Hillary says she's the Girl for the job

According to the National Defense Political Action Committee, when Bill Clinton took office the United States had eight standing Divisions--today(circa 2000) we have two. Other developments during that time include 20 Air Force and Naval flight wings that are gone, 2,000 combat aircraft that were scrapped, 232 strategic bombers that have been lost, four aircraft carriers that have been moth-balled, 121 combat ships and submarines that are gone, and 700 military bases that have been closed here and abroad.

The United States has 700,000 fewer military men and women now(2000) than it did in 1992.

HILL: TERROR WOULD BE GOP BOOST
By GEOFF EARLE
August 24, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday raised the prospect of a terror attack before next year's election, warning that it could boost the GOP's efforts to hold on to the White House.

Discussing the possibility of a new nightmare assault while campaigning in New Hampshire, Clinton also insisted she is the Democratic candidate best equipped to deal with it.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.

"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.

The former first lady made the surprising comments as she explained to supporters that she has beaten back the GOP's negative attacks for years, and is ready to do so again.

They are even more surprising when you look at the facts of the previous Clinton administration

Clinton

Michael Hirsh needs to go for a drug test...

Michael Hirsh is either on drugs, or one of the biggest asshole/idiots that walk. He could be just a product of American Higher Education gone bad.

Why America's Pullout From Vietnam Worked
The truth behind Bush's mangling of Cold War history. The headline alone invokes thoughts of drug use...
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 1:10 p.m. ET Aug 23, 2007

Aug. 23, 2007 - The Soviet Union was in its final days of existence when I visited Vietnam in late December of 1991. The cold war was about to end forever with the collapse of one of the two adversaries that had kept it going for 40-odd years. A lot had changed in Vietnam, too, I discovered during my trip. The coziness between Moscow and Hanoi, once comrades within the Soviet bloc, had curdled into mutual hatred. Throughout the country, but especially in the North, the Vietnamese had come to despise the large resident Russian population for its cheap spending habits and arrogance. (no the people came to despise the communists for failed rhetoric of wealth and happiness that can never occur under communism) Visiting Americans, by contrast, were welcomed with smiles (“Russians with dollars,” we were called.) (probably because they recognized you as the socialist that you are) On the day I visited the old U.S. Embassy in Saigon—the where some of those iconic photos symbolizing American defeat were taken—I discovered government workmen removing a plaque that once commemorated the North’s victory over the “U.S. imperialists.” (sure you did, did you get it on film?) In the waning days of that epochal year, 1991, the propaganda against American involvement in Southeast Asia was suddenly no longer politically correct. (unless your an American Reporter) Hanoi’s new message: Yankee Come Back (and bring your investment dollars). Today Vietnam remains nominally communist, but Hanoi knows it is an ideological relic surrounded by Asian capitalist tigers, all of them U.S. allies or dependents (one reason Vietnam was so eager to have Bush visit last November: it wants to be part of that club). The cold war dominoes did fall—but the opposite way. (no they fell the right way)

This was the “harsh” aftermath that George W. Bush attempted to describe this week when he warned against pulling out of Iraq as we did in Vietnam. (no he wasn't, this is where Mikes lack of education at best or outright lies swill out the bull he expects you to believe) His remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City on Wednesday were an abuse of historical fact—no surprise, perhaps, coming from a president who is just now catching up with the Political Science 101 reading he shrugged off at Yale. Yes, a lot of Vietnamese boat people died on the high seas; but many others have returned to visit in the ensuing years. (the ones that couldn't return for a visit were the 2,000,000 Dead in Cambodian Genocide thanks to Pol Pot) Above all, we have learned that Vietnam and Southeast Asia were never really central fronts in the cold war (although Korea at the time of the outbreak of war in 1950, when Beijing still kowtowed to Moscow and before the Soviet Union and China split, might have fit that bill). The decision to pull out had very little effect on the ultimate outcome. (tell that to the Millions that died, that's what GW was talking about ya git. The same fate waits for a third of the Iraqi population if your ilk has their way) America triumphed in the cold war because it had the right kind of economy—an open one—compared to Moscow and Beijing, and its ideas about freedom were more attractive to the states within the Soviet bloc than their own failed ideas were. (no it was because of The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister Real History something you wouldn't know if it bit you on the ass Mike)

