IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!

Bush Forcefully Attacks Iraq Critics

Nov 11 6:21 PM US/Eastern Email this story

By DEB RIECHMANNAssociated Press Writer
TOBYHANNA, Pa.

President Bush strongly rebuked congressional critics of his Iraq war policy Friday, accusing them of being "deeply irresponsible" and sending the wrong signal both to America's enemy and to U.S. troops.
"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges," Bush said in his most combative defense yet of his rationale for invading Iraq in March 2003.
Bush's charges brought a forceful response from senior Democrats in Congress, who accused the president of misleading the country about the justification for war. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who ran unsuccessfully against Bush last year, accused the president of playing "the politics of fear and smear."
Bush's speech was part of a coordinated White House effort to bolster the president's waning credibility and dwindling support for the war, in which more than 2,000 U.S. troops have died.
As casualties have climbed, Bush's popularity has dropped. His approval rating now is at 37 percent in the latest AP-Ipsos poll, an all-time low point for his presidency.
"When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support," Bush said in a Veterans Day speech at Tobyhanna Army Depot.
"While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."
Bush's remarks brought a few jabs from fellow Republicans as well as a sharp counterattack from Democrats.
In a speech in Philadelphia, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., criticized how the war has been presented to Americans _ both by the media and the White House. Afterward, Santorum said the war has been "less than optimal" and "maybe some blame could be laid" at the White House. "Certainly, mistakes were made," Santorum said.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who is weighing a run for president in 2008, has said he agrees with Democrats who are pressing the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to move forward with an investigation into whether the administration manipulated intelligence.
"I was probably the main driver on the Republican side because I thought we needed the answers to whether intelligence was misused, intentionally or unintentionally," Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald in a story published Friday.
Defending the march to war, Bush said foreign intelligence services and Democrats and Republicans alike were convinced at the time that Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader, had weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations, he noted, had passed more than a dozen resolutions citing Saddam's development and possession of such weapons.
Accusing his critics of making false charges, Bush said: "These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will.
"As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them."
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Democrats would continue to press for a full airing of the facts about prewar intelligence and said asking tough questions was his party's way of standing with the troops.
"Americans seek the truth about how the nation committed our troops to war because the decision to go to war is too serious to be entered into under faulty pretenses," Reid said.
White House officials fanned out to television appearances to reinforce Bush's argument and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman added his voice. He said Democrats who once worried that Saddam was amassing weapons of mass destruction now want an investigation of the intelligence. "Maybe this investigation will reveal that they were brainwashed," Mehlman said in a speech to be delivered Friday evening in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Criticism about prewar intelligence has been stoked by the recent indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in the CIA leak investigation.
The probe aims to identify who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband, a former ambassador, alleged that the administration relied on faulty intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Kerry accused the president of playing politics on a holiday set aside to honor veterans.
"This administration misled a nation into war by cherry-picking intelligence and stretching the truth beyond recognition. That's why Scooter Libby has been indicted. That's why a statement in the State of the Union Address was retracted," said Kerry, who voted in 2002 to give Bush the authority to wage war but later voted against additional funds for Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction.
"It's a dangerous day for our national security when an administration's word is no good," Kerry said.
Bush chose to go on the road this Veterans Day to make his forceful defense of the war, leaving Cheney in Washington to attend traditional wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., accused Bush of using Veterans Day as "a campaign-like attempt to rebuild his own credibility by tearing down those who seek the truth about the clear manipulation of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War."
Bush's political adviser Karl Rove, who is still under the cloud of the CIA leak investigation, hopped Air Force One to attend the speech, an indication that it was a political event.
Bush shared the stage with a tan Army depot vehicle, and banners behind him read "Strategy for Victory." "Hail to the Chief," which is rarely played to mark Bush's arrival, blared from speakers in the warehouse.
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french Negotiations Proceeding Nicely!

Appeasement is a bitch, eh Jacque??!!!

Why france Is Burning?

Why France is burning
Daily Mail, 7 November 2005
http://www.melaniephillips.com

Night after night, France has been under attack by its Arab Muslim minority with the French authorities having totally lost control of the streets. What started as an ugly localised disturbance in Clichy-sous-Bois — a grotty Paris suburb — after two Muslim youths were accidentally electrocuted has spiralled into an unprecedented national crisis. Extreme violent disorder has spread to cities such as Toulouse, Lille, Nantes, the cathedral town of Evreux in Normandy and even to the centre of Paris. Thousands of cars have been set on fire and hundreds of people arrested across France. The rioters have torched post offices and fire stations, schools and synagogues, buses and warehouses, fired upon police, and doused a handicapped woman with petrol and set her alight. Nicolas Sarkozy, the tough-minded Interior Minister, has been blamed for inflaming the situation by his uncompromising language. French policy in general has been blamed for herding poor Arabs into suburban ghettoes where they have been left to fester in high unemployment and poverty.
The disturbances are thus being portrayed as race riots caused by official discrimination and insensitivity. But this is a gross misreading of the situation. It is far more profound and intractable. What we are seeing is, in effect, a French intifada: an uprising by French Muslims against the state.

When the police tried to take back the streets, they were driven out with the demand that they leave what the protesters called the ‘occupied territories’. And far from the claim that the disturbances have been caused by French policy of segregating Muslims into ghettoes, this is a war being waged for separate development. Some Muslims have even called for the introduction of the ancient Ottoman ‘millet’ system of autonomous development for different communities. The director of the Great Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, has previously suggested that France should be regarded as a ‘house of covenant’, by which he appears to mean that France should enter into an agreement with its Muslims to grant them autonomy within the state. His response to the current violence is not to take steps to bring his own community under control but to suggest instead that the French government shows ‘respect’ and sends ‘a message of peace’. But M. Sarkozy and the police are determined to take back the streets. The Muslims are equally determined to keep territory they feel they have conquered from the French state with which they feel no identification.

This crisis, however, did not start with the electrocution tragedy in Clichy-sous-Bois. It has been going on for decades. The scale of it is astonishing. Nine thousand police cars have been torched or stoned since the beginning of this year. The problem has not been M. Sarkozy’s tough approach. On the contrary — until now this permanent grumbling insurrection has simply been ignored. For more than twenty years France’s Muslim areas have been out of control. Indeed, they only turned into Muslim ghettoes in the first place because Muslim violence and harassment forced everyone else out. And they became no-go areas for the police, seen by the Muslims as occupation forces entering their territory. In schools in such areas, teachers trying to teach French or European history have been threatened with their lives by both pupils and their parents. In some cases young French people have converted to Islam just to escape the harassment.

Blaming an official policy of segregation is wide of the mark. The fact is that French Muslims want to be segregated. The ghettoes are a way of ensuring a separate Islamic existence without having to assimilate into French society. The fact is that whatever policies different European countries have pursued to deal with minorities, they have not cracked this problem. France has enforced a rigid policy of state secularism and assumed that all minorities would adopt French values simply by being French. By contrast, the British and other Europeans have adopted multiculturalism, which means giving minorities equal status to the majority, and have bent over backwards to be accommodating to them and not give offence. Yet while France was burning, there were riots over several days in Denmark over the publication of cartoons satirising the prophet Mohammed. In the super-tolerant Netherlands, the film-maker Theo van Gogh was murdered exactly a year ago because he had made an ‘insulting’ film about Islam. The Dutch immigration minister has had to wear a bullet-proof vest after shots were fired into her office, and death threats have been made against other ministers who have spoken against Islamist violence. In Britain, British Muslims turned themselves into human bombs last July to murder as many of their fellow citizens as they could. We are told this was because of the war in Iraq. But France was a principal opponent of that war, and yet it is now being torched from Normandy to the Mediterranean.

