Thursday Zen

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Calling Michelle Malkin, Charles Johnson, A.J. Strata, Ed Morrissey, Richard Fernandez and Ace of Spades

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When the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 was unveiled in September 2005, these six high profile conservative bloggers were instrumental in raising the public protest that forced the Memorial Project to agree to a redesign. Charles Johnson stayed with the story until the summer of 2006, and Ace has done two links since 2005, but for the most part, these conservative heroes seem to have decided that the "circle of embrace" redesign is okay.



It is NOT okay. Architect Paul Murdoch described his original Crescent of Embrace design as a broken circle. The redesign is still described as a broken circle, and the unbroken part of the circle (the crescent) remains exactly as it was in the original design.



In particular, the giant crescent still points to Mecca, and the repetition of this Mecca orientation in the crescents of trees that surround the Tower of Voices part of the memorial proves that the Mecca orientation is intentional. That makes the giant crescent a mihrab: the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built.



The planned memorial is a terrorist memorial mosque. This is an enemy plot, every bit as ambitious in its own way as the 9/11 attacks. To stop this re-hijacking of Flight 93, we need our frontline bloggers to rejoin the fray!





The only change: the design now includes a broken off part of the circle



The design drawings were recolored to make it look as if significant changes were made, the but only actual change was the inclusion of an additional arc of trees, said to represent a broken off part of the circle:





Crescent of Embrace left. Circle or Embrace right. The only actual change is the additional arc of trees on the west side of the memorial. (Click for larger image.)



Notice that this extra ark of trees sits to the rear of a person facing into the giant central crescent. That is the equivalent of laying down a Muslim prayer rug (called a small mosque) in front of some trees. The prayer rug is unchanged. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want to. It will still be a mosque.





"Broken circle" is Park Service's official story



In the original design, the broken off part of the circle was removed entirely. Now, as Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley reiterated last week, a broken off part of the circle is included:

The trees surrounding this "circle of embrace" are missing, or broken, in two places; first, where the flight path of the plane came overhead (which is the location of the planned memorial overlook and visitor center) and second, where the plane crashed at the Sacred Ground (depicted by a ceremonial gate and pathway into the Sacred Ground).

She is describing the two ends of the additional arc of trees. It is broken at both ends.



Both the theme and the geometry of the original Crescent of Embrace design remain as they were. The terrorists still break our circle, and they still turn it into a giant Mecca oriented crescent.



Those who raised the hue and cry about the original design ought to be equally concerned that the original design remains completely intact in the phony redesign. Come on heroes. Your help is NEEDED!






Animation superimposes the redesign, then withdraws all but the changes. (Click for larger version.)





Come to the August 2nd meeting



If you can make it to Somerset PA on Saturday August 2nd, come help Tom Burnett Sr. tackle the hijacker! (Mr. Burnett announced trip, and his willingness to go to jail if necessary, in this audio clip from the Mancow Muller radio show (25 seconds. And here is Tom talking about the heroism of his murdered son, Tom Jr. Audio 45 seconds).





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The New Patriotism

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I am shocked, shocked by the intolerance shown by the Denver officials who are trying to trample on the "creative expression" this marvelous singer was attempting to bring to their gathering. When Barack becomes king...I mean President, this kind of expression will flourish. The Pledge of Allegiance will be to various ethnic groups, or to those who oppose American imperialism. Perhaps the flag will be altered to show Uncle Sam with his head bowed in sorrow for all of America's sins. As we'll soon learn when (not if) the Lightbringer is sworn in, reciting all America's evils is more patriotic than appreciating it. The day is coming near.

Watch. Out.

Yes, He's Worth It

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Next Sunday's New York Times Magazine has a cover story on the Big Man of radio, the Left's bete noir and conservatism's leading man, Rush Limbaugh. The piece is surprisingly even-handed, even nice and consists in large part of a long interview with Rush done in February of this year. The major piece of news to emerge from it is the revelation of Rush's new contract that will keep him on the air until 2016 for an unprecedented and breathtaking amount that is estimated to be near $400 million dollars...not counting the 9 figure signing bonus. Figured annually it is an amount larger than the per annum pay of Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer combined.

The Left, never a group to disappoint is livid, rallying a kind hysteria usually reserved for GWB.
On the Huffington Post, "researcher", showing the kind patriotism Barack Obama tells us the Left is all about says,

he is a have more and an imperialist and a war monger
that is why he so popular in america
until most americans figure that out not much will change

And Sylmason on the same HuffPo gives us a peek into the wonderful world of freedom that might be an Obama Presidency:

You might have a contract in 2009, but once BO gets to the WH.......................... you hate bating racists will have to change your dialogue. So for now drug abusing Rush,,,,,,,,,,,,,, have fun cause your days are numbered as a hate monger. Gotta love America,now you have, and now you don't.

But such talk is to be expected from these folks and is therefore dull. What is not is the peek behind the scenes of the Golden EIB microphone into Rush's life offstage. If living well is the best revenge then Rush is living the most vengeful life possible. We're taken to his Florida estate on which there are five houses, the biggest, obviously being his main living quarters is 24,000 sq. feet. There's the two story library, the $450,000black Maybach 578. (It is a car for those of us not used to checking out vehicles in that price range.) There's the 54 million Gulfstream G550. A writer bearing a grudge would probably use all those things and use them as a launching pad for an assortment of snide asides, but none really show up here. Instead there is even some mention of the fact that Rush's excess isn't exactly self centered, with this revealing story:

Dinner was winding down, and I called for the check. It tickled Limbaugh to be taken out to eat on The New York Times. A few weeks later, he sent me a copy of an interview with Jeremy Sullivan, a waiter at the Kobe KobeClub in New York. Sullivan told a reporter that Limbaugh, a fellow Missourian, was the biggest tipper in town: “He likes to throw down the most massive tips I’ve ever seen. The last few times his tips have been $5,000.” When I read this, I felt a stab of guilt toward the hyperattentive staff at Trevini. If I had only known, I would have let Limbaugh leave the tip.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is the impression that one gets of Rush, off-air as being essentially the same man we hear on-air three hours a day, five days a week. He's passionate about those things you would expect; American exceptionalism, Ronald Reagan, his family and friends. He's tepid about those things you would expect; particularly GWB. And he's cold as ice about those things you would expect, also: Barack Obama and John McCain for two. About McCain he says,

“McCain and Reagan do not belong in the same sentence,”

About Obama, a dead-right clip from his show is used to express his feelings:

“With Obama we started out, we couldn’t talk about his big ears ’cause that made him nervous. We’ve gone from that to this: Not only can we not mention his ears, we can’t talk about his mother. We can’t talk about his father. We can’t talk about his grandmother unless he does, brings her up as a ‘typical white person.’ We can’t talk about his wife, can’t talk about his preacher, can’t talk about his terrorist friends, can’t talk about his voting record, can’t talk about his religion. We can’t talk about appeasement. We can’t talk about color; we can’t talk about lack of color. We can’t talk about race. We can’t talk about bombers and mobsters who are his friends. We can’t talk about schooling. We can’t talk about his name, ‘Hussein.’ We can’t talk about his lack of experience. Can’t talk about his income. Can’t talk about his flag pin. This started out we can’t call him a liberal. It started out we just couldn’t talk about his ears. Now we can’t say anything about him.”

