Where does the insistence that the war in Iraq is creating terrorists come from?
One of my favorite radio guys, Hugh Hewitt, takes on the popular leftist theory that today's terrorists were bred in Iraq. The notion is utter nonsense. Indeed, the real breeding ground is not today's Iraq, but the 90's Afghanistan. And it was Bill Clinton and the Democrats who did nothing in the eight years of his administration to stop the Islamist cancer that was growing there unchecked.
Why the rise of the left-wing blogosphere has been bad for the Democratic party.
Dean Barnett writes about the effect that the left side of the blogsphere has had on the increasingly out of the mainstream Democratic party. And his conclusion is that the Democratic party has suffered considerably as they have adopted the style of the left blogsphere. I think this is good as far as it goes, but there is also the issue of substance.
As we have seen in the last several elections, the country as a whole is moving in a more conservative direction. With each new election we have more Republicans in both the House and Senate, as well as increases at the state level. The reason for this is simply that most Americans, even though they may not be political junkies, as still generally conservative in their outlook. They want the country defended, they like private property and they don't want to pay taxes which are too high. They may not know who Ann Coulter is or the name of the Senate minority leader Harry Reid, but they do know what they want, and it isn't the liberal vision of a Socialist Utopia.
The Democratic leadership has adopted the views and style of the most hard-core of the left, which has a strong presence on the Internet. And as the Dems advertise their new makeover more and more stridently, their power diminishes accordingly.
Take some credit for America’s reputation!
Here is a story from a while back which bears on the recent events in London. Heather Mac Donald writes about The Elite Media Monocultures obsession with American perfidy in places such as Gitmo where we are torturing prisoners with rice pilaf and honey glazed chicken. Of course the reporters who are so anxious to blame America first never bother to ask themselves what kind of people we are holding in such places. They never stop to ask themselves if the detainees might actually be the most vile and evil scum of the earth. They just indulge their automatic knee-jerk reaction of blaming America for all of the problems in the known universe.
Once again we see the blind hatred, envy and resentment of the Arab world against Western civilization expressed in the form of murder and destruction. The nihilism of radical Islamofascism is on display for all to see. No doubt The Angry Left will again come to the wrong conclusion and irrationally blame President Bush, Tony Blair and all things conservative rather than placing responsibility where it belongs; on the evil sub-humans who did this to innocent people. The proper response it two-fold. First we need to push aside The Angry Left, recognizing them for the terrorist cheerleaders that they are. And second, of course, is to continue to destroy the terrorists wherever they may be found.
Because the only good Islamofascist is a dead Islamofascist.
Here is a round up of the news regarding the Islamofascist attacks in London:
British Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a statement regarding the attacks:
"It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world."
At least 33 people have been killed and hundreds injured in a series of explosions on the London Underground network and a bus in central London.
Eyewitnesses tell what they saw and heard at blast sites around the capital.
We travelled out into the tunnel and not long after we set out all I saw was yellow light and what appeared to be silver lines in front of my eyes - which turned out to be the glass.
I was being twisted and thrown to the ground. I thought I wasn't going to get out of this - whatever it was - I just didn't know. I thought that was it when it went all so dark.
Then I touched my hand to my face and felt the blood and knew it wasn't all over yet.
Michael Henning was 10 ft away from where the bomb went off
I am an extremely lucky man, I am very lucky indeed, especially as I saw what happened in the next carriage.
The bomb must have been within 10 feet of me but that carriage took most of the blast and we were just showered in glass.
Our carriage was smoke-filled, there was lots of dust, there was lots of panic. We could hear the screams from the carriage where the bomb had gone off - they were trapped in twisted metal.
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A previously unknown group calling itself the "Secret Organization Group of al Qaeda of Jihad in Europe" has released a statement claiming responsibility for the subway and bus bombings in London.
CNN could not confirm the authenticity of the statement, which was posted Thursday on a Web site connected to Islamic radicals.
The statement said Islam and "Arabism" could "rejoice for it is time to take revenge from the British Zionist Crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London," the statement said, translated from Arabic.
Brainless Twit Babara Boxer Demonstrates Her Lack of Understanding in SF Speech
President George Bush's administration "took its eye off the ball'' when it shifted its focus from finding Osama bin Laden to waging a pre-emptive war against Iraq, she said.
As Bush's reasons for the war have changed, the mission has become ever more ambiguous, she said.
"That mission is a guarantee of a never-ending cycle of violence,'' she said, as America's military presence there seems to be a magnet for recruits for the insurgency.
The insurgency now numbers anywhere from 12,000 to 50,000 fighters, she said.
"The insurgents are winning the propaganda wars now,'' she said.
"Terrorism is a result of this war,'' Boxer said, amid applause at the Commonwealth Club of California-sponsored speech at the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel.
