Helpful Hoplophobe'sTravel Guide

Guns in Parks: The Hoplophobes’ Travel Guide to the United States | The New Ledger

Huge public service done here to help those that are phobic of the horror of a concealed permit person carrying a gun might gun them down. Who says gun folks aren't sensitive!!

Helpful hints on areas that are especially safe are provided (based on the difficulty of getting carry permits). NYC is incredibly safe  (from being shot with a legal concealed gun) -- impossible that anyone will be carrying a legal gun. Same for Newark NJ and Washington DC.

South side of Chicago is incredibly secure from legal gun owners -- great spot for those hoplophobes to visit, along with South Central LA. Good spot to be REALLY relaxed about the potential for seeing a legally carried concealed gun!!

Good foreign travel insights as well. North Korea is notoriously free of any guns for citizens at all, so that ought to be a SUPER safe destination. 

Great job, and no doubt an immense help to those concerned about the terror of someone with a legally concealed gun being in their vicinity!!

Is Life Worth Death?

Schumpeter's Moment - WSJ.com

Great little column, it has nothing to do with my title other than that is what it made me think of. Capitalism is the only thing that creates growth and individual freedom, BUT, it also creates differential wealth (rich and poor) and it isn't perfect -- crashes come with it, no matter how much we want to avoid them. It relates to our "ultimate dilemma" as humans -- one we don't really get to play in except as parents for children, and in the case of a decision to take our own life -- which certainly doesn't "work" in that death is hastened rather than avoided.

Where that becomes troublesome, however, is the moment when
government comes to be seen as the sole source of security. What we,
the public, need to understand is that the best guarantor of security
is not government. It's economic growth. While we want to believe
otherwise, the cold fact is that government can't guarantee economic
permanency. Nobody, and nothing, can.

Pragmatically speaking, we must figure out how to increase people's
sense of security without making government itself bigger or more
powerful

The bottom line is that we have to find ways to ENCOURAGE risk -- in going to school, investing money, starting a business, inventing something or a host of other "risky behaviors". Cases where effort or capital or both is put to some use where "the outcome is uncertain". In the real world, that is true in **ALL** cases. BO and the MSM will tell you "Social Security is certain" -- but if North Korea puts an ICBM into DC at the wrong time, or some nasty strain of influenza hits -- or more likely, they just muck up the economy enough, it ISN'T "certain". Humans don't deal in positive certainty -- only negative. See death.

So what about the ultimate Schumpeterian challenge: Can capitalism be
saved? France's President Nicolas Sarkozy in October 2008 proposed a
brilliant formulation. He said: "The financial crisis is not the crisis
of capitalism. It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself
from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the
spirit of capitalism."

Well put, and BO is taking us away from the spirit of capitalism at warp speed!

Costs Of Supporting Republicans

Dealergate: Stats demonstrate that Chrysler Dealers likely shuttered on a partisan basis

What happens when there is extreme one party rule with no media oversight? They run amok. They ALWAYS run amok. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

If one needs to close some dealerships, I'm sure a politician can't think of a much better method than to correlate the dealership owners list with Republican donors, and "shazaam!". Now a businessman might use some stupid correlation like cars sold, money taken in, profitability, customer satisfaction, etc, but that is where the businessman is stupid.

Hey baby, this is ALL about BO style politics! Corruption? What the hell is corruption? He hasn't even thrown any Christians to the lions yet -- he is being a pretty long suffering guy. If folks "get it" without a lot of violence, he may let a lot of really bad Republicans live with just a minium of retraining and relocation. Talk about a wonderful guy!

Heil BO!

Warming Your Heart

Momma Voted for Obama

We all know the horrors of the right wing family. Two parents, usually in a home, nearly always attending church, working, saving, teaching morality -- the kind of depravity that often creates Republican voters. Such things have often been despised as "indoctrination" in the media.

Nice little site showing how the Democrat side of the fence is all open-minded and trying to keep nasty things like politics out of the little donkey's young life!

How about, "All Democrat children are special, over half of them never get by the abortion clinic!"

The Essensce of Unconstrained

The 'Empathy' Nominee - WSJ.com

The heart of the unconstrained vision is that current thinking, feeling, practices and opinion are superior to any strictures of the past, including a written constitution. Thus we have:

In a speech published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal in 2002, Judge Sotomayor offered her own interpretation of this jurisprudence. "Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases," she declared. "I am . . . not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, . . . there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

I'd argue that is very much a racist statement. The criteria I like to use is what the attitude would be if the statement was reversed. Second, I would hope that a wise white man with
the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a
better conclusion than a minority woman who hasn't lived that life.

My wordview is that if the second formulation is seen as racist, then the first must be as well, else the term "racism" has no meaning.

Naturally, the idea of ideas and words "having no meaning" is what her first formulation means. There can NEVER be a universal definition of wise. Translation, all points of view are relative, and it is perfectly reasonable for mine (or BO's) to be the one taken as correct -- and NOBODY (least of all, say "God") can EVER declare that there is some "universal truth" ... of which a better understanding would be "wise".

So, BO has appointed a relativist, racist that no doubt will see fit to re-write whatever law she sees fit as often as possible to the court and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

New Deal or Raw Deal

I finished this book today by Burton Folsum Jr out on the deck enjoying the great weather and the day off from work. I'd say that our current American predicament is based off couple key myths that tend to work together to keep us heading toward a continued loss of freedom and economic decline:

1. "Liberal" = "left". Left is ALWAYS larger government, more centralized government control, less individual freedom and the risk of dictatorship. Communist, socialist, fascist, monarchist ... ALL are on the left! The idea that Fascism is "right" is lunacy -- for one thing, "Nazis" were "National Socialsts", and fascism isn't exactly "libertarian". The "right" is about "LIBERTY" ... meaning "libertarian", LESS government, more indiviual freedom -- going too far to the right means one is an ANARCHIST, not a fascist!
2. "The New Deal was a great success. It certainly wasn't an economic success -- it was a POLITICAL success for the forces of the left which the elite and MSM in this nation find to be a wonderful thing. This book covers #2 very well.
   

The following quote from Henry Morgenthau Jr, one of FDRs closest associates and his Secretary of the Treasury at the time he made this statement before his fellow Democrats in Congress in May of 1939:

We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong...somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises...I say after 8 years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...And an enormous debt to boot.

