Houston reporter crashes Ken Lay's funeral.

Good grief! Is nothing sacred?

"Only invited friends and family attended the celebration of Lay's life - a directive Houston Chronicle society columnist Shelby Hodge discovered firsthand.
Inside, there was a bouquet of white lilies at the altar and a picture of Lay, flanked by sprays of sunflowers, according to Hodge, who stepped inside and swiftly was escorted out."

Look, Ken Lay was not a great guy. No doubt. But he is dead and the family and friends don't deserve intrusion. Has anyone ever heard of a msm reporter crashing a funeral before? Too weird.

via LST

What can one say about the bomb blasts in India?

Just another day for the rag tag group of Militant Islamists that we need not fear....*sigh*

Hasn't happened here though (knock on wood!) Wonder why? (I know why, do you?)

Here is blog for helping Indian bomb victims and their families with information and news.

via NRO

Slow and steady wins the race...

RCP:

"Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell held a press briefing today discussing the impending turnover of security forces in the Muthanna province in southern Iraq. Caldwell described it as a "huge step", and I don't think that's in any way an overstatement.
Muthanna will be the first province in Iraq to assume total control of its security forces: all mutlinational forces will withdraw from urban areas and take on a supporting role, while the local police will assume full responsibility and be under the direct control of Muthanna's governor. In addition to being another sign of slow but steady progress in Iraq, Muthanna also represents an important test case for the future transition of the rest of the country's security forces."

We will get there, my friends.

Media bias against our boys...

Well duh..

From Blogs For Bush:

This was sent to me by Barbara Ledeen of the Senate Republican Conference:

So I asked my intern to do a little research today because yesterday's WashPost outlook section was just so over-the-top in its anti-American soldier articles. I asked him to check how many article/editorials the Post did regarding the two soldiers who were grotesquely tortured, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23 of Houston Texas and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.
There are 7 news articles in all. 2 or 3 of the articles are actually amalgamations of Iraq-related news stories. There are no editorials. One of the articles actually groups the kidnapping of the 2 soldiers together with a story about US soldiers charged with murdering Iraqis. When I put in a search for the names of the 2 soldiers plus the word "torture" nothing came up. The last of the 7 was published on 6/28/06.

I'm sure you'll be gratified to know that when I typed in the word "Haditha" the search turned up 149 Washington Post hits, including editorials and news items. Since June 19th (the day after the first news story re: the 2 soldiers appeared), there have been 12 items published in WaPo on Haditha, compared to 7 on the soldiers.

When I typed in "Abu Ghraib" the search engine stalled because the search would've returned more than 1000 documents.

It isn't a matter of not wanting bad news to be published - but it is a matter of the bad news being endlessly highlighted, while news which might make Americans feel good about our war effort, or outraged at enemy action, is downplayed. This is what we mean by "media bias" - not a failure to tell the truth so much as a failure to tell the whole truth.

Manly men.

Cassandra at Villainous Company was asking for and posting some pictures of manly men, but I found these...the Italian soccer team world cup winners. Enjoy.

Cindy Sheehan...

fasts with smoothies.

Hmm... isn't that like the Slimfast diets except better?

Well somebody had to say it.

It might as well be Tony Snow:

"White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that Bill Richardson, who served as
United Nations' ambassador and Energy Secretary under Clinton, "went with flowers and chocolates, and he went with light-water nuclear reactors ... and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan and many other inducements for the 'dear leader' to try to agree not to develop nuclear weapons, and it failed."

Gee, I guess Lieberman is worried.

Lieberman Files Papers to Create New PartySen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) filed paperwork "that will allow him to collect signatures to petition his way onto the November ballot if he loses an August primary," the AP reports."Lieberman also filed papers with the secretary of the state's office Monday to create a new party called Connecticut for Lieberman." By creating a new party, Lieberman "will be able to secure a higher position on the November ballot by creating a new party rather than petitioning his way on as an individual."

I guess he figures if the far left beats him in the primaries he can win statewide.

via Taegan Goddard's Political wire

"Go play with the peanutbutter..."

Kids. You gotta love them for their creativity. More photos here.

So here is my best story. When my oldest two were 6 and 4 they were in the playroom and I was in the kitchen and I could hear them laughing and throwing something around. It sounded soft like a pillow so I wasn't worried. It went on for a few minutes though and I finally got curious. I went in and they had pulled out the dirty diapers of their baby brothers from the diaper bin and had been slinging them around the playroom. Luckily it was just wet diapers, but when a full wet diaper hits a wall or a shelf it splatters into a million little "pee gels." These gels covered everything. Every toy, every piece of furniture, and most of the walls. I had to sit with a bucket of bleach water for two hours and wash off every single thing in the room.

Good times. Good times.

via boing boing

Beheading Descration Video of Dead U.S. Soldiers Released on Internet by al Qaeda.

The most sickening thing I have ever seen so far. Rusty has it all, including photos.

WARNING! VERY GRAPHIC!!!!!

What can I say? Demons live.

Professors gone bonkers cont.......

The formerly employed at the University of Arizona's Dr. Frisch saga with Jeff at PW continues. I don't see how you could have missed it. It was everywhere! I won't link her site, but she has e-mails from Fox News for an interview which she accepts and then declines. (One commenter says "Don't do it, Fox News is the enemy" ) She also asks Jeff to remove a link to her picture that one of his commenters linked to and he did so (although he was under no obligation to do so) and what does she do to repay him? She posts a picture of him calling him "Count C*ckcular." The maturity level here is amazing. She says she has resigned and that she won't be posting on this for a month (yeah right)

I got an e-mail today from a former commenter apologizing profusely for her rude comments several months ago. I thought at the time that it might be a professor. I'm wondering if this whole drama made her rethink what she had written, if you know what I mean. I would never go to the trouble of trying to get anyone fired (unless they referred to my kids as Debbie Frisch did with Jeff) but I do hope that this episode reminds us all that our words could come back to haunt us no matter how anonymous we think we are on the net. Civil debate is what I have always wanted for this site. It's the only way mature people can view other's opinions.

The NYT's meltdown.

Malkin has this:

The Prowler follows up on the damage the blabbermouth NYTimes has done to terrorism-financing investigations:

"We aren't going to get into specifics in public now, but I think when we brief the House and Senate in the coming days we will be able to make a clear and persuasive case that the SWIFT leak has severely set our efforts back on a number of fronts and on a number of investigations," says a Treasury official familiar with the preparations of the Congressional briefings. "Depending on where we come out of things, some of us are of a mindset to recommend that as much information as possible that we can allow to be declassified should be declassified, so that the American people can see just how much damage the Times has caused."

The protest at the NYC offices of the NYTimes is on today.

Place: 229 West 43rd Street, New York City (between 7th and 8th Avenues)
Date: Monday, July 10, 2006
Time: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

This one has really backfired on the Times. In the coming elections it will be easy to paint them as anti-American and caring more about their political agenda than the security of the country (because it's true). This can only hurt the left because that will be who the Times will endorse of course.

Association will kill the Democrats in the next election cycle I am betting.

Hell receives another resident.

