The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Happy New & Increased Taxes Year!

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Yes, yes, I know, recovering from late-night reveling readers, President Walking Eagle promised during his campaign that there would be no new taxes under his watch.  If we elected him, he would most assuredly keep middle America safe from the greedy avarice of that evil and secretive federal government.

And pigs fly.

As this new year and a new decade gets off to its shaky start, courtesy of those silly, misunderstood “unprivileged enemy belligerents” labeled as common criminals by the administration faster than it takes His Transparency to address the American people about it and given the full rights of American citizens to due process under our laws even when they attempt to enter the country under dubious legality while setting their underwear on fire on a plane several thousand feet in the air, every one of us is going to feel the soaring rhetoric of hope and change as we begin preparations for the annual headlong run into the textbook definition of federal bureaucracy.  The filing of our annual income tax returns.

Let’s hope Turbo Tax can keep up.  Effective today, the following tax breaks are no longer available:

  • Deduction of state and local general sales taxes (section 164) (Personal Tax Incentives)
  • Additional standard deduction, up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples, for state and local property taxes (section 63) (Personal Tax Incentives)
  • Research tax credit and alternative simplified credit (section 41) (General Business Tax Incentives)
  • New markets tax credit (section 45D) (Community Assistance Provisions)
  • Empowerment zone incentives (sections 1391 and 1202) (Community Assistance Provisions)
  • Renewal community tax incentives (sections 1400E, 1400F, 1400I, and 1400J) (Community Assistance Provisions)
  • District of Columbia Investment Incentives (sections 1400, 1400A, 1400B, and 1400C) (Community Assistance Provisions)
  • Net disaster loss designation and $500 limit per casualty for personal casualty losses attributed to federally declared natural disasters (section 165) (General Disaster Relief Provisions)
  • Expensing for qualified disaster expenses (section 198A) (General Disaster Relief Provisions)
  • Biodiesel and renewable diesel incentives (section 40A) (Energy Incentives)
  • Alternative motor vehicle credit for heavy hybrids (section 30B) (Energy Incentives)

And effective today, the following new taxes will be levied:

  • Increased exemption levels for the individual alternative minimum tax (section 55) and personal tax credits allowed against the AMT (section 26)
  • Exclusion of unemployment compensation benefits from gross income (section 85)
  • Alternative fuel mixture tax credit (section 6426(e))
  • Reduced estimated tax payments for small businesses (section 6654(d)(1)(D))

No one is left out; from business owner to laid-off worker, there’s something in here for everyone and the sole purpose is to suck more of your money into the federal coffers so the liberal progressives can hand it out to their special interest “victims”.  Current example being Numbnuts Abdulmutallab; charged under U.S. criminal law instead of by the military he must have a lawer, you know.  And why not one paid for by you and I, instead of his wealthy family?  And why not a corrupt lawyer in a corrupt federal jurisdiction at that?  Welcome to the affirmatively-graduated Ivy League ideology of “equality” for all. 

But I digress.

Now, His Transparency is going to tell you that it’s not HIS fault that middle-class America sees new and higher taxes today.  No, no; don’t blame HIM.  He promised, but even though Nancy’s Nuthouse managed to pass legislation to prevent these tax hikes and new taxes from going into effect, high-roller Harry in the Senate found it more important to concern them with appropriating your tax dollars for planes the Pentagon doesn’t need and cutting those backroom, closed-door secret deals to get 60 votes for his unconstitutional version of “health care reform” instead of addressing less-pressing problems like, oh, the economy.  So of course Obama simply must pass the buck on this one.  Those unrepresenting representatives in Congress are the ones that didn’t do their jobs and do right by you.  He promised.  Really. He. Did.  It was Congress who didn’t deliver.

Cue those busy flying pigs.

It was President Walking Eagle’s “historic agenda” that HE mandated as top priority.  Pesky little things like these tax hikes and tax cuts that break his promises never even entered his head.

Welcome to 2010.

Mastermind of 2007 Karbala Attack Freed In Prisoner Swap

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In a stunning turn of events that is going virtually unnoticed by the American media, Britain’s Peter Moore, apparently the only surviving hostage of a 2007 kidnapping in Iraq, has just been set free by his Iranian captors.  But there is a decided strangeness about the whole thing. 

Behind the scenes, British officials in Baghdad have been trying to reach contacts who might have links to the kidnappers. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, hinted at this when he said yesterday that there had been no “substantive” concessions to the hostage-takers, suggesting that in return for Mr Moore a number of extremists held in prison may have been released.

—

Mr Moore had been working for US management consultancy Bearingpoint in Iraq, while the other men were security contractors employed to guard him.

The kidnappers were understood to belong to an obscure militia known as the Islamic Shia Resistance, which demanded the release of up to nine of their associates held in US military custody since early 2007.

Several had already been handed to the Iraqi government and some had since been freed under the reconciliation process.

Mr Miliband has insisted no “substantive concessions” were made to the hostage-takers by the UK.

Frank Gardner said a senior Whitehall official had confirmed Qais Al-Khazaali – the leader of the kidnap group – was released “very recently” by the US to the Iraqi authorities.

Mr Khazaali had been suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and eventual killing of five US soldiers, he added.

