August 30, 2005

What Muslims Can Learn from Japanese-Americans of WWII

Today is the 60th anniversary of the formal fall of the Japanese Empire to the Allies. The event reminds me of a novel I read as a child.

The novel was about a Japanese-American living in a rural area outside the 'exclusion zone'--the only Japanese kid in town. After the start of the war, the other kids began to spy on him out of suspicion that maybe he was an agent of the enemy. But how did the Japanese family react to the hostility of their fellow Americans? By putting up more American flags than any one else.

The father, born in Japan but raised in America, was too old for the draft. His business collapsed as the townspeople stopped buying his products. What was his reaction? He volunteered and was eventually killed in the European theater.

That story has stuck with me through the years. I know it was just a story, but it is one based in the realities of America during WWII. Americans did mistreat Japanese-Americans, and the response of Japanese-Americans was to prove their loyalty to the nation by volunteering to fight for it.

A few facts come to mind:

In January of 1942 Japanese Americans serving in the military were segregated out of their units. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066 which led to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans. How did Japanese-Americans react? Four days later the all-Nisei Varsity Victory Volunteers (Triple V) is formed in Hawaii as part of the 34th Combat Engineers Regiment. The unit would later be disbanded so that its members could become part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

By June of 1942--at a time when the U.S. was forcibly removing Japanese-Americans from the West Coast--1432 members of the Hawai'i Provisional Infantry Battalion are moved from Honolulu to San Francisco and activated as the segregated 100th Infantry Battalion.

3,600 Japanese-Americans volunteered for service in the U.S. military from their internment camp prisons. 22,000 others volunteered from areas outside the exclusion zone. Between the two units there were 18,000 individual decorations, including one wartime Medal of Honor, 53 Distinguished Service Crosses, 9,486 Purple Hearts and seven Presidential Unit Citations. 21 of these Distinguished Service Crosses were upgraded to Medals of Honor in 2000 and 11 more Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded posthumously.

Were Japanese-Americans mistreated in WWII? Yes. And while some in the Japanese community reacted to this mistreatment by renouncing their U.S. citizenship, the vast majority of Americans of Japanese decent set out on a course to prove that they were loyal. The bravery of the more than 25,000 young men on the field of battle dispelled the nation's misgivings.

Two days ago we brought you a story of Lodi Muslims' reaction to the deportation of several from their community that had expressed sympathies to al Qaeda in the past. Rather than rallying to remove this anti-American element from their midsts, their reaction was to blame a government mole. Today, Jay Tea at Wizbang noted that:

The greatest enemies the United States faces right now are Muslim extremists. This puts American Muslims (of the non-extremist bent) in a conflict -- whose side will have their sympathies? Their fellow countrymen, or those who are dishonoring and besmirching their faith?

And every time another American Muslim chooses the latter, the more they lose that presumption of patriotism. And that is not any kind of penalty or discrimination, but a simple consequence of their choice.

Indeed. American Muslims could learn a lot from Japanese-Americans. If there is any mistreatment of that community it pails in comparison to what was done to the Japanese.

But at every turn alleged misjustices are not met with renewed commitment to our country and its values by leaders in the Islamic community, rather it is met with scorn, contempt, and fingerpointing. Muslim leaders condemn U.S. military actions as part of a greater war against Islam. Instead of uniquivocally condemning acts of terrorism, they condemn all sides that use violence. Instead of criticizing our enemies in Iraq, they criticizes our own troops. They vocalized their worries about how prisoners are treated in Guantanamo Bay more than about how those prisoners plot to kill their fellow-citizens.

And while the U.S. military scrambles to find competent Arabic and Pashtun translators and are forced to hire locals with unknown loyalties, Muslim-Americans with these language skills do little to alleviate our nation's need by volunteering in great numbers.

I do not wish to succomb to prejudice and make the presumption that Muslim-Americans are not loyal to this country. As of this writing, I presume that there is a silent majority of Muslims in this country who are uniquivocally pro-American. But if they are out there, their silence is doing nothing to alleviate these fears. The occasional small protest against terrorism in general does nothing to signal that Muslim Americans are particularly worried about terrorism against our country any more than they are worried about terrorism against another coutnry. Groups such as Muslims Against Terrorism, from what I have seen, have little support.