For every country, a different reason can be found to blame it for the attacks being mounted upon it. Yet the common factor is the hostility of Muslims to the countries in which they have settled. Clearly, not all fall into this category. Thousands of British Muslims are highly integrated and live law-abiding and productive lives. But it is equally clear that across Europe, those moderates are either unable or unwilling to stop those who want to impose their values on the majority. And European governments have played into their hands. As the writer Bat Ye’Or reveals in her book Eurabia, the European Union and the Arab League entered into a series of official agreements some thirty years ago guaranteeing that Muslim immigrants in Europe would not be compelled to adapt in any way ‘to the customs of the host countries.’ This is all bound up with the erosion of national identities across Europe. This has affected even France, once a ferocious proponent of French culture which was imposed through a centralised schools system, a strong police force and national military service. But now the schools system and the police have been weakened and national service has gone. Banning the hijab (Islamic headscarf) in schools represented a flickering of the old national certainty as France sniffed the danger that had arisen in its midst. But it was too little, and maybe too late.

Even now Britain, France and the rest of Europe are still in varying stages of denial over Muslim unrest. Reluctant even to admit that religion is central to this phenomenon, they look instead for ways to blame themselves and use the insult of ‘Islamophobia’ to shut down debate. The warning for us from the disturbing events in France could not be clearer. We must end the ruinous doctrine of multiculturalism and reassert British identity and British values — and insist that although Muslims are a valued minority, they must abide by majority rules. But if France fails to hold the line, the fall-out will be incalculable for us and for all of Europe.

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Great summary about what is happening in france and why!

MUSLIM Riots Spread Across France And Europe

Some things that Americans can teach the French

By Froma Harrop

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

Has anyone in the United States noticed that the Paris suburbs have been racked by race riots for a week? That youths in these ghettos are opening fire on police? You'd never know it from American media coverage. There's very little of it on TV, despite the dramatic footage of burning cars. On CNN Headline News, the French riots were given 20 seconds, wedged between an item about Scooter Libby and one about how a musicians' strike at Radio City wouldn't affect the Rockettes. What's more astounding is that Americans, despite their frequent delight in France-bashing, have not used the mayhem to turn a bright spotlight onto the failings of French society. Here we have nine towns in France consumed in what one French union leader called a "civil war," and few American commentators are wagging their fingers over what's wrong with France.

Compare that with 13 years ago, when the world's cameras trained on the violence in Los Angeles. The L.A. riots became the No. 1 story across the globe. The instant analysis from Europe was that the chickens of racial injustice had come home to roost. And there was much self-satisfied clucking about America being a messed-up place and Europe having gotten things right. French President Francois Mitterrand used the L.A. riots to defend France's generous welfare programs. The chaos in America, he said, showed "that the social needs of any country must not be neglected."

The welfare benefits in France are still pretty nifty, and yet the immigrant neighborhoods around Paris are exploding in fury. Something else must be going on. The popular explanation from official France is that the rioters are mostly impoverished Muslims, whipped up by an extremist clergy. There's truth in that, but there's a deeper root cause, which is harder to fix: racism. The immigrants and their children feel like foreigners in a country that will never accept them as truly its own. The French want them to quietly clean their toilets, and then disappear at night.

A similar story unfolded after this summer's London bombings. The perpetrators were Muslim radicals, but the real shock was that the bombers were not immigrants. They were their British-born children, who had received all the public benefits of being British, but felt only rage toward their country. All the bennies in the world won't cover a sense of being reviled. Americans may have something to teach their European friends. The United States absorbs immigrants by the millions. The immigrants don't riot. They work, and they assimilate. It could be that Americans' devotion to working — often ridiculed by leisure-loving Europeans — translates into greater respect for people who work. Ours is a more open society. Perhaps Americans haven't applied a sharp cultural critique because what little coverage they see from Europe tends skip over the ugly parts. In his book "The United States of Europe," Washington Post writer T.R. Reid portrays a continent of unending pleasure and comfort. His Europe is about young people taking their bullet trains from Madrid to weekend skiing in the Alps; first-class health coverage; pure food; and secure pensions. But the 300-page book devotes only two sentences to Islamic immigrants, mainly a dry reference to the growth in their numbers.

Eerily, the sparks that ignited the violence in Los Angeles and the Paris suburbs were virtually identical: resentment over perceived abuse by police. In Los Angeles, the trigger was the jury acquittal of the officers caught beating Rodney King, a black man, on film. In France, it was the death of two North African youths, electrocuted when they touched a power transformer. The rioters say police were chasing the young men. The police say that was not the case.
In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton went to South Central Los Angeles and appealed for calm. This week, French President Jacques Chirac is appealing for calm, though from the safety of the government offices in Paris.

The two conflicts reflect very different political and cultural histories, but both stem from a deep sense of disenfranchisement by people of color. When it comes to matters of race, Americans have come quite a distance in 13 years. The French really haven't started the journey yet. Perhaps Americans do have something to teach them.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Froma Harrop is a columnist for The Providence Journal. Comment by clicking here.

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Ahhhh, the failures of France and multiculturalism. I find it very interesting that the MSM refuses to identify the rioters as muslim. Instead they resort to using some benign term such as "french immigrants".

Hypocrite

I don't have much to offer today except this little gem. I heard an interesting little tidbit on Sean Hannity's radio program. He was discussing who has profited most from the Iraq War. Of course most people would offer Haliburton as their choice, but since government contracts are limited to a 3.7% profit margin, their pre-tax profit was only $167 million. What was Michael Moore's pre-tax profit from his little propaganda piece, Fahrenheit 9/11? A whopping $193 million! And what did he do with his money? Apparently, from new reports, his foundation has been snapping up Haliburton stock! What a hypocrite!

Not sure if all the figures are correct (I'm assuming that Hannity did his research), but it certainly is food for thought.

Unhinged; Or, How To Be A democrat in the 21st Century!

Unhinged

By David Horowitz and Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com November 2, 2005

HE SPOKE WITH GREATER AGITATION THAN USUAL. He fumbled nervously with a paper, turning it over and over with his left hand, this way and that, like a little child about to get caught in mischief. Then Harry Reid began swinging his right arm wildly, stating he was closing the Senate doors, forcing Senators to relinquish their cell phones and Blackberrys for the sake of “national security.” Reid squelched the work of the American people for three hours in order to harangue Republicans with insane accusations like this: The [Lewis] Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really about: How the administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions. As a result of its improper conduct, a cloud now hangs over this administration.

Of course, the Libby indictment doesn’t do anything of the kind. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald specifically stated, “This indictment is not about the war.” It shows that Libby could not remember clearly, or did not want to remember clearly, the details of a number of discussions about Valerie Plame’s CIA job several months before. Plamegate is about a British intelligence report that Saddam was seeking fissionable uranium in Niger, a report that the Brits still stand by and that Joe Wilson’s oral account bolstered. The Libby “window” only opens speculation that the British may have manufactured of manipulated intelligence if, like Harry Reid and his Democratic nutcases, you regularly indulge in fits of acute paranoia.

