Res Publica 2005

Kerry has talked recently like he has great concern about our troops over in Iraq, but:

According to the same administration source, 233 members of Congress have visited the troops in Iraq so far. One hundred ninety-one were House members: 121 Republicans, and 70 Democrats. Forty-two were senators: 24 Republicans and 18 Dems. Eight senators have made two trips, and one has made three. Neither Kerry nor Edwards has taken time away from manicures, hairstyling appointments, and campaign stops to talk to the men and women who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq and to see the facts on the ground. That's leadership for you.

by Jed Babbin, NRO

Those who vote on the basis of what the government can do for them are especially short-sighted during a war against worldwide terror networks. What good would it do to get free prescription drugs forever if your forever is likely to be cut short by more attacks like those on September 11, 2001?

Roger at No More Turning Left

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Federal authorities said Friday they arrested an Iraqi-born Nashville resident on illegal weapons charges during a sting operation set up after he made threats about "going Jihad."

Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily, 33, was arrested Thursday afternoon as he was putting weapons he had purchased from an undercover agent into his car, according to an affidavit from FBI agent Greg Franklin.

Authorities said the suspect paid $1,000 to buy two disassembled machine guns, four disassembled hand grenades and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from the agent, who was working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Via Yahoo News

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - They rent cars and houses using stolen IDs. They disguise themselves as women or as hip young men. The money they raise for Iraqi prisoners in U.S. jails funds terror operations
This, Saudi officials say, is the kind of information being gleaned from scores of Saudi militants arrested in an aggressive government campaign.

Two suspects have appeared on television to talk about life underground, telling of injured comrades who die from lack of medical care, supposedly devout Muslims who don't bother praying the mandatory five prayers, and uneducated youths who consider Saudis in uniform to be infidels.

Such information has enabled the kingdom to strike at the root of al-Qaida's Saudi infrastructure, kill or capture several of its leaders, and publicly portray it in a humiliating light.

But no one is willing to declare the network dead or paralyzed, and foreigners know the successes do not mean they should let their guard down.

Hugh Hewitt has embedded the list below in an excellent article describing Kerry in terms of Neville Chamberlain, the leader who sold out a good bit of eastern Europe to the Nazis in a vain attempt to appease his enemy with other people's blood and happiness instead of facing him. Read the whole article, but notice what Kerry has accomplished this week:

In the past eight days, John Kerry has:

*announced to a national audience that American actions in defense of national security must pass a "global test";

*announced that he would sell nuclear fuel to Iran;

*could not answer, and badly filibustered a question on what he would do if Iran continued to push towards nuclear weapons acquisition;

*denounced as unilateralism the conation that George Bush put together to overthrow Iraq, and called for unilateral appeasement of North Korea;

*compared Iraq to Lebanon, but insisted a summit could entice other countries to join the effort in Iraq, even after the French and the Germans announced they would not do so even if Kerry was elected;

*twice identified the most pressing proliferation problem as the American effort to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons capable of destroying deep bunkers, thus equating the United States with rogue states like North Korea and Iran and proclaiming hostility to modernization of the American arsenal --vintage Kerry defense thinking;

*announced plan after plan for which no details exist;

*"absolutely" pledged not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $200,000 annually, a pledge that even his most ardent admirers know is either a bald lie or a repudiation of most of his spending plans (e-mailer LL suggests a new Kerry slogan: "Read my flips: no new taxes!);

*ignored the creation of 1.9 million jobs over the past 13 months and ignored the economic consequences of the Clinton recession and 9/11 attacks while attacking Bush's tax cuts;

*while calling attention to his Catholic status, defended his vote against banning partial birth abortion, called for taxpayer support for abortion, argued that "parental notification" was connected to dads raping daughters and defended the wholesale harvesting of frozen embryos for research purposes --four positions completely opposite of Catholic Church teaching and far outside the American consensus opinion on abortion;

*actually said "John Edwards and I are for tort reform," and told the American people that lawsuits against doctors are 1% of the health care problem;

*defensively denied being "wishy washy," a "flip flopper," and a "liberal," while complaining about being branded such by the president;

*embraced the Kyoto Treaty and called for its resuscitation with amendments;

*told America that General Shinseki had been fired by Bush and that the firing had a "chilling" effect on all generals, and one day later said Shinseki had been "retired" --not fired-- and left off the "chilling effect" argument --a record one day flip flop;

*saw his running mate get woodshedded and his campaign try to reverse that blow by arguing that the Vice President should have remembered meeting Edwards;

*heard his wife assert that American troops were fighting for oil and many other stunning things;

*watched as Bush did not make a single memorable error in two debates while effectively underscoring Kerry's "global test" pratfall, focusing on Kerry's did-nothing time-serving two decades in the Senate, wrestle the ISG report to its appropriate place in the discussion of the Iraq War, persuade by repeated argument (which the Vice President also helped along) that coalitions can not be led or maintain by derision or democracies built by indecision;

*watched as Bush effectively and accurately branded KerryCare as an expanded form of HillaryCare;

*watched as Bush simply and devastatingly branded Kerry as not credible on taxes, spending and most important of all, defending the United States.

And still people delude themselves that he is a better choice than Bush. Better, maybe if you're Jacques Chirac and secretly long to be king of Europe....

Birds like this can't fly....

WorldNetDaily ran this story about PP and the current administration that is worth looking at for examples of how the culture of death views it.

Pro-lifers will be encouraged to read Planned Parenthood's colorfully titled, "Report on the Administration and Congress, The War on Women: A Pernicious Web, A Chronology of Attacks on Reproductive Rights," which chronicles President Bush's efforts to curtail abortion in the United States and globally.

Note the perception of PP being at war with the administration.

Read this excerpt:

Reason to hate Bush No. 42 is, "HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announces new rules making fetuses, but not pregnant women, eligible for prenatal care in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) (March 5, 2002)."

This translation is tricky, because more was unsaid than said. Here goes:

---

"Ooowee, this was a biggie. HHS expanded its health coverage of children from low-income families to include preborn babies, so their mothers can get prenatal care. To do so, HHS redefined children as existing 'from conception through birth up to age 19.'

"This rule change darn near froze the cold blood running through our veins, because it clearly poses a danger to Roe v. Wade. We pray to the dark side no one will connect this to Supreme Court Justice Blackmun's ominous statement in his majority opinion that legalized abortion:

The appellee ... argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the 14th Amendment ... If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.

"As you might expect, our first inclination was to scream like banshees when HHS gave health benefits to intrauterine blobs of cells. This is what we usually do to frighten limp-appendaged politicians into seeing things our way. But we pragmatically muzzled ourselves.

"Our second inclination was to file a lawsuit against HHS, but we had no cause of action. We couldn't produce a plaintiff harmed by this regulation.

"Thus, we can't do anything about this one. This sort of problem is surfacing more often lately. Quick! Where's the muzzle? We feel a shriek coming on!"

---

Whew! That was a toughie to translate. But rewarding.

All I can say is that PP is an agent of darkness, and a prime reason why some of us fight, every bit as much as the Taliban mullahs. Both are out there to inflict death instead of life.

Slate writer William Saletan has written a neat analysis of the second debate...worth reading. He obviously was rooting for the side I wasn't , but the analysis is honest and clear and interesting, a rarity in this day when everything is partisan and so little is honest commentary.

