venomous diatribes and personal attacks and you think, oh my goodness, have I said something untoward? It takes a moment before
you realize, no, not at all. You have simply disturbed a cherished fantasy world and the resultant rage is a form of recognition
that your ideas, if not always right, at least relate to reality and thus threaten to undermine the leftist’s chimerical
sense of personal virtue.
Having nary a philosophical leg to stand on, the arguing leftist, to borrow a phrase
from Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, “wants to win by making you weaker instead of
making himself stronger.” So, instead of facts and observations to support his side, it’s all ad hominem attacks
meant to shame, frighten or delegitimize you. We’re all wearily familiar with their insults by now: you’re a racist,
you’re a sexist, you’re homophobe, you’re a fascist. A man can’t support his nation’s war effort
because he’s not a veteran. A woman can’t write in favor of at-home Moms because then she’s not an at-home
Mom at all but a professional journalist. And heaven forfend you should point out that certain feminists are just shrews with
a fancy philosophical excuse—then they unleash the worst insult they can think of: you must be gay. And all of this
is usually accompanied by a shrill steady blast of four letter words and other verbal savagery—anything to scare away
nasty reality and keep their discredited worldview intact.
I have been studying Leftists and Leftism intently
for over twenty years now, less rigidly since 1976, and I believe the above is one of the best descriptions and dissections
of the Leftist mind I have ever read. If you are baffled by what is going on in Washington amongst the Democrats in
power these days and you find yourself shouting 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!' on a regular basis, come back and re-read Mr. Klavan's
three paragraphs.
I would only add the following...
The Left believes that their fantastic
reality and discredited worldview is THE ANSWER to all of the world's problems. They believe in it with a religious-like
fervour that would make Pentecostals blush. And, because there is no moral sense incorporated into the foundation of
THE ANSWER and therefore no restraint on the methods of proselytizing, they will employ any means necessary to convert those
who oppose them. The means have been seen for several centuries now from the guillotine scaffolds in France to the gulags
and concentration camps of Central and Eastern Europe to the real world manifestations of Room 101 across the globe to
the re-education and labor camps of modern Southeast Asia. When you are dealing with a committed Leftist, remember you
are dealing with a mentally unsound person. As with the paranoid schizophrenic, you have to be very careful and quick
around them.
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Klavan's full article.
30 jun 09 @ 2:06 pm edt
STEYN OF THE WEEKENDA day-and-a-half late, but here it comes: some classic Steyn...
In a lousy week, Mark Sanford
had one stroke of luck: Michael Jackson chose the day after the governor’s press conference to moonwalk into eternity,
and thus gave the media’s pop therapists a more rewarding subject to feast on — or, at any rate, one of the few
stories whose salient points are weirder than Sanford’s. Not that the governor didn’t do his best to keep his
end up on the pop-culture allusions: “I’ve spent the last five days crying in Argentina,” he revealed, in
presumably unconscious hommage to Evita.
The plot owed less to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber
than to one of those Fox movies of the early Forties in which some wholesome all-American type escapes the stress and strain
of modern life by taking off for a quiet weekend in Latin America, and the next thing you know they’re doing the rhumba
on the floor of a Rio nightclub surrounded by Carmen Miranda and 200 gay caballeros prancing around waving giant bananas.
In this case, the gentlemen of the South Carolina press were the befuddled caballeros and Governor Sanford was bananas.
There is a rather large point to all this. As my National Reviewcolleague Kathryn Jean Lopez observed, a
sex scandal a week from the Republicans will guarantee us government health care by the fall — in the same way that
the British Tories’ boundlessly versatile sexual predilections helped deliver the Blair landslide of 1997. And once
government health care’s in place the game’s over: Socialized medicine redefines the relationship between the
citizen and the state in all the wrong ways, and, if you cross that bridge, it’s all but impossible to go back. So,
if ever there were a season for GOP philanderers not to unpeel their bananas, this summer is it.
If
they unpeel 'em, they might slip and the country will fall, is what your sayin' I reckon?
Please take the time to click here and read the full column.