Reid’s analysis has the other shoe on the wrong foot, too. It’s Democrats who have attempted to destroy to the character, reputation, and credibility of George W. Bush for more than two years and to criminalize their political differences with him over the war. Recall that the removal of Saddam Hussein was demanded by two presidents, one of them – Bill Clinton – a Democrat, and was authorized by a majority of Democrats in multiple Congresses. The last three Democratic presidential candidates have considered Saddam’s WMDs a major national security threat. Recall that the authorization for the use of force to remove Saddam was passed by Democratic majorities in both houses and that John Kerry – a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee with access to all the intelligence information that the Bush administration had – spoke eloquently on behalf of the authorization to remove Saddam by force. Recall that full membership of the Security Council voted on November 8, 2002, to give Saddam a 30 day ultimatum to report on what he had done with the tons – that’s thousands of pounds, Harry – of nerve gas and other WMDs that UN inspectors had already established he had manufactured; and that Saddam failed to do so. That’s why we went to war. Recall that even Russian and Jordanian intelligence said Saddam had WMDs, as did the intelligence agencies of a dozen other nations (and the Russians should know).

The Democrats are liars. They have defected from a war they themselves authorized and they have blackened the reputation of Americans more effectively than al-Jazeera. These leftist partisan hacks have put politics above principle so securely that they give al-Jazeera and the terrorists confirmation of America’s evil intentions “from the mouth of the beast.”

For example, Reid claimed Bush “consistently and repeatedly manipulated the facts” before the war. Dick Durbin seconded, averring, “Intelligence information was distorted, was misused, and we have seen as late as last week the lengths which this administration has gone to try to silence and discredit their critics of the misuse of this intelligence information.” Durbin threatened daily invocations of Rule 21 until the committee complied. “Be prepared for this motion every day until you face the reality,” he said.

After his national temper tantrum, Harry Reid faced a crowd of reporters, where he thundered, “If the administration had all the information that they have now back then, they wouldn't even have brought it to the Congress for a vote.” What would Sen. Reid have us do – reinstate Saddam as president of Iraq? Reopen the rape rooms and fire up the plastic shredders? The United States has toppled a monster, given a captive people their freedom, and sunk the dagger of democracy deep into the heart of the Muslim world. Millions of Iraqis – including members of the Sunni Triangle – voted for a pluralistic, democratic future, a major setback for the terrorists. Libya came to an unexpected arms agreement, thanks to the threat of force in Iraq. Lebanon demanded its right to self-determination. Syria initiated a pullout after 30 years of occupation, and Egypt began democratization of its own. In the face of these developments, the best foreign policy the Democratic Party’s Senate leadership can offer is: Ba’athists forever.

Reid rattled on, indicting the war he and his party supported:

We know that there were no [WMDs] now in Iraq. We didn't know it at the time. We know now that we didn't know at the time that there was no al-Qaeda connection. We know now that we didn't know then that there was no 9/11 connection. We know now that they had no plan for winning the peace. We didn't know that at the time.

We know nothing about the cargo trucked by an ominous-looking Russian-led caravan across the Syrian border before the beginning of the war. Reams of intelligence ties Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda before the war, not least including the fact that its terrorist affiliate Ansar al-Islam conducted training in northern Iraq during his reign of terror. And the White House has consistently stated there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11.

What we know is that the Left’s military alternative would have ended in disaster. There is no way we could have maintained 200,000 troops on the Iraqi border in perpetuity, as Ted Kennedy proposed. The American people’s complacency after one of the most rapidly successful military campaigns in modern history is troubling enough. If terrorists pouring in from Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia had begun sniping at U.S. soldiers stationed on the border – as we know now they would have – it would have made Nick DeGenova’s dream of a million Mogadishus come true. Popular support would have imploded, as it did in Beirut and Somalia, and the Left would have forced us to retreat yet again, emboldening the terrorists, and leaving Saddam Hussein further in their debt. How would he have rewarded their service when he finally acquired WMDs, as the Duefler Report confirms was his long-range plan?

In response to this Harry Reid and Dick Durbin seek a new Nye Commission. Senate leftists seek to scapegoat a war they voted to authorize on their political enemy, who happens to be commander in chief of the armed forces and leader of the free world. Since Karl Rove escaped unscathed by the indictment scandal, they have to force a phony scandal by other means, because they have no alternate plan, except to abandon Iraq and the Middle East to the terrorists, ultimately allowing them to regroup and face down the Great Satan in the United States.

They hunger for this investigation has nothing to do with truth, since the 9/11 Commission and other inquiries have repeatedly cleared the Bush administration of charges it pressured intelligence agents to produce pro-war reports or massaged their estimates. If anything, Bush and Cheney downplayed some the raw information handed them by the CIA, for which the CIA attempted to hang the blame for its own incompetence on Bush.

Yesterday’s stunt was also unnecessary, since Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-KS, said he already told Senate Democrats his committee would wrap up the second phase of the investigation by next week.

That investigation stalled – not because of Roberts or the Republicans – but because the Rockefeller Memo laid bare the left-wingers’ desire to twist the committee’s findings for crass partisan advantage. This after the Democrats, under repudiated Minority Leader Tom Daschle, politicized the Intelligence Committee, breaking up its nonpartisan composition following the 2002 elections.
Not just members of both political parties, but every intelligence agency in every nation in the world, believed Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Harry Reid, John Kerry, John Edwards and others decided they did not want to be on the wrong side of a war in 2002. Now, their actions undermine the troops they placed in harm’s way and the cause for which those troops are fighting and dying: to establish an Iraq that is peaceful, democratic, and no longer a threat to its neighbors or the United States. Instead of supporting their mission, Reid and his followers seek indictments or resignations from everyone who disagree with them and indulge baseless conspiracy theories to smear their enemies. They have become unhinged in their pursuit of political blood – but it is American soliders who will pay with their blood for the Left’s efforts to delegitimize their efforts.
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It's interesting, and amusing at times, watching the downfall of the democratic party. They remind me of a three year old. Whenever they don't get their way, they fall on the floor, kicking and screaming, hoping that they will annoy us to the point that they get their way. The majority of Americans have figured this out, though, and are very tired of their rhetoric and sick of the their lapdog, the mainstream media.

A word of advice to the democratic party, whining, crying, and name-calling does not constitute ideas or vision! The more time that Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Shumer, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Howard Dean, and others of this ilk spend as the voice of your party, the less relevant you become. Good riddance!

Bush, The United States' First "Black" President?

Black Unemployment Drops Under Bush
by Jerry Bowyer
Posted Oct 28, 2005

On the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March this month, Louis Farrakhan led what he called the “Millions More Movement,” which, ironically, appeared to have hundreds of thousands fewer attendees. Here’s a possible explanation: A lot of people had to work that day. After all, anybody keeping up with the African-American unemployment rate would know that it is at one of its lowest levels ever.

George W. Bush is laying a claim to be the President who did the best job creating jobs for blacks. Currently, black unemployment is 9.4%, which is significantly lower than the 10% it averaged in the Clinton years. The current rate is also much lower than the average black unemployment rate over the past 30 years, which is 12.4%. Some on the left have complained that even if the black unemployment rate is dropping, there is still too great a gap between the unemployment rate for blacks and for whites. If this complaint were sincere, those who made it should be pleased to learn the gap between black and white unemployment, which stands today at 4.9 points, is smaller than the 5.5-point average gap of the Clinton years and the 6.9-point average gap of the past 30 years.

Mr. Bowyer is author of The Bush Boom and an economic adviser to Blue Vase Capital Management. He can be reached through www.BowyerMedia.com.