The president would like to make the argument that Iraq is about the same struggle. (that's not what he meant and your twisting words to justify your conclusion, FOOL) It’s not, for several important reasons. In contrast to the Soviet and Chinese communists, or for that matter the fascists of the 1930s and '40s, Al Qaeda and its ilk have no universalist program, no persuasive alternative ideology to globalization and some brand of democracy. (what rock have you been living under? Al Qaeda and the Islamists have exactly that. They have sworn to bring the world under the rule of Islam, and the persuasion is DEATH to all that oppose their GLOBAL aspirations) They are nihilists, and they have failed to capture half the world’s attention as communism and socialism once did. (you better learn to count the amount of Muslims in the world Mike) So, yes, while a U.S. pullout would no doubt inspire a great deal of Al Qaeda propaganda about how they succeeded in forcing the Americans to withdraw from Iraq as they forced the Soviets to do in Afghanistan, the majority of the world’s elites won’t buy it. (but the slaughtered millions in the streets of Iraq would) And the truth is, the slow bleed of America’s might and prestige on the streets of Iraq makes for a far more compelling picture of U.S. weakness than any Al Qaeda propaganda could ever do. (yeah we toppled 2 countries and have fought a war for 4 years losing less than 4000 troops. Yeah we look real bad. What wars have you studied asshole) If we leave, Al Qaeda will rant triumphantly on the Web sites and perhaps win more adherents, but that won’t get them any closer to “victory” over us than they are now. (what a maroon)

We need to face facts. The problem of Iraq has very little to do with “the terrorists” whom Bush vaguely refers to in speech after speech. The problem of Iraq is that four years of a botched bloody occupation have created a failed state defined by fear, sectarian slaughter and the flight of Iraq’s educated class. Iraq is being held together by just one thing now: American glue, the glue of U.S. troops on the ground. (your assumptions are proven wrong everyday as 90% of Iraq is at peace. Even if you were right you would pull the American Glue out. Letting millions be slaughtered, fuck those people I guess) The noises you hear now about the ineffectiveness of the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are merely the sound of an approaching collapse long in the making. (the only collapse will occur at the hands of Democrats pulling out and leaving millions to die just as they did in Southeast Asia) The only really appropriate analogy to Vietnam is that Bush’s policy of Iraqification—handing over things to the Iraqis—is far too similar to Vietnamization. Like the South Vietnamese government, the Iraqi politicians hunkered down in the Green Zone have little legitimacy any longer. (tell that to them and the MILLIONS that voted for them) Whatever authority they gained in the January 2005 elections has long since been frittered away and overtaken by the sectarian power struggle that is the governing reality on the ground. (once again a statement that is dismissed by the facts on the ground. Facts that show a ground swell of support from the local sheiks) This power struggle is the reason why the Parliament is hopelessly paralyzed and why Maliki has almost no freedom of action. As a loyal Shiite of the Dawa Party, he is and will remain incapable of defying the new consensus among his sect for Shiite dominance. So powerful are these centrifugal forces pulling Iraq apart that the Iraqi Army seems to be disintegrating faster than it can be trained up. (put down the pipe Mike the shit your smokin has done its damage) As seven soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division wrote in The New York Times on Aug. 19: “Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.” (that's not what the facts are proving. They prove just the opposite, and quoting the NYT the paper that has done everything to aid the enemy hardly gets you points in credibility and HERE is the response to the NYT 7)
Iraq will have to sort out these problems itself. (yeah fuck them people) There needs to be dramatic scaling back of the U.S. presence so that U.S. attention and resources can turn to the real terrorists. Most of them are still outside Iraq, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the whole thing started and where the “war on terror” should have always been focused. (General Hirsh says we should attack an ally Pakistan{echoing Barrack the Obamanation} and ignore the fact that the terrorists have said over and over that Iraq is the main front of the war) Even some very smart people don’t seem to understand that Bush’s larger idea of a “war on terror” has always been a fraudulent concept ginned up to justify his invasion of Iraq by broadening the enemy beyond the handful of Afghanistan-based bad guys who attacked us on 9/11. (yeah we "ginned up" the worlds intelligence reports and it was only four or five guys smoking opium in Afghanistan that were the problem. Your Delusional Mike the dope has done ya in) Mark Lilla, the Columbia University professor whose forthcoming book, "The Stillborn God," was excerpted in The New York Times Magazine last Sunday, is so intimidated by the threat of Islamism that he argues, nonsensically, that the separation of religion and politics achieved in the West is the exception rather than the rule in the world today. Lilla writes: “A little more than two centuries ago we began to believe that the West was on a one-way track toward modern secular democracy and that other societies, once placed on that track, would inevitably follow. Though this has not happened, we still maintain our implicit faith in a modernizing process and blame delays on extenuating circumstances like poverty or colonialism.” (what does that babbling add to your nonsense?)