—

The events that led to the kidnappings began shortly after the US president, George Bush, ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranians with a televised address to the world warning Iran to stay out of Iraq and pull back their proxies.

Iran responded with an unprecedented attack on a US base in Karbala nine days later. The attack had the hallmarks of the al-Quds kidnap section of the Revolutionary Guard, according to the major who spoke to the Guardian.

The Guardian has also obtained documents released by the US military under the Freedom of Information act.

The documents reveal how the al-Quds operatives’ English was so perfect that the Iraqi guards at the checkpoints “were convinced the attackers were American”.

When the attackers entered the compound they shot dead Private Millican. Four other US soldiers were kidnapped and spirited away in US-style vehicles. They were tracked down by US helicopters but before evading capture they shot dead their handcuffed captives.

Tit-for-tat incidents continued with the arrest by the US of Khazali and his brother in Basra in March that year. Khazali is alleged to have been the mastermind behind the Karbala killings, and also the appointed head of all Iranian special groups in Iraq.

The next move – the kidnap of the Britons from the Ministry of Finance – by the Righteous League and the al-Quds force was to be decisive and was designed to achieve two aims.

The first was to halt the project Moore was working on. The sophisticated computer system being installed would have exposed any corrupt practices in the Ministry of Finance .

Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, former commissioner of the Commission of Public Integrity in Iraq, testified to the US Congress on 4 October 2007: “The cost of corruption that my commission has uncovered so far across all ministries in Iraq has been estimated to be as high as $18bn.” He had fled to the US in August 2007 after his family’s home was targeted in a rocket attack.

Vance Jochim, who was the chief auditor and a US adviser for the Commission of Public Integrity based at the US embassy in Baghdad, has previously told the Guardian: “The new system would provide more transparency and accountability over the oil and other revenue handled by the finance ministry” – which he said had been resisting its implementation for nearly two years.

Eight months after the kidnappings, the only other location with a full record of the Iraqi government’s financial transactions and records of possible financial misconduct – Iraq’s Central Bank – was destroyed in a fire. The subsequent investigation found that it was arson.

The intelligence source said: “Many people don’t want a high level of corruption to be revealed. Remember this is the information technology centre, this is the place where all the money to do with Iraq and all Iraq’s financial matters are housed. The centre is linked to the Americans and all the money transfers. Everything, right down to the last penny, is in that centre.”

But if one aim was to avoid detection of corruption, the second aim was to bargain for the release of the Khazali brothers. In the end that was achieved, although not before the four bodyguards surrounding Peter Moore had been killed.

—

The US has released the leader of an Iranian-backed Shia terror group behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.

Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The US military directly implicated Qais in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.

“We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with US and Iraqi blood,” a military officer said. “We are going to pay for this in the future.”

The US military has maintained that the release of members and leaders of the League of the Righteous is related to a reconciliation agreement between the terror group and the Iraqi government, but some US military officers disagree.

“The official line is the release of Qazali is about reconciliation, but in reality this was a prisoner swap,” a military intelligence official said.

Moore and four members of his personal bodyguard were kidnapped at the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May 2007 by a group that calls itself the Islamic Shia Resistance, which is in fact a front for the League of the Righteous. The group had always insisted that Qais, his brother Laith, and other members of the Asaib al Haq be released in exchange for Moore and the others. Three of Moore’s bodyguards were executed while in custody, and the fourth is thought to have been murdered as well.

“This was a deal signed and sealed in British and American blood,” a US military officer told The Long War Journal. “We freed all of their leaders and operatives; they [the League of the Righteous] executed their hostages and sent them back in body bags. And we’re supposed to be happy about it.”

I’m sure the administration is going to try to put their tired “it’s Bush’s fault” spin on this bowing down to Iran, however, what is clear that something is rotten not just in Denmark, or Copenhagen, and it is most assuredly going to come back and bite us in the ass either through the loss of more military lives, or more jihadists attacks on U.S. soil.

—

UPDATE

The Pentagon is now denying any “quid pro quo” prisoner swap.  It’s all about “reconciliation” and the security of Iraq, despite evidence about post-“rehab” terrorist activities by these jihadists to the contrary.

This release of the Khazali brothers has apparently been in the works for some time, however, no response was ever received to the following inquiry made directly to the President by Senators Jeff Sessions and John Kyl back on July 1, 2009:

On January 20, 1986, President Ronald Reagan issued Nation Security Decision Directive Number 207, which prohibits negotiations with terrorist organizations regarding the release of hostages.  The Directive sets forth in unequivocal terms the United States’ “firm opposition to terrorism in all its forms” and makes clear the government’s “conviction that to accede to terrorist demands places more Americans at risk.  This no-concessions policy is the best way of protecting the greatest number of people and their safety.”  The Directive continues to say:  “The [United States government] will pay no ransoms, nor permit releases of prisoners or agree to other conditions that could serve to encourage additional terrorism.  We will make no changes in our policy because of terrorist threats or acts.”  This policy is further articulated in Department of State Publication 10217, which makes clear the United States “will not support the freeing of prisoners from incarceration in response to terrorist demands.”

We would like to know if it remains the policy and practice of the United States not to negotiate with or make concessions to terrorists, especially as it relates to the release of detainees or hostages.  This question is prompted by news reports from a wide range of outlets that show your administration may have violated this longstanding policy by releasing a dangerous terrorist in Iraq in response to the demands of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, a terrorist group that is holding British hostages.