The Ackron Beacon-Journal has the following story:

Two men who tore down a Bush-Cheney sign and urinated on it were caught on videotape by Summit County Republican officials early Friday morning.

The videotape shows the men sneaking into the yard of a West Market Street home and bending the sign to the ground. The men struggled to rip the sign out of the ground by shaking it and pulling it but couldn't get it off the posts, so they knocked it down. Sounds heard on the tape suggest the men urinated on the sign. They were white males, about 30 to 35 years old, well-dressed and well-groomed. They parked across the street in what police think was a foreign car, a Toyota or Honda.

Here's a link to the video:

Excellent analysis by Victor Davis Hanson on what's going on in Iraq.

It starts off with:
From the various insurgencies of the Peloponnesian War to the British victory over Communist guerrillas in Malaya, there remain constants across 2,500 years of time and space that presage victory or defeat. Drawing wisdom from that past, there are at least four critical issues that must always be addressed if we are to create a stable Iraq under the auspices of a broad-based consensual government. So far the occupation has been plagued by mistakes, false assumptions, and incompetence — and yet we find ourselves still with a good chance of success.

His critical issues are:

First, is the United States winning its engagements on the ground?

Second, are the terrorists — through their suicide bombing, car explosions, hostage-takings, and beheadings — winning widespread Iraqi support?

Third, does fighting the terrorists lead to a political resolution that offers manifest advantages to the majority of Iraqis, and is it recognized as such

Fourth, is there a mechanism for the United States to ease out of Iraq?



His discussions on these points are interesting and ought to be read.

And he makes this point which we all ought to consider:

THE KERRY NON-ALTERNATIVE
Meanwhile, Senator Kerry offers neither a plan to stay nor one to leave Iraq, only something "secret." He thinks a country that defeated Japan, Italy, and Germany at the same time as a warm-up to keeping at bay a nuclear Soviet Union and China must fail if she takes on Afghanistan and Iraq at once. His trial balloons so far — beg the Germans and French to come in and give the Iranians clean uranium — have met with polite chuckles. We already know the effect that such warmed-over Carterism will have in Iraq: failure with the added wage of humiliation.

Mark Steyn said the other day:

The strongest force in international affairs is inertia. It's everywhere: a continuous pressure from the U.N., the EU, the Chinese, the Arab League, the State Department and half the federal bureaucracy to do nothing about anything -- do nothing about the Sudanese genocide until everyone's dead, do nothing about Iran's nuclear program until it's complete and the silos are loaded, do nothing about anything except hold meetings and issue statements of concern. To resist the allure of inertia will require enormous will, not just from the president but from the American people.

It is a powerful thing, this inertia to do nothing. Inertia like this led to the invasion of Poland at the beginning of WWII. Inertia like this stood by while hundreds of people were macheted to death in the hutu-tutsi conflict. It happened in the killing fields of Cambodia. It has happened so many times in the history of the world.

It is one of the greatest tools of evil - inertia. Wringing of one's hands while saying, somebody ought to do something, while doing nothing or saying, "So what?" and going on about one's way.

Action done wrongly is a dangerous tool, but sins are not only sins of commission. There are a lot of sins of omission.

We can ignore ourselves into oblivion, or we can do the right action. Right now, we are trying to do the right action. Afghanistan has just voted in the first free elections since the forming of their government, free from fear of Taliban punishments. Iraq grows stronger by the day, and they too will join the ranks of those who are learning the ways of self-determination. We have uncovered massive evil done in that long period of inaction and inertia, where they were held hostage to western greed, a man's lust for power and the world choosing not to act.

There are still many consequences of the world's choice to not act waiting to be uncovered. May we always decide to do the right thing.

According to the NRA he is involved in legislation to constrict my autumnal exercise opportunities....

Keep your hands away from my shotgun, sir.

When we see terrorist actions, we must recognize them for what they are – personal assaults against every one of us. The Achilles heel of the terrorists is that they can only suggest fear, they can’t force it; we have to surrender to fear in order for their tactics to work.

From a Collection of Thoughts
(a really neat article about terrorism as PSYOPS and what our response should be. Read it all)

I ran across this blog this morning (thanks to Pat at Pawigoview). It's called the Mesopotamian. It's another Iraqi voice that needs to be listened to. This message particularly struck me, and I urge you to go read the entire piece




Were we better off during Saddam’s time? - A question to which many outsiders are very keen to know our answer. Well, in many respects the streets are much more insecure, yet the security that existed in Saddam’s days was like someone quietly waiting for certain death; like a cancer stricken individual carrying the disease in his guts with no hope or attempt at cure. Yes, the pain and torture may be much more terrible when the surgeon has operated and the disease is tackled; but at least there is hope of recovery and healing, and the prospect of life saving. And this is not allegory, nor a parable; this is coming from someone whose house has been standing in the midst of bombs and explosions for so long now, protected by none but the mercy and grace of the Lord; from someone who has suffered robbery, kidnapping and constant daily danger.

And here we are, trying to organize elections, trying to control the security situation, trying to restart the reconstruction, able to talk, able to think, able to watch satellite T.V., use the internet, the mobile etc. – in short everything that we have been forbidden to do before. And without the slightest hesitation, we hail with Love and Gratitude our giant U.S. friend and his allies, standing with us shoulder to shoulder, braving the elements, braving death, calumny and hatred, shedding blood; to help us heal, to help us reach the shores of safety. And make no mistake, the campaign is winning and will achieve its objectives. Make no mistake; you have already created an allied nation in the very heart of the M.E. despite all appearances, which will produce all the long term benefits and consequences so many times reiterated by President Bush, to the ridicule and insults of the profoundly mistaken, of the profoundly hating.

In the modern, representational government era, we like to say Power Corrupts.

Once, back in the days of kings and nobles, they would say that Power Reveals the True Person.

I think the American press is a great example of the latter. Time after time, in their crusading, various people in the press get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, doctoring evidence, passing off simulations for reality, passing off forged documents for real, deciding as editorial policy that a sitting president should be attacked hard, while his opponent should be treated lightly.

"But the reality is that MSM™ are driven more by their desire for control over the minds of Mr and Mrs America than for any ideology." says Bunker Mulligan

Yes, their ideological bent matters. But the Democrats, having made a deal with the Devil, are more in the grasp of MSM™ than the reverse.

John Kerry cannot be trusted to explain himself. ABC must do it for him. ABC must keep the faith and show America who is really the boss.

The whole crusading PC movement, subverting the feminist and civil rights movement into a leftist, maxist style "you will join us or we will crush you" type movement is all about power. They call for tolerance, they call for diversity, but it's a fundamentalist view that is elitist. "We are the saints of the modern world, " they say, "And you are the sinners with your benighted, ignorant ways. WE will lead you. WE are the ones who know."

And the front line of this cultural war is in the media. And they don't like it that we don't buy into it any more.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) issued this statement following tonight's second presidential debate:

"Tonight, Senator Kerry used my comments regarding the PATRIOT Act to mislead Americans about my position on this critical anti- terrorism legislation. I have stated that a permanent extension of the PATRIOT Act before its provisions expired in 2005 would occur 'over my dead body.' This reflected my opposition to a hasty renewal of the PATRIOT Act without considering the effectiveness of this law.