Sound familiar? Here is a good quote from Henry Hazlitt on the subject of government spending:

The government spenders have the better of the argument with all those who cannot see beyond the immediate range of their physical eyes. They can see the bridge. But if they had taught themselves to look for indirect as well as direct consequences they can once more see in the eye of imagination the possibilities that have never been allowed to come into existence. They can see the unbuilt homes, the unmade cars and washing machines, the unmade dresses and coats, perhaps the unmade or unsold foodstuffs. These homes, cars and washing machines were unbuilt of course, because taxpayers sent their money to Washington for the WPA rather than buying their families a new car or a new coat. We can think of these nonexistent objects once perhaps, but we cannot keep them in our minds as we can the bridge that we pass every working day.

The problem is of course greater than that, because both the MSM and the Democrats are going to brag up the benefits of their spending, while not saying anything about the costs.

The book goes through a good amount of detail of the corruption of the patronage created by the New Deal. The spending for the WPA was increased in swing states in election years, and the WPA workers were used as extensions of the Democrat party. Naturally as today, the unions, farmers, and other groups were provided kick-backs that all but made them wards of the one-party Democrat state.

The end of the book provides a lot of great detail on how going into the depression, the US was leading the world -- by the end of the 30's, we had no recovery and had slipped to being one of the worst of the industrialized economies. The New Deal successfully elected a lot of Democrats, created a lot of government dependency, and set the nation firmly on a path to ruin with the advent of the Social Security entitlement that sold the obviously false claim that "we can all get out more than we put in".

The New Deal was an economic disaster that started us on a path to future disasteres, one of which we are experiencing now. Politically, it laid the foundation for dictatorship or worse, LBJ framed it up, and now BO seems to be doing the roof and paint on the fascist edifice.

Raw deal indeed!

Totalitarian Means One Party

Op-Ed Columnist - State of Paralysis - NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman is an unabashed statist. Our founding fathers created a nation where "left" meant more gigantic government of every stripe -- socialist, communist, fascist, monarchy, ... it didn't matter. "Right" was little to no government -- libertarian, anarchist. Even "stranger", "right" was LIBERAL -- as in you did what you wanted, "libertarian". "Conservative" was more to the LEFT -- controlled, following tradition ... the Federalists, like Washington, Adams and Hamiliton wanted something "more like a monarchy" -- thus, the Senate, which was intended to be our "House of Lords".

No matter, today Krugman's Democrats are in charge across the board, so why in the world do we still have problems, and in fact they seem to be getting WORSE??

Easy, "it's the Republicans stupid" ... they just seem unwilling to give everyone, states and federal the last shreds of taxing authority! That's the prolem! These idiots STILL have 40 Senators, and that is WAY too many! California had the audacity to elect a RINO Governor that has been unable to do anything relative to holding the line on spending, but no matter, "What's the Matter with California"??? REPUBLICANS!!! Even though they have had nothing for political power there in well over a decade, and a less strident idealogue than Krugman might just have a moments pause over what the results have been. Not Paul though -- get rid of ALL the Republicans, and no doubt shortly after any Democrat that is so foolish to be "moderate", and THEN we will have success -- tax rates approaching 100% and completely unbridled spending (whatever THAT might be -- if this isn't it, I'm not certain that I can even imagine it!).

To be blunt: recent events suggest that the Republican Party has been driven mad by lack of power. The few remaining moderates have been defeated, have fled, or are being driven out. What’s left is a party whose national committee has just passed a resolution solemnly declaring that Democrats are “dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals,” and released a video comparing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Pussy Galore. And that party still has 40 senators.

There you go. I have to agree though, the Republicans are at least imprecise about "socialist ideals" -- it is "national socialism" Nazi/fascist when you maintain the veneer of private ownership while strong arming the businesses to do your bidding lest you purge the leaders and cut off their funding. So he is right, they are at least "mad" enough to not speak the truth. What I wonder is what Paul would call buying up banks and auto companies with public debt, bypassing Sr bondholders for union cronies, and funneling huge amounts of public money into thinly disguised Democrat organizations like ACORN? Probably "good government".

I suppose that when one believes they have all the answers, one party rule seems like such a good idea, it is just shameful to try to name it anything at all. As one wag said -- "when fascism comes to America it will be called Americanism". I think it is here, and it is called "Obamanomics".

BO, First US Nuke Detonation President?

Obama: North Korean nuclear test 'a grave threat' - CNN.com

BO and guys like Jerimiah Wright have often pointed out that the US is the "only nation to have used nukes against another" -- and always without the caveat that many hundreds of thousands of lives, if not millions (many of those US) were saved by that decision. They don't like it, it somehow damages their vision of a "perfectly moral nation" (by their standards).

So now we have North Korea flexing it's muscles with BOTH ICBMs that could reach the US and nukes, Iran openly preparing to destroy Israel, and chaos in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, a nuclear nation with weapons spread out and not under central authority.

BO seems to not like it -- one would have thought that he could wave his hand and such threats would simply cease, but one gets the distinct impression that global threats are rapidly building, even as our economic  ship founders ever more.

Will BO be that "historic President" that presides over that "spread the nukes around" strategy that allows one or more American cities to be reduced to rubble with "the chicken's coming home to roost"? Guys like BO have always been very uncomfortable with "American exceptionalism" and love to ask supposedly rhetorical questions that essentially come down to "why do we think we are so special"??

Sadly, what used to make us special was individual freedom AND RESPONSIBILITY, a belief that we WERE a "special nation blessed by God", and a sense of a special past and future destiny that was worth effort and sacrifice. We have elected our first pagan president whose most important life experience (still?) was his return to his "tribal roots" in Africa as a "Luo". He is "a citizen of the world" -- first? Where does citizen of the US lie on his list of "blessings" (or I guess in his case, "pieces of random luck")?

I'd fully expected that the Bush security work would give us something better than a year before we suffered a major attack against the US, but it is starting to look like that could be too optimistic!