Last month, a United States official whose identity remains unknown ordered the release of terrorist detainee, Laith al Khazali, whom the New York Times labeled “a senior Shiite insurgent said to be backed by Iran who was accused of playing a leading role in a group that killed five American soldiers in Karbala [, Iraq,] in a sophisticated attack in 2007….”  Press reports suggest that al Khazali’s release was the first phase of a detainee-for-hostages swap involving five British civilian hostages who were kidnapped by Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq in 2007.  In its June 9, 2009 story on this remarkable release, the New York Times reported that the release of al Khazali “appears to involve the release of British hostages who are being held by the [terrorist] organization.”

A United States military spokesman has reportedly confirmed that the release of al Khazali was tied to negotiations with the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq terror group, allegedly for some “reconciliation effort.”  This “reconciliation” concept appears to be a new label for terrorist negotiations.  According to the New York Times, a spokesman for the Iraqi government conceded that the release of British hostages had been part of the negotiations for the release of al Khazali.  The spokesman, Sami al-Askari, suggested that the “reconciliation” notion was adopted as the public face of any detainee-for-hostages negotiations:

This is a very sensitive topic because you know the position that the Iraqi government, the U.S. and British governments, and all the governments do not accept the idea of exchanging hostages for prisoners….So we put it in another format, and we told them that if they want to participate in the political process they cannot do so while they are holding hostages.  And we mentioned to the American side that they cannot join in the political process and release their hostages while their leaders are behind bars or imprisoned.

According to a June 9, 2009 New York Post article, “secret negotiations have been under way for months” with Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq – also known as the League of Righteousness -0 for the release of British hostages.  Iraqi lawmakers reportedly told the Post “the kidnappers had agreed to free the hostages in exchange for the phased release of League members, starting with Laith al-Khazali.”

Within days of Khazali’s release, British press outlets began reporting that the release of at least one British hostage was imminent.  Tragically, on June 21, 2009, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq sent the dead bodies of two of the five British hostages to the British embassy in Baghdad.  Before the terrorist group handed over the two dead Britons, a source close to the group made clear that the release of Laith al Qazali was not enough to gain the release of the five British hostages.  This person told the British paper The Times, “[n]one of the original conditions have changes…It has always been the five men in exchange for the prisoners including Qais and this remains the same to this date.”

The foregoing events have been reported by numerous outlets in the United States and Europe.  If these reports are accurate, they confirm that your administration released a major terrorist detainee in connection with hostage negotiations with a terrorist group.  Aside from the fact that a terrorist and war criminal was released without charges, the negotiations surrounding the release suggest a major shift in the United States’ approach to hostage negotiations and terrorist demands which, as we have learned, will only lead to more kidnappings, extortion, and hostage release demands.

Due to the very serious nature of this matter, we ask that you answer the following questions to clarify the policy your administration will follow in dealing with terrorist organizations’ demands:

(1)  Has your administration negotiated directly or indirectly with any terrorist organization for the release of detainees held by the United States government?

(2)  Was the release of Laith al Khazali related in any way to obtaining the release of one or more of the British hostages held by Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and what is the name of the highest ranking United States official who approved the release?

(3)  Prior to approving the release of Laith al Khazali, did your administration evaluate whether a criminal indictment or military commission charges could be brought against him, including for violating the federal war crimes statute?  If so, what was done?

(4)  While reconciliation has been floated as a basis for al Khazali’s release, please state to what extent the leaders of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq have seriously discussed giving up their efforts and history of attacking United States and Iraqi interests?

(5)  Did your administration make any effort to consult the family members of the give slain servicemen who were killed in the January 2007 Karbala attack before the release of Laith al Khazali?  According to a New York Post article, the father of one of the slain soldiers was surprised by the release.

(6)  Does your administration adhere to the “no-concessions” policy described in National Security Decision Directive Number 207, including its statement that the United States does not “permit releases of prisoners or agree to other conditions that could serve to encourage additional terrorism[?]”

 

Don’t Worry, His Priorities Are In Order

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We have fanatics trying to roast their nuts on airplanes and blowing themselves up on our military base in Afghanistan, yet President Walking Eagle could barely manage to muster up the time it takes to mouth a few lame words to the American people.

But he can take the time out of his busy vacation schedule to sign his first veto.  Because this was oh so by gosh, by golly important it just couldn’t wait.

HONOLULU – President Barack Obama has rejected his first piece of legislation from Congress, a stopgap spending bill that never had to take effect.

The White House on Wednesday said Obama exercised his right to send back to the Congress a temporary appropriations bill that lawmakers passed in case a winter storm about two weeks ago would have prevented them from approving a final measure to fund the Defense Department next year. The Dec. 19 blizzard didn’t keep them away from the Capitol and they approved the $626 billion defense spending bill before the previous budget expired.

The White House described the move as a technicality that the president took out of an abundance of caution, and that it was his first veto.

Whew!  Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see he still has those audacious priorities in order.

More Liberal Compassion In Action

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While the vitriol of the left no longer surprises, they’re spewings on Twitter tonight at the news that Rush Limbaugh was taken to the hospital with chest pains is painful.  As a public service, I’ve collected some of their comments and present them here for your edification.  If they’re a member of your family or a friend, please remember that this is the ordinary American kind of progressive liberal compassion that wants to take over your health care.