Not all conservatives love Limbaugh, of course, some finding him a shallow popularizer and he doesn't seem give a damn about that view of him (although the "shallow" part he'd find not to be on target). The truth is that with Reagan gone and now with William F. Buckley recently deceased conservatism needs a popularizer. As Rush points out in the interview, GWB is not the leader of a movement and McCain is likely to be more of a danger to conservatism than an avatar.

It has been twenty years now since Rush first hit the national airwaves. In that time he saved AM radio by virtually creating the conservative talk radio industry and personally managed to spread the good word of conservatism forcefully, passionately and amusingly, while converting millions to the cause and still managing to charge "confiscatory" advertising rates at the same time.

The conservative movement is obviously in trouble these days, those we placed in office seemingly having left the reservation and left us as well. Rush has gone nowhere, standing firm for all these twenty years. And with his new unbelievably large contract he will continue to do so for another eight, at least. And maybe in that time one of those "skulls full of mush" he talks about so much who have been listening will come along and lead the movement from the White House once again. In the meantime I'll settle for having Rush.

And yes, he's worth it.

Flopping Aces also discusses

Allahpundit at Hot Air also notes the story

A Newt One is talking, too

As is Wake Up America

Wednesday Zen

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Dead Head Dog

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Ok, this may be the weirdest thing I've seen in awhile. Here's the story behind it. You decide about it for yourself.

Barack Obama: Agent Of SMEAR

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He's tanned, rested and ready to be President and is too damn tough to sit around and be a target for the vicious and infamous Republican smear machine. Barack Obama is fighting back against the great Right-Wing Conspiracy. Because he's at the cutting edge of, well everything, he already has a website up (called fighthesmears.com What did you think it would be called?) and is fightin' back for Truth, Justice and the Leftist way!

Listen to Barack Obama lately and you might get the impression that the little scenario above bears some relation to reality, that the Republicans, as in every election are getting ready to dump truckloads of sludge over our shiny new hero. The only problem with this scenario is, in truth if Obama is looking to find a smear merchant his best bet would be to look in the mirror, rather than under his bed for Republicans bearing mud.

James Kirchick, assistant editor of the New Republic has a column in Politico that deconstructs what turns out to be the myth of the 2008 Republican slime machine. Chronicling Obama's creation of this fraud with the assistance (of course) of the msm Kirchick finds that the mud is actually in the other hand.

Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe [of Newsweek] concluded thatthe 2008 presidential election will be no different. “It is a sure bet that theGOP will try to paint Obama as ‘the other’ — as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.”

But has it been a “sure bet?”

Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged“scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do. In February, a conservative talk radio host speaking at a McCain rally made reference to “Barack Hussein Obama.” McCain immediately condemned the statement, leading the embittered and embarrassed professional yacker to complain that McCain “threw me under the bus.” The only other smear-worthy episode occurred in March, when the McCain campaign suspended a low-level aide who provided a link on his Twitter account to a video featuring the rants of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Heavy stuff, to be sure.

In contrast Kirchick recounts four smears that have been levelled at John McCain by Obama supporters, including Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller saying...

that because McCain “was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from35,000 feet,” and “was long gone when they hit,” the Arizona senator who spent five and a half years in a Vietcong tiger cage having his arms repeatedly broken didn’t really understand the carnage of war. “What happened when [the missiles]get to the ground?”

He also also recounts Senator Tom Harkin's howler abut McCain's military service saying,

“Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous.”

Interestingly these and all the other smears attempt to take the luster off McCain's very honorable service to his country. The consistency of the attacks are so stark that Kirchick goes so far as to wonder if they might not all be a coordinated effort directed by the Obama campaign. This very logical thought will probably wind up on fighthesmears.com as the latest Republican smear.

The truth is that despite the Democrat spawned meme of Republican smears, Democrats have proven more than adept at them, all by themselves. One of the first smears of the technological era is also one of the most memorable:

Lyndon Johnson suggesting that Barry Goldwater doesn't "love" and will therefore lead the world into a nuclear conflagration set the bar high early. Not always matching Johnson's ambitious smears the Dems have kept at it through the years with varying degrees of gusto.Some examples that come to mind immediately are: The commercial sponsored by the NAACP in the 2000 Presidential race in which it was suggested that GWB was responsible for the dragging death of an innocent Black man, James Byrd in a tagline stating, "So when Gov. George W. Bush refused to sign hate crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.". Then there was the conspiracy theory that floated around after Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 and husckstered by former Carter administration official, Gary Sick.

This is the October Surprise theory: that the Reagan campaign colluded with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the 1980 election; that William Casey-then campaign manager, later head of the CIA-went to Madrid in July to negotiate the deal; and that George Bush went to Paris in October to nail it down. Originally floated by Lyndon LaRouche and dismissed in a footnote by the HouseSenate Iran-Contra committee, the theory remained the preserve of the loony Left-until Mr. Sick became a believer. Frontline, Nightline, the New York Times, and other major media organs all climbed aboard.

It was, of course, bs but that didn't stop the Dems from riding it for all it was worth. The examples go on and on of the actions of the Democratic hate machine, not that you'd know it if you listened to Barack Obama and his buddies in the msm.

But when you hear him bemoaning the horrors to which he is being subjected in the future just remember that it is nothing more than some a psych-op being brought to you by Barack Obama, Agent of SMEAR.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air is also on the case

As is Wake Up America

Betsy's Page also takes note

Tuesday Zen

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Happy Days Are Here Again - Not That The Media Will Tell You

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Not that the economy isn't in a rough patch but judging by the news and the Democrats you would think that America is currently experiencing the worst economic downturn since the great depression...or at least since the last Republican was in the White House. But there are good things going on in the economy that aren't being reported.

The Heritage Foundation just came out with a research paper titled Getting Better All the Time: Improving Job Quality in the United States that contains a lot of information that most Americans, fed bad news like it was vitamin and mineral enriched manna, probably wouldn't believe. The facts about jobs, their quality, and how much they pay won't be making it into any of Barack Obama's campaign commercials but they're true nonetheless.

Many Americans remember the economy of a generation ago as an era where most workers earned good wages that enabled them to provide for their families, had generous benefits, and enjoyed job security. Especially with the current economic weakness, they fear that such jobs are now disappearing. To many, the idea of a lifetime job with an employer-provided pension and health benefits seems a relic of the past.