How many nukes would it take to make us "nothing special" ... the kind of nation that BO could approve of? SF, NYC and DC? Is that enough, or does one need to take out Chicago and LA ... ?? as well. I would have formerly thought that 3 would change things in a way that would "never be forgotten", but 9-11 makes me wonder. The power of the left and the MSM to expand on any grievance or supposed grievance by America (Abu Grab, Gitmo, Katrina, pollution ...) and to utterly bury her woundings (eg. 9-11) is amazing. Would whatever was left 10 years after losing NY, SF, and DC only remember the incident with the now already quite hazy and even conflicted view that Americans have of 9-11? I really wonder.

Understanding BO's 100 Million

http://wimp.com/budgetcuts/

It really really is worth taking the time to go over to that site and get some help in visualizing how much 100 million is next to 3.6 Trillion. They use pennies on a table and it is VERY effective. Basically it is half a table full of pennies stacked 5 deep, and 100 Million is a 1/2 of ONE PENNEY ... but it sinks in better when you see someone slice up a penny and see it visually.

One of the sad things of the liberal press is that were BUSH to have come out and said that he was going to take "90 days and find 100 million to save", he would have been laughed about for weeks as being a 100% stupid rube without enough intelligence to do anything without his staff putting it up on a teleprompter. Since BO said it, it gets reported as "the great and powerful BO is working hard to do important things, why are the evil conservative loonies complaining".

BO and His Straw Adversaries

RealClearPolitics - President Above-It-All

Nice short little discussion on the "BO Magic" -- create a fake left and a fake right that don't exist, and then stand with whatever position you hold as "moderate".

Oh, and if you change your positions a lot? So what, the press is never going to call you on it, and you can always "Blame Bush". Sweet.

BO's Homage to Bush

RealClearPolitics - Obama's Deeds Vindicate Bush

When things go right, it is sometimes parents who eventually see their young rebels realize that delaying gratification, working hard, taking responsibility and faith in God is worth way more than feeling good today, shirking work and responsibility, and believing that "it's all about me".

I suspect that George Bush is fairly unsurprised to find BO following nearly all of his policies in the WoT already, and being quickly being forced to follow even the ones he has been most recalcitrant on (Gitmo). Sadly, my guess is that Dick Cheney is right and BO's "half measures" are very likely to earn us a nuke going off in a major city courtesy of Pakistan, N Korea, or even Iran.

 The media loved to "out" Bush policies on renditions, interrogations, Gitmo, Predator Strikes, etc because "the made Bush look bad". All the while, they apparently forgot that America had elected Bush, and when it in fact RE-elected him, the primary  target that "looked bad" was AMERICA -- not so much because of what Bush had or hadn't done, but because it was exposed as a country so divided that it could not at a signifiicant level put national interests ahead of petty politics.

Enter BO. I think Charles is right that the fact that BO adopts the same policies is positive in that it ULTIMATELY will forge national consencus on what ought to have been obvious all along:

The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the
opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys,
brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old
guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.

That's happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on
terror won't have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it
day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.

Charles is hoping that the costs of BO's windowdressing of policy will be low to nil.  I hope he is right, but I tend to agree with Cheney -- even 90% measures leave us 10% exposed, and in the world that we live in, that is unfortunatly 10% too much!

Blame Others (BO)

Obama Blames Bush

One of the core elements of the left is "Blame Others" -- I guess I just realized how truly appropriate the current WH denizen is for them.

While insisting "we need to focus on the future," President Obama
devoted much of his speech on terrorist detainees today to denouncing
the policies of President Bush's administration. He faulted everyone in
Washington for "pointing fingers at one another," yet pointed his own
finger frequently, and critically, at the Bush administration. Obama
said America's problems won't be solved "unless we solve them
together"--in a divisive and partisan speech certain to alienate
Republicans and conservatives.

If any president has gone to such
lengths to attack his White House predecessor as Obama did today, I
don't recall it. True, presidents have blamed the prior administration
for problems they inherit, but I can't think of a president who did so
as aggressively and with such moral preening as Obama.

In Business Leadership, announcing a specific date to do something when you have no clue as to how to accomplish it is considered "incompetence". Since BO is of course a Democrat, and the MSM loves Democrats, he is brilliant, everything that goes wrong must be someone else's fault, in this case, Bush. 

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are demanding a plan
before they appropriate funds for closing Guantanamo. Obama said he's
still working on that, four months after he announced the prison would
be closed.

Nor did he say how he would overcome the objections of Congress (and
public opinion) to bringing some terrorists to the United States for
trial. And he didn't explain how he would get foreign countries to
accept some 50 Gitmo prisoners after his initial efforts to persuade
them failed.

Obama attacked the Bush administration for having set up the prison at
Guantanamo in the first place to house terrorists seized after 9/11.
But he didn't present an alternative. He didn't say what he would have
done with those prisoners had he been president at the time.

This is what is great about being a Democrat and having the MSM on your side. You can claim to be "above the fray", call previous administration anything you want while REMAINING above the fray, and have nobody in the MSM asking the question -- OK, if Bush/Cheney were wrong, what would YOU have done? Had the detainees over to the WH for tea and had your girls ask them questions? It may be great for BO, the problem for AMERICA is that other than a few marginalized Republicans or Conservative Commentators, the hard questions just don't get asked at all. Suppose Dick Cheney will get a Nobel after someone nukes and American city with a big pat on the back for being right when the BO administration was wrong like Gore did for his Globale Warming efforts? Nah, me either.

Gitmo, Classic Democrat

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Senate: don’t release Gitmo detainees into U.S. « - Blogs from CNN.com

Did you hear any doubts from the Democrats as they declared Military Tribunals and Gitmo to be "deplorable", "hurting the US", a "concentration camp". Democrats, rarely in doubt, but only because they never have a clue.

So Gitmo must be closed. The prisoners can't be released, and they can't be held in the US. But wait, sending prisoners to "other countries" was ALSO a terrible thing.

So do they shoot them?  Being a Democrat means never having to answer the hard questions -- see Nancy Pelosi!!

Joe Reveals Secret Bunker

Biden Reveals Location of Secret VP Bunker - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com


Gotta love that Biden. If you like "open government", just have Joe around. Of course, what he says can never be assumed to have any relationship with reality, but that rarely bothers lefties!

BO's Debt

RealClearPolitics - Obama's Dangerous Debt

During Republican years, the MSM used to come unglued about deficits -- and they LOVED to look at "10 year projected costs" -- for perscription drugs, for the Iraq war, for any tax cut, etc, etc. Suddenly, one has to dig to find such an article. What is up with that?