Well gee, Senator Boxhead. If you really think that the terrorists are winning the propaganda war, just who is helping them do you think? Could it be people such as you Senator Boxhead? Or perhaps Dickhead Durbin who calls our military Nazis? Or The New York Times and CBS who cheer our enemies at every opportunity? Or College professors who refer to 9-11 victims as "little Eichmans"? Could it be Democrats such as Howard Dean, or Michael Moore or Janeane Garofalo who call the Bush administration a "fascist regime"? Just who is helping them Senator?
The Surrender Now leftists at Democratic Underground respond just as we expect.
We Have To Discuss The Political Implications of This Attack Because....It's politics that caused it. Specifically, it was the mass manipulation of intelligence, lying, and fear-mongering on the part of Bush and Blair that goaded the U.S. and Britain into an illegal war in Iraq. And, folks, there's a price to pay for this, only it won't be Blair and Bush who will pay it. It will be you and me who will pay. We will be the targets of these attacks again and again. The only way to protect ourselves is to remove these neocon, war-mongering, chickenhawks, who believe that they have the God-given right to invade any country on earth, from power. They are making us less safe every day.
Protest Warrior and the FBI on the Case
Leftist moonbat hackers stole credit card information from Protest Warrior's web site and posted it on the Internet. As a result, the FBI and the Secret Service was called in to investigate and prosecute the felonious behavior. Members of The Angry Left may think they are beyond good and evil, but they are not beyond the reach of the law.
The scandal of Kelo v. New London.
Richard Epstein, of the University of Chicago law school, takes a look at the recent Kelo decision of the Supreme Court and finds it to be pretty reprehensible. In this article he looks at the difference between the "public use" and "public benefit" language and how critical it is to understand the court's deviation from the original intent of the framers of the Constitution.
Finessing our supposed friends and enemies.
Victor Davis Hanson reminds us that one of the most effective things one can do with those "allies" who oppose us at every opportunity, is to give them what they claim to want.
In an age of political correctness, Michael Berliner argues for a more traditional understanding of the meaning of Independence Day as it was seen by the founding fathers. America is a country founded on the principles of liberty, freedom and individual rights. No other nation in history was so founded or so explicitly recognized the inalienable rights of man.
Dr. Walid Phares writes about the silent majority in the Middle East that longs for liberty and freedom which is denied to them by the jihadists. But if history is any guide, freedom will win in the long run there just as it has elsewhere.
David Meir-Levi provides an in-depth background on the history of the Palestinian refugee problem and how it was caused by aggressive war mongering on the part of the Arab leaders who wanted the destruction of Israel.
Why failing to teach history is bad for democracy.
And speaking of educational collapse, John Fund writes about how students are graduating from high schools and colleges without even the most basic knowledge of American history. This is a national disgrace and proof that the system of government schools should be abandoned in favor of private education. If an American car company were to produce functioning automobiles only 40 percent of the time and the other 60 percent fell apart as soon as you got them home, they would be out of business in a week. But government schools can continue to fail year after year and somehow they just keep right on going.
Even math education is being politicized.
Diane Ravitch reminds people such as myself that we should be glad we went to school back in the days when teachers taught subjects like mathematics with the understanding that it was a universal science. Now the radical left is turning math into the latest in educational fashion with plenty of racist overtones. After all, we don't really expect brown people to be as smart as white liberals, do we?
On Iraq, echoes of Vietnam from the Democrats.
Daniel Henninger writes about the latest antics of the 'Surrender Now' Democrats who are as anxious as can be to turn the fight in Iraq into another Vietnam. Lots of people have noticed this sad trend on the part of The Angry Left. It seems clear that this ageing bunch of left overs from the 60's are trying to re-live their youth by replaying the history to which they are so permanently glued and which they use to justify their existence. The Democrats have little else to live for now that they are out of power in Washington and they have so few plays in their play-book that it was inevitable that this one would eventually be brought out.
The Angry Left Democrats have several goals in mind that they apparently think will win them back their power in Washington. They believe that they can only re-gain their position by defeating the President and by extension defeating Republicans as a whole and their overall philosophy of government and foreign policy.
First they believe they must convince the American public that what we are doing there is a failure regardless of evidence to the contrary. To change policy they must have the American people on their side. Most Americans have been in favor of the war on terrorism since the attacks on 9-11 and thus on the side of the Republican arguments which support it. The Democrats have to peel that support off and thus they are waging a propaganda war against the President and his policy with all the force they can muster. They will never acknowledge any positive news from Iraq and will pounce on every bit of bad news no matter how small it may be. They will ignore any information coming from Iraq which demonstrates that Iraq is moving towards a more democratic and open form of government and that the President's plan is working, even if imperfectly.