These fears are unfounded. Opportunities rise and fall with the business cycle, and many good jobs have disappeared since the 1970s – but so too have many undesirable low-wage positions. The economy is constantly in flux, creating new jobs and destroying old ones. Last year employers created 58 million new jobs, but eliminated 55 million existing positions. On balance, however, the quality of jobs available to Americans has increased over the past generation.

Employers today need fewer workers doing mindlessly repetitive or physically demanding tasks. Computer programs and robots now do much of this work. Jobs such as machine operators, assemblers, and material handlers have decreased their share of total employment considerably since 1980.

But computers cannot think for or interact with people, and highly paid jobs that require greater mental skills are an increasingly large part of the economy. Executive and managerial, professional specialty, and technical and sales jobs are the three most highly paid occupations in America. They have expanded their share of employment by 10 percent since 1980.

And while we're all bemoaning our low pay we might consider this fact:

The increased need for highly skilled and educated workers means expanded opportunities for upward mobility. The average annual incomes of American-born workers rose 27 percent between 1980 and 2000.

Jobs today are also more secure than they used to be:

Concerns about decreased job security are also misplaced. Conventional wisdom holds that workers have less job security than in the past. This is not the case. Workers are somewhat more likely to change jobs than in the 1980s, but this is because workers are more likely to voluntarily decide to move between employers. Companies, however, are much less likely to fire or lay off workers than a generation ago. Workers jobs are more secure today than in the 1970s.

And while many Americans believe that their children won't have the opportunities that they did (Ah, if only GWB hadn't stolen the election from Al Gore, all would be well!):

Today, the typical American works in a better job than his or her parents did, and his or her children will probably work in a better job still.

This is not the kind of story you'll see much of this year as the media attempts to install a Democrat back in the White House. But don't worry, you'll see it as soon as the Lightbringer assumes his rightful place in the Cosmos as President. Oh yeah, and he'll be responsible for it, too. You just watch.

Liberal Hypocrisy #2,345,789 - Obama Pays Female Staff Less Than Male While McCain Pays Them MORE

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Unlike one of those wretched Republicans (boo! hiss!) Barack Obama, fine liberal gentleman that he is, is of course unafraid of strong women, honors them and is outraged at any and all injustices against them. Except when he pays them less than men. Which he does. By a lot.Just last week, Obama took a whack at John McCain's supposed lack of commitment to pay equity for women:

Obama spoke in Albuquerque, N.M. last week about his commitment to the issue and his support of a Senate bill to make it easier to sue an employer for pay discrimination."
Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his service. But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer," Obama told the audience in New Mexico, a voter-swing state. "It starts with equal pay. Sixty-two percent of working women in America earn half or more than of their family's income. But women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2008. You'd think that Washington would be united it its determination to fight for equal pay."

But, as with so many libs, he talks the talk but has a wee bit of trouble walking the walk:

On average, women working in Obama's Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. That's according to data calculated from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate, which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007. Of the five people in Obama's Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one -- Obama's administrative manager -- was a woman.

The average pay for the 33 men on Obama's staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama's staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama's staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)

McCain, an Arizona senator, employed a total of 69 people during the reporting period ending in the fall of 2007, but 23 of them were interns. Of his non-intern employees, 30 were women and 16 were men. After excluding interns, the average pay for the 30 women on McCain's staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in McCain's office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.

This is just the latest example of this particular form of elitist liberal hypocrisy. It was just a little over a week ago that we learned how Al Gore practices his devotion to the environment:

In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research…In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month…
After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use [in February 2007], the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month – 1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

And we all know of Nancy Pelosi's devotion to the poor. Obviously she is far more generous than a heartless, insensitive monster like Rush Limbaugh. But then again,...

RUSH Limbaugh is much more charitable than Nancy Pelosi. According to Peter Schweizer in "Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less . . . And Even Hug Their Children More than Liberals" (Doubleday), the most recent tax records show Limbaugh gave money to "various individuals in need of assistance mainly due to family illnesses" ($109,716), "children's case management organizations" ($52,898) and "Alzheimer's community care" ($35,100). And Pelosi's contributions? The list includes the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ($36,500) and San Francisco Symphony ($5,600). "But with the exception of an occasional $1,000 contribution to a Boys & Girls Club, little went to the less fortunate," Schweizer, a Stanford professor, writes.

For a man who claims to be a new politician, Obama is playing some very old games. Liberal hypocrisy is a grand old tradition. Back in 2005, author Peter Schweitzer published the bestselling, Do As I Say (Not As I Do) which contains such edifying chapters as Ted Kennedy - Environmental Rapist, Tax Cheat, Oil Profiteer and, to show that liberal hypocrisy isn't just confined to liberal politicians, Michael Moore - Corporate Criminal, Environmental Menace, and Racist Union-Buster.

You have to wonder, if these people really believed in the policies they're trying to impose, why don't they set the example for the rest of us? Would it really be asking too much?

By the way, that was a rhetorical question.

Nocomme1 also posts at The Patriot Room and Flopping Aces

Stop The ACLU also notes the hypocrisy

OUTRAGE! - Obama Surrogate Impugns McCain's Military Service! McCain Responds With..Ya know...Kinda Thinkin' It's, Ya Know, Not True And Sort Of Not The Point Anyway, Ya Know?

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When I first heard retired General and active moonbat Wesley Clark's verbal assault on John McCain on Sunday's Face The Nation (the meat of which is quoted, below) I thought it was a tawdry little performance by a tawdry little man.

Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk, it’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, `I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly?

Now, I'll admit I've got a bit of a temper and if he'd said things like about me, especially if I'd spent five years being beaten up in a variety of huts in Vietnam, I'd probably respond with a certain amount of...animation, shall we say. John McCain is reported to have a temper that makes mine seem dainty by comparison, so for one brief moment I thought that his response might be to rip into Clark. But then I remembered that Clark is a Democrat; you know, the bad guys and that made me think McCain would say, oh, something like this:




ZZZZZ Oh, sorry. I drifted off for a minute.

In the past I've hyperventilated a good deal about John McCain's apostasy from conservative orthodoxy and how this has annoyed (nice bit of understatement, eh?) conservatives. But policy differences aren't the only reason the Right has less than warm feeling for McCain; it is a matter of attitude and style as well. For some reason known only to him McCain goes into his "Let's have a respectful discussion" routine when confronted with Democrats who are slapping him around. He tends to be a bit more combative when Republicans thwart him, however:

 

This is pretty typical of McCain. He seems to save all his real anger for fellow Republicans but when it comes to levelling fire at Dems it all seems terribly perfunctory. In answer to conservatives complaints about granting tax credits to "guest workers" he suggests that those who object are the sort of folks who want have people ride "in the back of the bus". I can't say that I can recall him saying anything like that about Dems who are pro-abortion, for example.

It is this proclivity of his to kick his own and the lack of respect that he seems to have that has led a lot of people to believe the story about McCain considering the VP slot on the Kerry ticket in 2004. He just seems happier around Democrats. Like somebody very profound and wise once said: He's just not that into us. And it shows.