"As the author of this valuable tool in our war on terrorism, I find it irresponsible for Senator Kerry to mislead the public by characterizing my comments as a slight on the bill or on the work of President Bush and Congress. The PATRIOT Act is one of the most important bills I have ever worked on. It deserves to be debated honestly and deliberately. We must get this issue right because our security and America's values are at stake."

A few years ago, there was a good SF book written called the Summer Queen. It was about a culture where a sentient race of beings (a lot like dolphins) lived along with humans. This world had a strange, long year, and for reasons I don't remember, could only be approached by people off world during the winter of the year.

Well, the point was, that during that winter phase, people killed the dolphin like beings because there was a serum that could be extracted from their bodies that would give humans unlimited youth. And this product was in great demand off world, and even though the culture of the interplantery society said killing sentient life was bad, they did it anyway because they wanted desperately to live, and look young, beyond the natural span.

Hearing some of the nonsense lately about the potential for human stem cell research, I am put to mind that book. Where do we draw the ethical lines?

If we found out that by eating infants, we could cure Parkensin's would we?

Robert George over at NRO says this:

For months now, the Kerry campaign and its surrogates, such as Ron Reagan Jr., have cruelly led suffering people to believe that cures for their diseases are just around the corner. All we have to do is replace Bush with Kerry, open the federal funding spigot, and presto! The blind see and the lame walk! The Kerry campaign's hyping of embryo-destructive research for political gain is the cruelest and most shameful episode in the story of the 2004 election.

What Elizabeth Long (the woman who asked Kerry the stem-cell question) said is true: "Thousands of people have already been cured or treated by the use of adult stem cells or umbilical-cord stem cells. However, no one has been cured by using embryonic stem cells. Wouldn't it be wise to use stem cells obtained without the destruction of an embryo?

Kerry answered with a lie. A lie that will falsely inflate the hopes of countless people who would dearly love to believe that "we have the option" of curing them.

Cannabalism of the unborn, whether directly or indirectly by way of the lab is still cannablism. The culture of death wants us to eat our young so we can stay young and beautiful and healthy forever.

So, why did Saddam not restart his nuclear program? Obeidi says that Saddam was profiting too handsomely from Oil-for-Food to risk fiddling with nukes just yet. That sums up the U.N. in Iraq: Its final contribution was an aid program so corrupt that it briefly made Saddam's greed get the better of his ambitions.

Andrew Apostolou

John Podhoretz over at the NY Post noted in a good article about the debate last night:

Twice Bush said, “You can run, but you can’t hide.” He meant Kerry couldn’t hide from his liberal Senate voting record. The era of the flip-flop attack is over. The argument against Kerry’s liberalism has begun in earnest.

All I can say is this: If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck and flies like a duck, it's a duck.
Mr. Kerry's record speaks loudly.

QD over at Southern Appeal has noted that: Kerry's entire political career has been oriented, it seems to me, around the opposition to the forceful projection of American military power.

Matt at Proud Member of the RightWing Conspiracy was digging into Kerry's record and noted that Kerry voted to kill every military appropriation for the development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988, including a bill for battle armor for our troops. And that he voted to decrease funding for our intelligence agencies, while increasing spending for the UN.

Senator Kerry, you have quacked like a duck a long, long time. What else can I reasonably expect?

During tonight's debate, John Kerry said:


These are constitutional rights, and I want to make sure we have judges who interpret the Constitution of the United States according to the law.

This irks me. It says that law already established shall be used to interprete the constitution, not the constitution should be the arbiter and guide that the laws should be judged against.

Does he really believe this?

Marvin at Little Red Blog took the words right out of my mouth. I'd been feeling this way for weeks now, but Kerry proved it tonight in brilliant color.


Senator Kerry is henceforth renamed on this site. He will now be know as Senator Pander. He, as expected, is a very skilled debator. Yet, the substance of his statements are just as shallow as they've been all along. He relies on the name recognition of McCain (who is supporting President Bush), Roscoe, Lugar, Hagel, and a score of retired General's. And despite saying "That would be pandering"; he pandered, he felt your pain, not as much as WJC, but he felt it, and he respected the moral position you hold, and he is a Catholic, and he is for lower taxes, and he is for health care reform, and he is for a balanced budget, and he is for tort reform, and this and that and this too and even .... just insert the position of your choice. He panders. He is Lord and Master of the Nation of Pander. A nation filled with the foolish who seek not to do for the U.S., but to have the U.S. do for them.

My favorite, I think is at Hugh Hewitt's blog

Little Green Footballs has some interesting stuff going on in the comment boxes

James Hudnall says this:
give Kerry credit for dropping the most names and throwing around a lot of arguments. But it seemed like he was throwing bombs. Not doing any surgery. What he did was the equivilent of tossing frag grenades at the president, and the room. For mazimum casualties. When he could have hit Bush with something serious, something hard and fatal.

But, in the words of Robert DeNiro in The Untouchables: "You got NOTHING! NOTHING!"

So I have to say Bush wins this one. Kerry put up a good fight. But he lost.

He was not personable. He came off as pompous. Angry. Even a little tedious.

Bush was able to show several different sides of himself and be more likeable. On the issues, it all comes down to which side you believe in, but I think Bush did a better job of defending his side than Kerry. All Kerry did was attack. His own views, as I said, were just a lot of political blather.

From GeorgeWBush.com

Kerry Has Already Taken Eight Positions On The $87 Billion

• Kerry Said It Would Be "Irresponsible" To Vote Against Funding Troops. Doyle McManus (LA Times): "If that amendment does not pass, will you then vote against the $87 billion?" Kerry: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to – to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible." (CBS' "Face the Nation," 9/14/03)
  
  
• Kerry Claims "I Actually Did Vote For The $87 Billion Before I Voted Against It." (Sen. John Kerry, Speech In Huntington, WV, 3/16/04)
  
  
• Kerry Later Said He Was "Proud" That He Voted Against $87 Billion In Funding For U.S. Soldiers. "Here is the value that John Edwards and I will put in place. I'm proud to say that John joined me in voting against that $87 billion when we knew the policy had to be changed." (John Kerry, Remarks at "Women's Voices: A Luncheon with John Kerry," Boston, MA, 7/12/04)
  
  
• Kerry Then Said His Vote Against Body Armor And Supplies For Troops Was "Complicated." (MSNBC's "Imus in the Morning," 7/15/04)
  
  
• Kerry Even Said His Vote For The War And Against Funding For Our Troops Was "Not A Flip-Flop."(CBS' "Evening News," 7/21/04)
  
  
• Kerry Then Defended His Vote Against The $87 Billion By Saying President Bush "Didn't Have A Plan To Win The Peace, It Was Irresponsible To Give [President Bush] A Blank Check That Gave $20 Billion That Was Going To Go…To Halliburton And All These Other Companies." (Mike Allen And Lois Romano, "Closing Laps In Race To November," The Washington Post, 9/4/04)
  
  
• Kerry Said He's "Glad" He Voted Against The Iraq Supplemental. KERRY: "Because I saw what was happening. I voted against it -- absolutely voted against it. I'm glad I voted against it. Because we now see that that $20 billion hasn't even been spent effectively. Most of it's going to Halliburton in fraud and no-bid contracts which is completely inappropriate. I'd fire Halliburton tomorrow." (CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman," 9/20/04)
  
  
• Kerry Said His Vote Against The Iraq Supplemental "Was A Protest. Sometimes You Have To Stand Up And Be Counted." KERRY: "But it reflects the truth of the position, which is I fought to have the wealthiest people in America share the burden of paying for that war. It was a protest. Sometimes you have to stand up and be counted, and that's what I did." (ABC's "Good Morning America," 9/29/04)

Drudge reports:

ABCNEWS POLITICAL DIRECTOR MEMO SPARKS CONTROVERSY: BOTH SIDES NOT 'EQUALLY ACCOUNTABLE'

**Exclusive**

An internal memo written by ABCNEWS Political Director Mark Halperin admonishes ABC staff: During coverage of Democrat Kerry and Republican Bush not to "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable."