They will certainly never entertain any sophisticated analysis of the events in the Middle East which would demonstrate how difficult and dangerous a job we have taken on. Nor will they admit how revolutionary is the basic strategy of changing the political climate of the Middle East in order to cut off terrorism at its root. They will only paint the issue in the most crude, cartoonish and emotional of terms in order to avoid any serious intellectual debate about the actual events taking place there. That is why they cannot and will not discuss the true nature of the inmates at Gitmo who are some of the worst people on Earth and who are getting treatment far better than they deserve. They cannot afford for Americans to see the conflict there in its wider context. They have to stress the message of utter failure even though any rational person can see this for the lie that it is. Rational people on the right side of the debate understand that the policy is risky and imperfect, but also necessary. We understand that it is the best available alternative and that surrender and failure in this war is not an option if we are to keep our freedom and safety intact. Democrats want us to forget this fact.
Second they want the Administration to pull out as fast as possible to make sure that the President's policy is indeed a failure. For nothing will guarantee its failure more quickly than the kind of "cut and run" policy advocated by The Angry Left. The Democrats forced us to abandon Vietnam back in the 70's by cutting off support and funding to the people of the south who wanted to keep their freedom. The result was the fall of the south to the communists and a bloodbath for the people of Vietnam. Today the Democrats want to re-play that history by abandoning the people of Iraq, who are now free because of American sacrifice, blood and treasure. The Democrats are willing to shove those people back into slavery and tyranny because The Angry Left that now controls their party is possessed by such savage hate, rage and resentment that they do not care about the millions of lives which would be put in peril as long as they can defeat the President and the voters he represents, (whom they also hate).
After all, if Dickhead Durbin thinks our own troops are Nazis, how much do you think he cares about the people of the Middle East who can't vote for him? I would say, not much. And since no Democrat I know of has a serious plan for dealing with the Middle East and the problem of terrorism, I think we can conclude that the party leadership doesn't much care either. In fact I think we can conclude that the Democrats have not thought seriously about this issue at all and in fact have been avoiding it altogether. It is a difficult problem and there are no easy solutions, so naturally the Democrats would rather snipe than think deeply about what we need to do and offer constructive alternatives that might be difficult and costly and come with a fair amount of risk attached.
When America has pulled out of Iraq and the Middle East, as the Democrats want us to do, and when the inevitable result is a return to tyranny and slavery for those people, the Democrats will go on TV and say, "See, we told you Bush was a failure and a liar! Vote for us instead of Republicans and we'll go back to the days before 9-11." This is their ultimate goal, and they don't care how many dead bodies have to pile up in order for them to achieve it, just as they did not care about the people of Vietnam. Back then they were driven by their hatred of Nixon; today they are driven by their hatred of George W. Bush. In both cases the facts of the situation and the need to act on them are utterly irrelevant to The Angry Left. Their only other lust is for the power which they have lost at the hands of the voters.
It is thus hate which ultimately guides the actions of today's Angry Left and the Democratic party which they now control. The lives of millions of people, both in the middle east as well as here in America are as nothing to them as long as they get what they want; the defeat of George W. Bush and all things Republican.
For what comes after, they have no plan, no answer and no thought. It is not reason which drives them, but plain, raw emotion. They must win, "no matter what."
An interview with Oriana Fallaci.
Tunku Varadarajan interviews Oriana Fallaci, author of "The Rage and the Pride" which I have read and which I recommend to all. Ms. Fallaci will be tried in abstensia in her native Italy for the crime of telling the truth about Islam's addiction to hate, violence, barbarism and warfare. Oriana Fallaci believes that Old Europe is doomed. Europe is in the grip of its self-loathing intellectuals who do not value their own heritage and culture and have invited the killers of Islam into their countries to assist them in their mass cultural suicide.
You're still winning.
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge argue that while conservatives may be in a funk lately due to some recent setbacks in the Senate, and I would add those on the Supreme Court, the fact remains that conservatives and Republicans are on the right side of history. If we look at the long term trends what we find is America moving more and more towards conservative ideas and policy. The changes have been slow and have taken time to be sure. But when we take the last forty years or so we see an inexorable move to the right. The American populace is certainly more conservative today in most areas than it was back in the 60's. Of course there have been bumps along the way, and there are plenty of areas in which conservatives can make gains. But overall the trends are in the right direction, while the Democrats seem to be out of gas and out of ideas.
The Republicans have by far the most powerful political machine in the country. Last November, the Democrats threw everything they had at George Bush, from the pent-up fury of a "stolen election" to the millions of George Soros. Liberals outspent and out-ranted conservatives, and pushed up Democratic turnout by 12%. But the Republicans increased their turnout by a fifth.
Crucially, George Bush won as a conservative: He did not "triangulate" or hide behind a fuzzy "Morning in America" message. Against the background of an unpopular war and an arguably dodgy economy, he positioned himself to the right, betting that conservative America was bigger than liberal America. And it was: The exit polls showed both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry won 85% of their base, but self-described "conservatives" accounted for nearly a third of the electorate while liberals were only a fifth. Mr. Bush could afford to lose "moderates" to Mr. Kerry by nine points--and still end up with 51% of the vote, more than any Democrat has got since 1964.
