Life In Iraq, Part III: Jesus Was a Carpenter (But Allah Is a Plumber)
"Insh-Allah"
It's the first Arabic phrase anyone learns after arriving in Iraq. It means, "God Willing," and it is used here ubiquitously. As all Westerners who work regularly with the Iraqis eventually come to understand, the common attitude is that all plans require God's intervention to succeed, and all problems that occur are the result of God's will.
We are all aware of the motivations of our terrorist enemies. Contrary to the interpretations of the Left (which seems to derive its understanding of terrorism from many sources, except the terrorists themselves, of course), Islamic terrorism is committed by those who follow the explicit commands of Allah as found in the Qu'ran. The terrorists can read, and so they understand that the Qu'ran was not written by certain men at a certain point in history under divine "inspiration," like the Bible. Rather, being a Muslim means believing that the Qu'ran is an exact transcription of the words of Allah Himself -- His speech to Mankind as communicated verbatim from the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed (a.k.a. God's "Messenger and Prophet").
As such, the Qu'ran is considered unalterable and unchangeable. There is no updating or modernizing or moderating the words of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God, after all.
And as we reflect on the deafening silence from the "vast majority" of "peaceful Muslims" we keep hearing about from the dhimmi Left, we see that while many Muslims may personally abhor the bloodshed and violence of their more devout brethren, they understand that they cannot act against Islamic terrorism themselves and still remain Muslims. To do so would be to act against the Will of God as explicitly articulated by God Himself in the Qu'ran, and would therefore be un-Islamic. And who can blame them when the penalty for blasphemy and apostasy is death?
But that's terrorism and Islamic violence -- a subject covered extensively in the West. What about the everyday lives of Middle Eastern Muslims? What role does God play in their day-to-day activities that are unrelated to killing, violence, and death? (no, really, they do occasionally engage in non-violent activities!). The answer is . . .
Name It.
As I've written before, getting things done in the Middle East is a constant challenge. Plans are useless, deception is constant, contracts are worthless, and agreements are almost futile. Yet life perseveres here, and the dysfunction seems to be explained away and tolerated by the locals somehow. Naturally, all large-scale things are blamed on "the Jews" and the "Great Satan" -- America.
But what about the small, everyday successes and failures that occur amongst the locals themselves?
Insh-Allah. The will of God is often injected into virtually every other sentence, and reliably into every conversation. Anything that requires plans for the future must acknowledge the role that God is believed to play in any such plans, no matter how much control or responsibility a person should have over the situation.
It's hard to explain the extent to which this is true, so maybe the best way is to provide some literal examples of the phenomenon based on conversations I've had with some of our intrepid friends. I've asked. . .
To a local construction engineer: "So, that's the correct steel-to-concrete ratio to hold up that second floor?" The reply, "Insh-Allah."
To a local security team guide: "So, this is the best route to take? No Ali Babbas [bandits; terrorist] there?" The reply, "Insh-Allah."
To a local supply vendor: "So, you have your trucks lined up to deliver the materials to the site tomorrow, first thing?" The reply, "Insh-Allah."
To a local cleaning lady: "So, you'll work every day except Friday, and you'll be paid $500 per month, OK?" The reply, "Insh-Allah."
To a local convenience store clerk: "Excuse me, do you have any Diet Pepsi in stock?" The reply, "Insh-Allah."
To a local plumber: "So, once you're done installing that toilet, it will flush completely and will not leak, correct?" The reply, "Insh-Allah."
Now, some might say that this is just another version of what Westerners do all the time -- try to avoid being pinned down on a commitment by using words and phrases like "hopefully" or "maybe" or "with any luck", etc. But there's a key difference: qualifying one's ability to complete a task by invoking Allah means recognizing His glory by deferring to His omnipotence. To reject God as a key player in any transaction is to disrespect Him -- not a wise move for anyone living and working in any part of Dar Al-Islam (Land of Islam).
Allah Is a Plumber (?)
It just so happens that paying respect to Allah has its advantages when discussing any event of major or minor importance. Using God as the ultimate and inexhaustible scapegoat is a great way to avoid responsibility for anything that may happen, or any failure that a person might cause through their own incompetence.
Fed up with this Insh-Allah answer when I got it from a particular plumber (see quotation above), I broke with all sense of propriety one day and remarked:
"Are you telling me that God is just a plumber, like you? Are you saying it's God's responsibility to make sure this toilet will flush? God is God, and a plumber is a plumber. You are the plumber -- if this toilet doesn't flush, you will not be paid."
Perhaps it was my unconscious Western, Christian perspectives that lead me to this pseudo "render unto Caesar" diatribe. But the expression on his face was something I will always cherish, although his attitude with me went fairly sour after that. In the end, the toilet eventually ended up working fine. Thank God for silicone sealer!
Safety First!
The ever present role of God also has a rather impressive impact on how these people perceive risk and danger. One need only witness their driving habits to see that they are all either connected by some form of ESP, or they all prefer to entrust God with their lives rather than do mundane things like look both ways at intersections, check before merging into another lane, or slow down to less than 100km per hour in residential areas loaded with kids.
On a jobsite that is supposedly regulated under the watchful nanny of American Health and Safety regulations, Iraqis are of course totally unfamiliar with things like hard hats, shoes, gloves, safety glasses, and the like. Our first non-violent fatality on a jobsite was the result of an Iraqi worker falling out of a 6-story window.
We had installed protective ropes across all the windows, but this individual needed the extra room, so he removed the rope. He soon found way more room than he bargained for, and plummeted to his death. The "corrective action" determined for us after the investigation was that we needed to implement fall protection devices that the Iraqis could not intentionally dismantle themselves.
Another phenomenon I've witnessed repeatedly is the concerted effort Iraqis seem to apply to positioning themselves under anything that might fall on top of them and kill them – suspended crane loads, for example. It seems that they often go out of their way to get under these things, even though it would be easier (never mind safer) to stand off to the side. This is attributed to a specific belief, whereby a Muslim will take an opportunity to demonstrate that he is a good Muslim and therefore does not fear the wrath God may inflict upon him. Taking stupid risks is apparently a way to show off to your friends that you are living right, like a good Muslim, and that Allah loves you.
Kids are allowed to play in the street at all hours, loaded automatic rifles are stored in the living rooms where kids live; sanitary kitchen and bathroom conditions are abysmal; etc., etc., etc. "In God We Trust" takes on a whole new meaning in the Middle East.
Revelations
Never underestimate the power of religion. The West is particularly prone to doing this, in our post-Enlightenment culture that assigns all things religious to a lower form of order, or treats religion as a disease requiring a (secular) cure.
But those we now seek to "engage" and "understand" and have a "dialogue" with do not hold these beliefs. At a visceral level that very few modern Westerners can even imagine, the Middle Eastern Muslim sees the hand of God in all events -- large, small, past, present, and future. God not only bestows His blessings on Islam by rewarding His warriors with the successful and historic destruction of American landmarks, he also rewards his common Muslim lambs with the ability to make each and every toilet flush -- or not.
Not all people here share this viewpoint. Some of the locals we deal with -- those with responsibilities to get a lot done and make things happen -- are often as frustrated with the God-scapegoat mindset they constantly hear from their subordinates and others. But they are equally powerless to change this mentality, and realize that the mystical perspective of an entire civilization is not going to shift instantly just because there is an immediate material imperative. (Are we listening here, my idealistic and PC-contaminated friends?)
Like all things Islamic, the mystical, material, political, and personal are all inseparably driven by the same thing: Allah. And He has said that, one day, the entire world will abide by and share this understanding (or at least submit to it).
Murtha Celebrates Memorial Day by Bashing the Troops
Yesterday, antiwar Democrat John Murtha (who served in Vietnam) teamed up with far-Left Democrat Jim McDermott to bash U.S. troops and the war in Iraq.
Appearing on Seattle's KIRO, both Murtha (who served in Vietnam) and McDermott used their airtime to further undermine the War on Islamist Terror.
"Murtha had absolutely nothing to say about the benefits of toppling Saddam and nothing about the formation of an elected, representative government. He contended that Saddam had no WMDs, that 'Abu Ghraib was the biggest disgrace we've ever faced in the military', that 'we're recruiting terrorists', and that 'it's a civil war.' At one point he even compared American power to empire, saying that staying the course is "just like England want[ing] to hold on to India." MORE
The Democratic Party supports the troops so strongly, that two of its most prominent members cannot restrain themselves--even on Memorial Day--from bashing them and the war they're fighting.
The AP is reporting that 75 Guantanamo Bay detainees are on hunger strike.
Nothing new here -- just a collection of hyper-religious thugs, who wish us all death, extracting their latest dose of LeftMedia attention and sympathy.
My message to the strikers: Please don't eat, ever again.
"I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut...." --unidentified Reuters employee to blogger Charles Johnson
YNET News is reporting on a disturbing email issued from a Reuters employee to Charles Johnson, publisher of the Little Green Footballs (LGF) website. LGF is a popular right-wing website that takes a strong anti-Islamist position.
YNET News journalist Yaakiv Lappin fills us in:
"A Reuters employee has been suspended after sending a death threat to an American blogger.
The message, sent from a Reuters internet account, read: "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut."
It was sent to Charles Johnson, owner of the Little Green Footballs (LGF) weblog, a popular site which often backs Israel and highlights jihadist terrorist activities.
In the threat, the Reuters staff member, who has not been named, left his email address as "zionistpig" at hotmail.com.
Reporting the message to his readers, Johnson wrote on his website: 'This particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News.'"
Johnson has assembled a timeline of events, both preceding and following the threat.
An extremist Muslim, Inayat Bunglawala, who once called Osama Bin Laden a "freedom fighter," may also be involved with the threat to Johnson.
Speaking of those exceedingly rare "extremist Muslims," readers will be comforted to know that followers of the Religion of Peace have committed over 5000 "peaceful" acts since 9/11/2001.
Thanks to Rocco DiPippo for inviting me to contribute to The Autonomist. He has a great staff and I am pleased to be a part of it. My first post addresses the emergence of Hamas's newfound political power.
Before I begin I would like to take a moment to honor our soldiers who put their personal safety on the line for their country. I would also like to extend my thoughts to the "Little Eichmanns" -- civilians that are the preferred targets of our enemies as if they were front line soldiers. This Memorial Day you are also not forgotten.
Palestinian Traditions
Wherever they go, violence follows Palestinian militants. From Jordan to Lebanon they have expanded their bitter conflict with Israel to wage aggressive warfare against even their own supporters. Muslims, Christians (and of course) Jews have all suffered from their destructive schemes.
The recent election victory of Hamas has given it an official voice in Palestinian politics. But it is not easy to make the transition to the non-violent democratic political process when one's ideology is based on hatred and intimidation. Violence is the primary tactic that Hamas has used against Israel, so no one should be surprised that it is now relying on violence against its own countrymen to consolidate its political power.
Over the years the Palestinian conflict has become the template for Islamist military tactics. That conflict is based on an ideology of violence that targets enemy civilians, destroys the quality of life for its own civilian populations and then uses Orwellian propaganda to profit from the suffering it causes.
Now Hamas and Fatah are on the brink of total war.
To press his advantage, Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas issued a shrewd ultimatum to Hamas. He threatened to call a national referendum accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel if Hamas does not agree to the idea within 10 days. Hamas has been under pressure from many quarters. The US, Canada, the EU and Israel have cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority. Their objective is to force Hamas to renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing interim peace deals. Despite this pressure, Hamas has rejected the ultimatum by Abbas, putting the two parties on a collision course toward civil war.
A naive member of the International Solidarity Movement may look at these events with bewilderment, but this is nothing new. Amid last week's deadly gun fights between Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian intelligence Chief Tareq Abu Rajab (an ally of Abbas) was wounded in a bombing that killed one of his bodyguards. This is the second time in recent years that an attempt has been made on Rajab's life.
In August of 2004 Rajab was shot in an attack on his convoy. That attack resulted in the death of two of his bodyguards. It is ironic that he received medical care for both attacks in an Israeli hospital. Rajab's condition is currently listed as stable and once again he will be nursed back to health by the "evil apartheid" Israelis. (How's that for double-barreled irony?)
Heavy fighting between the two groups also resulted in the death of Khaled Radaida, an aide to the Jordanian ambassador. He is believed to have been accidentally killed in the crossfire. Over the past week ten people have been killed in the violence and Hamas was forced to withdraw its militia from the streets.
All of this is nothing more than Palestinian business-as-usual.
The Palestinians are addicted to violence. There is little evidence that they can live peacefully with each other, let alone with the Israelis. Even when peaceful solutions are presented to them, they still react with violence.
Here's a classic example: Last year former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon peacefully evacuated the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians then moved into the abandoned settlements. Before the evacuation, the Jewish settlers had a thriving greenhouse industry in Gaza and great pains were made to preserve them for the Palestinians.
But after the Palestinian takeover, a campaign of sabotage and theft was launched by Palestinian families and the local gangs who claim ownership of the land that these greenhouses are on.
The Palestinian Company for Economic Development, which now owns the greenhouses, has found itself under constant siege. Fighting has broken out between the police guarding the greenhouses and the armed gunmen seeking to seize the properties from them. Hundreds of greenhouses have been destroyed in the senseless fighting.