(For the Twitter-impaired, the “RT” means a “re-tweet” or reposting of someone else’s comment.)

CheddarChad: What is that racist bastard Rush Limbaugh trending for??

NYfitter: RT @Mopec35: RT @Pumpy_Beanis: DIE RUSH LIMBAUGH YOU FUCKING PIG MAN JUST FUCKING DIE//here he is @spongedocks @MOPEC35<—–Thats him

thesixthwoman: RT @JamesAkersJr: I hope Rush Limbaugh is saved by a black homosexual doctor with a questionable immigration status. <<who’s MUSLIM!!!>>

VRWCTexan: @HULAgate billpalmer come on God, I don’t ask you for much, & very rarely ask you to smite anyone. but please kill Rush Limbaugh tonight.

plan9production: Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital. I told him Oxycontin and bacon cheeseburgers were a dangerous mix.

LeslieBright: RT @gammawaif: RT @JoeMyGod RT @JamesAkersJr: I hope Rush Limbaugh is saved by a black homosexual doctor with a questionable immigration …

DarlaV: Oh no! Limbaugh is in the hospital…you know what that means! If he dies, theres a god, bcause I’ve been praying for it.

mian: LMFAOO RT phontigallo I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now

gillywithaG: RT @DJBRIG: So Rush Limbaugh is in the hospital. Come on’09, you got a day. Let’s take a celebrity i actually don’t like!!!

trankedbojo: fuck rush limbaugh – hope he dies

CampGrooveThang: RT @CarrieCornish: I do hope Rush Limbaugh is saved by a black lesbian doctor with a questionable immigration status.

Ladygoogoogaga: Maybe Rush Limbaugh will die and seal 2009 as the best year ever. (via @Willseph)

LBTHEGREAT: RT @RickAfterDark I’ll be disappointed if Rush Limbaugh diessuddenly.That prick should have2suffer for weeks, or even months first.

carlosceldran: feels guilty that when he first heard of Rush Limbaugh’s heart attack, the first thing I thought was, “Oh, cool.”

steadierfooting: It’s a post-Christmas miracle! RT @ChicagoBreaking: Report: Rush Limbaugh hospitalized in Hawaii

rachel_snook: I try to never wish harm to another human being. But Rush Limbaugh. . .

scrappy_rocks: Are we lucky enough for this to be our #2 of 3? Report: Rush Limbaugh rushed to hospital with chest pains

TheFullGinsburg: No one wants Rush Limbaugh to die. But they do want his doctors to fail.

CerromeRUSSELL: RT @MsRoney: RT @tom_streeter: I do hope Rush Limbaugh is saved by a black lesbian DR wit a questionable immigration status HAHAHA!

Joe_Gamble: In other news, Rush Limbaugh is still alive. Too bad he didn’t get caught smuggling dope in China.

CalFireNews: It is much easier to score Oxycontin in Palm Beach than Hawaii apparently…

They kiss their mamas with these mouths.  Aren’t all you card-carrying Democrats proud?

If You Love America

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I’d like to share some thoughts that are taking shape as I take a year-end look at this horrible administration, the media coverups for it, and the reactions to all of it from my fellow citizens.  The Left has so quickly caricatured itself post-inauguration that to criticize them is like holding out a bucket to catch common sense pennies raining down from Heaven.  For those who have eyes to see, what the Democrats have accomplished lo these last 12 months is a suicide mission to which even the most exalted (sic) jihadist would bow in respect.  And from a seat in the right-hand wings, good.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of affirmatively graduated “equality for all” types.

But though I am personally a Constitutional Conservative and firmly believe that our inalienable Rights include reaping the consequences of exercising them, what I am fast finding tiring are those on the Right who make their arguments waving a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other.  Far too many of them are demonstrating the same, blind perspective as those on the Left they are so willing to gleefully bash.  There are many conservatives, myself included, who do not lay claim to any particular Judeo-Christian dogma, and while we may acknowledge a higher power, many of us have spent a good portion of our lifetimes fighting against the narrow zealousness of both the Christian Right and the athiests; seeing any zealousy towards religion as an enemy to America’s foundation of Liberty on equal footing with Islamic jihadists.

I believe that America is cut out of cloth that is, when push comes to shove, conservative, but that conservatism is moderate.  “Your rights end where mine begin” is a tolerance demonstrated time and time again when one looks outside of the ego-fogged spaces of those bastions of bureaucracies we call government offices.  We pay no mind to teenagers with the crotches of their baggy pants hanging down around their  knees, we look with bemused eyes upon our neighbors who sell their souls for a mortgage on a house so big they must work incessantly to pay for it and therefore never spend time rattling around its vast, undecorated space.  We begrudge no one the free expression of their individualness, though we retain the right to laugh at them and understand that when we pratfall we’re going to be laughed at, too.  That’s simple fairness, by the way.  Not democracy.

And so it is that in the heartland of America, which is pretty much anywhere outside the big, Democrat-ruled camps like D.C., New York, Detroit, and the entire state of California, that life is good.  But that goodness doesn’t mean we simply ignore those Democratic strangleholds.  On the contrary, we look upon them with great concern.  But we cringe in equal measure when any of our friends and neighbors demonstrate their own blind jihadism of guns and Bibles.

