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Saturday, January 28, 2006
Unfinished Story of Iraqi WMD
Posted by on 1.28.06 @ 11:08PM
Speaking routinely now with Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard and John Loftus of IntelligenceSummit.org and also my best source with regard the Byzantine tale of the Iraqi WMD program that cannot be proved or unproved by the public record of facts established since the capture of Baghdad in April 2003.
I mention again the promising mysterious treasure said to be coming to all of us within the next month. John Loftus is in possession of a CD that came to him by a reportedly trustworthy route that represents a collection of recorded sessions from 1988 to early this century (perhaps as late as 2002) in which Saddam Hussein plots with thirty other voices to supervise and conceal WMD.
The voice of Saddam Hussein is now verified by trustworthy agent; the voice of Tariq Aziz is verified by trustworthy agent. Blix and ElBaredi are said to be mentioned most disparingly and or damangingly. The core topic is how to manipulate inquiries and searches for WMD, after the Gulf War I, 1990-91, during the UN inspection regime from 1991-98, after the inspectors returned to Baghdad in 2002.
Why did Saddam Hussein order the recordings? Working assumption is that Saddam Hussein intended to write a book about how he had fooled and defeated UNSCOM and UNMOVIC and the rest of the sanctions first and last crowd.
More intriguingly is the fact that the CD is a compilation of many long sessions. Where are the original recording tapes? The search is said to be underway in the mountains of unexplored captured documents that is the focus of the operation called DOCEX.
Best source confirms that the undiscovered story of Iraqi WMDs is in plain sight and has been since the war. The most dangerous material was moved to Syria, and some of it to Lebanon; major weapons systems were also moved to Syria during the April 2003 fighting. Other reports point to undiscovered storage facilities underground in west Baghdad; other reports point to transfers to Iran.
These reports have not changed or diminished in the nearly three years since the March 2003 invasion.
What also has not changed or diminished is the political threat to many (from Damascus to the DNC) when (and not if) the full story of the Iraqi regime WMD is revealed and told.
Lib Blogs Change Meds
Posted by on 1.28.06 @ 6:44PM
Someone must have cut off their absinthe and Prozac. The lib blogs are going nuts over the Kerry mini-buster against the Alito nomination. The Boys from Lord of the Flies -- the DailyKos temper tanrtum teens, FireDogLake and Democratunderground, among others -- are all linking arms and running toward the same cliff. Apparently, Teddy was on the phone with them asking for "netroots" help with the Dems who -- so far -- haven't joined up with them. The Filibuster crew now numbers about 15. Which is a long way from 41.
The most interesting part of this is that Hillary has endorsed the filibuster. Poor Chuckie Schumer. For once, someone beat him to a microphone. He must be distraught.
Keep an eye on this one. What will the NYT say tomorrow? Until we know that, we can't know how the rest of the Dems will go. NYT, after all, is their think tank cum operational commander. (I wonder what Jill Abrahamson has in store for tomorrow?)
Kerry Nonchalants the Filibuster
Posted by on 1.28.06 @ 1:55AM
Senate source concludes that the Kerry appearance today was a fundraising maneuver to gain bona fides with the lefty donors.
Kerry arrived, spoke for thirty minutes, then tried to slip away from reporters. Made nonchalant gestures, said he was just part of an effort to prevent extremism, and so forth, and then dove into car to return to the good life.
The Democrats demonstrate the discipline of an NCAA Division 1 0-16 college basketball team. They're going to win one, just maybe not this season.
Friday, January 27, 2006
President Persian Paranoid Still Missing
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 4:16PM
Speculation about the missing Persian bloodhound Ahmadinejad: Why does he disappear for a week of work days after returning from war council with al-Assads and (reportedly) Mugniyeh at Damascus?
A national air defense exercise is one rational if apparently disproportionate explanation.
But are the Tehran tyrants truly expecting a bombing run at them now, or near to now, when the IAEA meeting and the Russian nuclear fuel cycle negotiation fail? Is the Tehran tyranny so discontinuous from the Great Satan and his kind that the leadership misreads us this wildly?
Yes.
More bluntly, the record suggests that Persian paranoia is justified. The record suggests that it would be irrational and irresponsible for Ahmadinejad not to plan for a strike along with a coup, assassinations, general all weather subversion by the Great Satan.
For example, the record shows that on August 2, 1953, the Tehran population voted freely and openly 99.9% in favor of giving the then-superstar Premier Mohammed Mossadegh the power to dissolve the troublesome, British and US and Russian purchased Majlis and to run Iran as a nation yearning to be free.
In 1953, the issue was oil supremacy, just as it is now, and the British and American and Russian ops were fighting over the oil fields, just as they are now, with the important exception that, in those days, the Brits and Americans owned the fields, and didn't want the cash and future profits to pass into the accounts of the Tehran government, which was flirting with the Red Menace to the north.
Tehran voted to empower its hero of the people Mossadegh to stand up to Young Great Satan, who had been scheming for some years, since well before the Mossadegh goodwill gesture to visit New York, Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, and Washington with Truman in 1951, to clarify who was in charge of the oil fields.
Within three weeks of the vote, Mossadegh was under arrest by the Pahlevi bully boys and the status quo ante of oil was restored. For the next twenty-six years, until the slow-motion revolution of the Mullahcrats in November 1979, Persian paranoia was justified and plain good history.
Ask again: Does Ahmadinejad expect to be attacked, assassinated, destroyed, removed from the pages of history, as was Mossadegh fifty-two years ago?
Yes.
Updating, as of the last five hours, East Coast time, Ahmadinejad and his lifelong paranoia (he was born three years after the Mossadegh coup: he has ever known only grievances and Great Satan hating; he is a child of betrayal) are intact, and the president of Iran is still missing.
Tonight on Larry Kudlow
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 2:35PM
Tonight, our very own Jed Babbin will be a guest on CNBC's Kudlow and Company. Tune in between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
A Chink in Russert's Armor
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 12:13PM
As John Tabin mentioned earlier this week, Tim Russert's drawing fire for flacking his son's (and James Carville's) sports show on XM. Arianna Huffington's attacks (Russert's her perennial whipping boy) this week have drawn blood from the NBC press office (hat tip: fishbowlDC).
Still Not Getting It
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 11:45AM
Over at TAPPED, Sam Rosenfeld writes:
There simply isn't an actual dispute between the administration and its critics about the legality of the spying program. The president himself says, in so many words, that FISA was inadequate to the task at hand, so they broke that law. To be sure, he then hammers the podium and yells out a meaningless "This program is legal!" But the substance of what he's saying doesn't even dispute that the program is, in fact, technically illegal.Um, no. What the administration is arguing is that FISA doesn't apply. To know whether this is true or not, you'd have to know the technical details of the operation. We don't, and shouldn't. But the sources inside the government who opposed the program and leaked to James Risen weren't concerned about FISA, they were concerned about the Fourth Amendment (and the caselaw generally runs against them on this).
Re: Kerry's Fumble
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 11:40AM
Dave, the New York Times's coverage is even better than you suggest. How's this for an argent quote about Jean-François? "Democrats cringed and Republicans jeered at the awkwardness of his gesture..."
The Dope Tax
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 11:03AM
Is it really as absurd as Jay Homnick argues that it is to tax an illegal product? Since sentencing is harsher for sale of drugs without the tax stamp, it's just the sort of protection money we all pay to the government to avoid loss of liberty. It's a raw deal, since as Homnick points out, drug dealers don't get quite the service from government that legitimate businesses get: You can't call the cops if your stash is stolen, and the courts won't enforce a contract with your supplier. But given that, as Homnick acknowleges, "there is a long-standing practice of not excluding illegal income or purchases" from taxation, it would seem that that ship has sailed.
The federal/state jurisdiction issue is a bit of a red herring -- the legal system sorts out apparent conflicts like that all the time. Insofar as there's any problem with this legal regime, the solution is plain: End the insane war on drugs. We don't make laws based on Bible verses (else adultery and coveting would be crimes), but if we did I wonder how drug-dealing could be logically proscribed as a form of placing a stumbling-block before a blind man while selling alcohol is not. Surely Jay Homnick doesn't mean to be the Grinch who stole Purim.
Kerry Flirts with Lefty
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 10:41AM
Senate source identifies possible explanation for francophiliac junior senator leaving comfy Davos pillows and flinging his windsurfing muscles at dreary Washington (he arrives Dulles noontime) in winter to take charge of filibuster fight on Alito.
