baldilocks

Hive of Scum and Villiany Plays Race Cop

File this one under jaw-dropping hubris:

GENEVA (Reuters) - A special U.N. human rights investigator will visit the United States this month to probe racism, an issue that has forced its way into the race to secure the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

The United Nations said Doudou Diene would meet federal and local officials, as well as lawmakers and judicial authorities during the May 19-June 6 visit.

"The special rapporteur will...gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," a U.N. statement said on Friday.

His three-week visit, at U.S. government invitation, will cover eight cities -- Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

I wonder who invited him.

If the UN finds racism here, what could it possibly do about it? Would such a "discovery" mean that the body will find a new country in which to locate its headquarters? Will it stop accepting our money? Quick! Send the clowns email containing all the racial epithets you can!

Maybe they'll move to Tehran or Nairobi or Moscow.

No, I don't think so either.

(Thanks to Hot Air which entitles its post on the subject thusly: Jew-haters to investigate U.S. for racism)

What Will the Courts Legislate Next?

Please contribute to my "escape California" fund.

Why? Because of this.

The court held that people have a fundamental right to marry the person of their choice and struck down marriage laws limiting matrimony to opposite-sex couples as a violation of the state constitution's equal protection guarantees.

"One of the core elements embodied in the state constitutional right to marry is the right of an individual and a couple to have their own official family relationship accorded respect and dignity equal to that accorded the family relationships of other couples," wrote Chief Justice Ronald M. George, joined by Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar and Carlos Moreno.

State laws that have limited gay unions to domestic partnerships "impinge upon the fundamental interests of same-sex couples," George wrote.

Back in 2000, California voters decided via Proposition 22 that the word 'marriage' applied only to legal unions between one man and one woman. The measure passed by 61%.

And it most certainly isn't the first time that a California law has been "judicially mandated." I'm seeing a pattern.

This isn't about same-sex marriage or about "discrimination" or about "equal protection," not really. It's about tyranny. Because whether you or I think that same-sex marriage is okay or not, no one's life, liberty or property is harmed or hindered by the state if the voters decide not to label as 'marriage' a legal union between two men or two women.

In contrast, life, liberty and property are very much in peril when a judicial body presumes to overrule the will of the people.

Here’s a Bear Flag League Roundup while I simmer. Some of these folks are lawyers and there are at least three to whom the subject at hand might apply.

Justin Levine

While I have no problems with the result of this decision as a matter of social policy, it remains problematic in terms of the judicial activism debate. In addition to the dissenting opinions, you might want to pay particular attention to footnote # 52 in the majority’s decision (starting on pg. 79 of the PDF document) which underscores the problem. Ironically, the majority doesn’t seem to grasp the obvious contradictions and tensions in their reasoning that footnote 52 presents. Merely citing past court decisions is not a valid substitute for reasoning in this instance, nor is it adequate to explain the blatant double standards in social policy (beyond the personal whims and political preferences of the Justices).

Tammy Bruce

When Robert Mugabe nullifies an election in Zimbabwe, we cry out in pious indignation. But when it happens here, our tyrants are toasted as enlightened liberators.

Boi from Troi

This summer, gays and lesbians will be coming to California to gain legal recognition of their relationships just as they did on Valentine’s weekend 2004 when San Francisco issued same-sex marriage licenses. And like that romantic weekend get-away, they had better make plans fast.

The Foothill Cities Blog

Flap’s Dental Blog

Daniel Blatt (and here)

I disagree with this ruling because I believe the decisions the Court made better belong with the legislature and/or the people.

Holy Coast

Had the voters been in favor of gay marriage by 61%, I wouldn't have liked it but would have accepted it because that was the will of the voters. If I couldn't live with that decision, I could move to a state that hadn't gone so far down the liberal craphole. However, the voters of California overwhelmingly rejected gay marriage, but because that decision was politically incorrect, the left feels they have a right to use only 4 judges to impose something on Californians that they clearly did not want.

Infinite Monkeys

Come November, there will likely be a proposition on the ballot to insert into the California Constitution the legal definition of "marriage" as between only a man and a woman. So maybe all this will be moot by 2009 -- unless, of course, the court doubles down by later declaring even amendments to the state constitution unconstitutional. From this absurd court? I expect it.

Lex Communis

First, why not polygamy? Why is "two" a "magic number"? Could it be because we have two arms? Could it be because we have two eyes?

Or could it be because there are two sexes, and now that the idea that the complementarity of the different genders is now considered outmoded and irrelevant, why should "two" be a limitation any more than the idea that a "man" and a "woman" constitute a married couple?