Nocomme1 also posts at The Patriot Room and Flopping Aces

AllahPundit at Hot Air has a different take

Monday Zen

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Mugabe Sworn In After Landslide Win...Also...Pigs Fly

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Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean thug-o-crat and faux President was sworn in for a sixth term after a reign of terror launched against all who opposed his bid for re-election.  Mugabe, who has taken an economically sound nation which had a strong manufacturing base, mining industry (it is rich in natural resouces)  thriving agricultural as well as tourism industies, and turned it into one of the world's biggest economic basket cases. 

Over the last seven years, Professor Craig Richardson of Salem College estimates the economy has shrunk by 40 percent, wiping out almost 60 years of gradual economic improvements. The standard of living has dropped to levels last seen in 1948. The World Health Organization estimates that Zimbabwe has the world’s lowest life expectancy — 34 years for women and 37 years for men.

Unemployment is at 80 percent. The currency is nearly worthless and inflation currently exceeds 3,700 percent per year. Last week, the black-market exchange rate for one U.S. dollar reached 40,000 Zimbabwean dollars.

The economic meltdown has led to environmental devastation. Zimbabwe, once known for its flourishing wildlife, used to have a sophisticated tourism industry that accounted for up to 6 percent of the country’s GDP. Hunger and lawlessness have put an end to that.

Brian Gratwicke, an Oxford-educated environmentalist and Zimbabwean national who runs a U.S-based nature and wildlife website estimates that “Eighty percent of 250,000 head of game that lived on privately owned commercial farms have been poached by land invaders – often with the encouragement of senior ZANU-PF officials who wanted to wrest control of the farms from their rightful owners.” To make matters worse, Gratwicke argues, chronic environmental problems such as deforestation and overgrazing, water pollution, uncontrolled fires, human-wildlife conflict, and wildlife-borne disease are spreading through Zimbabwe.

Needless to say, this nightmare has not been accomplished without a corresponding downturn in the country's' human rights condition.  Copiously documented here, the violations are a stark indictment of the human suffering taking place under Mugabe:

The ruling party's dominant control and manipulation of the political process through intimidation and corruption effectively negated the right of citizens to change their government. Unlawful killings and politically motivated kidnappings occurred. The state sanctioned the use of excessive force and torture, and security forces tortured members of the opposition, union leaders, and civil society activists. Prison conditions were harsh and life threatening. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained journalists, demonstrators, and religious leaders; lengthy pretrial detention was a problem. Executive influence and interference in the judiciary were problems. The government continued to forcibly evict citizens and to demolish homes. The government continued to use repressive laws to suppress freedom of speech, press, assembly, movement, association, and academic freedom. Government corruption and impunity remained widespread. High ranking government officials made numerous public threats of violence against demonstrators. The following human rights violations also continued to occur: harassment of human rights and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and interference with their attempts to provide humanitarian assistance; violence and discrimination against women; child labor and prostitution; discrimination against persons with disabilities and ethnic minorities; an increase in the number of HIV/AIDS orphans and child-headed households; harassment and interference with labor organizations critical of government policies; and attempts to supplant legitimate labor leaders with hand-picked supporters.

The current election is a well documented fraud, in which Mugabe's main opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out before the voting, after escalating attacks on him and his supporters.  

The Mugabe-appointed Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said the 84-year-old incumbent won Friday's run-off presidential election, in which he was the only candidate, with 85.51 per cent of the vote.

Those Zimbabeans who cannot prove that they voted for Mugabe are currently being hunted down and assaulted by his bands of travelling thugs. 

The vaunted "international community" has been utterly ineffectual in dealing with the situation. A number of Mugabe's African neighbors are supporting him, thereby facilitating the atrocities.  A review of those neighbor's and their positions toward him are illustrative of their impotence and/or complicity:

The African Union – Mugabe's opponents and allies

ANGOLA

The most surprising criticism of Mugabe came from the Angolan president, Jose Dos Santos, who has been one of Mugabe's staunchest allies. In a message sent to Mugabe yesterday, Dos Santos said he welcomed the Zimbabwean's statement that he is open to negotiations with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

BOTSWANA

Botswana's president, Seretse Ian Khama, is the only African leader so far to make an official protest against Robert Mugabe's reign of terror. Botswana has seen its population of fewer than two million invaded by 800,000 Zimbabwean refugees. Mr Khama said he was "deeply disturbed" by Mugabe's politically-motivated arrests.

KENYA

Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga has called on the international community to demand that Mugabe steps down from power, describing the run-off vote as a "shame to Africa".

MOZAMBIQUE

The government of Mozambique has called for renewed dialogue between Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to solve the crisis. "We lament the loss of human lives (in the period before the first election on 29 March and before the uncontested run-off on 27 June], and hope that the injured make a speedy recovery," a statement read.

NAMIBIA

Namibia's Swapo government has been an unwavering ally of Robert Mugabe, and last week the country's foreign minister, Marco Hausiku, described reports of electoral violence in Zimbabwe as "unverified rumours". The "Swapo Elders Council," comprising top party members, issued a statement blaming western countries for the crisis and urged Zimbabwean citizens to vote for Mugabe in the run-off.

TANZANIA

The handling of the Zimbabwe crisis by Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, current chairman of the 53-member African Union (AU), has been severely criticised by Amnesty International. In a statement, Amnesty said Mr Kikwete's silence on Zimbabwe has been "deafening and is contrary to its own principles of respect for human rights and the rule of law".

ZAMBIA

Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa has said: "What is happening in Zimbabwe is a matter of serious embarrassment to all of us."

President Bush has been one of the strongest world leaders in condemning Mugabe and attempting to remove him from power.

United States President, Mr. George W. Bush, has ordered tougher sanctions against the Zimbabwean government headed by Mr. Robert Mugabe for "the regime's blatant disregard for the Zimbabwean people's democratic will and human rights".


The hard slam from the American government is coming as Mugabe is to be sworn in as Zimbabwe's president today, following his victory in a run-off election boycotted by the opposition candidate, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai.

Bush, in a directive to his top aides including secretaries of state and the treasury, said the US was compiling sanctions and would also champion international campaign for sanctions against the administration, including an arms embargo.
He said the move was in response to "the Mugabe regime's blatant disregard for the Zimbabwean people's democratic will and human rights".

While Bush's actions are significant, pressure must continue to be applied until Mugabe is finally pushed from powere.

Robert Mugabe must go.

Nocomme1 also posts at The Patriot Room and Flopping Aces

McCain To Base: I'm Just Not That Into You

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Hat tip to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air

John McCain is a stubborn man and it is a character trait that has held him in good stead. As a prisoner in Vietnam his stubbornness in not giving up and giving in to the five year long ordeal of his imprisonment certainly played a large part in keeping him alive. And stubbornness can be a good quality in a politician, too. God knows Ronald Reagan was stubborn, often proudly saying that one of his political strategies was to get most of what he wanted from the Democrats in one battle, letting them save face with a partial win...and then going back and getting the rest of what he wanted later.