The Captain has this:

The man who proudly proclaimed his responsibility for an atrocity that saw hundreds of Russian children murdered assumed room temperature earlier today. Chechen "warlord" (terrorist) Shamil Besayev died in a battle between his forces and the Russians in nearby Ingushetia:

FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev said on Monday that Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school attack in which 331 people, half of them children, were killed, was planning an attack to coincide with Russia hosting the G8 summit of world leaders this weekend.

CNN's Matthew Chance said the killing was a massive victory for the security services and a huge blow for the rebel leadership.

Basayev, together with other Chechen fighters, was killed in Ingushetia, a region neighboring Chechnya, where rebels are battling for independence.

The CNN report includes a pretty good review of Basayev's career as a terrorist. He also claimed responsibility for a seizure of a Moscow theater with hundreds of hostages that wound up being caught on videotape and rebroadcast later as a gripping documentary. In that attack, a number of Chechen terrorists strapped explosives onto themselves, including some women. The Russians pumped a powerful anaesthetic into the auditorium, incapacitating everyone, but did not apply the antidote quickly enough. Over a hundred hostages, along with all of the terrorists, perished.

But, as a few of my commenters have pointed out, these guys are nothing to worry about. Just a small band of rag tag fanatics. They pose no real danger. *sarcasm off*

Good grief.

This is so funny...

If it weren't so sad. It's a Australian gay show showing clips of the crazy Phelps group. But the last clip is worth waiting for. It's hilarious!!!

via Linda of The Cotillon

The Political Battle Bush is Winning.

The San Diego Union-Tribune has this: (emphasis mine)

"So, what's the political score to date in what might be called the Bush vs. New York Times aftermath?

So far, Bush is winning, handily.

An Opinion Dynamics Corp. poll conducted for FOX News after the Times revealed the administration's secret tracking of terrorist financing resoundingly affirmed the Bush position.
First, 70 percent of those polled in this nationwide survey conducted over two days at the end of June supported tracking terrorist financing. That 70 percent included 83 percent of Republicans, 67 percent of independents and 58 percent of Democrats.

Not much room there for doubting that the public endorses Bush's follow-the-money strategy. The until-now secret operation that tracks terrorist financing is a joint operation by the Treasury Department and the Central Intelligence Agency that began soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

The same polling found that 60 percent of Americans believe that the Times' decision to reveal this secret intelligence program “did more to help terrorist groups like al-Qaeda” than to “help the American public.” This damning, for The New York Times, conclusion was held by 84 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats.

For the Times and its editors, the most stinging poll result of all was what respondents thought should be done about media organizations that “report and publish information about national security secrets that may make it easier for terrorists to operate.” Two of every three respondents – 84 percent of Republicans, 58 percent of independents and 55 percent of Democrats – believe that those news organizations should “face criminal charges.”

From the resolution condemning disclosure of the terrorist financing surveillance to Gen. Michael Hayden, the former NSA director who conducted the program and later became a principal intelligence adviser to Bush and then director of the CIA, Bush has won on this issue time and time again. As the Tribuen points out:

"When Bush subsequently nominated Hayden to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Times, citing Hayden's role in the NSA surveillance, vigorously opposed his nomination on its editorial page. Thus, the Senate's confirmation vote on Hayden's nomination became yet another political test of strength between Bush and his media critics.
Bush won, easily. The Senate voted 78-15 to confirm Hayden as CIA director."

One thing that comforts us on the right is that although the left may not get fighting the war on terror, the general American public does. The left may have been able to confuse and mislead about the war in Iraq to many, with the help of the msm, by constantly repeating mistruths, propaganda, and negativity, they have not been able to do so in our national security capacity.

Thank God for that.

via RCP

Random Sunday Thoughts....

I don't blog much on popular culture mainly because it makes me ill, but I did see "The Devil Wears Prada" yesterday. The book was really good, the movie.....not so much. I get the feeling none of you were going to see it anyway. Meryl Streep was excellent, as always. She is one of the few truly talented actresses in Hollywood.

I watched the end of "SuperGroup" last night (probably a rerun because I am always behind on these things) The only artist in the mega rock group I knew was Ted Nugent, who is not only talented beyond anything I ever seen on the guitar, but he is just such a character. I just love him. I have never seen anyone so passionate about guns and hunting. My favorite line of his is "He needs to be introduced to the crowbar of logic."

The lead singer was a guy named Sebastian Bach from a band I never heard of called "Skid Row." His whole personality just made me want to puke. Thank God he listened to Ted and stopped drinking like a maniac before their big Las Vegas Show. I'm sure all you music fans are going to let me know how little I know about these music stars.

Have you guys seen any of the MTV's shows "My Sweet Sixteen?" It's about rich spoiled girls (and some guys) who have these lavish fabulous (if I may use JD's word..;-) parties for their 16th birthdays. Watching it will make you imagine that there is no hope the next generation who seems to be obessed with all things celebrity and the intense belief that money can make you happy. Money can make life easier, no doubt, but it cannot make you happy. This is clear from the many rich celebrities and althetes who have everything, but still get lost in drugs or drinking or cheating.

But, back to the real word, where real men are fighting a necessary war on terror with guts and sacrifice. The people mentioned above have the freedom to be as shallow as they wish because of men like this. (read the story...AWESOME)

The professor that went over the line with Jeff at PW....

raises the white flag (kinda):

"I wrote some inflammatory comments at a blog by a guy named Jeff Goldstein called protein wisdom that infuriated many bloggers and commenters. Many of these bloggers emailed my boss at the University of Arizona to tell on me.

In hindsight, the things I wrote were over the line of nastiness. I apologize to Mr. Goldstein.
I have resigned from the University of Arizona so there is no need for other enraged people to write to administrators there. I am a temporary worker there and I am in Oregon for the summer.

Some blogs have posted comments that I perceive to be physically threatening. I have contacted the FBI and the Pajamas Media staff to determine how to proceed with this aspect of this unbelievable experience.

My intention in this post is to de-escalate the situation. The comments that started this all were nasty, not threatening. But I feel very threatened by the response.

Jeff - I lost my job. You won. Could you call off the troops?

UPDATE: I have been receiving emails alluding to the fact that I got fired. I was not fired. I resigned. I was not pressured to resign. I just sent my boss an email explaining what was happening and told him I thought it was best for all involved if I resigned.
Protein Wisdom has been down since this all started so it is not possible to see all the comments and everything that led up to this. People are posting snippets of what I posted that have been embellished with references to french kissing and other things I didn't say.

When and if protein wisdom comes on line again, it will be hard to tell what Jeff added or deleted to the transcript.

I have been trying to get in touch with Pajamas Media to discuss some of my concerns about what has been published at Black Five about this issue. I feel threatened by some of the comments there.

If someone at pajamas media or better yet, froggy from Black Five, could email me, that would be great."

Just to remind you of some of her comments to Jeff:

"You aren’t “human” to me."
***
" Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby."

The whole thing is strange and mean. Jeff's site has been attacked an is still offline.

Btw, Jeff would never delete or alter the transcript.