This is a misreading of history almost as profound as Bush’s. In fact this process has happened. It’s called globalization. Yes, there are some pretty large parts of the globe that haven't experienced it much yet: much of the Islamic world—let’s narrow that to certain Islamist and Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran—and most of Africa. But in every other developed or developing part of the globe—the Americas, Europe, most of Asia, even Putin-controlled Russia—this Western-engendered system in which secularism eclipses religion in politics and governance has been accepted. (In fact, when it comes to mixing religion and politics, the most backsliding we've seen in the developed world in recent years has been right here in the United States, with the rise of the evangelical right). (ahhh the TRUE EVIL the Christian right...LOL The US has slid backward into a theocracy) Even if we were to vastly oversimplify the terms of the conflict, we’d have to conclude it’s the 4 or 5 billion (give or take a few hundred million) of the international community versus 1 billion or so Muslims. And thanks to this process, we of the majority—the international community—are still winning. Just ask that dwindling band of communists in Hanoi. (Michael Hirsh is an ASS, I do thank him though for providing a bit of comic absurdity to my day)


Iraq
Michael Hirsh

US PRESS IGNORE ATTACKS from Iran into Iraq

High Stakes Game in Northern Iraq
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com 8/23/2007

Over the past week, with Iranian shells raining down on Iraqi villages in Kurdish areas along the border zone in the north, Iran’s leaders have engaged the United States in a high stakes game that has gone virtually unreported in the elite media.

Iran has massed thousands of troops along its northwestern border in preparation for a ground assault against Iranian Kurdish fighters who have sought refuge in the rugged Qanbil mountains in northwestern Iraq.

On Tuesday, villagers found leaflets bearing the official Islamic Republic of Iran logo, ordering them to leave the area or face the consequences.

“Our enemies, mainly the Americans, are trying to plant security hurdles in our country (Iran),” the leaflets said. “They achieve this through using agents in the areas of Qandil and Khanira inside the Kurdish region. 'The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will work on cleansing this area.”

Hundreds of Iraqis from the villages of Qandoul and Qal’at Diza, close to the Iranian border in the province of Sulaymanyah, fled as a result of the Iranian shelling, according to wire service accounts.

Should Iran be allowed to carry out its planned attack, it would amount to an overt aggression against its neighbor. But the potential damage is far worse, because of the deep U.S. engagement in Iraq.

A successful Iranian attack against opposition Kurds from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (known as PJAK) based in Iraq, will strike a triple blow against America.

Not only will the Iranians have violated Iraq’s sovereignty, guaranteed until now by the United States; they will have shown that despite the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the United States “can do nothing” against Iran, as the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, liked to say.

Even worse: if the United States sits this one out, we will send a terrible message to Iranian opponents of the regime in Tehran that despite all our calls for “freedom” and “democracy” in Iran, we will not intervene to prevent them from being massacred, even when we have the opportunity and the forces in place to save them from certain death.

And yet, unless Congress and the White House react immediately, that is precisely what is going to happen.

An Iranian victory in northern Iraq will have far-reaching consequences, and will further embolden president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is engaged in political, military, and intelligence hardball with the United States on multiple fronts, including inside Iraq.

Just last week, U.S. forces arrested another “high-priority” Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer in Baghdad, and accused him of funneling aid to Iraqi insurgents.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver announced the arrest on August 15, and said that coalition forces “will continue their focused operations against unhelpful Iranian influence interfering in Iraq.”

An unnamed U.S. official said that the Iranian Guardsman was responsible for smuggling explosively-formed penetrators, Katyusha rockets and other weapons into Iraq, and “had direct ties to senior militant leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force.”

Another U.S. military spokesman. Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, told reporters in Iraq on Aug. 14 that Iran had recently provided 240 mm long-range rockets to insurgents in Iraq for attacks on U.S. forces.

"The 240 mm rocket is a large-caliber projectile that has been provided to militia extremists groups in the past along with a range of other weapons from Iranian sources," Bergner said.

Similar Iranian-made rockets I examined last summer in Haifa and in other northern Israel towns and cities had been fired against Israeli civilian targets by Hezbollah with warheads containing thousands of miniature ball-bearings, designed to kill and maim.

On May 25, PKK guerillas in Turkey derailed a train bound for Syria for Iran, ostensibly carrying construction materials. When prosecutors went through the wreckage they found an Iranian-made rocket launcher and 300 rockets bound for Hezbollah in Syria, according to Turkish press reports.

There is no way those weapons could have transited Turkey on the Turkish national railroad without someone in the Turkish government knowing what was going on.

Iran is banking on its secret “entente” with Turkey – to supply Hezbollah through Syria, and to smash the bases of each other’s opposition Kurds in Iraq - to deter the United States from any military intervention in northern Iraq.

The Turks have been threatening for months to go after the PKK, who have tens of thousands of fighters training in camps inside Iraq, along the Turkish border.

And so the Iranians have spread the rumor, which until now has been accepted at face value, that its own Kurdish dissidents (PJAK) are actually the Iranian branch of the PKK, which the U.S. has designated as an international terrorist organization.

The State Department took Turkey’s insistence that PJAK was allied with the PKK seriously enough that it refused to meet earlier this month with visiting PJAK leader, Rahman Haj Ahmadi, despite his open support for the U.S. military presence in Iraq and his identification with U.S. goals in the region.

Both the PKK and PJAK have training camps in the Qanbil mountain range in northern Iraq. But because of the difficult geography, and their different needs, they inhabit “different sides of the mountains,” Rahman Ahmadi told me in Washington.

