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A fellow blogger needs our help, Christmas Ghost's niece is missing. She was last seen in Marin County, Ca. I’ll get a picture up soon but for now please go to his site for more information. Here’s a chance for us to help one of own, something unique to the web. Pass this on.

Our friends the Australians

Howard bitch slaps those who would blame us.


PRIME MIN. HOWARD: Could I start by saying the prime minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it. My first reaction was to get some more information. And I really don't want to add to what the prime minister has said. It's a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here.

Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.

And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.

Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?

When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?

When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.

Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.

PRIME MIN. BLAIR: And I agree 100 percent with that.

La Migra No, Hillary Si!

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y wants the Hispanic vote. While I’m Hispanic I’m one of those “not Hispanic enough Hispanics” wherein if your politics are conservative you’re a “token” or an “Oreo”. For instance I’m against illegal immigration. FYI anyone against illegal immigration is a bigot and a racist. Hillary certainly isn’t against illegal immigration, she wants to reward it. In a speech to La Raza she pledged her support of the DREAM Act, which would allow illegal immigrant children who finish high school in the United States to avoid deportation, earn a path to citizenship, and possibly receive in-state college tuition rates. If we need all of these people in our labor market, and I believe we do, then put in mechanisms to allow them to immigrate legally. As legal immigrants many of the problems they have to contend with are gone. They will have to be paid a decent wage. They wont be afraid to seek protection from law enforcement. They wont have to risk their lives crossing southern deserts. As a bonus we may begin to have control of our borders in a time of war with an enemy that wants to infiltrate itself in our country and commit the most horrendous attacks against innocent men, women and children.

Gaza pullout, good or bad for Israel?

A vote in the Israeli Knesset today rejected by a large majority three bills to postpone the August 17 date for the evacuation of the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank by up to one year. Many Israelis see the pullout as rewarding terrorist and of such importance that the survival of Israel itself is at stake. The handing over of such a strategic area to Hamas will also have grave consequences to the United States’ War on Terror. As this is written tens of thousands of people are marching to Kfar Maimon to protest the pullout. Twenty thousand IDF and police are there to meet them, with instructions to use their riot batons freely.

My feelings were to pull out, give the Palestinians their state and then hold them accountable for the actions of their citizens. When attacks on Israel continue, and they will, bomb the hell out of them and repeat as necessary. I also believed that bringing Israelis inside the wall was just common sense. After reading articles like Professor Arieh Eldad's I changed my mind. Israel is being pressured to do this by the US and the EU. It is a capitulation of the principle that terrorism not be rewarded. Hamas will gain control of Gaza and it will become a major terrorist base with access to the sea.

Battle of Britain II

Our prayers go out to the British people, especially the families of the victims. Many will say that Bush and Blair are to blame. Some will say that Spain holds some responsibility. Anti-Semites will blame the Jews. London’s Islamic appeasing Mayor will be blamed. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and other terrorist supporters and cheerleaders will be blamed. Me, I blame Qutbist Terrorist, Qutbism being what is taught in so called Wahhabi Madrassas in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, because that’s who actually did this. I don’t call them Wahhabi and I don’t call them Muslims. They all come from Saudi sponsored Madrassas that originated from those set up in Afghanistan. These Afghan madrassas differ from the traditional madrassas in that they were not concerned about scholarship. They were more concerned about training religious fighters who would go into the Afghan field and fight the Soviets. It is a cult that threatens not only the West but much of the Middle East as well. More Muslims are being killed by these monsters than Christians and Jews combined.

An add that was on my blog called Americans on Britain seeks input from Americans in order to discover what the citizens of each country think and believe about each other. When I think of Britain I usually get a mental picture of a brave steadfast people enduring the Battle of Britain. Sir Winston Churchill often comes to mind.