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Hey liberals, facts are a bitch, aren't they?!! Especially when they don't support your bogus rhetoric. That's why, in the absence of facts, the left resorts to just repeating talking points over and over again in the hopes that eventually people will except it as factual. And the mainstream media is all too eager to oblige.

Fat, Drunk And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Senator Kennedy.

Unbelievable comment from Ted Kennedy regarding 2000th soldier death - "On this auspicious day..."


In case you missed it, I hope you are going to be as angry as I am. As the DemocRATS are celebrating the 2000th death of American servicemen in the Iraq war, they can barely contain themselves. But Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy has gone way beyond what anyone would consider decent behavior. On Tuesday, on the floor of the Senate, when discussing the 2000th death of American heroes, he actually used the following words:

"On this auspicious day . . ."

Don't think they're celebrating? I give you Senator Edward (the Killer) Kennedy. He described Tuesday's news of the 2000th death as an "auspicious day". I guess anyone who can leave a young woman to drown could call the death of 2000 American soldiers "auspicious".

Wise up, Massachusetts! Dump this bloated, mentally deficient blowhard!

Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Guy

George Galloway: Fascist Pimp and Prostitute
By Christopher HitchensSlate October 26, 2005

Just before my last exchange with George Galloway, which occurred on the set of Bill Maher's show in Los Angeles in mid-September, I was approached by a representative of the program and asked if I planned to repeat my challenge to Galloway on air. That challenge—would he sign an affidavit saying that he had never discussed Oil-for-Food monies with Tariq Aziz?—I had already made on a public stage in New York. Maher's producers had been asked, obviously by a nervous Galloway, to find out whether I had brought such an affidavit along with me. I replied that this was not necessary, since his public denial to me was on the record and had been broadcast, and since it further confirmed the apparent perjury that he had committed in front of the U.S. Senate on May 17, 2005. I added that I wanted no further contact with Galloway until I could have the opportunity of reviewing his prison diaries.
That day has now been brought measurably closer by the publication of the report of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This report, which comes with a vast archive of supporting material, was embargoed until 10 p.m. Monday and contains the "smoking gun" evidence that Galloway, along with his wife and his chief business associate, were consistent profiteers from Saddam Hussein's regime and its criminal exploitation of the "Oil for Food" program. In particular:
1) Between 1999 and 2003, Galloway personally solicited and received eight oil "allocations" totaling 23 million barrels, which went either to him or to a politicized "charity" of his named the Mariam Appeal.
2) In connection with just one of these allocations, Galloway's wife, Amineh Abu-Zayyad, received about $150,000 directly.
3) A minimum of $446,000 was directed to the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned against the very sanctions from which it was secretly benefiting.
4) Through the connections established by the Galloway and "Mariam" allocations, the Saddam Hussein regime was enabled to reap $1,642,000 in kickbacks or "surcharge" payments.
(For a highly readable explanation of how the Oil-for-Food racket actually worked, see the Adobe Acrobat file on the site http://www.hitchensweb.com/ prepared by my brilliant comrade Michael Weiss and distributed as a leaflet outside the debate in New York.)
These and other findings by the subcommittee, which appear to demonstrate beyond doubt that Galloway lied under oath, are supported by one witness in particular whose name will cause pain in the Galloway camp. This is Tariq Aziz, longtime henchman of Saddam Hussein and at different times the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of the Baathist dictatorship. Galloway has often referred in moist terms to his friend Aziz, and now this is his reward. I do not think—in case anyone tries such an innuendo—that there is the smallest possibility that Aziz's testimony was coerced. For one thing, he was confronted by Senate investigators who already knew a great deal of the story and who possessed authenticated documents from Iraqi ministries. For another, he continues, through his lawyers, to deny what is also certainly true, namely that he personally offered a $2 million bribe to Rolf Ekeus, then the head of the U.N. weapons inspectors.
The critical person in Galloway's fetid relationship with Saddam's regime was a Jordanian "businessman" named Fawaz Zureikat, who was involved in a vast range of middleman activities in Baghdad and is the chairman of Middle East Advanced Semiconductor Inc. It was never believable, as Galloway used to claim, that he could have been so uninformed about Zureikat's activities in breaching the U.N. oil embargo. This most probably means that what we now know is a fraction of what there is to be known. But what has been established is breathtaking enough. A member of the British Parliament was in receipt of serious money originating from a homicidal dictatorship. That money was supposed to have been used to ameliorate the suffering of Iraqis living under sanctions. It was instead diverted to the purposes of enriching Saddam's toadies and of helping them propagandize in favor of the regime whose crimes and aggressions had necessitated the sanctions and created the suffering in the first place. This is something more than mere "corruption." It is the cynical theft of food and medicine from the desperate to pay for the palaces of a psychopath.
Taken together with the scandal surrounding Benon Sevan, the U.N. official responsible for "running" the program, and with the recent arrest of Ambassador Jean-Bernard Mérimée (France's former U.N. envoy) in Paris, and with other evidence about pointing to big bribes paid to French and Russian politicians like Charles Pasqua and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, what we are looking at is a well-organized Baathist attempt to buy or influence the member states of the U.N. Security Council. One wonders how high this investigation will reach and how much it will eventually explain.
For George Galloway, however, the war would seem to be over. The evidence presented suggests that he lied in court when he sued the Daily Telegraph in London over similar allegations (and collected money for that, too). It suggests that he lied to the Senate under oath. And it suggests that he made a deceptive statement in the register of interests held by members of the British House of Commons. All in all, a bad week for him, especially coming as it does on the heels of the U.N. report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, which appears to pin the convict's badge on senior members of the Assad despotism in Damascus, Galloway's default patron after he lost his main ally in Baghdad.
Yet this is the man who received wall-to-wall good press for insulting the Senate subcommittee in May, and who was later the subject of a fawning puff piece in the New York Times, and who was lionized by the anti-war movement when he came on a mendacious and demagogic tour of the country last month. I wonder if any of those who furnished him a platform will now have the grace to admit that they were hosting a man who is not just a pimp for fascism but one of its prostitutes as well.

____________

I guess we now know why Galloway has been such a huge critic of the Iraq War. It messed up his retirement fund. You know, George, there are many legal ways to invest and receive sound financial advice that does not involve taking kickbacks from third-world, barbaric dictators.

Political Correctness Gone Mad

Banks fear piggy banks offend Muslims
Religion News ^ October 23rd, 2005

Bristish banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims. Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reported today.

Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal. Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move. "This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said. However, the move brought accusations of political correctness gone mad from critics. "The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity," the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said. "We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them."

Khalid Mahmoud, the Labour MP for a Birmingham seat and one of four Muslim MPs in Britain, also criticized the piggy-bank ban. "We live in a multicultural society and the traditions and symbols of one community should not be obliterated just to accommodate another," Mr Mahmoud said. "I doubt some Muslims would be seriously offended by piggy banks."

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As a form of protest, maybe we should strap some explosives to our midsections and blow ourselves up in front of the banks?? If you decide to protest in this manner, I hear you get 72 piggy banks when you go to heaven!

What Is Wrong With People?!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Too Little, Too Late??

US security chief strives to expel all illegal immigrants.
Oct 18 11:47 AM US/Eastern Email this story

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. "Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions.