It is true that, since those glory days, the Republican Party has lost some of its discipline. Once-loyal members of Congress have defied a threat of a presidential veto on both highway spending and stem-cell research. It is also true that the liberal wing of the party is enjoying an Indian Summer. Opinion polls suggest that John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are the two favorites for the Republican nomination in 2008.
But is this loss of steam really all that remarkable? All second-term presidents face restlessness in the ranks. And the noise is arguably a sign of strength. The Democrats would give a lot to have a big-tent party as capacious as the Republicans'. One of the reasons the GOP manages to contain Southern theocrats as well as Western libertarians is that it encourages arguments rather than suppressing them. Go to a meeting of young conservatives in Washington and the atmosphere crackles with ideas, much as it did in London in the heyday of the Thatcher revolution. The Democrats barely know what a debate is.
The economy booms, and Arthur Laffer has the last laugh.
Stephen Moore, of The Club for Growth, shows how the Bush tax cuts have jump-started the economy and brought in more tax revenue to government at the same time. The doom and gloomers in the Democratic party and The Angry Left called them "tax cuts for the rich," but as we can see in this article, the benefits have been largest for the middle class both in terms of jobs as well as investments. If the Democrats ever get back in power you can bet they will kill off the goose that lays the golden eggs and then we will all be back in the poor house. But The Angry Left will be happy for a change because everyone will be "equal."
They don't mention that it will be an equality of misery.
As legend has it, the famous Laffer Curve was first drawn by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974 on a cocktail napkin during a small dinner meeting at the Washington Hotel attended by the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and such high-powered policy makers as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The Laffer Curve helped launch the Reaganomics Revolution here at home and a frenzy of tax-rate cutting around the globe that continues to this day.
The theory is really one of the simplest concepts in economics. Yet its logic continues to elude the class-warfare lobby, whose disbelief is unburdened by the multiple real-life examples that validate its conclusions. The idea is that lowering the tax rate on production, work, investment and risk-taking will spur more of these activities and thereby will often lead to more tax revenue collections for the government rather than less.
The Continent has turned its back on both the past and the future.
One of my favorite historians, Paul Johnson, writes on the decline and fall of old Europe. And it is indeed a sad tale. For Europe was once great and is the birthplace of the modern world as we know it. Europe was the inheritor of both Christianity as well as the knowledge and wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans. But Europe today is an empty shell that no longer values its ancient heritage. And the attempt to remove both religion as well as history and philosophy from a culture will in the end be seen as Europe's last attempt at suicide.
Whatever happened to the party's middle?
The editors of The Wall Street Journal ask whether the Democratic party has a center any longer. But one could say that the need to ask the question in the first place is answer enough. There are a few Democrats here and there who have not devolved into the pod people of The Angry Left, but sadly they are a rare breed and seem headed towards extinction. Today's Democratic party is made up of people like Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo, George Soros, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and others like them. As the editors say in this article, The Angry Left has completed a successful takeover of the party. MoveOn.org said it themselves in their open letter when they wrote, "we bought it; we own it." In the long term this leaves the Republicans in a monopoly position because Americans are not going to vote for a socialist party in any great numbers no matter how loudly AirMoonbat screeches that they hate Bush. So if the Democrats want to fix their party, they are going to have to expel The Angry Left sooner or later. So far they show no sign that they have the will or the strength to do so.
"Tell them we are ready for democracy": a Libyan dissident's message to Washington.
Claudia Rosett of The Wall Street Journal reminds us that the despots in the Arab world, such as Moammar Gadhafi, for the most part still hold their people in slavery and servitude. There has been improvement, most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there is a long way to go. Thus we need to keep a close eye on human rights violations in places such as Libya and keep up the pressure for reform of the Arab world.
In this AP story found on Yahoo News we can read about the Supreme Court case in which the majority of the justices, all of them liberal, decided in their infinite wisdom that you are too stupid to keep your house and that a bunch of government kleptocrats are better suited to know what to do with it. I have to say, this has got to be the single worst ruling I have ever seen from the court, and I have been around for a while now and have seen some pretty bad ones.
Can there be any more doubt that the court system in this country is out of control and in need of serious attitude adjustment? If I am any judge of what other bloggers are thinking, there is plenty of outrage around the net. Certainly there is plenty of anger among conservatives who value the original intent of the constitution and the original intent of the founders. But perhaps some members of the left will also wake up with this ruling when they come to realize that their houses in their trendy neighborhoods might be the next target of Wal-Mart.
No observant liberal can help but notice that this ruling is a victory for big corporations over the poor and middle class. Local governments around the country are looking for ways to increase their revenue and now any big corporation that can influence their local politicians, will have a strong incentive to take as many of our houses as they can get away with. And they won't care if the owners voted for John Kerry or not.