Let's see. From 2010 to 2019, Obama projects annual deficits totaling $7.1 trillion; that's atop the $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009. By 2019, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to gross domestic product (GDP, or the economy) would reach 70 percent, up from 41 percent in 2008. That would be the highest since 1950 (80 percent). The Congressional Budget Office, using less optimistic economic forecasts, raises these estimates. The 2010-19 deficits would total $9.3 trillion; the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019 would be 82 percent.

Remember what was going on in 1950? We had just come through another long economic winter of Democrat control. Samuelson doesn't even get into BOs rosy economic projections -- I think he will be pretty lucky to not break the old 80% record.

One reason Obama is so popular is that he has promised almost everyone lower taxes and higher spending. Beyond the undeserving who make more than $250,000, 95 percent of "working families" receive a tax cut. Obama would double federal spending for basic research in "key agencies." He wants to build high-speed rail networks that would require continuous subsidy. Obama can do all this and more by borrowing.

Boy the MSM just used to HATE the idea that Reagan would "spend and borrow" -- and then they would turn around and castegate him for not spending enough on the stuff they wanted spending on. As Samuelson points out, "Beyond the undeserving who make more than $250K" -- wanna bet that those "undeserving" will be figuring out good ways to avoid income?? They didn't get to $250K by being chumps!! The fact is that the Democrats have been set on killing the "golden goose" of the "wealthy" that have been paying all the taxes the past few years -- it is a brilliant strategy. Run huge deficits, slow down the economy so you don't have that going for you and THEN try to hammer those with the most options on how hard they want to work, where they want to work and **IF** they will be doing any investment in the US!!

He ends with the obvious. Anyone that doesn't understand that McCain trying to do this would be boiled in oil and run out of town by now is living somewhere not in this universe:

The wonder is that these issues have been so ignored. Imagine hypothetically that a President McCain had submitted a budget plan identical to Obama's. There would almost certainly have been a loud outcry: "McCain's Mortgaging Our Future." Obama should be held to no less exacting a standard.

ISS Atlantis Solar Transit

Thierry Legault - Transit of ISS and Atlantis in front of the Sun

Not much else to say, go look at the pics.

Maureen Wants A Smackdown

Op-Ed Columnist - Cheney, Master of Pain - NYTimes.com

Being 6'4" and on upper side of 1/8th of a ton and at least in history capable of benching well over 300lbs, I always find it interesting when the gals think it is time to "get tough". There is ALWAYS "collateral damage", and there is ALWAYS the decent chance that there is someone tougher in the room. The most important point is to make the current aggressors believe that there are really much better ways to spend the next few minutes than taking a high risk of becoming permanently disabled, incarcerated or dead. Spending some time in football line or just "friendly" locker room fisticuffs tend to make the points at which the relatively larger sorts decide to "get busy" very rare. It keeps more beds free in the hospital and property intact.

Poor Maureen feels really bad that her girl Nancy hemmed and hawed and looked like a ditz on national TV, and Dick Cheney is still alive. My god, the horror of one of the political people you like being the subject of comedian fodder! There is something that has NEVER happened to any Republican politician!! Clearly somebody ought to be hung out to dry, so let's go dig into this at ALL COSTS!! Republicans have NEVER had to hold their fire at any sort of cheap shots at their folks!

So if Nancy has oversight RESPONSIBILITY and she didn't cover it, then what does that mean? Are women exempt from responsibility in general, or is it just Democrat women that Maureen likes? Does Maureen running around and cherry picking some other set of folks that think "torture" (even with a fuzzy caterpillar) is really horrible somehow absolve Queen Nancy from having to take that nasty RESPONSIBILITY when it could make a difference? Now both Nancy and Maureen are in that  comfy Monday AM QB chair. It would be nice if at least Nancy figured out that being able to make the call on Monday AM really doesn't cut it.

A Republican caught in a similar firestorm would of course be forced to resign. Nancy will likely ride this out just fine and it will be "old news" before anyone knows it. OR, is it possible that the Democrats will be so stupid as to descend into a slugfest of political violence trying to FINALLY do the damage to the evil Bush - Cheney team even as their resident Stench-In-Chief BO is forced to realize that the costs of doing things the feminine "let's be nice" way costs soliders lives and in probably way too short a time thousands of civilian lives. He is backpedaling on point after point of Gitmo, Military Tribunals, even putting out more pictures of bad days past for no other reason that yesterday's witch hunts at the cost of today's young american lives. How many other Democrats signed off on what when? Are they ready to listen to Maureen and decide that the collateral damage is worth it?

Maureen wants to "bring it on". Time to bust the joint down. You go girl!

It's What You DON'T Print that Counts!!

Power Line - Killing A Story: How It's Done

The article is a bit long and detailed, but it is one of those cases where the media would like the obvious to stay hidden, so it has to be that way.

The bottom line is that ACORN is essentially just a wing of the Democrat party illegally drawing it's funds from federal funds, and the NY Times is just anther Democrat mouthpiece.

For anyone that pays much of any attention, this is all pretty obvious -- but for those that like to know the sordid detail, it is worth a read.

How Did Hitler Happen?

19 arrested at Notre Dame protest against Obama - CNN.com

The linked article covers protesters being arrested for attempting to protest BO's commencement address at Notre Dame to be held today. The CNN headline is on some sort of "super marathon" being held in Nambia this weekend. This is the headline in a sidebar. If one takes the time to go read it, it one can discover that these potesters are pro-life and that even the Bishop that precides over Notre Dame will not be attending graduation because he disagrees with HONORING an opponent of church teaching at a Catholic school.

Think of the difference we saw when ANYONE was protesting Bush in ANY setting, foreign or domestic! Any tiny number of protesters were a headline, and their message was blared from the headlines. "100's Protest Bush War". "Not in Our Name! Protestors Say" ... etc, etc. But of course, the MSM agreed with the protestors, not the President, in this case the the agreement is reversed, so their is little concern even if the protesters are arrested.

I happen to be reading a book on "Understanding Hitler", and while it is a very academic book, one of the points it makes is that the idea that "It was just Hitler" that caused the Holocaust is certainly not the case. Rabid anti-semitism was well known in Germany, and indeed Henry Ford was a huge anti-Semite, and was much respected by Hitler.