"It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year," Chertoff told a Senate hearing. Thousands of "Mexicans who are caught entering the United States illegally are returned immediately to Mexico. But other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers. The problem is especially severe for non-Mexicans apprehended at the southwest border," Chertoff explained. "Today, a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities," he added. "Through a comprehensive approach, we are moving to end this 'catch and release' style of border enforcement by reengineering our detention and removal process." Chertoff's remarks in favor of returning "every illegal entrant, no exceptions" appeared to conflict directly with the US policy toward illegal Cuban migrants.
Though Cubans picked up at sea are returned to their country, those who reach US soil by air, sea or ground are allowed to stay and work -- a fact Cuba says encourages dangerous illegal emigration attempts.

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Tough talk to appease Bush's conservative base or an actual change in policy to make this country safer? We'll see. It is a sad day, though, when this Republican administration has to do some maneuvering to position themselves to the right of Hillary's RHETORIC.

Hopefully this an actual real shift in policy that should have been initiated MANY years ago. It's about time that Bush remembers who got him elected and started acting like a conservative again. A clear majority of Americans do not support open immigration due to security issues and the immense strain it puts on our social services. It will be interesting to see if this yields actual results.

(On a side note, a find it amusing that spellcheck always wants to replace Hillary's with hilarious.)

More Ronnie! (Part 3)

Monday, Oct. 17, 2005 9:59 a.m. EDT Newsmax.com

Ronnie Earle: DeLay Evidence Missing

The most compelling piece of evidence cited by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to implicate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a money laundering and conspiracy case can't be located, Earle's prosecution team admitted on Friday. Indictments against DeLay and fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro allege that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002, reports the Houston Chronicle. The document was touted as proof that DeLay was part of a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates. But Earle's prosecution team told the court on Friday that they had only a "similar" list and not the one allegedly given to the RNC. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates in Texas, but fewer than half are alleged to have received money as part of the alleged DeLay plot.

DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin immediately pounced on the development, telling the Chronicle that the lack of a list "destroys" Earle's case against the three men. "That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said. Prosecutor Earle engaged in similar tactics in 1993, when he twice indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for misuse of campaign funds, only to have the case dismissed both times. Earle indicted a third time, but when the case went to trial he failed to produce any evidence and was forced to dismiss all charges.

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Looks like little Ronnie is up to old tricks. Wonder if there is a way to charge Ronnie with conspiracy to falsely indite? If not, there should be a way to protect people from prosecutorial misconduct so this type of partisan hackery can be stopped.

Hopefully this will be the last chapter in the Ronnie Earle crusade. Good riddance!

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Dead!

Boomers' Overdose Deaths Up Markedly
By Daniel Costello, Times Staff Writer

Californians age 40 and older are dying of drug overdoses at double the rate recorded in 1990, a little-noticed trend that upends the notion of hard-core drug use as primarily a young person's peril.Indeed, overdoses among baby boomers are driving an overall increase in drug deaths so dramatic that soon they may surpass automobile accidents as the state's leading cause of nonnatural deaths.

In 2003, the latest year for which the state has figures, a record 3,691 drug users died, up 73% since 1990. The total surpassed deaths from firearms, homicides and AIDS.Remarkably, the rate of deadly overdoses among younger users over that period has slightly declined, while the rate among those 40 and older has jumped from 8.6 to 17.3 per hundred thousand people.The change has caught many prevention programs, which tend to be geared toward young people, off guard. Several drug abuse prevention officials and other experts said there was virtually no strategy in place to address the risk of overdose among older users."We have seen a massive, long-term trend toward more middle-age drug abuse that is leading to an unprecedented number of deaths," said Michael Males, a sociology researcher at UC Santa Cruz. But "no one is doing anything about it. It has gotten almost no attention at the state, federal or local level."Because the problem has been recognized only recently, it is difficult to say what is behind the generational split.Some experts suggest, however, that California is merely reflecting a national trend in which Americans increasingly are using illicit drugs long past the days of youthful resilience. According to the U.S. Substance and Mental Health Services Administration, more than a third of drug users today are older than 35, compared with 12% in 1979."Baby boomers are the first generation that is facing a drug and overdose epidemic in their middle age," said John Newmeyer, epidemiologist and drug researcher at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics in San Francisco. "They started using drugs recreationally or regularly over 20 years ago, and they aren't really slowing down."To a degree, it seems overdoses are following the same generation through time. In California, the age at which someone was most likely to die from a drug overdose in 1970 was 22; by 1985, it was 32; and today it is 43, according to calculations by Males, based on state health data.Many of those who die are hard-core drug users who never quit, even when they reached middle age. As such, they are likely to be in poor health, enhancing their overdose risk. "Using year after year can have a clear and deleterious physical effect. [Drugs] take a toll as people continue to use," said Dr. Karl Sporer, a San Francisco emergency room physician and drug treatment expert. With age, even occasional users grow more susceptible to medical complications such as strokes, heart attacks and respiratory distress. By far the greatest number of overdose deaths is among users of opiates, such as heroin, which in excessive doses can shut down the lungs. Doctors say that because older users tend to have slower metabolisms, the opiates may remain in their systems longer, increasing the risk of cumulative overdose.Cocaine is the next most lethal drug. It can lead to heart attacks, especially among long-term users, whose habits can cause their hearts to become weakened or enlarged. Drugs such as methamphetamine and barbiturates account for a smaller number of overdose deaths. Treatment experts said people most at risk are older users who try to stop, then return to using drugs at their previous dosages. The drugs may kill them because the users have lost tolerance or the drugs are more potent. Many street drugs have gotten purer in recent years, experts said, which adds to their potential lethality.It is unclear from the data available what role prescription drugs play. The state's drug overdose data do not include a small number of cases in which medications led to an overdose even though they were taken as directed.Some researchers believe that rising incarceration rates around the state could be leading to more overdoses, because many released prisoners return to drugs after long periods of abstinence.

Adding to the problem: Older drug users often use alone. Younger people, research shows, tend to use in groups. One of the major risk factors for a fatal overdose is not having anyone to call paramedics when someone first shows signs of overdosing.Drug treatment officials and the families of addicts know the personal tragedies behind the statistics.
"From what I see, there is no doubt that people are doing drugs later in life and, like for anyone, that can be dangerous," said Dr. Michael Stone, medical director of Cornerstone of Southern California, a drug treatment facility based in Tustin.He estimated that about 10 former patients have died from overdoses this year alone.Paul Tanner of San Rafael lost his 48-year-old daughter Toni Marie Tanner to an overdose in 2003.The elder Tanner said his daughter had been addicted to drugs on and off her entire life but had been sober for two years.She was caring for her mother, who was sick with cancer, when she relapsed — for the first time, he believes — on a mix of heroin and cocaine. She died later that day."I think her mother's illness got to her and she couldn't take it anymore," he said. The question now is what, if anything, can be done to combat the problem. For decades, the bulk of federal prevention money, which makes up the majority of state prevention budgets, has been aimed at deterring young nonusers from trying drugs.Kathy Jett, director of the state's Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, said the agency wasn't aware until recently that drug overdoses were rising so quickly — let alone so dramatically among older users. She asked an internal task force assessing the department's overall drug abuse prevention strategy to come up with new approaches.But Jett said budget constraints may limit what the agency can do.Researching and reacting to trends like rising overdose death rates is "not something that we're typically equipped to do," she said. "We have very limited resources." Males, of UC Santa Cruz, said overdose trends call for a major realignment of the state's drug policy."We're going to have to adapt our treatment and prevention model to older users," he said. "We must stop obsessing solely on younger people doing drugs and focus resources on aging addicts."