A Democrat I know at work seemed a bit confused at the ruling saying, "I thought that the Democrats were the party of the little guy." I felt a bit sorry for him as he was obviously operating on a long-ago version of what Democrats use to stand for. Today's ruling demonstrates something very different. As I tried to explain to him, this is about who values the concept of property rights, not who is in favor of big business. I am a capitalist as a matter of philosophical conviction. But that view rests on the sanctity of the rights of the individual, including property rights. The concept of property rights is crucial to maintaining a free society and was one of the most important ideas of our founding fathers. Big corporations should have to respect the rights of others, even if those others don't have a lot of money, power or pull with their local zoning board.
It is a pity to see the Supreme Court throwing those rights away and allowing government, big developers and corporations to steal our homes simply in order to generate some additional tax revenue. But this is exactly the effect of their ruling.
If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it is that more people may now have an incentive to pay attention to the out of control court system which is taking away more and more of our rights. And the ultimate solution is to get people onto the court who understand and value the constitution as it was originally written and conceived. There are plenty of reasons to want to win that fight, even though it will take some time. But we have little choice other than giving in to those who want to take our homes away from us.
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 23, 11:07 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.
The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights. Still, legal experts said they didn't expect a rush to claim homes.
"The message of the case to cities is yes, you can use eminent domain, but you better be careful and conduct hearings," said Thomas Merrill, a Columbia law professor specializing in property rights.
The closely watched case involving New London, Conn., homeowners was one of six decisions issued Thursday as the court neared the end of its term. The justices are scheduled to release their final six rulings, including one on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property, on Monday.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said New London could pursue private development under the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use, since the project the city has in mind promises to bring more jobs and revenue.
"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Stevens wrote, adding that local officials are better positioned than federal judges to decide what's best for a community.
He was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing — David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy, in noting that states are free to pass additional protections if they see fit.
The four-member liberal bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects.
At least eight states — Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington — forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development unless it is to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow a taking for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly to the question.
A number of bloogers around the net have weighed in on the Supreme Court case:
Powerline says, "Your Property Will Be Better Off In My Hands"
Captain's Quarters "We're From The Government -- We're Here To Move You"
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler looks at "Revenue Positive"
Michell Malkin gives us a round up from the net
In the old Soviet Union, home of the Great Socialist Utopia, inconvenient history was often airbrushed out of existence in order to preserve the image of the rulers. Trotsky too troublesome? A little bit of photographic erasure and presto; problem solved. Wlady Pleszczynski writes that the same historical revision is now at work in Hollywood, where a Major Motion Picture starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood has mysteriously disappeared.
I just have one question: When are you going to resign from your seat and offer the American people and the American military a *real* apology? ( I read the phony one; the one which translates as "I'm sorry all of you are too stupid to understand my greatness.")
Naturally, I am not impressed with this kind of "apology."
To compare our men and women of the American military, (who have spilled their blood around the world defending our freedom and the freedom of other people in nations that would otherwise be oppressed and enslaved), to Nazis is proof that you do not deserve your seat in the Senate.
I call on you to resign now to spare the citizens of Illinois from any further embarrassment at having to explain your stupidity to the rest of the country.
More proof that the Democratic party is controlled by The Angry Left
For the record, let me first say that I voted against Dickhead Durbin in the hope that he would not gain the position which he now enjoys. Sadly there were not enough people like myself who could see what a pathetic waste of skin he is and of course Illinois has a generous supply of angry leftist moonbats who will support any Democrat no matter how stupid, vile or craven he may be. After all, this is the state which elected Carol Moseley-Braun.
Now our senior Senator from Illinois has embarrassed our state, or at least those intelligent people here who don't automatically vote Democrat, by claiming that American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay Cuba are no better than Nazis. Rowan Scarborough reports in The Washington Times:
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.
In a speech on the Senate floor late Tuesday, Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, castigated the American military's actions by reading an e-mail from an FBI agent.
The agent complained to higher-ups that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music. The Justice Department is investigating.
About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.
No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran, the holy book of Muslims.
After reading the e-mail, Mr. Durbin said, "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."
Of course we have come to expect this sort of thing from members of The Angry Left such as the MoveOn crowd or the corpses who inhabit Democratic Underground. But now that we see this sort of statement come out of the mouth of the number two Senator on the floor of the Senate, we know with certainty that the Democratic party is firmly controlled by the most radical and extreme part of The Angry Left. It should be crystal clear that there is no longer a "moderate" wing of the Democratic party left, or at least there is no one who might be willing to speak up against this sort of hateful treason against our troops.
Naturally, Dickhead Durbin is refusing to apologize for his vicious and hateful insult to our brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our freedoms, as well as nitwits such as Durbin. And the rest of the Democrats in the Senate are running for the tall grass as fast as possible so that they don't have to take a stand against such obvious stupidity and malice against America:
Mr. Durbin quickly appeared on the Senate floor but offered no apology. He read that part of his speech again. He said he had read earlier from an FBI's agent letter on harsh treatment of suspected terrorists and had compared such treatment to what would be found under the Soviet gulag, Nazis and Pol Pot. ...