The controversial internal memo obtained by DRUDGE, captures Halperin stating how "Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win."

But Halperin claims that Bush is hoping to "win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions."

"The current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done," Halperin writes.

Halperin's claim that ABCNEWS will not "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable" set off sparks in St. Louis where media players gathered to cover the second presidential debate.

Halperin states the responsibilities of the ABCNEWS staff have "become quite grave."

In August, Halperin declared online: "This is now John Kerry's contest to lose."

This is from Jed Babbin at NRO about the numbers being bandied about regarding deaths in the Iraqi War, which shows that Kerry et al are just pulling our propaganda strings:

But like so much else in the Democrats' relentless attack on the war, it is — in the immortal words of M*A*S*H's Col. Sherman Potter — "horse hockey." A senior administration source filled me in on the real numbers. This does not diminish the enormous sacrifice represented by each and every one of those Americans who have given their lives in this war; it only shows how low the Dems will go to make a political point.

The real numbers tell a very different story than the line Kerry and Edwards are peddling. From the beginning of the war in March 2003 through October 2, 2004, about 800 American troops had been killed in action (another 260 died of non-combat causes). In that same period, about 750 Iraqis and 120 Coalition soldiers were killed in action. The math just doesn't work for Kerry-Edwards. It's 48 percent, not 90 percent. And the percentage is decreasing.

If you count the number of combat dead from May 2003 to October 2004, Americans are 700 out of about 1540 total (which includes the 750 Iraqi and 90 Coalition casualties), or 45 percent. From September 1, 2003, to October 2, 2004, Americans constitute 43 percent of combat deaths (600 Americans, 700 Iraqis, and 80 Coalition KIA).

All these numbers are gruesome; none is pleasant to contemplate. But none of them — from beginning to end — amounts to the bill of goods Kerry-Edwards are selling.

Via MyWay News

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday refused to strike from the November ballot a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage and civil unions.

The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the proposal on technical grounds, arguing that the title of the proposed amendment referred only to same-sex marriage and made no mention of the fact that civil unions would be barred as well.

"This puts the issue of defining marriage in the hands of voters, where it should be," said Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council, a conservative social action organization.

Via CNS News
A Republican congressman has joined with African-American clergy and other members of Congress to demand that the House and Senate restore free speech to houses of worship.

North Carolina Rep. Walter B. Jones joined with Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) Thursday to drum up support for Jones' bill, the Houses of Worship Freedom of Speech Restoration Act (HR 235).

"There is a muzzle upon the clergy. As ministers, we are obligated to speak about the moral and political issues of the day, and taking away that right is harassment. It is wrong, and it is extortion," said Clergy United leader Bishop Anthony Muse, who called on the Congressional Black Caucus to back Jones' bill and to push for its passage.

The Galvin Opinion has written up answers to 32 points John Kerry made in the debate. I am impressed by the work involved here and the patience for typing it all up! Well done sir!

Here's the opening paragraph:
During the debate, John Edwards tried to use his slick courtroom skills in order to run circles around Vice President Dick Cheney. Edwards kept reverting to campaign talking points about the credibility of the Bush Administration. Unfortunately for him, it's his campaign's credibility that should be questioned. Edwards threw as many false assertions as he could to see which ones would stick. The Galvin Opinion has compiled and examined Edwards statements. Here are the most egregious examples of how John Edwards did not level with the American people during Thursday night's debate with President Bush.

Go read the points themselves!

From the Heritage Foundation:
The U.S. economy has displayed a remarkable resilience following the bursting of the Internet bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks that struck at the heart of American business. The economy’s strength was such that the 2001 recession is among the weakest on record. Today, business investment continues on an unprecedented expansion and more Americans are working than ever before. Still, myths are rampant. This paper presents a basic statistical overview of the American economy and prosperity that Americans today enjoy.

There's a lot here which will help you walk through the economic myths.

Blogs for Bush discusses this as well.

Did I just hear right? Did I just read a comment from the Times -story here - talking about the oil for foot sanctions which was a big fat cash cow that corrupted people all over the world at the expense of the Iraqi people as something that worked?

Sanctions worked - but the blood of those killed by Saddam's secret police cries out for vengeance.

Sanctions worked - but the destruction of faith between allies when those allies were working behind each other's backs is something that will effect a generation.

Sanctions worked - but people whose lives were destroyed by those sanctions, from the lost earnings, the lack of goods, the fear they lived under, the people they weeped over so that businessmen could get rich on their misery cries out to heaven.

Sanctions worked - while doing more to destroy trust and belief and snuffing out hope more than any thing I can remember since WWII.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando iudex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

The angrier I get.

Here's another bit:

As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training.

Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company that sold tank carriers to Iraq, according to documents recovered by the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. The mysterious Frenchman may have also helped the Iraqis attempt to acquire military-related radar and microwave technology, despite a U.N. ban on such trade with Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

There's more. Click on the link and then think: when the UN goes bad because too many of its members are on the take, isn't that like the fox in a henhouse? Who's left to guard it?

hubris n : overbearing pride or presumption

Jacques Chirac accuses the Americans of hubris.

French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a “catastrophe” for global diversity if the United States’ cultural hegemony goes unchallenged.

Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday’s opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity.

Citing Hollywood’s stranglehold over the film industry as an example, Chirac stressed that only with government assistance could countries maintain their cultural heritage.

Slobokan's Site O' Schtuff aptly notes, though:

The French occupied Vietnam for 95 years. Keyword: Occupied. During this time the French imposed their culture on the people of Vietnam, refusing to even recognize the Vietnamese peoples’ desire for independence, as most occupiers do. The French took Vietnam by force and only relinquished control of it because of force, yet Le Worm has the gall to speak of countries maintaining their cultural heritage in the very place where France itself tried to squash the very thought of such a thing.

If he really wanted to make the point stick he should have made the comments while he dedicated a new “Vietnamese Cultural Center” funded in full, by the French. Its one thing to try and maintain that the culture of the United States will choke the other cultures of the world if left unchallenged, but it’s quite another thing to be the pot calling the kettle black. French colonization attempted to choke the cultures of the world many, many years ago. Maybe next time Jacques Chirac should look in the mirror of his own country, identify the mistakes they made, and fix the problems of their past, before insinuating that French culture is being choked by the United States.

I am reminded of a pot calling a kettle very black. I seem to remember a nation that encouraged it's aboriginal allies to slaughter the English colonial settlers on the frontier in the 1750s, then passed themselves off as the friends of the American revolution so that they could spit in the English eye, a nation that caved into and cooperated with the Nazis much more than they would like to admit, whose ties to the Americans was one of the big reasons the Americans got involved in Vietnam to begin with.

One more incident like this and I am returning my grandfather's medals that he recieved for helping to save their butts during WWI. I don't think he would have appreciated the sacrifice he made being spit upon and considered dross by such as Chirac.

