Monthly Archives: March 2008

Iran, Politics

Young Bloggers In Iran

According to the Telegraph.co.uk, not everyone in Iran is as loony as their president. Two thirds of Iran’s population is under 30 years old. Iran has an annual inflation rate of 20 percent. With a tightly controlled media, the blogosphere and the Internet represent the only ‘free press’ in Iran. It’s only free though until the government finds you and shuts you down.

If a democratic government presided over this disaster, it would be swept from office. The young are a vital constituency; two thirds of the country’s 70 million people are under 30. They are bitterly aware that Iran floats on a sea of natural wealth, boasting the second largest reserves of oil and natural gas in the world. With oil prices exceeding $100 a barrel and no fewer than 130 billion barrels lying beneath Iran’s mountains and deserts, there is no excuse for decades of economic failure.

Like Iraq, there are a lot of people in Iran that are not hostile to freedom, liberty and the United States. The demographics in Iran will force the current political situation there to change. A change that includes the ‘west,’ that includes joining this century, that includes prospering in a world economy. Including a change from the ways and means of their current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The only question is when.

Unlike the situation in Iraq in 2003, there are, or soon will be, enough Iranians to make a change in their government peacefully. That’s the best case scenario. That could not and did not happen in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Good luck in the elections Iran.

related link: Iran can only wait and pray

2008 Election, Media, Politics, Race Relations, Uncategorized

Olbermann Goes Ballistic Over Geraldine Ferraro

Keith Olbermann’s take on the Ferraro – Obama flap perfectly represents the ‘media’s racial angle‘ to this story. As an added bonus, you can hear, if not see, Olbermann foaming at the mouth over this.

In typical Olbermann / Liberal fashion, he accuses her and Rush Limbaugh of doing things they did not do, taking the racist accusation to the highest level. The best part is where he says that Hillary is acting like a republican. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.

Please notice which party it is that is turning a political fight into a racial one. These are Democrats, who are always first to notice things like race, gender, sexual preference, and the first to accuse Republicans of being racists, sexists, and homophobes. They set themselves up as caretakers for the victims they create and, through a dependent-creating liberal agenda, cultivate.

related video: Issues of race infiltrate Dems contest

2008 Election, Media, Politics, Race Relations

It’s Not Ferraro Dividing The Party

From the looks of the news over the Geraldine Ferraro – Barack Obama flap, I’m feeling that there’s a whole lot of race going on and it isn’t being perpetrated by Ferraro when she said this . . .

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

I agree with Obama when he said that he did not take that as a racist remark. I didn’t see it that way either. It was an opinion of all the dynamics at work in a Presidential election where there is a woman and black for the first time in American history. What is distressing is the extent to which the media is running a racist angle on the story.

For the woman’s part, Ferraro has been there, done that. For the black’s part, Barack is there today. What Ferraro said was exactly right. If Barack was white, he would have been in the also-ran line with Dennis Kucinich long ago. But he is Black. He’s a handsome guy, he gives good speeches, is inspirational and, according to Joe Biden (D-DE), he is clean. In this case, the fact that he has not yet finished his first term in the Senate, has no executive experience outside of organizing neighborhood projects, seem to have no bearing on his qualifications to be President and Commander in Chief, during a war. If he would have been white, he’d be outta there. But the media apparently can not recognize that fact. Is it because they want to pick the candidate on the Democrat side of the ticket as well?

Obama’s response is clever, but shows his inability to deal with what she said. He instead attempts to tell her, and you and I, what we can and can not talk about.

“Part of what I think Geraldine Ferraro is doing, and I respect the fact that she was a trailblazer, is to participate in the kind of slice and dice politics that’s about race and about gender and about this and that, and that’s what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can’t solve problems,” Obama said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Let’s see if I understand this. Americans are tired of the race and gender politics? Oh, I thought there were record number turnouts in voting in the Democratic primaries. To the contrary, Americans are very interested in it. It isn’t Geraldine Ferraro who is dividing the Democratic party. This woman vs black issue is exposing the Democratic party in the same way that illegal immigration revealed the Republican party fissure between conservatives and Republicans.

All in all, Obama’s attempt to squelch speech by saying what you should not talk about, and to use it to accuse her of trying to divide the Democratic party, exposes his amateur, not presidential, abilities.

related links: Obama Says Ferraro Dividing Democrats | Ferraro:They’re attacking me because I’m white |  Olberman Goes Ballistic Over Ferraro

Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

Democrats Secure Win For Terrorists

1 Comment

A sensational title? Sure, but it is also the truth when it comes to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Democrats letting expire the parts of the Protect America Act that deal with internet and cell communications. This is the same bill that the Senate passed in a bi-partisan vote of 68-29. The consequence? For a little more than three weeks now (Feb 16, 2008) the government has to operate by the 1978 standards of the FISA act. This means, they can not listen in on communications from terrorists in Pakistan to terrorists in Afghanistan. It is taking a tool out of the toolbox in fighting the war on terror. The House democrats seem more concerned with librarians than the terrorists that want us dead.

The Protect America Act amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that was passed in 1978 to protect people inside the United States from being monitored by U.S. intelligence without a warrant proving they were agents of a foreign government.

This point is crucial: FISA was never meant to apply to foreigners outside the United States communicating with other foreigners outside the United States.