The left loved to call Bush "Hitler". Am I calling BO "Hitler"? There are certainly more parallels to Hitler with BO than there were with Bush; the adoring crowds, the idea of BO as "saviour", "father figure", "diety", the BO "rainbow O" symbol, the press boot licking, etc, etc ... but no, it isn't "Hitler" that is the problem, it is FACISM! When the popular culture and media starts to push "unity" and even in minor ways, criminalize those that disagree, that is the road to Fascism. The left folks will say; "but protesters were arrested protesting against Bush as well"!

Very seldom were there arrests for "protest" (if at all) -- the anti-Bush folks tended to be blocking traffic, destroying property, in areas where people had to go through security to be at given that the President was going to be there (this proest was on Saturday, BO isn't there until today), etc. Whenever the protesters were NOT treated in the very best way possible, the charges were made against the Bush administration and local authorities that they were "suppressing free speech", "afraid to allow the message to get out", etc ... none of those charges are raised here.

So how did Hitler happen? Slowly ... "no crisis was wasted". Key groups were demonized and made to be scapegoats -- Jews, Communists, Gypsies, etc for Hitler; Business, Wall Street, the Rich, the Religious Right, etc for BO. All that was seen as good, or marketed by the Government controlled cabal of Business, Media, and "popular groups" (unions, ACORN, etc) was attributed to Hitler (BO) ... the bad was due to the evil scapegoats.

Can "it" happen here? Absolutely, most minds are so clouded they don't even know "right from left". It was known for thousands of years -- and it was known by our founders. Since the 30's, the Ameican brain is so scrambled that 90%+ of us no longer understand this simple fact.

RIGHT is liberty, freedom from state control -- the "far right" is ANARCHY!!!

LEFT is Tyranny, greater and greater state control -- the "far left" is TOTALITARIANISM!!!

BOTH Communism and Fascism are ON THE LEFT ... as is Socialism. Our nation has been drifting left for 200 years, only the rate of drift (or fall) has varied -- we are FAR from Anarchy. There is essentially no danger on the right unless we would turn our direction and travel that way for a good long while. Our danger on the left, of falling into near total loss of individical freedom is severe and acute, and one could argue that we may already have fallen so far so American can no longer be recovered.

Our Founding Fathers wanted to create a "Center RIGHT Democracy" -- they considered the odds of a drift to Anarchy to be very low, where the odds of Government taking the rights of the individual States, Communities and individuals away was very high.

Our Founding Fathers were so very right!!!

BO Security at Expense of Liberty

RealClearPolitics - Obama Offers Security at the Expense of Liberty

In this world, ALL security is false, so trading our liberty for supposed BO securitity is a grevious mistake.

Our would-be soft despots are offering Americans money and the promise of security against economic distress. The vastly increased cost of government will nonetheless nearly leave half of households free from the burden of paying federal income tax and eligible for occasional rebates. As CNN reporter Susan oesgen said to a tea party protester, "Don't you realize that you're eligible for a $400 tax cut?"

In other words, take the money and shut up. Which brings
to mind Tocqueville's warning: "Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious
and given to work."

The Nancy Crabwalk

Dana Milbank - Pelosi's Fancy Footwork About Waterboarding - washingtonpost.com

See, the MSM reported it! Now they can claim they are unbiased and ignore the story completely and talk about how the idiotic Republicans ought to get over it!

Pelosi, Thy Name is Slug

RealClearPolitics - Why Pelosi's Hypocrisy Matters

So what happened? The reason Pelosi raised no objection to waterboarding at the time, the reason the American people (who by 2004 knew what was going on) strongly re-elected the man who ordered these interrogations, is not because she and the rest of the American people suffered a years-long moral psychosis from which they have just now awoken. It is because at that time they were aware of the existing conditions -- our blindness to al-Qaeda's plans, the urgency of the threat, the magnitude of the suffering that might be caused by a second 9/11, the likelihood that the interrogation would extract intelligence that President Obama's own director of national intelligence now tells us was indeed "high-value information" -- and concluded that on balance it was a reasonable response to a terrible threat. 

And they were right.

You can believe that Pelosi and the whole American public underwent a radical transformation from moral normality to complicity with war criminality back to normality. Or you can believe that their personalities and moral compasses have remained steady throughout the years, but changes in circumstances (threat, knowledge, imminence) alter the moral calculus attached to any interrogation technique.
You don't need a psychiatrist to tell you which of these theories is utterly fantastical.

Does anyone really doubt that the above is true? OF COURSE Queen Nancy signed up for "whatever it takes" to get the information that the nation so sorely needed as we were caught flat footed with our pants down on 9-11. The difference between a worm like Nancy and a real human being with a shred of character and a wisp of spine is that the humans admit that they "did what was necessary" and they sure as hell aren't going to go try to prosecute those that did what they approved!

That we allow slime like Nancy to infest our Capitol is a big shining sign to N Korea, Iran, and every little piece of Al Quaeda camel dung in a cave somewhere to say "come and get us, we handed the keys to the no-ops." Sadly, when the domestic US terror victims start stacking up, Nancy the slug will be the first pointing a slimy antenna at others.

Git mo BO

Obama to resurrect military commissions for terror suspects - CNN.com

Oh gee, BO is going to do military commissions just like Bush!!! ... only of course, his are "Mo betta", cuz they are "BOized", so I'm SURE the media is going to be much happier.

It also seems pretty clear that he has no agreed way to close Gitmo. Guess which US state is interested in having the "New Gitmo"? ... same state that wants the spent nuke fuel ... nada, none, ZIP!!! Now there is something shocking! There are really bad/dangerous people at Gitmo that we can't release, BO has promised that Gitmo is going to be closed, but he has no place to put those people.

Can't they just put a couple pens in the basement of the White House? How about Hollywood?? They were big on the "we hate Gitmo" bandwagon. I'm certain they would be more than willing to maybe have some of the worst offenders as "extended houseguests" ... I bet Alex Baldwin has extra space in his house!