Amnesty International Uncovers Human Rights Abuses In Texas

Addison, TX - In what is being exposed as one of the greatest human rights abuses, reminiscent of the gulags of Guantanamo Bay, a local Addison eatery is forcing their patrons to eat flan. As evidence of torture and widespread cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment mounts, it is more urgent than ever that the US Government bring Gloria's, a restaurant that specializes in Latin American food, salsa music, and communist rhetoric, into full compliance with international law and standards. The only alternative is to close them down.

As was witnessed by Amnesty International and many other patrons last Saturday night, the above diner was physically forced into eating the establishments chocolate flan. The director of Gloria's Secret Police (GSP), Hector, who eerily resembles Saddam Hussein, conducted the "interrogation" and subsequent forced-feeding. Throughout the ordeal, cries of "Eat the flan, capitalist pig!" cascaded down on the prisoner. The abuse by Hector and the GSP did not end with the flan. In an effort to weaken the uncooperative dissident's resolve, multiple Mexican Martinis and Top-shelf Margaritas were continuously brought to the table throughout the evening.

The restaurant at the corner of Belt Line and the Tollway in Addison has become a symbol of the US administration's refusal to put human rights and the rule of law at the heart of its response to the atrocities of 11 September 2001. Hundreds of people of many different nationalities are held in effect in a legal black hole at Gloria's, many without access to any court, legal counsel or family visits. Hypocrisy, an overeaching war mentality and a disregard for basic human rights principles and international legal obligations continue to mark this restaurants' indoctrination tactics. Serious human rights violations are the inevitable result.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does!

Mink Activist 'Would do it all over again' (Animal Rights Terrorist Alert)Madison.com via AP Wire ^

October 8, 2005 Staff Writer from AP

Peter Daniel Young, an animal rights activist who faces federal prison for freeing thousands of mink from Midwestern fur farms, says he'd do it again, and doing time will be nothing compared to what caged animals suffer. Young said in an interview from jail he believes he saved the minks from slavery. "I would do it all over again," he said. "As bad as it could get (in prison), it will never be as bad as it was for those mink."
Federal prosecutors believe Young and an accomplice were acting on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front when they broke onto mink farms in Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin in 1997 and freed about 7,000 mink. The FBI considers groups like ALF the nation's top domestic terrorist threat.
"If saving thousands of lives makes a terrorist, then I certainly embrace the label," Young said. "I would have been just as fast to act if those cages had been filled with human beings."
Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA, a national association of fur farmers, called Young's philosophy nonsense. Alex Ott, owner of a fur farm Young raided in Tomahawk, WI said he treats his mink well and has every right to make a living. "These people ... skulk around. They attack and they terrorize," Ott said.

___________

And what kind of wonderful existence are these minks in for now??

By Tomas Alex
Tizon Times Staff Writer
August 31, 2003 SULTAN, Wash.

For a few days, the roads were paved with mink. Dead ones mostly. They were mangled by dogs, withered by summer heat and run over by cars and trucks. Their carcasses were reduced to tufts of blue hair on the pavement. In the early morning darkness on Monday, in what residents call an act of eco-terrorism, animal activists released 10,000 Blue Iris minks from the Roesler Bros. Fur Farm in this former logging town east of Everett. The animals spread like a flash flood. "They were everywhere. They covered the road, they were all up in the brush," said Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser. For a time, there were more than three roaming minks for every resident of this town of 3,000. Minks by the hundreds were captured by neighbors and friends and returned to the farm. By the end of the week, there were still as many as 2,500 loose animals, and they were, one local said, creating havoc. The hungry animals invaded chicken coops, raided fish ponds, stole pet cats and ducks and ate salmon fry in streams and rivers. Some feared the local ecosystem would be thrown off by so many new predators in the area.


Enjoy prison!

Wonder How The Libs Will Spin This?

FBI FREEH UNLOADS ON CLINTON: 'CLOSETS WERE FULL OF SKELETONS' Thu Oct 06 2005 14:07:50 ET

Louis Freeh Speaks for the First Time About his Terrible Relationship with the President. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh says publicly for the first time that his relationship with President Bill Clinton – the man who appointed him – was a terrible one because Clinton’s scandals made him a constant target of FBI investigations. Freeh discloses this and many other details of his dealings with the Clinton White House in a new bombshell book: 'My FBI : Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror' -- set for release next week. Freeh has taped an interview with Mike Wallace and CBSNEWS '60 MINUTES' to be broadcast Sunday, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. MORE in the book, “My FBI,” he writes, “The problem was with Bill Clinton -- the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.”The director sought to distance himself from Clinton because of Whitewater, refusing a White House pass that would have enabled him to enter the building without signing in. This irked Clinton. “I wanted all my visits to be official,” says Freeh. “When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president,” he tells Wallace.Returning the pass was only the start of the rift. Later, relations got so bad that President Clinton reportedly began referring to Freeh as “that F…ing Freeh.” Says Freeh, “I don’t know how they referred to me and I really didn’t care,” he says. “My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. He, unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation,” Freeh says. In another revelation, Freeh says the former president let down the American people and the families of victims of the Khobar Towers terror attack in Saudi Arabia. After promising to bring to justice those responsible for the bombing that killed 19 and injured hundreds, Freeh says Clinton refused to personally ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to allow the FBI to question bombing suspects the kingdom had in custody – the only way the bureau could secure the interviews, according to Freeh. Freeh writes in the book, “Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library.” Says Freeh, “That’s a fact that I am reporting.” The most unsavory of those investigations was the one concerning Clinton and Lewinsky. The White House intern had kept a semen-stained dress as proof of her relationship and a Clinton blood sample was needed to match the DNA on the dress. “Well, it was like a bad movie and it was ridiculous that…Ken Starr and myself, the director of the FBI, find ourselves in that ridiculous position,” he tells Wallace. “But we did it…very carefully, very confidentially,” recalls Freeh. As he explains the plan in the book, Clinton was at a scheduled dinner and excused himself to go to the bathroom. Instead of the restroom, he entered another room where FBI medical technicians were waiting to take a blood sample.Freeh says he was determined to stay on as FBI director until President Clinton left office so that Clinton could not appoint his successor. “I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director,” he tells Wallace. “[So] I was going to stay there and make sure he couldn’t replace me,” Freeh tells Wallace.

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What "moral compass" was he following? How about his Johnson?! (No offense PJ.)

I'm sure Freeh will be attacked by the left and labled as a disgruntled ex-employee, or a right-wing operative, or an incompetent trying to make a buck. Heck, any of the above might be true but it doesn't change the fact that Willie was better suited to being a strip-club owner in backwoods Arkansas.

Ronnie Earle: Dumbocrat Crusader (Part 2)

The Movie: Ronnie Earle, on a Mission from God. The Texas DA is inspired by the Bible to prosecute Tom DeLay.

A new film featuring Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as he pursued the investigation that led to the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay portrays Earle less as a partisan figure than as a messianic leader on a mission to rid American politics of the "evil" influence of money.

A copy of the still-unfinished film, entitled The Big Buy, was obtained by National Review Online Friday. On several occasions in the film, Earle engages in monologues on what he believes is the sinister effect of money in politics. "The root of the evil of the corporate and large-monied interest domination of politics is money," Earle says as he takes the filmmakers on a nighttime drive around Austin. "This is in the Bible. This isn't rocket science. The root of all evil truly is money, especially in politics. People talk about how money is the mother's milk of politics. Well, it's the devil's brew. And what we've got to do, we've got to turn off the tap."

