2 Comments Posted on Democrats, Editorials, Republicans

ammo

both political parties have some explainin’ to do when members of congress face their constituents back home this election year. for the republicans, it’s the excessive, wasteful government spending and their weak committment to dealing with illegal immigration. they also aren’t willing to take unpopular positions and to do what is right for the people they represent. there are too many examples of this.

i believe that most of this can be blamed on the republican leadership, especially senator frist, who has been more than willing to defend the president’s amnesty policy for illegals. i know that in his position, it is hard for him to go against the president of the united states. that’s not a good excuse in this case, however, and when senator frist came here to do a fundraiser, we told him exactly how we felt about this issue. i believe that he got the the message, and the public pressure has forced the changes in policy we are now seeing. is it perfect? not yet. there is still work to do.

for the democrats, they are on the wrong side of quite a few issues. many of them oppose the patriot act, support giving terrorists geneva convention protections and access to american courts, and they also aren’t in favor of spying on suspected terrorists or tracking where their money goes. that’s quite a resume there. many democrats also make very good boogeymen/women…like pelosi, murtha, feingold, harry reid, and john kerry. those are some SCARY democrats, and they haven’t shown that they deserve power either. i’m sure i will hear the argument that not all democrats hold the positions mentioned above. that’s true. it also doesn’t matter because their leadership does hold these positions, and they are the ones controlling the message.

some of my friends on the right are suggesting that all these new republican scandals are conveniently timed to maximize the negative impact it could have on this november’s election. that’s entirely possible. so what? so what if the democrats sat around in a big room somewhere and planned all this? it’s our job to STOP GIVING THEM AMMO to use against us. mark foley made serious mistakes, and he paid the price for them. he did the right thing by resigning. other republicans have made even more serious mistakes, and they have resigned too.

as far as we know, none of these scandals have been made up by the democrats. while the democrats will most definitely use these revelations for political advantage, these things did happen, and those responsible for ethical violations should be held accountable for their behavior. republicans and democrats should expect more of their party and the members of that party representing them in d.c. we have to hold both republicans and democrats to a high standard, and expect them to meet that standard…or they will hear it from us, whether it’s an election year or not.

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2 Comments Posted on Uncategorized

true

If America is ever to triumph in its war against Islamic terrorism, we must get past the idea that we are its root cause. Specifically, we must get past the idea that a suicide bomber is just a peace-loving Muslim who, if we hadn’t set him off, would be growing figs and building sandcastles. Strapping explosives to your torso, marching yourself into a crowded marketplace and blowing yourself up in order to slaughter as many civilians, including women and children, as you can is a profoundly demented act, an act which undoes a dozen or so millennia in the moral evolution of the human species.

Such an act is not triggered by America’s sociopolitical landscape or by its foreign policy. Rather, it is nurtured by an intellectually degenerate culture, sponsored by sleazy kleptocratic regimes and authorized by a once-honorable religious tradition perverted to serve the pipedreams of an apocalyptic death cult.

It’s Muslim civilization, not America, that must change in order for Islamic terrorism to cease.

mark goldblatt -national review online

i think that about sums it up.

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2 Comments Posted on Iraq

hidden in plain sight

i just don’t see how anyone in the media originally missed this part of the excerpt from the National Intelligence Estimate, since it was in the first paragraph. here’s a reading comprehension exercise for them. see if you can figure out what this means, ladies and gentlemen of the press. full text here(pdf).

United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization. We also assess that the global jihadist movement—which includes al- Qa’ida, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells—is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts.

there’s no way that our counterterrorism efforts have been effective. after all, we have been so distracted by the iraq war that we have forgotten about al-Qa’ida. right? if you want to accept the NIE report, then you might want to look at everything it says, including the parts that support the President’s view of the war on terrorism. there is good news and bad news in these Key Judgments which have now been declassified. the analysis that we have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations is something that the media wants to gloss over. that is a positive thing…and we need to acknowledge any ground that we have gained in this war on terror.

there is still work to be done. as this excerpt points out, jihadists are adapting to our counterterrorism measures. we need to be continually re-assessing strategy and adapting to new enemy tactics. our vigilance in this area should remain constant, no matter which party controls congress or the white house.

it goes on to suggest that “Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit…” what kind of responsive political systems would promote this greater pluralism? democracy could be one of those systems. it doesn’t necessarily have to be of a jeffersonian stripe. any system that allows for individual rights and freedoms would have the desired effect. while i am not completely sold on the democracy project, i don’t see the current alternatives as ones that will allow Muslim countries to achieve this greater pluralism.

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5 Comments Posted on College Football, Ohio State Buckeyes

winning ugly

an ugly win counts the same in the standings as any other win. that’s a good thing for the ohio state buckeyes. their offense was totally non-existent in the first half, and troy smith might not want to send the tape of this game to those heisman voters. side note: I just don’t get this heisman hype surrounding troy smith. he’s better than I thought he was, no doubt about that — but I just can’t see him winning the heisman.

ohio state is known for all of its scary offensive players, but it was their defense that showed up in a big way late in the game. that’s always been a characteristic of national championship-caliber type teams — winning games with defense.

they have now beaten texas and 2005 co-big ten champ penn state. that’s a great start. look at their schedule and then try to explain why they don’t deserve to be ranked #1.

good luck with that explanation.