At some point an irrational prejudice turns into a rational one. When meeting a Southerner, for instance, during the Civil War it would have been perfectly rational to make the presumption that they were rooting for the South to win. In fact, it would be an irrational prejudice to assume anything other than that. Assuming loyalty is a form of prejudice in itself.

If Muslim-Americans wish to receive the benefit of the doubt than they must begin to do much more than they are doing today. They may argue, rightfully, that requiring them to do more than what is expected of other Americans adds a higher duty of citizenship to them and is a form or unequal treatment.

They are right. It is a form of unequal treatment. But so what? Muslims are in a unique position to be our first line of defense against terrorism. They are the vanguard of our defense. Terrorists do not congregate in the Polish communities of Chicago, do not use Orthodox churches as places to meet up with other extremists, and do not call upon the help of a relative or mutual friend from Mongolia. Muslim-Americans have been given the gift of being able to aid our country in ways that others cannot. They can translate for us. They can infiltrate our enemies more easily than the rest of us. They can watch in ways nearly impossible for the rest of us.

With greater gifts come greater responsibilities.

The time is now to step up to the plate of citizenship and root out terrorist supporters among the various Muslim communities in the U.S. Those that turn in potential terrorists should be celebrated as patriots and heroes. Muslim youth with language skills ought to be encouraged by community leaders to join the FBI, CIA, and U.S. military. If they aren't, then Muslim-Americans reveal where their loyalties are. And the next time an act of terrorism takes place on our soil, the collective eye of the nation will be turned on our own citizens for failing to act when given the opportunity to do so. Then, what was once an irrational act of prejudice becomes a rational act of prejudice.

Posted by: Rusty at 10:25 AM | Comments (55) | Add Comment
Post contains 1223 words, total size 8 kb.

Deepak Chopra, idiot

Fisking Deepak Chopra is in bad form. It's kinda like beating up a retarded kid. Nevertheless, where street rules apply, kicking when they're down is fine.

And reading Chopra so boring. If buying into the Leftist lie that, as Chopra puts it, the U.S. has entered into or caused almost every international conflict since the Spanish Civil War in 1898 weren't enough, you have to sit through mindless New Age drivel like this:

They look inside to see if the seeds of conflict begin with themselves.
The only thing worse than the shallow quasi-hindu pop-theology of Deepak Chopra--- and I say this as someone with a lot of respect for Hindu philosophy which his drivel is offensive to--- are the idiots who actually think he is a great thinker.

These are the same people who feel moved by bumper stickers and take a moment to reflect on the deep thoughts communicated through a Hallmark card.

That people like Deepak Chopra are actually taken seriously is a sign of the continued Oprahization of America and the vast gynocratic conspiracy.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:20 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 182 words, total size 1 kb.

August 29, 2005

Overheard at Camp Casey: "Cindy Sheehan, You are Getting Us Killed!" (Pics from Rally)

A reader named Melissa Rutledge participated in last weekends Move America Forward rally at The Shrine of the Perpetual Lady of Mourning, otherwise known as Camp Casey. Here are some of her observations, you can leave comments for her below. Pics from the rally are below:

--------------------------

We decided to drive from Austin to Crawford to participate in the Move America Forward tour. It was about a 2 hour drive.

We arrived at about 1:00pm just as the rally was beginning. The MAF tour started with a Christian prayer, which in these days of political correctness was more than just a little refreshing!

A number of speakers including several state senators and reps spoke to the crowd. Darryl Ancarlo was a crowd-pleaser and was rather potent in his comments. Ted Nugent's wife was there and spoke briefly about raising money for an awning at Brooks Army Medical Center for the wounded and recovering to be outdoors and sit under (particularly for the burned soldiers who cannot be in direct sunlight), to enable them to go outside.

One speaker was a father of a soldier in sniper training in Iraq. He said he spoke to his son on the phone, who told him that Sheehan's comments were actually goading on the insurgents and told his father to send this message: "Cindy Sheehan, Shut up! You are getting us killed!"

The crowd went wild!