In another scene, Earle describes how he deals with offenders in cases like the campaign-finance investigation. "It's important that we forgive those who come to us in a spirit of contrition and the desire for forgiveness. That's important. But if they don't, then God help them." The film then dissolves to a picture of DeLay.

In yet another scene, Earle describes corporate political contributions, which are illegal in Texas (although state law allows corporations to fund the administrative activities of political action committees) as a problem that is "every bit as insidious as terrorism."
The film also features footage that illustrates the extraordinary access to the DeLay investigation that Earle granted filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck. The Big Buy contains footage of the empty Travis County grand-jury room, as well as video of grand-jury staffers and some members of the grand jury entering the room (the face of one grand juror was obscured by the filmmakers). The film also contains footage of the original indictments of DeLay's associates, as well as those of several corporations, being sorted and copied, apparently before they were made public, on September 21, 2004, the day the indictments were handed up. There is also footage of Earle meeting with his staff attorneys, reading the indictments before they were released. "It's like that moment right after the missiles are launched," Earle says of the scene, "when it's real quiet, but it's not going to be quiet for long."
In the picture, Earle explains that he believes he bears a profound responsibility to alert the American public to the dangers of big political contributions. "I feel great pressure to get the information to the public, to point, to set a tone and to point a direction, and to say which hill needs to be taken," he explains. "When a powerful politician [Earle was referring to DeLay] can demand $25,000 for face time for large monied interests, I mean, something's wrong. What happened to face time for John and Jane Citizen who are raising two kids and they've got two jobs a piece and the kids don't have insurance? What about face time for them and the problems they're facing? Those are the problems that the country is facing."

The film features commentary from a number of DeLay critics, including Lou Dubose, author of The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress, columnist Molly Ivins, defeated political rival Martin Frost, Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, and others. It also contains interviews with some Republican state lawmakers in Texas and attorneys for the defendants in the case (DeLay himself declined to cooperate with the filmmakers).

At one point in the picture, Rosemary Lemberg, an assistant district attorney in Earle's office, explains that Earle singlehandedly pushed forward the DeLay investigation over the objections of colleagues. "Ronnie was the only person in maybe a group of six or seven lawyers in a room who thought we ought to go ahead and investigate and look at those things," Lemberg says. "We got sued every time we turned around, we got taken to court over this, and Ronnie was the one who just kept pushing forward with it, and saying 'I'll put more resources on this, just keep hacking at it.'"

Though the film's tone is admiring, the filmmakers allow Earle's critics to suggest that, given the sometimes highly politicized nature of his opinions, he should perhaps work in some field other than law enforcement. "The problem that Ronnie has is that he sees something that he believes is wrong," says Roy Minton, an attorney for one of the organizations investigated by Earle. "If you ask him, when he says, 'They're doing this' and 'They're doing that,' you say, 'Alright, let's assume they're doing that, Ronnie, is that against the law?' He will say it's wrong. You say, 'Well, OK, let's assume that it's wrong. Where is it that it is against the law?'"

— Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of the new book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.
* * *

Meet Ronnie Earle: Dumbocrat Crusader (Part 1)

On Ronnie Earle Raising Money For Democrats.

Ronnie Earle is at it again. The partisan Democrat District Attorney from Travis County (Austin), Texas, has, because of a quirk in the Texas law, the peculiar jurisdiction over statewide political issues, and he has persistently abused that authority over the past decade. Earle became ignominious in Texas when he launched the politically motivated investigation of three of Tom DeLay's associates working for Texans For a Republican Majority (TRMPAC). This investigation has not produced any credible or compelling evidence of corruption, but it is widely cited by the left as evidence that DeLay is dirty. In the ongoing controversy over whether he is an objective voice for justice or merely an arm of the DeLay-hating mob, Earle has "hammered" the final nail in that coffin. According to The Houston Chronicle, Earle has now crossed the line into raising money for far-left interest groups:
A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said. Earle, an elected Democrat, helped generate $102,000 for the organization. In his remarks, Earle likened DeLay to a bully and spoke about political corruption and the investigation involving DeLay, the House majority leader from Sugar Land, according to a transcript supplied by Earle.... "It may help Tom DeLay establish his case that Ronnie Earle's investigation is a partisan witch hunt," said Richard Murray, a political scientist with the University of Houston. "It clearly fuels the perception that his investigation is politically motivated. It was probably not a wise move," said Larry Noble, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer who heads the watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics.

Earle has a history of vicious partisan hackery:
EARLE'S LAST FORAY INTO politicized prosecution in 1993 turned into a huge embarrassment when he went after Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who was then Texas Treasurer. Earle made a series of trumped-up charges, including that the demure Hutchison had physically assaulted an employee. Earle dropped the case during the trial.
Defenders of Earle like to point to the red herring that Earle has prosecuted Democrats, as well as Republicans, over the years. What they don't mention is that those Democrats were clearly guilty of serious violations (the cases were open and shut), and those prosecutions happened decades ago, when Texas was essentially a one-party state (controlled almost entirely by Democrats).

The real issue here is a failure on the part of Democrats to cope with the loss of political power they held in Texas (and elsewhere) for so many generations. Because Democrats have been so ineffective at the ballot box, and because DeLay is, in part, responsible for that failure, he must be destroyed. Ronnie Earle, by invoking DeLay's name in the raising of money for far-left Democrat interest groups, has shown his true colors; he is indeed a partisan prosecutor out to get DeLay, and those who claim otherwise are deluding themselves.

______


You know something is rotten in Denmark when you have Chris Mathews defending Delay and the Bush Administration against a liberal political hack. Last night on Hardball, Mathews had Mark Green, tired NY lib, on his show to discuss the indictment. Green sounded like all of the other libs this week, Pelosi, Kennedy, Reid, etc. By the way, Kennedy taking the moral high-ground is really amusing. Give credit to Mathews for taking Green to task. As liberal Mark Green went off on how corrupt the Bush administration is and started ticking off indictments, Mathews countered:

MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction, Mark?

GREEN: Hold it, hold it. What I said was —

MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction?

GREEN: One second. What I said was that six people — three people have been indicted — by the way Chris, if you and I have been indicted, it doesn't mean we're guilty, but we wouldn't trade places —

MATTHEWS: No no no. I just want to know, when you call an administration has a, has a culture of corruption, I think you need one case of proven guilt, don't you? At least one case of proven guilt.

Green tried to bring up Jack Abramoff, but Matthews pointed out that Abramoff was not part of the administration. If you watch the video, stick around for Ben Ginsberg's point that all the Democrats can do is attack, because they have no positive agenda. http://media.nationalreview.com/050930_02.wmv

Side note: If you put a shiny silver suit on Mark Green, he could be FUTUREMAN!!!!

More to follow soon.......

Boycott Ben & Jerry's - Bluebell's Better Anyway! More Left Looniness.

Ben and Jerry's running ad blaming 'Bush's Illegal War' for New Orleans Deaths

Fox News 9/30/05

Just shown on Fox News --

Ben and Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen is co-sponsoring a full page ad in towmorrow's NY Times allegedly showing dead people floating in water in New Orleans over the declaration that 'If Bush hadn't sent the Army to an illegal war in Iraq there would have been enough troops in the US to avoid the death toll from Hurricane Katrina.' Does it get any more loathsome than this?