Controversy over the Democratic Process in Palestine
Last October, when speaking to the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush said, "The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. This is a difficult and long-term project, yet there's no alternative to it. Our future and the future of that region are linked."
Lately I have been visiting pro-Intifada websites for insights into how they view the Palestinian political process. A particularly instructive site is Electronic Intifada. Double-think and outrageous propaganda are their tools of the trade and I find their enlightened extremism to be thoroughly amusing.
In an article entitled, "The Hamas Victory, Green Dawn, Red Dusk?", writer Toufic Haddad states, "Hamas' victory also flies in the face of the Bush doctrine's efforts to bring 'democracy to the Middle East', as though this was to be equated with bringing to power moderate, pro-American regimes. Indeed the contrary has taken place, and it is this model which now shall be held up for movements across the region, eager to push for democracy in their respective countries." The difficulty that Hamas is having and the surprising unity of the Western world against them is revealing quite a different picture than what Haddad dreams of.
A real gem of a quote comes from the co-founder of Electronic Intifada, Laurie King-Irani, who said, ". . . the Bush Administration and the European Union must not withhold aid from the Palestinians. The more impoverished and desperate they become, the more they will be thrown into extremists' hands." This is a common trait of moonbats of all stripes. They are fanatically opposed to the US and President Bush and yet continually offer their "advice" on how our country and our President could help themselves. So in this case we have the supporter of a terrorist insurgency giving out advice on how the Western world can prevent extremism in Palestine. (Gee, thanks!) Perhaps Osama bin Laden has some good ideas on how we can discourage extremism in Afghanistan?
While Hamas is incompetent in the face of Israel's vastly superior military, the cunning of its leaders cannot be underestimated. After all, they have been quite successful in fostering the goodwill of Western pacifists and leftwing intellectuals while simultaneously conducting a brutal terrorist campaign against the Israeli Democracy.
The Hamas terror-meisters will come out of this current crisis declaring victory--no matter the outcome. But realistically, they will be forced to back down from their militancy and secretly swallow defeat.
Where is the rain? On such a day as this, the skies should weep For those who fell, their futures cast aside; Who left their wives to widowhood, bequeathed Their sons No legacy but pride.
On May 22, an audiotape purportedly made by Osama Bin Laden was released. Addressing "the American people," Bin Laden made the ridiculous claim that convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui had nothing to do with 911. He also claimed that the terrorists being held in "Club Gitmo," "have no connection whatsoever to the events of September 11th."
Since Gitmo detainees are part of the same movement that brought Islamist terror to our shores, their connection to 9/11 is undeniable. Blatant lies have always been part and parcel of Al Qaeda's propaganda campaign, and nothing any of its members say can be taken at face value.
Conventional wisdom says that this most recent Bin Laden tape contained no threats. This view is being reported by both major and minor news outlets. But as usual, Conventional wisdom cannot be accepted without question. Reading the transcript of the short message shows that a threat was indeed made, and made quite obviously. It is a threat that has been made in past Bin Laden tapes. (The entire transcript of the latest tape can be found here.)
Most of the tape is a cheeky attempt to convince listeners that the Bush administration is a criminal regime led by a serial liar. Bin Laden knows that many Western leftwingers feel this way, and he's trying to appeal to their sensibilities by casting Moussaoui as just another of Bush's "victims." Bin Laden possesses an animal cunning, because this same claim is made on a daily basis by the Old Media here in America-- he's playing to them.
The end of the tape's transcript reads: "It is necessary to create justifications for the massive spending of hundreds of billions on the Defense Department and other agencies in their war against the Mujahideen. My mentioning of these facts isn't out of hope that Bush and his party will treat our brothers fairly in their cases, because that is something no rational person expects, but rather it is meant to expose the oppression, injustice and arbitrariness of your administration in using force and the reactions that result from that. This is from one perspective, and from another perspective, perhaps there will one day come from the Americans someone who desires justice and fairness, and that is the path to security and safety, if you are interested in it. [Emphasis added.]
Terrorese" translation: "If America ends the War on Terror and elects a dhimmi for President, Al Qaeda will end its terrorist attacks against America. Do as we say or we will kill you." This is a threat, pure and simple. It's also a bald faced lie, since all terrorist groups claim that their unprovoked attacks are in response to an imagined slight, and every capitulation to their irrational demands results in more terrorist attacks.
As Black Jack Pershing said nearly a century ago, "every concession made to these people is a mistake."
Electing a dhimmi like Hillary Clinton would be a grave error and, in this time of war, the biggest concession ever made to Islamofascism. It would signal weakness.
We have two more years to make sure that doesn't happen.
I am a story teller. I came here to write about this place, but that is suddenly not what I am doing.
I cried here at your wall today, but I don't know a single person on it. Every time I see a name that reminds me of one I know, I twitch. I do know people who were there. I do know how easily things could be reversed. And I don't know what I'd do without these people. So, I guess I need to thank you for them.
I am only 21. I do not remember the war when it was happening. I did not learn about it in school. To see these men and women with their shirts and flags shakes me. Seeing the things people have left here shakes me. A picture of Jimi Hendrix, a bottle of Seagrams 7, a pack of cigarettes have reduced me to tears.
I wonder if you watch us, if you see this. If you'd like to say thank you for these gifts. I wonder if we mourn for you or for ourselves.
I came here recently before dawn, and it was empty. The wind was knocking over your flowers, and squirrels were playing on top of your black ledge. I stood at the apex of a wall, I guess at the apex of a war; and it started to pour. I just stood there.
I live near here so I visit often now. Thank you for giving me something to understand...or to try to; these days, there is very little I understand. I can give you nothing but these words.
But I promise I'll bring my kids here one day, make them remember, make it somehow more than just another story.
"Thank God for people like you who speak the truth about our troops. As a former Marine I remember all too well the reception I got from the civilian population. It is a self fulfilling prophecy to constantly talk about defeat. Those who do so have no idea what the defeat they wish for would mean for them personally. Perhaps after one or more of our cities have been turned into a glass ashtray they will learn the reality of war. Semper Fi & Molon Labe."
"This article is as right on and truthful as I have ever seen. I know this because I'm a Disabled American Cavalry Veteran. I served my country during wartime, spent almost all of my money, came out almost broke, and it was all my doing. I spent some time on the street and lived in the Salvation Army in the San Francisco "Tenderloin District." It was tough. The VA helped me right back out of it. I did PTSD counseling and intense workshops, as well as the Vocational Rehabilitation Program for disabled veterans. They sent me to flight school at the best school in the world. They paid for all of it. I also trained in computer science as a sideline. When my disability became too pronounced to work as a pilot, I turned to web design. Thanks to the VA I make it just fine. Thank God for the 100% disability pension I receive.It's a shame that the Liberal Left -- just to oppose Bush and anything he does -- blindly includes veterans and active duty soldiers in their seething hatred for anything patriotic and American. These people aren't Americans. They're saboteurs of our Republic. . . ."
"The tough part is dodging bullets. The tougher part is coming home. Even tougher than that is coming home to seething, hateful, anti-American, wanna-be communist, Liberals who only are allowed to live because soldiers fight for their freedom. They just don't get it. They owe these boys...bigtime! Remember those stories of people spitting on Vietnam Veterans? Those were the Liberals. They haven't stopped. After running off to avoid the draft, they returned to defame our boys in uniform.[Emphasis added]
I'd never thought of it that way. Lance is right. People who literally spit on veterans returning from Vietnam are now using their positions in government and in the media to do the same thing. Only this time they're using words, instead of spit, to foul the troops.
I was discussing this with my friend Maria last night. She made an interesting point. Regarding the handful of people who protested Condoleeza Rice's recent visit to Boston College she asked, "what color was the hair of the few people that turned their backs on Rice as she spoke? Who were they?"
Their hair color was predominately grey and, overwhelmingly, they weren't Boston College students, they were Boston College professors. Most of the students cheered Dr. Rice.
When viewed in the context of the fact that the current antiwar movement is on the skids, this makes sense. The people keeping the hate-America, hate-the-military movement alive are mostly disillusioned 1960s throwbacks and their weak, pampered, privileged children, whose heads they've filled with garbage. These aging, failed "revolutionaries" are trying to somehow revive and relive their pasts.
They're like a man who feels shortchanged by life, and still pines for the days when he was the star of the high school football team, and speaks about those days at every opportunity -- and has little else to say.
Thankfully, most of the current generation rejects the twisted views of these anachronists, or they remain politically neutral, or aren't interested in politics at all.
Bashing America's Military: Reuters on Vanessa Gamboa
I cannot remember the last time I read a newspaper story about an Iraq War hero, nor can I recall seeing modern American soldiers portrayed heroically in film or on television. But there is no shortage of U.S. soldiers being described as evil or as weak, incompetent, pathetic pawns -- in all three mediums.
Though most of today's media is quick to fawn over anti-military frauds like Jimmy Massey and Cindy Sheehan, it almost never mentions, no less praises, righteous men like Marine Sergeant Rafael Peralta and Medal of Honor winner Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, whose heroic deeds are worthy of high-profile, honest depiction in print and on screen.
The press gives little notice to combat veterans who speak positively of their military experiences, or how those experiences helped them attain successful careers or perform extraordinary deeds in their civilian lives.
Instead, it and Hollywood endlessly pummel us with tales of U.S. soldiers going hungry, or lacking body armor or killing civilians in the heat of battle, or killing civilians for fun, or committing torture, or ending up on Skid Row; bitter and broken.
Such stories of our fighting men and women have become as common as leftwing journalists.
Witness a recent Reuters article -- one so disingenuous, so dishonest and so full of deceptions that it reeks of the anti-military bias that permeates the Old Media, through and through. And in a classic case of the leftwing choir preaching to its self, the piece is now being trumpeted by far-Left blogs and websites as "proof" of the U.S. Military's incompetence, callousness and overall wretchedness.
Written by Daniel Trotta, and titled, "Some Iraq war vets go homeless after return to US," the piece profiles Vanessa Gamboa, an Army veteran who returned from Iraq facing a rocky transition back to civilian life.
While in Iraq, Gamboa worked in logistics, but nevertheless had a single, brief combat experience during which no one was injured. Reuters uses Gamboa's brush with violence to insinuate that our soldiers are poorly trained incompetents--used up by the military and then discarded. The article begins on that note:
"The nightmare of Iraq was bad enough for Vanessa Gamboa. Unprepared for combat beyond her basic training, the supply specialist soon found herself in a firefight, commanding a handful of clerks.
'They promoted me to sergeant. I knew my job but I didn't know anything about combat. So I'm responsible for all these people and I don't know what to tell them but to duck,' Gamboa said.
The battle, on a supply delivery run, ended without casualties, and it did little to steel Gamboa for what awaited her back home in Brooklyn.
When the single mother was discharged in April, after her second tour in Iraq, she was 24 and had little money and no place to live. She slept in her son's day-care center.'
Gamboa is part of a small but growing trend among U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- homelessness."
Sergeant Gamboa left the U.S. Army nearly broke?
The U.S. military covers its active duty soldiers' room and board. In addition, it also pays its members a salary, based on rank. A buck private is paid approximately $1100 per month. A sergeant like Vanessa Gamboa makes nearly double that amount, before bonuses for combat, sea or hazardous duty. And since the military covers the cost of food, rent, clothes and utilities (in addition to providing comprehensive medical and dental care for its active duty members), it's theoretically possible for active duty personnel to bank nearly their entire pay.
Realistically though, many soldiers are young and enjoy a night out on the town, or treat themselves to a nice stereo or a fast car or motorcycle or an off-base dinner from time to time, so they'll spend at least some of their pay on frivolities. Nevertheless, it is easy to save money while on active duty -- if one is disciplined and responsible enough to do so.
Let's do a little math: Say that over the life of her (likely) four year enlistment, as she climbed in rank, Vanessa Gamboa averaged (conservatively) $1400 per month in base pay. (After the bills are paid and neccessities purchased, how many of us have $1400 to spend every month?) If Gamboa completed her 48 month-long enlistment, she grossed around $67,200 for an approximate after-tax take-home pay of $47,000. Let's say she was careful with her money, but not compulsively frugal with it, spending 25 per cent of her pay during her enlistment period.
In the above scenario, Sergeant Gamboa is discharged from the Army with a modest nest egg of approximately $35,280 (not counting her educational and other benefits.) But based on the weepy Reuters tale, Gamboa was discharged with nearly empty pockets.
Contrary to what Reuters implies, the homelessness greeting Vanessa Gamboa in Brooklyn was not the Army's fault, but a predictable, logical result of her failing to properly manage her finances. She bears direct responsibility for her predicament -- and the U.S. Army does not. In addition, Gamboa made the decision to have a child -- without having a husband.
"Military recruiters target poor neighborhoods like Gamboa's Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Young adults with few job skills join the Army. When they get out, many have fallen behind their contemporaries, experts say."
(Who are the "experts" that Reuters based its claims on?) Perhaps these.
No matter -- the vast majority of veterans go on to lead productive, prosperous lives. To most ex- soldiers, the experience of having served their country has had a tangible, positive effect on them.