Also, this is all very interesting, but I would appreciate it if you guys would not leave comments at her site or e-mail her or the University. Enough is enough.

via The Cotillion e-mail

An Open Letter To Congressman Murtha

From
Kurt G. Gunnery Sergeant, USMC, Retired

Excellent.

(links are rocking today!)

Good Grief!

I missed the NYT's article while I was gone describing Rumsfeld and Cheney's vacation home and the location of his security cameras. After reading about that and more revelations regarding the NYT's articles on SWIFT and NSA programs, I can say without a doubt in my mind that the powers that be at the NYTs do not want us to win this war and they specifically published information to make winning more difficult and they published information to help terrorist target Rumsfield and Cheney. I know this sounds extreme, but how else can one explain this?

" * Exposed the NSA's warrantless Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), which secretly scrutinized international telephone conversations in which Islamofascists called into or out of the U.S." "The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission," then-CIA director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 2, referring to the Times's December 16 TSP story. "I use the words 'very severe' intentionally. And I think the evidence will show that." The Times's revelations, Goss testified, left intelligence sources "no longer viable or usable, or less effective by a large degree."

Concerning Swift:

"..the Times cannot hide behind the fact that the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times also published this story on June 23. The Times pursued SWIFT for weeks before any other news outlet had heard about SWIFT. As a lengthy Journal editorial explained last Friday, Treasury officials concluded The Times would spurn their pleas not to publish. So, the day before the story broke, they offered The Times several declassified talking points about SWIFT because, as Assistant Secretary Fratto put it, "They had 80 percent of the story, but they had about 30 percent of it wrong."

Concerning Rumfield and Cheney:

"* While it seemingly involved no classified information, the Times again displayed its contempt for public safety in a recent article on the summer homes of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Both men are obvious terror targets. Nevertheless, this story provided driving directions to these two men's vacation getaways in rural Maryland. The Times identified the relevant highways, streets, and even turning instructions to these properties. Also named were several stores where Mrs. Rumsfeld shops. The article includes a photo of the Rumsfelds' home and, shockingly, pinpoints a well-concealed security camera on the premises.

What did this article accomplish but the endangerment of these two top officials? If the Times did not act with actual malice, it certainly exhibited a reckless disregard for Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their loved ones. To imagine what Islamic extremists could do with this particular Times dispatch, look no further than militant Muslim Mir Aimal Kasi's January 1993 fatal shooting of two intelligence officers at the driveway of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia."

This boggles the mind. It is one thing to have a leftist agenda, but to undermine our national security on a regular basis and target our Vice President and Sec. of Defense in such an obvious way is.....beyond anything anyone can justify as freedom of the press.

Sickening.

That is the only word to describe this. As the article says, if you have subscription to the Times you should cancel it. If you advertise in it, stop doing so. It is time to shut this anti-American monstrosity down. Freedom is one thing, helping the terrorists is something else entirely and cannot be justified.

via Cormac

The Palestinian and Israeli Conflict.

Bridget Johnson, a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News and blogger at GOP Vixen just hits the nail on the head in this piece.

While it's just so touching that Hamas, Fatah, and various other delinquents have turned their attention from shooting each other in the streets to presenting a unified front against their Zionist aggressors, it's even more heartening to see the terrorist coalition get stared down by a column of tanks. Because enough is enough.

To many, though, Israel setting one tank tread in Gaza is naked aggression worth a thousand mind-numbing U.N. Security Council meetings. And it's not just the usual "die Zionist" protests throughout the Middle East. Try writing a pro-Israel column sometime, and watch the nasty mail pour in from all types, ranging from arrogant intellectuals to housewives on CNN overload to people claiming anti-Semitism is overblown and so is Hamas's terror resume.

To put it differently, way too many people view Israel as satanic oppressors of the Palestinians, and way too few give a damn about the men, women, and children shot into mass graves under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

They're usually the same people who think the murderer Tookie Williams should be canonized for writing kids' books, who would have Mumia Abu-Jamal to their dinner party, and who are protesting an invasion of Iran before it's even a twinkle in a general's eye. They may be the ones who get giddy at news of the Haditha murder investigations or other blows to the U.S. military, who think Hugo Chavez is a misunderstood genius, or who called in sick to work and lay in bed depressed the day Karl Rove didn't get indicted.

A giant chunk of logic is lost on these folks: cause and effect. As in, Palestinians using hostage to try to extort outrageous demands from Israel has the effect of Israel taking the means necessary to get their man back. The Palestinians pulling such a stunt does not cause the Israelis to roll over.

Excellent. Read the whole thing.

h/t-Cormac

America's First War On Terror.

Excellent!

via BigDog

Feed the children or save the planet?

So to speak.

"Two years ago, a Danish environmentalist called Bjorn Lomborg had an idea. We all want to make the world a better place but, given finite resources, we should look for the most cost-effective ways of doing so. He persuaded a bunch of economists, including three Nobel laureates, to draw up a list of priorities. They found that efforts to fight malnutrition and disease would save many lives at modest expense, whereas fighting global warming would cost a colossal amount and yield distant and uncertain rewards."

In June our own John Bolton, America's ambassador to the United Nations, "sat down with UN diplomats from seven other countries, including China and India but no Europeans, to rank 40 ways of tackling ten global crises. The problems addressed were climate change, communicable diseases, war, education, financial instability, governance, malnutrition, migration, clean water and trade barriers.

Given a notional $50 billion, how would the ambassadors spend it to make the world a better place? Their conclusions were strikingly similar to the Copenhagen Consensus. After hearing presentations from experts on each problem, they drew up a list of priorities. The top four were basic health care, better water and sanitation, more schools and better nutrition for children. Averting climate change came last."

In other words, Bolton was not only right, but even the United Nations agreed. Al Gore, as usual, is wrong.

via BigDog

Why Europe Doesn't Get Us.

BigDog sent me some excellent links. This is one of them from The American Thinker.

It lays out in a readable fashion why we are so different from Europe. It focuses on one major difference-The death penalty. I was surprised to learn this:

"Polls in the US reveal that national support for the death penalty remains consistently high at around 70%, a view confirmed by a May Gallup Poll. The poll highlighted cross-party priorities on a number of key moral policy issues with the strongest agreement between the parties coming on the use of the death penalty. Republicans (82%) and Democrats (63%) concur on the "moral acceptability" of its use. Not a finding that Europeans might expect from a nation it often sees as the "fifty-fifty (Left v Right) nation."

I had no idea the majority of Democrats supported the death penalty.

Now, I am against the death penalty, but for purely religious reasons. From a democratic viewpoint I understand why it is legal and why people desire it. The article describes how European countries came to end the death penalty:

"There is barely a country in Europe where the death penalty was abolished in response to public opinion rather than in spite of it."

In other words, we keep the death penalty because "the people" demand that we do. We are a nation that responds to the wants of the people, a representative government. Whereas European leaders have a tendency to ignore the will of the people and pass their own politically correct laws.