But stubbornness can be a character flaw, too. It can make you blind to the arguments of others. This can be especially problematic when you're wrong and they're right. It can make you arrogant and can alienate people who should be your allies. Which brings us to McCain and conservatives, his base without whom he can't win this election. You see, the problem is McCain really doesn't like us. To a large degree he's bought into the moonbat caricature of conservatives, thinking we're bigots and yahoos who lack hearts. But he's figured out a way to deal with us. He's going to throw us some red meat during the campaign; he'll give us some lip service when he has to and once he placates us enough that we vote him into office, he's stubbornly going to go right back to what he wants to do. You can do that sort of thing and keep a clear conscience when you're doing it to people you don't respect, I guess.

Take a listen to the following clip of McCain answering a question after a speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Washington, DC on Saturday.


Link: sevenload.com



McCain took a terrible beating on comprehensive immigration reform when the conservative grassroots mobilized against The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 which conservatives asserted was nothing more than a Trojan Horse for amnesty for illegals. Ostensibly chastened by the defeat and with his eyes on winning the Republican nomination McCain toned down his rhetoric and started emphasizing border security enforcement. As a matter of fact, in his prepared remarks at the NALEO he maintained that new line:

I and many other colleagues twice attempted to pass comprehensive immigration legislation to fix our broken borders; ensure respect for the laws of this country; recognize the important economic necessity of immigrant laborers; apprehend those who came here illegally to commit crimes; and deal practically and humanely with those who came here, as my distant ancestors did, to build a better, safer life for their families, without excusing the fact they came here illegally or granting them privileges before those who did. Many Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts. We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our responsibility to meet this challenge will end with that accomplishment. We have economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well, and they require no less dedication from us in meeting them.

Only in the q and a session, when he wasn't reading from a script did his real feelings and intentions come out. Comprehensive immigration reform "and not just enforcement" (quote from questioner) "will be my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow" (quote from McCain). His "top priority". Oh. I see. He pretty much admits that the emphasis on border security is not much more than the usual boob bait for the Bubbas when he says (while he was off-script), "We have to secure our borders. That's the message." Right. That's the message. But it isn't the important part of what he wants to do, which stays substantially the same as when conservatives sank it last year. He also reminds us conservative brutes that illegals may be breaking the law but, by Golly, "They're God's children and they'll be treated in a humane fashion." Well, I guess that means we should all put away our white sheets and flaming crosses. According to McCain, those of us who want the law enforced are inhumane. Nope, he doesn't care for us at all.

He also thinks we're trying to destroy the Earth or something as well, as he's seemingly bought into the Al Gore apocalyptic view of man's impact on the environment. The Wall Street Journal had this to say about McCain's "solution" to global warming:

This is one of those issues where Mr. McCain indulges his "maverick" tendencies, which usually means taking the liberal line. That was the case yesterday, no matter how frequently he claimed his approach was "market based." In fact, if "the market" is your favored mechanism, Mr. McCain's endorsement of a "cap and trade" system is the worst choice for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The Bush Administration has pursued one option, which combines voluntary measures with subsidies for "clean" alternatives. Since 2001 under this approach, U.S. net carbon emissions have fallen by 3% – that is, by more than all but four countries in cap-and-trade-bound Europe. At the other end of the market spectrum is a straight carbon tax, which would at least distribute costs more efficiently. It would also force politicians to be honest about – and take responsibility for – the true price of their global-warming posturing. Then there's cap and trade, which Mr. McCain has backed for years and would, as he put it with some understatement, "change the dynamic of our energy economy." He noted that Americans have a genius for problem-solving but continued, "The federal government can't just summon these talents by command – only the free market can draw them out." To translate: His plan is "market based" insofar as it requires an expensive, invasive government bureaucracy to interfere with the market.

McCain has bought into the whole global warming cult and, as with so many other issues about which conservatives have disagreements with him, he is impervious to points of view other than his own. He refuses to favor drilling in ANWR, convinced beyond all reason that it is the equivalent of the Grand Canyon instead of the mosquito-ridden swamp that it is in summer and the tundra wasteland that it is in the winter, one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. When McCain becomes convinced of something that puts him on the opposite side of conservative thought, he simply ignores counter argument and becomes as suspect of conservative motivations as the average poster on the Huffington Post. It seems unlikely that he would be moved by this counter argument to the assertion that global warming is settled science:

The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of "an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure." Global warming may or may not be "the greatest scam in history," as it was recently called by John Coleman, a prominent meteorologist and the founder of the Weather Channel. Certainly, however, under the scientific method it does not rise to the level of an "item of physical knowledge."

Nevertheless, the acceptance of man-made global warming as scientific fact has become so prevalent that the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, recently declared: "The debate is over. It's time to discuss solutions." Leaving aside the question of the secretary-general's qualifications, that is certainly one of the most antiscientific statements ever made. The first question that this raises is why have so many scientists chosen to ignore this glaring failure of the global warming hypothesis to meet the standards of their own profession? The second question is what, if anything, can be done about it?

The first, and most obvious, temptation for this sort of willful blindness is financial. Hearst made only a fraction of his estimated $140 million in net worth from yellow journalism. Global warming, on the other hand, has provided an estimated $50 billion in research grants to those willing to practice yellow science. Influence in the public sphere is another strong temptation. It might not be as impressive as starting the Spanish-American War, but global-warming alarmists have amassed a large group of journalists and politicians ready to silence any critics and endorse whatever boondoggle scheme is prescribed as the cure to our impending climate catastrophe.

Finally, one should not underestimate the temptation of convenience. Just as it is far easier to publish stories without verifying the sources; so is it much more convenient to practice yellow science than the real thing. It takes far more courage, perseverance, and perspiration to develop formulas, make predictions, and risk being proved wrong than to look at historical data and muse about observed similarities. Yellow scientists have fled the risks of science that Albert Einstein described when he said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong."

McCain really doesn't want to deal with arguments like these. He's part of the the global warming crusade and those of us who aren't are probably jerks (a favorite term of his) to him. John McCain wants to be President and seems to think that conservatives better get in line behind him, instead of him taking us seriously if he wants our votes.

He has seemed to move some of his positions somewhat to the right but it is hard to tell if all of that is just "message", masking his real intentions. Many conservatives feel it is all mask and no reality. A lot of conservatives comfort themselves with the belief that even if most of McCain's (very tepid) outreach to conservatives is all smoke and mirrors, at least he'll appoint conservative judges. But George Will in a recent column calls even that into question when he notes how conservatives on the Court have ruled on an issue near and dear to his hear:

The McCain-Feingold law abridging freedom of political speech -- it restricts the quantity, timing and content of such speech -- included a provision, the Millionaires' Amendment, that mocked the law's veneer of disinterested moralizing about "corruption." The provision unmasked the law's constitutional recklessness and its primary purpose, which is the protection of incumbents.