30 jun 09 @ 1:39 pm edt
THE TRIUMPH OF HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE?Over at NTC News, Right Of Center is spot-on
regarding the decision handed down by SCOTUS in the case Ricci v DeStefano and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor
[pronounced: sought-oh-mayer (as in Oscar Mayer Weiner)] whose ruling was overturned:
...She is not a charismatic orator and she doesn't have a powerful personality. She will vote her left wing agenda
but she won't be influencing any of the 5 Justices who voted to overturn her racist decision.
The Republicans should
use this as an opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of the left and to distinguish themselves as conservatives.(Does anyone
think the left would be ok with a member of the KKK being a Justice? Oh wait, they already have a KKK Senator.) They should
be talking about the nomination of someone affiliated with La Raza. They should be elaborating on La Raza's agenda to undermine
American culture. This could be an opportunity to discuss what stances a wise Latina woman would take on closing the border
with Mexico. The Republicans probably can't stop her confirmation, but they can point out what Obama and Sotomayor have planned
for America.
They can and should lay the groundwork for His next nomination which may effect the balance
of the Court more. However, let us not forget: the Republican Party has well-earned their nickname The Stupid Party.
If they don't botch this, I will be surprised.
And remember:
NRSC/NRCC DELANDA EST!
Please take the time to click here and read ROC's full posting.
30 jun 09 @ 11:23 am edt
LA COSA BLOGGAThere are moments as a blogger when you feel that all of your efforts are paying
off:
-The first time you get linked by someone you respect
-The first time you get complemented and linked
by someone you respect
-The first time someone you respect adds you to their blogroll
-When someone prominent lets
you know they are interested in your opinions
-When you publish a something that creates a buzz throughout the ether
and
-When you get your first published denunciation from the other side.
There are more, but time
does not permit. Having been only in this 'thing of ours' for slightly over a year, I have been fortunate to have the
first five happen to me, but the last one has been elusive.
No longer.
From the blog Runnin' Scared over at The Village Voice:
Rightbloggers, maintaining theirusual priorities, saw something
more sinister in the surge of public and media interest in Jackson. For them, it was at best a dereliction of the media's
duty, and at worst a conscious attempt to protect President Obama, Iran's mullahs, or both.
Atlas Shrugssaid that "the media is breathing a heavy sigh of relief (as I am sure the jihad US President
is as well)." "Unwelcome Distractions plaguing our Fearless Leader [Iran?...Cap and Trade?...Koh?...Socializing
health care?...The hell with that: THE KING OF POP! is dead!" cried Camp of the Saints. "And don't forget the person NBC called an 'Angel', Farrah!"
It
drones on with what the author Roy Edroso labels 'paranoid effusions' from the Right.
The posting has everything
you would expect from a Leftist Moonbat: snark, sarcasm, ad hominum attacks, rank stupidity, and an underlying smell of the
sinister that only a Bolshevik could sniff and complement.
I have made it. And I am honored to be in the
company of The Anchoress, Andrew Breitbart, Greg Gutfeld, Bill Whittle, Ace Of Spades, etc.
I am highly honored to be the sole example placed in a paragraph with the great Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs.
I will wear this badge of honor with great pride until my dying day and will do my damnedest to earn and secure
such further treatment from the Left in the future.
Viva la VRWC!
30 jun 09 @ 9:47 am edt
Monday, June 29, 2009
THEY'RE MORE DANGEROUS THAN SHOTGUNSIn the course of commenting on Kathleen Parker's latest pablum punditry
[click here for it if you must], Robert Stacy McCain lets us know how his lovely wife would handle a Sanford situation:
My wife is a kind, Christian, generous and forgiving woman, the love of
my life with whom I recently celebrated our 20th anniversary. But had I done what Mark Sanford did, I would expect to
find myself lying in a pool of blood and the last words I'd ever hear would be my loving bride saying, "How do you re-load
this thing?"
I read this passage to Mrs. Belvedere, with whom I will be celebrating our tenth anniversary
this fall, and she responded: 'That's exactly how I feel. Couldn't have said it better myself.'
However, she
would carry it a step further, being half-Sicilian and half-Irish Catholic: 'I would kill your whole family, your friends,
our pets, the mailman, our neighbors who like you, and whoever you voted for'.
Trumped you on this one RSM.
29 jun 09 @ 8:13 pm edt
IRAN XIMy previous ten postings of links to reports on and analyses of the situation may
be found by clicking IRAN I, IRAN II, IRAN III, IRAN IV, IRAN V, IRAN VI, IRAN VIIa / IRAN VIIb, IRANVIII, IRANIX, and IRANX. [And please check out this special posting here.]