About halfway through, a group of Sheehan supporters snuck in and hoisted some large signs in the middle of the crowd. A few minutes of palpable tension rose as the crowd -en-masse- roughed them up a little and literally ran them out of the rally, took their signs which were torn up them up then tossed them on the ground like the trash they were. The Sheehan people were mobbed by the press- which is all they really wanted. We listened to them talk and they bragged about going around the country and doing this at other rallies.

Most of the men involved with the group were from Minnesota! Long drive!
Welcome to Texas boys - now get out!

Obviously they are "professional" protesters.

The rally broke up as some of the Gold Star family members demanded that their children's names be removed from Sheehan's crosses from her demonstration! The McClennan County Sheriff's Department escorted the families to retrieve them.

There were probably between 2000 and 3000 pro- Bush supporters who descended on this little one-stoplight town.

The county sheriff's department was on hand as well as most of the local police from several surrounding towns. The Crawford town square was packed with pro- Bush / troop supporters. Lots of memorials and memorabilia stands.

We then drove out of the town to where the Cindy Sheehan camp is set up near the Bush ranch. Based on the media coverage, we believed that this would be a huge camp but when we got there, we saw only between 60 and 75 pro-Sheehan people camped.

It was a filthy crowd of sour-faced, long-haired, bitter-looking people. There was a sense of darkness over this crowd that is hard to describe. Their camp is just set up on a typical back-country Texas rural road. They have their tents set up along a fence line next to a corn field. It literally looked like an old hippy camp!

The most amazing thing about the Sheehan crowd, there was not a single American flag on display.

The pro-Bush people were on the North side of the street the Sheehan zoo on the South. Hmmm. North and South again!

Our side was rowdy and alive with signs, flags and loud pro-American yelling and taunting. Lot's of Texans on our side!

I made the mistake when we first arrived of trying to walk across the road to get some pictures of their group. When I tried to return to our side a sheriff's deputy told me that anyone who stepped into the road or crossed from one camp to the other was subject to immediate arrest!

If I had done anything other than very quickly apologize, feign ignorance and grovel a bit I would have been introduced to the Crawford jail!

All in all, it was an interesting experience. We thought Al Sharpton was going to be there Saturday, but his schedule was changed - Darn!
----
Captain Ed also has a reader's account here. And the message is “All things bad are America’s fault”. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 07:04 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 1072 words, total size 11 kb.

Cindy Sheehan Video

Ian at the Political Teen has a great Cindy Sheehan video. Is it just me, or do you also find it hard to believe that this chick is really fed up with bush? more...

Posted by: Rusty at 01:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

On Censorship and War

Mister Snitch:

Lincoln did censor the press during the Civil War. His administration took control of telegraph lines, temporarily shut down disloyal newspapers and denied them access to the mails (the primary means of communication in a world before phones, radio, TV, etc.), and arbitrarily arrested editors.

Most US wars have been waged under censorship restrictions. World War I saw some press controls reminiscent of those enforced during the Civil War. Congress passed the Sedition Act and the Espionage Act, giving the Postmaster General the authority to censor the mails. President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information and the National Censorship Board. His Secretary of War took control of telegraph and phone lines leading out of the US. Some editors were arrested.

During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Censorship and the Office of War Information. The Army and Navy likewise imposed censorship restrictions.

Do I even have to say READ THE REST?

I believe I've been saying something like this for, er, how long now?

Censorship in a State of War
How we Lost the War in Iraq

Hat tip to, well, er, just about every body I know!

Posted by: Rusty at 01:33 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 201 words, total size 2 kb.

CAIR + ACLU = Dhimmitude for America

Follow the link. Read the post. Be afraid.

Posted by: Rusty at 11:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

August 26, 2005

The Rosary of the Left: Hail Cindy Sheehan, full of grace....

The Rosary of the the far left:

1) Make the Sign of the Ankh and say the "Leftist Creed."