Westchester mom and junior senator from New York Clinton has quit the left in her latest version of Republican lite -- howls of body armor, Amtrak armored cars, nuke Iran now, billions for defense not one cent for tribulations.
This leaves Lefty without a dance partner in the run-up to the primaries in '08. So Kerry can grab Lefty's hand, whisper and grin, and Lefty (overweight, shy, vitriolic, but a cup of sugar underneath the Michael Moore fashion line) will pause and smile at Kerry.
Is it enough for Kerry to get an edge in Iowa and New Hampshire? Speculation into the miracle of the Dem logic is not my skill set.
Ben Stein on Joel Stein
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 10:40AM
Now posted in our Friday-weekend lineup. Ben gives, what he calls, "another Stein's view." You won't want to miss it.
No More Border Maps
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 9:12AM
The Mexican government will no longer distribute border maps for illegal immigrants, reports the Washington Times. Despite U.S. action on the matter in recent days, the Mexico insists its decision was independent of outside pressure.
The Votes Just Ain't There
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 8:49AM
California Yankee reports that at least nine Democrats will vote against a filibuster. The Filibuster from Massachusetts won't last long unless they can peel off from these nine.
Kerry's Fumble
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 8:22AM
As John Batchelor pointed out in the wee hours, Kerry's Swiss-based filibuster is an act of self-immolation. It's so bad that the New York Times, in its news coverage, characterizes it today as "quixotic" and awkward. The Washington Post reports Republicans razzing Kerry for beginning the stunt from overseas. Contrast that honesty to the Boston Globe, which comes off as a little too home town for its senators by omitting an mention of Kerry launching this filibuster from Davos or the chilly reception on Capitol Hill.
The Times also reports, as did Batchelor, that Kerry returns to Washington today. Should be an entertaining Friday in the Capital City.
Sex, Pot, and Health Care
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 8:03AM
Colby Cosh has a handy guide to Canadian politics after Harper's election.
Hamas needs Daddy Warbucks
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 2:21AM
What will the Saudis do with Hamas?
Watching the telephone calls between Riyadh and Gaza City: will Abdullah make congratulatory call to Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas boss of Gaza and now of the West Bank? Will Bandar make the call for his dad the crown prince Sultan? Hamas needs the Saudis now, as it must make a payroll of 176,000 in the next week, and the Euros are check rubberizing while the Americans are suddenly not available.
Hamas victory is an earthquake. Hamas needs money. What about Cairo? Withdraw this foolish question
Tehran, with the deepest pockets, is much overcommitted at home.
The Saudis are the default Daddy Warbucks. What will the Saudis do?
Kerry Incoming
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 2:13AM
Trusted Senate source reports Francophiliac junior senator from Massachusetts enroute from Davos to Capitol to take the lead in a filibuster fight against Alito.
No ready explanation. Mysterious as French language. Democrats now moving into mystical phase of self-immolation.
Ahmadinejad and big holes in the ground
Posted by on 1.27.06 @ 1:47AM
Best source continues to report that Ahmadinejad is still missing, or disappeared, as of this hour. He has not been seen now for ninety-six to one hundred twenty hours. Statement read in his name on TV -- denouncing the Brits for the Ahvaz explosions -- is the first time since his ascendance that he has not appeared in person to breathe fire.
Speculation about missing president is in two directions:
1. Ahmadinejad is out of sight as he participates as president in a war game exercise. This is consistent with intelligence reporting Iranians' moving around air defense hardware, digging holes and trenches, testing apparatus that would be needed during an air raid from the Great Satan or the Junior Satan, otherwise known as the US and Israel. No name provided for war exercise.
2. Ahmadinejad is out of sight as he confers over the next step in the confrontation with the IAEA. This is consistent with the Iranian approach, which is to maneuver, betray, stall, manipulate, delay.
Of the two choices, the first is preferred. The Iranian air defense systems are undergoing elaborate and expensive updating. At the same time, they are digging some very big holes in the ground. Bunker mentality is the appropriate homely metaphor.
More soon.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
What a Day
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 4:41PM
Lieberman sides with the leftist fringe of the Democratic Party, and Byrd rejects them. Amazing.
AmSpec Gets RSS
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 4:26PM
You may have noticed a small "XML" icon at the top of this blog page for the last week or so. Today, another one graces the top of the Spectator.org home page. These mean AmSpec is now streaming our pages to you in RSS.
What's RSS? It stands for "Really Simply Syndication" -- a web publishing format that allows readers to peruse many content sources at once. We don't provide you an RSS reader, but there are many free third-party readers. I recommend Google Reader. It's free, web-based, and easy to use.
AmSpec offers you two RSS feeds: AmSpecBlog and our daily article lineup. Just copy those html links into your RSS reader and you're off and running. For more, here's our mini-tutorial.
If you'd like to email us about anything blog-related, the blog email address is amspecblog - at - spectator.org. Thanks for reading!
Barghouti in exchange for Pollard
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 3:35PM
The Hamas smash triumph in the PA parliamentary elections, unexplained and unexpected by all news sources with the small exception of my radio show and my best sources in Gaza and the West Bank, now makes possible (and much more likely) one of the great politically cynical deals of this early 21st century.
Acting PM Olmert now said to be leading the think tank of the otherwise unorganized Forward Party with the bold, fresh and over the top idea of maneuvering a release of Al Aqsa founder and Fatah superhero Marwan Barghouti, serving five life terms for murders, in exchange for the release of disgraced, bizarre, said to be Orthodox superhero and not so super espionage agent Jonathan Pollard, serving eternity in news media silence in North Carolina.
Makes no sense? How does this help Olmert? What does this mean for Team Bush? What peace process? Why Barghouti? What does Hamas have to do with the Free Pollard crowd? Isn't Barghouti a hothead? Isn't Pollard a hothead?
More soon.
President still missing
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 3:23PM
Best source confirms that, as of this hour, Persian bloodhound Ahmadinejad is still missing, or disappeared, and that there is no comfortable or easy explanation.
You will recall that Ahmadinejad missed his appointment with Iraqi villain-politician Mookie Sadr some seventy-two hours ago, and missed his speech in Ahvaz some forty-eight hours ago, and missed going on Tehran TV in person to denounce the Brits and James Bondettes for the Ahvaz explosive device attacks some twenty-four hours ago.
Still missing.
Re: Calling a Democrat a...
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 3:19PM
I dissent. To say "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party" does more damage to the credibility of the speaker than to that of the subject. This, I believe, is Bill Buckley's position, and I'd have some trepidation about opposing WFB as far as the English language is concerned.
Salazar Hates Italians
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 3:12PM
Well, that's one way to spin Sen. Ken Salazar's remarks on the Senate floor now. He's voting against Judge Alito, the son of an immigrant, because, among other reasons, he's not a diversity pick.
Iraqi WMD still in Syria
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 3:06PM
Best source confirms the intelligence of Iraqi wmd moved to Syria in 2002 provided by Iraqi Air Force general Sada in his new book, SADDAM'S SECRETS.
Writing in today's New York Sun, editor Ira Stoll, after a meeting with Sada at the Sun's offices, summarizes Sada's evidence. In June 2002, Chemical Ali supervised the transfer of wmd chemical stocks from Baghdad to Damascus by loading the cargo onto Iraqi Airlines 747s with seats stripped out. There were fifty six flights in all, with the cover story that Iraq was aiding Syria after disastrous flooding. Name of Syrian general receiving wmd not confirmed by best source, pending.
This is consistent with intelligence developed over many years that Iraq developed a multiple layered CBRN program.
Sada, fearing for his life, and the lives of his sources the pilots who flew some of the aircraft, also makes mention of civilian truck convoys transfering wmd to Syaria prior to the war. This connects with multiple reports from IDF general officers, active and retired, that convoys were observed travelling from Baghdad to Damascus and then onto Lebanon in late 2002.
This also connects with developing story of DOCEX, the program to translate and analyze two million documents captured in Baghdad that contain the pattern and practice of terror and wmd in Iraq 1999-2002.
This also connects to report of a CD (about to surface in the news) containing the voices of Saddam Hussein and staff planning to conceal wmd from UN and others, recorded in staff meetings from 1988 to late 2000.
Most fertile intel here. Eyes on Steve Hayes at Weekly Standard. Eyes on John Loftus of IntelligenceSummit.org. Eyes on mission critical Congressional staffs and committees handling DOCEX.
The Bush Administration's banal mishandling and misinterpretation of a catalogue of evidence over many years of Iraqi wmd is a major component of this mystery. VPOTUS alone in Administration is firm on wmd tale. Negroponte said to be involved in the decision to verify and release more and more of the smoking arsenal.