“The PKK doesn’t need us,” he said. “They have tens of thousands of fighters, and hundreds of thousands of sympathizers.”

But Ahmadi acknowledges that PJAK and the PKK cooperate to a certain degree, if only to prevent clashes between their own fighters.

“The president of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional government, Massoud Barzani, also has an agreement with the PKK,” he told me. “Does that make Barzani a supporter of the PKK?”

This is not the first time the Turks have played us in Iraq. In 2003, on a flimsy pretext of domestic opposition, they successfully prevented the 4th Infantry Division from crossing Turkey to join coalition forces that liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein.

We can sit by and allow Iran to violate Iraq’s sovereignty, defy the U.S. military, and smash a significant Iranian opposition group on the slim pretext that Iran is “merely” seeking to punish its own rebels, just as Turkey.

Or we can extend protection to the Iranian Kurds who have established training camps in the rugged mountains of northeastern Iraq, and inflict a double blow on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Clearly, the Iranians believe they can thumb their noses at the U.S. military. For more than a week, they have conducted intermittent shelling of Iraqi Kurdish villages in the general vicinity of suspected PJAK bases.

My Iranian sources tell me that the Iranians are hoping to expel PJAK from the area and replace them with Ansar al-Islam, the precursor group to al Qaeda in Iraq,

“They want to send Saad Bin Laden, who is currently in Iran under Iranian government protection, into a new base inside Iraq,” one source told me.

Saad Bin Laden is Osama Bin Laden’s eldest son, who is widely viewed as the heir to his terrorist empire, should his father die. He was given refuge in Iran shortly after al Qaeda evacuated its bases in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks.

PJAK is a natural ally of the United States. They seek to unite Iranians to overthrow the dictatorship of the clergy in Iran, and to work together to build a future secular democracy.

We don’t have to provide them weapons, or money, or training. But if we allow Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops to attack PJAK inside Iraq with impunity, we may as well pack up and leave – not just Iraq, but the entire region. Because we will have no credibility left.

If instead, if we seize this opportunity to smash an Iranian Revolutionary Guards offensive with massive force, we could send a message that will make Iran’s leaders think twice before messing with us again.

It’s about time we made Iran’s leaders pay a price for killing Americans and undermining America’s allies. Here is a terrific opportunity to get that job done.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005).
Iran
Iraq

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

This PorkBarrel spending failure of a leader should have left years ago. Hastert was a disgrace as a Republican leader. What he lead us to was failure and Defeat, while taking the time to lead the party in learning how to spend taxpayer money like a Democrat.

This blowhard hack was unable to get the party when it was a majority to act like anything other than a herd of cats. If anything he should be held as the example of how to waste opportunity and proof that someone can live with their head shoved permanently up their ASS

Hastert Decides Not to Seek Another Term in Congress

BATAVIA—Congressman J. Dennis Hastert announced today that he will not seek reelection for a 12th term in the U.S. House of Representatives. (hoorah)

Hastert has been representing the Illinois 14th Congressional District which includes Bureau, DeKalb, Henry, Kane, Kendall and Lee Counties since 1987. In 1999 he was elected Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, the third highest elected official in the U.S. government and he served in that position until January 3, 2007— the longest-serving Republican Speaker in history.

"It was a great personal privilege and honor for this former teacher and wrestling coach to have been elected and to have served the American people," said Hastert.

"I am grateful for the trust placed in me as an elected official and it has been a true honor to have had the opportunity to serve the people of the 14th District all these years. I am immensely proud of all my accomplishments as a congressman and as Speaker—but I did not do this alone. This all happened because of the continued support I received from my constituents, my friends and my colleagues.

"We worked together to pass legislation, to provide a service or to meet the need of those we served. We fought for our beliefs and worked to improve our communities, our district and our country. I am grateful for what we accomplished together and I thank you all for working with me to make a difference and to make history."

During his legislative career, Hastert dedicated much of his efforts towards bringing needed resources to his district. He made quality health care more accessible and affordable. Hastert worked with schools to improve education. He assisted and supported Police and Fire First Responders’ efforts and brought the resources they needed to respond to crises and protect residents. He addressed local community challenges such as the thorium cleanup in West Chicago. Hastert advocated for local use of alternative fuel sources and assisted Fermi National Laboratory in advancing its physics research. He responded to the growth in his district by bringing resources to build roads and bridges and to expand the Metra service.

As Speaker he was a unifying leader who embraced his role with enthusiasm and determination. Hastert worked hard to make a real difference in people’s lives. He eliminated the Social Security Earnings test and provided for Health Savings Accounts. He provided Medicare prescription drug coverage for senior citizens who desperately needed the assistance. He delivered the two largest tax cuts in American history and was instrumental in passing significant anti-terrorism legislation to protect the American people.

Hastert a former government, history and economics teacher and a wresting coach began his political career when he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1980 and served three terms.