The amendment, written to punish wealthy, self-financing candidates, said that when such a candidate exceeds a particular spending threshold, his opponent can receive triple the per-election limit of $2,300 from each donor -- the limit above which the threat of corruption supposedly occurs. And the provision conferred other substantial benefits on opponents of self-financing candidates, even though such candidates cannot be corrupted by their own money, which the court has said they have a constitutional right to spend.

Declaring the Millionaires' Amendment unconstitutional, the court, in an opinion written by Alito, reaffirmed two propositions. First, because money is indispensable for the dissemination of political speech, regulating campaign contributions and expenditures is problematic and justified only by government's interest in combating "corruption" or the "appearance" thereof. Second, government may not regulate fundraising and spending in order to fine-tune electoral competition by equalizing candidates' financial resources.

The court said it has never upheld the constitutionality of a law that imposes different financing restraints on candidates competing against each other. And the Millionaires' Amendment impermissibly burdened a candidate's First Amendment right to spend his own money for campaign speech.

This ruling invites challenges to various state laws, such as Arizona's and Maine's, that penalize private funding of political speech. Those laws increase public funds for candidates taking such funds when their opponents spend certain amounts of their own money or receive voluntary private contributions that cumulatively exceed certain ceilings. Such laws, like McCain-Feingold, rest on the fiction that political money can be regulated without regulating political speech.

The more McCain talks -- about wicked "speculators," about how he reveres the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as much as the Grand Canyon, about adjusting the planet's thermostat, etc. -- the more conservatives cling to judicial nominees as a reason for supporting him. But now another portion of his signature legislation has been repudiated by the court as an affront to the First Amendment, and again Roberts and Alito have joined the repudiation. Yet McCain promises to nominate jurists like them. Is that believable? [emphasis mine]

John McCain "is just not that into" his base. Well frankly, we in his base are not really that into him either. He's seems to be pegging his Presidential hopes on the fact that however we feel about him we're still going to march down to our local voting booths and vote for him come Election Day.

Its a helluva campaign strategy, isn't it?

Nocomme1 also posts at The Patriot Room and Flopping Aces

Friday Zen

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Governor Palin - Oh Yes!

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I have made my crush on the good governor clear in an earlier post. Ok, deregulating the oil companies may not exactly be all that do-able right now as AllahPundit at Hot Air points out, but it would be the right thing. So the crush continues. *SIGH*

Stop The ACLU also is smitten

The Audacity To Be A Dope

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Attendant with Barack Obama's ascension (an important word here) to the position of soon-to-be Democratic Presidential nominee has come some of the strangest behaviors from his ...followers...no, that word doesn't really capture it...disciples is nearer to the reality, ever witnessed in a political campaign. From the oooh-ing and ahh-ing and applause when he has to blow his nose to the gyrations of the "Obama Girl" to the recent statement by the ubiquitous P. Diddy (is that still his name, by the way?), "Obama or die!", these folks have simply lost it.

Some of the most astounding examples of the kind of mental decompensation that is going on can be found in print. Warren Bolton, Associate Editor of The State.com has written a column that typifies what passes for reasoned analysis in the ranks of the Obamessiah's acolytes. It is a thing of wonder:

MANY HAVE OPINED about what Sen. Barack Obama’s phenomenal win in the Democratic presidential primary and his possible ascension [there it is] to the presidency mean to this nation.

Just the elementary historical facts are powerful enough: There has never been a black president. An African-American had never come close to winning a major-party nomination. None had been part of a majority-party ticket.

What does Sen. Obama’s nomination say about race and race relations in America? What does it say about opportunity for people of color? Those are the kinds of questions many a pundit has tried to put into perspective.

Of course, most importantly, Sen. Obama’s ascension [there it is, again!] says a lot about, well, Sen. Obama. It says his powerful gift of oratory and his message of change connected. His ability to build and manage an extraordinary campaign network and to raise funds is superior. His idealism that America can unite beyond race and politics and age worked.

Ok, not so crazy so far, except for overdoing the "ascension" [hint hint] thing. That's a bit disturbing, no? But next he jumps into the deep end without a life preserver and doesn't bother to take a breath.

As I’ve considered Sen. Obama’s accomplishment, I’ve determined the most profound impact he’s had — not considering the possibility of him becoming president and proving to be one of our better ones — is on our future more than our present or our history.

I didn’t grasp that until I took my 2-year-old to the doctor last week and he took a vision exam. It was through young Alexander’s eyes that I saw how important this moment in time could be.

The nurse administering the exam pointed to different shapes and images on a chart, asking Alexander to identify each. One of the recurring images was that of a flag. It wasn’t an American flag, but a flag just the same.

To a 2-year-old, a flag is a flag, right? Alexander is most familiar with the U.S. flag. When the nurse pointed to the flag, he answered confidently.

“Barack Obama,” he said, pronouncing it as best as a 2-year-old could.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Barack Obama.”

As she went through the chart, she once again came to the flag.

“Barack Obama.”

“Do you know what he’s saying?” I asked her.

“No.”

“He’s saying Barack Obama.” Why? Because he was making an association. Most times when he’s seen Sen. Obama on TV, the Democratic nominee has been standing in front of the U.S. flag.

The preceding just may be one of the craziest stories ever to try to pass itself off as journalism in the history of that checkered profession. His kid seems forced into this piece like a square peg smashed into a round hole with a sledgehammer by the Hulk in a particularly nasty mood. It is simply inane and utterly incoherent. In rereading it, the poor child seems afflicted with some sort of developmental perceptual deficit, unable to distinguish between a flag and Barack Obama. Instead of picking the poor boy up and running to have him tested Bolton is proud that the kid seems to think that Obama is a (not even an American, mind you) flag. Sadly the madness doesn't end there:

Whether Sen. Obama wins the presidency or not, he has had an untold effect on the future and psyche of America.

My son will live a lifetime in which he knows an African-American can ascend to the highest levels in this country. He won’t think it odd for a black man to seek to lead a nation. He as well as many white, Asian, Hispanic and other children, whether they like the candidate or not, won’t think it odd or a novelty to see a black man standing in front of the American flag — the ultimate display of patriotism, despite misguided and mean-spirited efforts to paint Sen. Obama as being otherwise — articulating his concerns and love for his country.

[Excuse my interruption here, but since when is "standing in front of the American flag" the "ultimate display of patriotism"? I always thought that dying or suffering for your country - you know, kind of like John McCain did - was the ultimate display of patriotism. But that was the definition, pre-Obama, I guess.]

Because of Barack Obama, many of our children won’t grow up with as many of the psychological bruises those before them might have endured.

Read that last line again. Because of Barack Obama many of the "psychological bruises" of childhood will be vanquished. How about pimples and bed-wetting? Surely he can end those, too?

I grew up being told that I could one day be president. But much of what I saw and heard suggested otherwise. I saw and experienced the discrimination. Blacks only secured the right to vote in my lifetime. I saw many black kids in school being steered away from advanced courses and training that would have prepared them to shoot for higher goals.