To be fair to Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats, they may only appear to be aligned with terrorists in an ‘unintended consequences’ kind of way. To believe Nancy Pelosi does not know of the ‘unintended consequences’ as relates to the enemy requires a suspension of dis-belief. That being the case though, it shows they don’t take alQaeda seriously. So who else benefits from this bill being kept on hold? Trial lawyers. Trial lawyers have dozens of cases against phone companies who are providing help to the government, at the government’s request, in tracking down terrorists, not librarians. And, included in this bill are provisions for granting companies immunity in cases where they provide intelligence at the government’s request. This, of course, is being portrayed by the left as the government listening in on your pizza order delivery call and Big Brother must be stopped. So, the title could also be Democrats Secure Win For Trial Lawyers, a major source of campaign contributions to the Democratic party. Politically, Robet Novak nails it . . .

The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party’s most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) sites support in the Senate . . .

At one point during the debate, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who helped pass the Senate version, declared that without these measures our intelligence will be “degraded.” Similarly, the Director of National Intelligence said without this legislation, we lack the necessary tools to intercept communications between foreign nationals.

Which ever way you look at the inaction by House democrats, the losers are the same, the American people.

Statement from The White House

related links: The Unilateral Disarmament Democrats: Putting Trial Lawyers Ahead of Your Family’s Safety | Center for Individual Freedom | House Defeats FISA Extension | Do House Democrats Take Terrorism Seriously? | Background: Listening To The Enemy

Media, War On Terror

Silver Star Awarded In Afghanistan

Army Spc. Monica Lin BrownArmy Spc. Monica Lin Brown, the second female soldier since World War II will be receiving the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest medal for valor.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said. After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.

In her own words, the 19 yr. old medic said . . .

I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there.
“We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag,” Brown said.

She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.

“I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire,” Brown said.

Great story of all that is good with America and the Americans fighting the war. Wait and see if it makes the nightly news. But don’t hold your breath.

related link: Woman earns Silver Star in Afghan war

2008 Election, Politics

Clinton Consistent On Coal

After Bill Clinton’s second run for President, it was learned of a Chinese connection in illegal campaign contributions. Back then, Bill Clinton created a 1.8 million acre monument in southern Utah. On its face, an innocuous move, making environmentalists (also contributors) happy. Everybody feels good about a new park. What wasn’t mentioned was the coal reserves located in that 1.8 million acres.

The effect of creating that ‘monument’ was to take our country’s largest deposit of low-sulphur coal off of the market and out of bounds from mining. Now a quick mineralogical lesson. There are only two known low-sulphur coal reserves in the world, one of which is under this land in Utah that was blocked off by Clinton and the other of which is in China. We then see the Rhiady family, acting as intermediaries between Clinton and the Chinese government, which was making illegal donations to the Clinton campaign.

Over a decade ago, Bill Clinton didn’t blink an eye at handing a huge advantage to China while at the same time helping to cripple the coal industry at home. That was when he was trolling for campaign contributions.

So two days ago, while Clinton is looking for votes, he speaks to an audience in a small mining town in Wyoming . . .

But here was Bill Clinton in southwest Wyoming, two days before Saturday’s Democratic caucuses, telling about 1,000 people how his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would establish 10 clean-coal technology projects if elected president in November.

“Some environmentalists don’t think we ought to be doing anything with coal, but they’re wrong,” he said. “Think about it, you could become, maybe, the first totally energy-independent state in the United States.”

They don’t call him ‘Slick Willy’ for nothing.   That would have been the time to ask Mr. Clinton why, if he is so behind the coal industry, he wrote off our reserves with a stroke of a pen?  It is easy to see Clinton’s consistency when it comes to our natural resources.  His and Hillary’s interests always come before the country’s interest.  He’ll sell you short, or he’ll sell you snake oil, as long as he/she gets elected.

Related links: Bill Clinton’s campaign role |  Clinton project dogs McGinty

2008 Election, Media, Politics

News Conference Preparation

One or two of the Democrat contenders might just melt down on their own once the media starts to grow a pair and ask some questions. The Wizard of ID captured perfectly the way Clinton appearances have been managed. Slowly, things are changing.

News Conference Prep

The weakest link of the two is Obama. He was seen yesterday running from reporters, er, his campaign was late and he had to run, when a Tony Rezko question came up. The media was surprised to see an Obama that they had not seen before.

related link: Obama ducks questions

2008 Election, Politics

NewsBusted TV, Episode 145

Topics in today’s show:

  • The New York Times suffers from low approval ratings
  • Protestors plan to demonstrate at the political party conventions
  • Hillary Clinton says Barack Obama doesn’t have enough international experience
  • Jay Leno looking for job offers after he quits “Tonight Show.”
  • Rihanna named cultural ambassador from her native Barbados

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phs5D36-13M[/youtube]

2008 Election, MRIOTD, Politics

Vermont Towns Vote To Indict Bush, Cheney

Big victory, if not symbolic, for the far left. From the land of Bernie Sanders ‘voters in two Vermont towns approved measures Tuesday calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for what they consider violations of the Constitution.’

More symbolic than anything, the items sought to have police arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever visit Brattleboro or nearby Marlboro or to extradite them for prosecution elsewhere — if they’re not impeached first.

In Brattleboro, the vote was 2,012-1,795. In Marlboro, which held a town meeting on the issue, it was 43-25 with three abstentions.

Oh, and

The question put to voters in Brattleboro referred to “crimes against our Constitution” but did not specify the allegations.

In typical Vermont fashion. What, no adults in politics in Vermont?  Sanders and Leahy don’t count.

related link: ABC news