Little Miss Attila

Mayor Sam

McGehee

Apparently four out of seven California supreme court justices drive a Fiat.

Red County

Presto Pundit

Hugh Hewitt

The central question was whether the representative nature of the California state government, including its initiative provisions, would be upheld. They were not. The California Supreme Court asserted its ultimate power today in a way that is shameful and deeply destructive of the ability of a free people to govern themselves.

SoCal Pundit

The Right Coast

The Miseducation of a Future President (UPDATED)

Jack Kelly gives Barack Obama a history lesson in the wake of the senator's remark regarding non-ordnance communication with America's enemies :

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Kelly points out the obvious

That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.

and then goes on to remind us that neither FDR nor Truman met with the leaders of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy or Imperial Japan before the United States' entrance into World War II (or at all), that Truman had to use "non-verbal communication" to convince Japan to surrender and that Truman did not meet with North Korea's Kim Il-Sung before the outbreak of the Korean War. Even more interesting is that Kelly points out that while Senator Obama is correct that JFK met with our enemies (USSR's Khrushchev) before the outbreak of a Hot War, that it was the meeting and JFK's flighty persona which probably caused the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Elie Abel, who wrote a history of the Cuban missile crisis (The Missiles of October), said the crisis had its genesis in that summit.

"There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy's measure in June 1961 and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions," Mr. Abel wrote. "There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America's power. He questioned only the president's readiness to use it. As he once told Robert Frost, he came to believe that Americans are 'too liberal to fight.'"

That view was supported by New York Times columnist James Reston, who traveled to Vienna with President Kennedy: "Khrushchev had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs," Mr. Reston wrote. "He would have understood if Kennedy had left Castro alone or destroyed him, but when Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed."

But another supposition which Kelly makes is that, perhaps, Senator Obama is thinking of Josef Stalin's meetings with both FDR and Winston Churchill, most famously at Yalta.

But Stalin was then a U.S. ally, though one of whom we should have been more wary than FDR and Truman were. Few historians think the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam, which in effect consigned Eastern Europe to slavery, are diplomatic models we ought to follow. Even fewer Eastern Europeans think so.

The thought that Obama might have made this particular mistake is jaw-dropping.

This sort of history is old hat for me since I lived in the midst of its aftermath and I don't get surprised (anymore) or think less of the average person when he/she demonstrates a lack in this area of factual knowledge. Public schools have sucked for a long time; therefore anyone so educated and who is interested in this area of history--or most others--has to actively seek out the knowledge for self.

But didn't Senator Obama attend private secondary schools during the American portion of his education? And, in order to receive an undergraduate degree from Ivy-covered Columbia University in political science with a specialization in international relations, aren't scholars of that august institution required to take a US history class or two? (Heck, one would think that even Leftists and Socialists would attain at least a working knowledge of the history of the countries which are/were their ideology made flesh--the late USSR, especially the Stalinist version, and North Korea.)

The Cold War--under whose heading the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis fall--was a direct result of World War II. Both wars were actively engaged in by the US. As I said, I make allowance for the average Joe's lack of knowledge there. But when a highly and "well" educated person says that he wants to be president but doesn't know these bare bones of recent US history I have to take a step back.

And this guy will be the Democrat nominee.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey was on this op-ed before I was--hey, he gets up earlier--and notes the Chamberlain similarities. (Note: not Wilt.)

Obama isn’t merely saying that he’ll reinstitute diplomatic relations with Iran, which would emulate our relations with the Nazis and the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor. Obama wants to have meetings without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has publicly spoken of his desire to annihilate a key ally of the US, as well as Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and any number of thugs and tyrants. When did FDR, Truman, and Kennedy do that? Answer: never.

BTW, one wonders whether the good senator remembers why we have no diplomatic relations with Iran.

1979. Hmmm...who was president then and will the good senator follow his lead?

Fallen King Wallows in Ignorance

Stephen King tells Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard to shut up about the former's insult to the troops--while reiterating the same exact insult.

From King's site:

That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt. Noel Sheppard says, “Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen.” I guess he feels ignorance and illiteracy are OK when the country needs cannon-fodder. I guess he also feels that the war in Iraq has nationwide approval. Well, it doesn’t have mine. It is a waste of national resources. . . and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded. I live in a national guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career—military or otherwise. If you agree, find Sheppard on the internet, and send him an email:

“Hi, Noel—Stephen King says to shut up and I agree.”

Steve

(Emphasis mine.)

King's upshot is that these phantom "educational policies" cause illiteracy in young men and women and that these illiterate young men and women are limited to a singular career--the military.