Maybe it’s just another example of the power of the anonymity of the internet but so far in my face-to-face discussions with even the most red-blooded of Constitutional Conservatives I’ve not yet heard the ugliness of the threats bantered about in online comments, nor the unpalatable amount of Bible-thumping preaching to make some or another point.  Yes, the Left has been utterly despicable in its verbal treatment of the Right for a very long time, and their vitriol does not go excused.  But I do not find any comfort from self-professed conservatives who would beat a liberal with either their Bible or a gun in retaliation.  Indeed, such fundamentalist cowboy tactics are exactly the fodder the Left looks for, the fodder they deliberately attempt to pry out of conservatives in order to have even the flimsiest of excuses to slap chains on our freedoms before their time in office runs out.  And while it’s obvious that logic doesn’t enter into any argument with a liberal, deliberately handing them your gun and pulling the trigger for them while holding up your Bible as a shield is an equally losing proposition.

It’s time that conservatives gather their collective, smoldering anger and do what we keep advising the pablum-drunk progressive liberals.  Grow up. While it’s true you don’t need to bring a gun to a knife fight, it’s just as true you can’t have a battle of wits with those who are unarmed.  The battle to restore the Republic of these United States will not be won with words directed to a deliberately deaf enemy who doesn’t have enough gasoline in their brain cell’s engine to process them even if they could hear.  You don’t stop an evil from sucking you dry by throwing a Bible or a cross at them.  You stop them with a silver bullet or a stake through the heart.

And those tools of the most enduring fiction are available to everyone who wants this country back, in the form of the ballot box and in the form of their dollars.  It’s time to get out from behind the safety of computer screens and televisions and cast votes for candidates who are willing to buck the current system of pork and earmarks and self-proclaimed special interest “victims”.  Such conservative candidates are rising up from the ranks even as you read this.  FIND THEM.  Deliberately seek them out.  If you have it in you, put your money where your font is and become one.  Ask them the hard questions and listen carefully to their answers.  Then support them with everything you’ve got.  Conservatives who love this country must begin to fight FOR what’s right, not just fight against what’s gone so terribly wrong.

I believe the majority of Americans are good and kind lot.  I believe that they have a lot more common sense than the progressive liberals dare to believe.  Even in the most blue of districts there remain honest, hard-working people who hunger for the truth.  The facts of what this administration in particular have done to set the stage for enormous and dangerous disaster right here within our own borders are clear enough.  It’s time to put down the gun, put down the Bible, and give the facts the lip service they deserve.  Don’t waste your time on those still drunk on the Kool-aid; we don’t call it entitlement derangement syndrome for nothing.  Those people are hopeless but like an idiot savant they are clever enough to keep pulling on your heartstrings to get your hard-earned money out of you in the form of donations to their cause de jour and collect a paycheck, especially where it concerns the environment or social “justice”.  The answer to this ludicrous behavior is simple.  And like charity, it must begin at home.  If  conservatives are to become at all effective, it’s time to starve the beast.  Stop donating to organizations like, for example, the Sierra Club, the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the Catholic Charities.  Any charity that has their hands out for government funding should be on your own personal conservative political watch list.  (Go to Guidestar and look up every non-local organization that asks you for money; all charities must file IRS documents and state how much of your hard-earned tax money they receive from the government.  Then do a search for how they spend your money to advertise for or to support progressive liberal causes.  I dare say you’ll be more than a little surprised.)  Ok, yes, it’s work but nothing, especially our liberty, comes without a price.  You can, of course, choose to keep it simple and invest your charitable dollars locally.  And, indeed, I dare say that is where they will do the most good.

The progressive liberals in this country have thrown themselves with a breathtaking belly-flop of truly unfathomable joy onto the Green Mile.  The blatancy of their avarice and greed is the rope with which they now hang themselves.  Where cool heads prevail, to take back this country and return it to the firm foundation set forth in the Constitution will be child’s play for conservatives in 2010 but such “play” doesn’t mean stooping to their level of vacuous visciousness; hiding behind Bibles and guns is no different than hiding behind progressive liberal “equality” and “social justice”.

Obama’s Vacation Isn’t The Reason To Complain

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There’s much derision being thrown at President Walking Eagle for being in Hawaii when a terrorist tried to blow up a flight to Detroit.  Even some of the most respected and sourced conservative pundits are making a big deal about the fact that the image Obama portrays is that his cronies and his golf game are more important to him than the safety of the American people.

While I personally belive that His Transparency never had and never will have the best interests of anyone except himself in his alleged heart, I am not so sure crucifying him for staying at his vacation location is entirely warranted.  First reason is that, as our employee, he does have the right to take some time off.  (“It’s Christmas, for God’s sake!”)  That he chooses to do so at great taxapayer expense during a recession, in contrast to GW, who spent his time away from Washington either at Camp David or his own ranch in Texas, is an argument for another day.  As long as he remains accessible to the information required to do his job should there be a crisis like that created by Numbnuts Abdulmutallab, Obama staying put is no different than any of us who remain “on call” for our jobs.