Syria in the cross hairs: and it is a Syria with WMD.
Newsflash: Kerry May Run Again
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 2:48PM
The AP breathlessly reports from Davos that (gasp!) Sen. Jean Francois Kerry has his eye on the presidency still. In light of his near-daily press releases, who knew?
Re: Palestinians Vote for Terror
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 2:20PM
James: Yes, but. You write that, "...it will be increasingly held to account as a would-be legitimate real state with a freely elected government." I agree. It should. But in the "freedom is slavery" double-speak of the UN, the opposite result is guaranteed.
I predict that, no matter how obvious the result is, no matter how many times the Hamas-led government refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence, the EUnuchs and the Turtle Bay crime family will, in equal frequency, give them "another chance." Don't forget. The Palestinians have permanent refugee status in the UN. To recognize their state, and to hold it responsible, would end the oldest established permanent floating fiction in the UN. Aside from the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Secretariat, that is.
Dems for Alito
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 2:07PM
Joining Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska in voting to confirm Judge Alito is South Dakota's Tim Johnson (hat tip: Malkin). In addition, Bob Novak reported in today's column that Kent Conrad of North Dakota is expected to join his fellow plains state moderates. Fifty-one Republicans have also announced their support for Alito.
Re: Palestinians Vote for Terror
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 12:08PM
Jed -- it's true: they chose poorly. But (to mix gambling metaphors) the Russian roulette of letting the Palestinians pick their own horse and allowing the chips to fall where they may has its own mad logic to it. In a world of rotten policy options, forcing the issues of terror and chaos by legitimizing a process that votes terrorists into power continues the idea behind unilateral Israeli withdrawal: you want a state? Here -- make one.
A Palestinian Authority under Hamas may be a squalid monster of a semi-state, but it will be increasingly held to account as a would-be legitimate real state with a freely elected government. This could mean a lot of things -- including the cutoff of funding -- but what it does mean for sure is that raising the stakes by legitimizing the Palestinian vote, whatever its outcome, boldly bets on the wisdom of putting responsibility for their actions as a would-be state in their very own democratic hands.
Is that bet the synergy of neoconservatism and realism? Yes.
Calling a Democrat a ...
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 11:54AM
Democrats hate it when people call it the "Democrat Party."
A friend of ours insists that that is what they should be called. To call them "Democratic" invests them with a heritage and an import that is not accurate nor earned, given their political positions.
She is right. The Democrat Party is what it is. And the behavior of the White House press corps during the press conference -- just about everyone in the room is no doubt either a registered Democrat or thinks like one -- confirms just why we should continue to call Democrats the Democrat Party.
It's petty. But that's what makes it so much fun.
Veto Spending
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 11:02AM
Should you be more aggressive in vetoing spending bills?
Bush: They've met the budget targets. I'm pleased that I have a working relationship with Frist and Hastert to meet those targets. ... I'm fully prepared to use the veto if they overspend.
Lame. Super lame. They've overspent for five years, to the tune of a 25 percent increase in non-defense discretionary spending.
Editors Find the Eyebrow Irresistable
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 10:55AM
Check out the lead photo of the USA Today's dispatch on the liberal blogosphere's chilly reception for "moderate" Tim Kaine (don't worry! he's really one of you!): They chose an eyebrow shot. If I were a bettin' man, I'd put big money on most State of the Union response photos of Kaine exploiting his most entertaining facial trait.
The Abramoff Retort
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 10:50AM
Great: "Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean they're my friend or that I know them very well. I've had my picture taken with you."
Great Rebranding
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 10:47AM
Bush has called the NSA wiretapping "the terrorist surveillance program" a few times this morning. Now that's great rebranding.
Bush: $85 Billion
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 10:44AM
To the Gulf Coast is a "strong start." How 'bout a wonderfully generous handout?
Bush and the Press Corps
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 10:29AM
Will dance around each other in a presidential press conference in just a few minutes (10:15 a.m. -- our clock is fast).
The Heat Is on for Nightline
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 10:09AM
Federalist Society President Gene Meyer has written ABC News President David Westin over Nightline's factually shabby (okay, false) report on Justice Scalia's Colorado teaching trip, reports the Washington Times. (Read our post detailing the lame attack.)
It turns out that Nightline's producers knew that Scalia taught for ten hours and only played two hours of pick-up tennis. His course, for which he asked attending lawyers to read a 481-page book, counted as continuing education credits for the bar in 30 states.
The letter's here in pdf.
The more we learn about the Nightline report, the more apparent it is that Brian Ross and company attempted deliberately to mislead viewers.
On the Legality of the NSA Wiretap Program
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 9:42AM
Congressional Democrats are convinced that the President has broken the law and trampled the Constitution. Some intellectually challenged Republicans just haven't made up their minds and are waiting for the Senate Judiciary hearings to conclude before they announce their positions.
Let me help the Republicans (as the Democrats are absolutely hopeless when it comes to the Constitution and National Security).
Article II, Section 2 states: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."
The Federalist Papers and Court precedents from the beginning of this republic have held that the President acting as Commander in Chief has the inherent power to defend the nation against foreign threats. Since before WWI, that power has been understood to encompass electronic surveillance.
Flash forward to 1976 when FISA was first being debated. Even Ted Kennedy admitted that the president had the inherent constitutional power to engage in electronic surveillance for national security purposes and "Congressional enactments cannot unilaterally dininish it."
Jimmy Carter's Attorney General, the venerable Judge Griffin Bell, noted in testimony before the House in 1978 regarding FISA that "the current bill recognizes no inherent power of the President to conduct electronic surveillance, and I want to interpolate here that this does not take away the power of the President under the Constitution. It simply, in my view, is not necessary to state the power, so there is no reason to reiterate or iterate it as the case may be. It is in the Constitution, whatever it is."
Judge Lawrence Silberman said during those same hearings: "...denying the existence of any inherent executive authority is folly. If this constitutional authority exists, and I believe it does, Congress cannot legislatively repeal it."
And most recently in 2002, the unanimous FISA Court of Review in its stunning rebuke of the FISA Court stated that, "all the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have the inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information... We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
Yet again, Congressional Democrats and the wishy-washy Republicans who just want to be loved would rather have a TV mini series called a hearing than stop al Qaeda from killing us with the help of people who are living large right here in the USA.
Note to McCain and company: stop being intellectually lazy. Grab a beer, sit down in one of those comfy leather chairs in your hideaways and read the convenient little pocket Constitutions you carry around for dramatic effect. And if that isn't enough, have your numerous staff lawyers produce copies of the several court precedents and transcripts from congressional hearings cited above.
Meanwhile, if the Dems are so sure this program is illegal, why haven't they called on the President to shut it down? Hmm...
President Bush has rightly chosen to exert all the constitutional power granted to him as Commander in Chief to repel this most insidious and lethal foreign threat. Thank God he isn't backing down.
Palestinians Vote for Terror
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 9:20AM
That's not the headline on the BBC story, but that's what the Palestinian vote yesterday was. Hamas, the terrorist organization whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel, has apparently won the Palestinian election with a majority. PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei said that he would quit and that Hamas would have to form the next government.
Their vote sheds a brighter light on the Palestinians than has ever before been turned on them. No more pretense about peace plans, road maps and other such European or American smoke and mirrors. Unless the vote is overturned, which it will not be, there should be an immediate and total cutoff of American, European and UN funding of all Palestinian government functions. The UNWRA agency (the UN's arm in the West Bank and Gaza) activities that used to surreptitiously help Hamas and other terrorist groups will have no convenient cover to hide behind, and must end.
Decades of Palestinian hatred for Israel and the excuses made for Palestinian terrorism have now come home to roost. The Palestinians have nothing to offer themselves but more terror and suffering. With the call by Bashar Assad for Palestinian violence against Israel (his pronouncement that Israel assassinated Yassir Arafat was clearly that) and now this vote, the Palestinians have chosen a bleak future. They should not be relieved of the responsibility of their vote, or the consequences it must bring.
Bailout? I Don't Think So
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 8:30AM
President Bush gave an interview (sub. req'd) to Wall Street Journal reporters Tuesday. He offered his advice for GM and Ford:
In terms of competitiveness, we live in a world in which a Ford or GM has got to compete with other manufacturers that are able to deal with costs in a different way than they are, as well as coming up with product that is relevant.
I'm thinking no bailout. So is W:
I think it's very important for the market to function. And I haven't been asked by any automobile manufacturer for a bailout, if that's what you're asking.