Brilliant and Respected Scientist, Dr. Babs, Discusses "FACTS" of Global Warming

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN SEPT 25, 2005 16:44:05 ET XXXXX

STREISAND DECLARES 'GLOBAL WARMING EMERGENCY'THE SUPERSTAR SONGSTRESS SERENADED SAWYER WITH STORM SEASON ASSERTIONS. BUT TO SOME SHE'LL SOUND MORE LIKE A WINDSOCK SINGING LIBERALISM'S GOLDEN OLDIES!

NEW YORK -- This summer's back to back superstorms are proof positive we have entered a new period of "global warming emergency," artist/citizen Barbra Streisand warns.Streisand is back on the scene to promote her reunion disc with Barry Gibb. As hellstorm "Rita" churned in the Gulf, Streisand sat down for a promotional interview with ABCNEWS's Diane Sawyer. "We are in a global warming emergency state, and these storms are going to become more frequent, more intense," Streisand urgently declares. But Sawyer did not remind Streisand that a Category 5 hurricane struck the Bahamas with 160 mph winds -- when the singer was five years old, in 1947! And when Streisand was 8 years old, a Cat 5 hurricane -- named "Dog" -- packing 185 mph churned-away in the Atlantic. When she was 9, a Cat 5 storm named "Easy" ripped the seas with 160 mph sustained winds. Streisand was 13 years old when "Janet" hit Mexico with 150 mph winds. Streisand was celebrating her sweet sixteen as "Cleo" formed with 140 mph. At 18, Streisand read news about "Donna" AND "Ethel" -- both storms carried 140 mph winds and formed 9 days apart in 1960! One year later, when Streisand was 19, it happened again: Two Category 5 storms scared the world: "Carla" and "Hattie!" "Carla" maxed out at 175 mph winds the year Streisand made her television debut on "The Jack Paar Show." And who could forget Hurricane "Camille" -- which smashed into the United States with 190 mph, just as "Funny Girl" garners eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture and one for Barbra as Best Actress. Up next on the weather warning watch, Streisand says to ABC: "There could be more droughts, dust bowls. You know, it's amazing to hear these facts." Developing....


Love the last line in this article! So let me get this straight, Babs. Liberals now consider speculation and predictions as actual empirical facts??? She's so deep.

New ABC News Poll Out Today!

In order to help determine who or what is behind the recent outbreak of killer hurricanes, ABC News, in conjunction with MoveOn.Org, CNN, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan, has conducted a scientific poll to help assess blame. This poll was given 1,439 participants at a recent WTO protest. To ensure that right-wing bias was eliminated from this survey, only participants that had voted for either the democratic or socialist-worker parties in the last 4 elections were allowed to participate. This poll has a margin of error of plus or minus .0000009%.


What specific failure of the Bush administration has most contributed to the recent dramatic increase in the number of strong, killer, racist hurricanes?

A. Bush's miserable failure to ratify the all-important Kyoto treaty. - 11%

B. Bush's war in Iraq. - 9 %

C. Bush's stealing of both the 2000 and 2004 elections. - 7%

D. Bush's hatred of black people. - 6%

E. Bush's cocaine use in the 1970's - 6%

F. Haliburton - 4%

G. Karl Rove - 3%

H. Red States - 2%

I. Christians - 1%

J. ALL OF THE ABOVE ABJECT FAILURES OF THIS
DISGUSTING AND EMBARRASSING ADMINISTRATION
HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE UNPRECEDENTED RISE
OF STRONG, KILLER, RACIST HURRICANES! - 51%

When Penguins Go Straight.

Silo Rains on Penguin Pride Parade Crosswalk ^
September 20th,2005
Dr. Warren Throckmorton
Posted on 09/21/2005 7:01:09 AM PDT by laney


One of America's A-list gay couples has broken up. No, it's not Rosie and Kelli. It's Roy and Silo. Roy and Silo are male penguins. Chinstrap penguins to be exact. About six years ago, Roy and Silo set up housekeeping together in New York's Central Park Zoo. They courted and attempted to mate and by all accounts were fairly inseparable. They even adopted a child together. Roy and Silo hatched little Tango a couple of years ago and raised her as their own. However, recently Silo has become perhaps the world's first documented ex-gay penguin. He has moved out of his nest with Roy and taken up with Scrappy, a hot little bird who recently moved in from Sea World Zoo in San Diego. I guess he was wishing for a California girl.
For those who have pointed to Roy and Silo as models for us all, these developments must be disappointing. Some gay activists might actually be angry. When zoo keepers in Germany attempted to force male pairs of endangered penguins to mate with females, they received hate mail from gay rights groups. Finally, in a bow to the pressure the zoos relented and stopped their breeding efforts. Chief among the chagrinned may be the authors of a children's book about the Roy and Silo and their adopted daughter called, "And Tango Makes Three."
About the book The School Library Journal gushed, "This joyful story about the meaning of family is a must for any library." Publisher's Weekly wrote that Silo and Roy's love story provides a picture of "non traditional families that youngsters can understand. This tender story can also serve as a gentle jumping-off point for discussions about same-sex partnerships in human society." I think now that jumping-off point has become less gentle.
No word yet from the New York Times that ran a story on the pair called "The Love that Dare not Squeak its Name." The article suggested that gay rights might hinge on penguin pride. "Gay groups argue that if homosexual behavior occurs in animals, it is natural, and therefore the rights of homosexuals should be protected," wrote Denitia Smith, author of the article.
With Silo and Scrappy picking out curtains together, will gay rights groups now acknowledge that sexual orientation changes? The concept of gay penguin permanence painted by the Times and "And Tango Makes Three" now seems more like fiction than public policy sign post.
So should former homosexuals among us say, "I told you so?"
Inasmuch as gay rights activists use animal behavior as an argument against the capacity of people to change, it is worth pointing out sexual behavior and bonding in animals is not necessarily fixed. However, in general I would advise against deriving lessons about human traits from animal behavior. About the only thing we can say from the Roy, Silo and Scrappy love triangle is that sexuality in animals is flexible, context driven and influenced by factors we do not fully understand. Love children from the 1960s said pretty much the same thing but I don't think they took their cue from penguins. Whether it be conservative exuberance over the movie "March of the Penguins" and its tribute to family values or gay rights groups' extrapolation from nature to naturalness, analogies to what animals do in the semi-privacy of their nests cannot provide moral lessons to people. When I want guidance on public policy matters, I don't go to the zoo. So when activists talk about homosexuality in the animal kingdom, keep in mind that we don't know much about what function same sex behavior serves for any animal species. Some scientists who are also gay advocates recognize the muddle we get into when we wax anthropomorphic about sexual categories. For instance, gay gene proponents, Dean Hamer and Peter Copeland pointed out in their book, Science of Desire that "...there is no good animal model of human heterosexuality, let alone homosexuality." In other words, "Pigs don't date...and horses don't get married."

And for family values or gay rights, penguins don't march.

The Nutjob Speaks Again!

CINDY SHEEHAN CALLS FOR U.S TO 'PULL OUR TROOPS OUT OF OCCUPIED NEW ORLEANS'Mon Sep 12 2005 12:42:11 ET Celebrity anti-war protester, fresh off inking a lucrative deal with Speaker's Bureau, has demanded at the HUFFINGTON POST and MICHAEL MOORE'S website that the United States military must immediately leave 'occupied' New Orleans. "I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I donÕt care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they donÕt fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest."Sheehan is in the middle of a bus trip across America in support of her cause. Developing...

Federal Response Slow? Consider This!

Jack Kelly: No shame
The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed

Sunday, September 11, 2005



It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow. "Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:
More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.
The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.
Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.
Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.
Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.
And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?