Keep talking, Steve. You've lost this "illiterate" veteran for good and I'm sure that I'm not alone.

BACKGROUND: King Falls From Throne

UPDATE: I was going to leave a comment on the message boards at King's site, but they're shut down for some reason. Heh.

King Falls From Throne (UPDATED)

Stephen King:

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

Should I burn my copies of The Stand and It? After all, Mr. King thinks that people like me cannot read them. :::cough:::ASVAB:::cough::::

Did that car accident do something to him or was he always this idiotic? Being a Leftist is one thing, but claiming that persons in the military can't read? I became hooked on his books while stationed in Germany--because my fellow GIs were telling me how great they were.

One would assume that King hasn't read his marketing reports over the years, else he would have known better than to alienate a large portion of his fan-base.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

UPDATE: Apparently Mr. King never learned the First Rule of Holes: stop digging.

Moral Equivalence Illustrated (UPDATE: Video at Newsbusters)

This is what happens when they just don't get it.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: The reason why from TIME managing editor Rick Stengel: "We're experts in what we do." The interviewer, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, doesn't even ask about the World War II imagery or the sacredness of Iwo Jima. "Experts" indeed.

Is There a Manual of Which I am Not in Possession? (UDATED)

I had to come up for air to comment about this: prepare to roll your eyes and smack your forehead (in my case, fivehead) after reading this op-ed about you-know-who.

"Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

Perhaps I've been taken off of the Code Word mailing list for cause.

Unwillingly, I feel a bit of admiration toward the author, David K. Shipler, for his ability to twist the definition of the word 'elitist' into a racial epithet. That takes skill.

Okay, I'll say it. Robert Johnson was :::cough::: :::hack::: correct.

(Thanks to Cuffy Meigs posting at Ace)

SOMETHING I MISSED: Cuffy finds another Shipler op-ed using a word that doesn't need to be in the Code Word manual.

TWIST AGAIN: Neptunus Lex reminds me that Dick Cavett criticized General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker for using high-falutin', specialized language when the latter two addressed a couple of senate committees last week--implying that the two were elitist. Does that mean that Dick Cavett is a racist? Or is that only a white-on-black crime?

What an ugly game this has become.

Grave Digging

The Right has been musing about Obama's late father--a dyed-in-the-wool commie and from a Muslim family--for some time now, with most of the musing being irrelevant since the junior Obama was abandoned by his father. Now it's the Left's turn.

At Politico, Ben Smith features an article written by the senior Obama, in which the latter discusses the Kenyan president's economic positions; Senior is basically asking whether the president should impose hardcore Communism on his country or go with baby steps. The president in question? The Kenyan Republic's first, Jomo Kenyatta. The year? 1965.

You know what? I am really less than impressed with the ability of all too many "professionals" to separate what matters from what does not--the ability to analyze information.

A bit of assistance: if a person has only had contact with his/her father twice in a lifetime, it's pretty much impossible for that father to have any meaningful influence on that person's political ideology. (Do I have to repeat myself about my own father and our divergent politics?)

Yeah, I'm helping the Left but...call it charity.

Now another decision looms--do I want to read some sixties-era economic tome written by some African dude who just received his undergrad?

(Thanks to Ed Morrissey)

The Peanut Gallery Can't Help It

And it happens again! This time it's veteran talker Dick Cavett who laments the lack of humor displayed by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker during their appearances before the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations Committees. Additionally, the two used too many words which were outside of Mr. Cavett's vocabulary.

But of course, Mr. Cavett couldn't resist take a shot at the general's rack.

I can’t look at Petraeus — his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons — without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance. He talked about meeting General Westmoreland in the Vietnam days. Mort, in a virtuoso display of his uncanny detailed knowledge — and memory — of such things, recited the lengthy list (”Distinguished Service Medal, Croix de Guerre with Chevron, Bronze Star, Pacific Campaign” and on and on), naming each of the half-acre of decorations, medals, ornaments, campaign ribbons and other fripperies festooning the general’s sternum in gaudy display. Finishing the detailed list, Mort observed, “Very impressive!” Adding, “If you’re twelve.”

And I can't read the words of small, ignorant males as they snipe at their betters without thinking of the word 'eunuch.'

Is it too difficult for such a towering intellect as Mr. Cavett to open a dictionary or have one of his assistants look up Army regulations and discover that the general is bound by those regulations to wear all of his accoutrements on that particular uniform combination? Apparently it is. But the type of knits that Cavett and Debord are picking indicates something more than willful ignorance. I mean, what Real Man do you know of who complains about such things?