Pay and Performance

Pilots' low pay, long commutes probed in air crash - Yahoo! News

BO and the Fascists are hot on the trail of deciding what level of pay it is that everyone is worth. As near as I can understand their algorithm is that if you are smart enough to contribute to the Democratic party (Unions in general, Finance Industry, lawyers), then you deserve a high salary. Naturally, as with any good Democrat, this higher income will be "tax free" -- if you get in any trouble with the IRS, just contact BO, and he will appoint you to a cabinet position.

The old tired idea of "pay for performance", or "higher pay for higher capability / education / etc" has been replaced by "pay for votes", or as they like to say in Chicago, "pay to play". In a nation where only politics is important, why would people persist in some tired discredited capitalist ideas of income having something to do with some hard to compute concept called "value"?

Consider the difference between the pilots who crashed in Buffalo killing all aboard and "Sully" Sullenberger who dead sticked the Airbus into the Hudson for no loss of life. The horribly greedy Sully is reported to make about $140K a year, and moonlights as a consultant to make up for salary and pension losses down from at one time being able to focus on flying full time and make over $200K. Clearly, he erroneously believes that capability and experience are worthy of higher salaries, and he must think that he has some use for all those "riches". Why, if his wife works, he deserves to be punished with some BO tax increases for the "rich" just to show him how stupid it is to be making such "exorbitant sums"!!

The 49 year old captain on the Buffalo plane earned a way more respectable $55K a year, while his 24 year old co-pilot was earning a fairly spartan $24K and living with her folks because she couldn't afford a place of her own. Heil BO! Those are the kinds of "sustainable salaries" that Americans ought to be dreaming of!! The way I see it, "a pilot is a pilot", so what's the difference? I'm sure all those passengers aboard that Buffalo plane were much happier to have those low cost pilots right up to the point at which they had, shall we say, "higher considerations".

Put Sully behind those controls and they would have never been aware the plane had a pilot -- he would have never let his approach speed get low in the first place, absolutely nothing would have happened. But hey, salary is "immaterial" -- there is no difference in the kinds of people you attract with lower salaries than higher, other than the lower ones are BETTER PEOPLE!! -- many more of them vote Democrat, and that is all that counts!

Relative to wealth, two groups vote high percentage Democrat -- the really rich, because they can afford to, and the really poor (when they get out and vote) ... because they have given up hope. If you aren't really rich, it is a great time to pick up some hope for the next life, because your future in this one is a bit less bright than Colgan Air flight 3407 when the stick-shaker activated.

Deer In Waterboard Headlights?

Pelosi accuses CIA of misleading her on use of waterboarding - CNN.com

Gee Nancy, rule number 1 of holes -- when you are in one, stop digging. So you are going to accuse the CIA, the OBAMA CIA of of lying? Isn't that taking on pretty big quarry?

Well, BO shows no qualms about throwing folks under the bus, and I'm sure there is room under there for Nancy as well. Gee, that would be an awful shame.

BO Cares for Troops?

Obama's latest effort to conceal evidence of Bush era crimes - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

BO has a solid track record of flip flopping every which way, and the new photos are no exception. Will he flip again? Only the pollsters know for sure I imagine. There is a relatively interesting aspect to this though.

While it is hard to understand what BO might actually believe (if anything), there is an outside chance here that he realizes that these photos can do nothing positive for the US efforts in the former WoT, now "Overseas Contingency Action". It seems that he MUST realize that at some level, because were he not to, there is very little reason for this flip -- he had previously declared that he would "release it all".

While I fully expect that the MSM and his lefty buddies will convince him that the opportunity to throw some more dirt on the horrible Bush-Cheney administration is WAY worth how many American lives it costs (hell, most of the soldiers vote Republican anyway!), the fact that he apparently had at least a short term neural firing that led to the thought "Gee, OTHER than making my lefty buddies happy, what possible good could releasing a new bunch of shocking photos that the perps have been prosecuted for do?".

One would like to think that even a failed community organizer, were he to have a few more of those thoughts, and eventually develop some sort of character beyond "poll says" MIGHT have some minimal prospect for leadership.

As I often say, I'm the eternal optimist ... most likely this tiny spark of sense will be as short lived as the idea that there was no need to go back and prosecute people over the enhanced interrogation method memos.

Enterprise Destroyed By Death Star

Very disappointing explosion -- I'd think the antimatter annihilation would result in at least 1/4 the planet being destroyed. Also ... aside from the somewhat odd parking place for a starship, one would have thought there would have been at least a momentary "shield bubble" before they were overwhelmed.

So would there actually be any negotiation between BO and Darth? or would they pretty much be "on the same team"?

BO Stinkin So Bad CBS Notices

Chrysler Bankruptcy Exposes Dirty Politics - CBS News

WOW, Dan Rather would have a cat. The loyal lefty memo forgers are willing to point out that BO is illegally paying off folks that supported his campaign. I'm not talking about "illegal" because this simple "pay for play" as politicians tend to do constantly, but because the Sr Creditors had a CONTRACT -- and they were NOT "speculators" any more than any other investor, and far less than most. In fact ANY stock holder is FAR more a "speculator" (as if that was a bad thing) than ANY bondholder.

Read the whole article, here are a few quotes. The very idea that someone at CBS would know about the Federalist Papers and ideas like "contracts" and "rule of law" is enough to make one wonder if reform of even the dregs isn't possible once a vermin like Gunga Dan has vacated!

Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, sent reporters a statement calling the creditors "vultures" and "rouge hedge funds." Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm piled on, taking aim during her radio address at a "few greedy hedge funds that didn't care how much pain the company's failure would have inflicted on families and communities everywhere."

It must be a coincidence that the United Auto Workers has handed $25.4 million to federal politicians over the last two decades, with 99 percent of that cash going to Democrats. And that Mr. Obama's final campaign stop on Election Day was a UAW phone bank.

"I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday," Lauria said on a Detroit radio show. "One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence." Lauria said that his clients were willing to compromise on 50 cents on the dollar, but the government offered them only 29 cents.

In the Federalist Papers in 1788, James Madison wrote that "laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation." Unfortunately, Washington politicians seem to pay little attention to history, morality, or the rule of law.

Forget Reagan?

Should the GOP Forget Reagan? - WSJ.com

The answer to that historic question is an apt subject this week as the GOP, looking for a path from the wilderness, says farewell at National Cathedral tomorrow to Jack Kemp, who remained a Reaganite to the end.