But we'll see who mickey-mouses with it...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to step up the global campaign against terrorism, calling on all nations to prosecute or extradite anyone supporting, financing or participating in terrorist acts.

The 15-0 vote culminated weeks of negotiations by Russia, which introduced the resolution after militants staged a series of attacks there, including the suicide hijacking of two planes and the hostage-taking of a school in Beslan. It was adopted a day after several car bombings targeted Israelis at Egyptian resorts in Sinai.

"We think these events stressed even more the urgency to take further practical steps in the fight against terrorism and we consider the U.N. is the best coordinator in this fight," Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Konuzin said.

Mr. Kerry is free to quote my comments about Iraq. But for the sake of honesty he should also point out that I have repeatedly said, including in all my speeches in recent weeks, that President Bush made a correct and courageous decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutality, and that the president is correct to see the war in Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism.
Paul Bremer

Places to read more about this:

Powerpundit

The Belmont Club (Interesting discussion going on here between the BC and Andrew Sullivan and a comparision)

Little Green Footballs

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. --John Stuart Mill


(OK, I stole this from the Discerning Texan's blog - but it ought to be emblazoned on all our hearts and minds.)

Ok, I admit, I was attracted to this story because I used to be an English instructor, and one of the hardest things of all in that field is probably teaching proofreading skills. Shame they can't make spellcheckers for artwork!

From Michelle Malkin:

Here's a lovely story highlighting the arrogance and stupidity of the publicly subsidized postmodern artist, via AP/YahooNews: $40,000 Library Mural Misspells Names

LIVERMORE, Calif. - It didn't take a nuclear physicist to realize changes were needed after a $40,000 ceramic mural was unveiled outside the city's new library and everyone could see the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures.

"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Miami to fix the errors.

Reached at her Miami studio Wednesday by The Associated Press, Maria Alquilar said she was willing to fix the brightly colored 16-foot-wide circular work, but offered no apologizes for the 11 misspellings among the 175 names.

It’s fair to say that Osama is in the ‘anybody but Bush’ crowd, in which he has a lot of company in the US.

- Martini Pundit (read the whole article)

A militant group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed British hostage Kenneth Bigley in Iraq, Abu Dhabi Television said on Friday, quoting "informed" sources in Iraq.

This has not yet been confirmed.

REQUIEM aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.

UPDATE: Sadly, there seems to be confirmation. Read about it here.

A news story regarding the bombing of the Indonesian Embassy in Paris:

PARIS - A package bomb exploded in front of the Indonesian embassy in Paris before dawn Friday, causing minor injuries to about 10 people and shattering windows of nearby apartments.

"This is clearly an act with criminal intentions," said Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, who rushed to the scene in the wealthy 16th arrondissement in western Paris.

"As far as we know, there was no specific threat but we are investigating," he told journalists.

Nine of the 10 injured were taken to hospital. Most appeared to have slight cuts from flying glass or to be suffering from shock, reporters at the scene said.

President Jacques Chirac, on a visit to Hanoi, reassured Jakarta of France's support following the blast.

"All means will be deployed to shed light on this criminal act," he told the Indonesian representative at an Asia-Europe meeting, Dorod Jatun Kundjoro-Jakti.

Interesting to note that the bombing is near the aniversary of the Bali bomb. In Indonesia there is no quibbling with the T word.Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president-elect condemned the blast as an act of terrorism.

One day, perhaps, the French will realize that no secular country, in fact no country not in lock-step with the goals of the Islamo-fascist movement, is immune from terrorism, call it what you will.

Hat tip to Backcountry Conservative!

It's called Character.

Thanks to Right Wing Nut Jobs Unite! for passing this story on:

As you may know, the President and Mrs. Bush visited the Washington Burn Center on Friday 14 September. Among those they visited was LTC Brian Birdwell, who was badly burned in the Pentagon attack.

Mrs. Bush went into Brian's room, spoke to him for about a minute, all the time as if they had been long acquaintances. She then turned to Brian's wife Mel, who at this time had been at the hospital for probably 2 1/2 days, and apparently, according to Mel herself, was dirty, grimy and had blood on her shirt.

Mrs. Bush hugged Mel for what Mel said seemed like an eternity, just as if Mel were one of her closest family members.

Mrs. Bush then told Brian and Mel that there was "someone" there to see him.

The President then walked in, stood by Brian's bedside, asked Brian how he was doing, told him that he was very proud of them both and that they were his heroes.

The President then saluted Brian. Now, at this point in time, Brian is bandaged up pretty well. His hands are burned very badly as well as the back of him from the head down. His movements were very restricted.

Upon seeing the President saluting him, Brian began to slowly return the salute, taking, from the accounts so far, about 15-20 seconds to get his hand up to his head.

During all of this, 15-20 seconds, President Bush never moved, never dropped his salute. The President dropped his salute only when Brian was finished with his, and then gave Mel a huge hug for what also probably seemed like an eternity.

Pray for our leadership. Thank God for what we are, have, and will be.

As a note to those of you who might not be familiar with military protocol, the subordinate normally initiates a salute and will hold it until the superior officer returns the salute.

In the above incident, President Bush acted in the role of the subordinate to show his respect and high regard for the injured man.

One hears talk from the left that if Bush wins, they are leaving the country. Justin Katz at Dust In the Light notes:

One assumes, when liberals threaten to flit away, that they would go to some other modernized country: Canada, for example, or any of the Western European nations. Such a move would almost certainly involve a transition to life under a government that's already more in line with the person's politics.

But where would conservatives go? The same emigration would be, for them, akin to escaping trade school for a liberal arts school, Rand for Marx, the oven for the open flame. Perhaps a couple countries in Eastern Europe would do, ideologically, but they'd entail lowered economic expectations.

The truth is there are few places left that understand what we are fighting for, and why we do it. This is our place in the sand to stand up and be counted.

Reported by the Baby Seal Club:

Ah, the smell of burning plastiweave in the morning. An angry, homeless and apparently demented Democrat "protestor" tried to burn the American flag sitting behind the College Republican display table in the Pit (an area by the Student Union used for displays, soapbox speeches, etc.) Fortunately, the fire was put out and the idiot restrained before any real damage could be done.

When the 40 year old was restrained and taken away for destroying other people's personal property, he said:

"I was trying to call attention to the war and the apathy that surrounds it," Sellers said. "I wasn't really expecting a bunch of people to grab me and restrain me."

Of course, he didn't think about the fact that the flag didn't belong to him, but to the Young Republicans.

The Baby Seal Club puts it this way: These Democrats are really delusional, even to the point of thinking that they should just be allowed to do whatever they want to whomever they want.

Between 1996 and 2003, Saddam did more than $100 billion of business, all of it approved by Kofi Annan's Secretariat. In return, by their own official figures, $15 billion of food and health supplies was sent to Iraq.

For reasons such as this, Mark Steyn says the UN needs to be destroyed.

In other words, Oil-for-Fraud is everything the Left said the war was: it was all about oil - for Benon Sevan, the UN, France, Russia and the others who had every incentive to maintain Saddam in power. Every Halliburton invoice to the Pentagon is audited to the last penny, but Saddam can use Kofi Annan's office as a front for a multi-billion dollar global kickback scheme and, until it was brought to public attention by the tireless Claudia Rosett of The Wall Street Journal and a few other persistent types, the Secretary-General apparently never noticed.