I believe in Gaia, the Mother, who is the Spirit of earth; and in Casey, Her only Son, our fallen Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Lesbian Union of Gaia and Cindy, suffered under George W. Bush, was shot, died, and was buried. Mother Sheehan descended into Crawford, Texas; the third day she went back to California, only to reappear in Crawford. She will ascend into heaven after following around and pestering the Great Satan, and sit at the right hand of The Great Universal Spirit or Spirits (choose gender and number), the Almighty; from thence She shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in Noam Chomsky, the Holy Univerity Curriculum, the communion of all anti-establishment forces, the forgiveness of every one, especially those who don't change their ways, and the inevetable coming of the Communist Utopia. Amen.
2) Say the "Our Mother."
Our mother, who dwells in everything; hallowed be Thy name; Thy Socialist kingdom come; Thy will be done, or we will force it upon every one. Give us this day our daily organic bread; and no need to forgive us our tresspass since no one can own Mother Earth, and lead us not into corporate temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.
3) Say three "Hail Cindys."
Hail Cindy, full of grace, Gaia is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Casey. Holy Cindy, The Incarnation of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death at the hands of greedy multinational corporations and Zionist neocons. Amen.
4) Say the "Glory be to the Trinity."
Glory be to the Mother Earth, and to the Mother Earth Incarnate Cindy, and to the Holy Communion of all pre-Christian deities and New Age Universal Spirits. As it was in the beginning before mankind destroyed the Earth, and ever shall be after the overthrow of Bushhitler, world without end. Amen.
5) Announce the first mystery (The Annunciation of Cindy by the Channeled Spirit of Zorfor, a Third Century BCE Zorastrian Mystic) then repeat "Our Mother."

6) Say ten "Hail Cindys," while meditating on the Mystery of the Annunciation.

7) Say the "Glory be to the Trinity."

Announce the Second Mystery (The Visitation of Cindy Sheehan to the Students Against the War Rally at San Francisco State University); then say the "Our Mother." Repeat 6 and 7 and continue with Third (The Naivite), Fourth (The Presentation of the Uturus to Mother Earth) and Fifth (The Finding of Cindy at a Lecture by Edward Said) Mysteries in the same manner.

After the Rosary:

HAIL, HOLY QUEEN, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of losing every election; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb. O clement, O loving, O sweet Mother Cindy!

Drum Circle Leader: Pray for us, O Holy Mother of Our Hopes.

Hippies Respond: That we may be made worthy of the promises of Marx.

Let us pray. O Gaia, whose only begotten Daughter, by Her life, Her son's death, and the resurrection of our hopes that this war will turn into another Vietnam, has purchased for us the rewards of political victory, grant, we beseech Thee, that meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Cindy Sheehan, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Cindy Sheehan. Amen.
After each decade say the following prayer requested by the Blessed and Holy Ward Churchill: "O my Cindy, forgive the sins of the PNAC Zionist pigs and Imperialist aggressors who forced the brave freedom fighters of al Qaeda to kill the deserving collaboraters, save us from the fires of Guantanamo Bay, lead all souls to protest McChimpy's war, especially those who have most need of a bath, a job, and a steady dose of lithium. Amen."

Posted by: Rusty at 11:49 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
Post contains 722 words, total size 5 kb.

Media Still Giving Sheehan Undeserved Coverage

A screenshot (click to enlarge) from Google News. 1,792 stories about Cindy Sheehan vigil. No front page links to stories about Sheehan's antisemetism, anti-americanism, or conspiracy theories.

Posted by: Rusty at 10:10 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

August 25, 2005

And now GeeoorgeÂ….Stephanopoulos !!!!!!!

Sorry Sam I always wanted to do that. I see that when the former Clinton Administration advisor turned journalist George Stephanopoulos suggested that Saddam be Assassinated no one even raised an eyebrow.

"Assassination may be Clinton's best option," the future "This Week" host urged. "If we can kill Saddam, we should."... ..."If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it."

Well now that kind of puts the Robertson thing in perspective.

See here.

And here.


Posted by: Howie at 09:29 PM | Comments (29) | Add Comment
Post contains 100 words, total size 1 kb.

Cindy Sheehan: "My sons killers were freedom fighters."

Holy schneike, I wish I was making this stuff up. Cindy Sheehan, speaking of the men who killed her son in Iraq:

"Freedom Fighters from other countries are going in."
Don't believe me? Watch the video here.

Because nothing says I'm just grieving for my son's death more than calling the men who killed him freedom fighters.

Hat tip: Patterico

Posted by: Rusty at 03:21 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
Post contains 74 words, total size 1 kb.

War Protestors Target Wounded Soldiers

This is how the Left "supports the troops". From Cybercast News Service:

Washington (CNSNews.com) - The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton."