This fact is anathema to Old Media outlets like Reuters. They, like their leftist counter-recruitment cousins, are only interested in pushing a narrative that the military preys on the poor, that time spent in the service leads to poverty and personal failure, that serving one's country is a poor career choice, that military recruiters are racists and liars and that, by and large, the U.S. Military is nothing but a tool of the rich -- one used by them to further their evil- capitalist goals.
The Reuters article discusses homeless veterans. It states that there are currently 200,000 homeless veterans, mostly from the Vietnam era, living in the U.S. Most of those people are homeless due to alcoholism or mental illness. And though there is a broad support network to address their needs, one fact not mentioned by Reuters is central to understanding homelessness: No one in America can be forced, against their will, to attend counseling, or to live in a shelter or be forced into detox or be made to receive psychiatric help unless they harm someone other than themselves or have demonstrated the potential to do so. And that, not lack of funding, is the main reason that homeless people, veterans and non-veterans alike, remain on the street.
Unless that Catch-22 is successfully addressed, no amount of money thrown at the problem of homelessness will fix it. And if laws are passed making it mandatory for all homeless people to get help for their addictions and psychiatric illnesses, so-called "civil liberties" groups will cry "persecution," "discrimination" and a host of "isms." Soon afterwards, obstructive law suits will commence.
Based on the tone of the Reuters article on Vanessa Gamboa, one would conclude that homelessness among Iraq War II veterans is a widespread problem; an earmark of today's military service. But it's not. Even Reuters admits that, "On any given night the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) helps 200 to 250 of them, and more go uncounted." That's around 200-250 people, out of the many thousands who have so far served in Iraq and have reentered civilian life.
Homeless veterans have served their country, and their problems, (if service related), should be efficiently addressed by the Armed Forces. Our government must make good on that which it promises its soldiers -- (all of which is clearly spelled out in every enlistment contact) -- but it should never be required to serve as a welfare agency for people, like Sergeant Vanessa Gamboa, who make poor monetary or personal decisions or who do not adequately plan for their futures.
Reuters' biggest journalistic deception is its equating Sergeant Gamboa's difficulties with those of veterans suffering from combat-related maladies. Gamboa's problems resulted from her neglecting to plan ahead, which was probably rooted in the currently wide-held expectation that Big Government will automatically pay for one's poor decisions. Unlike Sergeant Gamboa though, almost all homeless veterans suffer from alcoholism or mental illness, whether combat related, or not. Unlike Gamboa's, their problems are generally not of their own making.
Be that as it may, the profound differences in the circumstances leading to Vanessa Gamboa's homelessness and those of other homeless vets, is of no significance to Reuters, since depictions of either can equally be used to smear the U.S. military and its current mission. And smearing the U.S. military and its current mission in Iraq, is one of the things that Old Media outlets like Reuters do best.
During World War II, American soldiers were saving the West from being sucked into the Black Hole of Nazism. American troops are now fighting to save the West from the equally noxious Islamism. But unlike today, the Greatest Generation's acts of bravery and sacrifice were trumpeted by the press and immortalized in film.
More than 418,000 American soldiers died in that long, terrible war, but the overwhelming majority of those who returned got on with their lives and drove one of the most remarkable periods of prosperity and social vibrancy in America's history.
Our soldiers in Iraq and in Afghanistan are their equals. They are cut from the same cloth, raised in the same cradle of Liberty as American warriors past. They are smart, competent, well-equipped, well treated and, by and large, well led. But you'd never know that if you relied on Reuters, or the rest of the Old Media, for your news.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome, American Thinker readers, and a heartfelt thanks to its staff for the link.
Osama Bin Laden Tape On Moussaoui Linked To Bush - Olmert Press Conference
An audiotape of someone claiming to be Osama Bin Laden has recently begun circulating on the internet. On it, a voice says that neither Zacarias Moussaoui nor the terrorists being detained in Guantanamo Bay Cuba had anything to do with the 911 terrorist attacks. Even more unbelievable was the claim that many of the "Club Gitmo" residents were opposed to Al Qaeda's war against America. Only the moobats in the leftist blogosphere are likely to take these preposterous claims seriously. Who else would be stupid enough to believe a serial liar like Bin Laden's obvious attempt to absolve Al Qaeda terrorists of wrong-doing? Who else indeed.
The MsM are already pushing Bin Laden's word as Gospel, without bothering to wait for the tape to be authenticated. Leading the pack with the breaking news, the ever tendentious Associated Press is attempting to convince its readers that the voice is telling the truth, and Moussaoui is indeed innocent. Whether or not the anti-war editorial staff at the AP actually believe this is unknown, but it never misses a chance to smear the war effort against Islamofascism.
The author of the AP article is Maaman Youssef. His story is being carried by news agencies around the world, so he's obviously not the only one who wants the public to swallow his whoppers. Unsurprisingly, his thinly disguised opinion piece is being presented as a hard news story, complete with quotes by "anonymous counter terrorism officials in Washington" to vouch for the tape's authenticity and Moussaoui's lawyer to support the voice's wild claims. The alleged voice of Bin Laden is also presented as being authentic.
The tape, which may indeed have been made by Bin Laden, is being portrayed as a response to Moussaoui's guilty verdict. This is unlikely, because the tape was not timed to coincide with the verdict or even the sentencing; it was released on the same day President Bush had a meeting and press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Bin Laden knew that Bush and Olmert were scheduled to discuss the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons program and the Arab Israeli conflict. Both of these issues are integral to his propaganda campaign against the civilized world. They are integral to the entire Islamofascist movement.
If the tape is authenticated, it will be only the the third tape released by bin Laden this year. His last verified tape aired on Arab television in March. In it, he harangued the United States and Europe for cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority, which is now led by the terrorist group Hamas. He both of them of leading a "Zionist" war on Islam, and urged Muslims to murder "infidels" wherever they are found.
The last bit is part of Bin Laden's standard repertory. The AP piece doesn't deign to mention whether or not this catch-phrase was used in his most recent tape. That tape seems to be designed to sabotage the joint American Israeli press conference by insinuating that America is being manipulated by Israel, and that they're both criminal regimes engaged in a war of extermination against all of Islam. There are plenty of envious weaklings abroad and treasonous leftists within America and Israel who are ready and willing to believe this calculated drivel.
The press conference was an Islamofascist's nightmare, although few civilized realists will be satisfied with the steps taken. Both nation's leaders foolishly reiterated their desire to see a "democratic Palestinian" terrorist state side by side with Israel. They also endorsed the continued pursuit of the failed "Road-map to Peace."
Referring to the so called "Road-map," Olmert stated: "Despite our sincere desire for negotiations, we cannot wait indefinitely for the Palestinians to change. We cannot be held hostage by a terrorist entity which refuses to change or to promote dialogue. If we come to the conclusion that no progress is possible, we will be compelled to try a different route," he added. [Emphasis added.] Olmert made that point twice during the thirty minute conference.
Bush said that the PA must reign in Hamas, end all terrorist attacks, honor Israel's right to exist and honor all previous agreements with Israel, something which they have steadfastly refused to do. He drove home the necessity of the PA to recognize Israel's right to exist, saying, "No country can be expected to make peace with those who deny its right to exist and who use terror to attack its population."
About Iran's pursuit of a Muslim bomb, Bush said that a diplomatic solution may not be possible because he's "not sure they really do want a solution." More importantly, he addressed Iran's promise to use nuclear weapons against Israel by stating, "I told the prime minister what I've stated publicly before: Israel is a close friend and ally of the United States. And in the event of any attack on Israel, the United States will come to Israel's aid. The United States is strongly committed, and I am strongly committed, to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state." [Emphasis added.]
Bush's commitment to aid Israel is so important and attention grabbing that many people will miss an equally important aspect of his pledge. Namely, his recognition of the Israeli right to a Jewish homeland. This is an important distinction -- one that needs to be duly noted by the world.
The conference was marred by The President's endorsement of the Prime Minister's policy of ethnically cleansing the West Bank of Jews--so long as "major population centers" are spared. This is exactly what Olmert has vowed to do, so the President's exception is misleading. A running commentary on this ethnic cleansing program can be found at the Mad Zionist blog.
Both leaders insisted that they care about the "Palestinian" people, and described the hopelessly corrupt PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas as "genuine and sincere." He is a genuine and sincere terrorist, but they neglected to draw that distinction. Judging by the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the tens of millions of dollars they want to bestow on the PA, their concern is genuine. It's also extremely misplaced.
On related issues, The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly yesterday to ban U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and against any diplomatic contact with Hamas. Visas have been denied to members of the PA. The chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said it would let Hamas know that America does not support a government run by terrorists. This decision was no doubt meant to head off the plan by the White House to inadvertently fund Hamas with "humanitarian" donations.
The Senate is considering a bill that would authorize the transferal of American tax dollars to the terrorists in the PA. The Bush administration has cut off largess to the PA because of its control by Hamas, but White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said Bush does not support the House measure "precisely because it does tie the president's hands" in regard to providing aid meant for humanitarian purposes and "unnecessarily constrains" the administration. He added that the president is hoping a deal between the House and Senate will allow for the transfer of funds. Bush may not want any humanitarian aid to end up in the hands of the Hamas led PA, but that's exactly where it will go if the Senate manages to water down the House proposal.
Osama Bin Laden only releases his messages when he wants to influence policies and events that can harm the cause of Al Qaeda specifically and Islamo-fascist terrorism in general. He does not release them after the fact. In all probability, his most recent (if authentic) message was meant to poison yesterday's press conference and President Bush's commitment to defend Israel. The notion that it was simply his effort to overturn Moussaoui's conviction stretches credulity to the limit.
So "thieves stole" the personal records of over 26 million American veterans? Was this before or after the government planned to "steal" veterans' benefits? According to Jack Cunningham, famous internet Vet, Congress was to vote May 19 to cut back veterans' benefits--affecting even the disabled veterans. A virtually secret Congressional committee of 13 was exposed on p.3 of Disabled American Veterans national magazine. Some of the members had decided to analyze the veterans records back in March--the records of their social security benefits.
Of course, the Democrats claim to be champions of veterans benefits. They claim it is President Bush's budget cuts that are linked to the benefit reductions. But the record shows that the Republican-recommended cuts are for disabilites that are not service-related. In other words, the government wants to cut benefits for some ailment or disease that has nothing to do with the veteran's military service.
It is a most piquant issue. Veterans are accused of fraud. The Veterans Disability Benefits Commission was about to decide (May 18) whether to gather all the information about the level of Social Security Disability Insurance veterans get. But, behold, someone who works for the Veterans Affairs illegally took the records home, and then they were "stolen."
These kinds of stories turn the news-reading public into detectives, or dot connecters. We can see that something fraudulent is going on, but at this point, all we can say is that it is extremely unlikely that the records were stolen from a private home by accident, as is being currently reported.
More likely they were 'stolen' by the Veterans Affairs employee, if we can believe that story, if the person was an employee. Why do we have no name? This would be the easiest fact to ascertain. There is no police report available on the net (to my knowledge) concerning the theft. We can trust Congress, however, to commit fraud, for sure, since at this point, we are accustomed to Congress committing treason as well. We've come to expect the same from the media. Et tu, Veterans Affairs employees?
Hard case. No borders, less benefits--except to invaders. That seems to be the trend. The outcome of the veterans benefits issue is not yet decided. Now that key records are missing, perhaps the May 19th decision will be put off indefinitely.
That might be a good thing, since lately the government is rewarding tresspassing, thieving aliens, while wanting to cut aid to American veterans.
Have you heard of Morgellon's Disease? It is the rage in Los Angeles. Wonderful defacing effects accompany this 'new' skin disease. Skin lesions, crawling sensations (in the skin), fatigue, cognitive difficulties, psychological behavioral affectations, "fibers" extractable from sores, as well as black, tar-like exudations, and a host of other alarming maladies.
The local CBS 2 (KCAL) station provides an exciting report, complete with video, and research references. Note that in the video, all the patients are white, middle class. Is the CBS report careful not to associate this horrible plague with the highest demographic concentration of Mexican tresspassers? Is the CBS report careful not to associate this contagion with any hygienic problems in the third world? Is the CBS report intentionally keeping this matter one of neurosis, rather than a national crisis at the border?
Perhaps it's too early to tell. Why, the medical profession has but the fundamental description of the symptoms. The cause is unknown. The remedy is not known.
In 2004, a Canadian report cited the disease as having shown up in Austin, Texas, where there is another high concentration of Mexican tresspassers. Last year (2005), another CBS report from Florida noted that the disease has been known since the 1600's, but nothing more about it has been known. That same report says that it is spreading in Flordia, Texas, and California. That report is also careful not to mention any hispanic names.
What might one conclude from such facts inherent in the reports?
Rep. Willaim Jefferson, D-La., has been caught on video tape taking a $100,000 bribe from an FBI informant. FBI agents later found most of the money in his freezer.
Jefferson, who has yet to be formally charged with a crime, has been under investigation for bribery. Two of his associates have admitted to paying him at least $400,000 to help grease telecommunications deals they were developing in Africa.