But if anything illustrates the difference between us and our European friends, it is this:

"The EU technocrats responsible for drafting the EU Constitution specifically have made a point of obfuscating the formative role of its Judeo-Christian worldview in the development of West civilizationtion and values. But where the EU has chosen the path of historic amnesia and writing off remembrance of its formative Judeo-Christian heritage in its (thus far discredited) constitution, the American founding fathers chose to write the "remembrance" into theirs."

It doesn't get any nastier than this....

Good Grief! (keep in mind, this is a professor writing to Jeff)

I can't get the archive link, so just scroll down to "More from the tolerant left."

You will not believe it.

via Ace

Bush, no surprises.

The Anchoress has this EXCELLENT summary of Bush sticking to what he believes.

Here is an excerpt:

President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or “betrayed” by him. He is, in essentials, precisely who he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my FDNY friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised. When the World Series opened in New York City and the President was invited to throw the first pitch, there was no surprise in his throwing (while wearing body armor) a perfect strike.

He did not surprise me when he spoke eloquently from the National Cathedral, or again before the Joint Houses of Congress, when he laid out the Bush Doctrine. He did not surprise me when he did it again at West Point, or when he went visionary at Whitehall (Lauri points out the video can be found at this link. It’s worth watching!)

There were no surprises in President Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan to battle AlQaeda. There were no surprises when he went after an Iraq which everyone believed had WMD, an Iraq that had tried to assassinate an American President, an Iraq whose NYC consul did not lower its flag to half-mast after 9/11.

Actually, there was one surprise. He did surprise me by going back to the UN, and back to the UN, in that mythical “rush to war” we heard so much about. But then again, the effort in Iraq was never as “unilateral” as it had been painted.

President Bush did not surprise me when, faced with the scorn of “the world community” and those ever-ready A.N.S.W.E.R. marches which sprang up condemning him and Tony Blair, he stood firm. A lesser man, a mere politician, would have folded under such enormous pressure. I was not surprised when Bush did not. (Aside - it’s funny how they just can’t get a good-sized crowd together for those protests these days, innit? Everything about Iraq was “wrong” and everything about Iraq is “failure and quagmire” and yet, somehow, we all breathe a sigh of relief that the job is done, that Saddam is out of power and that Iraq, save a very small piece of troubled land, is - in remarkably short order (and despite the wild pronouncements of John Murtha) - tasting its first morsels of democracy and liberty, and showing promise.)

It never surprised me that Yassar Arafat, formerly the “most welcomed” foreign “Head of State” in the Clinton White House was not welcomed - ever - to the Bush White House.
I wasn’t surprised by the, not one, but two tax cuts he got passed through congress, or the roaring economy - and jobs - those tax cuts created. I wasn’t surprised when he killed the unending farce that is the Kyoto treaty (remember, the thing Al Gore and the Senate unanimously voted down under Clinton?), or when he killed U.S. involvement in the International Criminal Court, or when he told the UN they risked becoming irrelevent, or when he told the Congress and the world, “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.” Not surprising.

Read the whole thing. Great stuff.

via Iowa Voice

Lieberman vs. Lamont

Hot Air has the video. There is no doubt that Joe is the better man.

Newsweek has an article on it. MSNBC has a reaction from the Kossacks, and an MSNBC article here. This will be an interesting race to watch. We will see if Kos can back a winner EVER. He has put a lot into this one.

via Iowa Voice

The Moronic Tourist.

It doesn't get much more idiotic than this.

The War, Reporting, and Media Bias.

click here to see Pat Dollard, the ex-Hollywood Producer turned independent journalist who went into Iraq at his own expense, on Hannity and Colmes. Dollard spent 7 months shooting video while embedded with our combat troops. He is home and Michael Yon says he is telling the same truth as Michael Yon did being embedded with our troops as well, but Dollard has video.

The more I read from the actual troops via milblogs and the reporters who go into Iraq without an agenda, the more I realize how biased and unAmerican our media in general can be.

via Michael Yon (who truly rocks)

Check out Pundit Review Radio.

One of my favorite bloggers, Patrick Frey at Patterico's Pontifications, is on Pundit Review Radio discussing the New York and Los Angeles Times disclosing successful counter terrorism programs and highly classified national security secrets on their front pages.

Excellent. Check it out here.

Tin Foil Hats...

....for the discriminating lunatic. Heh.

via boing boing

Immigration.

The White House has this:

Today, President Bush Visited A Dunkin' Donuts Store To Highlight The Basic Pilot Program And The Need For Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Dunkin' Brands Inc. recently announced it will require all of its franchise's to participate in the Basic Pilot program, which helps employers verify employment eligibility. Dunkin' Brands voluntarily signed up for the program because of the difficulty employers face when trying to screen the work eligibility of new hires.

The Basic Pilot Program Is Helping Businesses Comply With The Law. Basic Pilot is a voluntary, online verification system that allows employers to confirm the eligibility of new hires by checking the personal information they provide against Federal databases.

Here are the objectives of the White House on immigration reform:

The five objectives of comprehensive immigration reform are securing our borders, creating a temporary worker program, making it easier for employers to verify employment eligibility and continuing to hold them to account for the legal status of workers they hire, dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here, and honoring the great American tradition of the melting pot.

No matter how much conservatives howl and complain on this one, Bush is right. Attacking the problem, not the Mexican people, is the way to go. I just returned from Mexico and once again I was so deeply impressed with their work ethic. Harder working people you will not find anywhere. I don't know about the beaucratic nightmare it takes to come here legally, but there should be a way to make it easier for Mexicans who just want work.

The objectives laid out by Bush help enforce the laws already on the books and he is starting to look at real solutions to the actual border problem. Many conservatives seem to believe we can just kick these people out. All 12 million of them. That is an impossibility and we just have to accept that. We need to deal with what we have now in a kind and reasonable way. The guest worker program might drive you crazy because they came here illegally, but it is the best solution given the circumstances. We will know who is here and they will be here legally then. This will not work, obviously, if we cannot get control of our borders at the same time though. So as much attention should be given to that.

If you read the White House site you will see the things that Bush has done that hasn't been reported on much, such as a criminal crackdown on those who knowingly hire illegal aliens, a tamper proof identification card, and a increase of 41.7 million for worksite enforcement.

Disagree all you wish with Bush on this, but it won't get our party where we need to be, back in the White House in '08 and still the majority. Turning our backs on people who desperately need work and, frankly, whose work we need, is not what I want from my party.

Bush is right on this and we should all be doing what we can to help him, not hinder him.

Cindy Sheehan goes on a hunger strike.

Check out this interview that actually asks some hard questions of Sheehan.

I'm Back!

Well, we went to Playa Del Carmen Mexico and stayed at a beach resort to celebrate my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary. All 27 of us! I cannot express in words what a wonderful time we all had. The resort was beautiful and made Mimi and Pops feel special all the way. The DVD we made turned out PERFECT. We watched it on a big screen in the bar the first night. It was like watching all our lives in pictures. A big family is a blessed and wonderful thing.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! I will be posting some vacation pictures when I get to it.

Mini-break.

I have to take a bit of a break from this blog. I will be traveling a bit and won't be back until probably the 7th or 8th of July. Please visit my TexasSparkle blog. I have an obligation to post there 3 times a week and I will squeeze that in. You can click on where it says "Subscribe to Rightwingpsparkle" to the right on the sidebar and you will receive an e-mail when I post again. I will be checking in when I can.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!!!!