The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.

Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.

Code Pink Women for Peace, one of the groups backing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas, organizes the protests at Walter Reed as well.

Of course, these shameful exhibitions are ignored by the mainstream media, which is reluctant to show the true face of the Left: dishonest, traitorous, and anxious to spit on our servicepeople. The Dread Pundit Bluto sees little difference between these contemptible jackasses and the notorious Michael Crook.

Thanks to friend and TDPB reader Jan Z, aka, "The Dutchman".

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto.

UPDATE: Chris Short also posted on this yesterday here at The Jawa Report. Yes, we're that far ahead of the curve. Chris also provides us a link to the video here.

Posted by: Bluto at 01:29 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 262 words, total size 2 kb.

August 23, 2005

Transcript of Cindy Sheehan's anti-American moonbattery: bin Laden not behind 9/11, US Using Nuke Weapons in Iraq

Here are the transcropts of Cindy Sheehan's speech at a pro-Lynne Stewart rally at San Francisco State University earlier this year. Lynne Stewart, it should be remembered, was convicted of aiding her terrorist client Omar Abdel-Rahman pass communications out of his prison cell. You've probably seen some of these quotes before, but like me, may not have read the entire speech. Included in her speech is Sheehan's notion that perhaps al Qaeda was not behind 9/11--by inference 9/11 was caused by Israel--and she repeats the Leftist lie propogated by Giuliana Sgrena and the Arab media that the U.S. is using nuclear weapons in Iraq.

The last two comments by Sheehan put her in the extreme outer reaches of sanity. Not only are they totally outrageous, they are also seditious. If a neocon conspiracy was really behind 9/11 and if the U.S. was really dropping nuclear weapons on Iraqi civilians then Sheehan would be right and it would not only be immoral to support the war but it would be immoral not to actively fight U.S. troops.

Shawn from Bareknucklepolitics sent me this a few days ago but I didn't have time to post on it. When Rob from Say Anything posted on it yesterday, I figured I had better share it with you. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 09:06 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
Post contains 1457 words, total size 10 kb.

Quote of the Year

Update: Ernie has the video!

Brutally Honest has provided us with the greatest movie quote ever. It's from a 1940 film called "The Ghost Breakers."

Geoff: "When a person dies and is buried, it seems there's certain voodoo priests who have the power to bring him back to life. "
Mary: "How horrible. "
Geoff: "It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes, walking around with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring. "
Larry: "You mean like democrats?"

Click on over to his place for the sound clip.

Posted by: Drew at 08:52 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 110 words, total size 1 kb.

August 22, 2005

Does Starbucks Hate American Soldiers? (UPDATED)

Often we hear from those on the Left that I disagree with the Iraq War but I do support our soldiers 110%. Here is an e-mail forwarded to me claiming Starbucks refuses to send coffee to our troops.

UPDATE: Thankfully, This turns out to be an urban myth. So if you get the e-mail posted below, do not pass it on. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 01:59 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 279 words, total size 2 kb.

The "Art" of Bombmaking

An artist in Brooklyn has decided to create a rather explosive piece for a display at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council right before September 11. And what is this "art" that he is creating? A suitcase bomb. That's right, he is creating a fully functional suitcase bomb complete with remote detonation cell phone trigger.

Of course, it could be truly inert: Mr. Hackett’s bomb could be a conceptual hoax. On display, the suitcase, he said, will be open to afford a view of its workings; whether it is truly operational, as he claims, is something only he will know. It will probably not, as the artist joked, have “a big red ‘Do Not Push!’ button.”

And that, as far as I'm concerned, is the only thing that will keep him from getting arrested immediately. As it is, I still think the police should test it and if it's live, he should be locked up.

Posted by: Drew at 10:17 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 162 words, total size 1 kb.

At least he's a persistant idiot

Paul Krugman has completely outdone himself. Last week, the moron wrote a story (it must be a story, there's no truth in it), claiming that Gore won the 2000 election. Several conservative bloggers took him to task for this ignorant statement which has been proven wrong again and again. Today, he attempts to justify his lies by repeating them.

The 2000 election is still an open sore on the body politic. That was clear from the outraged reaction to my mention last week of what would have happened with a full statewide manual recount of Florida.