During the meetings where he is alleged to have brokered the deal to receive the $100,000 bribe, Jefferson joked about being watched by the FBI. An Associated Press article says, "As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker's family might receive, the congressman "began laughing and said, 'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching,'" according to the [informant's] affidavit."
Jefferson has pledged not to resign from Congress.
Who is Rita Verdonk? Is she any relation to Hans Brinker? Wasn't she supposed to be holding her finger in the Dutch immigration dike? How did she get to be Minister without Portfolio for Integration and Immigration in the first place? Could she be trusted to lead the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) out of the Eurabian swamp? They sound like a bunch of weak-kneed Reds and Greens. And why does she want to kick Ayaan Hirsi Ali out of the Netherlands? Has somebody cut a deal?
Verdonk is supposed to be one tough broad. Jimmy Cagney would have loved her. The Bowery Boys would have lined up for dates. Richie Cunningham would have been all a-blush and tongue-tied in her presence. She was cracking down on militant Islamo-fascism in the Netherlands. She was on her way to becoming the Rooster Cogburn of Amsterdam -- reminded Rooster of himself. She would not meet with Muslim Imams who would not shake her hard. She proposed a ban on the burqa in specific situations. She told Muslims, "If you want to live in the Netherlands, you have to adhere to our rules."
She was Wyatt Earp laying down the law to the Clantons -- admirable. She said only Dutch should be spoken in the streets of Holland, that the government should cut employment benefits to women who wear the burqa, that it be made compulsory for prospective immigrants to view a two-hour government film about life in the Netherlands.
"Look at all the beautiful windmills, Mohammed. (And gape those boobs on the topless beeches and the gay guys kissing.) Welcome to Holland, Mohammed. It's liberal as all get-out."
They call her Iron Rita. It would be worth a thousand dollars to see her kick the crap out of Jane Fonda or Arianna Huffington -- ten thousand to see her get a headlock on Yvonne Ridley. So what went wrong? Where did the "iron" go? Why did Rita Verdonk want to toss Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the wolves? Was it for votes? Had she lost her nerve? Was it because of what happened to Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh? Or was it something simple -- something so mundane as to be embarrassing?
That's what they say. Hirsi Ali lied on her passport. That's right -- she lied her age, she fibbed her name. "I don't like lies," said Verdonk. That's easy for her to say. If everybody who lied on their passports were given the heave-ho, half of Holland's Muslim population would be on their way back to the 6th Century before the sun went down.
There are little lies, big lies, damned lies and lies of convenience.
So Hirsi Ali has been stripped of her Dutchhood and will have to remove her butt from the land supposedly Twenty Thousand Spineless Surrender Under the Zuider Zee. As Robert Spencer of JihadWatch wrote, "These despicable, black-hearted Dutch dhimmis . . . want to take the greatest statesman they have produced in this age and send her back to Somalia and certain death."
William the Silent, one of Holland's greatest heroes, was also known as William of Orange. He began the movement that led to Holland's liberation from Spanish tyranny. He was a great man and he was Orange, not Green.
Verdonk's party, the VVD, is Green -- there is nothing Orange about it. It has a reputation for spinelessness. Its members are quick to heap scorn and abuse on those who would never harm them, like the United States and Israel, and quick to cower and cringe shamelessly before those like the Islamofascists, who would.
But anything can happen in politics. An Emperor can die, plumbers can be caught plugging leaks, an entire Embassy can be taken hostage, a poll can produce the wrong results. Iron Rita has had a change of heart. She has agreed to reconsider her ruling on Hirsi Ali. Maybe it was the latest Reuters poll. Only 49 percent of the respondents supported throwing Hirsi Ali to the dogs. That's not enough to suspend a Constitution, even in the Netherlands. But it's too late for Hirsi Ali. She immediately resigned her seat in the Dutch Parliament and announced her intention to quit the country. There is really no need for an instant replay. It's over.
So Iron Rita has won. This is not how Rooster Cogburn would have done it. This sort of chicanery will not remind Rooster of himself -- it might remind him of Jimmy Carter or Slick Willie or Milburn Drysdale, but not of himself. It was shameful, disgusting and political.
Hirsi Ali has a job waiting for her in the United States with the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank. And that's the name of that tune. Liberals in the Netherlands are rejoicing, liberals in America are wincing. The big question is: Will George W. Bush welcome the new Harriet Beecher Stowe when and if she comes to America or will he pull a Gerald Ford, who avoided meeting Russian dissident and Noble Prize Winner Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn for fear of offending the Soviet Union? (Ms. Hirsi Ali is almost as unpopular in Saudi Barbaria as Salman Rushdie)
Iron Rita Verdonk, a supposedly astute politician, shot herself in the foot and has taken a monstrous hit in the polls. Rule of thumb: When a politician tosses some poor wretch to the sharks, the politician should let go before the poor wretch can drag the politician down to where the sharks are feeding, because as Adlai Stevenson said, "You're too old to cry and it hurts too much to laugh."
Bowing to public demands for realistic border control and national unity, the Senate on Thursday passed an amendment to make English the official national language. But it also passed a politically correct amendment to declare English as simply a "common and unifying language."
The first amendment was pushed in good faith by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to correct a 130 year old oversight. The Founding Fathers and succeeding generations took for granted that English was the national language, and so never passed a law to formalize it as such.
The second amendment by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., was passed as a sop to the multi-culti crowd, stripping out any requirements for immigrants to understand English, the US Constitution, American history or the need for national allegiance. It was not meant to strengthen the nation, it was meant to weaken it and was intended to make sure that a national language is no impediment to illegal immigration and all of the social problems that come with it. It remains to be seen what the final amendment will look like.
Fox News details the wrangling over the amendments:
"With the passage of the Inhofe amendment, the Senate on Thursday decided no one has a right to federal services or communications in any language other than English, though neither amendment changes laws that already require some government documents and services be provided in other languages. It also declares that any rights of a person to services or materials in languages other than English must be stated explicitly in law. In a largely symbolic vote that took hours of deliberation, the Senate approved the English as the "national language" bill with a vote (of) 63-34.
The goal of the second amendment was to soften what some perceived to be an intolerance in the Inhofe language and providing what supporters called a "diversity matters" component: It declared that English is "the common and unifying language of the United States that helps provide unity for the people of the United States." This amendment passed on a vote of 58-39.
"You can't have it both ways," said Inhofe, who wasn't in favor of the second amendment. Inhofe's attempt to declare English the national language was part of a campaign he said began more than a century ago. The Oklahoma Republican quoted President Theodore Roosevelt as having said that among other things, those living in the United States "must also learn one language and that language is English."
Democrats disputed that, and said the proposal would curtail rights established by President Clinton to extend language assistance to individuals not proficient in English. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada went further. "I really believe this amendment is racist. I think it's directed basically to people who speak Spanish."
"It's ridiculous," Inhofe replied. "I don't think people will buy into it." The Senate didn't, including 11 Democrats who joined 53 Republicans to support the proposal. Salazar advanced the alternative that declared English to be a "common and unifying language." It passed, 58-39, leaving the outcome of the symbolic debate uncertain.
While at least one major pro-guest worker group, National Council of La Raza, has come out blasting the English amendments, Snow said Friday he didn't want to respond to those concerns yet."
The conflicting figures reported by Fox notwithstanding, the English language amendment clearly passed by a 2/3 majority vote. The public supports English as the national language in far greater numbers. 90% support it according to most polls. Only extremists oppose it. A national language is neither "intolerant" nor "racist," as claimed by the unhinged Left -- it's necessary for national unity.
Indonesia has more regional languages than any other country in the world, but it has only one national language. Bahasa Indonesia is the official written language and it's spoken throughout the archipelago, regardless of a citizen's ethnic or regional language. Without this unifying force, the country would degenerate into a modern day Tower of Babel. Indonesia is a Third World country, with all the developmental problems one would expect, but the practicality of a national language is not questioned by Indonesians.
Not so in the most advanced nation the world has ever known. The organized Left promotes the identity politics of a Babel America in an effort to further divide the country. It intends to destroy the existing culture and replace it with one compatible with its warped vision. Its war of supplantation has been eating away at America like a cancer for decades. The more traditions it destroys, the more susceptible the public becomes to its unsound, Marxist social model.
The disorganized Left approves of any politically correct social engineering project proposed because it's contumacious to the core. Its promotion of a Babel America is another example of its juvenile penchant for mindlessly carping against authority. It looks at American society and sees only corruption and oppression. The overwhelmingly positive aspects of American society are discounted, or vainly attributed to leftwing eforts. These leftists naively think that if like-minded people became the ultimate Earthly authority, the world would be a kinder, gentler place.
Both groups are Utopian fantasists. Both groups condone violence and deception to attain their goals. If they were to achieve control of society, they would use even greater violence and deception to maintain it.
In his epic quest for the magic ring of Democrat power, Harry "Gollum" Reid is angrily hissing that the English language amendment is "racist." Senator Reid did not bother to make his address in Spanish, nor did he offer any explanation for his new definition of the word "racist." His emotionally charged rhetoric is intended to appeal to race-baiters, hatemongers and fools. By smearing patriotic Americans, he is pandering to the race-baiters. Reid's "racist" comment was meant to stifle open debate on immigration.
This type of smear is a standard ploy of leftists, and one the Democrats use to great advantage. Aware of public sentiment on the issue, the Senate refused to surrender to Reid's smear tactic. Facing reelection, 11 of his fearful fellow Democrats also voted in favor of the amendment, if onlyfor the sake of self preservation.
It should come as no surprise that the Hispanic supremacist group La Raza, (the race), is also outrageously claiming that declaring English as America's national language is "racist." Of course, La Raza has no problem with the establishment of Spanish as a national language.
Formerly a little known hate group that managed to avoid public scrutiny, LaRaza's racist extremism is fast becoming common knowledge. Blogs are to be credited with shining a light on these bottom feeders. Such hate groups can disguise their intentions with disingenuous names, but they can no longer hide them as effectively as they did in pre-blogosphere days. "The Race" tries disguising its vile intentions by rendering its name in Spanish. This cultural chauvinism is also meant as a contemptuous taunt to all "Anglos."
Senator "Gollum," the unhinged Left and Mestizo supremacist groups want to split America into different warring factions, each with its own language, culture and demands. But thankfully, a clear majority of Americans do not.
It is becoming a Democratic Party tradition to portray U.S. soldiers as terrorists, murderers and thieves while, paradoxically, portraying them as pathetic, bedraggled, hapless victims of Bush's lies.
Stuck in its Vietnam "glory" days, the modern Democratic Party is rooted in a near-pathological aversion to things military, and over the past forty years has put considerable effort into stripping both the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence community of their abilities to perform their missions.
Now, Representative John P. Murtha (D-PA) has taken the Democratic Party's anti-military position to a new level by accusing U.S. soldiers of being cold-blooded killers. Murtha made that allegation on last night's Hardballwith Chris Matthews.
Representative Murtha's accusation centers around an incident that occurred in the Iraqi town of Haditha earlier this year, during which U.S. soldiers, in the heat of battle, may have killed some Iraqi civilians.
What happened in Haditha is currently under investigation by the U.S. Marine Corps, which has not yet issued its findings. No soldier has been arrested in connection with what occurred there, nor have any charges been filed. Nevertheless, last night Representative Murtha singlehandedly tried and convicted the U.S. troops involved in the incident, and he did it on national television. When Murtha issued his "guilty" verdict, it no doubt spread around the world in minutes, inflaming passions throughout the Arab Muslim world and emboldening media-savvy terrorists in Iraq -- and elsewhere.
During the Hardball segment, Chris Matthews asked Murtha, "Was this My Lai? When you say cold blood Congressman, a lot of people think you're basically saying you've got some civilians sitting in a room or out in a field and they're executed on purpose..."
Even though he did not witness the incident, and in spite of the fact that an investigation of it has yet to be completed, Murtha responded in absolute terms saying, "That's exactly [Emphasis added] what happened."
On March 27, 2006, Time magazine published an article on the incident at Haditha. According to that article, a Marine patrol vehicle was hit by an IED and one soldier was killed by it. The Marines then began taking small arms fire. What happened after that remains murky, but it appears that in the heat of battle, Marines accidentally killed some Iraqi civilians.
Last night, John Murtha potentially tainted the investigation into what actually happened at Haditha, and he made it harder for those involved to get a fair hearing. He did this by alleging that there was no IED explosion, (in spite of the fact that both American and Iraqi witnesses to the incident say there was), and then implying that the Marines summarily executed 24 Iraqi civilians.
Why is John P. Murtha so quick to condemn our soldiers? Is it because, by and large, they resent him and other antiwar Democrats?
I have noticed that some commenters on this and other blogs have expressed the sentiment that, due to the Republican's perceived tepid response to illegal immigration, they won't be voting in November. Fine. If you're comfortable with the prospect of people like John Murtha directing the War on Islamist terror, go right ahead and fall victim to the Left/MsM's relentless propaganda war by staying home on election day. But as father to a son in the military, who'll soon likely be serving in Iraq, I will do what I can to prevent the Democrats from orchestrating the War.
That includes voting Republican, to stop the Party of Treason from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as it did in Vietnam.