Mr Sevan has now returned to New York from Australia. The lethargic Aussie press had made little effort to run him to ground because the notion that lifelong UN bureaucrats could be at the centre of a web of massive fraud at the expense of starving Iraqi urchins is just too, too "unthinkable" for much of the media.

So the conventional wisdom stays conventional - that we need to get the UN back into Iraq. No we don't. Iraq deserves better than an organisation which spent the last six years as Saddam's collaborator. As Claudia Rosett put it, "We are left to contemplate a UN system that has engendered a Secretary-General either so dishonest that he should be dismissed or so incompetent that he is truly dangerous and should be dismissed."

Read the Duelfer Report for yourself (in .pdf)

Becki at the Kerry Fairy posts some important questions:

Will we choose to rule ourselves, or let the U.N. rule us?
-Will we choose to win, or to surrender to our enemies?
-Will we choose life or death for the unborn and the unperfect?
-Will we choose our own religions, or will the state be our religion?
-Will we choose to follow our constitution, or rewrite the constitution?
-Will we choose to remain a democracy, or will we choose a ruling class?
-Will we choose our families, or will the government choose societies?
-Will we be Americans, or will we be globalists?


These are questions we need to think about, and HARD!

After seeing how European countries used the women and children of Iraq to line their purses, and how the UN made it possible, and how the UN is using Hamas members in their Gaza operations, and many other things, I have less and less faith in the ability of the UN to be anything like the noble dream they were intended to be.

There is that old hokey from Superman - Truth, Justice, and the American Way. I for one, even knowing how imperfect we are, want to do what I can to uphold truth, encourage justice, and see that these are core to the American way. If I turn my back and compromise with the dark, then I have besmirched that honor, muddied that reaching for the star of truth, and I don't want to live that way. Hokey it may be, but it is something to build a life around, not like gaining riches from starving women and children.

SALEM -- The Salem-Keizer School District is among eight U.S. school districts named in documents discovered by U.S. military forces in Iraq that may be linked to al-Qaida, both ABC News and the Associated Press reported Thursday evening.

In addition to Salem-Keizer, the reports said the computer files of a captured Iraqi insurgent named schools from California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The downloaded information found in Iraq -- all publicly available on the Internet -- included a U.S. Education Department report guiding schools on how to prepare and respond to a crisis, as well as photos and floor plans, one government official told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

While some floor plans were involved, Kay Baker, superintendent of the Salem-Keizer School District, said law enforcement officials told her no floor plans of any Salem schools were found.

From an interesting (as usual) article at the Captain's Quarters:

Like many, if not most, Americans all I really wanted for Christmas in December 2001 was the evidence that OBL had been annihilated by US forces. Three years later, I’m still waiting. If Ben is right and OBL is dead, why haven’t we heard? Ben has a compelling response:

Does President Bush know what became of him? I would say, very likely. We know what did not become of him: he didn’t become a Martyr. He did not become the symbol of Glorious Death resisting the Great Satan. He did not become a Symbol or a Cause or an Example to Them All.

Osama in the Oubliette...better left in limbo, for all of us to wonder about but never know, than to become the rallying cry for all the Islamo-fascists....interesting concept. Something to think about.

The Traditional Values Coalition writes:

October 7, 2004 – The New York Times reported on October 5 on a growing number of African-American pastors who are supporting President Bush’s re-election this year.

The Times features Rev. Walter Humphrey, pastor of two churches in Akron, Ohio. Rev. Humphrey says the election of Bush in 2000 wasn’t about a stolen election. “I see that as the providence of God.”

Rev. Humphrey says he sees the hand of God on President Bush and supports him because of Bush’s opposition to same-sex marriage and promotion of faith-based social programs.

Rev. Humphrey has helped organize other African-American pastors in Ohio who have come out to endorse President Bush’s re-election.

Another pastor is Rev. Herbert Lusk II of Philadelphia who has been pushing for his fellow pastors to support Bush.

Polls indicate that African-American voters are strongly supportive of traditional marriage and oppose homosexual marriage by a wide margin. This issue could be a key one for blacks this year. A Gallup Poll published in May, 2004 indicated that 72% of blacks oppose granting legal recognition to homosexual marriage. The figure for the general population is only 59%.

Seems to me that in the press to get gay rights = woman's rights = civil rights movement doesn't always compute with everybody...especially when you are walking on some seriously held views.
The democratic establishment should look and see why they are bleeding out members.

It's hard to pass the "Global Test" when the people grading it are being bribed to administer a failing grade.

Glenn Reynolds

People are noticing it everywhere. The stolen signs. The keyed cars. Gunshots into headquarters buildings. Mass demonstrations breaking into offices in the name of political speech.

Stanley Kurtz at NRO writes:

Are the fears justified? They seem to be. On Tuesday there was a report that several shots had been fired into Bush-Cheney headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn., shattering glass. And late Tuesday evening came a report that protesters had ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters in Orlando, Florida. But these are only the most dramatic examples of a broader trend. Plenty of folks told me that their cars had been keyed, dented, or had windows smashed in for carrying a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker. Nasty notes left on the windshield are common. And some drivers get cut off in traffic and flipped off by cars sporting Kerry bumper stickers. One fellow said a couple of young guys pulled up next to his 64-year-old mother's car and signaled her to roll the window down. When she did, they screamed, "Bush is a F**king MORON!"

Apparently, Bush-Cheney cars are routinely keyed in places like liberal Seattle. And liberal Bethesda, Md., has reportedly seen a rash of spray-paintings of Bush yard signs (with Kerry signs left in tact). One pro-Bush family in liberal West L.A. had its yard sign stolen six times. Theft, spray paint, or just tearing to shreds are the weapons of choice against yard signs, but one Bush-Cheney sign was actually set on fire. Even in conservative Idaho, Bush-Cheney cars get keyed. And in conservative Houston, parking while visiting a friend in the liberal midtown section can mean a keyed car. Apparently, these attacks are so common that you can now buy a T-Shirt with a picture of a slashed-out Bush-Cheney logo and the legend, "A person of tolerance and diversity keyed my car."

No matter what you want to call it, prank, intimidation, hatecrime, it is still simply this: terrorism in a small scale. The intent is to frighten, to bully, to get you to back off and not vote. Except for scale, and the tools used so far, keys instead of car bombs, mobs instead of explosives, we still are facing the act of a terrorist. The aim is to say, you don't matter. Political discourse doesn't matter. All that matters is I prevail.

Culture War?

I believe we are in a watershed year, one of those times where the direction things take will have a huge impact on the future of the US.

Many of the bedrock institutions we have trusted in have started to change. There are huge sectors of society angry: angry on the right about suppression of religion in the public sphere, the perception of a gay agenda, the feelings that the media elite doesn't speak for them, perceptions of pc-dominated judges and other things. The left have their causes, perceptions about minority issues, civil liberties, the war in Iraq and other things. We are a country that is very often angry, and times are frightening.

The Rathergate scandal with the news media has brought out a point that had been whispered about, became more and more obvious during the Iraq War, and is now clear - the mainstream media, far to the left from the rank and file Americans they are supposed to inform, shaped by the ferment of the 1960s and the Vietnam experience, see themselves as crusading elites trying to whip us into shape...and who now seem to believe that journalistic ethics aren't part of the package, for the ends of their goals justify the means of gettting there.