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2 Comments Posted on Editorials

why do they hate us?

liberals love to talk about root causes.their pet theory is that there must be a reason why dysfunctional people are the way they are and that it’s never their fault when they do bad things. we must be tolerant and understanding and try to make accommodations for whatever injuries, real or imagined, those people may have suffered. this philosophy creates a society of victims who refuse to take any responsibility for their own life or their own actions.while i don’t deny that life experiences may contribute to bad choices people make, there are still consequences to be faced. this kind of approach may work for your average dysfunctional person, but it’s ineffective in dealing with terrorist scum.

while we are buried in angst over why they hate us, the Islamic extremists are plotting our destruction. those who obsess over the root causes of terrorist hatred are clueless, plain and simple. they believe that if the united states would leave those poor, misguided souls alone, somehow all the terrorists would leave US alone. if you have the opportunity in november to vote against someone with this philosophy, please do it.

there’s no room for negotiation when the people on the other side of the table want to kill you and to kill your allies. how can we possibly give them what they want when what they want is to wipe out entire countries and convert everyone to Islam? it doesn’t matter why they want to wipe out other countries. it doesn’t matter why they want to fly planes into buildings or to blow themselves up. it’s not acceptable or excusable under any circumstances.

we need to stop giving terrorists reasons to question our committment to defeating them. we need to stop making excuses for ruthless killers who behead their hostages with no consideration for what the geneva conventions would have to say about doing that. we also need to ask ourselves why terrorists should get Constitutional protection when they are not citizens of this country, or why the geneva conventions should apply to those who clearly do not follow the rules of engagement.

do we really want to do everything we can to protect this country from another 9/11? it’s easy to look at the actions of senators like john mccain and lindsey graham and most of their democratic colleagues and to have serious doubts about their strategy. the world is watching us. it’s one thing to talk tough. that’s one of our strengths. now our actions have to match our words.

1 Comment Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans

the case against losing

david hogberg at the american spectator makes that case. read it all here.

Would Bush and a Democrat-controlled House be an improvement over recent years? Doubtful. Bush is, at best, a squish on fiscal restraint (and that’s being charitable). Last week, House Democrats voted overwhelmingly, 147-45, against a modest earmark reform bill. Sure, Bush might get serious about spending once the Democrats took over, but what would his argument be — that the Democrats were trying to undo all the fiscal restraint he imposed? Indeed, the press would portray him as a cynic, only caring about spending now that the opposition is in power. Since the White House doesn’t seem to have the stomach for such a fight, a more likely scenario is Bush and the House Democrats cutting budget deals resulting in spending increases as bad, if not worse, than what we have now.

There are other areas where the Bush Administration could cut deals with House Democrats that should disturb conservatives. With the Democrats in charge, a Senate-style immigration bill — i.e., amnesty — is far more likely to pass the House. From there it is a quick trip through the Senate to Bush’s signing pen.

Yes, conservatives, myself included, are rightly disgusted with Congressional Republicans’ profligacy. But that disgust is beginning to get through, with Congress recently approving an online database to track spending and the House passing the aforementioned earmark reform. Such efforts will surely stall should Democrats win control of the House. The answer is to keep up the pressure through the grassroots and blogosphere efforts like Porkbusters.A GOP loss of the House in November is just as likely to create more problems for conservatives than it is likely to solve, proving once again that, in politics, there is little virtue in losing.

i think that the grassroots and conservative blogs have made a serious difference in changing the priorities of congressional republicans. (it doesn’t hurt that there is an election coming up either.) will conservatives get everything that we want by keeping republicans in power? the answer is probably not, but we are more likely to get what we want with republicans in charge. there is no reason to believe that democrats will enact strong immigration reform (border security first, no amnesty), make a serious attempt to control spending, or make specific proposals to make it easier to protect our country from terrorist attacks. if those are issues that we care about, the better risk is voting for republicans.

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Posted on Illegal Immigration

crumb battered pork

note: occasionally i will be cross-posting posts on illegal immigration from other bloggers as part of the coalition against illegal immigration. feel free to comment as usual, but for responses from the original author, i suggest visiting the linked blog. otherwise, read and enjoy.

Crossposted from Common Sense America: Crumb Battered Pork

That’s all we seem to get out of Washington these days. They throw taxpaying Americans a few crumbs – like H.R. 6061 to build 700 miles of fence – while they pass the pork we paid for to illegal aliens – the 2006 McCain/Kennedy Amnesty Bill.

Yesterday, I stated that I am not excited about the House Bill to build a 700 mile fence at our border. Why? Because it will do nothing to protect this nation if our immigration laws are not enforced.