The funniest link...

you'd wish you never clicked on.

Don't be afraid. (safe for work, but not for sanity)

Redeploy, another word for surrender.

Mark Steyn says it perfectly:

"You gotta hand it to these guys: "Redeployment" is ingenious. I'll bet the focus-group consultants were delirious: "surrender," "lose,","scram," "scuttle ignominiously," "head for the hills" all polled poorly, but "redeploy" surveyed well with all parts of the base, except the base in Okinawa, where they preferred "sayonara" -- that's "redeploy" in any language. The Defeaticrats have a clear message for the American people. Read da ploy: No new quagmires."

Yes, both parties use certain words to make a point. We say "death tax" referring to the double and sometimes triple tax on estate taxes to make our point there. But redeployment is just a fancy word for "we give up" and everyone knows it.

via Blogs For Bush

Prosecute the Times?

Powerline brings us this:

Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, called today for criminal prosecution of the New York Times:

King, a New York Republican, said he would write Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales urging that the country's chief law enforcer "begin an investigation
and prosecution of the New York Times - the reporters, the editors and the
publisher."
"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about
secret operations and methods is treasonous," King told The Associated Press.

I don't think this is a good idea at all. Yes, the New York Time is reprehensible, but let it be tried in the court of public opinion. They are losing money even as we speak. Having the government prosecute the Times will "look" like a control on free speech.

The American people understand when a newspaper puts it's political agenda above the national security of this country. Let the marketplace be it's judge.

It's in the stars!

I rarely mention leftwing blogs because, let's face it, they are depressing. But Redstate has a look at MyDD that makes one laugh (and yet want to cry at the same time)

Here.

Dan at Riel World started the story.

It would be just another leftwing wacko story, except "The Astrologer" works for the Mark Warner and Sherod Brown campaigns. You know Warner? The one who is set to save the Democratic party. That is, if the moon is in the seventh house...Heh.

via PW

And This Guy Was Almost President?

Investor's Business Daily (of all places) gives us a summary of why we should be on our knees daily thanking God that Kerry didn't become President and what needs to be known about Kerry when he runs again for the Presidency. (I don't think he will get the nomination, but the Democrats are constantly shooting themselves in the foot, so it's possible)

Sen. John Kerry has spent a career taking the side of America's enemies. His call last week for a pullout from Iraq was the latest evidence he is unfit to serve in the Senate — never mind the White House.

Kerry's proposal to withdraw us completely from Iraq by July of next year was resoundingly defeated in the Senate by a vote of 86 to 13. And just days before, he said the deadline should be the end of this year.

But Kerry's idea is the exact opposite of what he was calling for in late 2003 while running for president. Back then he was accusing President Bush of planning to prematurely withdraw from Iraq.

"I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy," Kerry told the Council on Foreign Relations. He said it would be "a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle" to allow "a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops."

That's one of but many Kerry flip-flops, but he's been consistent over the years in siding against the U.S. in war. Things really got started for Kerry at Valley Forge, Pa., of all places, where he provided an encore to a Jane Fonda speech at an anti-war rally in 1970.

"Hanoi Jane" is remembered for traveling to North Vietnam to give backing and encouragement to its communist regime as it killed tens of thousands of American forces.

In a 2004 interview, Fonda said of Kerry, "I remember thinking, 'Wow, this is a real leader, a Lincolnesque kind of leader.' "

Fonda reportedly gave tens of thousands of dollars of proceeds from her anti-war speeches to Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization so it could investigate purported atrocities by U.S. military personnel.

On "Meet the Press" in 1971, Kerry called "the men who ordered us" — namely the White House under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon — "war criminals."

Bui Tin, the North Vietnam army colonel who accepted South Vietnam's surrender in 1975 and later left for exile as a dissident against the communist Hanoi government, called the anti-war movement Kerry and Fonda helped lead in the U.S. in the early 1970s "essential to our strategy."

Indeed, Kerry's photo was placed on display in Vietnam's "War Remnants Museum" (originally named "War Crimes Museum" when it was opened in 1975).

According to The Boston Globe's 2004 "complete biography" of Kerry, in the 1984 campaign that first landed him in the Senate — during the height of the Cold War against the Soviet Union — "Kerry supported cancellation of a host of weapons systems that have become the basis of U.S. military might — the high-tech munitions and delivery systems on display to the world as they leveled the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in a matter of weeks in 2003."

They include the B-1 and B-2/Stealth bombers, the Apache helicopter, the Patriot missile, and the F-15, F-14A and F-14D jets. He also repeatedly voted against missile defense — more than 50 times, by our count.

During President Reagan's second term, Kerry urged Congress to trust "the good faith of the Sandinistas" and cut funding to Nicaragua's Contra freedom fighters. And he used the Senate's investigative powers to make sure no back-door funding was going to the Contras.

So when Kerry isn't flip-flopping for the sake of politics, he's serving the purposes of our adversaries — from Vietnam to the War on Terror. Whether it's poor judgment, or something more sinister that animates John Kerry, it's remarkable that someone so dangerous could have come so close to occupying the Oval Office.

via Instapundit

My boys blogging.

Cuz they are so cute.

Doggy blogging!

Cuz she is sooo cute!

via Darleen

Enough already.

Update: Andrew McCarthy nails it:

The blunt reality here is that there is a war against the war. It is the jihad of privacy fetishists whose self-absorption knows no bounds. Pleas rooted in the well-being of our community hold no sway.

The anti-warriors know only the language of self-interest. It is the language that tells them the revelation of the nation’s secrets will result, forthwith, in the demand for the revelation of their secrets — which is to say, their sources in the intelligence community — with incarceration the price of resistance. It is the language admonishing that even journalists themselves may be prosecuted when their publication of national secrets violates the law.

Bluntly, officials who leak the classified information with which they have been entrusted can be prosecuted for theft of government property. If the information is especially sensitive, they can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act. In either event, the press has no legal right to protect such lawlessness.

That is our simple choice: Strong medicine we will either take or persist in declining … while resigning ourselves to more of the same.

via Michelle

Open Thread Friday.

Super busy today. Talk among yourselves!

Man, oh man.

The 2 soldiers captured, tortured and killed in Iraq had MySpaces. I clicked on them to see and the messages will break your heart, especially those left after they were killed. I wish MySpace allowed non-friends to leave a message so everyone could leave messages there as a tribute. Here are their links:

Tom

Kristian

I'm not sure if this is true, but over at the MySpace Military and Military Supporters group they are saying that one of the moms found out about her son's death through the news reports before the army could contact her. If true, the media (as usual) should be ashamed.

Update: As I am watching the press conference with Rumsfield I hear a reporter say say that the American people want to know the details of the brutal murder of these two boys. I'm so glad that this reporter can speak for the American people. It makes me want to throw up when they say things like that. Am I alone here in thinking that we do not need the gruesome details? We are all well aware of the brutality of these terrorists. Most of us either saw or read about Zarqwari sawing off Berg's head. Yeah. Thanks Mr. reporter, most of realize the evil here. Which is why we need to finish this fight.