When you're soon in that rest home, Mr. Cavett, you can spend your remaining days thinking about how you have wasted your life; something which better men than yourself--like General Petraeus and General Westmoreland (RIP)---will never have to do.

Something to look forward to.

(Thanks to Cassandra at Villainous Company)

Broken Hearts

Some of you folks are beginning to sound like jilted lovers. I kept telling you that Obama wasn't a Muslim but a Communist (okay, a Socialist). He may ally with known racists--and, hopefully, it will sink his candidacy--but BHO is a mere cipher; a vessel. As William Amos put it at Hot Air,

We were wondering if Barack was a Manchurian Candidate; I think the answer is yes. The only question is for who?

Obama coats his lack of self in Black Liberation Theology--an ego-based, God-as-Sugar-Daddy ideology. But it could have been any other ideology that was equally as metaphysically empty; he suited up in this one because it fit the best for obvious reasons.

Some of us are still trying to clue you all in as to the exact nature of Obama's fraud. So when you stop fretting over the fact that He Done You Wrong, when you stop letting your ego and your fear blind your judgment, pay attention to the big, hairy clues in the guy's background. (No. The other clues.)

They've been sitting there all along.

UPDATE: What Cobb said:

The great charade of this debacle is that critics and fans from the left and right have placed the burden on Obama to be their magic negro, to prove once and for all that Americans are capable of bridging racial gaps.

Our First Hispanic President

That title could go to presumptive GOP front-runner John McCain who was born in the Panama Canal Zone. It would explain quite a bit.

The New York Times is, yet again, banking on the historical ignorance of the majority of the American voting public.

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, [the latter] a Navy officer, were stationed.

Do we really want to bar from becoming president millions of Americans who were born at overseas military installations while their parents were defending this nation?

And if people born in U.S. territories--such as Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Panama Canal Zone circa 1936*--aren't natural born citizens, then what are they? And what are they doing voting in the presidential elections?

"Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?" (Oh wait. I've been here all along.)

I really hate having to be in John McCain's corner on anything. This defense isn't just for McCain, however; it's for the children of my friends--children born in places like Ramstein Air Base, Germany or Misawa Air Base, Japan.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at NYT's behavior anymore, but I am.

(Thanks to Protein Wisdom)

*Jimmy Carter gave the Zone back to Panama in 1977; the deal was done by 1999.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Weren't the first few PsOTUS born in some other country? (Not really asking.) And don't forget, Alaska and Hawaii didn't become states until 1959. What about people born before then? Are they not allowed to become POTUS? Stupidity reigns.

Everyone Wants Change (UPDATE: Rise of the New BAP)

Oh my. As I was searching the Internet for a “Kenya Facts” page I’m composing, I happened to come upon Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga’s 2007 presidential campaign page. Check it out and scroll down! The question: did Odinga ‘jack his Cousin Obama’s shtick or vice versa? Considering that Senator Obama has been known to borrow with consent a few lines from his friend Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA), I'm guessing the latter.

RELATED: At WSJ, Daniel Henninger says that the Clinton camp betrayed its desperation when it made a big deal out of the words that Obama and Patrick seem to willingly share with each other. The real story, according to Henninger, is "the greatest seismic shift since Bill Clinton came out of Arkansas in 1992"--the roll-out of the new generation of Black American Politician.

[W]hat you have is Sen. Barack Obama, who is 46, and Gov. Deval Patrick, 51, as but two of a generation of black politicians cut more or less from the same mold. Add to the list Newark Mayor Cory Booker, 38, who first lost to and then defeated the Sharpe James machine there; Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, 37; and Harold Ford Jr., 37, who lost a 2006 Senate race in Tennessee by three points. From the GOP side, let's include former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, 49, and former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts, 50. All are well-educated, very smart and able to articulate ideas with clarity and power.

Cory Booker embraced Obama's candidacy in the New Jersey primary, as did Adrian Fenty in D.C.'s. Both are virtually political, even personal, duplicates of Obama. Political scouts had identified Obama, Patrick and Booker as presidential prospects off in the future. Barack Obama jumped the gun. He is like a qualifier at Wimbledon. Now he's in the semifinal and one win from the final match of his life.

Kenya: Rumors and Shenanigans (UPDATE: African Union Talks Fail)

I have familial duties to attend, but I wanted to get this out...

Kenya's Electoral Commission Chairman--the one who is tasked to present presidential election results to the country--now says that he did not approve the results in question.

[Samuel Kivuitu] blamed “outside forces” for making public the controversial presidential tallies, which appeared in three pages of paid-for advertising in Daily Nation and The Standard Thursday.