Let the market work. Build good vehicles and compete. Great idea!
Cracking Down on Immigration Maps
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 8:23AM
Finally, Homeland Security is going after the Mexican government for providing maps guiding illegal immigrants into the U.S.
Brat, Spoiled
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 2:25AM
Being Luke Russert has its perks. Why, "by the time he was 16, he had attended two Super Bowls, a World Series, five Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Games, an NBA final, four NBA All-Star Games, two NCAA Final Fours, an NHL Stanley Cup Final, a U.S. Open and The Preakness Stakes." Clearly, his daddy's got lots of cash to burn, and is in fact a bit of pyromaniac with it. But it doesn't end there! Rather than something to prudently refrain from flaunting and perhaps even be mildly embarrassed about, his life of privilege actually qualifies him to cohost an XM Satellite Radio sports show -- as a college sophmore! Coincidentally, his co-host just happens to be a frequent guest on his daddy's TV show, which features hard-hitting exchanges like this one:
MR. RUSSERT: James Carville, before you go I understand that politics may be part of your past, that you're going to go on XM Satellite Radio and do sports?Tee-hee! Conflicts of interest are so cute and fun! Especially when you don't let viewers in on them!MR. CARVILLE: Well, Mr. Russert, I can't talk about that too much, but I think there going to be a story tomorrow's paper. Tomorrow night I'll be on the Jay Leno show on NBC, and we'll be talking about some exciting new developments and maybe a new twist on an old career.
MR. RUSSERT: With anyone I know?
MR. CARVILLE: Maybe you would be familiar with someone I'll be teaming up in this, but let's just say it's going to offer a generational look at sports and the coaches of sports and things like that...
(Hat-tip: Mickey Kaus)
OBL not quite sighting
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 2:14AM
Best source also suggests that OBL is back in Iran, if he ever left it, but not at Tehran. No confirmation of Iran whereabouts. OBL does not have a strong grasp on his own reality. He is an oafish overstaying guest of the mullahs, and they are not all that much concerned with his pleasure or health just now. Mordor has the IAEA in its sights. February 2,3 showdown will be a treat.
Missing President
Posted by on 1.26.06 @ 2:05AM
Best source up to the moment reports that Ahmadinejad has gone missing along with the missing Imam. Mookie Sadr appeared at presidential palace in Tehran two days back, and no sign of Ahmadinejad. Presidential visit to Ahvaz called off because no sign of Ahmadinejad. Missing three days from view. His presence projected on state TV this news cycle in order to denounce the Brits for planting the bombs in Ahvaz (more likely local rascals, long-standing beef with Tehran), but still no sighting.
Where is he?
Ahmadinejad is likely preparing the next phase of the aggression. Iranian air defense is said to be on unusally paranoid high alert. The gangsters are freshly spooked. Ahmadinejad is also likely conferring with his demons and not a few terror gangs to launch a surrogate attack against the West. Good guess now is that HizbAllah will launch on Israel. However the deal with Bashar al-Assad last weekend in Damascus puts Syria at the center of the storm in the Ummah. Any combination of murder raid, assassination, provocation or oil weapon card is credible.
Mordor is restless and slightly not visible. The Orcs are marching. The only Tehran surprise possible now is that there will not be a Tehran surprise.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Kojo Annan, International Man of Mystery
Posted by on 1.25.06 @ 3:49PM
Speaking to Claudia Rosett of Foundation for the Defense of Democracy this evening with regard Kojo Annan, international man of mystery, and the strange case of the 1998 green Mercedes 320 ML purchased fraudulently within moments of the OilForFood Cotecna deal brokered at the UN in September, 1998, that points -- car and Cotecna -- in an extremely suggestive fashion toward Kojo's international civil servant father SecGen Kofi Annan.
The lost car is found. When last in the news, the sought-after 1998 green Mercedes 320 ML (purchased in Geneva, Switzerland, with wire transfer shenanigans from Kojo, Kofi, and family fix-it character Michael Wilson, who connived in blunt fashion to defraud at least three countries of taxes, duties, and registrations) was presumed missing in Ghana, on some small piece of the 5000 km of paved roads in that beggarly West Africa homecourt of the Annans. Now it is revealed by Man of Mystery Kojo's translucent mouthpiece that the 1998 green Mercedes 320 ML is found, or at least its fate in known. It fell down a parking garage shaft in Lagos, Nigeria, last November 2004. It fell down all by itself, so far, as no accident report or insurance report is yet available to say who was at the wheel. Man of Mystery Kojo mouthpiece says that Kojo was not at the wheel, though he offers no proof of the negative.
Left unanswered is a fleet of questions:
1. The 1998 green Mercedes 320 ML was shipped from Geneva, Switzerland, to Ghana in 1998: how did it get to Lagos, Nigeria, where it wrecked itself?
2. Man of Mystery Kojo mouthpiece declares that his client is now making restitution of the $14k his shenanigans in 1998 deprived the state of Ghana in import duties when it was falsely declared to be for the use of the SecGen Kofi Annan at the behest of the local UNDP officer. However, MoMK mouthpiece does not speak to the cash fraud in Europe where the car avoided taxes because it was purchased falsely as a UN car. Also MoMK mouthpiece does not speak to interest payments due for eight years of unpaid up import duties, unpaid up tax-beating.
3. MoMK mouthpiece does not provide explanation how his firm came in possession of all these documents that show the trail of fraud and accident from Geneva to Lagos. From MoMK offices in London, in Lagos? From UN files? From Volcker reports? Such documents not available till now to global search team of ravenous UN reporters.
4. Kofi has nothing to say of his son's larceny. Kofi has nothing to say of the wrecked car. The UN has nothing to say of the SecGen's nothing to say. When does the only known controlling authority on the planet with regard UN shameless law-breaking have something to say? Reference is to Brooklyn born beat-cop Norm Coleman of Minnesota and his Neocon attack collie John Bolton at the UN.
Why does an auto fraud matter now?
Because the missing now found wrecked 1998 green Merecdes 320 ML is the broken window at the UN Security Council. It happened at the same time that the UN put together OilForFood under Kofi's hand-picked agent Benon Sevan, now a fugitive from justice in his native Cyprus. It happened at the same time that the UN constructed the deal that included the Kojo Annan client Cotecna that ushed in a five year long regime of skimming, kickbacks, graft, bribery and arms-smuggling that is otherwise known as the last gasp of the Baghdad regime under Saddam Hussein. It happened at the same time that the Clinton Administration bombed Baghdad for 100 hours and then looked the other way at the buildup of the terror gangs in the Ummah, from Baghdad's terror camps to Al Q in Afghanistan, all with the smiling nod of the status quo ante Security Council.
When the broken window went unfixed at the UN Security Council, the crime wave that always follows broken windows (see Rudy Giuliani's famous theory of New York City neighborhood crime waves) moved from New York in September, 1998 (when Kojo Annan's client Cotecna was turned loose) to New York in September, 2001 (when the neighborhood went very bad). What is the war on terror? It is the result of bad leadership, UN, U.S.; and one small step to take back control of law and order on the planet is to demand transparency for the fraud of Kojo Annan's 1998 green Mercedes 320 ML.
Maryland, Their Maryland?
Posted by on 1.25.06 @ 2:01PM
How long has it been since
Mike Steele, the Republican lieutenant governor, is running for U.S. Senate this year, and the Dems -- according to this WaPo report -- are panicking because of a Republican initiative to put a constitutional amendment to correct the problem on the ballot this November.
Get this: the Dems -- speaking through Delegate Luiz Simmons -- want to hold up the court ruling to prevent the ballot initiative and are seeking legislation to allow the legislature to get a court injunction against the decision. Said Simmons, “What we're trying to do is see if we can craft a bill allowing the legislature to seek an injunction, at least until 2007, when we'll have the opportunity to consider a constitutional amendment.” Anything, Simmons, anything to prevent the people from deciding the issue themselves?
Said Simmons’s cohort, Brian Frosh (D-Montgomery), “I don't want to see the gubernatorial election, or any other election, tangled up in this issue.” Translation: we know this is a loser and want to manipulate the courts further to avoid the result the people will impose. Note to Mr. Steele: You got ‘em on the run, sir. Now is no time to go wobbly.
Real Time
Posted by on 1.25.06 @ 12:50PM
Since AmSpecBlog seems to moonlight as a 24 fansite these days, I thought I'd throw up a link to this interview with one of the show's main writers addressing the myriad of nut-and-bolt issues that come up in creating and executing a "real time" show.