All the tough-at-the-border talk, perfected by the Bush administration, is fooling nobody. It has become code for “we’re not going to do anything to inconvenience companies that hire illegals.”

Build a wall two miles high along the entire border with Mexico, and illegal aliens will dig under it, fly over it or sail past it into New Orleans or Newark. They will enter as tourists and overstay visas. They will come if they think there’s a job for them in the United States. The story is that simple, and everyone in America knows it, including the politicians who pretend otherwise.

But there is another, more sinister, possible outcome of the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws, and this too is known by both American citizens and politicians alike.

“I wonder how if there is another event of some great magnitude, which we all anticipate, which we hear every single day is a distinct not just possibility but probability, and if this is perpetuated by someone who has entered this country illegally, and/or people who have been recruited into a terrorist network by people who have come here illegally, I wonder what we will tell the spouses, the sons, the daughters of those people who are killed in that event.

We will make many, many speeches about how heroic their loved ones were, how heroic the efforts were of the people who tried to save them. Will we also say, I wonder, that there were political and cultural reasons why we could not protect them? I do not know how anyone could look into the faces of the people whose loved ones have been lost in an event of that nature and say those words. But say them we would have to if we follow the path we are on today.”

~ House Representative Tom Tancredo on our lack of border security, September 9, 2002 ~

Our border security and immigration enforcement is directly related to our national security. Let me repeat that. Our border security and immigration enforcement is directly related to our national security.

I’m weary of hearing, “We need to fight this war in Iraq, so we don’t have to fight it here at home” as our borders remain porous. Security is no better here than it is in Iraq, where terrorists are streaming across the Iraqi borders to fight our military men and women.

Why can’t our politicians seem to ‘connect the dots’?

But while our elected officials seem unable to pass the pork for American citizens in terms of securing our borders and enforcing our immigration law to provide for our security, there seems to be a huge ham-fest going on to please pro-illegal alien groups as our Senators stumble all over themselves to give away free citizenship, free healthcare, free education, social security benefits, welfare, in-state tuition, etc.

A puny fence is of no avail if you are not willing to shut down our borders AND enforce ALL of our immigration laws.

Since the tax dollars of American citizens are paying for the entire pig, I have one request;

I’d like a lot more crumbs on my pork.

See also:

Red Hot Cuppa Politics: Of Sobbing Violins Playing Mariachi Tunes

A Lady’s Ruminations: I don’t celebrate “Mexican Independence” …

Take Back Georgia: I Went To Jail Last Night…

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**

1 Comment Posted on College Football, Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes

we’re number 1

i am definitely late in posting this, but i would like to offer my belated congratulations to THE ohio state buckeyes on their win over texas last week. in case there was any question at all about this, the longhorns are a different football team without vince young. it’s still a very quality win, and the schedule sets up well for the buckeyes the rest of the season. (thanks for coming, cincinnati bearcats…)there are a couple games i’m concerned about, but the last game is not one of those games.

so the michigan wolverines beat the much over-hyped notre dame team. as shania once said…that don’t impress me much. it also doesn’t mean that they can beat ohio state. i’m going to go on the record and predict that michigan will lose to ohio state again this year. i’m not ready to predict that ohio state will be undefeated going into the michigan game. there are a couple obstacles still in their way.

what is up with the mets? swept by the pirates? come on. i know i didn’t just see those boxscores. it must be a bad dream, right? hopefully they will show up against the fish, and figure out those pesky lefty pitchers before they hit the playoffs.

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2 Comments Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

ouch

joe scarborough on the 2006 election:

As a political junkie who wept bitter tears the night Jimmy Carter got elected and shouted with uncontrolled joy when Ronald Reagan whipped his sorry ass four years later, I find myself ambivalent for the first time over a national election. After six years of Republican recklessness at home and abroad, I seriously doubt Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or the aforementioned Bourbon Street hookers could spend this country any deeper into debt than my Republican Party. With any luck, Democrats will launch destructive investigations, a new era of bad feelings will break out, and George W. Bush will stop using his veto pen to fill in Rangers’ box scores and instead start using it like a conservative president should.

that’s the temptation of many conservatives — to discipline the wayward republicans who have gotten so off-track during their time in power. i won’t disagree that they need some fiscal restraint and that they need to get more serious about border security. we do need to keep the big picture in mind. there’s strong evidence that a divided government is a better bet financially. we have more serious problems to face than spending, and we need to ask ourselves which party has a better plan to deal with those problems.

get out and vote for the party of your choice based on the information you have. we will deal with the consequences after november. it’s not over yet.

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1 Comment Posted on Conservatives, Democracy, Republicans

what he said

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests, ” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

–former senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater

that’s where today’s conservatives have gotten off-message. the majority of the elected conservatives only pay lip service to smaller government and fiscal responsibility. it’s fortunate for them that we haven’t held them accountable for those two failings because of our emphasis on national security. while i think that we have our priorities straight when we put national security above every other area, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that conservative Republicans have been careless with the responsibility we gave them. they should hear that message from us.

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