“I did not submit this report or authorise my name to be used for its publication. The use of my name is a falsification,” the besieged Electoral Commission chairman said in statement.

His complaint will once again raise questions over who really is in charge of the commission, which has been accused of doctoring presidential results in President Kibaki’s favour and announcing figures different from those read out at the constituencies, plunging Kenya into a political crisis.

More in a bit.

UPDATE: The AU-led talks failed so they're bringing in :::drumroll::: Kofi Annan! You, of course, remember Annan.

Before he left, [AU Chairman] Kufuor highlighted the fact the two sides had at least "agreed to an end to violence".

Two weeks, hundreds of dead Kenyans and Kibaki and Odinga are just now getting around to addressing the violence, eh?

For all previous Kenya coverage, click on the 'Africa' category.

Wait A Minute!

$3,014,170,389,176,410? You all want the country and then some? (Count your places; yes, that's quadrillion.)

New Orleans, please. How does 'no' sound?

A Prediction

2008 will not be a good year for one Jay R. Grodner, Chicago Attorney-at-law, anti-military in sentiment, alleged vandal and possible felon.

And the moral of the story is: you never know who you're...er...messing with anymore. Actually, the moral is that the everyday citizen is no longer as defenseless as he/she used to be--even against lawyers.

Mary Mapes Still Misrepresenting Rathergate

Woman, you are out of your mind:

What was different in our case was the brand new and bruising power of the conservative blogosphere, particularly the extremists among them. They formed a tightly knit community of keyboard assault artists who saw themselves as avenging angels of the right, determined to root out and decimate anything they believed to be disruptive to their worldview.

To them, the fact that the president wimped out on his National Guard duty during the Vietnam War -- and then covered it up -- was no big deal.

And we showed for the first time a cache of documents allegedly written by Bush's former commander. The documents supported a mountain of other evidence that young Bush had dodged his duty and not been punished. They did not in any way diverge from the information in the sketchy pieces of the president's official record made available by the White House or the National Guard. In fact, to the few people who had gone to the trouble of examining the Bush record, these papers filled in some of the blanks.

We reported that since these documents were copies, not originals, they could not be fully authenticated, at least not in the legal sense. They could not be subjected to tests to determine the age of the paper or the ink. We did get corroboration on the content and support from a couple of longtime document analysts saying they saw nothing indicating that the memos were not real.

To put it politely as possibly, Ms. Mapes, every word of this is pure, unadulterated Bravo Sierra--especially the emphasized sections--and the rest of it is as well.

But should we really be surprised when the delusional--like Rather and Mapes--want to open up their own old wounds? Mapes and Rather are engaged in legal and rhetorical forms of self-mutilation.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

A New Kind of "Chickenhawk" (UPDATED)

When I said yesterday that most of Beauchamp's defenders had sense enough to steer clear of the milbloggers, I had no idea that Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary had run out into the open, bare-a** naked.

This childish game of name-calling, mostly led by the know-nothing Michelle Malkin's of the world--anyone remember the Jamil Hussein embarassment--has been going on for the better part of a week. Now the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb dug up some particularly damning evidence against the young soldier:

We do know that Beauchamp worked on Howard Dean's presidential campaign, that he edited a liberal student magazine in college, and that he marched with pro-choice demonstrators in 2004. Further, we know that he enlisted in the military "just to write a book" about his experience--not the noblest of reasons, but neither does it discredit his work. Writing under a pseudonym, though, did prevent readers from understanding that his perspective was not merely that of a soldier on the ground, but of a political activist.

How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.)

(Emphasis mine.)

Is McLeary saying that most of the milbloggers haven't been to college or that they haven't joined the military? :-)

Apparently McLeary's Ivy-honed intellect didn't help him to deduce that milbloggers=military bloggers. Nor did that "superior intellect" lead him to discover that all military officers have an undergraduate degree, at minimum, and that half of enlisted men/women have obtained the same.

He denigrates the military bloggers then has the nerve to quote Andrew Sullivan approvingly in the next sentence. :::shakes head:::

I hope that he came to my blog, saw that "101st Fighting Keyboarders" link on the top right and got fooled. What a clown.

UPDATE: Welcome LGF readers (et al.)!

UPDATE: CJR's McLeary Responds

Milblogs

View My Milblogging.com Profile

Boobs Bombard Clinton Party

Zombie, every ready to take one for the team, has photo evidence (not safe for work) of Sherry Glazer's Breasts-Not-Bombs (and CodePink) peace activists as they deploy to a Hillary Clinton campaign launch party in San Francisco and unleash their usual saggy ordnance.