While I'm on the subject of Code Pink, it's worth noting that one of the group's founding members, Medea Benjamin, is a shill for Cuban despot Fidel Castro.
Benjamin extols the virtues of Communist Cuba over those of the U.S. In fact, she lived in Cuba for a time, until she was deported for writing an article critical of some aspects of the Cuban government. Nevertheless, when she first took up residence there she declared that she felt "like I died and went to heaven."
Well, the reality of being a Cuban living in Cuba doesn't have much to do with feeling great. And if you speak out against the dictatorship, you have a very good chance of feeling downright awful, and of dying in one of Castro's hell-hole prisons. At the very least, you'll be harassed, harangued and probably beaten by thugs and criminals who take their marching orders directly from Castro himself. Just ask Carlos Alberto Montaner:
"When a mutual friend complained to Abel Prieto, the Cuban culture minister, about the beating administered by a mob to Martha Beatriz Roque, an infirm 60-year-old economist, he lowered his head and begged out of the question, saying that those were ''Fidel's doings.'' He was ashamed that such a cowardly act could be committed. He would have liked to prevent it, but the matter was out of his hands. All he could do was to resign from government, but he didn't have the nerve to do it.
He was right. Except for international pressure, nothing and nobody in Cuba can stop the wave of violence and abuse suffered by the democrats inside prisons and out, because it's the Comandante himself who has ordered his numerous thugs to beat, humiliate, spit upon and insult anyone who dares to criticize his government publicly.
It is not a question of isolated acts perpetrated by sadistic characters. It's a carefully thought-out plan. Inside the prisons, the guards have been instructed to kick political prisoners mercilessly and to let them die if they fall ill, as is happening to Hector Maseda, Hector Palacios, Oscar Elias Biscet and a dozen other democrats incarcerated for writing articles, lending forbidden books, asking for a referendum or distributing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Read the rest
Radical leftists like Medea Benjamin love the Castro regime, a regime that perpetrates acts of barbarism on native Cubans who question its policies. That's really all one needs to know about the intentions of people like Benjamin and the protest groups they lead.
There's not a mention of the Muslim radicals who rape, torture and murder Iraqi civilians every day in Iraq, not a mention of the terror Musab Al Zarqawi and his ilk have visited upon thousands of innocent Iraqis. That's no surprise, since Code Pink is on the side of such terrorists, as demonstrated by the $600,000 that it funneled to terrorists in Fallujah last year.
This latest act is Code Pink's overt declaration of war against the United States in Iraq. No longer is it "just" trying to subvert the overall War on Islamist Terror, it has now officially joined the Iraq insurgency.
When will the U.S. Justice Department get its act together and put an end to this nonsense?
The public backlash against illegal immigration has begun in earnest. Long simmering discontent has boiled over into rage. The catalyst for what is now an open revolt was the infamous "Day Without A Mexican" on May 1. Americans, even most Democrats, are very vocal about their desire to make every day a day without a Mexican. People are fed up, and they're making it known at all levels.
Even President Bush feels the heat. Burned by the low approval ratings his open border policies are largely responsible for, he addressed the nation last night in an obvious attempt at damage control. Now that Americans are on the offensive, our government officials are reeling in fear and surprise. They're beginning to wake up to the fact that we won't take much more of their dismissive attitude. We can and will throw them out of office if they don't address the problem of illegal immigration. This problem has replaced the war on terror as the number one concern in this country, at least for now.
The content of Bush's speech will be hotly discussed for weeks to come, but the gist of it was that he didn't propose a realistic plan for defending our borders and he doesn't want to deport the criminal invaders that are swarming all over our country. He suggested that a meager 6000 National guardsmen be dispatched to our Southern border with Mexico in order to "build fences and provide support," but he doesn't want them to aid in apprehending people crossing it illegally. He doesn't want them to aid in law enforcement at all.
Bush said he is against amnesty for illegal aliens, and then went on to propose they be given just that. He wants illegals who have "roots" in this country to be put on the waiting list for citizenship behind those who have applied legally, but he doesn't want them deported. Under his proposal, illegals who don't want to become Americans will be allowed to live and work here until they're eligible to refuse US citizenship. After they refuse citizenship they will be allowed to stay, of course.
He proposed a temporary work visa program that will produce permanent residents.
He proposed a national identity card, but didn't explain how that would force tax dodging illegals to stop working under assumed names, much less pay their income taxes. He said he wants them to pay taxes, but offered no plan that would ensure this.
He proposed punishing employers that exploit illegal aliens for labor, but under his proposal no illegal alien would be barred from working here.
Under his vague plan, Mexicans will continue to abandon Mexico and invade America, those that are already here will stay, and wages will continue to be depressed in every field they work in.
Few Americans are going to be mollified by the political pap Bush has offered in lieu of a solution. No conservative will lie down for it. His proposals would do little or nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigration, and even the modest, (some would say disingenuous), reforms he suggested will be outright rejected by the unhinged open-borders crowd.
The low point of his speech was the oft repeated canard about illegals being here to fill the jobs that Americans won't do. How often have we heard this dishonest claim? Only the terminally ignorant believe this fairy tale. The rest of us know that illegals simply do the same jobs for less money. But there's more to it than that. The dirty little secret is that Americans are doing these jobs. They're not only doing them in states with low populations of illegals, they're doing them right alongside illegals in states like California, Arizona and Texas, which have the highest illegal populations.
Every field that illegals work in is actually dominated by legal workers. Legal workers make up more than 70% of the workforce in construction, gardening, housekeeping, dish-washing and many other occupations.
Who are today's illegal immigrants?
When considering the many problems of illegal immigration, it's necessary to understand just who is coming here, what their intentions are and what the repercussions of their presence will be.
Most of the people entering America today illegally are Mexicans. It's important to remember that illegal aliens depress wages in every industry they work in. They use emergency rooms as primary care facilities. They don't file tax returns. All reliable studies show that they cost this country far more money than they pay into it. Working Americans are the ones who have to shoulder the burden of illegal immigrant tax evasion and non payment of medical bills. They are fast becoming a majority in our prison and jail populations. Their incarceration rate is already the nation's second highest. Americans pay for this, as well. The vast majority of them show no allegiance to this country and expect to live here as a separate nation. A separate nation with a separate culture and language. A culture which includes contempt for the law. They believe they have the "right" to break US law at will by entering this country illegally, while hypocritically demanding that Americans respect the laws of hopelessly corrupt Mexico. They expect us to treat identification cards issued by the criminal Mexican government as though they were work visas.
Americans are arrested if they enter Mexico illegally--and not only by the venal Mexican authorities. American authorities will arrest trespassers as well, and skipping a court date isn't an option for American citizens who want to avoid being thrown in jail. On May 1, 2006, illegals tried to strong arm America into granting them special privileges that no other group is privy to. With the help of the open immigration activists, most of whom are anti-democratic socialists, they are trying to impose their will on the majority. That is tyranny by the minority, and it is unacceptable. Many of them join secessionist groups like Aztlan and MEChA. These supremacist groups are working towards seizing the American Southwest, including California, as a racially pure homeland for "brown people."
Mexico is rich in natural resources and by all rights should be as successful as America. It isn't. It's a Third World failure with an incompetent, corrupt and diseased culture. The ruling elites foist their biggest problem off on America instead of ensuring liberty in their own backyard. Their biggest problem happens to be their downtrodden poor, who make up 90% of the population. The ruling whites of Spanish descent treat the Mestizos like garbage. In turn, the Mestizos treat the Indians like garbage. The Mexicans coming to America illegally have no desire to improve their own country. They're coming here, instead of working to make Mexico the country it should be.
Mexicans have nothing but contempt for Guatemalans and other Central Americans who enter their country illegally en route to America. Illegal immigrants crossing Mexico's Southern border are routinely robbed, beaten, raped and murdered. While not all Mexicans condone this, there is no public outcry against it. These same people have no problem calling "gringos" racists, while spitting on America's laws and borders. By and large, they hate Americans as well.
The fable of the voiceless, invisible "Hispanic" immigrant is just that: a fable. Illegals are all over the place. They're hard to miss when they insist on speaking Spanish wherever they go--including in their places of employment, where they expect their supervisors to speak Spanish. You can't call an automated phone line without having to choose between Spanish and English. Bilingual written translations are everywhere you look - in English and Spanish, of course. Immigrants from countries that don't speak Spanish are expected to understand English. Illegal aliens are as about as unobtrusive as a brick in the face. Most of them are about as respectful of American culture as that same brick.
The drawbacks of illegal immigration far outweigh any imagined benefits. Our standard of living is not improved when contractors and the service industry increase their profits with cheap labor. The price of goods and services goes up every day, regardless of lower industry labor costs. The housing value bubble in places like California, Washington, Arizona and Minnesota is going to burst sooner or later. This is going to hit homeowners hard. Arizona's housing market is already rupturing. Used homes are on the market throughout the Phoenix urban sprawl area, and their rate of purchase isn't keeping up with the sales market.
I don't mention these unflattering facts in an attempt to demonize illegal aliens. I do so to point out the problems they are causing - problems that the open-borders crowd will not address. Problems that President Bush helped create and is unwilling to solve.
America cannot sustain unlimited immigration. Latin Americans will never stop coming here. Neither will people from other parts of the world. This country will collapse into poverty and chaos if everybody who wants to come here is allowed to enter at will, even if they are somehow required to assimilate - which most Mexicans refuse to do.
A message to President Bush and the Republican party from your voting base: We do not want these people here. Illegal aliens do not want to become Americans, they want America to become Mexico. Start doing what we put you in office to do, or you're going to be sorry come election time this year.
I'd love to be one of University of Iowa English Professor Loren Glass's students. I'll bet that the politically frustrated Mr. Glass spends more than a bit of class time spattering anti-Bush, anti-U.S. bile on his students when he's not bloviating on the worthless pursuits of "Comparative Literature," "Marxist Literary Criticism," and the like. Were I one of his students, I'd listen (or pretend to listen) to Professor Glass until he painted himself into a corner, so to speak. Then I'd raise my hand, and the fireworks would ensue.
Professor Glass required his (English) students to attend a political talk given by him. What do you think the talk's topic was?
". . . And I spoke at an anti-war teach-in about the Project for a New American Century to an audience consisting almost entirely of my own students whose attendance I had required).[Emphasis added] It seemed there was nothing to do. They[the evil Bushies] had won. They had stolen our government," says Glass in a recent editorial in the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
Glass's editorial is a collection of every far-Left, Cindy Sheehanism ever spoken about the current Administration. Its underlying premise is that Bush is fundamentally a criminal, since both he and Vice President Cheney stole both the election of 2000 and the election of 2004. That is the "crime" that the radical Left, the media-Left and the Democratic Party really seek justice for, and it is what drives them to engineer the impeachment of President Bush.
Professor Glass says, "When Kerry and Edwards lost that night, two things became clear to me: Our government had been taken by coup, and the Democratic Party was completely powerless to do anything about it."
Translation: Because "my guy" lost, the election must have been stolen. I didn't know anyone who voted for BusHitlerCheney! How could he have won?
Glass reveals his lack of intellect, and lack of literary talent, by cutting and pasting, almost verbatim, the loony Left's entire laundry list of false charges, lies and exaggerations about the Bush Administration:
"1) It is now completely clear that the invasion of Iraq was planned (poorly, need I add?) long before September 11 by PNAC, key members of which -- Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz -- became major players in the Bush Administration when he "won" the election of 2000.
2) It is now completely clear that they pushed for the invasion from the day they entered the White House, manipulating and falsifying intelligence and exploiting the country's fear in the wake of Sept. 11 in order to justify it.
3) It is now completely clear that they jettisoned the State Department's plans for a post-war occupation, instead relying on their profoundly arrogant prediction that we would be greeted "like liberators" and that Iraq would quickly become a stable democratic ally in the Middle East.
4) It is now completely clear that they justified and even promoted torture as state policy in the War on Terrorism, directly leading to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib.
5) It is now completely clear that they endorsed and directed intelligence leaks, one of which exposed an undercover CIA operative and led to the criminal indictment of the Vice President's chief of staff.
6) It is now completely clear that they instituted a program of domestic spying in direct violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
These are facts: undeniable, damning, shocking facts. And they are facts which more than adequately could support articles of impeachment against both the president and the vice president."
"Undeniable, damning, shocking facts"? Right.
I have little doubt that Professor Glass is a classic politically-correct castrati, smelted in the 1990's crucible of anti-West, postmodern academia. Absolutes should be anathema to him, and moral and cultural relativism, his best friends. Nevertheless, he begins each item in his list with the absolutist statement, "It is now completely clear." The gross contradiction between his fundamental leftwing beliefs (the ones his conspiratorial beliefs are built on) and the language he uses to express those beliefs, marks him as having a lackluster intellect, at best.
Question: Since when does an English teacher require his English students to attend a "teach in" featuring his personal political views?
Answer: At any opportunity in the modern American University, where English departments nationwide have become a refuge for talentless, small people like Loren Glass, people so intellectually impotent that they feel a twinge of intellectual self-worth only when shoveling light-weight, pseudo-intellectual garbage into captive minds and when imposing their personal beliefs on the young, the idealistic and the inexperienced.