This reaction seems to confuse three questions. One is what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened; the answer is that unless the judge overseeing the recount had revised his order (which is a possibility), George W. Bush would still have been declared the winner.

Which is what happened regardless of what you wanted to happen.
The second is what would have happened if there had been a full, statewide manual recount - as there should have been. The probable answer is that Al Gore would have won, by a tiny margin. (emphasis mine)
I won't call this an outright lie because he did say "probable." But that is the only reason it's not an outright lie and certainly not what he was claiming last week. more...

Posted by: Drew at 08:27 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 986 words, total size 6 kb.

August 19, 2005

Clarance Thomas Redux

At least that's what the lefties are trying to make out of the John Roberts confirmation hearings. Once again, they are attempting to put him on trial for his beliefs. The only difference is that with Thomas they tried attacking him with things that are actually illegal. This time, they're so hard up to find anything that they can use on him that they're simply attacking the fact that he might not agree with them.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Not content to stay on the political sidelines shouting their opposition to John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court, the National Organization of Women (NOW), a leading abortion advocacy group, wants to testify during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings slated for September 6. The organization, which testified in 1981 in support of the nomination of outgoing pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has formally requested to testify at has formally requested to testify at the Roberts hearings. NOW President Kim Gandy sent a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. "After a thorough examination of the available record of the nominee, NOW has concluded that his confirmation represents a danger to many of the rights for which we have worked so hard," Gandy wrote in the letter. "To confirm John G. Roberts to fill the seat [O'Connor] held for 24 years would jeopardize [abortion rights]."

I think that spells out pretty clearly what they are trying to do. Of course what they are doing, at least in my eyes, is revealing themselves for exactly what they are. A politically motivated group who cares nothing for the good of the country as long as their agenda is forwarded as much as possible.

Come to think of it, the abortion industry has to be the most radical, extreme group that I've ever come across. Nearly every other group that you can think of in the United States accepts boundaries and government restrictions on what it can and cannot do. Certainly anything that may be dangerous does. And yet when restrictions of any type, even basic safety standards, are placed on abortionists, NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU scream, cry and whine like their world is ending. I'm fairly certain at this point that Roberts will be confirmed, just as Thomas was confirmed before him. Hopefully he'll give these extremist groups the good, hard does of reality that they all so richly deserve as well.

Posted by: Drew at 05:31 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 408 words, total size 3 kb.

August 18, 2005

Completly Beyond Reason

Those who believe in the adage "when it rains, it pours" might take the tale of the plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London as a cue to buy two of every animal and a load of wood from Home Depot. The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.

In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moreover, the homeowners are being offered buyouts based on the market rate as it was in 2000.

Yes, you read that right. Not only have these people wrongfully had their homes taken by one of the stupidest Supreme Court decisions in our nation's history, but they are then told that they have to pay rent on their own property for the duration of the lawsuit. I'm certain that some (if not all) will sue, and if they lose this one, someone needs to be impeached.

H/T Patterico

Posted by: Drew at 09:33 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 212 words, total size 1 kb.

Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbals

Phase II of the three-way war has begun in earnest. As Wretchard observes, the media are currently engaged in a discussion about how to dramatically portray the Iraq War with a sense of realism without signalling their hidden agenda. But, of course, they call that deliberation something else:

"It seems to me that if we make an overt political statement in 'Over There' about the war ... then immediately the debate becomes not only about policy, but it becomes about our politics, Chris' and mine, as opposed to a discussion or a provocation about the human consequences of war," Bochco said. "The moment we become overtly political, half the audience dismisses us and doesn't pay attention to us because they disagree with our politics. And the other half discuss us ... in the context of our political leanings. And that's just not what my goal is with this show."

So, they make a covert political statement instead, and couch it as artistic professionalism. This is a game that the "news" branch of media have been playing since the first APC rolled across the Kuwait border, couching the news as objective and balanced while determining the conclusion as surely as any Pravda article. And the heavy hand of propaganda has now made its way into the overtly "fictional" branch of media, who have apparently decided that the reportrayal of Iraq as a dessicated Vietnam will just have to do.