America Says Thank You.

National TV Campaign:

“America Says Thank You”

DEBUTING THURSDAY, JUNE 22nd:

Television & Radio Ad Campaign Thanks U.S. Troops
for Service & Sacrifice in Iraq & Afghanistan

Listen and see these ads Here. You have GOT to listen to these. They are awesome. TV ad here.

We need to all contribute to this. This is one of things where I ask any of you who feel a need to contribute to this blog to do this instead. Now go.

h/t Joe

Ah yes, we finally have solid proof of WMD's. Is this really a surprise?

You guys will have to forgive me for not being on top of things. Summertime is my busiest time with all the kids our of school and the house full of every kid in the neighborhood practically, all my son's college friends, and the gaggle of girls that hover around my daughter (and her boyfriend of course)

But here is the highlights via NRO of the WMD findings yesterday:

Rough transcript of last nightÂ’s press conference here.
Highlights of yesterdayÂ’s Negroponte declassification, via Santorum.
The actual letter.
Transcript of Santorum on Hugh Hewitt.
How can this be about 2006 election politics, Alan Colmes (he was droning on an on about this point last night on his radio show)?
Hoekstra & Santorum on Hannity & Colmes here.
Foxnews.com report.
AFP.

So....We found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered. No one on the right is surprised by this. We all knew Saddam had them. I suppose we could gloat until the cows come home and say "I told ya so," but really, the left that called Bush a liar, just needs to apologize and then we need to move forward and GET IT DONE IN IRAQ.

If the Democratic leadership has any dignity left, they will begin helping us do that right now and stop fighting us to score political points. Don't try and justify this somehow. This is solid proof that Saddam Hussein was lying (NOT BUSH) when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it proves the weapons inspectors did not uncover these munitions. We gave Saddam ample opportunity to get rid of these and surrender and HE REFUSED. He knew the consequences.

I saw Al Sharpton on Bill O' Reilly last night and he said that if this is true, then he will apologize to Bush. If he can do it, the rest of the Democrats can.

My advice to Democrats? Step up to the plate and show some integrity. THAT will get you elected more than any showboating and justifying.

An Amazing Story. Politics meets reality.

Commentary at Family.org by Ted Harvey, assistant minority leader, Colorado House:

She sings the anthem to applause, then her secret is revealed to stunned silence.

I want to share with you an awesome experience I had in the Colorado House of Representatives on May 8. It is a humbling experience to look back and realize that God used me to play a role in His divine orchestration.

I was leaving the House chambers for the weekend when our Democrat speaker of the House announced that the coming Monday would be the final day of this year's General Assembly. He went on to state that there were still numerous resolutions on the calendar which we would need to be addressed prior to the summer adjournment. Interestingly, he specifically mentioned that one of the resolutions we would be hearing was being carried by the House Majority Leader Alice Madden, honoring the 90th anniversary of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.As a strong pro-life legislator I was disgusted by the idea that we would pass a resolution honoring this 90-year legacy of genocide. I drove home that night wondering what I could say that might pierce the darkness during the debate on this heinous resolution.

On Saturday morning, I took my 8-year-old son up to the mountains to go white-water rafting. The trip lasted all day. As we were driving home, exhausted and hungry, I remembered that I had accepted an invitation to attend a fundraising dinner that night for a local pro-life organization. One of my most respected mentors had personally called me several weeks earlier and asked me to attend, so I knew I'd have to clean up and head over.

After our meal, the executive director of the organization introduced the keynote speaker. I looked up and saw walking to the stage a handicapped young lady being assisted to the microphone by a young man holding a guitar.

Her name was Gianna Jessen.

Gianna said "Hello," welcomed everyone, and then sang three of the most beautiful Christian songs I have ever heard.

She then began to give her testimony. When her biological mother was 17 years old and seven and a half months pregnant, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to have an abortion. As God would have it, the abortion failed and a beautiful 2-pound baby girl was brought into the world. Unfortunately, she was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors thought that she would never survive. The doctors were wrong.

Imagine the timing! A survivor of a Planned Parenthood abortion arrived in town just days before the Colorado House of Representatives was to celebrate Planned Parenthood's "wonderful" work.

As I listened to Gianna's amazing testimony, the Lord inspired me to ask her if she could stay in Denver until Monday morning so that I could introduce her on the floor of the House and tell her story. Perhaps she could even begin the final day's session by singing our country's national anthem!

To my surprise she said she would seriously consider it. If she were to agree, she wanted her accompanying guitarist to stay as well. A lady standing in line behind me waiting to meet Gianna overheard our conversation and said that she would be willing to pay for the guitarist's room. Gianna then said that she would think about it.

As I was driving home from the banquet, my cell phone rang. It was Gianna, and she immediately said, "I'm in, let's ruin this celebration." Praise God!

When Monday morning came, I awoke at 6 a.m. to write my speech before heading to the Capitol. As I wrote down the words, I could sense God's help and I knew that this was going to be a powerful moment for the pro-life movement.

Following a committee hearing, I rushed into the House chambers just as the opening morning prayer was about to be given. Between the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, I wrote a quick note to the speaker of the House explaining that Gianna is an advocate for cerebral palsy. I took the note to the speaker and asked if I could have my friend open the last day of session by singing the national anthem. Without any hesitation the speaker took the microphone and said, "Before we begin, Representative Harvey has made available for us Gianna Jessen to sing the national anthem."

Gianna sang the most amazing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner that you could possibly imagine. Every person in the entire chamber was completely still, quiet and in awe of this frail young lady's voice.Due to her cerebral palsy, Gianna often loses her balance, and shortly after starting to sing she grabbed my arm to stabilize herself, and I could tell that she was shaking. Suddenly, midway through the song, she forgot the words and began to hum and then said, "Please forgive me; I am so nervous." She then immediately began singing again and every House member and every guest throughout the chambers began to sing along with her to give her encouragement and to lift her up.


As I looked around the huge hall I listened to the unbelievable melody of Gianna's voice being accompanied by a choir of over 100 voices. I had chills running all over my body, and I knew that I had just witnessed an act of God.

As the song concluded the speaker of the House explained that Gianna has cerebral palsy and is an activist to bring awareness to the disease. "Let us give her a hand not only for her performance today, but also for her advocacy work," he said. The chamber immediately exploded into applause -- she had them all in the palm of her hand.

The speaker then called the House to order, and we proceeded as usual to allow members to make any announcements or introductions of guests. For dramatic effect, I waited until I was the last person remaining before I introduced Gianna.

As I waited for my turn, I nervously paced back and forth praying to God that he would give me the peace, confidence and the courage necessary to pull off what I knew would be one of the most dramatic and controversial moments of my political career.


While I waited, a prominent reporter from one of the major Denver newspapers walked over to Gianna and told her that her rendition captured the spirit of the national anthem more powerfully than any she had ever heard before.

Finally, I was the last person remaining. So, I proceeded to the microphone and began my speech.