…We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender…

Now is that an accurate portrayal of today’s Englishman? Tony Blair certainly fits the mold. In the wake of the 7/7 bombing he will not waver on his support for the US and the WOT. What of the average Brit however, most of which were not in favor of going to Iraq in the first place? They are the target of the bombings, the people the terrorist wish to mobilize into an anti-war movement that will strip Britain from the Coalition. It worked in Spain. Can Blair continue to keep troops in Iraq if a large majority of Britains are against it? As Commander in Chief Bush can and will prosecute the WOT however he sees fit and Congress can do little about it other than withhold funding from the military. George Bush isn’t about to let opinion polls drive his policy, he will do what he thinks is right even if most Americans oppose him. That’s what leaders do. Does Blair have the same authority? I hope so because I’m not to hopeful that the average Brit has the same determination to fight evil as their parents had.

Bloody Last Stand for Libs.

The last vehicle the Left has to drive its agenda is the judicial system. They can’t get their way at the ballot box on things like prayer in school, gay marriage, the death penalty, affirmative action, socialism, etc. That’s why the upcoming fight to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice will be a bloody affair. When elections don’t go the lefts way the will of the people can be thwarted in court. Liberal Judges look and find things in the Constitution to strike down laws they disapprove of. Try and find a woman’s right to an abortion or the right to commit sodomy in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. It takes some doing but advocate judges have found them. Find out where it defines “The public” to mean “Corporate developers”. Where does it say you can be held accountable for vicious acts of murder only if they are committed after your 18th birthday? The founding fathers, while mostly religious, forbade the establishment of a State religion, but where does it say religion itself should be outlawed on any government property? In the minds of advocate judges, that’s where.

So expect Democrats to stage a last stand against any Bush nominee right of Ted Kennedy. Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer has already been heard to say “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.” This before any names have been put forward. From the Washington Post

Democrats signaled that whoever the nominee is, their three likely lines of attack will be to assert the White House did not consult them sufficiently, then paint the nominee as ideologically extreme and finally assert that the Senate had not received sufficient documents about the candidate.

Whoever the nominee is.

While Roe vs. Wade is not in danger of being overturned if a pro-life Justice gets in, the left is playing it that way despite still having five votes for abortion. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NOW, Feminist Majority Foundation, and The National Abortion Rights Action League are all saying that if Bush puts in an originalist, someone who will interpret the Constitution based on what it says, a woman’s right to choose is in jeopardy. The media, BTW, is very pro-abortion. Will Bush nominate a strict originalist that might place limits on abortion or actually overturn Roe vs. Wade? Ed Kilgore believes he must.

This appointment represents the giant balloon payment at the end of the mortgage the GOP signed with the Cultural Right at least 25 years ago. Social conservatives have agreed over and over again to missed payments, refinancings, and in their view, generous terms, but the balance is finally due, and if Bush doesn't pay up, they'll foreclose their entire alliance with the Republican Party.

Sure, they care about other issues, from gay marriage to taxes to Iraq, but abortion is the issue that makes most Cultural Right activists get up in the morning and stuff envelopes and staff phone banks for the GOP. And for decades now, Republicans have told them they can't do anything much about it until they can change the Supreme Court. With a pro-choice Justice stepping down, the subject can no longer be avoided. And thanks to the Souter precedent (and indeed, the O'Connor and Kennedy precedents), there's no way Bush can finesse an appointment that's anything less than a guaranteed vote to overturn Roe.

So expect all these forces to be unleashed when the first nominee is put forward. The left expects to pick the nominee and is even saying it has to be consulted about the nominees according to the Constitution. Of course that’s not what the Constitution actually says. Article II, Section 2 says the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint" judges. Advice and Consent after nomination. This is how libs play fast and loose with the Constitution. It’s as if they still don’t get the fact that they lost last November. As for picking the choice Alexander Hamilton once stated

There will, of course, be no exertion of choice on the part of the Senate. They may defeat one choice of the Executive, and oblige him to make another; but they cannot themselves choose - they can only ratify or reject the choice of the President.

However the Senate will not get to ratify or reject the President’s choice because the liberal minority will filibuster. We will need to go nuclear.

Chaos for the Cameras

The President mentioned last night that the terrorist “take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras”. Would those be the cameras of reporters embedded with the terrorists from the Washington Post, CBS, Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press Staff ,or others? The reason the MSM is allowing the “insurgents” to use them as a propaganda tool is because they are journalist first and Americans, Brits, etc. second. In his book Over There: From the Bronx to Baghdad Alan Feuer has a “quarrel” with CNN’s Bob Franken that illustrates this perfectly.