At Election Projection.com, they notice this:
Dan Rather's irresponsible, politically calculated use of forged documents to batter President Bush only serves to further and accelerate old media's decline. A startling confirmation that the mainstream media is suffering heavy hits to its credibility and influence can be seen in a recent poll released by the polling institute at Sacred Heart University. The numbers that headline the release track the presidential horse race, yet the most telling numbers may be these further down in the article...

Both CNN and Fox News appear be leading as favorites -- 26.6% and 22.4% -- when respondents anticipated who they plan to turn to for election 2004 coverage and reporting. These cable networks were followed by ABC News (11.7%), NBC News (10.5%), Local News (9.5%), PBS News (7.4%), CBS News (7.1%), MSNBC News (3.7%), CNBC (0.7%), and CBN (0.4%).

Only 13.0% suggest they believe "all" or "most" of media news reporting. Another 60.0% suggest they believe only "some," while 25.2% indicated they believe "little" or "none" of media reporting.

From these figures, it is obvious that the old media isn't losing their credibility - they've lost it. A whopping 85.2% believe at best only some of what they hear. This response cannot be overstated. In today's America, only 3 out of 20 people say they believe most or all of what the media is saying. And the reason for the disbelief cannot be spelled out any clearer than this...

And not only are we doubting our sources of information (which may lead some of us to consider all sources equally valid or invalid, which makes decisionmaking even harder), we have seemed to cross some threshold on political action, where dialog is not wanted. Instead, there is the piling up of evil attributes onto your opponents to such a degree .

Mark Noonan at Blogs For Bush posted this:

When I'm not writing here at the Blog, I make my money as a credit underwriter for a large financial institution. Today we received a written request for a credit limit increase on a customer's credit card. I can't quote verbatim from the letter because the Privacy Act forbids me from having a copy of the letter outside of the workplace, but quoting as best I remember it, the letter went thusly:

I want a credit line increase. And not a piddly $50.00; I want a big credit line increase. $50 is an insult - much like the insult GW Bush gave when he passed a tax cut for the rich.

A long litany of acts of violence against Republican headquarters, campaign signs and others is beginning to pile up:

An eight foot by eight foot swastika was burned into a homeowner's lawn because he had a Bush/Cheney '04 yard sign.

Protestors forced their way into the Republican headquarters in Orlando, Florida, vandalizing the facility and injuring two campaign workers.

In Miami, over 100 protestors stormed the Bush-Cheney campaign office and in Tampa over 30 invaded the Republican office.
Source: AlphaPatriot

Wisconson GOP had this statement: More than 50 demonstrators supporting Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry stormed a Republican campaign office in West Allis at mid-day today, trespassing, creating a disturbance through the use of a bullhorn in the office and then refusing to leave when asked.

There have been break-ins, shots fired into campaign headquarters in more than one place.

The irony for much of this is that these people frequently are mad about the war, and they see nothing inappropriate in the use of violence to keep us from fighting.

If Bush wins the electoral college vote and doesn't have a strong majority, there could very well be violence. Even if he has a clear majority in all the states he takes, there will be those who have demonized him so badly that they will feel that they must take action somehow to fight the perceived evil at their doorstep.

How we react to this will shape our future. Do we step back from the abbyss of civil war, or take the plunge? This time, it's not quite so regional like last time. There will be no place to hide.

One of the questions that has been running through my mind for a long time now is, if Saddam didn't have wmd, why did he keep up the facade of having and hiding them?

The Captain's Quarters has an excellent piece on the story, and make what seems to be a good case of what might have been going on:

Saddam made tons of money in the Oil-For-Food corruption -- billions of dollars, mostly untraceable at the time and even now mysterious and difficult to find. The UN's corruption allowed Saddam to solidify power in Iraq and make himself the sole conduit of necessary materials, as well as the sole arbiter of who received the goods once purchased. He and his sons set up a perfect mob-style patronage system that ensured loyalty for his allies and starvation for his enemies, turning themselves from a totalitarian Stalinist state to an Arab version of the Sopranos run amuck.

As long as the money flowed and European and UN officials could be bought, Saddam felt safe with his bluff, convinced that neither Iran nor the US could remove him from power until sanctions were lifted. Once that occurred -- and that was coming soon, pressed by his client states of France, Germany, and Russia -- he would be free to use the Obeidis he had hidden away, as the Duelfer report notes, in order to quickly rebuild his WMD arsenal. And thanks to UNSCAM, he could use the fortune he had amassed to fund the programs without generating any notice at all.

Read the rest. It's excellent

Spartacus has a great wrap up of the current stories on the Oil for Food Scam. Go there and read them one after another, then maybe go review who was complaining the most loudly as the deadline for the Iraqi war drew near.

HANOI - French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a “catastrophe” for global diversity if the United States’ cultural hegemony goes unchallenged.

Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday’s opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity.

The outspoken French president warned that the world’s different cultures could be “choked” by US values.

This is from the leader of a country who gleefully screwed the Iraqi people, depriving women and children of food so they could make themselves and Saddam rich, who used their influence to keep the Oil for Food program going as long as possible lest they kill the cash cow while children were put in prison and the bodies in mass graves just kept piling up, a country that believes that freedom of religion is freedom from religion - I know I don't want any of THEIR values!

Here are some incidents reported over at the Kerry Spot:

Howard County, Maryland:

The political season has turned ugly in Howard County, with an Ellicott City homeowner reporting a late-night fire that burned two Republican campaign signs in his back yard.

In addition, local Republicans say scores of other campaign signs have been destroyed or vandalized in the past couple of weeks, most of them along major highways.

"It's absolutely outrageous," said Howard Rensin, chairman of the county Republican party. He said about $1,500 worth of GOP signs have been destroyed.

Duluth, Minnesota:

"We did it."

Three Duluth teenagers walked into the Duluth News Tribune on Wednesday afternoon, opening with these three words. The boys said they were responsible for vandalizing Bush campaign signs and painting a swastika and the word "Nazi" at a London Road residence last weekend.

Nashville, Tennessee:

Police said a Nashville teenager and his friends stole 71 Bush-Cheney yard signs because he was mad at President Bush for sending his brother to Iraq.

Andrew Thurman, 18, told police that he and 19-year-old Frederick Stevenson stole the signs from several west Nashville neighborhoods because his brother, a U.S. marine, was sent to Iraq.

"It's not unusual to see the isolated theft of campaign signs in local, state and federal elections," Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said. "However, this is the first time I can recall that someone who admits responsibility for the theft has linked it to the war in Iraq."

Rapid City, South Dakota:

The battle over political yard signs continued in Rapid City on Friday night, and the Republicans seemed to get the worst of it.

Signs supporting Republican candidates John Thune and Larry Diedrich were spray painted, stolen or destroyed up and down West Boulevard, as well as on several streets nearby. West Boulevard resident Ellen Drabek said Saturday that she lost two signs from her yard during the night.

"Mine weren't painted. Mine were stolen. And there were two large Thune signs up at St. Patrick Street that were broken up. All the rest of them were spray painted," Drabek said. "None of the Democratic signs were touched."

Boy, this is really hitting the wires tonight. Everywhere I go, I keep finding more stories. It's beginning to look like any country that snubbed joining the coalition were up to their patooties in vouchers. Blood money. The money stolen from children so they could be fat cats.