Mr. Durbin answered: "In this particular incident that I just read from an FBI agent describing in detail the methods that were used on prisoners, was I trying to say that, 'Isn't this the kind of thing we see from repressive regimes?' Yes."
There was criticism of Mr. Durbin outside the Senate.
The VFW's commander in chief, John Furgess, said, "The senator was totally out of line for even thinking such thoughts, and we demand he apologize to every man and woman who has ever worn the uniform of our country."
Several Democrats ducked the furor yesterday.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, declined to comment, saying she had not heard Mr. Durbin's speech. When a reporter read the passage to her, she declined again.
The offices of Democratic Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut did not answer calls for comment.
And here is an interesting tidbit for those of you who are not familiar with the way things are done here in Chicago. Both Captains Quarters and John in Carolina report on the conditions right here in Illinois' own Cook County Jail. Chicagoans of course know all about Cook County, and it has even been mentioned here and there in TV and movies from time to time. But somehow Dickhead Durbin seems not to have noticed the practices which go on there, nor that his pal, Cook Country's Democrat Sheriff Michael Sheahan, is in charge of the place.
In one incident, an elite squad of 40 guards took over a maximum-security [unit] ... for the sole purpose of beating and terrorizing the prisoners. A jail investigator determined that the guards' misconduct was covered up by ... medical personnel, who filed false reports and refused or delayed treatment to the prisoners, and by the ... inspector general, who refused to cooperate with the investigation. In the other incident, five inmates in a special incarceration unit ... alleged that they were beaten by 20 or more ... as they lay cuffed and shackled on the floor.
[A] prisoner ... said he was beaten unconscious by guards who had wrapped handcuffs around their fists to make the beating worse. ... Several days later, the whites of his eyes were nearly obscured by the red from blood vessels that had ruptured during the beating, and deep lacerations were held together by staples that had been applied to his scalp. Late last year ... another prisoner ... told of being dragged by several guards through a fire of burning paper and debris that had been raging in the cellblock. His account of this abuse was substantiated by blisters and deep burn marks on his leg.
What all of this demonstrates yet again, is that the Democrats are morally and intellectually bankrupt, just as those on the right have been saying for some time now. And it also shows that the Democrats will do and say anything, even throwing our own military men and women under the bus, if they think it will score them some political points when they are on camera and when they are featured in The Elite Media Monocuture. They do not care if their reckless words result in the injury and death of Americans overseas who are in harms way. They do not care if they have besmirched the men and women of the military, who are doing a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances against a determined and dangerous enemy that continues to work for our destruction. All they care about is their own petty political interests and their rage and hate of George W. Bush.
The Democrats are destroying their own party with this sort of thing. Their failure in recent elections proves that voters are not buying the message of hate and vitriol that the Democrats are selling. Will the Democrats learn the lessons of the recent past and change their ways? Will they realize that the doctrine of moral equivalence is a farce and a failed lie? Will they come to understand the difference between American values and principles based on freedom and liberty and those of the tyrants and dictators who we are fighting? Based on Dickhead Durbin's statements, it does not seem so.
The instructive case of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir.
The editors of The Wall Street Journal remind us that Amnesty International seems not to have very good judgment about who does, and who does not deserve sympathy for their plight. For instance, what should one think of Amnesty International when it goes out of its way to get a known Al-Qaeda terrorist released from a prison in Jordan so that he can return to Iraq at the behest of Saddam Hussein and carry out more terrorist attacks against the west? I know what I think.
And what I think is that AI, like so many other organizations which have been infiltrated and corrupted by the Angry Left, now operates under the philosophical and political assumptions that guide the left, including the principle of "blame America first." In the view of the Angry Left America is always wrong and our enemies are always right. For them, there is never a good reason for America to defend itself or to use force. Nor is there any justification for America wanting to spread its values and ideas around the globe, since the left is opposed to those ideas as a matter of principle. Thus any attempt on the part of America to detain terrorists or to change the political and cultural environment of the Middle East or to protect American citizens from the attacks of hostile terrorists and nations must be stopped at all costs.
But of course, don't you dare to question their patriotism.
Why is so much political art so awful?
Here is a fascinating essay from Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal which asks the eternal question, "what is art?" while also looking at the effects of leftist politics on today's art world in general and theatre in particular. This is a somewhat long essay, but well worth the read. For it is interesting to note, as Teachout does, that much of today's political art is just plain bad. And this really comes as no surprise when we ask ourselves what great art is and how it functions.
Teachout comes close to answering the question, but does not quite name it. I think Rand's definition of art is still the best one I have read, and it is pertinent here so let's review it:
Art is the selective re-creation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgments: art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were perceptions.
Great art is conceptual in the sense that it holds a mirror up to some part of reality and says, "this is how a part of the world looks to me." Art eliminates the inessential and keeps what is important to the artist and shows it to us. It brings some specific concept to the front of our awareness, but presents it to us rather than explaining it. It condenses meaning into a specific form, allowing us to see the meaning of the artwork directly, with intellectual understanding that follows after our initial emotional response.