His quarrel with Franken had begun the very moment Franken had expressed his horror that Fox News anchors wore American flag lapel pins on the air.

“How can you be a patriot and a journalist?” Franken had asked. “They’re mutually exclusive occupations.” T.R., who considered himself both, had asked why Franken could not love his country, to which had come the answer, “America is not my country. I’m a citizen of the world.”

Jay Rosen at Press Think believes the Newsroom Religion taught at Journalism began with Water Gate. The press is seen as a Forth Estate that can act as another check and balance to the Government. It’s the dream of every journalist to bring down a President, but of course personal beliefs dictate that to a MSM that is mostly liberal the dream is to bring down a Republican President. Add to that the belief that it was a press hostile to the Vietnam war that brought our boys home and condemned millions of Asians to tyranny. What you get is a media that actively paints the worst picture of the Iraqi situation and totally ignores all the good news coming out of Iraq.

The President outlined the failures that the terrorist have endured.

The terrorists, both foreign and Iraqi, failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war. They failed to prevent free elections. They failed to stop the formation of a democratic Iraqi government that represents all of Iraq's diverse population. And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large numbers with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy.

The terrorist will not give up. They believe America will eventually cut and run and leave the field to them. Constant negativity by the MSM and defeatist politicians like Ted “where’s my car” Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee and others make this a possibility but not while GW is in the White House.

Media Bias

This should surprise no one but the same MSM that totally ignored Dick Durbin’s remarks that were delivered on the Senate floor jumped all over Karl Rove’s remarks. From the Washington Times

Major news outlets that largely ignored the controversial comments of the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate last week immediately reported on a fiery speech by White House adviser Karl Rove, giving the story front-page prominence and the lead of newscasts.

Early yesterday morning, NBC's "Today" show, the CBS "Morning Show," and ABC's "Good Morning America" all featured the Democratic outrage over Mr. Rove's comments that after September 11 liberals "wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers" while conservatives "prepared for war."

Each network's nightly newscasts on Thursday also ran stories on Mr. Rove's speech, delivered Wednesday night.

Yet CBS did not broadcast a single story on the Illinois Democrat's comments. "Today" and "Good Morning America" and those networks' nightly news programs didn't air anything about it until the senator apologized after a week of complaints by Republicans, the Anti-Defamation League and veterans groups.

It was Bloggers that opened debate on Derbin’s outrageous comparison of Gitmo’s alleged interrogation techniques to WWII German concentration camps, Soviet Gulags and Pol Pot’s killing fields. It was the Blog storm that resulted in his non-apology apology. Karl Rove's statement that generated such outrage among liberals got plenty of coverage but it’s the Blogs that are demonstrating the truth of his remarks. See Hugh Hewitt’s Blog.

Big-name Democrats have foolishly engaged Karl Rove exactly as he no doubt hoped they would. Ankle-Biting Pundits has it figured out, but the Mehlman statement from the RNC underscores how the rush to condemn Rove for speaking the truth about the Michael Moore/George Soros/MoveOn.org left now obliges those very same people attacking Rove to argue that the evidence produced by Mehlman is either inapplicable or misunderstood.

Which of course they can’t. The left wants to treat terrorism as an illegal act to be handled by our Justice Department. That means giving the terrorist all the rights we afford criminals. Conservatives want to treat the war on terror like, well, A WAR!

Supreme Socialist Court

The story is as old as mankind. The land was the King's and the people serfs. The people were in effect renters, if the King needed that land away you went. Finally the people revolted, for many reasons but one important reason was that a man's property was his own and could not be legally taken without due process. It could not be taken from him just because a more powerful man coveted it. That principle just changed today with a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court. If a rich developer wants your house the local Government can seize it, pay you what they think it's worth, and give or sell it to the developer. In this case it was Pfizer Corp. who was seeking to expand its' research center with an adjoining riverfront hotel, health club and offices that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront. The "little people" who did not want to sell their homes, some of which had been in the family for generations, for the betterment of the State were hit with eminent domain power to seize private property if the land is for public use. This of course means for roads, dams, railways, White Sands Missile Range, etc. But how is a private company considered "public use"? Because it will bring in more taxes.