I know, I know; it’s tough to be a realist and sometimes even tougher to be fair.  And certainly his pathetic little attempts to address the matter from Hawaii, from not being told about the incident until two hours after it happened (in contrast to being awakened when word came of his Nobel Peace prize nomination) to not making a public statement for three days because he allegedly doesn’t want to give terrorists more attention than they deserve (in contrast to immediately sticking his nose into trivial matters like his friend, Professor Gates’, bad behavior) have done nothing to reassure Americans that the right choice was made by electing him to be our President. 

But such is life, dear readers.  Such is life.  As it has been said, you’ve got the government you deserve.  Deal with it.  Try to find the bright side because I believe there is one and it will continue to provide more of the figurative rope this administration is using to hang itself.

The real issues come in the form of continuing to knee-jerk parrot the tired old “blame Bush” rhetoric – after having an entire year of control over America’s Homeland Security.  After having a full year of privileged intelligence briefings and the opportunity for real insight into the workings of American counter-terrorism.  As was demonstrated so horribly on Christmas Day, there has been little real effort or progress made in this area.  I’d say this is  mostly because Obama is the kind of person who can never be bothered with details and so claims the authority while passing the buck on the responsibility, even when he chooses the wrong people for a job.  Most assuredly, Janet Incompetano has some explaining to do.  As do a whole lot of people in the State Department, the CIA, etc., etc., etc.  And when their ignorance or their deliberate mistakes are finally understood, the inconvenient truth is that Obama’s gonna own it – sympathetic preogressive liberal lock, stock, and barrel. 

That ain’t gonna be pretty and I can almost understand wanting to hide my head in the sun-drenched sand and sing “Mele Kalikimaka”.

Already, the heat of the facts are starting to build.  The following little summary comes from USA Today (bad punctuation theirs, not ours):

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, spent a month at an al-Qaeda compound north of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, where he completed training alongside a Saudi al-Qaeda bomb-maker.

Little noted is the fact that the second in command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula— the group that reportedly trained and deployed Abdulmutallab for his mission to attack the American homeland — is a released Guantanamo detainee:  Said Ali al-Shihri.  While al-Shihri’s specific role has not been determined, it is increasingly clear that the terrorist network he helps lead was behind the attempted Detroit attack.

Known to Guantanamo officials as Detainee No. 372, al-Shihri was captured on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in December 2001. He denied being a terrorist and claimed to have traveled to Afghanistan two weeks after the 9/11 attacks to deliver money for the Red Crescent.   At Guantanamo, he told officials that he had never even heard of al-Qaeda until he arrived in Guantanamo, and declared that “Usama bin Laden had no business representing Islam.”  He promised that if released he would return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, reunite with his family and work in their used furniture store.

Despite evidence that he had trained in an al-Qaeda camp north of Kabul, he was released in 2007 to a Saudi rehabilitation program.  But al-Shihri never became a furniture salesman. Instead, last January, he appeared in a series of jihadist videos identified as al-Qaeda’s second in command on the Arabian Peninsula.  The New York Times reported that he is “suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa,” in September 2008.

President Walking Eagle and his administration refuse to connect any dots and have dug in their heels that they will continue with plans to empty and close the Guantamo Bay.  They feel that its symbolism trumps having martyrs to the jihadist cause out running around actively recruiting others to both continue their attempts to destroy America and to pay us back for their having been caught trying to do so.  Ah, the audacity of pride.

Facts: 

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is led by two former Guantanamo detainees who reportedly were released to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo in 2007 and were set free after completing a controversial “rehabilitation program.”

All the suspects convicted of being involved in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole have also either been released by Yemeni authorities or managed to escape in a jailbreak. 

Which, of course, perfectly explains why the administration can make the following statement with a straight face:

“Our policy is, as consistent with the law, that we’ll make transfers, we’ll notify Congress of the transfers, that we’ll make transfers consistent with our national security interests. And we believe that each of those that we have done so far enhances our national security.”

Hark, is that again the sound of the beating wings of flying pigs?  Ask the passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

On The Desire Of “Justice For All”

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Though sourced from a rather unusual quarter, in this excerpt from a fictional letter sent by the archangel Lucifer to his brother Michael comes an argument defining the dangers posed by liberal progressives:

Certainly, in hell there is no free will, for the damned relinquished it on their worlds.  This torment has been denied them by me.  Therefore, they cannot will to climb to Heaven by self-denial, by contemplation, by worship, by dedication, by acts of faith and charity.  These attributes shriveled in them during their lives, or were rejected scornfully by them in moods of risible sophistications.  They can desire to possess them now, but I would keep them safe and warm, as Our Father never kept them so!  So, they can will nothing.  They can only accept the pleasures -and the pains – I bestow on them.

In Heaven, however, free will is fully released.  The ability to reject, to deny, remains with archangels, angels and the souls of the saved.  The gift of repudiation is still with them and the possibility of disobedience.  Is that not most frightful?  What insecurity!  What danger!  My damned remain with me in eternal slavery because in life they desired only safety, and lacked the fire of adventure, though, God knows, they protested enough on their worlds!  But what did they protest?  Inequality, which is the variety of God.  Instability, which is the light of the universes.  Uneasiness of mind, which is the soul of philosophy.  Apparent injustices, which are the goad of the spirit.  Vulnerability to life and other men, which is a charge to become invulnerable through Faith in God.  The presence of suffering or misfortune – but these are a call for the soul to put on armor and serenity.  They demanded of their rulers that they remain in constant cocoons, silky and guarded by earthly authority.  They did not ask for wings to soar into the sunlight, and the ominous threats of full existence.  They rejected freedom for hell.  Certainly, they cried for freedom on their worlds, but it was freedom only to live happily without the freedom to be divinely unhappy.  