Deus Caritas Est
Posted by on 1.25.06 @ 12:33PM
Benedict's first encyclical is one any Catholic ought to be proud of, on a topic everyone ought to be worried about: the elimination of love that stems from human spirit, replaced by a new kind of eros -- not just good old Lust but a commodified form, a networked orgiasm where every act of mental and physical intercourse is a moved unit, a profitable financial transaction.
Rarely does one have the opportunity to write, "As I and the Pope have been trying to tell you, --." The public discourse needs more heavyweights punching against the commodification of desire. That commodification is fatal to social order. Philip Rieff, who also knows this, is as old as Benedict. We must not let them be the last riders. I go a bit deeper into Deus Caritas Est, and its opposites, here, here, and here, in the hopes of rustling up a posse.
The Abramoff Grip and Grin Shots
Posted by on 1.25.06 @ 9:52AM
Much is being made on the potential impact of the media getting their hands on photos of President Bush shaking hands with convicted fraud Jack Abramoff. So far, the White House is refusing to turn over any of the pictures.
The Washington Post called me about this and published my unsolicited advice to the White House, namely, put out the photos with an explanation for each. Party sages like Mary Matalin disagreed.
My reasoning follows. Does anyone think that the photos are not going to make it into the public domain? Heck, Jack Abramoff’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is probably behind the threat to sell them to the supermarket tabloids. Have no doubt. The pictures will come out.
Jack Abramoff is a consummate scam artist. He scammed his tribal clients. He scammed the Republican and Democrat politicians he lobbied.
People might not like the system, but it is what it is (though it won’t be for much longer).
Back to the impact of a photo. There is a major difference between the Abramoff scandal and the Clinton/DNC Chinese money scandals and the impact a photo has on public perception.
In the Abramoff case, the donations and perks were legal. The politicians and staffers had no way of knowing that Jack was defrauding his clients and bragging to those gullible clients about access he didn’t really have. Abramoff had always been a Republican and like thousands upon thousands of lobbyists, supported his political leanings with donations (although like most lobbyists in this town, he donated plenty to Democrats as well). Even after all of the stories about his activities, it is clear that he did not get any special access to anyone in the White House. He didn’t even really get that much special access to anyone in Congress. That’s not to say that he didn’t meet with anyone, but as a lobbyist in Washington and a donor, he was no different in the eyes of the policymakers than any other lobbyist.
Now let’s look at Charlie Trie, John Huang, Johnny Chung and millions of dollars in ILLEGAL donations to the DNC and
First, the millions of dollars in donations were ILLEGAL (including $300,000 from the head of communist Chinese Intelligence through Johnny Chung). Second, the DNC and Clinton administration officials exerted an enormous amount of pressure on Huang, Trie, Chung and others to pony up. The reward for their illegal largesse: high-level meetings in the WH with Bill, Al, Hillary, DNC chairman Don Fowler, and others.
Add to the mix a major federal investigation that results in several convictions, the aforementioned “pled and fled” list and Al Gore’s infamous, weasel-worded “no controlling legal authority,” and I don’t recall the substance of the meeting because “I was drinking a lot of iced tea that day and had to step out of the meeting to use the bathroom.”
Add the grip and grin photos with Bill, Al, Hillary, and the rest and you have damage. That’s when the American people look at Al and say, “crook, liar, weasel.” No bio of Bill Clinton will be without pictures of Bill and Monica, Bill and John Huang, Bill wagging his finger at us in a blatant lie about “Ms. Lewinsky.” Those are the iconic shots of the
So I stand by my unsolicited advice to the White House. Release the photos with full explanations of the very routine nature of the events that brought Jack to the White House (and cheat Jack of his ability to make a little $$ from the sale) and remind the world that you were victims of a scam artist -- just like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is claiming.
One more thing to chew on: yes, when the photos are public they are forever part of the story. In fact, from now on, every time someone does a story on Jack Abramoff, the best of the POTUS snapshots (face it, they are going to come out) will be included. But the Abramoff story is not something that history will remember about this president. History will show the President atop the rubble of the WTC with one arm around a fireman and the other grasping a bullhorn rallying a nation to fight back. History will remember the picture of George W. Bush standing on -- not in front of -- the pitchers mound at Yankee Stadium throwing a strike to Derek Jeter. History will record the picture of the Commander in Chief standing in the well of the House telling
Those are the iconic pictures that history will remember about this great and very honest president.
The Palestinian Sinn Fein?
Posted by on 1.25.06 @ 8:52AM
Marwan Bargouti wants to be the Gerry Adams of the
Bargouti, the Hamas leader, is a convicted terrorist murderer, now behind bars. But today’s election in the Palestinian areas of the Gaza Strip and the
Only two things are certain to result from today’s election. First, and regardless of the number of terrorists elected, the UN and the European Union will proclaim the election a success and eagerly recognize the terrorists’ participation in the Palestinian government. Aid to the PA and the “political wing” of Hamas will flow freely, though tut-tutting at corruption will become a commonplace. The Israelis will be under constant pressure to deal with the elected terrorists regardless of past or current activities that kill Israelis. Second, the Olmert government will continue
When I was in Iraq last month, several U.S. commanders predicted a "Sinn Fein" result for the Sunni insurgents. As bad as Hamas would be for the Israelis and the Palestinians, the same in Iraq would prove fatal to the unification of Iraq. Sectarian violence would continue, and no unified government could long withstand the terrorists' literally explosive participation in one.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Pence on Team Shadegg Strategy
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 10:13PM
Spoke to Mike Pence of 6th Indiana with regard the insider line on the February 2 showdown for House GOP leader.
According to Pence, Team Roy Blunt of Missouri claims 115 or 116 pledges; yet the Hotline lists only 90 published names. Pence, a Shadegg supporter, says that he counts 100 firm pledges to Blunt, no more.
Team Shadegg's strategy is to identify names on the Blunt pledge list of members who will state in public that they chose too soon, that Shadegg's late entry changes the landscape.
One wavering name, confirmed by Larry Kudlow of CNBC, is Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who may be close to changing her commitment from Blunt to Shadegg. Blackburn now hints that she will challenge Deborah Pryce, who is part of Team Blunt; and that is motive for Blackburn to pull vote back from pledge to Blunt.
Team Shadegg's election day strategy is to stop Blunt on the first ballot. Anything less than 117 (secret ballot) opens the door to a rush to Boehner or Shadegg.
The Polish Plumber, VATted
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 5:15PM
Forget
Cheaper and more productive labor coming west from New Europe has had Old Europe paralyzed for years. (The thought of working for a living is heresy in
Sovereignty anyone? And this is the power of the EUnuchs without their misbegotten constitution.
Unfortunately, with or without the euro or the EU constitution, the Brits are working hard to surrender what they inherited from Lionheart, the Iron Duke and Sir Winston. As the WSJ pointed out today, the Brits are spending millions to nag their own citizens. Are they all Europeans now? Ask David Cameron. You may get an answer, or you may not.
Re: L.A. Drama
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 5:08PM
Lady G., I daresay an opinionholder like Joel Stein, with the forthrightness required to step out into the light of public scrutiny, ought to be taken in the spirit that he's given. It takes guts to declare oneself a fundamentalist pacifist. Taking ridicule from one's own side is second only to taking a bullet from one's enemies as the most courageous thing a true pacifist can do.
I suspect, however, that Stein is not really a true pacifist. I suspect his pacifism is a false positive. He would not fold his arms and watch a genocide, I bet. He might feel outrage. And how did he feel about Kosovo? The whole bravery of saying "I don't support the troops because I don't support troops, period" is, unfortunately for Stein, irretrievably tarnished by the likelihood, not disproven in his op-ed, that Stein rather appreciates the accomplishments of the Civil War, World War Two, and perhaps even a handful of other military actions, carried out by troops in the 1990s with only the best of intentions.
World Bank Coup Alert: Wolfowitz Rising
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 4:48PM
Report this evening from the Financial Times re the unusually familiar melodrama that the international scoundrel Wolfowitz -- last seen at the DOD wrecking the planet with his kindred of Cain the Neocons -- is now leading a coup d'etat at the serenely sluggish and strangely non-transparent yet unnoticed World Bank. First reports from the backstairs where these sorts of coups get played out -- daggers, emails, Walsingham codes -- is that Wolfowitz's sinister scheme involves bringing in political ops from the baldly Republican administration in Washington and letting them vet the senior help that have been selflessly involved with enterprises that appear wildly overbudget and unexplained. Wolfowitz is said to have approved the use of accountants to study the books. Do gentlemen examine other gentlemen's books??? Veteran World Bank international civil servants are said to be in such disrepair that they are blogging their upset in foreign languages.