Fred Barnes is WRONG

Inside the beltway blindness infects Fred's head.

Immigration Overkill?
Republicans risk alienating the country's fastest growing voting bloc.
by Fred Barnes
08/18/2007 12:00:00 AM

AS EVERY REPUBLICAN knows, Democrats are short-sighted in their views on national security, pursuing antiwar arguments that are bound to come back and haunt them politically. This was the case with the clamor among Democrats to pull out of Vietnam and may be the case now as well with their calls for American troops to flee Iraq. The result of this antiwar noisemaking is a reputation for weakness on national security.

Yet Republicans are doing the same thing on another issue, trading away long-term gain for the immediate joy of pleasing voters who may (or may not) decide the winner of the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. That issue is immigration. (That's WRONG Fred, the issue is ILLEGAL immigration. That issue will decide the election by either bringing the base out or NOT)

By dwelling, often emotionally, on the problem of illegal immigration as a paramount issue and as if nothing is being done to deal with it, Republicans are alienating Hispanic Americans, the fastest growing voting bloc in the country. What's worse is many Republicans are oblivious to this or insist that losing Hispanic voters doesn't really matter because they'll never be reliable Republican voters anyway. These Republicans buy the notion that a sizable majority of Hispanics are and always will be Democrats. (It is a paramount issue, and it is not being dealt with. Only those inside the Beltway actually believe this issue is being handled. We do not think a sizable majority of Hispanics are democrats. LEGAL Hispanics by their nature are conservative, but ILLEGALS are in the same manner leaches on our society in other words Democrats)

This defeatism is wrongheaded. Hispanics are not lost to Republicans, as President Bush showed by winning more than 40 percent of their votes in 2004 and half their votes in 1998 when he ran for re-election as governor of Texas. The fact is Hispanics are conservative on cultural issues, entrepreneurial on economics, and intensely patriotic. They are a winnable constituency for Republicans. (Fred without knowing it proves my point. LEGAL immigrants and Natural born American Hispanics do vote Republican. ILLEGALS first of all can't vote and they already are here working the system costing us billions of taxpayer dollars like any natural democrat.)

But not if Republicans continue to concentrate on bashing illegal immigrants, as the party's presidential candidates have. Just this week, Mitt Romney spent day after day zinging Rudy Guiliani for opposing deportation of illegal immigrants when he was mayor of New York. Guiliani fired back that Romney, while Massachusetts governor, had tolerated so-called sanctuary cities that protected illegals.

Two potential candidates, Newt Gingrich and Fred Thompson, have increased their emphasis on illegal immigration. Gingrich declared himself "sickened" by the failure of Bush and Congress to confront the issue "while young Americans in our cities are massacred" by illegal immigrants. He was referring to the killing of three college students in Newark, New Jersey. An illegal immigrant is among those arrested in the murders.

Gingrich said Bush and Congress shouldn't have gone on vacation this month. And, rising to rhetorical heights, he said "the war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan." Whew! (yeah Fred it is American Civilians are being preyed upon by ILLEGALS more Americans are murdered, raped and attacked in the US by ILLEGALS than our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Look at the population of the California prisons and in the Felony warrants in just that state alone. You are in Beltway Denial Fred)

There's a distinction to be made here between opposing the immigration reform bill that died in the Senate several weeks ago and the obsessive emphasis by Republicans since then on unlawful immigration. There were legitimate reasons for seeking to defeat the bill, though I favored it. But now the heated talk about illegals has drifted into demagoguery. (no it hasn't, you were wrong in your support of the bill and you are wrong in how you are viewing this entire issue.)

Which is why Republican national chairman Mel Martinez intervened this week to ask presidential candidates to cool their rhetoric. Martinez, a Cuban-American, is worried about driving Hispanic voters away from the Republican party and with good reason. (ILLEGALS CAN'T VOTE and legal Hispanics don't like ILLEGALS either)

Illegal immigrants are an easy target, he said. And many Republicans act as if nothing is being done to impede their illegal entry into this country. In truth, the number of illegal immigrants has declined in the past several years and those detained at the border are now sent back, rather than released. Still, stronger steps to improve border security are needed. (that is pure bullshit, Beltway dwellers may buy into that spin but those of us whose neighborhoods have been invaded know that it is just that SPIN. Build the damn fence, then MAYBE someone will believe this crap)

A key question is why would Hispanics who are American citizens respond unfavorably to attacks on illegal immigrants? After all, they're here legally and polls show they oppose illegal entry.