What American would bow to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans. Damn Republicans? Actually the Judges who voted for this were liberal judges John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Anthony Kennedy, AKA "Reagan's greatest mistake". Why would these "champions of the common man" vote for large corporate interests? Because it is a vote for large government's interests, namely tax revenue. The founding fathers who were opposed to unrestrained search and seizure are rolling in their graves.


Update:

Jay777 at Stop the ACLU! has a petition up that has two goals:

#1 --Support Supreme Court and lower court judicial nominees who
will uphold the Constitution and thereby defend public
faith and the unborn.
#2 --Ensure that President Bush’s nominees receive an up-or-down
vote in the U.S. Senate.

Garbanzo Toons got this E-mail from an anonymous source. Pass it on, people won't be hearing this from the MSM.

Marine Capt. Brian R. Chontosh received the Navy Cross Medal from the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, during an awards ceremony Thursday at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Training Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Photo by: Cpl. Jeremy Vought

This will make you proud!

Those of you who might not know, the man on the left is the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and he is proud to know the man on the right.

Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991.
Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Husband and about-to-be father. First lieutenant (now Captain) in the United States Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United States can bestow. That's a big deal.
But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing.
The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not covering the American military.
The most plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are doing. Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have fallen.
And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And we're almost on a first-name basis with the jerks who abused the Iraqi prisoners.
And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us. We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about the heroes. The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue. The ones we completely ignore. Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee. When all hell broke loose. Ambush city. The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to him. So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire. It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish. And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack.
He told his driver to floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the 50 cal unload on them. Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines. Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride. And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers. And he killed them all. He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo.

At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion. When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more. But that's probably not how he would tell it. He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on.
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

That's what the citation says. And that's what nobody will hear. That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts of American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder if the role of the media is to inform or to depress - to report or to deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies. But I guess it doesn't matter. We're going to turn out all right. As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform. If you are as proud of this Marine as I am, then send this to EVERYONE YOU KNOW !!

Minuteman

Tom Clancy’s new book The Teeth of the Tiger has four groups consisting of four Jihadists each entering the United States to commit acts of terror. While airport security is frisking your grandmother these guys take a short walk across the border into New Mexico. After 9/11 everyone was saying "we never considered terrorists would hijack a plane and fly it into a building", Clancy had already written a novel where that happened. He is probably equally prescient in the border crossing scenario. But everyone knows this, at a time when we are at war our borders are practically unguarded. Overwhelmed Border Patrol agents apprehended 1.1 million illegal immigrants last year, but untold hundreds of thousands slip through. Most of these are of course hard working immigrants that are vital to the American economy. But how many are terrorist or smugglers? We have no way of knowing and apparently our government doesn’t care.

I’ve just become a Minuteman. The Minuteman Project that highlighted the problem on the Arizona border has expanded and they need our help. In October the Minuteman organization will monitor the borders of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California. They will observe and report any crossings to the border patrol. They will not make contact with anyone, will not be armed, will not trespass, will not make arrests. In effect they will be a neighborhood watch program the type of which have helped law enforcement all over America.

But they are not wanted by the Border Patrol, at least not officially.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.

They are not wanted by our governor.

"The Minutemen should not feel that they need to come to New Mexico. We've got the Border Patrol. We've got New Mexico law enforcement,'' Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday. "We can enforce our laws.''

No we can’t Governor. For a man that is considering running for President that is an idiotic thing to say. For anyone that can read that is an idiotic thing to say. Tens of thousands cross into the U.S. a year through New Mexico alone. Senator Bingaman says;

"What we need are an adequate number of highly trained Border Patrol agents securing the border, not untrained volunteers."

I can’t argue with that except to say that we don’t have an adequate number of highly trained Border Patrol agents securing the border.

"I don't know that a Minutemen organization is the best solution to the rampant illegal immigration problems on our border, but I can clearly understand the mounting frustration in the region."