But, of course, the problem is that now, when they strike this bell, what emerges is much less like a ringing peal than a shallow tinkle, and the reverberations barely violate the boundaries of their echo chamber. For the first time the strategically opaque dramaturge of the entertainment industry is met by the naively transparent counterbalance of authoritative witnesses from the field, posting their contemporaneous experiences of the war in real time. The discourse is losing its constraints, and the memes no longer live forever.

(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia and Anticipatory Retaliation)

Posted by: Demosophist at 11:29 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 341 words, total size 3 kb.

August 17, 2005

Clinton White House Ignored Warning to Tear Down Wall Between Intelligence and Law Enforcement

That the Clinton White House was so obsessed with expanding rules restricting the sharing of intelligence with law enforcement can never be forgiven. The 'wall' was patently stupid when it was first articulated during the Carter Administration and any one who supported the doctrine is an idiot. That a patently absurd doctrine was expanded to make it even harder for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together in rules set up by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick in the mid 1990s is the triumph of the morons educated in law schools over common sense.

NY Post:

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's team ignored dire warnings that its approach to terrorism was "very dangerous" and could have "deadly results," according to a blistering memo just obtained by The Post.
Then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote the memo as she pleaded in vain with Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to tear down the wall between intelligence and prosecutors, a wall that went beyond legal requirements.

Looking back after 9/11, the memo makes for eerie reading — because White's team foresaw, years in advance, that the Clinton-era wall would make it tougher to stop mass murder.

"This is not an area where it is safe or prudent to build unnecessary walls or to compartmentalize our knowledge of any possible players, plans or activities," wrote White, herself a Clinton appointee.

"The single biggest mistake we can make in attempting to combat terrorism is to insulate the criminal side of the house from the intelligence side of the house, unless such insulation is absolutely necessary. Excessive conservatism . . . can have deadly results."

She added: "We must face the reality that the way we are proceeding now is inherently and in actuality very dangerous."...

Justice honchos overruled White's plea — even though her team knew better than anyone else in law enforcement what the real risks were. White's team won a host of convictions — including Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who plotted to bomb landmarks like the Statue of Liberty....

White wrote the memo after her earlier pleas against the "wall" were rejected. She enlisted the help of her "Bomb II Team" — prosecutors working on terror bombings like the 1993 Twin Towers attack.

They gave six pages of detailed reasons why it was a mistake to create too much of a wall between intelligence and prosecutions. White forwarded that analysis to Gorelick and added her own notes on the Clinton-era decision "to keep prosecutors in the dark about intelligence investigations."

"What troubles me even more than the known problems we have encountered are the undoubtedly countless instances of unshared and unacted-upon information that reside in some file or other or in some head or other or in some unreviewed or not fully understood tape or other," White wrote. "These can be disasters waiting to happen."

It is almost a near certainty that if 'the wall' had not been erected, that theh 9/11 plot would have been unintentionally foiled.

I have asked before who was the idiot who chose to follow the rules and not pass on intelligence about Mohammed Atta to the FBI? An even bigger idiot is the fool defending the very rules which might have prevented 9/11.

I'm not as down on the 9/11 Commission Report as many of my fellow bloggers are. No, I don't think there is a massive cover-up--not to say there isn't a tiny cover up. The real culprits here are the people in the Clinton Administration who both followed the wall doctrine and expanded it. Too often we assume that covering up the crime is worse than the crime itself. That is certainly not the case in this instance.

The 9/11 Report may be flawed and not the entire story, but that pales in comparison with the poor judgement of the Clinton Administration.

UPDATE: Are all lawyers evil or just stupid?

Others: Powerline raises some interesting questions as to the timing of the memo.

Austin Bay is correct in calling for further investigation and correctly identifies the culprit: the lawyers.

Ace has been covering this for awhile.

Betsy Newmark celebrates the demise of the wall doctrine.

Mark in Mexico has a great roundup, as always as does The Anchoress. Stratosphere has the latest Able Danger news here.

Captain Ed asks the right questions and focuses us on the Clinton White House.

T. Longren, Right Wing Nuthouse, Peace Like a River, John Cole, Larry Kudlow, and the rest......

Posted by: Rusty at 04:07 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 783 words, total size 6 kb.

<< Page 1 of 2 >>
222kb generated in CPU 0.0647, elapsed 0.1919 seconds.
136 queries taking 0.1602 seconds, 503 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.