Prepare for the worst -- see key words: vanished billions, mystery, U.S. Attorney.
Presidential Conspiracy Theories, Iran Quadrant
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 4:33PM
Six dead and two dozen wounded in two explosive device attacks this news cycle, the day of a scheduled visit by the chief executive officer. Sound like U.S., France, Israel? Wrong. The report is from the Iran southern city of Ahvaz. One explosive device in front of a bank; the second in front of a government natural resources office. Ahmadinejad's visit was scheduled for January 24, today; but had been cancelled because -- the expedient explanation after the plane crash at Tehran last weeks that dispatched the high command of the IRGC -- of bad weather.
You will recall the strange report some weeks back of a gunfight attack on a presidential convoy in southeast Iran, when a presidential bodyguard (driver) and a so-called bandit were killed by gunfire. The explanation at the time was that the attack was ignorant, random Baluchi bandits (Baluchistan is a beggarly, abused stateless chauvinistic enterprise spread over three countries [Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan]), and that we were not to leap to theories based on the fact that Ahmadinejad was some many air miles away at the time.
No leapt theories today, either; just waiting on Iranian confirmation that these explosive devices were the work of (a) Zionist agents (b) backfires or (c) the great Satan in his manifold disguises.
Is Iran stable? Is any oil-soaked tyranny stable in the 21st century? Bumpy ride, it's gonna be, seatbelts, fasten.
"Book of Daniel" Cancelled
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 3:27PM
NBC axed the poorly performing show about the Episcopal priest and his dysfunctional family today.
Bill Donahue of the Catholic League is ecstatic in an email: "This is good news for Christians and bad news for those who get their jollies trying to disparage them. ... Hollywood could save itself a lot of money if they simply asked us to vet their shows. Our fee is high -- obscenely high -- but we're worth it."
L.A. Drama
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 3:27PM
This L.A. Times op-ed is quite possibly the most disgusting piece of "journalism" written to date about our military, the war, and our values. If his piece weren't so offensive, Mr. Joel Stein, who is credited as guest hosting E! Entertainment's "101 Hottest Hot Hotties' Hotness," could easily be dismissed. But I fear many-a-lib actually thinks this way -- and just don't have the guts to speak it, or put it into words.
Re: ABC's Lame Smear of Scalia
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 11:21AM
Dave: Some expert Stephen Gillers turns out to be. He's a staunch leftist who has over the years has written frequently for the Cominternish Nation magazine, which is where I first made his acquaintance. By rights he should have recused himself for commenting on Scalia, having attacked Scalia in the Nation's April 19, 2004 issue for duck-hunting with Dick Cheney. If the Sierra Club, which Gillers quoted approvingly, could request recusal of any federal judge like Scalia whose "impartiality might be reasonably questioned," shouldn't the same standard apply to a hostile source like Gillers?
ABC's Lame Smear of Scalia
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 10:37AM
ABC News goes after Justice Antonin Scalia today for attending gratis a Federalist Society conference last year in Colorado.
What's the charge? After trumpeting the story with an eye-catching "EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Ethics Problem?" headline and the byline of ABC's "chief investigative correspondent" (my! this must be hot stuff!), Brian Ross, ABC doesn't have the guts to make one.
Instead, following a grand journalistic gotcha tradition, Ross reports that the trip "raises questions" and then finds someone else to suggest the charge that he won't make himself: "according to some legal experts." Actually, Ross has only one legal expert: quote master (he shows up in major newspapers and wires 119 times in the last year) and law professor Stephen Gillers.
Gillers was one of the so-called experts who said Judge Alito's investment in Vanguard mutual funds was a conflict of interest. He has also whined about Scalia in the past, saying, "He's combative. He's in your face....He does not have what most people think of as a judicial demeanor."
Gillers and Ross don't spell out any ethical problem. Gillers offers a very sophisticated ethical analysis: "[The Federalist Society] are a group with a decided political-slash-judicial profile." Accepting gifts from such a group is not against the Court's ethical rules, which Ross admits.
This article is nothing more than smear by proxy and innuendo. Scalia has done nothing against the law, against formal ethics rules, or against unofficial ethical standards.
Committee Vote on Alito Today
Posted by on 1.24.06 @ 8:27AM
The Senate Judiciary Committee meets at 9:30 to vote on Judge Alito's nomination. A 10-8 party-line vote is expected.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 11:35PM
As expected, it's a Tory government in Canada (no majority, though -- also as expected).
Georgia vs. Russia in Winter
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 9:56PM
Best source on Russian foreign policy speaks dismissively of the charge by Saakashvili of Georgia that Russia was behind the simultaneous explosions on three gas pipelines and one electric line over the weekend that pushed Tblisi and much of the U.S.-mission-critical state of Georgia into dark cold.
Puzzle is what caused the so-called explosions?
Consider accident. Russia's infrastructure is pasted together, and pipelines blowing up in a violent cold snap is Soviet-age believable. Then again, the gas lines are Gazprom's, who did the coordinated turn down of gas a few weeks back through Ukraine into Europe (unless it was Gazprom thugs stealing in Ukraine); so perhaps it was just a Gazprom failure.
Consider terror. The natural gas lines into Georgia pass through North Ossetia, which is the neighborhood of the Chechen attack dogs.
Russia, ignoring Saakashvili's antics, asserts the strike was those rascally mass murdering Chechens who hit the lines. True or not, this is a significant assertion, because Russia is at the same time telling the oil-hungry West that massive, expensive, Russian-led security is needed to guard pipelines in the Caucuses. Russia is not thinking just of Gazprom lines. The biggest pipeline in the area is the South Caucasus Pipeline that is coming on line in summer 2006 to connect the Caspian Sea and the Azerbaijan fields to Turkey and the Black Sea. The Baku-Tblisi-Turkey line will be a major energy source for Europe. The South Caucasus Pipeline security becomes European security.
And only Russia can guarantee the Caucasus -- if, and only if, the West keeps out of the continuing genocide in Chechnya, if, and only if, the West bends a knee to the new power at the Kremlin.
Also, what else could this convenient accident-terror incident tell the West?
Is Russia telling the West that the South Caucasus Pipeline should have been built through Russian-controlled territory? Is Russia telling the West not to toy with beggarly confused hysterical Georgia? Is Russia reminding NATO not to proceed to invite Georgia and the larger misbehaving Ukraine ?
It is inarguably deep wintertime in the Caucasus in the 21st Century. Also inarguably, the Little Father (Kremlin) is in control of the Great Game.
Bush, Hayden and Listening to Bad Guys
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 8:50PM
The Prez was at his best today giving the Landon Lecture at the Kansas State University. He was clear and not deferential to his critics. He made a point that the Dems will never understand: that for the President of the United States, protecting American citizens is Job 1.
On the NSA surveillance of suspected terrorists, he was unapologetic, insistent, and correct that the NSA surveillance of terrorists he authorized was legal and necessary. And, as he pointed out, if he were eager to break the law, why brief congressional leaders more than a dozen times?
There is so much misunderstanding about the NSA program -- and the FISA law -- that even Gen. Mike Hayden (former director of NSA and now Deputy National Intelligence Director) couldn't sort it all out. But he did make clear that the interception of phone calls and such is not "domestic" intelligence (i.e., isn't listening in to phone calls between people in the USA) and is aimed only at suspected al-Qaeda associates and contacts.
But all of this wasn't even enough to straighten out the best of the media. On Brit Hume's panel tonight, FISA was mangled again. Guys, please, read the law. If two al-Q types are in the USA, and either of them is neither a US citizen nor a permanent resident alien, FISA doesn't even come into play. It only requires warrants for surveillance of "U.S. persons." If you ain't a U.S. citizen or said permanent resident alien, NSA, FBI or anybody in the intel gathering biz can listen in without a warrant. Period.
The president's authorization and the program were legal. And it has saved lives. Now, other than all of that, what part don't the Dems understand?
Re: Stuck on Stupid
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 8:38PM
Wlady: MTP is often a parody of itself. The Carville-Matalin show is not even a headliner act any more. Adding Begala is like adding Tony Curtis to the cast of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."
Re: Stuck on Stupid
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 8:11PM
Jed, Dave: Your exchange this morning re Carville, Begala, and Meet the Press reminded me of when it's most fun to shut that program off for good -- whenever Carville and his wife are Russert's special guests. A "He Said, She Said" it's not. Russert prides himself on being top of the line, yet in resorting to that hideous pairing he turns his show to cynical and pointless garbage filler less appetizing than professional wrestling. I'd rather watch Al Jazeerah.