The fact that Professor Glass is compelled to engage in such action, shows him to be as intellectually drab as a Soviet-era high rise building, made with sub-standard concrete.
Glass titled his editorial,"We have to bring these guys down." He's referring to the Bush Administration.
Instead, he should be referring to "educators" like himself.
Gosh, that Bill O'Reilly is a nice fellow. He's not always the ever-interrupting, gruff, insensitive, bully some people claim. Sometimes he could pass for Larry King -- for Brian Lamb. O'Reilly recently brought Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, and Ahmed Younis of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) together for a lively debate on his Factor Follow-Up Segment: Violence in the Koran. It was suicide bombers, honor killings, stonings, fatwas, and Mad Mullahs versus the most peaceful and tolerant religion ever.
Younis said the Koran had absolutely nothing to do with violence. Sure, there were a few hotheads but they were not practicing the real Islam. Jihad was not war; it was the internal struggle all good Muslims wage to achieve perfection. Only a fool would think a true believer would blow himself up in a pizzeria because of something he had read in the Qur'an.
Bostom countered, the debate went back and forth and O'Reilly smiled benignly. He was so nice He could have been listening to his mom and dad discussing the merits of Uncle Ben's Converted Rice. O'Reilly is not always that gracious or impartial. If one of his guests had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Nation or a pedophile promoting Internet kiddie-porn he would have been testier than a fully loaded Kalashnikov with a hair-trigger and he would have spent most of the segment attacking his guests' antecedents.
Did O'Reilly miss something? Yes, he did. He forgot to mention MPAC's support of terrorism. How could that have happened? Was he mesmerized by Ahmed's personality? Had he suffered a dhimmi moment? It has happened to the best of them. It has happened to George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice.
O'Reilly should have enlightened his viewers. MPAC was created in 1989. Its cofounder, Salam al-Marayati, blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks. Another MPAC official, Maher Hathout, called the American retaliatory raid on Afghanistan after the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania "illegal, immoral, unhuman, unacceptable, stupid, and un-American." Hathout did not apply the same adjectives to the terrorists.
Nor is Ahmed Younis free of such verbal idiosyncrasies. In 2005 he told a group of Muslim college students that, "Adolf Eichmann was himself a Jew, so in fact Jews killed themselves in the Holocaust." Younis must have a fully operable hotline to Norman Finkelstein and David Irving. He's also a keen student of American history. He knows all about Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, or at least he pretends that he does. Back in July of 2002, in a fit of pique against then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, he said, "I am a person who believes that if Thomas Jefferson or Madison or the like were alive today, they would go to John Ashcroft's house and shoot him."
Obviously, Younis doesn't know any more about American history than the average Gaza Strip goatherd and understands less. If Jefferson and Madison were alive today they would send Mad Anthony Wayne to Younis' house to have a little talk with the pathetic wretch. But O'Reilly was anxious to make Younis feel good about himself, about his religion, and about O'Reilly. So he praised Morocco as the ideal 21st Century Muslim country. Why he picked Morocco only he knows. It was a Dutch-born Moroccan who murdered Theo van Gogh and the number of blue-eyed blondes raped by Moroccan immigrants to the Netherlands is a scandal only a petrified or dhimmified country would tolerate. And the treatment of dhimmis in Morocco is only marginally better than it is in other Muslim countries.
Come on, Mr. O'Reilly, let's have a little more balance, a little more truth in advertising. The only difference between David Duke and Ahmed Younis is that Duke wouldn't kill Ashcroft and would never get the time of day from Bill O'Reilly.
Mike Nifong's self-serving crusade against the Duke University lacrosse team continues to falter, yet the case of the alleged rape of a stripper/prostitute by the Duke University lacrosse team is still in the headlines.
What kind of Duke University rapes don't make national headlines? --ones committed by Black men. Below are details of a few of the rapes perpetrated on female Duke University students by Black men:
Feb 7, 2000
The Trinity Park neighborhood off East Campus is on alert following two rapes in less than a week.
Local leaders have distributed fliers and e-mails warning residents to be cautious in and around their homes, and police are actively investigating the crime.
The first rape occurred last Monday when a woman came back to her Gregson Street home and found a man inside, according to published reports.
The second happened last Thursday evening, when a woman on Green Street went to take her garbage outside and was confronted by a man who said he had a gun.
After the second rape, the Durham Police Department released the information to the community. Police are not saying whether the cases are related, but they have released only one composite drawing.
The suspect in the Gregson Street case is described as a 6'1" black man weighing 180 lbs. with short hair and possibly some facial hair. He is between 20 and 30 years old and has a medium build and dark complexion.MORE
April 10, 2000
Late Thursday evening, police arrested the man suspected in a Feb. 3 rape on Green Street, one of two that week near East Campus. 36-year-old Leroy Samuels Jr. was reportedly picked up near the intersection of Broad and Main streets, after someone alerted officers to a man matching the description of the rapist.
He was charged with first-degree rape, first-degree sexual offense, first-degree burglary and second-degree kidnapping, and was held on a $150,000 bond.
In the Feb 3. crime, a man, claiming he was armed, confronted a woman as she was taking the trash out of her Trinity Park home. On Jan. 30, a woman was raped by a man who was in her Gregson Street home when she returned home at about 2 a.m. MORE
January 14, 2002
Durham CrimeStoppers are seeking information about a rape and robbery near East Campus Jan. 10.
A woman reported that at about 8 p.m. as she walked to her car in the 400 block of North Gregson Street near Minerva Avenue, a man approached and hit her on the head several times with a mallet-like weapon.
The man--described as a 5'7" black man of slender build, wearing a blue hooded jacket with the lower half of his face covered--forced the victim to drive to Central Carolina Bank at 1516 North Gregson St., then Wachovia Bank at 2000 West Main St., then the Duke University Federal Credit Union at 1400 Morreene Rd., at which places he forced her to withdraw money. He then forced her to drive to Maxwell Street near Buchanan Boulevard and sexually assaulted her. The man told the victim to drive him to the dead end of Wilkerson Avenue, where he got out of the vehicle and fled. MORE
The astute LaShawn Barber, (who's a real sweetheart in person), has more eye-opening information and commentary on the sickening double standard applying to crimes committed by blacks against whites and vice versa.
Yesterday, while returning to Cape Cod from western Massachusetts, Senator Edward Kennedy's airplane was hit by lightning. The plane lost all electrical power and the pilot was forced to divert to Connecticut and land the plane manually.
Kennedy had been traveling in a Cessna Citation, which is a small business jet. Fascinating. I always assumed that due to his ample girth, the only aircraft capable of getting the gastronomically-challenged Kennedy airborne was the largest cargo plane on earth, the C5A Galaxy.
Kennedy was not injured in the mishap, and he lives to bloviate on and on and on.
-------------Cessna Citation-------------------- C5A Galaxy (note Kennedy-compliant nose cone)
John Murtha Predicts Iraq Pullout, Big Gains for Democrats
John Murtha, who in the midst of the Iraq war flirted with treason by publicly stating that the US could not win that war, is now predicting that the Democratic Party will pick up between 40-50 seats in Congress this fall.
Murtha is as deluded in his prediction as he is treasonous in his public posture on Iraq. Here's why: Although the LeftMedia has been successful in driving down Bush's popularity, polls don't vote on election day, people do. For the life of me, I cannot imagine moderate to rightwing voters entering the voting booth and pulling the lever for the Party led by Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi.
Though right-minded voters might be dissatisfied with Republican politicians, does anyone except the MsM actually think that Conservatives and Republicans, who take the War on Islamist Terror seriously, will vote for members of a political party best described as being wrapped in a culture of appeasement and treason?
I ask you, readers, are you actually considering voting for a political party that features leftist traitors, liars, and buffoons like Jim McDermott, John Murtha, Patrick Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and Cynthia McKinney?
While I'm on the topic of stupid, dishonest and traitorous politicians, watch the below video in which John P. Murtha and fellow Democratic Representative Jim Morgan get their comeuppance.
Escaped U.S. prisoner and Al Qaeda member Mohammed Hassan has just released a video calling for the destruction of Denmark, Norway and France.
Mr. Hassan, a long-time member of the Religion of Peace, is apparently upset about the publication of the infamous Mohammed cartoons. In a peaceful video, the combat-dressed Hassan urges his fellow Muslims to spread the type of good will, tolerance and diversity that Islam is famous for.
"Muslims avenge your prophet .... We deeply desire that the small state of Denmark, Norway and France ... are struck hard and destroyed. ...Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood," says Hassan, who's also known as Sheikh Abu Yahia al-Libi. Hassan, who was a Mensa member before converting to Islam, says he chose his catchy alias to "make it easier for people to remember who killed them ."
Chomsky Meets With Hezbollah, Calls U.S. a Terrorist State
Noam Chomsky: Ultimate Scumbag
Enemy of America and millionaire American citizen Noam Chomsky met with fellow U.S. enemy, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut today. Nasrallah heads the Hezbollah terror group. During their meeting, Chomsky called the U.S. a terrorist state.
"There is a meaning to the word terrorist, in fact you can read a definition of term terrorist is the U.S. code of laws. It gives a very clear, precise, adequate definition of the word terrorist. have been writing about terrorism for 25 years always using the official U.S. definition [of the word "terrorist"], but that definition is un-usable, and the reason is that when you use that definition it turns out, not surprisingly, that the U.S is one of the leading terrorist states, and the other states become terrorist or non-terrorist depending on how they are relating to U.S. goals."
Chomsky despises this country, yet he has taken advantage of everything it has to offer, including investing in the very corporations he consistently rails against. He has gotten rich on spreading lies and disinformation about America and, like Ramsey Clark, rarely misses an opportunity to suck up to murderous thugs like Castro, Hussein and now, Nasrallah.
In an earlier time, Noam Chomsky would have been arrested and tried for treason. Instead, thanks to the sickening '60s, he's considered by academia to be "one of America's greatest intellectuals." He has been able to infect countless minds with the sickness of anti-Americanism.
Tony Snow has begun his tenure as U.S. Press Secretary by ripping into the Mainstream Media. Snow sent emails out to some of the major LeftMedia outfits, accusing them of unfair coverage of the Bush Administration.
To the NY Times Snow said, "The New York Times continues to ignore America's economic progress."
To CBS News he said, "CBS News misleadingly reports that only 8 million seniors have signed up for Medicare prescription drug coverage, but 37 million seniors have coverage."
To USA Today, Snow pointed out that "USA Today claims 'poor, often minority' Medicare beneficiaries are not enrolling in Medicare drug coverage, but by April, more than 70 percent of eligible African Americans, more than 70 percent of eligible Hispanics, and more than 75 percent of eligible Asian Americans are enrolled or have retiree drug coverage."
Snow's aggressive approach to countering the LeftMedia's lies of omission is just what the Bush Administration needs right now. The MsM despises Bush and consistently and actively assists the Democratic Party. Years of lopsided negative and adversarial reporting on the Administration by the MsM has taken a huge toll on Bush's credibility and popularity. And the Administration's inept public relations team has done little to counter their partisan efforts.
Towards the goal of correcting that imbalance, Tony Snow's "opening move" is a step in the right direction.
Make no mistake about it, Iran's dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has his bloodstained fingers on the pulse of the Western media and the Left. His recent letter to President Bush reads like a list of leftwing talking points. Much of that letter, its religious references excepted, also reflects current Democratic Party thought on Iraq, the War on Terror and President Bush.
Ahmadinejad knows that the American press and the Left consider Bush a greater threat to the world than Islamism, and the Iranian dictator is now attempting to solidify an informal alliance with them against their common enemy, America's President. What follows are some excerpts from Ahmadinejad's poorly composed letter:
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, Feel obliged to respect human rights, Present liberalism as a civilization model, Announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs,Make "War and Terror" his slogan, And finally, Work towards the establishment of a unified international community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, But at the same time, Have countries attacked; The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the ...of a...criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze. Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women – as occupation troops – put in harms way, taken away from family and love ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide ant those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of aliments; while some are killed and their bodies handed of their families.
On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.
. . . Mr. President,
You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can theses actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness.
There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.
European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH), human rights and liberal values.
Already, Ahmadinejad's strategy is working. Once his letter became public, leftwing and MsM spokesmen lined up to hint at its legitimacy. Matt Lauer, Charlie Gibson and Brian Kilmeade of Fox News interviewed Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice about the letter. All three insinuated that Ahmadinejad's letter was a positive step towards the resolution of the crisis between Iran and the West.
LAUER: Let me talk about this letter, 18 pages, the first such correspondence between the heads of these two countries in 27 years. It called for the US to give up its liberal Democratic system. It asked President Bush, "Are you pleased with the current condition of the world? Do you think present policies can continue?" You seem to have dismissed this letter rather quickly. Why?
KILMEADE: They pen an 18-page letter. Did you get anything out of it? Do you see the fact that the first time they tried to communicate in 27 years was a positive?
GIBSON: The Iranian president sends a long letter to President Bush, which is the first direct communication we've had at the top of government with Iran in 27 years. So why dismiss it out of hand? Isn't this at least something of an overture?