I think I need a new blog post category: 'Barf.'

(Thanks to LGF)

We Know What's Good For You

A cloture motion in the US Senate--which ends debate on the worth of the the newly-revived Illegal Immigration Compromise--passed today. It wasn't even close.

What happens now? A second cloture vote on Thursday ending all debate on Compromise's final form, followed by an up or down vote in the Senate. If the second cloture and the Compromise itself pass, then it's on to the House, whose members--being elected every two years rather than every six--seem more inclined to give this bill the lethal injection it deserves. Hopefully.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

The Hero of Flight 63, Part One

It seems that our betters don’t know when to give up. Reports of the Illegal Immigration Compromise's death have been exaggerated. In league with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), President Bush will put forth “a $4.4 billion infusion of border security cash today apparently helped to ease concerns of many conservatives” called a "confidence builder."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid approved the new deal on immigration after meeting with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. [SNIP]

"We're going to show the American people that the promises in this bill will be kept," [President] Bush said in a speech to the Associated Builders and Contractors.

WTF-ever—and I submit that scornful response to Republicans and Democrats alike, since the majority of both parties in the executive and legislative branches seem hell-bent on doing what the people don’t want and determined to implement everything that is the opposite of fair, true and legal. The following saga symbolizes their total disconnect from reason.

*****

After noting coverage of the latest (publicized) domestic terror plot--thwarted in its infancy--I found myself ruminating on other plots uncovered since The Big (Successful) One. The name of Richard Reid--the would-have-been “Shoebomber,” who unsuccessfully attempted to complement the September 11, 2001 attacks a mere three months later—popped into my mind, and I began to review what I remembered of that plan. That train of thought gave rise to another name: ‘Kwame.’ Kwame had been one of Richard Reid’s intended victims, but, happily, had helped to subdue Reid. I wondered what had become of ‘Kwame,’ so I did some research. (The name ‘Kwame’ was prominent in my mind for another reason: 99% of those with that given name are black, named in honor of first post-colonial Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah by knowledgeable/learned parents.)

As it turns out, Kwame’s last name is ‘James’ and his story is one filled will irony considering his background and what has occurred in his life since he helped to ensure that American Airlines Flight 63, along with its 197 passengers and crew, landed in one piece.

Interestingly enough, James has roots in Trinidad though he was born in Canada; the Trinidad connection is something that James has in common with the JFK airport (alleged) terror conspirators. Before James boarded Flight 63 in Paris late in 2001, he was a relatively anonymous guy--a 23-year-old 6’8” center for the AS Bondy pro basketball team in France's B League. However, his experiences since becoming one of the blessed ones to tangle with a terrorist and live--featured last year in Sports Illustrated--can only be described as an odyssey.

[…] Kwame James shrugged and didn't say a word when he -- handsome, well spoken, well dressed -- was yanked from the security line at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris and given the full pat-down-and-wand treatment while an unkempt fellow passenger carrying only a backpack and muttering to himself in Arabic passed through the checkpoint without a problem.

James, a dual citizen of Canada and Trinidad & Tobago and a recent graduate of a college in the U.S., has what he calls "an extreme dislike" of racial profiling. However, it was Dec. 22, 2001, barely 100 days into the "new reality" of life after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and if you were subjected to one of those exhaustive airport security searches, you smiled through clenched teeth and took one for the team. "I just figured, Oh well, my bad luck," James recalls. [SNIP]

Three hours [after takeoff,] he was roused by a frantic flight attendant. "We need your help in the back!" she said. "Now!"

The terror etched on the woman's face extinguished any notion that James might be dreaming. Without hesitating he rushed back to row 29, where he found other passengers struggling with that scraggly haired man who had breezed through the security line. A flight attendant was tightly holding her own hand, stanching the blood from a bite wound. The stench of sulfur filled the air. A thickset Italian passenger had the unkempt man, who was screaming incomprehensibly in Arabic, in a headlock.

For years James' coaches had chided him for being insufficiently physical, for shying from contact. Now here he was, helping to wrestle a flailing man into submission. James' adrenaline, surging far more than it ever had on a basketball court, spiked when a flight attendant warned, "Careful, he's got a bomb in his shoe!"