Not only does Sen. Obama’s feat help shape a 2-year-old’s thoughts about himself and the world around him, but it affects so many others, from high-schoolers to college students to older folks.

Think of the many people, particularly older citizens, who had determined they would never live to see a black president. Scarcely 200 years since the end of the evil slave trade, there’s a good chance it could happen.

I’ll never forget the e-mail I got from one of my sisters who was excited about Sen. Obama’s chances: “He has more going for him than any other black person who has ever tried for the presidency. I never thought this would happen in my life time, but now I see the possibility.”

Possibility. Hope. Change.

Ok, you just knew those three words were coming, didn't you? As usual they are disconnected to anything tangible in the real world, just sort of free-floating happiness that is beyond explanation. This is the Obamessiah's gift to us, I guess.

People sell those notions short. But they’re powerful. The fact is,
people of all races and backgrounds see different possibilities and hope in Sen. Obama. They see the
hope for a unified America that actually attempts to address issues such as
health care. It’s not so much that Sen. Obama can solve them alone — what president can? —
but they believe he can inspire Americans to rise up and help bring about
change. [Whatever the Hell that means.]

An Obama win doesn’t mean we’ve arrived in terms of race relations and
equality. [You always want to leave that door open so you can play
the race card once more when a White guy gets into office again.] But it would send a signal that we can arrive.

Even Congressman
James Clyburn, who
once said he would never live to see a black governor in South Carolina, was
moved by the possibility. He told ETV’s “The Big Picture” that he was overcome with
emotion watching Barack Obama become the first black major-party
presidential nominee. He said he left a public event and went home to watch Sen. Obama’s victory
speech alone “because what I was feeling was indescribable, and I was afraid
that I would not be able to control my emotions .”

Congressman Clyburn controlled himself
— that time. If Sen. Obama succeeds in November, Congressman Clyburn may not be able to
control his emotions.

He’ll have lots of company.

The only thing that makes any sense in this diatribe is that last sentence. And if that doesn't scare you, I don't know what could.

Welcome to American politics in the Promised Land.

Cross Posted at The Patriot Room

Keith Olbermann Gets Trashed

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It isn't exactly giving away a state secret to say that Keith Olbermann is a creepy, ambition-crazed, ego maniacal hypocrite whose shtick used to garner himself fame and fortune - assuming the role of a Moonbat Howard Beale - is as pathetic as the stories his ex-girlfriends tell about his amorous "abilities". Rare is the conservative blog that at one time or another that doesn't find itself drawn to some Olbermann outrage and then picking him apart, piece by gooey piece.

Despite some degree of apparent squeamishness about him, to the inhabitants of the political nether lands who inhabit such places as the Democratic Underground, the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, of course he is the answer to Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity and Coulter all contained in one bug-eyed package. But it looks like Olbermann's inability to stick to anything even remotely resembling a principle has finally run afoul of some on the Left. In a Salon column that ran yesterday, author, litagator and columnist Glenn Greenwald took on Olbermann from the Left and the end result wasn't pretty.

What got Greenwald's hackles up was Olbermann's mendacity on the issue of Barack Obama's position on the FISA and telcom amnesty bill. Greenwald pegs how Olbermann's well cultivated outrage on FISA seems to be built on shifting sands when Obama essentially takes the same position on the issue that Bush does.First, his reaction to Bush's, before knowing about Obama's, stand:

On January 31 of this year, Keith Olbermann donned his most serious face and most indignant voice tone to rail against George Bush for supporting telecom immunity and revisions to FISA. In a 10-minute "Special Comment," the MSNBC star condemned Bush for wanting to "retroactively immunize corporate criminals," and said that telecom immnity is "an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with [Bush's] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email."

Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government." Noting the numerous telecom lobbyists connected to the Bush administration, Olbermann said:

This is no longer just a farce in which protecting telecoms is dressed up as protecting us from terrorists conference cells. Now it begins to look like the bureaucrats of the Third Reich, trying to protect the Krupp family, the industrial giants, re-writing the laws of Germany for their benefit.Olbermann closed by scoffing at the idea that telecom amnesty or revisions to FISA were necessary to help National Security:There is not a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or protecting the people from terrorism, Sir. This is a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or pretending to protect the people from terrorists. Sorry, Mr. Bush, the eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counter-terrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat the thwarting of which could hinge on an email or phone call that is going through Room 641 of AT&T in San Francisco.

The planet-cracking rant can be seen below:Greenwald cuts Olbermann no slack when his take on FISA changes when Obama decides to basically agree with Bush (at least until he decides not to):

Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed.

Last night, Olbermann invited Newsweek's Jonathan Alter onto his show to discuss Obama's support for the FISA and telecom amnesty bill (video of the segment is here). There wasn't a syllable uttered about "immunizing corporate criminals" or "textbook examples of Fascism" or the Third Reich. There wasn't a word of rational criticism of the bill either. Instead, the two media stars jointly hailed Obama's bravery and strength -- as evidenced by his "standing up to the left" in order to support this important centrist FISA compromise:

OLBERMANN: Asked by "Rolling Stone" publisher, Jann Wenner, about how Democrats have cowered in the wake of past Republican attacks, Senator Obama responding, quote, "Yeah, I don't do cowering." That's evident today in at least three issues . . .Senator Obama also refusing to cower even to the left on the subject of warrantless wiretapping. He's planning to vote for the FISA compromise legislation, putting him at odds with members of his own party . . . But first, it's time to bring in our own Jonathan Alter, also, of course, senior editor of "Newsweek" magazine.Good evening, Jon.

JONATHAN ALTER, NEWSWEEK: Hi, Keith.

OLBERMANN: "Yeah, I don't do cowering." This is not just the man, but the campaign?ALTER: Yes. This is part of the message that is consistent across the last couple weeks and it comes down to one word -- strength. The United States is not going to elect a president that perceives to be as weak. You look weak if you're flip-flopping. You look weak if you're not taking actions that seem to be securing the United States against terrorists. And you look weak if you don't fight back against your political adversaries.

OLBERMANN: But this cuts, I mean, this terminology cuts in more than one direction here. Not cowering to Republicans is one thing in the Democratic, recent Democratic history, it's a thing that I think anybody who has a "D" near their name cheers, but not cowering to the left, not going along with the conventional, the new conventional thinking on the FISA bill, that's something altogether different, isn't it?

The dangers of the kind of politics Olbermann practices doesn't escape Greenwald as he notes that ejecting all honest and rational analysis can only lead to moral corruption and the acceptance of policies that are antithetical to what you believe actually works best for the people of the country, which is supposed to be the whole point of politics in the first place.