But as Terry Teachout also writes, one cannot assume that one's audience automatically sees the world the same way we see it. Indeed, the artist should understand that his art will be seen by many different people, not all of whom share the same outlook. And this is the problem for The Angry Left. As Teachout explains, The Angry Left no longer bothers to produce much art which is universal. An art which is based on universal truths of human nature would be one which portrays the basic nature of human existence while also recognizing how complex and difficult it is. But the left no longer feels the need to do this. Instead they create art with a pre-packaged political point of view which does not even pretend to persuade its audience. These authors simply assume the political views of the audience are of the hard leftist variety and create work which is little more than cheerleading for their side.
They don't try to address people who might be different than them because they think that "those people" in the red states are evil and stupid and not really worthy of being addressed. Thus they create art which is much less than it might be for a much more limited audience with a much narrower view of the world. And while it might be many things, such work is rarely great art.
The unfortunate implications of the medical marijuana ruling.
The editors of The Wall Street Journal weigh in on Monday's Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich. At issue in the case was whether state law regarding medical marijuana is superseded by federal law. The court held that federal law may indeed trump state law in this case. The problem, as The Wall Street Journal points out, is that there is little constitutional basis for this argument. Indeed, the court's reliance on the interstate commerce clause in a case in which there was no interstate commerce of any kind shows a vast judicial overreach. Cases such as this are the hallmark of an activist judiciary that simply ignores the original intent of the constitution and writes laws from the bench.
The constitution is clear that the federal government should be one of enumerated and limited powers and that all those powers not so enumerated should be exercised by the states, or the people respectively. Simply put, states get to make their own laws unless they are trumped by a written constitutional principle. But since the New Deal the constitution has been re-written by activist judges to push through policies which have no basis in the idea of limited government. And now we have one more example of the federal government undermining state's rights. This is just one more example of why we need an overhaul of the judicial branch of government with an emphasis on judges who will enforce the constitution as it is written rather than making it up as they go along.
Geoffrey Norman, at The American Spectator, takes up the court's decision as well and he is not any happier about it.
And in this article from John Tabin at The American Spectator, we take a look at the different decisions of Justices Scalia vs. Thomas.
Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean rage against Republicans. It's not a winning approach.
Peggy Noonan has a few thoughts on the hysterics we have seen recently from Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton. Both of them have been making some outrageous statements in public lately. I find that I am continually amazed at the fact that these people in The Angry Left do not seem to be aware that their comments are now instantly available to just about everyone in the country. They make no attempt at all to hide them from the general public. Of course for them to be concerned about a possible backlash against their obvious insanity, they would first have to understand how other people see them. That is perhaps the most interesting part of this whole phenomenon.
Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton seem representative of today's angry Democratic party in that they must think that it is a normal thing to hate the majority of the American population that keeps voting against Democrats and for George W. Bush. And they must also think, all evidence to the contrary, that there are legions of Angry Leftists just waiting for the right moment to vote those horrible Republicans out of office. But somehow, it just never seems to happen. Thus we see more frustration, rage and hate seething out of any gathering where Democrats are found.
But because The Angry Left is not the majority in the country, there is little chance that they are going to take back the levers of power anytime soon. In the past they hid their true selves and a compliant media helped them to do so. Only one side of any issue was reported, normally in the Democrats' favor. But all that is changed now. And the public can see for themselves the true nature of the left. And that is not an image which gets votes.
Ben Stein takes on one of the crown jewels of The Elite Media Monoculture in this article from The American Spectator. It seems that back in the old days of media glory, when the Angry Left was fighting against America, the Vietnam war and all things Republican, Time magazine had a communist correspondent on their payroll. And now the graying, America hating journalists are celebrating the life of a spy who sent thousands to their deaths and helped to enslave a nation under the boot of communist thugs.
An article in "The New Yorker" paints a rosy picture of this communist spy and at the same time shows us the woozy-good-times-feeling that permeate Angry Leftist groupthink at the thought of communist victory and Amercian defeat. For as Ben Stein points out, there is no mention of the misery, death and suffering caused by the Time magazine communist spy or even a recognition that it should be an issue. A nation was enslaved and thousands of Americans died in that conflict, but to The Elite Media Monoculture the most important thing is to celebrate a member of "the cause" who helped to bring The Great Socialist Utopia just a little bit closer.
For The Angry Left, the breaking of eggs is just part of the plan.
Sean Higgins writes in The American Spectator that the Angry Left is holding yet another event to try to convince themselves that the last several elections were all a big mistake and that the American people really meant to vote Democratic and would have done so but for the "right-wing message machine." Such delusion of course makes it certain that they will continue to lose elections for some time to come unless they get some miraculous stroke of good fortune. The problem for them is that the socialist message is one which just does not sell, now that voters have access to real debate and information from all sides.