Blind With Rage
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 5:27PM
While patrolling the New York Times op-ed page for nonsense is usually best avoided (it's a quick path to burnout), the Gray Lady's editorial on Judge Alito deserves comment. Contempt has driven the Times to laziness -- factual and intellectual.
The first sentence gives away their irrational disdain for Alito:
If Judge Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearings lacked drama, apart from his wife's bizarrely over-covered crying jag, it is because they confirmed the obvious.
Crying jag? Admittedly, your scribes here at TAS HQ had to look that one up: it's some sort of slang for "a state or feeling of exhilaration or intoxication usually induced by liquor," or "spree." So Mrs. Alito breaking down after witnessing the cheap browbeating of her husband is akin to a drunken outburst? If Republicans had made a Democrat nominee's wife cry, she'd be getting group hugs on the Today Show. Turn the tables and the Times smears her.
The rest is mostly mindless repetition of the Democrats' charges during the hearings: unitary executive, unlimited presidential power, curbing Congress, etc. But the old "little guy" charge is made again: that Alito "has consistently shown a bias in favor of those in power over those who need the law to protect them." Everyone needs the law to protect them: men, women, corporations, consumers, whites, and blacks. John Edwards' "two Americas" are most separated in liberal circles, academia, and major journalism, like the New York Times. They offer no proof or even quantitative measure of Alito's cases. That's because their view of the law is completely outcome-based. Thankfully, Judge Alito rules on the merits of the cases, not by the color of the parties.
One last quick note: isn't amazing that at 5 p.m., after 17 hours of being posted on the New York Times website, Sen. Lincoln Chafee's name (that's one "f," not two) is still misspelled. The editorial writers and copy editors must have been preoccupied, marveling over their clever use of "crying jag."
Winner of the Worst Comment of the Day
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 1:34PM
This, from PW Daily:
The Osama Book Club?
Common Courage Press has been scrambling to keep up with demand for Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum, currently hovering around #10 on the Amazon.com bestseller list, after an endorsement by Osama Bin Laden in the audiotape he released last Thursday….
Says the author:
"This is almost as good as being an Oprah book," he told the Washington Post.
Yeah, I think I'll stick with Oprah.
Re: Kaine Conundrum
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 1:02PM
While Tim Kaine's slick, promise-breaking tax raising may be a source of concern for national Democrats, perhaps there's another reason they're scrambling. Maybe, just maybe, they've finally seen footage from his race against Jerry Kilgore and found the eyebrow. As Chad Dotson has noted and reiterated last week at RedState, Kaine's wandering eyebrow could distract viewers from the content of his Democrat response, however brilliant.
Kaine Conundrum
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 12:51PM
So the day after the Democrat Party elders announce that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine would provide the party's response to President Bush's State of the Union Address, Kaine confirms their wisdom by announcing that he was raising taxes on his citizens.
And this was his first major policy announcement since being sworn in as governor.
Now Democrats are looking for a way to dump Kaine, or at least water down his appearance. There is talk on Capitol Hill of placing him with at least one other Democrat of national stature. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who had a hand in picking Kaine, has is said by some sources to have offered his own services.
"The Kaine pick is now an embarrassment that we didn't need and could have avoided," says Democratic National Committee staffer. "We wanted to find some everyday citizens to respond directly to the President. But they went for the slick politician, and look where it got them?"
Back where Democrats appear to like it: catching up.
Reid's Rantings
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 12:46PM
Word on the Hill is that Sen. Harry Reid very much wants this ethics brouhaha to go away. Like yesterday.
While some in his caucus intend to play the Jack Abramoff scandal for it's worth, Reid feels extremely exposed due to his own political background (he is an elected official from Nevada, after all), and privately has expressed to colleagues concerns that the Democrat Party's sometimes too-close-to-be-legal financial ties to organized labor (they are big in Nevada too, don't forget), might gain greater attention.
Flaking Out
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 12:41PM
So Rep. Jeff Flake, one of the instigators of the Republican House leadership election, plans to announce his support of Rep. John Shadegg on Tuesday.
Shadegg continues to lag in numbers, but remains critical to the fortunes of all involved in the campaign to replace Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
With almost daily embarrassments trickling out about him, Rep. Roy Blunt is increasingly looking like damaged goods.
Meanwhile, Rep. John Boehner has run an efficient campaign, saying all the right things and embracing Shadegg's candidacy as though he were a fraternity rush chairman welcoming a new charge. Perhaps that's hitting a bit too close to home for Boehner, but he deserves credit for surviving this far into the race without a major shoe dropping.
Before the election began, Boehner was assuring his supporters that his was a clean record. It appears that that may be the case, unless the Washington Post and New York Times are sitting on damaging material, hoping to spring it at a more embarrassing moment.
Phoning in to the March for Life
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 12:11PM
President Bush will wish pro-life marchers well today at 12:10 p.m. via telephone from Manhattan, Kansas, where he's delivering remarks on the war on terror.
Come to think of it, this pro-life President hasn't ever attended the March for Life, which usually begins on his front lawn, the Ellipse. (This year, they're beginning on the Mall at 7th St.)
Where has Bush been during past Marches for Life? For the march just after his first inauguration, Monday, January 22, 2001, Bush sent a letter for Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) to read to the assembled. I gather from news reports that he was at the White House planning his new administration. That day, his first major policy action was to reinstitute the Mexico City policy, which bars American international aid from pro-abortion groups. Since then, he's addressed the marchers by telephone:
Monday, January 24, 2005: From Camp David.
Thursday, January 22, 2004: From Roswell, N.M., where he was speaking on the war on terror to the New Mexico Military Institute.
Wednesday, January 22, 2003: From St. Louis, Mo., where he was promoting his economic plan. In its dispatch the next day, New York Times noted the distance:
Still, the White House was trying a carefully calibrated approach on this divisive issue. While he rallied the marchers, Mr. Bush did so from St. Louis, where he was campaigning for his economic plan. At the same time, his top political adviser, Karl Rove, told reporters that the president was focusing on an agenda that fell far short of the abortion ban he -- and the movement -- support.
Tuesday, January 22, 2002: From West Virginia, where he was promoting his economic agenda.
The phone call to the March for Life isn't unique to President Bush: both his father and President Ronald Reagan only called. Usually Reagan and Bush the elder called from the Oval Office.
Ford's Turn Beneath The Guillotine
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 11:18AM
First General Motors, now this. Don't let anyone tell you they didn't see it coming. The staggering failure of the American auto industry (Ford alone lost $40 billion of market value since 2001) led me on New Year's Eve to see within the old crystal ball a fanatical, desperate merger of Ford and GM. Top executives grinning wildly, sweaty palms dripping behind besuited backs; the grisly, vengeful destruction of not just Pontiac but Buick and Mercury; the dazed, upbeat rebranding of the shrunken monstrosity as a "new tradition of greatness," an "all-American original." In the boardroom rush to be like Nissan, the courtiers of Ford and GM are in SHIFT_panic mode.
This is politics. The same union types screeching like hellions at the "idling" of their hands are hardwired into a business model that has been steadily degenerating the musculature of mass automation. That model, which was such a success in the old days, worked -- and worked only -- on one solid principle: put out a product ten times better than anything else on sale. Eliminate even the pretense of competition. Those days, of course, are over, and the fatbelly spirit of Motown is gone with it. Only by condensing into a heartless mutant form so lean and hungry-looking that it terrifies its urban/urbane, guppy (green/yuppie) rivals can Ford/GM hope to start clawing its way back from mere survival.
Season Five, Episode Five
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 11:10AM
Tonight 24 returns to its normal once-a-week, one-hour regular episode schedule (woe is us!). After four hours, 15 terrorists done away with, two girlfriends, the detection of a new mole, and Jack's return to vigilante/CTU agent status, the next hour should set the stage for the rest of the season -- trying to stop the release of a chemical weapon attack.
In case you have missed a few episodes here and there (shame on you), catch up with Paul Beston's insightful analysis of the show, from our July/August issue.