Members, I would like to introduce you to a new friend and hero of mine -- her name is Gianna Jessen. She is visiting us today from Nashville, Tennessee, where she is an accomplished recording artist.She has cerebral palsy and was raised in foster homes before being adopted at the age of four.She was born prematurely and weighed only 2 pounds at birth. She remained in the hospital for almost three months. A doctor once said she had a great will to live and that she fought for her life. Eventually she was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care.Because of her cerebral palsy, her foster mother was told that it was doubtful that she would ever crawl or walk. She could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of her foster mother, she eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. Shortly before her fourth birthday, she began to walk with leg braces and a walker.She continued in physical therapy and after a total of four surgeries, she was able to walk without assistance.


She still falls sometimes, but she says she has learned how to fall gracefully after falling for 29 years.

Two years ago, she walked into a local health club and said she wanted a private trainer. At the time her legs could not lift 30 pounds. Today she can leg press 200 pounds.

She became so physically fit that she began running marathons to raise money and awareness for cerebral palsy. She just returned last week from England where she ran in the London Marathon. It took her more than eight-and-a-half hours to complete. They were taking down the course by the time she made it to the finish line. But she made it, nonetheless. With bloody feet and aching joints, she finished the race.Members would you help me recognize a modern-day hero -- Gianna Jessen?

At this point the chamber exploded into applause which lasted for 15-to-20 seconds. Gianna had touched their souls.

Ironically, Alice Madden, the majority leader and sponsor of the Planned Parenthood resolution, walked over to Gianna and congratulated her.As the applause began to die down, I raised my hand to be recognized one more time.

Mr. Speaker, members, if you would allow me just a few more moments I would appreciate your time.

My name is Ted Harvey, not Paul Harvey, but, please, let me tell you the rest of the story.


The cause of Gianna's cerebral palsy is not because of some biological freak of nature, but rather the choice of her mother.

You see when her biological mother was 17-years-old and 7-and-a-half months pregnant, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to seek a late-term abortion. The abortionist performed a saline abortion on this 17-year-old girl. This procedure requires the injection of a high concentration of saline into the mother's womb, which the fetus is then bathed in and swallows, which results in the fetus being burned to death, inside and out. Within 24 hours the results are normally an induced, still-born abortion.As Gianna can testify, the procedure is not always 100 percent effective. Gianna is an aborted late-term fetus who was born alive. The high concentration of saline in the womb for 24 hours resulted in a lack of oxygen to her brain and is the cause of her cerebral palsy.Members, today, we are going to recognize the 90th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood…"

BANG! The gavel came down.

Silence.

Deafening silence.

I then walked back to my chair shaking like a leaf. The Democrats wouldn't look at me. They were fuming. It was beautiful. I have been in the Legislature for five tough years, and this made it all worthwhile.The House majority leader wouldn't talk to me the rest of the day.Was it because I introduced an abortion survivor, or was it because we touched her soul? She could congratulate an inspirational cerebral palsy victim and advocate, but was outraged when she discovered that the person she congratulated was also an abortion survivor.

The headline in The Denver Post the next day read "Abortion Jab Earns Rebuke." The majority leader is quoted as saying, "I think it was amazingly rude to use a human being as an example of his personal politics."

Yes, Representative Madden, Gianna Jessen is a human being. She was when she was in her mother's womb, and she was when she sang the national anthem on the floor of the Colorado House of Representatives.

The paper went on to quote Gianna, stating she was glad I told her story."We need to discuss the humanity of it. I'm glad to be able to speak up for children in the womb," she said. "If abortion is about women's rights, where were my rights?"

All I can say is, "Glory to God!" He orchestrated it all, every minute of it, and I was so honored to have been chosen to play a part. May we all continue to be filled with and to fight for the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Many may not appreciate the religious sentiment here, but even without it, it is clearly a dramatic way to put a face on abortion. Gianna made the most jarring point of all. Where were her rights??? Gianna is the product of abortion. She is what happens when we don't kill our unborn children. And you don't have to be relgious to understand how wrong abortion is.

via Linda of The Cotillion

Kathy Griffin. Sometimes liberals put their money where their mouth is.

I think I have blogged before on how funny I think Kathy Griffin is. I hate her politics, but for some reason she makes me laugh so much I forget about it.

I was watching "My Life On The "D" List" on the Bravo channel tonight and it was the episode where she goes to Baghdad to do a show for the troops. She mentioned that there were not many celebrities that wanted to entertain in Iraq so they had to take her. She went with Mike McDonald from Mad TV who is also hilarious and an actress from "Jag" that I am not familiar with.

It was so sweet when they went through the unit's hospital to visit the wounded. Then the show was really funny. Seeing the troops there sitting in harm's way just made my heart ache. I know liberals love to come to this site and talk about how so many of us that support the war won't serve, but I swear, if there was a way for me to go there, I would. If I was a celebrity I would have gone there in a New York second. I just have so much admiration and respect for our military.

Kathy made it clear that she hated Bush, but that she supported the troops. Usually I don't buy that, but this time by putting herself on the line, I totally believed her and respected her for putting her patriotism above her politics. Good on her.

Does anyone else see the sweet irony here?

The fact that Dan Rather trying everything possible to defeat George Bush in the Presidential elections, brings about his own career defeat.

Sweet.

Where does media bias come from and are they anti-American?

Real Clear Politics has this:

Cap Weinberger and Wynton Hall point out a very telling thing with this quotes cataloged by Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center:

"The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don't have any hope for a better life....I think they [the 19 hijackers] were brave at the very least." - AOL Time Warner Vice Chairman and CNN founder Ted Turner in February 11 remarks at Brown University, as reported by Gerald Carbone in the February 12, 2002, Providence Journal. The next day, Turner issued a statement: "The attacks of Sept. 11 were despicable acts. I in no way meant to convey otherwise."

Headline: "Our Soldiers in Iraq Aren't Heroes."

"We should not bestow the mantle of heroism on all of them [American men and women in uniform] for simply being where we sent them. Most are victims, not heroes." - CBS News 60 Minutes commentator, Andy Rooney, writing for The Buffalo News, April 12, 2004.

"We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist....To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack." - Steven Jukes, global head of news for Reuters News Service, in an internal memo cited by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz in a September 24, 2001, article.

"What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy it may be, for some, the only job they can find." - Dan Rather denigrating the men and women of the Armed Forces by suggesting their decision to serve their nation was a last resort during the CBS Evening News on March 31, 2004, the day four American civilians were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, Iraq.

"The other day, while taking a break by the Al-Hamra Hotel pool...I was accosted by an American magazine journalist of serious accomplishment and impeccable liberal credentials....She came to the point. Not only had she 'known' the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the 'evil' George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. 'Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.'" - British journalist Toby Harnden, a reporter for the London Daily Telegraph, in an article published in the May 15, 2004, edition of The Spectator, a British-based weekly, recounting a conversation at a Baghdad hotel.

"Like beauty, freedom is a perception that lies in the eye of the beholder, and we ignore other nations' versions at our peril. The most dangerous perception of all may be that one's own side has an exclusive claim to either the truth or patriotism." - CBS News foreign correspondent, Allen Pizzey, preaching moral relativism on CBS's Sunday Morning, October 14, 2001.