1) The best continuing coverage still remains here...
-Atlas Shrugs
-Gateway Pundit
2) Over at Atlas Shrugs, Pam Geller quoted from and linked to this depressing analysis by A. Savyon over at MEMRI:
Two weeks after the elections, it seems that the Iranian regime has
managed to suppress the protest movement. This report examines the reasons for the waning of this movement.
From the conclusion, a ray of hope in a hopeless world:
The events in Iran following
the elections were a public outburst of rage that encompassed many sectors of Iranian civil society. This outburst was made
possible by the emergence of a comprehensive national common denominator, namely anger over the rigged elections. The protestors
sought a leadership, but did not find one.
The regime's power and brutal suppression of the protests, the absence
of a religious leadership, and the silence of the world meant that the protest movement could not maintain its momentum, and
started to crumble after two weeks. However, it is safe to assume that another, more effective, protest movement will arise
when the necessary "ingredients" are present, namely - a public of protestors, a compelling ideological agenda presenting
an alternative to the regime, a religious leadership that will head the movement and will be willing to pay the price, and
international support.
Please take the time to click here and read this succinct, but very informative analysis.
3) On Saturday we learned the following from reporter Jim Heintz of the AP:
Meanwhile, opposition supporters, faced with a senior cleric's demand that protest
leaders be severely punished or even executed, enter the third week of their campaign against the election results in increasingly
tight straits.
Mousavi, who claims he actually won the vote, says he will seek official permission for any future
rallies, effectively ending his role in street protests.
The opposition may have little opportunity to keep momentum going within the limits
of the law, and the international attention that appeared to bolster their morale could be waning. Also, Mousavi's Web site,
his primary means for communicating with supporters, remained down on Saturday; an aide told the Associated Press Friday that
the site had been hacked.
Mousavi said he would seek official permission for any future rallies, effectively ending
his role in street protests organized by supporters who insist he won the election.
"The problem is we have
no one to lead us," a 30-year-old resident of Isfahantold AP on Saturday on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal. "We
are waiting for a new message, but Mousavi does not want to continue, because after all he is part of the system."
"People are angry and afraid," he said. "They are afraid of the future and angry because they failed
to achieve change with their ballots."
People continue to resist the government oppression, he said, although
very few dare to defy the government on the streets due to massive police presence.
But they continue to shout from the rooftops at night in Tehran and Isfahan, he
said. The shouting was particularly loud after ruling clerics accused protesters Friday of challenging and opposing God with
their dissent.
So much for the man who said he was ready to be a martyr.
Over at Contentions, Abe Greenwald commented:
This was never about a choice between two leaders: awful and awful with good PR. It
was about a choice between two systems of governance: tyrannical and consensual. That’s why Barack Obama’s early
declaration of the outcome’s irrelevance was off the mark. Democracy is so potent a force that even the poor counterfeit
orchestrated by the mullahs proved too addictive to contain.
With the protests breaking away from the personality
of Mousavi and with Mousavi’s getting reabsorbed into the corrupt theocracy, it’s more important than ever that
the U.S. make clear its support for Iran’s citizens. We are, after all, aligned with them against Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
This should now be easier for our president to articulate, as it no longer means endorsing Mousavi by default.
But our Fearless and Courageous Leader is on the side of the regime [look at the Iranian Regime as the Middle East version
of Honduras; then you'll see what I mean].
As for Mousavi, did he spend some time in Room 101? Does he love Big Mullah?
4) Pam Geller has the info on the Swiss bank accounts of the leaders of the Iranian Regime. Here's one:
Ali Khamenei
- Sparkasse Bank (Frankfurt/Germany) Acct.# 234075617: DM 112.1 Millions
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct. # 217824:
US$ 97 Millions
- Banque Cantonale (Lausanne/CH) Acct. # 71713: US$ 73.2 Millions
5) Ahmadinejad does what Muslims and Leftists both do very well: The Big Lie...
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked Iran's cleric-controlled
judiciary on Monday to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, who became an icon of Iran's ragtag opposition after gruesome
video of her bleeding to death on a Tehran street was circulated worldwide.