I have satisfied all these lusts of men. Strange, is it not, that my hells, though the ultimate success of the dreams of men, are filled with weeping?  And strange, is it not, that they still do not believe in the existence of God?  But then, they never did; they believed only in me.  They cannot will to believe in God.  They see absolute reality about them now, which was their will in life.  I will not pretend that I do not understand them, for was it not I who promised them all without work and without striving?

But lately I asked of a newly descended soul which had much acclaim on Terra:  “What was your greatest desire on your world, you who were applauded by rulers and admired by your fellowmen?”

He replied, “Justice for all,” and put on a very righteous expression.

That was admirable, for who does not admire justice, even I?  But I probed him.  He declared that in his earthly view all men deserved what all other men possessed, whether worthy or not.  “They are men, so they are equal, and being born they have a right to the fruits of the world, no matter the condition of their birth or the content of their minds, or their capacities.”  I conducted him through the pleasures of my hell and he was delighted that no soul was lesser in riches than another, and that every soul had access to my banquets and my palaces, no soul was distinguishable from another, none possessed what another did not possess.  Every desire was immediately gratified, he discovered.  He smiled about him joyfully.  He said, “Here, justice is attained!”

Then he saw that no face was joyful, however mean or lofty its features.  He remarked, wonderingly, on the listlessness of my damned, and how they strolled emptily through thoroughfares filled with music and through streets wherein there was not a single humble habituation.  He heard the cries of pleasure over my laden tables, and then heard them silenced, for there was no need now for food and where there is no need there is no desire and no enjoyment.  He saw that the poorest on earth were clothed in magnificence and jewels, yet they wept the loudest.  He was no fool.  He said, “Satiety.”  True, I answered him, but satiety can only live in the presence of total equality.  He pondered on this while I led him to the seat of thousands of philosophers, and he sat down among them.  But, as there is no challenge in hell, and no mystery, there can be no philosophy.  That night he came to me on his knees and begged for death.  I struck him with my foot, and said, “O man, this was the hell you made, and this was the desire of your heart, so eat, drink, and be merry.”

He attempted to hang himself in the manner of Judas, and I laughed at his futility.  I meditated that above all futility is the climate of hell.

He said to me, in tears, “Then, if you are, then God exists.”

“That does not follow,” I replied to him.  “But, did you not deny Him on Terra?  Did you not speak of supra-man and man-becoming, and the ultimate glorification of man on earth, without God?”

“I did not see God among men,” he said, wringing his hands.

“You did not look,” I said.  “You were too dull in your human arrogance and too enamored of humanity.  You never denounced your fellows for their lusts and their cruelties.  You told them they were only ‘victims.’  You refused to look upon their nature, for you denied the infinite variety and capacities of nature.  To you, one man was as good as any other man, and equally endowed, for the foolish reason that he had been born.  You saw no saints, and no sinners.  It was only a matter of environment, though the proof was all about you that environment is but a mere shading or tint on the soul, and is not destiny.  You denied that men have gifts of the spirit, often above those of other men.  In truth, you denigrated those gifts of striving and wonder.  You denied free will.  Everything evil that happened to a man was only the result of his fellowmen’s lack of justice.  You denied the reality of good and evil, the ability to make a choice.  In short, you denied life, itself.”

“Then God in truth does exist?” he asked, after a moment’s miserable thought.

“That you will never know,” I said.  “But rejoice!  All your dreams are fulfilled here.  Delight yourself.  Behold, there are beautiful female demons here, and banquets and sports and pleasures and soft beds and lovely scenes and all whom you had wished, in life, you had known.  Converse with them.”

“There is no desire in me,” he said.  “I want nothing.”

“You are surely in hell,” I replied, and I left him weeping.

 

Dialogues With The Devil, Taylor Caldwell, 1967.

The History Of America In Two Quotes

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How far we have come as a nation?  Our progress can be measured in two simple statements:

 

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
(Thomas Jefferson)

 

“It’s telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation.”
(Barack Obama)

 

And there are still those who wonder why Patriots weep.

Will Government Health Care Cover Spinal Reconstruction?

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If what America has been forced to witness in Congress the last two months wasn’t enough to convince those still willing to give them even the slimmest benefit of the doubt, what’s going on during this holiday break should be enough to demonstrate once and for all that almost to a man (and to a woman), those we send to Washington to (not) represent us are nothing more than walking poster children for entitlement derangement-syndrome.

Everyone knows that the House had a huge fight over the Stupak amendent and that it finally passed and was included in their nasty little version of health care “reform” legislation.  Blue Dog Democrats defied the Queen of the Nuthouse in support of the Stupak amendment; with much jumping up and down and great thumpings of their chests many claimed to agree with the vast majority of Americans that they could never, ever consider voting for any kind of health care “reform” that didn’t contain such proper constraints to prevent the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions.

Oh, it was quite a sight.  Do you remember?  Such weeping and wailing in defense of what is right in the face of so much angry Botox-enhanced “feminist” opposition, it almost brought a tear to my own cynical eyes.