What Greenwald misses however is the fact that the whole Democratic Party is afflicted with the same condition that Oblermann has. But frankly, how can they not be? Barack Obama is a man of no particular knowledge or experience for the job for which he's running. He changes positions as frequently as Olbermann turns off girlfriends. The Left, which has invested him with near God-like powers, not to mention given him the Democratic nomination can either carry on the fantasy and follow him down whatever contradictory roads he chooses to follow next or jump ship on him. And you don't jump ship on Jesus.

Greenwald hasn't just written a column that deconstructs Keith Olbermann but deconstructs the whole Left side of the electorate as well. Sorry, Mr. Greenwald but Keith Olbermann is no aberration. Keith Olbermann is the Left.

But we on the Right have known that for quite some time.

Thursday Zen

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Magnificent Rebuttal To MoveOn.org

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This short, simple homemade video is unpretentious yet very effective in rebutting MoveOn.org's recent deeply dishonest video (below) which suggest that years from now John McCain's policies would be conscripting young men to fight in Iraq.

Of course McCain said that he would only leave troops in Iraq long-term if they were still there in the same way Americans are still in Japan. And, of course there is no draft so it is hard to see how little "Alex" would be in Iraq unless he chose to be there.

It is encouraging to see how powerful Daniel and Noah's mother's honest testament is when contrasted with Alex's mother's lies. So much of the Left's campaign is based on falsehoods every bit as egregious as those in the MoveOn.org video. Why can't the Republicans be as effective in countering them as is Daniel and Noah's mom?

Oh, and has anyone thought of filing child abuse charges against Alex's mother? Shouldn't the cynical use of one's child to perpetuate a lie be a crime?

Paving The Road To The New Fascism: Pelosi Plots To Implement The Hush-Rush Law

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In anticipation of ushering in a new age of Liberal Fascism House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let it be known recently that she plans to re-institute the defunct Fairness Doctrine, or as it is known to those of us who value free speech, the Hush-Rush bill. Human Events columnist John Grizzi reports here on a recent encounter with Pelosi.

At a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor yesterday, I asked Pelosi if Pence failed to get the required signatures on a discharge petition to get his anti-Fairness Doctrine bill out of committee, would she permit the Pence measure to get a floor vote this year.

“No,” the Speaker replied, without hesitation. She added that “the interest in my caucus is the reverse” and that New York Democratic Rep. “Louise Slaughter has been active behind this [revival of the Fairness Doctrine] for a while now.”

The reason for Pelosi's excitement has nothing to do with "fairness" and everything to do with squelching opinion critical of her and her party. Her goal: the removal of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glen Beck and the entire conservative talk radio industry from the airwaves.

Charles Sykes, a Senior Fellow of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has written a terrific history of the Fairness Doctine and review of what is at stake should Pelosi and her fellow brown-shirts get their way.

The original Fairness Doctrine was written in 1949, when the Federal Communications Commission issued a rule that required broadcasters to devote a certain amount of time to discussions of public affairs “of interest to the community served by the particular station.”

In 1949 there was (for most Americans) no TV, certainly no hundreds of cable and satellite TV stations and no real computers from which an Internet could spring with its multiplicity of sites of every variety. Returning to a broadcast rule that was created in an era in which most Americans could only get their news from newspapers, newsreel footage in movie theaters and radio broadcasts is akin to fighting today's wars with Revolutionary war muskets. What made sense in a long-along era does not make sense today.

Well, let me revise that: it does make sense if your real motives are less than pure as Pelosi's certainly aren't.

If the goal was to foster a more vigorous debate, the Fairness Doctrine failed miserably; if it was to chill the expression of inconvenient opinion, it was demonstrably successful. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, broadcasters, who were fearful of the time and the cost of compliance, simply opted to shut down controversial debate, avoiding whenever possible the discussion of issues that might trigger the regulatory nightmare. As a result, rarely did politicians have to worry about being pilloried or even criticized by radio hosts or even by on-air editorialists, whose weak and insipid commentary became monuments to the chilling effect of the Fairness Doctrine.

Under the reign of the Fairness Doctrine radio went silent on controversial issues and the AM band in particular remained a vast and neglected wasteland until 1987, when the rule was lifted.

Since 1987 radio has seen an explosion of opinion flourish, especially since the advent of the Rush Limbaugh Show as a growing national presence in 1988. One has to wonder how eager the Left would be to bring back the Fairness Doctrine if it had been say, Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo, Al Franken or any one of the host of failed liberal talk show hosts who had spawned a whole new industry rather than Rush revolutionizing radio by making it the watering hole for conservative voices. Try as they might to succeed in it, talk radio is just not liberals' medium. You might think they wouldn't care so much, having a virtual monopoly in newspapers magazines, movies, network TV, etc. but then you would be underestimating their lack of respect for freedom of speech and their hunger for unfettered power.

The end of “fairness” :

In abolishing the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC acknowledged all of these logical and constitutional flaws. In August 1987, by a 4-0 vote, the FCC decided that:

[T]he intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the Fairness Doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters . . . [and] actually inhibits the presentation of controversial issues of public importance to the detriment of the public and the degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists.[x]

Commissioners took note of both recent court decisions and the flood of new technologies: “[T]he extraordinary technological advances that have been made in the electronic media since the 1969 Red Lion decision,” the FCC declared, “together with a consideration of fundamental capital First Amendment principles provides an ample basis for the Supreme Court to reconsider the premise or approach of its decision in Red Lion.”

Most important of all, the FCC declared that “the constitutional principles applicable to the printed press should be equally applicable to the electronic press.”

Twenty years later that principle remains unchallenged, except by politicians anxious to use their clout to bring back the speech police with their tape recorders and stop watches.

A reliable measure of the actual impact of the Doctrine was what happened when it was repealed: a veritable explosion of outlets—radio, television, cable, wireless, and satellite —and the spread of over-the-air debate and exchange of ideas that would have been unimaginable under the smothering influence of the Fairness Doctrine.

But what would happen if Democrats do, in fact, succeed in restoring the Fairness Doctrine?

By the left’s own account, the regulators will be quite busy: the liberal Center for American Progress estimates that more than 1,700 radio stations around the country have some form of talk show, with 50 million listeners a week. Each weekday, they figure, more than 2,824 hours of political talk (most of it conservative) are broadcast on those stations.[xi]

On an annual basis that comes to 146,848 hours of regulated speech, requiring mountains of tape machines and stop watches—and an almost unimaginable explosion in the number of speech policeman needed to maintain “fairness.”

Fascism operates by using the power of the state to remove all opposition to the state. There could hardly be a more compelling example of this than Congress bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. It is an action only a fascist could love. By returning to it as soon as she can, Nancy Pelosi, with an almost certainly expanded Democratic presence in Congress would make a possible President Barack Obama very happy very early in his reign.

Let the new era begin. And watch what you say.

Hot Air reports that the Obamessiah is against The Fairness Doctrine. I hope I don't seem cynical if I think he's against it the same way he was for public financing for the election.

Brian at Liberty Pundit also sees what the Dems are up to.

So does American Sentinel