AP via Kansas.com
The report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, alleges the Iraqi government manipulated the U.N. program from 1996 to 2003 in order to acquire billions of dollars in illicit gains and to import illegal goods, including acquiring parts for missile systems.

< style="font-style: italic;">The alleged schemes included an Iraqi system for allocating lucrative oil vouchers, which permitted recipients to purchase certain amounts of oil at a profit.

Benon Sevan, the former chief of the U.N. program, is among dozens of people who allegedly received the vouchers, according to the report, which said Saddam personally approved the list. The secret voucher program was dominated by Russian, French and Chinese recipients, in that order, with Saddam spreading the wealth widely to prominent business men, politicians, foreign government ministries and political parties, the report said.

The report names former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the Russian radical political figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky as voucher recipients, for example, and other foreign governments range from Yemen to Namibia.

The governments of Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt did a brisk illicit oil trade with Iraq as well - more than $8 billion from 1991 until 2003, the report said: "These governments were full parties to all aspects of Iraq's unauthorized oil exports and imports."

This is from the Telegraph's take on things:

Saddam used cash stolen from the UN's flawed oil-for-food programme to induce these permanent members of the Security Council to thwart their Anglo-American allies. The motives of those states that went to war emerge as far less tainted than those that opposed it. If the British and Americans were duped by Saddam, the Russians and French had their palms greased by him.

Even so, the absence of WMD will reinforce doubts about the wisdom of the war on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr Bush was already on the defensive after Donald Rumsfeld's admission that there was no "strong, hard evidence" of Iraq's links with al-Qa'eda, and Paul Bremer's acknowledgement that his task as post-war governor of Iraq was vitiated by too few troops.

Was it all a mistake? On the contrary: the real case for war, consistently argued in these pages, depended neither on WMD nor on the al-Qa'eda connection. Saddam had to be deposed for both strategic and moral reasons, which have broadly been vindicated. Though the war on terror is far from over, the threat from terrorist states has diminished. If free Iraq can stay the course - by holding elections, by putting Saddam on trial, and by defeating the insurgency - it will have a profound impact on the other despots of the Middle East and beyond.

If anything, the report reinforces the case for regime change, by demonstrating the malign influence that Saddam's Iraq exerted over the entire international system. His capacity for genocide had indeed decayed, but by 2003 he was no longer the pariah he had been in 1991.

From the Moscow Times:

Russian government officials, political parties and companies were "allocated" millions of barrels of oil by Saddam Hussein's regime and made millions of dollars in profits from negotiating their sale, according to a leaked Iraqi Governing Council report obtained by The Moscow Times.

Alexander Voloshin, chief of staff under former President Boris Yeltsin and until last October under President Vladimir Putin, made hundreds of thousands of dollars from Iraqi oil, according to an appendix to the report on the role of Russian companies.

The Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and, indirectly, the pro-Kremlin Unity Party made profits in the millions of dollars, the document said.

About 20 Russian oil companies are also included on the list as having made huge profits from allocations.

Jacques Chirac in Saddam's pocket?

From the Scotsman:

SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.

Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.

But the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which returned its full report last night, said Saddam was telling the truth when he denied on the eve of war that he had any weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He had not built any since 1992.

The ISG, who confirmed last autumn that they had found no WMD, last night presented detailed findings from interviews with Iraqi officials and documents laying out his plans to bribe foreign businessmen and politicians.

Although they found no evidence that Saddam had made any WMD since 1992, they found documents which showed the "guiding theme" of his regime was to be able to start making them again with as short a lead time as possible."

Check out the Captain's Quarters, where Captain Ed has put together a good piece on this story.

And yet even more reasons why I will not be voting for Kerry!

Got this from Proud Member of the Rightwing Conspiracy. Thanks, Matt, for getting this posted! There is more. Go Read it!

HE SAID CHECK THE RECORD
Sen John Kerry, Democrat from Massachusetts says he is the strongest Presidential Candidate on National Defense ! He said Check the Record...

We Did !
Here is what we learned:

Even with them trying to make her keep a low profile, these keep oozing out.

The latest is:

Vote often and Vote Well

from Newsmax

The entire Kerry foreign policy seems to boil down to not pissing off France. If we can jump through the right hoops to do this, Kerry's worldview seems to maintain, our foreign policy will be successful. Which is fine if we don't mind getting our asses kicked by terrorist mutants.

Mark A. Kilmer

This is a press release from the local Republican office:

(MILWAUKEE) – More than 50 demonstrators supporting Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry stormed a Republican campaign office in West Allis at mid-day today, trespassing, creating a disturbance through the use of a bullhorn in the office and then refusing to leave when asked.

The Chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW) condemned the action by Kerry supporters, and asked the Kerry campaign and the Democrat Party of Wisconsin to do the same.

“Do John Kerry and Wisconsin Democrats really believe this is conduct becoming of a presidential candidate and his campaign?” RPW Chairman Rick Graber asked. “It is unfortunate that Team Kerry feels the need to engage in such childish and obnoxious behavior.

“The President and his campaign will continue to talk about the issues in Wisconsin,” Graber added. “Let’s hope that someday soon, the Kerry campaign and Wisconsin Democrats will join us and put an end to this foolishness.”

Graber called the latest incident part of a disturbing trend of criminal conduct by anti-Bush forces in Wisconsin, pointing to an incident in Madison last week in which Bush-Cheney yard signs were stolen from the yards of three homes. The vandals then used chemicals to burn swastikas into the lawns of the homes, which were within a two-block radius of one another.

In addition, reports of stolen, defaced and damaged Bush-Cheney campaign signs are surfacing throughout Wisconsin.

“Our volunteers, from children to the elderly, have every right to feel safe when they are working on behalf of a cause and candidates they believe in,” Graber commented. “This type of thuggish, intimidating conduct is absolutely unacceptable. It is time for John Kerry, the Wisconsin Democrat party, and Kerry’s campaign leaders, including Gov. James E. Doyle, to put a stop to this shameful behavior.”

Here's a pic:

Dick Cheney during the vp debate:

I was in Minnesota the other day, where I visited an aircraft manufacturing plant. It's a great success story. This is a company that started 20 years ago with nothing. Today they're the second- leading producer of piston-driven aircraft in the country.

He told me that if it weren't for the increased cost of his liability insurance, in this case product liability, he could hire 200 more people in his factory. We've built into the system enormous costs as a result of our practice with respect to litigation. We have to find ways to get a handle on it

John Edwards discussed tort reform, but you could tell this was something he doesn't like to think about. The best he could think of was for a plan of some sort of arbitration about whether a case was frivolous or not.

At GeorgeWBush.com, they noted this about him:

The Real Record:

According To One Of Edwards’ Trial Lawyer Supporters, Edwards “Said Medical Malpractice Reform Will Pass Over His Dead Body.” (William Tucker, Op-Ed, “Edwards Confident Of Verdict,” The New York Sun, 8/20/03)

Edwards Voted To Kill Medical Malpractice Reform In 2002 And In 2003.


Blogs for Bush has a good story about the realities of runaway litigation. Because of lawsuits and such, the companies that do vaccines for the flu have gone from 15 to 2...not necessarily a safe thing...especially with the shortage of flu vaccine this year.

Think about it...it's not just out of our pocketbooks...it's also part of the lost potential that will never be made.