The reason is simple: they see the issue as focusing entirely on Mexican and Central American immigrants. Illegals from other parts of the world who overstay their visas are largely ignored by Republican critics. (that is also a lie. We want ALL ILLEGALS GONE. Once again Fred is buying into the beltway MSM spin of we are all Bigots)

So the message to Hispanics--or at least the way they perceive it--is that Republicans don't want to see more members of your community pouring into this country. Republicans don't want them as workers or as neighbors and don't want them to have the opportunity to become citizens. (That's because that is the Spin from the left echoed by the MSM and inside the beltway fools)

Maybe Hispanics shouldn't feel this way. Many Republicans argue that it's unfair for them to be cast in this light as if their objections are racial or ethnic. They oppose illegal immigrants, not immigrants in general. While that may be true, their fixation on the issue leads Hispanics to think otherwise. (MAY BE TRUE, Fred your an ASS. It is FOOLS like you and Martinez that are reinforcing these UNTRUE impressions. Instead of standing up for the base and pointing out that the issue is LEGALITY you add to the problem and prove that you have been inside the Beltway for too long.)

Many Republicans may want their party to be famous for making illegal immigration a top priority and a passionate cause. But they should also recognize there's a political price to pay for this. (Yeah it's called VICTORY)

As Karl Rove has said, the Republican party will gradually decline--and won't return as America's majority party--if it lets the Hispanic vote slip away. And it will if Republicans, like antiwar Democrats, permit short-term gain to threaten long-term gain. (Doing the RIGHT THING will never drive away a single Legal Immigrant)

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. (and an inside the Beltway FOOL)

Illegal Immigration

Back from the Beltway

I just got back from spending a week in Reston Va. for training. While I was gone I had no real access to the Net, so needless to say I'm jonesin.

A couple of comments:

1) Ha Ha Michael Vick is going to jail because he is guilty, and stupid not because he's black. Screw you NAACP.


2) The Miners are dead, they have been dead from the beginning. I'm sorry, stop risking more people in foolish attempts. It is time to bring in the Heavy equipment and the structural engineers. The initial earthquake and the after blow outs may have been caused by the mining or by mother nature. We won't know until the whole structure is reevaluated.


3) Ron Paul and his cult of annoying gits have got to go. I am so sick of this guys play book. I admire the fact that he has one, that's more than you can say about most of the candidates. I have to say though it has now reached the point that if I could put duck tape on their mouths, and smash their phones I would gladly do it. NO ONE LIKES YOU RON. It's not that nobody doesn't know who you are and what you stand for WE DO. The fact is simply that NO ONE LIKES YOU, GO AWAY.... At least stop getting your Mind Numb Robots calling Conservative radio shows. Each caller fans the fire of dislike against you. You are polling less than the margin of error. A lot of what you stand for conservatives love. It is YOU we can't stand. We should all call your office (202) 225-2831 and annoy you.
Michael Vick
Miners
Ron Fruitloop

Iran Playing to the Democrats

Iran trying to sway debate on Iraq: U.S. general
Sat. 11 Aug 2007
By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. general said on Saturday Iran had increased supplies of weapons to Shi'ite militias in Iraq to attack U.S. troops and influence debate in Washington before the presentation of a crucial report on Iraq next month.

Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno, the day-to-day commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, said the U.S. military was changing tactics and stepping up operations against militant car bomb and roadside bomb cells known to have links with Iran.

"Because they have stepped-up support from Iran we are focusing on them a bit more. In the last three months ... we are seeing brand-new rocket launchers, mortars and mortar launchers," he told Reuters in an interview.

Iran denies meddling in Iraq and says the U.S. invasion in 2003 is the cause of sectarian strife. Iranian and U.S. officials met last week to discuss the formation of a new security committee aimed at improving cooperation on Iraq.

"I think they want us to leave Iraq. They understand what is going on politically back in the United States. In the long term they want to ... divert attention from the nuclear issue," Odierno said after touring a U.S. combat outpost in a former Iraqi army club in Baghdad's Karrada peninsula.

U.S. President George W. Bush has sent nearly 30,000 extra troop to Iraq since February to try to stem sectarian violence, despite opposition from Democrats in Congress and some members of his own party, who want a timetable for a troop withdrawal.

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker are due to present a report to Congress in September on the success of the troop buildup and Iraqi political progress towards reconciliation.

"We are making progress, the surge has reduced sectarian violence," Odierno said. But the success on the battlefield needed to be matched by Iraq's political leaders, he added.

BIGGEST THREAT

He said he expected al Qaeda in Iraq to try to launch a "spectacular" attack and for Shi'ite militias to step up the pressure on U.S. forces ahead of the report.

"The biggest threat still is AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) trying to do a mass attack on civilians. They want to rain terror down on neighborhoods so people lose confidence in the government," said Odierno, the number two commander of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Asked how he planned to counter the threat, he said: "We are continuing to be offensive in key areas. Every night, every day we conduct numerous operations based on intelligence."

U.S. forces have carried out raids in recent weeks in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mehdi Army militia. This week, the military said 30 gunmen were killed in an air strike during an operation against a cell with known links to Iran. Local hospitals said 13 people were killed, including a woman.