Almost.

The Senate then rammed through their version of a health care “reform” bill on Christmas Eve.  It most visibly differed from the House bill by counting alleged savings from cutting Medicare payments to doctors twice, by not including a so-called “public option”, and by adding in a very last-minute, very lame, very loopholed section that, effectively, will allow taxpayer monies to fund abortions through government health insurance premium subsidies so that Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska would, along with his 100% Medicare expansion subsidy-in-perpetuity, become Harry Reid’s 60th and deciding vote for the monstrosity.  The Senate version also changes the standing rules in the Senate so that there may never be a repeal of the bill’s main unelected panel of bureaucrats.  You know, those beancounters who will set regulations imposed on doctors and patients, the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels.  The Democrats want to keep them in unconstitutional control of your health care forever.

The next step is reconcilation of these two differing, green-be-damned-ceiling-high stacks of paper and then final passage of the same version of a bill in both the Nuthouse and the Senate.  But word is already out on the street that principle, not to mention adherence to their oath to uphold the Constitution, remains a foreign paradigm to Nuthouse Democrats and reconciliation is not really going to happen.  The Senate version, in all of its inalienable Rights-killing glory, is going to be swallowed basically its entirety by House Democrats.  Some may hold their noses just for show, but it’s going down in one, basically unchanged gulp. 

How do we know this?  These Sunday morning talk show statements don’t exactly sound like statements made by anyone who’s had any recent contact with their spine, do they?

“We’re not going to rubber-stamp the Senate bill. On the other hand, we recognize the realities in the Senate.”  Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums.  We’ve got to make sure that the final product is affordable.”  (Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee)

“Well, I’m sure the conference will yield some changes, but the reality is, having served in the House and its leadership, I understand sometimes its frustrations with the Senate, but if we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version.”  (Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J)

“We want a public option to do basically three things:   Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs. So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I’m all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence.”  (House Democratic Whip James Clyburn; who had previously personally appealed to the President not to yield on a “public option”)

 Since the most heated debate came over the Stupak amendment, which effectively replaced the House’s original lax verbiage with Hyde amendment assurance of no federal funding of abortions, let’s take a look at the Democrats that voted for it:

Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania Steve Driehaus of Ohio James Oberstar of Minnesota
Joe Baca of California Brad Ellsworth of Indiana David Obey of Wisconsin
John Barrow of Georgia Bobby Etheridge of North Carolina Solomon Ortiz of Texas
Marion Berry of Arkansas Bart Gordon of Tennessee Tom Perriello of Virginia
Sanford Bishop of Georgia Parker Griffith of Alabama Collin Peterson of Minnesota
John Boccieri of Ohio Baron Hill of Indiana Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota
Dan Boren of Oklahoma Tim Holden of Pennsylvania Nick Rahall of West Virginia
Bobby Bright of Alabama Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania Silvestre Reyes of Texas
Dennis Cardoza of California Marcy Kaptur of Ohio Ciro Rodriguez of Texas
Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania Dale Kildee of Michigan Mike Ross of Arkansas
Ben Chandler of Kentucky James Langevin of Rhode Island Timothy Ryan of Ohio
Travis Childers of Mississippi Dan Lipinski of Illinois John Salazar of Colorado
Jim Cooper of Tennessee Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts Heath Shuler of North Carolina
Jim Costa of California Jim Marshall of Georgia Ike Skelton of Missouri
Jerry Costello of Illinois James Matheson of Utah Vic Snyder of Arkansas
Henry Cuellar of Texas Mike McIntyre of North Carolina Zack Space of Ohio
Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania Charlie Melancon of Louisiana John Spratt of South Carolina
Artur Davis of Alabama Mike Michaud of Maine Bart Stupak of Michigan
Lincoln Davis of Tennessee Alan Mollohan of West Virginia John Tanner of Tennessee
Joe Donnelly of Indiana John Murtha of Pennsylvania Gene Taylor of Mississippi
Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania Richard Neal of Massachusetts Harry Teague of New Mexico
    Charlie Wilson of Ohio

 

One would rightly expect that if asked to vote on “reconciled” health care legislation that fails to include the proper ban on the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions, they will vote no.  But the fate of the largest single federal usurpation of individual liberty is now at stake.

Cue the flying pigs.

President Flip-Flop Supports Taxpayer-Funded Abortion

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According to Jake Tapper, President Walkng Eagle has now clearly stated that he doesn’t care if people who don’t want to pay for someone else’s voluntary abortion are forced to pay for it anyway.

“There needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo. And that’s the goal,” Obama told me in November.

“…we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.

And I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices, because one of the pledges I made in that same speech was to say that if you’re happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, that it’s not going to change.”

So, does the Senate language come closer to what the president wants than the House language?

Gibbs told me this morning: “Yes.”

So the Senate version of the bill, with it’s lame accounting gimmicks intended only to cover up the fact that federal money is subsidizing someone’s choice to have a voluntary abortion, is better than the House version and the Stupak amendment?  Sounds to me like this latest flip-flop is just a not-so-subtle attempt by Obama to advise House Democrats to back down on their upholding provisions of the Hyde amendment so he can get his self-perceived moment of glory at the expense of American liberty.