Jack Kemp, anyone who spent time around him will tell you, stayed on message. That message, like Reagan's, had a number of parts, but it is not possible to even guess how many times Jack Kemp summarized his explanations of that message in three words: "Work, save and invest." Republicans should think hard about building a governing philosophy on the foundation of those three words, ideas that most voters understand.

I have a picture of Reagan up in my office at work. I viewed my trip to Reagan Library as something like "going to Mecca". I love Reagan. I say that people that still believe in America -- be they Republican, Libertarian, apolitical, or "confused" need to "forget Reagan". Why? Primarily because it was never about "Reagan" -- it was about basic principles. "Work, save and invest" are good. Believe in something that transcends yourself and even America (hopefully God), and always believe in the exceptionalism of America and the majesty of her founding Constitution, are also important. Being responsible, prudent, reasonable, focused on truth, focused on reality and in the ultimate sense optimistic even though these days are dark and look to be going to get a lot darker.

Reagan NEVER said "trust in me", or "trust in government" -- he said "trust in America -- that shining city on the hill". "Trust in God". "Trust in the PEOPLE of America". The very same "We The People" of the Preamble to the Constitution.

"We The People" have horribly lost our way, and the idea that we would make the memory of Ronald Reagan into some totem or litmus test for leaders of the future is just one more sign of how lost we really are.

The American Nightmare

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/greider

I suggest holding one's nose, having a very stiff drink handy and being ready to get up and go for a walk a couple times during reading this -- if you have a brain. If you don't, then you are going to LOVE IT!!

Here is Greider's view of "the new American Dream".

Here is the grand vision I suggest Americans can pursue: the right of all citizens to larger lives. Not to get richer than the next guy or necessarily to accumulate more and more stuff but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively the elemental possibilities of human existence. That is the essence of what so many now seem to yearn for in their lives. People--even successful and affluent people--are frustrated because the intangible dimensions of life have been held back or displaced in large and small ways, pushed aside by the economic system's relentless demands to maximize yields of profit and wealth. Our common moral verities have been trashed in the name of greater returns. The softer aspects of mortal experience are diminished because life itself is not tabulated in the economic system's accounting.

Let me try to parse that "big idea". There is some "right to live large lives"-- but competition and money aren't part of that. Can somebody explain to me why people today don't have a right to live whatever life they want that doesn't include "money and things"?

Current people's "common moral verities have been trashed" -- by I guess, someone looking for greater returns. Apparently, Greider and the people he normally talks to are "victims" -- this horrible current overzealous and overly productive wealth system just "pushes them around". Somehow the fact that others have "money and things" somehow "prevents" them from living the life they would like without the dreaded "money and things"? Is there potentially just a bit of plain old envy here trying to make sure that once the folks that Greider thinks have "too much" have been swatted down to size, then "somehow" the world will just be "better".

What's needed in American life is a redefinition of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Given the nation's great wealth, the ancient threats of scarcity and deprivation have been eliminated. Yet people remain yoked to economic demands despite wanting something more from life--freedom to explore the mysteries and bring forth all that is within them. Collectively, Americans need to take a deep breath and reconsider what it means to be rich.

So according to Greider, we are rich enough and there are no threats of scarcity or deprivation -- "plenty has been achieved", and apparently, it would be impossible to kill the goose that layed this golden egg. My thought on that is; Great, so now you can go forth and live the minimalist life you desire -- live long and avoid prospering. Nobody is stopping you. Oh, wait, that doesn't seem to be it:

Guaranteed public jobs paying more than the minimum wage would permanently and automatically stabilize the economy, swelling the ranks of public workers in recessions and shrinking them when private jobs become more abundant. Instead of punishing the working poor most severely in downturns, as the system does now, the government would redistribute the costs of recession so that all taxpayers would share the burden as a public obligation.

Ah, we need a "gaurenteed public job at more than minium wage" -- uh, so that will sort of make "minimum wage" meaningless won't it? Seems that I may as well take that guarenteed public job that I can't be fired from and just show up and drink coffee with the other guaranteed job public workers until I get my check. It will be fun to chat about the private fools working their butts off to pay the taxes so that I can be as indolent as my heart desires. Oh, wait, how likely is it that "all taxpayers will share the burden as a public obligation"? Think they might not like me sitting there doing zip getting "more than minium wage" while all their dining and retail establishments raise prices and close down because of the high cost of labor?

The article drones on ... "Social Corporations" ... where that nasty idea of "profit" is far down the list of priorities. Ah yes, how much better life could be if we didn't need to produce something that someone else was pay more than it cost to make if for!! It is true that wiping out competition might help there -- if there is no competition, products can be pretty bad and still purchased, but even then, there is a limit.

One might imagine that thinking like this in a major US magazine, and a guy in the White House that would nearly certainly agree with much of it would be a fantasy ... but alas, it is an actual "waking nightmare".

Investing with BO

RealClearPolitics - Sunbeams from Cucumbers

Good article, this paragraph sums a lot of the current situation up for me.

It is Demagoguery 101 to identify an unpopular minority to blame for problems. The president has chosen to blame "speculators" -- aka investors; anyone who buys a share of a company's stock is speculating about the company's future -- for Chrysler's bankruptcy and the dubious legality of his proposal. Yet he simultaneously says he hopes that private investors will begin supplanting government as a source of capital for the companies. Breathes there an investor/speculator with such a stunted sense of risk that he or she would go into business with this capricious government?

The Fascist Descent Continues

www.washingtonexaminer.com >> Politics >> - White House puts UAW ahead of property rights

Think carefully about what’s happening here. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored. In the process, it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House’s power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.

Support BO or be destroyed !!!

But my sadness turned to anger later when I heard what bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria said on a WJR talk show that morning. “One of my clients,” Lauria told host Frank Beckmann, “was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.”

If you don't like the stench of BO, learn to hold your nose harder!!

Nice Coverage of Liberty and Tyranny

Mike Adams : Liberty and Tyranny - Townhall.com

I've already reviewed the book, but Adams does an excellent job. I like this:

There is little question that a guaranteed outcome undercuts man’s ability to overcome his weaknesses. The statist fails to realize that by confiscating a man’s property – in service to equality of outcome – he confiscates his incentive to improve his own life by building his own home, growing his own food, and making his own clothes. When the statist confiscates property he also confiscates a man’s ability to improve his life.