March for Life
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 10:45AM
In less than 90 minutes the annual March for Life marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade gets underway on Constitution Avenue along the Mall in Washington, D.C. Local coverage has been skimpy and rather insulting. The Washington Times's metro section item, "Life March to Shut Roads" (in Washington traffic is the one vital issue), underscores that some "19 surveillance cameras" have been set up along the route "to watch for suspicious activity during the March for Life rally and any counterdemonstrations." The idea that pro-lifers, the most pleasant and normal of protesters imaginable, would need to be monitored speaks volumes about the many warps in our culture. But at least the Times saw fit to publish the name of the march. The Washington Post couldn't bring itself to do that. Its item, headlined "Abortion Opponents to Mark Roe v. Wade," says nothing about surveillance. But neither does it use the word "life" even once. On the other hand, it does report that "abortion rights advocates" held a candle-lit vigil of their own last night outside the Supreme Court.
Re: Stuck on Stupid
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 10:17AM
Dave: You're dead bang right on all but one point. They ain't the Boys of '92. They're the Girlie Men of 1968. And they always will be.
Re: Stuck on Stupid
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 10:01AM
Jed, I was fortunate enough to miss Meet the Press. But I was flipping through books at Borders yesterday and came across the Carville/Begala screed. Those guys usually have pragmatic, quality prescriptions for the Democrats, but the book is a disappointment. It's safe to say they're drinking the Kool-Aid. The book is Democrat talking points, even getting so lazy as to recite the Valerie-Plame-was-outed-by-a-meanie-administration talking points. That pseudo-scandal isn't sticking outside the Beltway. But chances are, the Boys of '92 won't sell many copies in flyover country.
Stuck on Stupid
Posted by on 1.23.06 @ 8:38AM
For those of you fortunate enough to have missed Meet the Press yesterday, Paul Begala and James Carville were there to flack their new book on how to revive the Dems. But their prescription cannot survive their own mindset.
Carville insisted that the Dems' problem is not that they're too liberal, but that they were ineffective in getting their message out in way people can understand. Begala, of course, agreed. What these guys are wilfully ignorant of is the fact that the American people understand them all too well. Unreconstructed McGovernite liberalism don't sell, especially in time of war. You can shout it from the rooftops, but they won't believe you. Which bodes well for '08.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Pro Bono Whose Publico?
Posted by on 1.22.06 @ 7:28PM
It’s a curious phenomenon of the law. The bigger the client and the bigger the law firm, the less likely one really knows what the other is doing. Take the business of pro bono publico (for the public’s benefit) representation, or “pro bono” in legal jargon. Lawyers -- yes, even lawyers -- want to perform charitable acts. So many lawyers and many law firms donate a portion of their time every year to represent those who cannot afford representation. They still get paid because their law firms are getting paid for the rest of their work and the work of the lawyers who aren’t doing their pro bono turn.
So the law firms' other clients are picking up the tab for the pro bono work, and many take pride in what their lawyers do. But one wonders what clients would think of their lawyers doing pro bono work for terrorists?
According to a Defense Department source, a long list of some of the nation’s largest law firms -- some who represent Fortune 500 companies and some who represent 9-11 families -- are doing pro bono work for terrorist detainees held at
Allen & Overy
Baker & MacKenzie
Carleton, Fields
Bingham, McCutcheon
Blank
Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore
Burke, McPheeters, Bordner
Burns & Levinson
Cleary, Gottleib Steen
Clifford Chance
Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld
Davis, Wright, Tremaine
Debevoise & Plimpton
Dechert
Dickstein Shapiro
Dorsey & Whitney
Esdaile, Barrett & Esdaile
Foley Hoag
Fredrikson & Byron
Freedman, Boyd, Daniels
Fulbright & Jaworski
Garvey, Schubert Barer
Gibbons, Del Deo and Dolan
Holland & Hart
Hunton & Williams
Jenner & Block
Keller & Heckman
Kramer, Levin, Neftalis
Lavin, O’Neal, Ricci
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
Mayer, Brown, Rowe
McCarter & English
McDade Fogler
Moore & Van Allen
Nixon Peabody
O’Riordan
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind
Pepper
Perkins Coie
Rodgers, Powers & Schwartz
Ruprecht, Hart & Weeks
Schnader, Harrison, Segal
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt
Shearman & Sterling
Shook, Hardy Bacon
Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett
Stradley, Ronon, Stevens
Sullivan & Cromwell
Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan
Venable
Weil, Gotshal & Manges
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
Most of these law firms are -- or were, before the Graham amendment -- litigating habeas corpus cases seeking the release of Gitmo detainees. That is, they have been working for the release of enemy combatants, trying to extend to them one of the key rights Americans have under the Constitution, and which those detainees wish so fervently to deny us. I wonder how many of the clients of these firms – and among the partners of these firms -- know what their lawyers and partners are doing. And how much they are paying for it.
Pro bono publico? So who’s the publico they’re benefiting?
Barghouti wins, Israel loses
Posted by on 1.22.06 @ 4:34PM
The Palestinian parliamentary elections on Wednesday January 25, 2006, will deliver a triumph for the terror gang of Hamas, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tehran-Damascus-Cairo axis powers, and will deliver a mortal blow to the kidney-failing Fatah under insufferable Mahmud Abbas and his kleptocratic cronies.
The US State Department, backing Fatah and Abbas with cash and policy, is at the doorstep of a policy vacuum in the region. Abbas cannot and does not know how to form a coalition of Fatah and Hamas, and will be in the stupid position of denying democracy and fair election results in order to please his US-EU masters who are preaching democracy for the Ummah. Cancel democracy to suck up to democracy?? Abbas is more compromised than a rifle company raised in Hollywood.
What will follow the January 25 results, with Hamas commanding 50 or 60 seats in the 132 member PA parliament, will be farce, doggerel, shameless doubletalk as only the mumbles society at State can manage.
But is there no future for Fatah?
Fatah's future sits in an Israel max security jail in the Negev, and the future is named Marwan Barghouti. Born 1959 in Ramallah, first arrested as a Fatah hothead when he was 15, Barghouti is charismatic, gifted, multilingual, well-organized, beloved of the mob and the PA cadres, and worshiped by the gang he helped create, the death squad Al Aqsa. Sentenced to five life terms in June 2004 for various murder plots, Barghouti uses a cell phone and open communications routes to his team in the West Bank, chief of which is his wife the ferocious Fadwa Barghouti.
If Barghouti's name were on the ballot on Wednesday 25, he would be elected immediately; and if his name is on the ballot next year in the presidential election, he will sweep the West Bank with Arafat numbers. Barghouti is the one home-grown Palestinian nationalist -- he speaks Hebrew -- who can match and defeat Hamas at the polls.
The Israeli leadership knows Barghouti is the way out of turning over Gaza and the West Bank to Hamas and its like-minded foreign run pals, Islamic Jihad, HizbAllah, Al Q, but the Israeli leadership is too fractured to release Barghouti and let him work his magic. Olmert in particular is said to want to let Barghouti out of jail; yet Olmert is weak, and his non response to Hamas's victory on Wednesday 25 will make Olmert look as graceful a loser as the State Department.
Barghouti is the key, and when the key is finally used on his jail cell, it will be very late in the game; more, Barghouti could well be the future prime minister of a parliamentary dominated democracy called the United Parliaments of Palestine-Israel (UPPI).
If You Can't Beat 'Em, Pay The Opposition
Posted by on 1.22.06 @ 10:50AM
The dark humor of Batchelor's high and wild prose poetry on
Syria, below, gets one feeling like a doomed revolutionary, and the
fun of revolutions is to be had in "letting the chips fall where
they may." Overturning the status quo, as an analytical imperative,
can be eclipsed by a second-order emotional imperative upon
realizing that whether or not one wins or loses is still entirely
up for grabs. What one was willing to do to start a revolution
often falls short of what one is willing to do to win it -- kicking
over the status quo creates policy options by creating chaos, and a
certain improvisory spirit is demanded.
So after championing Palestininan democracy, America turns to USAID
to funnel $2 million into Fatah, hoping, suddenly rather
desperately, to fend off a big victory for Hamas at the polls.
"U.S. and Palestinian officials," the Washington Post
reports, "say they fear the election, scheduled for Wednesday,
will result in a large Hamas presence in the 132-seat
legislature."
The reasons for that popularity are evident. The Post says
Hamas "is at war with Israel and is classified by the U.S.
government as a terrorist organization. But its reputation for
competence and accountability in providing social services has made
it a stiff rival of the secular Fatah movement, which runs the
Palestinian Authority and has long been the largest party in the
Palestinian territories." An "And" should have been used in place
of that "But." Hamas is popular because it is at war with
Israel, and because its children are martyrs. Those more
preoccupied with building a civil society than ripping one apart do
not so stir the blood.
Read the full article at Postmodern Conservative.
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