"I don't support our troops." - Joel Stein, Los Angeles Times columnist, January 26, 2006

"I decided to put on my flag pin tonight--first time.... I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us." - Bill Moyers on PBS's Now, February 28, 2003.

The point? That these are not leftwing bloggers, these are not the Hollywood leftie elite, or the radical wing of the Democratic party. These are leading reporters and media executives.

As the article points out:

"These are some of our nation's leading journalistic lights; people whose words ricochet around the globe and often set the terms of debate for world leaders on issues of global concern."

It boggles the mind.

Hotmail problems.

I haven't been able to access my hotmail since last night, so if you have e-mailed me and not received a response, that is why.

I will have a computer wizard looking at it this evening. (my son)....;-)

Haditha Update.

The LA Times has this: (emphasis mine)

The general charged with investigating whether Marines tried to cover up the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has completed his report, finding that Marine officers failed to ask the right questions, an official close to the investigation said Friday.

Nothing in the report points to a "knowing cover-up" of the facts by the officers supervising the Marines involved in the November incident, the official said. Rather, he said, officers from the company level through the staff of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Baghdad failed to demand "a thorough explanation" of what happened in Haditha.

via Mary Katherine Ham

We are on a roll.....

The Captain has this:

CENTCOM announced minutes ago that one of the men expected to take the place of the now-room temperature Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has also reached thermal equilibrium near Baghdad. The spokesman for the military briefed reporters on the death of Sheikh Mansur, displaying before and after mug shots of the dead terrorist and explained his significance to the insurgent network in Iraq. So far, none of the wire services have picked up the story; I will fill in the details as they become available.

UPDATE: The BBC has an addendum to the story on the discovery of the two bodies that reports up to 15 insurgents killed while hunting a "senior member of al-Qaeda in Iraq," but does not identify Sheikh Mansur despite the specifics in the briefing.

UPDATE II: The Commissar asks if I may have mistranscribed the name from al-Masri or al-Mohajer. I took the name from the placard at the briefing, but it still might be the same person, as terrorists have been known to adopt multiple identities. I'm waiting for better reporting to come from the morning briefing, and find it disappointing that the story has not made its own way onto the wires thus far. Still scanning ...

UPDATE III: CENTCOM now has a release stating that they have detained a senior AQI leader and three of his lieutenants near Baghdad. CENTCOM has not named the terrorists detained as yet.

UPDATE IV: Thanks to CQ reader Brendan F, we see that the BBC has updated their report:
Gen Caldwell said on Tuesday US forces had killed Zarqawi's "right-hand man" in a raid in Yusifiya on Friday, near where the US troops were abducted.

The general said Iraqi Mansur Suleiman al-Mashhadani was "a key leader in al-Qaeda" and could have succeeded Zarqawi.

So now we have mainstream media confirmation on the kill -- and it appears we also have another senior AQI leader detained. It may take some time to get the information clear about the later CENTCOM release.

It's Official....

Connie Chung has lost her mind.

via NRO

Gore refuses to endorse Lieberman...

Interviewed on Bloomberg TV, Al Gore refused to endorse his former vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman (C-CT), in his re-election race.

Said Gore: "I am not involved. I typically do not get involved in Democratic primaries. Joe is my close friend, Joe and Hadassah are close to Tipper and me and it would be very difficult for me to ever oppose him. But I don't get involved in primaries typically. He's a great guy and he's right on a lot of other issues."

Of course, Gore did get involved in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries and backed Howard Dean over Lieberman.

Update: Political Wire has learned that former Connecticut Democratic party chairman George Jepsen is endorsing Lieberman's primary challenger, Ned Lamont, in a press conference this afternoon.

Ouch. That has to hurt. His former running mate for President/Vice President won't endorse him and isn't even honest about why.

Riding With Respect.

Imagine being a mild mannered software analyst working in Houston one summer, having no idea how dramatically your life is about to change in one year. The next summer you find yourself appearing on 'Hannity and Colmes' and 'Good Morning America' and in addition to all that, you find yourself standing next the President of the United States at the White House as he signs legislation into law.

That is exactly what happened to Kurt Mayer, one of the executive directors of The Patriot Guard Riders. After I wrote a bit about them last week on my TexasSparkle blog, I decided to give Kurt a call and find out more.

This is an amazing story. A grassroots non-political organization reacting to the hate filled Phelps group that protests at gay and military funerals. It grew from about 200 members last summer to over 40,000 members today. Wow.

If there ever were a time for a group or organization to bring conservatives and liberals, Republican and Democrats, together in this country, the time would be now. This organization gives liberals, who want to support the troops even if they disagree with the war, an opportunity to do that in a very real honorable way. This mototcycle group, that is 75% Veterans (although you don't have to be a Veteran to join or even own a motorcycle), goes to military funerals at the invitation of the families of fallen soldiers, and usually leads the funeral procession with 3/5 American flags and then stands in honor at the cemetery entrance.

Although this began as a way to shield the family from the hateful signs and shouts of the Phelps group, it also serves as a way to honor soldiers who might not have the kind of funeral service our soldiers deserve with proud Americans showing respect for their service to our country. Imagine 160 motorcycles with American Flags attached with members standing at attention beside their bike lining the entrance to a cemetery. A sight to behold. A beautiful and moving tribute that is well deserved.

Respect is a word heard often in this group. State Captains organize members before each funeral. Usually meeting in a Walmart parking lot beforehand to go over the specifics of what the family has requested. Respect is of the first order. I asked Kurt how the members kept their tempers when these crazy protesters are shouting unspeakable insults at the grieving family. He told me that they make it very clear that one must be able to keep one's temper in this circumstance out of respect for the family. No one wants a fight or a scene at such a time. I find it amazing that every single member at every single service that the Phelps has protested have been able to maintain the discipline needed not to just beat the crap out of this rude insulting group that dares to use Christianity as it's excuse for it's hate. It really goes to show how respect for the family is the most important thing, far more important than one's own feelings.

On Memorial Day President Bush signed the "Respect For America's Fallen Heroes Act," which makes it illegal to protest any closer than 300 feet at a military funeral. Standing beside the President were 6 Patriot Guard Riders and 2 families affected by the Phelps group. I had seen this on TV and in the paper, but I had no idea the Patriot Guard Riders were there. Curiously, they were not mentioned in the news stories that day and they were cropped out of the picture of Bush signing the legislation. I asked Kurt if any member of the press has approached him afterward or asked to speak to him. He said no. Later that day, at the invitation of the White House, they also attended the ceremony of the laying of the wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

One has to wonder why the Patriot Guard Riders were not mentioned in any news stories about the signing of the the Fallen American Heros Act. My first thought was that this is a unifying group and heaven forbid any of us should see Bush as unifier. But that may be my skepticism showing.

It does my heart good to know that this organization continues to grow as a tribute to the respect and honor we bestow upon those who gave the ultimate sacrfice for our country.

The Terrorists Say America Is Winning.

How about that? Maybe someone should tell Murtha, Pelosi, and Kerry that.

h/t BigDog