Coochgate

RealClearPolitics - Democrats Wallow in a 'Culture of Corruption'

Nice list of Democrat scandals that are getting little to no reporting, followed by this gem:

But you know what? We ain't seen nothing yet. For starters, the real corruption isn't what the media are ignoring or downplaying as isolated incidents. It's what the media are hailing as bold, inspirational leadership. The White House, as a matter of policy, is rewriting legal contracts, picking winners (mostly labor unions and mortgage defaulters) and singling out losers (evil "speculators") while much of the media continue to ponder whether Obama is better than FDR.

If a Republican administration, staffed with cronies from Goldman Sachs and Citibank, was cutting special deals for its political allies, I suspect we'd be hearing fewer FDR analogies and more nouns ending with the suffix "gate."

Pretty hard to argue with. Mostly, BO is simply paying off his constituencies with borrowed money + whatever he can chisel out of the folks that earn money. Were he a Republican, it would be a scandal, since he is a Democrat, it is a "New New Deal".

Bad Week For Business

Specter, Bank of America, Chrysler: A Bad Week for Business - BusinessWeek

I wonder who knows more about the prospects for the US? Dana Milbank, declaring the official deification of BO, or Jack and Suzy Welch over at BusinessWeek.

Let's see, Jack was head of GE during some of it's most successful years ... Dana Milbank? Uh ...

Jack doesn't seem to think that the unions that were a huge factor (maybe the decisive one?) in running the auto companies into the ground, deserve to be handed 51% of them on a silver platter, ahead of bond holders who have the actual legal right to more of the company.

However, Dana has BO, Community Organizer on his side, and BO is no mere mortal. Hopefully failed Community Organizers are more brilliant on how to operate business and create a thriving economy than the former CEO of GE.

Onion Still A Good News Source

Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am In White House Driveway | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Actually, I'm certain that Joe would never work this hard, but it is cute anyway.

Press Chooses It's Stand

Our press is without bias!

Most Open Administration Ever?

PHOTOS OF AIR FORCE ONE BACKUP PLANE FLYING OVER NYC NOT TO BE SEEN BY PUBLIC - New York Post

Gee, the photos of BOs plane over Manhattan that cost us over $300 grand aren't going to be shown? Imagine that! Of course, the evil NY Post is the only place even mentioning that they would exist -- the rest of the media is completely silent that the fly-by even happened.

BO Looks Divine

Dana Milbank - Washington Sketch: Obama's World Looks More and More Divine - washingtonpost.com


Here is a nice "hard hitting piece of journalism".

You would think there would be limits to just how excited one would be about a nation abandoning all that has made it great and turning whole heartedly to a path that has failed many times (witness England prior to Thatcher for example), Japan (in recession/depression for 17 years now and Europe in general where every one of the countries was in worse shape than us prior to the crisis, had worse effects from the crisis, and has worse prospects for ever coming out of it than us.

Again, "rationality" just isn't strong in the lefty lexicon.

Let's Hope BO Never Learns

RealClearPolitics - Obama Gets It Wrong on Churchill & Torture

Not a badly written article -- covers the same issue on BO being wrong on Britan torturing in WWII. Brings in the point that things like firebombing Dresden, nuking Hiroshama and Nagasaki, allowing Coventry to be bombed to protect the knowledge of the codebreaking, interning Japanese in the US and no doubt thousands of other things in WWII (or any war) are "shortcuts".

War is about inflicting more pain on your enemy than on your own soldiers and civilians -- that is how one is most likely to win the war. It isn't a pretty thing, that is why we call it War. There was a brief time in Europe when war was at least visualized to have "honor" -- the British wore red coats and marched in columns while the "terrorists" of the day, the US forces hid in the woods and picked them off. The British found that to be "dishonorable" -- we called it "winning".

I think his last paragraph hits the nail on the head. In "ugly things", we are OFTEN working very hard to find a "shortcut" -- maybe some old surgeon would say that orthoscopic surgery is a "shortcut" for example. Maybe another 3, 5, 10 or even 100K Americans could have died not finding out one or more plot that was discovered by "putting the screws to" the guys that had information that helped the Bush administration stop the attacks. Were those American's lives worth less than what BO sees as "the character cost" of having a known al Quaeda opertive exposed to the same techniqe we use on our own troops to simulate torture?

Maybe BO doesn't understand "simulated vs real". Why did he need a "real" picture of Air Force One flying at low level around NYC? It was fake anyway -- it isn't AF-1 unless the President is on it. It is the person of the President on the plane that gives it that designation, not the paint job. A photoshop using the plane taken when he was on it (or any other President -- it is the OFFICE that has the majesty, not the person or the props!) with the Statue of Liberty in the background would be identically as "genuine" -- at least the plane would be real!

It might seem otherwise, but I'm not making the case for what some people see as torture. I'm simply noting that war is always about shortcuts - all are horrible; some are necessary. If Obama doesn't understand that, let's hope he never has to learn it.

Beneath Contempt

RealClearPolitics - Pelosi: Utterly Contemptible

Charles is pretty easy on Pelosi, this is beneath contempt. It is another lesson in how the Statist mind works:

In 2007, she admitted that she was briefed BEFORE the methods were used:

In December 2007, after a Washington Post report that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she'd been "briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future."

Now she is "repeatably clear" that they were NOT told AFTER ... this is precisely like Slick Willie with "there is currently no ..." -- "that depends on what the meaning of is ... is":

"we were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used."

Here is what Porter Goss says about the briefings:

Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, "on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda."

So what are we to make of this? She was in the briefings where she was briefed on what they CIA was PLANNING to do, and did not object, and in fact at a minimum went along with folks asking if the CIA needed MORE support to carry this out!

So, when would one expect someone opposed to these methods a supervisory role to object? BEFORE they are carried out? or AFTER they are carried out?? If they objected AFTER, what kind of oversight is that? "Go ahead and get this information with my blessing, and even offer of added support, but after you get the information, let me denigrate the methods I approved and seek to impugn and even prosecute you for using them??"

How does that mange to rise to the standard of "contemptable"? This is beneath contept -- this is a lying weasel of the worst sort.