Odierno has said that 73 percent of attacks on U.S. forces in July were carried out by Shi'ite militias and that the number of incidents involving explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), a particularly deadly armour-piercing bomb said to be supplied by Iran, reached a peak in July.

U.S. commanders say much of the aid from neighboring Shi'ite Islamist Iran goes to rogue units of the Mehdi Army, headed by anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Odierno said Sadr, who has repeatedly called for U.S. troops to quit Iraq, had gone to Iran about a month ago "to try figure some things out".

"He is having some trouble with the organization. It is in disarray. I think he has gone to Iran to ... do some reorganization," he said.
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News From an Iraqi point of view

The Untimely Recess
The withdrawal of the Accord Front from Maliki's cabinet and the persistence of the parliament on taking a month long recess is a major embarrassment for Baghdad and Washington alike and for anyone who was looking forward to seeing some political progress in Iraq before the September milestone.

When it comes to the recess, two main factions can be identified as the cause of the deadlock:

First there is the Accord Front. This bloc apparently trying through the withdrawal from the cabinet and preventing the passage of legislations by insisting on taking the recess to show that the government and particularly Maliki have failed.
Their moving in this direction suggests that they are betting that by proving their point they will have a chance to oust Maliki and form a new government by joining forces with other opposition groups namely Allawi's bloc, the Dialogue Front since these two blocs supported the Accord's decision and Allawi's is even planning to follow the Accord's steps out of the cabinet. The Fadheela Party and some independent UIA members could be potential partners as well.

Second we have the pro-withdrawal anti-American factions in the parliament; mainly represented the Sadr bloc in addition to some radical elements from the UIA and a few from the two Sunni blocs who are not getting along well with the moderate wing in the bloc. These simply want to halt the legislative process at this point hoping that this would put more pressure on Washington to withdraw from Iraq.

I don't have the vote record of the session in which the recess was approved but from the number (150 votes in favor of the recess) I think Allawi's bloc, or at least its members who were present that day have voted similarly perhaps for the same reason the Accord did.
I suppose Petraeus will not have a difficulty in showing progress military-wise but the question is, could that be enough to make up for the damage done by these political setbacks?

There's no question that achieving a dramatic military victory in 30 days is very unlikely when we're fighting terrorists and militias. On the other hand reversing the political damage dealt by the two developments in 30 days seems to need something close to a miracle.

These developments show that a majority in our parliament care only about themselves and their blocs' interests much more than they do about the country's in such difficult time and their attitude tells that the blocs don't want to work together and don’t want to reconcile their differences.
Like we always said, we don't need reconciliation among the people, we need reconciliation among the components of the political class and if they don't want to do this then I think the best solution to ensure a fresh political start would be to change the political class through early elections once the security situation allows for. And to do this Iraq will need the "surge" to continue for several months beyond September.

One thing makes me worried these days and I'm afraid that someone is planning a different bad solution. The rift between the minister of defense and the senior commanders including chief of staff of the army which led to a group resignation is an ominous sign that indicates a deep dispute between the two leaderships and this dispute seems to be over a political issue given their history in the military institution.
It would be too early to speculate that someone is planning a coup-or preparing to crush one-at this point but the mere thought of it remains a little bit scary.

Posted by Omar

Good Ole Charlie

August 10, 2007
The Baghdad Fabulist
By Charles Krauthammer

For weeks, the veracity of the New Republic's Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the Army private who has been sending dispatches from the front in Iraq, has been in dispute. His latest "Baghdad Diarist" (July 13) recounted three incidents of American soldiers engaged in acts of unusual callousness. The stories were meant to shock. And they did.

In one, the driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle amused himself by running over dogs, crippling and killing them. In another, a fellow soldier wore on his head and under his helmet a part of a child's skull dug from a grave.

The most ghastly tale, however, was about the author himself mocking a woman whom he said he saw "nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq." She was horribly disfigured, half her face melted by a roadside bomb. As she sat nearby, Beauchamp said loudly, "I love chicks that have been intimate -- with IEDs. It really turns me on -- melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses." As his mess-hall buddy doubled over in laughter, Beauchamp continued: "In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? 'IED Babes.' " The woman fled.

After some commentators and soldiers raised questions about the plausibility of these tales, both the Army and the New Republic investigated. The Army issued a statement saying flatly that the stories were false. The New Republic claims that it had corroboration from unnamed soldiers. The Weekly Standard quoted an anonymous military source as saying that Beauchamp himself signed a statement recanting what he had written.

Amid these conflicting claims, one issue is not in dispute. When the New Republic did its initial investigation, it admitted that Beauchamp had erred on one "significant detail." The disfigured-woman incident happened not in Iraq, but in Kuwait.

That means it happened before Beauchamp arrived in Iraq. But the whole point of that story was to demonstrate how the war had turned an otherwise sensitive soul into a monster. Indeed, in the precious, highly self-conscious literary style of an aspiring writer trying out for a New Yorker gig, Beauchamp follows the terrible tale of his cruelty to the disfigured woman by asking, "Am I a monster?" And answering with satisfaction that the very fact that he could ask this question after (the reader has been led to believe) having been so hardened and brutalized by war shows that there is a kernel of humanity left in him.