Secretary Rice, in responding to Lauer's provocation said, "Well, because that's not a serious diplomatic overture to say, by the way, your liberal democratic system is cratering. It really was kind of a philosophical and indeed religious attack on US policies. There was nothing in it that suggested a way out of the nuclear stalemate."
Exactly right. Nevertheless, the MsM and the Left will now take the same basic position they took during the end of the Cold War, when they looked to Gorbachev to save the world from the wreckless, stupid Reagan.
What I find most interesting about the Left/MsM's reaction to Ahmadinejad's letter is their lack of criticism concerning its religiosity and apocalyptic references. Ahmadinejad is a certified religious nut who is demonstrably beholden to his theocratic puppet-masters. Yet the Left/MsM, always quick to paint President Bush as a religious zealot, give Ahmadinejad a pass on the matter of his religiousness.
I predict that the Administration's dismissal of his rambling, nutty letter will be used by the Left/MsM cabal as more evidence that President Bush is unreasonable, inflexible and undiplomatic. At the same time it will downplay the fact that Ahmadinejad and Iran's theocracy calls for the destruction of Israel and the conquering of and conversion of the West to radical Islam.
The government of Iran is composed of violent, intolerant, racist, sexist, homophobic, terrorist theocrats who are hated by the people they govern. Had they been Christian theocrats, they would have been mocked and dismissed, out of hand, by the Left/MsM cabal.
Here is a recent Census Bureau report featured in USATODAY.com. Observe this brilliant opening line:
"Hispanics remain the USA's fastest-growing minority group, but most of their population increase comes from births here rather than immigration, according to Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday."
So, we're supposed to be comforted that the mindless reproduction within our borders--that the rest of us have to pay the obstetricians for?
But, of course the increase comes from the migrant tresspassers! That's why half of them are here--to have that baby here. To make the distinction that more babies are being born here amongst the Mexican tresspassers than the number of new tresspassers coming in is the weakest liberal argument yet. Said in a way to placate conservatives, it's the more infuriating for its dissembling.
"The Census counts all residents and makes no distinction between those here legally and illegally." How non-discriminatory. How lofty. And how misleading. If you're here, by any means, you count, and the loving liberal government will be ineludibly affected, as will, adversely, worthy American citizens. Mexicans are being given the power to destroy law, and the meaning of being American. The American government is giving them this power.
Last year, UN Ambassador John Bolton recommended that the UN's Commission on Human Rights be scrapped. Bolton based his assessment on the fact that the commission was a farce, since notorious human rights abusers like Libya and Zimbabwe were regularly elected to serve on it.
The Bush Administration backed Bolton's recommendation and threatened to withhold funding from the UN as an incentive for it to restructure the commission. Naturally, this move was blocked by Kofi Annan, who countered that withholding funds from the UN would severely hamper its ability to achieve its mission, (whatever that is).
In the end, a new UN human rights groups, the Human Rights Council, was formed. Notorious human rights abusers Tunisia, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia have now been elected to serve on it. Cuba said that its election to the council is a "resounding victory" for its communist regime and a "defeat" for the U.S., which had tried to block its inclusion.
The official purpose of the new Human Rights Council is to examine the human rights records of its members and other countries and then make recommendations how countries can improve those records.
According to council rules, any member nation guilty of human rights abuses can be removed from the body.
So, let's get this straight: Though countries with abysmal human rights histories can be elected to the Human Rights Council, they can also be removed from it for violating human rights? Sorry, I can't wrap my mind around that paradox. Welcome to the alternative universe known as the United Nations.
The U.S. voted against the formation of the Human Rights Council, saying that its structure made it easy for human rights violators to be elected to it.
As Cuba's anti-U.S. victory statement proves, the United Nation continues serving as a soapbox for leftwing thugs, dictators and rampant human rights abusers.
There is no gloss in director Paul Greengrass's film, United 93.
No Hollywood stars. No grandiose verbiage. Not a touch of bathos and thankfully, no political proselytizing.
Filmed in cinema verite, and based tightly on fact,United 93 is a straightforward telling of the events that transpired aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.
As such, it is a visceral, terrifying film. We see the hijackers as they shave their bodies in preparation for their mission. We see the mixture of fear and glazed conviction on their faces as they recite passages from the Koran and pray. Knowing what is to come, we watch and sweat, as the hijackers take their seats aboard the plane and make final preparations to attack.
Like cobras, they strike explosively, turning a routine passenger flight into hell.
Much of the film appears to have been made with handheld cameras. The effect is to give one the sense of being amongst the passengers, but not quite: It is more like a nightmare, suspended from reality by a thread, and in that state bearing witness to something that is horrible, intensely private, beautiful and immensely tragic, both sacred and profane.
The intensity of United 93 exceeds that of any movie I've seen. When the film ended in blackness, no credits followed and the audience sat in stunned silence.
We had witnessed a raw depiction of extraordinary courage in the face of sudden, extraordinary evil.
I'm leaving tormorrow for a two-week visit to Germany through the generosity of Atlantik-Brucke. I and other journalists will meet with German officials to discuss subjects including foreign policy, anti-terrorism, and immigration. Recent tensions involving the latter subject can be found here, here, and here.
Frederick Douglass is chiefly remembered as an anti-slavery activist and orator, but he was also a journalist and founded newspapers such as The North Star. Accordingly, Douglass was a passionate advocate of free speech. As he said in "A Plea for Free Speech in Boston":
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence.
He continued:
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money...A man's right to speak does not depend upon where he was born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is the solid basis of the right—and there let it rest forever.
For acting in the tradition of Douglass, black Cuban journalist Jorge Olivera and his family have suffered severely. He wrote recently in an open letter to leaders of the United States, European Union, and Canada:
I was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in April of 2003 for practicing journalism without the supervision of official censors. Sick, they placed me in a barely lit cell infested with insects. I had to drink contaminated water and the food was regularly served in a state of putrefaction. On December 6, 2004, after 20 months and 18 days of the cruelest treatment, the penal authorities conditionally freed me for reasons of health. Now they plan to return me to jail. They will not allow me or my family to go into exile. Immigration officials deny us an exit visa, a process that reflects on the country in which we live...Since February 21, I have been prohibited to go outside the limits of Havana without court authorization, nor to participate in any celebrations or public events.
In 1886, Spain's parliament abolished slavery in Cuba. In 2006, Castro and his mostly white nomenklatura have degraded Cuba back to the imperial era. This regime might not be able to maintain electricity or sanitary health care, but it can turn back time.
Mark Krikorian of the venerable Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) sent me an interesting article yesterday pertaining to the public's view of the illegal immigration issue. It shows that Americans overwhelmingly reject the notion of amnesty for illegals.
"A new Zogby poll of likely voters, using neutral language (i.e., avoiding the words ''amnesty'' or ''illegal alien''), finds that Americans prefer the House of Representatives' enforcement-only bill by 2-1 over Senate proposals to legalize illegal immigrants and greatly increase legal immigration. The poll was conducted for the Center for Immigration Studies.
* On immigration generally, Americans want less, not more, immigration. Only 26 percent said immigrants were assimilating fine and that immigration should continue at current levels, compared to 67 percent who said immigration should be reduced so we can assimilate those already here.
* While the Senate is considering various bills that would increase legal immigration from 1 million to 2 million a year, only 2 percent of Americans believe current immigration is too low. This was true for virtually every grouping in the survey by ethnicity, income, age, religion, region, party, or ideology.
* When offered by itself, there is strong support for the House bill: 69 percent said it was a good or very good idea when told that it tries to make illegals go home by fortifying the border, forcing employer verification, and encouraging greater cooperation with local law enforcement, while not increasing legal immigration; 27 percent said it was a bad or very bad idea.
* Support for the House approach was widespread, with 81 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents, 57 percent of Democrats, and 53 percent of Hispanics saying it was good or very good idea.
* When offered by itself, there is also some support for the Senate approach, though not as much as for the House bill: 42 percent said the Senate approach was a good or very good idea when told it would allow illegal immigrants to apply for legal status provided they met certain criteria, and it would significantly increase legal immigration and increase enforcement of immigration laws; 50 percent said it was a bad or very bad idea.
* There were few groups in which a majority supported the Senate plan, even when presented by itself. Exceptions included Hispanics, 62 percent of whom said it was a good or very good idea, and the most liberal voters (progressives), 54 percent of whom approved of it.
* When given three choices (House approach, Senate approach, or mass deportation), the public tends to reject both the Senate plan and mass deportations in favor of the House bill; 28 percent want the Senate plan, 12 percent want mass deportations, while 56 percent want the House approach.
* But when given a choice between just the House and Senate approaches, without the choice of mass deportations, the public prefers the House approach 64 percent to 30 percent.
* One reason the public does not like legalization is that they are skeptical of the need for illegal-immigrant labor. An overwhelming majority of 77 percent said there are plenty of Americans to fill low-wage jobs if employers pay more and treat workers better; just 15 percent said there are not enough Americans for such jobs.
* Another reason the public does not like Senate proposals to legalize illegals and double legal immigration is that 73 percent said they had little or no confidence in the ability of the government to screen these additional applicants to weed out terrorists and criminals.
* The public also does not accept the argument we have tried and failed to enforce the law: 71 percent felt that past enforcement efforts have been ''grossly inadequate,'' while only 19 percent felt we had made a ''real effort'' to enforce our laws. "
Hugo Chavez is Destroying Venezuela's Oil Industry
One of the most sickening things about the Marxist Left is its denial of History. Since 1918, Communism and its variants have left little more than bloodshed, death and economic ruin in their wakes.
In supreme arrogance, radical leftists and "revolutionaries," instead of recognizing Communism's inherent non-viability, blame its repetitive economic and social failures on the personal flaws of the people who have tried to make it work. If Communism was done right, they say, it would work just fine.
Now, Venezuela's Marxist dictator, Hugo Chavez, is about to provide us with the all-too-familiar specter of a population and an economy destroyed by "revolutionary" zeal.
Venezuela's oil production is dropping. It recently made a deal with Russia to buy 100,000 barrels of oil a day to avoid defaulting on its supply contracts.
The oil business webzine Rigzone says that, " PDVSA [Venezuela's state-run oil company] has lost about 1.5 million bpd of its net crude oil production." The main reasons have been the replacement of capable engineers and workers who disagreed with Chavez's revolutionary views, with inexperienced, and in many cases incapable replacements, and the lack of attention to infrastructure maintenance and improvement. The result of the bad management and neglect, has been the steady erosion and near incapacitation of a major oil-producing region of Venezuela, the Western portion of the country, where as many as 10,000 wells have been estimated to have been rendered mostly useless. Venezuela is nominally the world's fifth largest oil producer."
Like every Marxist thug before him, the trash-talking Chavez will be blaming the West for his soon-to-fail "revolution." But Venezuela's voters won't buy his excuses for failing to bring them "social justice" and economic might. They'll demand his removal from office, either through the ballot box, or at the point of a gun. Chavez won't capitulate and another attempt at Communist heaven on earth will end in deprivation, bloodshed and death.
What is written on the white-board behind revolutionary guard commander Talaii (in larger black font) :
If you see women with thick lipstick, don't use a razor blade to slash their faces (as has been permissible and very much done by the disciplinary forces patrolling the cities), use Kleenex.
If you see too much makeup on women's faces, don't spray their faces with acid (as has been permissible and very much done by the disciplinary forces patrolling the cities), use rosewater.
If women are wearing too short of a dress, give them a free chador (veil). If their scarves is too short, don't use the slogan of: "yaa roo sari, yaa too sari" (which means "either wear a scarf, or get smacked on the head" . . . this has been one of the regime's most disgusting comments to Iranians women since the very early days of the revolution). Either cover their entire hair or gently cut their hair off.
The caption, in the bottom of the photo reads: The head of the police force of Tehran said: "The Irshad (guidance) Patrols should not treat people with an antagonistic approach."
Monday's radical Left-engineered "shut down America" pro-illegal immigrant action has failed. With the exception of a few businesses that voluntarily closed to allow their workers to protest, U.S. business was unaffected by threatened illegal immigrant work stoppages. The predicted millions of marchers failed to materialize, despite International A.N.S.W.E.R.'s, United For Peace and Justice's and the Revolutionary Communist Party's best organizing efforts.
The failure of the illegals to cripple the U.S. for a day, proved that illegal immigrants need America more than America needs them. Monday's illegal immigrant protests, sponsored and orchestrated by radical groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R, did nothing but raise the hackles of legal U.S. citizens. Illegal immigrant protesters marching on behalf of Mecha, LaRaza, International Socialist Organization, Mexica, A.N.S.W.E.R. and other radical and communist organizations did nothing to endear themselves to American citizens and most center-right American politicians.
In my "blue," home state of Rhode Island, 5,000 Mexican and Central American immigrants, many of them illegal, marched through the streets of the capital city, Providence, shouting radical slogans and holding up posters of their Marxist heroes Cesar Chavez and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Of course, a contingent of local non-Hispanic 60s-styled leftists and brainwashed radicalized Ivy League college students accompanied them on their march to nowhere.