Ahmadinejad's Web site said
Soltan was slain by "unknown agents and in a suspicious" way, convincing him that "enemies of the nation"
were responsible.
29 jun 09 @ 7:53 pm edt
IG-GATE: 'The Sammy Award' EditionI just added ten more links to IG-GATE
part of the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS Section of the WWU-AM Page.
Here are highlights from two of them:
1) Robert Stacy McCain with some good advice:
Here's an important message for
you, anxious reader. There is work to be done that only you can do. Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins are the chairman and ranking member of the Senate committee with jurisdiction to hold
hearings and issue subpoenas on IG-Gate. Various other committees in the House and Senate have their own jurisdictions related
to the investigation.
Most members of Congress are reluctant to pick a fight with the White House so early in a
new administration. Only pressure from their constituents will cause representatives and senators to speak up and take action.
Whether your own members of Congress are Republicans or Democrats, you should call or e-mail them, or speak to them in person
when they hold a town-hall meeting or appear at your local Fourth of July parade. They're all about transparency, right? Ask
your members of Congress what they're doing to safeguard the independence of the inspectors general.
Trust me.
This advice is endorsed by sources close to the investigation, as they say.
2) The TCOTS
Committee to Piss Off Obama Plenty [C-POOP] hereby awards said Robert Stacy McCain its first
'Sammy' Award named after famed fictional newspaperman Sam Gatlin. What decided the CPOOP on Mr. Other McCain was this heartfelt and spot-on tesitmony by one Jimmie Bise who runs The Sundries Shack:
Stacy has been doing some first-rate journalism lately on this story and his
posts are almost perfect examples of how you can use the power of new media and the internet to give far more information
in a smaller space than you ever could in a newspaper and magazine. His articles are absolutely packed with links to background
material, more commentary, and other journalists’ work. When you’re doine reading and following the links, you’ll
know just about everything he knows about the story. That is the very essence of journalism.
Stacy has also outworked
almost every professional news outlet, which shows you that journalism really isn’t brain surgery. All it takes is a
curious nature and the desire to burn up some shoe leather. Of course, you probably have to be willing to follow the story
anywhere, even if it means it’ll damage the Obam administration, which is probably why most of the MSM has done almost
no reporting on it.
Make sure you get caught up, then leave him a little note. Good work ought to be commended,
don’t you think?
Yes sir, we do. The award itself is still under design at this time, but we
at C-POOP will be posting a picture soon.
If you haven't kept up with the Scandal
for a day or so, please go over to WWU-AM and check out the IG-GATE part of the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS
Section for the links in green.
-30-
29 jun 09 @ 2:42 pm edt
IS BELVEDERE SLEEPING IN TODAY?Been up and awake for quite some time now, aggregating like a son of a gun.
We had a small fire in our building just as I was about to start the IG-Gate
linkage. We had to evacuate for over an hour. I'll be getting to work on updating WWU-AM with the latest I've corralled on what Paco calls l'affaire IG. Come back in a bit and check out the latest.
Before I head off into the ether...
Big thank you to Smitty for the prominent linkage in this past Saturday's Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around and for the kind words. Baby, you're the top.
29 jun 09 @ 11:54 am edt
|
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Dispatches are archived by week; click on the links above.
 |
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'This one was worth
the fight.
And it's only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting.'
—Doug
Hoffman
The Restoration will not be televised; it will be blogged.
—Robert Belvedere
|
|
| Click The Picture Above For The Latest Updates/Linkage |
'Bob Belvedere may have the best compilationof IG-Gate information.'
—Robert Stacy McCain
'Robert Belvedere at The Camp
of the Saints appears to be maintaining the definitive index of all things PIG-gate...at TCOTS. ...This is an excellent resource.
We thank you, sir.'
—Smitty 'More great commentary and juicy
links on l'affaire IG from Camp of the Saints..'
—Paco
Captain Ohab:
'From hell's
heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned Fox News.'
I may be reached at
Robert.Belvedere AT gmail DOT com
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Behind the ‘Not One Red Cent’ Rebellion
by ROBERT STACY MCCAIN
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T E R M S
Let us make precise and clear-cut the terms we should be using.
Aristotle wrote that A is A; you may also call it B, but
it always remains A. A thing is what it is and, to say it is something else, is to deny reality. There is a lot of denial
of reality going around these days.