James looked down, saw a small Koran under the captive's seat and fixed his gaze on the wires poking out from the tongue of his black boot. Six times, the man later identified as Richard Reid -- and universally called the "Shoe Bomber" -- had tried to ignite the wires with a match. With no air marshals on board to help, James and a scrum of valiant passengers and flight attendants finally subdued Reid, who is 6-4, weighs more than 200 pounds and, as James puts it, "was possessed, clearly willing to die." Using belts and headphone cords, they tied Reid up, and two doctors on board injected Reid with a sedative. [SNIP]

James, the largest man on the plane, was asked by the captain to stand sentry over Reid for the rest of the flight. For nearly four hours, James sat on an armrest and pressed against Reid, gripping him by his greasy ponytail. [SNIP]

The path which lead Kwame James to being on AA Flight 63 with Richard Reid is an interesting one.

In 1994, when he was 16, Kwame spent the summer before his junior year of high school with Aunt Pat in Indiana. She thought it might be fun for Kwame, now 6-7, to spend a few weeks at [former Indiana University and present Texas Tech basketball coach] Bob Knight's basketball camp. Playing full-court -- indoors! -- for the first time, Kwame dominated the other campers. Late in the session Knight summoned Kwame to his office and explained that he wanted Kwame to play at Indiana. The hitch was that Kwame would have to finish high school in the States, get some coaching and add some muscle to his lean physique.

Augustus and Carole James, both Ph.D.'s, had never heard of Bob Knight and wondered what cult their excited son had joined. Get your butt on a plane, Kwame, they effectively said. After much agonizing, however, Kwame decided to stay in Indiana with his aunt. It meant not getting to say goodbye in person to his parents, siblings and friends. It meant adapting to a different culture. But it also meant a chance to go to college in the U.S. for free. [SNIP]

As a senior he was a star on the [Lawrence North High, IN] varsity and made a recruiting visit to Bloomington to watch the Hoosiers practice. What he observed was how thoroughly Knight had drained the fun out of basketball. "Getting yelled at playing sports?" James says. "That was totally foreign to me. In Trinidad, sports are just fun. I'm thinking, I'm not signing up for four years of that."

Instead, James chose Evansville, whose basketball program, oddly enough, might be best known for the plane crash that killed the entire team in 1977. James turned out to be a good, not great college player, an undersized center who shot judiciously and was all too happy to sublimate his offense for the good of the team. [SNIP]

Ask James about his experience at Evansville, however, and he barely mentions basketball. He says the highlight of his four years there was befriending classmates from small-town America. "They'd say, 'Kwame, we've never met anyone from Trinidad before!'" he says. "I'm like, 'I've never met anyone from a town with no stoplights!'" His senior year he fell in love with [Jill] Clements, a nursing student from such a town, Loogootee, Ind., pop. 2,700.

James graduated in 2000 with a degree in international business. While he knew that the NBA wasn't in his future, he wasn't through playing basketball. He spent the next year pinballing among club teams in Switzerland, France and Argentina. The pay was awful. The living conditions were too. The travel -- 14-hour bus trips sometimes -- was worse. James was thrilled. In Argentina he learned to speak Spanish. In France he spent hours as a tourist, walking the streets and alleys by himself. "I never lost the skinny-Caribbean-kid mentality," he says. "I was getting paid to play basketball, man. It was a privilege."

In the fall of 2001 James was playing for AS Bondy, averaging double figures in points and rebounds. Yet for reasons he couldn't fully grasp, basketball was losing its appeal to him. Late one night he was out with some Bondy teammates, including Marcus Wilson, who played with James at Evansville, and he unburdened himself. "I told him not to get down because we were losing, but he said it was bigger than that," Wilson recalls. "It's ironic that he was thinking of doing something bigger than basketball."

The next morning James boarded Flight 63.

Close call

James' instinct had been right. The Shoe Bomber hadn't been acting alone. Within hours of the plane's landing, details emerged. Reid, a petty criminal in Britain, had been born in South London, the son of an English mother and a Jamaican father. After discovering radical Islamism, he had attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and was, according to e-mails he'd sent, upset that he hadn't been asked to participate in the Sept. 11 attacks.

When he had shown up at De Gaulle airport on Dec. 21, he had triggered security alerts: He'd paid for a one-way ticket to Miami in cash; he'd checked in no bag; and despite having traveled to seven countries in recent months, he had no fixed address or apparent employment. Authorities questioned Reid, causing him to miss his scheduled flight. But, apparently satisfied with his answers, officials put him up at a $280-a-night hotel and allowed him to board Flight 63 the next day. Enough plastic explosive had been packed into his hollowed-out bootheels to blow up the plane. The explosive bore the palm prints of a well-known al-Qaeda bomb-maker.

Fortunately, Reid had a lousy set of matches. "The fact is, if he had brought a lighter onto the plane instead, I wouldn't be here telling you this story," James says, an assertion that FBI officials confirm. "That will give me the chills for the rest of my life."