So says Senator Domenici. I’m sure it’s not the best solution but doing nothing is worse and that frustration is my motivation for joining in this effort to at least draw attention to the problem. The senators and Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., sent a letter Wednesday to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner asking that security be increased along New Mexico's border. The letter said New Mexicans have growing concerns about their safety and the security of their property. "Daily, our constituents along New Mexico's southern border deal with illegal aliens who travel across their land, cutting their fences and damaging their property," the letter states. "Our constituents who have first-hand knowledge of the situation believe hundreds of illegal aliens cross into New Mexico this way every day."

I believe in legal immigration. My Grandparents were legal immigrants. We should vastly increase the number of legal immigrants who wish to enter the U.S. Our local labor force can’t fill all the jobs our economy creates, the low unemployment rates of around 5% show that even with massive illegal immigration we are close to full employment. But we have to have control of who we allow in and that means control of our borders. Hopefully the Minuteman project will point out that need before Clancy’s terrorists.

Iranian "elections"

Iranian elections for president will be held on June 17th and the Mullahs are hoping for a large turnout. Before you think anything approaching Democracy exist in Iran understand that the power of the president to accomplish anything is dependent on the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Council of Guardians. All legislation goes through the council whose members are chosen by Khamenei. In fact the council has to approve the candidates for election. Out of 1014 who registered as candidates 8 have been allowed to run. Blog Iran is calling for a boycott of the sham elections but the opposition is split on whether or not to vote.

Akbar Ganji, a dissident journalist, has just been release on sick leave from prison. As Michael Ledeen explains these releases are part of the torture regimen employed by Iran.

The cheerless creatures who rule the Islamic republic of Iran have developed a particularly wicked use of torture. Not only do they use the full panoply of physical and psychological horrors on their captives, but they then send the victims back into their homes and neighborhoods for brief periods of "parole" or "medical leave," so that their friends and families can see with their own eyes the brutal effects of the torture.

Despite the fact that he faces being arrested again Ganji is urging voters to stay away. But the leader of Freedom Movement Ibrahim Yazdi wants voters to support Mostafa Moein at the polls. You can catch the debate at
Free Thoughts on Iran.

One pro-boycott argument is that a large turnout legitimizes the elections. The anti-boycott argument is that any democratic exercise should be supported and voting for Moein, a reformer, sends a message to the Mullahs that the Iranian people want change. My thinking is that no amount of voter turnout can legitimize this election except in the minds of idiots like Juan Cole. But the outgoing President was a reformer and the Council shot down any attempts to change the status quo that he tried. So why bother, why vote or even run for that matter? I do hope that our State Department and Bush explain to the American people that what they are hearing about elections in Iran are a farce that will change nothing.

Update:

Charles over at LGF gives us a heads up that the moonbats are ready to hype this charade.

Did you know that Sean Penn is now visiting the Islamic dictatorship of Iran, to report on their "elections" for the San Francisco Chronicle? Getty Images has photos of Spicoli grooving on the Friday prayers at Tehran University. (Hat tip: sharona.)

Prisoner #1387

What should our foreign policy be towards Egypt? The problems we confront in Egypt include a 53 year old military dictatorship, supported by the U.S., religious persecution of Copts and Christians, a bloated bureaucracy littered with corruption, and an extremist Islamic Brotherhood waiting in the wings.

What do Egyptians want of us? A recent Middle East poll showed that most Middle Easterners want more aid and less interference. Can Egypt, a society civilized for more than 5000 years, really believe we can settle for that. The earliest markets were based on the maxim 'you can't get something for nothing'. Many Egyptians aren’t even very enthusiastic for Democracy, fearing it would be a one man, one vote, one time affair leaving the MB in charge. They would rather wait until a more secular opposition develops.