As John Adams wrote: 'Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes,
our inclinations, the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence'.
POINT 1: There is no "War in Iraq"
or "War in Afghanistan". Like the Pacific and Europe in World War II, Iraq and Afghanistan are
just parts of a larger war. Unlike them, they are not separate from each other. Therefore,
they are part of the Middle East Theatre of Operations [METO] as the Pacific was the PTO and Europe the ETO.
POINT 2: Many on the Left and some on the Right want to "end
the War". There are only two ways to end a war: (1) by achieving Victory or (2) by being Defeated.
A pullout, before Victory is achieved, is Defeat. They want Defeat. Pullout may
be the best policy―I am not arguing that here―but, leaving without achieving our objective is Defeat.
POINT 3: We are engaged in a War Against Islam.
The term is more correct than "War against Islamo-Fascism" or "War On Terror".
Islam has been at war with all non-Muslims since the
time of its founder, Muhammad [his name be cursed]. Like the Hundred Years' War, there have been periods
of peace in this long conflict, but the Muslim has never stopped believing that he is at war with all non-Muslims.
He can't: Allah commands that all of the world be conquered in his name and he must submit, in all things, to the
will of Allah [the word Islam means "submission", sometimes rendered as "surrender"]. Any
periods of peace we in the West have enjoyed have only occurred after we have dealt them such a devastating blow that they
have not been able to wage their jihad and then have pursued polices that have kept them subjugated. This
began to fade in the latter half of the 20th Century as we forgot the dangers posed by this militant religion and
as they regrouped under new and committed leaders.
If you
doubt that Islam is at war with all non-Muslims, keep in mind this:
Islamic apologists
often point out that Islam is not a monolith and that there are differences of opinion among the different Islamic schools
of thought. That is true, but, while there are differences, there are also common elements. Just as Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
and Protestant Christians differ on many aspects of Christianity, still they accept important common elements. So it is with
Islam. One of the common elements to all Islamic schools of thought is jihad, understood as the obligation of the Ummah to
conquer and subdue the world in the name of Allah and rule it under Sharia law. The four Sunni Madhhabs (schools of fiqh [Islamic
religious jurisprudence]) -- Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali -- all agree that there is a collective obligation on
Muslims to make war on the rest of the world. Furthermore, even the schools of thought outside Sunni orthodoxy, including
Sufism and the Jafari (Shia) school, agree on the necessity of jihad. When it comes to matters of jihad, the different schools
disagree on such questions as whether infidels must first be asked to convert to Islam before hostilities may begin (Osama
bin Laden asked America to convert before Al-Qaeda’s attacks); how plunder should be distributed among victorious jihadists;
whether a long-term Fabian strategy against dar al-harb is preferable to an all-out frontal attack; etc. [Source: Gregory M. Davis, Islam 101, section
4g, found at http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/]
They have been at war with us for
centuries and we, therefore, have been at war with them. We are engaged in a War Against Islam whether
we want to say so or not. In an interview with a Pakistani TV network on 23 July 2008, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid,
Al-Qaeda's No. 3 man and top commander in Afghanistan, has this to say: “Islam does not distinguish between the
American people and the American government, since both are in a state of war with Islam”. [Source: http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD200008]
POINT 4: The term "Islamo-Fascism" seems
to have been created by Leftists. Since (1) they wrongly place fascism on the Right, (2) they believe [rightly]
Muslims want to establish a theocratic regime on Earth, and (3) anything political that has any connection with religion is
bad and emanates out of rightwing thinking, the term makes sense to them. Therefore, the term is nothing
but a way to associate Islam with the right-wing. Muslims believe in a totalitarian way of governing; in
submission [that word] to an all-powerful Islamic leader or leaders.
POINT 5: As to the term "War On Terror",
it is just plain silly: how can you wage war on a thing?
POINT 6: What is fascism? It is when a government
allows private property to exist, but controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms. Citizens
retain all of the burdens and responsibilities associated with property ownership, but are not allowed to control and shape
its use.
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied
bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone
liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism
and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through
direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally
private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their
property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a
few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance
of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled
the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
[Source: Sheldon Richman, The Concise Encylcopedia Of Economics,
Liberty Fund, found at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html]
On the political spectrum, therefore, it is located between modern liberalism
and socialism.