But, oh, how much was lost. In the past, you see, he was a sensitive soul with "compassion for those with disabilities." In a particularly treacly passage, he tells us that he once worked in a summer camp with disabled children and in college helped a colleague with cerebral palsy. Then this delicate compassionate youth is transformed into an unfeeling animal by war.

Except that it is now revealed that the mess-hall incident happened before he even got to the war. On which point, the whole story -- and the whole morality tale it was meant to suggest -- collapses.

And it makes the rest of the narrative banal and uninteresting. It's the story of a disgusting human being, a mocker of the disfigured, who then goes to Iraq and, as such human beings are wont to do, finds the company of other such human beings who kill dogs for sport, wear the bones of dead children on their heads and find similar amusement in mocking the disfigured.

We will soon learn if there actually was a dog killer or a bone wearer. But the New Republic seems not to have understood how the Kuwait "detail" undermines everything. After all, what made the purported story interesting enough to publish? Why did the New Republic run it?

Because it fits perfectly into the most virulent narrative of the antiwar left. The Iraq war -- "George Bush's war," as even Hillary Clinton, along with countless others who had actually endorsed the war, now calls it -- has caused not only the sorrow and destruction that we read about every day. It has, most perniciously, caused invisible damage -- now made visible by the soul-searching of one brave and gifted private: It has perverted and corrupted the young soldiers who went to Iraq, and now return morally ruined. Young soldiers like Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

We already knew from all of America's armed conflicts -- including Iraq -- what war can make men do. The only thing we learn from Scott Thomas Beauchamp is what literary ambition can make men say.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Patron St of Hopeless Causes and Cops

A Prayer to St. Jude

Most holy apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of.

Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Make use I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of.

Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly (here make your request) and that I may praise God with you and all the elect forever.

I promise, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.

Amen.

Given in thanks for the new job.

Where is the GOPs SPINE????

I am just so sick and tired of this lack of BALLS!

First of all I want to send my prayers to the families of all those that have suffered a tragedy because of this bridge catastrophe. As long as it wasn't terrorism they will find the cause, and if there is fault to blame than someone will burn. May God Bless you and support you.

NOW that being said it's time for some plain talk. The Republican Party Leadership and elected officials for the most part lack a set of balls. Where are the politicians that have the sense to understand that now is the point in time both of the election and history to seize the moment and speak to the real issues that we as a nation face and damn the fury that it will invoke.

Where are the statements of condemnation of congresses misuse of power. We have a House and Senate that are running amok abusing the public lack of understanding that THEY have no right to question the President on certain issues. That Separation of Powers works three ways not just theirs.

The Presidential firing of 8 lousy attorneys is one of his unquestionable rights. He should be firing a hell of a lot more than he has, and congress has to stop acting like the spoiled circus clowns that they are. Shut the fuck up and do your jobs. Your jobs do NOT include destroying our government for your petty political tantrums.

Bush won twice, no matter what you do you can't remove him before his term is up so get over it. The liberals and the panicky poll watching pussies who can't decide if they are on the right or left except by how the wind is blowing have lost site of the whole picture.

We are at WAR. If you pull 150,000 troops out of Iraq before it's ready the millions that perished due to the Democrat engineered catastrophic end of the Vietnam War will look like a preschool playground brawl compared to the butchery and devastation that will engulf the whole middle east.

Why isn't the Republican Party speaking this truth from every microphone they can find? We lost the last election for exactly that reason. No one stood up to call a spade a spade, the masses really aren't as dumb as you politicians are.

It was your lack of fortitude to state the facts that cost the house and senate. No one ran with the number one true issue that would get votes "Illegal Immigration", and you ran like schoolgirls from the lefts ridiculous stand on the war. I mean come on whether you feel the war is right or wrong what the Dems are proposing which is nothing but retreat is asinine.

You can walk away from the battle field but if you leave the enemy standing he will still come after you to finish the job. One side alone can't end a conflict. You Asses!

This next election will decide two things 1) Are we going to welcome suicide attacks inside the United States by inviting the enemy in with a retreat in the ME, and 2) Are we going to socialize are country into a failed communist state, starting with the Health Care system.

Those are both sureties if Hillary wins.

It is the Rights lack of elected officials and power brokers with a spine that will cause that outcome to manifest itself before are very eyes. Now mind you it will be a pure spectacle of horror to watch, but if they win we will watch it with out a choice. And they will win if we don't get someone running who will speak to these 3 issues.

1) The War and the real stakes of a loss.

2) Illegal Immigration

3) The Border Fence

All the rest is shit that you can toss to the side, but we are being lead by deaf & dumb mutes who can't tell the difference between their ass and a whole in the ground.

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