CONTINUATION: In Part Two, The Hero of Flight 63 tries to become a US citizen--with no help from our betters.

From Mexico with Irony

File under incredulity.

CUERNAVACA, Mexico -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that Washington is taking steps to address Mexican concerns the U.S. is not doing enough to stop illegal weapons from being smuggled across the border and into the hands of brutal drug gangs. [SNIP]

"Mexican officials have repeatedly complained that the U.S. must do more to stop the flow of potent weapons - including assault rifles and even .50-caliber machine guns - that drug gangs often purchase in the United States.

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on the (U.S.) side of the border," Patricio Patino, Mexico's top anti-drug intelligence official, said last month. "What we have asked the American government ... is that they put clear controls on the shipments of weapons."

I'm sure that the POTUS and the AG will get right on that.

The funny part is that, since it was Mexico that asked--as opposed to American citizens and legal immigrants--the two probably will.

(Thanks to Instapundit)

Get Out Of Jail Free

Between the federal government's attitude toward illegal aliens and local government's attitude toward the rich one wonders why anyone still trusts government.

Paris Hilton has been fitted for ankle bracelet and reassigned to house arrest, after authorities decided to release Hilton from jail due to medical reasons, this according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. spokesperson, Steve Whitmore.

This, after serving five days of a 23-day sentence--one that should have been six months in length, IMO. Let's not forget that this woman endangered the lives of others by driving drunk more than once.

Paris will be under house confinement in her West Hollywood home for 40 days, where she has a 3000-4000 ft. radius of freedom. Her jail cell was 96 square feet. After the 40 days are up, Whitmore says she will have "fulfilled her debt to society."

Two Americas indeed. Disgusting.

DNC Threatens Free Republic and XM Radio (UPDATED)

A couple of days back, a Free Republic poster named 'coffee260' repeated something he had heard on the XM Radio broadcast of Quinn & Rose: that DNC Chairman Howard Dean had allegedly

called Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius [D] early, around 5 am, one morning after the tornado had destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas and discussed with her what to say about the tornado and how to blame the war in Iraq and the Bush administration on a slow response to the aftermath...[SNIP]

and that

she confessed to [Senator Sam Brownback, R] that she had been instructed by her party leadership, (more specifically, Howard Dean) on how to politicize the tornado's destruction of Greensburg and attack the White House and the Iraq war for a seemingly slow response. She reassured the Senator that her allegations didn't blame him or Pat Roberts, also a Kansas Senator, for the lack of immediate response.

Because of this post, Free Republic (and XM Radio) have each received a cease-and-desist letter from the DNC's legal representation stating that

The statements quoted above are false and defamatory, are libelous and slanderous, and clearly threaten to interfere with the DNC's operations and ability to solicit support and raise funds by prejudicing the organization in the the eyes of Democratic Party supporters and the public. For these reasons, we demand that FreeRepublic.com (i) immediately cease and desist from further dissemination of the above-quoted statements or any statements similar in substance and (ii) immediately post a retraction of these statements in a location on its web page at least as prominent as that on which the original story appeared.

Please let us know by noon tomorrow (May 11, 2007) whether you intend to comply with these requests.

Well. Does the DNC have a case? Powerline's Scott Johnson says 'no' and refers to the author of the letter, DNC' attorney Joseph Sandler as "a thug representing a bunch of reprobates and bullies" to boot, because

Under the First Amendment, as construed by the Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan, citizens are protected from defamation claim by public figures so long as the statements in issue are lacking in "actual malice," i.e, knowledge of their falsehood or reckless disregard to whether they are false or not.

As this situation becomes known, repeated and linked to, one wonders whether the DNC legal assistants will be in overdrive as it hands out cease-and-desist letters all around the blogosphere (at least to the conservative side).

I'm not a legal sort, but if I were a mover/shaker in the DNC, I'd fire this guy Sandler, as this move is bound to backfire on the organization which he represents. It's a shot in the foot, for sure and likely one borne of the enmity created by the exposure of the bogus Bush AWOL gambit which began its destruction when Free Republic denizens first put a magnifying glass to it.

Mindless anger makes one less likely to think things through, but, to paraphase whoever, when your ideological opponent shoots himself in the proverbial foot, simply stand back.

(Thanks to Instatpundit)

HELP GREENSBURG REBUILD: Green for Greensburg via the United Way

UPDATE: The DNC gets sued in its turn for a separate matter.

[For] defamation and discrimination by a former employee - claiming among other things that Dean discriminates against gays and violated the “D.C. Human Rights Act”