POINT 7: What is socialism? It is when a government
allows no private property to exist, and controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms.
Citizens are not allowed to control their lives and are subject to the whims of bureaucrats and officials. If they
retain freedoms and liberties, they do so at the discretion of them. On the political spectrum, therefore, it
is the next logical stage after fascism; some would argue that it lies between fascism and communism.
POINT 8: What is pragmatism? It is a tool used by Leftists,
or those operating under the influence of Leftist logic, to achieve Utopian ends—heaven on earth through social, political,
cultural, and spiritual engineering. It is merely a tool of ideology, part of the means to an end.
POINT 9:The Big Lie - When confronted with truths that reflect
unpleasantly on them, the Leftists deflect it buy claiming over-an-over ad nauseum that these truths apply to and are products
of the Right. This practice is known as The Big Lie. It has been successfully practiced by the
Left since, at the very least, the French Revolution. Thus, we have the now-widespread belief that the Nazis and the
Black Shirts of Italy were right-wingers when the reality-the truth-is they were both people of the Left. I suspect
the violent objections from the Left to conservatives use of the term 'fascist' arise from the fact that they have spent well
over seventy years trying to convince the world of The Big Lie that it is not and never has been a Leftist
ideology.
How does one practice this distortion truth and why is it effective? In a report issued during
World War II by the OSS, the author provided an explanation for all practitioners by describing how Hitler practiced it:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault
or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than
a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
By repeating
their lies over and over, the Left creates a false reality that supplements the real world. In this false reality, the
lie is the truth, the truth is the lie. A is not A. [But we know that A must always be A.]
The Left
also practices a variation of The Big Lie that I like to call The Big Deception which involves
a Big Deflection away from the reality of the situation. None of their policies or actions can survive
direct questioning, so the Leftists must turn the tables on the questioners and make it seem as though the inquisitors have
bad or evil intentions. Overtime and after constant and unrelenting hectoring, the Left's way of thinking triumphs.
They successfully infect enough people so that this diseased mode of thinking becomes chronic, deep-rooted, instinctual. If
the Devil's greatest triumph was that he convinced people he did not exist, the Left's greatest triumph has been to convince
people that the Leftist way of thinking is normal. It is not. It is a perversion of reason and a horribly mutant
form of logic. It is antithetical to human life. Nothing but decay and destruction are left [pun intended] in it's wake.
What They're Saying
About
BOB BELVEDERE &
The Camp Of The Saints... 'Sir Bob of Belvedere'
—Smitty—
'So many good things at Camp of the Saints that you need to just click and keep scrolling.'
—Paco—
'Go, read it, fine stuff over there!'
—GatorDoug—
''Belvederus Maximus'
—Smitty—
'You are contributing to a noble yet futile cause -- the butchification of metrosexuals.
TCOTS
roolz!'
—Red—
'[H]e takes retro dame blogging to a new, narrative noir level.'
—Smitty—
'Staunch Rule 5 aficionado Bob Belvedere, is shameless indeed (I have so much respect for this man)!'
—The Classic Liberal—
'Who knew he was such a fan of the undead?'
—Smitty—
'We need fighters, and I suspect Beck will fight 'til ev'ry foe is vanquished.
Bob Belvedere gets it. Phyllis Chesler gets it.
We defend truth and
liberty against lies and tyranny. Every eye is upon us and we are surrounded by enemies as numerous as the grains of sand
on the shore. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.
WOLVERINES!'
—Stacy McCain—
'Bob Belvedere, you're a nasty piece of work.'
—Anonymous—
'you charming rogue'
—Robert—
'The sad decay of Bob Belvedere into a Rule 5 junkie saddens us all.'
—Smitty—
'Belvedere went slightly crazy on us.'
—Smitty—
'And thank you, Dr. Belvedere, for setting me straight on Rule 5! I tell ya, that Belvedere Dude
is Funny!'
—Irish Cicero—
'Kevin Binversie is not nearly so shameless a blogwhore as Troglopundit . . .
but then again, nobody really is. OK, maybe Bob Belvedere, as if anyone could compete with Bob.'
—Stacy McCain—
'Lord Fatheringay von Whoopsie of the Dung Heap Hooter'
—Anon. —
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