Which brings us to Ayman Nour, prisoner #1387. Under the Egyptian Constitution 50 members are required to form a viable political party. Nour had over 5000 special powers of attorney to verify the 50 member requirement. So in 2004 the Tomorrow Party was born. 89 days later Nour was arrested for allegedly forging some of those documents. Safely assuming he did not forge 4951 of them one has to ask why forge any? Especially those of his father's, his wife’s, and his own. Egyptians understand that the charges were ridiculous to the point of making the government look foolish. That he was set up Mr. Nour knows, what he doesn't is why. In a letter from prison he speculates:

But no one, including myself, is sure why precisely I've been jailed. Many pointed to a brief meeting I had with Madeleine Albright a few hours before my arrest. Am I counted as a U.S. agent for brushing shoulders with a foreign dignitary who is out of office? Some sarcastically say that the Egyptian government "fired" me for being too ambitious. Could the government not bear my calls for constitutional reforms? Yet another line of speculation ties my arrest to an interview I gave to Al Horra TV, in which I declared that my party would run in parliamentary elections in 2005; I also called for a constitutional amendment to allow any Egyptian to run for president. Did I take democracy too seriously?

Should the U.S. pressure Egypt to right this wrong? On the face of it the answer is obvious. If we really support Democratic movements as George Bush has stated numerous times then we must support Ayman Nour. But this is the Middle East. When Codoleezza Rice expressed "deep concerns about Nour's detention some of his supporters bristled at American interference. As today’s only Super Power any action we take will be seen as heavy handed and arrogant, regardless of how many secretly support our actions. So what others 'feel' about us should be of no great concern to us but any actions we take vis-a-vis Mr. Nour has to take into account how it affects him. We do after all want to help not hinder him. I ask my Egyptian Blogger friends what do they believe we should do for Mr. Nour and for Egypt overall. Should we make some of the billions of dollars in aid contingent on Mr. Nour being freed? Contingent on Democratic or economic reforms? Or should we shut up and just give more money?. Before choosing one of those two choices I will remind my Egyptian friends of a third and increasingly popular choice, popular at least in America. We keep our money and let Egypt fend for itself.

Mark Felt Deep Throat

NRO K-lo asks 'Why do "we" love Mark Felt and hate Linda Tripp?'

The Other Deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats agreed on Tuesday to clear the way for the Senate to vote on the controversial nomination of John Bolton as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which was expected to pass mainly on party lines.

Washington Post - Senate Democrats refused to end debate on John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador yesterday, extending the contentious issue into next month and angering Republicans only three days after many had heralded a bipartisan breakthrough on judicial nominees.

Why do these deals at all if they mean nothing. The Judicial deal is also going to turn out to be meaningless. Clinton has set the standard for honesty in the Democrat party.

Iran

Not too long ago President Bush promised that if an oppressed people in the Middle East rose up against their oppressors they would have the support of the United States of America. They soon found out such hollow promises were made by a politician that when faced with geopolitical realities reneged on his word. Starvation, torture and massacre were the result. I’m talking about George H.W. Bush and his promise to the Shiites of southern Iraq.

In his State of the Union address President Bush’s son George Walker Bush made a similar promise to support those who fight for democracy in oppressive regimes everywhere. The difference we were told is this Bush says what he means and means what he says. I can’t tell.

Young Iranians are rising up against the Mullahs all across Iran. At great risk of torture and death they take to the streets to protest any of a number of human rights abuses and to call for real democracy from the tyrants. Do we hear of this from the Main Steam Media? No, but then no surprise there. Do we hear of this from our State Department, from our Congress, or from the President’s bully pulpit. Surprisingly no. It’s not as if Iran is a fragile tyranny that if we withdrew support would result in a hostile Islamo-Fascist theocracy. That’s already happened. No, this is not Saudi Arabia this is the power behind Hammas and a supporter of terrorism in America and Iraq. An enemy that will soon go nuclear. Why is there no support for the forces of Freedom in Iraq?

The Deal

A deal was made last night in the Senate when Democrats agreed not to filibuster Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and Bill Pryor in exchange for sacrificing Henry Saad and William Myers. Why were these two Judges thrown to the wolves? Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said of Henry Saad

All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree there is a problem there.