When you have a party with Howard Dean screaming at religious voters, claiming that Republicans are all angry white Christians, and Rosie O'Donnell on TV screeching at the top of her lungs trying to drownd out the words of guest Sean Hannity, you know you are seeing the implosion of a political party. All the conferences and workshops in the world will not solve that problem, because as yet the Democrats refuse to deal with the fact that they have built their party on the foundation of a failed 19th century political ideology. And with the Angry Left in charge of the party apparatus and fundraising, it is doubtful that they will want to do the soul searching that would lead to real change. For those filled with rage and hate, it is always easier to blame others for one's own failures
It’s the ideas, silly.
Ned Rice, of The National Review, gives us a fun article which looks at the Angry Left's continuing attempts to ape the success of conservative new media. In our latest adventure we check out Arianna Huffington's new web site, "The Huffington Post." Mr. Rice predicts that it will be every bit as successful as her run for governor of California. The part I remember best about that was how she tried to horn in on Arnold's press conference and ended up knocking over the microphone stand.
Ben Stein, who was a speechwriter in the Nixon white house, has a few thoughts on the Mark Felt story which you can read here and here. Like Peggy Noonan, he looks at the unintended consequences of the Watergate affair and how the desire of The Elite Media Monoculture to bring down a sitting Republican President in a time of war also brought subjugation, death and communist slavery to millions in southeast Asia. If there is such a thing as karma, says Ben Stein, you can bet that a lot of people have bought themselves a serious hell in the future.
Was Mark Felt really a hero?
Peggy Noonan makes a few observations on the Watergate story and Mark Felt. And the most important of these is that one can never escape the law of unintended consequences.
Economic anxiety is a product of the welfare state.
The editors of The Wall Street Journal give us their take on the current economic condition of Old Europe and the diagnosis is not a good one. The Europeans have attached the ball and chain of welfare state socialism to their country's economies and have thus diminished their growth rate as well as the creation of new jobs. Once more we see real world evidence that The Great Socialist Utopia can never be achieved in the real world. And we also see that some people never learn from their mistakes or from the evidence of their senses. Remarkably there are still people both in America and Europe who advocate for these irrational policies. But at least here in America the voters have realized that socialism is a mirage which can never result in anything other than economic stagnation and decline. And that is why Democrats, who are the prime sponsors of the European version of economic organization, have been voted from power by the American public.
It's springtime, love is in the air, and 14 senators are gazing at the mirror.
Peggy Noonan has noticed that the seven dwarves seem to have a rather high opinion of themselves. And why not? After all, they did get on TV.
A real estate bubble could devastate the Bay area, land of interest-only loans.
Thomas Sowell wonders if we are seeing a bubble in the housing market in this article from The Wall Street Journal. I tend to think the same thing, with prices rising as rapidly as they are and the appearance of speculative ventures such as "interest only" mortgages. As a rule, when speculation in a market reaches these kinds of levels you can expect that market to pull back rather dramatically. We saw it recently in the case of the tech bubble of the late 90s and it would not surprise me to see it here as well.
McCain, DeWine, Snowe, Warner, Graham, Collins, and Chafee.
By now we have all heard about the "deal" between a group of RINO Republicans and the Democrats regarding the nomination of judges.
This is a bad deal all around. While it is true we are going to get a few nominees through for the time being, who should have had an up or down vote all along anyway, it sets a bad precedent.
First it demonstrates that if the Angry Left and the Democrats whine long enough and loudly enough, Republicans will cave on their principles. And the principle here is that the Constitution has now been changed to allow a supermajority on judges to the Appellate and Supreme court levels whenever the Democrats don't like the nominee. With this deal the Republicans have allowed the Democrats to change the constitutional requirements for appointees to the higher level courts.
It also demonstrates that the Republican leadership is weak because it cannot hold its members in line to vote, even when they have an overwhelming majority and the backing of the party base. The Republicans have majorities in both houses, yet cannot get nominees of the President through. This is an admission of a deep weakness.
It will embolden the Democrats and The Elite Media Monoculture in the coming debate over the next Supreme Court nominee, probably this summer or fall. The Democrats will have no incentive whatsoever to be reasonable because now they know the Republicans will bend over and take what they are given. The Democrats now have an unearned veto over any nominee that they don't like. That's what that "extraordinary" terminology means.
And finally it is demoralizing to the Republican base that once again sees that no matter how many elections we win, the leadership fumbles when it really counts.
The solution to this is to stop giving money and support to the RNC and any RINO Republicans and to let them know exactly why. None of my money will go to these people until such time as they can find their spines and learn how to use them to defend the Constitution, which is what they pledged when they took office.
You can bet that none of my money will go to support a party leadership which demonstrates this kind of weakness in the face of Democrats who are destroying the Constitution. I will support individual Republicans who show some spine and stand up for Republican principles and the Constitution. But not one penny for a Republican leadership that says "How high?" when Democrats say "Jump."