In the worst kind of slime he refers to a confidential report and infers that something is seriously wrong without saying what it is. Is it as serious as Bolton’s meanness to a subordinate? Was it as petty as the charge of threat Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow leveled? In an e-mail to a supporter, Saad wrote of Stabenow,

This is the game they play. Pretend to do the right thing while abusing the system and undermining the constitutional process. Perhaps some day she will pay the price for her misconduct.

He mistakenly sent the e-mail not only to his supporter but to Stabenow's office.

William Myers’ problem is that he isn’t an environmentalist whacko. He even took the side of a rancher over BLM’s. One of the reasons we sold our ranch is that half of it was BLM owned and because of that it just wasn’t profitable. Also because of the BLM land we got a price less than half of what we could’ve had had it been all private. So this guy apparently leans toward businesses over Government bureaucracies. How evil. The point is these Judges are qualified, which is what advise and consent is supposed to be about, but they’re just not liberal enough.

The bigger question in my mind is why make the deal at all? Why not go nuclear and confirm all five? Maybe because RINOs Lincoln Chafee (RI), Olympia Snowe (Me.), and John McCain (Az.) wont support their President. Two more Senators break ranks and we don’t have the votes necessary. Fence sitters include Senators Chuck Hagel (Ne.), Mike DeWine (Ohio), John Warner (Va.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Ak.), and Arlen Specter (Pa.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The argument they make is similar to McCains’. McCain says that he wanted to preserve the right to filibuster future judicial nominees appointed by future Democratic presidents. But that’s dumb, the Democrats have the balls to go nuclear and will if the Republicans ever abuse the filibuster the way the Democrats have.

Updat:Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will fight to get all ten Judges an up or down vote.

May 24th, 2005 - Mr. President, though I am not a party to the memorandum of understanding signed last night by 14 of my colleagues, I have had the opportunity to further review the agreement in more detail. I believe the memorandum of understanding makes modest progress, but falls far short, of guaranteeing up or down votes on judicial nominees. It needs to be carefully monitored and executed in good faith.

Let me briefly share my thoughts on the understanding reached last night and my expectations going forward.

First, the memorandum of understanding begins to break the partisan obstruction of the past two years and guarantee fair up or down votes on several judicial nominees. Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor all will receive the courtesy and fairness of up or down votes. I will continue to fight for other qualified nominees who have been waiting for votes and deserve the same courtesy and fairness.

Hypocrisy

Janice Rogers Brown, Bush's choice for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a conservative African-American woman, and for some that alone disqualifies her nomination to the D.C. Circuit, widely considered a stepping stone to the United States Supreme Court. I don't know a whole lot about Ms. Brown but it seems she knows socialism.

Once again a majority of this court has proved that 'if enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.' But theft is theft. Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery.

Oh boy is she now in a fight for her Judicial life against the left.

According to the NAACP she's a racist.

Janice Rogers Brown has a record of hostility to fundamental civil and constitutional rights principles, and she is committed to using her power as a judge to twist the law in ways that undermine those principles, said Hilary Shelton, director, NAACP Washington Bureau.

Well in Hi Voltage Wire Works v. San Jose, a 2000 case that involved Proposition 209, California's constitutional amendment banning race and sex favoritism by government, she seems to think that race should not be considered in awarding government contracts. At issue was a city public-works program that required applicants for contracts to engage in special "outreach" efforts to contact disadvantaged subcontractors - not on a colorblind basis, but targeting racial minorities.

She gave Proposition 209 a broad and forceful reading, interpreting it to outlaw not just explicit quotas but also race and gender "goals," because "a participation goal differs from a quota or a set-aside only in degree."

Brown set the measure in historical context, hailing it as a statement of the venerable rule that no one should be treated better or worse than another on account of race.

She quoted the late Yale Law School Professor Alexander Bickel: "[Discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society."

Fair enough, if you don’t think minorities should get preferential treatment then in the eyes of the left you’re a bigot.

Any time someone pulls the racism card I like to play the switch game. Switch one phrase to white and see if it sounds racist.

"a city public-works program that required applicants for contracts to engage in special "outreach" efforts to contact white subcontractors - not on a colorblind basis, but targeting whites."

Yep, sounds racist.

According to the left;

As a state supreme court justice, Brown has issued only one opinion dealing with abortion, but it raises serious concerns about her judicial philosophy concerning women's constitutional right to privacy and reproductive freedom.

I still can't find that damn right to privacy or the right to reproductive freedom in the Constitution, but I digress.

"she argued that the court majority's decision ruling unconstitutional a parental consent law for minors seeking abortions would "dismiss societal values" and would allow courts to "become final arbiters of traditional morality."

This isn't even an abortion argument, it's a parental right's argument. Ok, lets do the switch thing again. It's OK for kids to have abortions without parental consent but it would be wrong for a kid to purchase a gun without parental consent.

According to Ted “where’s my car?” Kennedy

Brown told an audience that people of faith were embroiled in a “war” against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots.

Tell me that's not right!

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown was first nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in July 2003. The D.C. Circuit is thought of as second only to the Supreme Court in influence over law and policy in this country. A sharecropper's daughter in the segregated South Ms. Brown has come a long way. She deserves a vote in the senate, not based on whether she is too conservative or too liberal but whether she is qualified. But it won't happen because the Democrats will filibuster. It's time to go nuclear.

Senator Barbara Boxer was for the filibuster before she was against it.

as someone who once wanted to end the filibuster myself at an early stage, I really now understand how foolish I was at that point.

Why did I want to end it When I first came here as a freshman? Because we had the majority and the Republicans were thwarting us

Other Boxer quotes.

Mr. President, I am very glad that we are moving forward with judges today. We all hear, as we are growing up, that, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’ and we have, in many of our courts, vacancies that have gone on for a year, 2 years, and in many cases it is getting to the crisis level. So I am pleased that we will be voting. I think, whether the delays are on the Republican side or the Democratic side, let these names come up, let us have debate, let us vote. Congressional Record, January 28, 1998


I make an appeal: If we vote to indefinitely postpone a vote on these two nominees or one of these two nominees, that is denying them an up-or-down vote. That would be such a twisting of what cloture really means in these cases. I make an appeal: If we vote to indefinitely postpone a vote on these two nominees or one of these two nominees, that is denying them an up-or-down vote. That would be such a twisting of what cloture really means in these cases.

it is the full Senate which is to give advice and consent. That process has been defeated by merely a threat of a filibuster. And of course, the filibuster can only be "closed" — or brought to a cloture vote — by a two-thirds vote. That, implicitly, does two things: It changes the constitutional requirements for the approval of judges, and by virtue of the fact that these internal rules cannot be changed except by an even greater vote — a two-thirds vote — it makes it impossible for a newly composed Senate to exercise their representational responsibilities.

The short and the long of it is, it's the American people who have been deprived of their abilities to express their will, by this misbehavior of the Senate. We have selected a president, and we have selected the members of the Senate with our votes, but the majority will has not been allowed to be heard because a minority, in essence, is holding the process hostage.

I agree wholeheartedly with Senator Boxer. It's going to snow.

La Shawn Barber reminds us that blogger's freedom of speech rights are in jeopardy.

A bipartisan group of bloggers drafted an online petition urging the FEC to grant bloggers a media exemption and “that the FEC promulgate a rule exempting unpaid political activity on the Internet from regulation, thereby guaranteeing every American’s right to speak freely and participate in our democratic process.”

Fundamental to our system of government is the freedom of speech to criticize our government, elected officials, each other, and to support our candidates of choice without being fined and penalized for the privilege. In March I wrote that this threat to our First Amendment rights is something liberal and conservative bloggers and readers can agree on. Let’s stand together.

Sign the petition or shut up. Red State says "the period for the FEC's proposed rulemaking regarding your freedom online ends on June 3rd."

Back to square one.

Well my template disappeared again, leaving me with a blank, bleak, black page. What happened? Did I screw up and publish a change in the template that wiped out everything? Is blogger unreliable in that things "happen" to your web page and you get what you pay for, i.e. nothing? OR WAS I HACKED? That has to be the pinnacle of hubris, to think that someone noticed me enough and felt me enough of a nuisance to actually hack my web site. I must of screwed up. Lesson learned, save your work. After 31 years working with computers you’d think I’d know this.