Illegal immigrant May Day marchers had the gall to demand all of the rights and privileges that only legal American citizens are entitled to. Never mind that in Rhode Island, (at least), illegal immigrants have access to free food, free medical care, and the public school system. Yet they demand even more. They have dragged down Rhode Island's public school system and have horribly burdened its health care system. And like in illegal immigrant enclaves elsewhere in America, they have seriously depressed wages in traditionally well-paying industries like construction.
Before the May Day demonstrations, I was torn between allowing a carefully controlled amnesty for illegal aliens or deporting them. I still think that massive rounding-up and deporting of illegals is impractical, but I am now opposed to amnesty in any form.
Based on the actions and attitudes of Monday's marchers, I conclude that most Mexican and Central American illegal aliens do not have the mindsets that my ancestors had when they immigrated to America. My ancestors demanded nothing from America. They worked hard to become Americans--legally. They adopted American customs and attitudes. They respected America's system of laws. They were as loyal and patriotic towards their new country as any American whose roots in this country were deeper than theirs.
It's clear from the antagonistic posturing, demands and radical associations of the May Day marchers, that a sizable number of them are not cut from the same cloth as the immigrants who flooded America at the turn of the 20th century. They have little or no loyalty to America. In fact, many of them harbor an intense, mocking dislike of it. They think America has somehow wronged them, though it is they who have broken our laws by invading us. Urged on by anti-U.S. leftists , they demand that legal American citizens now accommodate them, their language and their cultures. And the fact that they picked May 1st to march, a day with great significance to radical leftists, Socialists, Marxists and Communists worldwide, speaks volumes. Amnesty or U.S. citizenship should not be given to people who are comfortable with or espouse ideologies that are inherently incompatible with the form of government that the Founding Fathers designed.
Illegal immigrants march in San Francisco's May Day protests. On Display: A political mindset incompatible with America's founding principles. Note Revolutionary Communist Party flag.
What to do, then, about the approximately 12 million illegal immigrants in America?
First, the time has come to lock down the southern border and stop further illegal immigration cold. If that takes erecting a fence or similar barrier to accomplish, so be it. If it takes sending the U.S. military to secure the southern border, let's do it --now!
Second, all aliens, illegal or otherwise, who commit felonies, should be rounded up and immediately deported-- no trials, no appeals, no more protection from the courts -- in other words, one strike and they're out of here.
Third, a few Congressmen with backbone must step up and tear down the legislative constructs erected by Open Borders advocates like Barney Frank that allow alien criminals to roam free while they play the American legal system for all it's worth. Remember, aliens, both legal and illegal, are not full U.S. citizens. They have not earned the rights and privileges that American citizens have. When they disrespect us, or trash our house, they must be made to leave.
Fourth, all illegal immigrant felons should be removed from our jails, regardless of the nature of their crimes, and delivered to the proper authorities in their countries of origin. Why should Americans pay for them to lift weights, watch television and sharpen their criminal "skills" all day? Let their own countries deal with and pay for them.
Fifth, roll back the laws that grant illegal aliens free access to America's health care system and its social programs and its educational systems. These actions alone will force many of them to leave on their own accord. An added benefit of the resulting dwindling illegal immigrant ranks will be a proportional dwindling in the size and influence of the anti-U.S., far-Left advocacy and "victim"-producing social services industries that exist because of them.
Sixth, roll back all "bilingual education" and bilingual concessions in America. End the creeping bilingual labeling of signs, whether they be at a crosswalk or in a bank. This is America, where the common language is English. Learn to speak it, or no citizenship -- no exceptions.
Seventh, scale back the numbers of poor, unskilled uneducated immigrants legally allowed into America each year. Increase the number of skilled, educated and financially secure immigrants allowed in. People with no skills often burden others. People with useful skills contribute to a society.
Eighth, heavily penalize and otherwise pressure businesses to stop hiring illegal immigrants. Make the fines for hiring illegal aliens enormous and the practice will stop. The doomsday qualifier that illegal-hiring businesses promote is a lie -- crops will not rot in the fields, nor will meat rot in the slaughterhouses nor will lawns grow into forests nor will the chintzy furniture that graces the interiors of McMansions across America collapse under the weight of accumulating dust if every illegal immigrant disappeared from America tomorrow. But wages would be higher, (In the 1980s, meat packers' wages averaged $19hr.--they're now $9 thanks to illegals.) taxes would be lower, there would be less crime, fewer violent street gangs and health care would be cheaper and more easily available to legal U.S. citizens.
Finally, rescind the laws that grant automatic American citizenship to the progeny of illegal immigrants. Make it unattractive for broke, single, illegal alien mothers to waddle across the border in order to give birth to their children in America--a step many of them take to gain access to America's generous social services. Make it unattractive for female illegal immigrants to start families in America--families that will almost inevitably, be at least partially funded by legal U.S. citizens.
If the above approaches to the illegal alien crisis were taken, huge numbers of illegal aliens would permanently return to their countries of origin where they could protest against and demand things from their own governments, governments that are truly corrupt, racist, oppressive and unjust.
Illegals should be directing the energy they now spend demanding things of our Country, towards fixing the problems in their countries.
It's long past quitting time for most people, and the much ballyhooed "Day Without A Mexican" is all but over. None of the dire predictions of calamity made by the MsM have come true. The economy was not harmed. Mainstream America did not fall on its knees and beg for deliverance. The country did not come grinding to a halt. To the contrary, this day of contempt for the "hand that feeds" passed uneventfully.
Illegal aliens have proven what most of us already knew: Mexicans need America, not the other way around.
The MsM's predictions were a case of wishful thinking, of course. They desperately wanted to see America brought to its knees, not just for ideological reasons but to confirm their ridiculous "predictions." Despite media coverage that probably exceeded participation in the event, "A Day Without A Mexican" failed to live up to a single one of their fervent "predictions." They hunted far and wide for examples of businesses that were forced to close. What did they come up with? A few businesses, most of them owned by self professed "Mexicans," where sympathetic owners closed up shop and gave their employees the day off. Businesses on the marching route that closed to avoid vandalism. So much for extortion and disinformation. So much for the power of illegal aliens.
Meanwhile, May Day protests have occurred around the world. On a day socialists and communists have long celebrated with the slogan: "We Will Bury You," agitators have manipulated discontent around the world to promote their (usually) hidden agenda. Even Asia saw a spate of protests over labor conditions.
Only in democratic Asian countries, of course. The Communist and other totalitarian countries jail and murder noble proletarians who dare to express discontent with their living conditions. An organized protest over the miserable living conditions in places such as China, North Korea, Myanmar and Vietnam would be unthinkable.
There were protests in India, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Indonesia. The people who protested were largely unaware of the significance of May Day. The international Socialist/Communist movement is very adept at preying on discontent to promote their failed ideology, even when those being used are unaware that they're promoting Marxism. Indonesia, especially, has a deep cultural hatred for communism. The only people hated more than communists are, well, . . . nobody. The Philippines are not exactly a hotbed of Marxist thought either, nor are India or Bangladesh.
The MsM and moonbat blogosphere are working overtime to elide the Marxist inspiration for these worldwide protests. Anyone documenting or even commenting on the subject will be slandered with the usual accusations of lying or espousing "McCarthyism" or "conspiracy theories."
Conspiracies are hatched by evil neocons, as every true moonbat knows. Whether they're Jewish, Zionist, Right-wing, conservative or straight from the mind of George W. Bush depends on which species of moonbat is spinning the theory.
On the other hand, Plamegate, the fake-but-accurate National Guard memo and the leak of national security secrets about terrorists being held in foreign detention centers weren't conspiracies. They were the "people's right to know" and Pulitzer Prize winning exposes. Ask any leftist, or pick up just about any newspaper.
I suggest a "Day Without An American." A day where Americans refuse to import or purchase a single foreign product. A day we refuse to vacation in a single foreign country. A day we withdraw all shares in foreign markets. A day we refuse to spend private charity funds on foreigners. A day the federal government refuses to provide financial and material aid to foreigners. A day we refuse to provide security for international shipping lanes. A day we refuse to protect weak countries from their aggressive neighbors. A day we refuse to share our unparalleled technology. A day we refuse to employ a single illegal alien, particularly Mexican illegal aliens. A day we refuse to provide free social services for parasites who refuse to share our tax burden. A day we abandon our jobs and responsibilities and take to the streets in protest, demanding what is rightfully ours.
Such a day would not disappear without a ripple, as this one has. Such a day would change the course of world events. It would forever become a part of history, and the enemies of this country would collectively soil their pants.
Let the ingrates of the world take care of themselves for 24 hours.
The Islamic regime planned a May Day workers ceremony in front of the ex-U.S. embassy in Tehran, trimming the building with various signs such as "Death to America" and "Nuclear energy is our absolute right."
Hasan Sadeghi, the deputy secretary of the Islamic regime’s Workers House announced: "On May 1st, international workers day, there will be a tributary ceremony in front of the ex-U.S. embassy."
Prior to the rally, a workers activist in Tehran commented: "The Islamic regime is only looking to use this occasion to their advantage; it is entirely clear that they have every intention of stirring the ceremony in a direction that has nothing to do with workers. If they cared anything for the nations workers they would organize the ceremony in front of either Ahmadinejad's offices or the Majles (the Islamic parliament’s assembly -- which is where workers protesting in Tehran have generally gathered to protest). The fact that Hasan Sadeghi has claimed that the workers issues will also be addressed is nothing more than a ruse."
The Organization of the Defense of Women's Rights in Iran has also issued a statement in which they have stressed: " The fact that the regime, in an attempt to repress a massive workers day protest organized by and for the workers, has boasted that the workers have in fact already organized a ceremony in front of the ex-U.S. embassy!! We women and men workers of Iran cannot be used by the Islamic regime for their propaganda and whims and we would like to declare that what we need is jobs, shelter, food . . . not nuclear weapons and fuel! If they spent the money and budgets on long-range missiles and nuclear bombs on helping revive bankrupted factories, creating jobs for us workers, the situation in the country would not be as deplorable and dire…the multitudes of unemployed workers and jobless youths would not be wondering the streets aimlessly and hopelessly. The cog wheels of the factories would have been operating and together, united, we would have made Iran prosperous."
So the real gathering of the workers took place not only in front front of the Social Security Organization in Tehran AND the the headquarters of the Greater Tehran Bus Company, many attended the regime's own rally in order to confront the regime's own authorities and to expose their hypocracy; according to reports from Tehran from people who were present at the rally between 18 to 20,000 people are said to have shown up. Workers from all across Iran made their way to Tehran to join in solidarity and though there was major security, controlled by the revolutionary guards and their basij auxiliary, the workers were not intimidated.
The workers who had shown up at the ex-U.S. embassy due the Islamic regime's threats and intimidation of the loss of their jobs were meant to be nothing more than window-dressing for the Islamic regime's own self-promotion. They had been told to chant slogans about "nuclear power is our absolute right"; instead however, in defiance of their oppressors, they began chanting slogans such as: "Incompetent labor minister, resign, resign, strike, strike...is our absolute right" or "Imprisoned worker must be freed" or "Let go of the Palestinians and start thinking about us." At this point the regime's plans for a pro-regime seeming demonstration was dashed.[Emphasis added]
Alireza Mahboob, the member of Majles (Islamic Parliament's Assembly) and the director of the regime-run organization entitled workers house whose recent embezzellment and financial scandals has made headlines even in the regime's own media, was planning on speaking at the rally but the crowd booed and jeered at him, barring him from speaking and forced him off the stage.
Agents from the ministry of intelligence and security then arrested Gholam-Reza Mirzai, member of the board of directors of the bus drivers union who had been released on March 20th. The protestors chanted: "Osanlou must be released." Mansour Osanlou, the leader of the bus drivers union who is under severe torture in the prisons of the Islamic regime was arrested on December 23rd, 2005.
The regime's anti-riot battalions that included 45 mini-buses, bullet proof cars and several motorcyles attacked the protestors from the bus drivers company, arresting 30 or more people. There were also many student supporters from various universities around Tehran who had, as planned joined the rally and some were seen being arrested along side the workers.
ILNA, the regime's own news agnecy reported: "Though the rally and march commemorating May day came to an end and many workers groups who had gathered at the regime's own ceremony on Taleghani Avenue (in front of the ex-U.S. embassy), the workers still went on chanting slogans such as: 'Faithless leaders what happened to the blood of the martyrs?' and 'Death to this life that is filled with so much shame' and 'The rule of the justice of their Imam Ali and so much injustice'."
The great immigration walk-out, it's being called, as hundreds of thousands of people walked off their jobs today, May 1, 2006, to protest any legislation against illegal immgrants.
Well, keep on walking, baby! Walk right on out of this country.
When the Mexicans walked in, Hezbollah walked in with them. The United States government has apparently kept the public ignorant of the dangers, in the name of compassion--a very misleading notion about the social concerns over illegal Mexican immigrants.
It would help to remember that "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore," is poetry on the Statue of Liberty, not a mandate in the United States Constitution. Emma Lazarus wrote the poem, "The New Colossus," in 1883. It has nothing to do with the Constitution, which was written in 1787.
The poetry is about compassion. The Constitution is about law. There is a major difference between compassion and discipline. There is a time for compassion, and a time for discipline. Now is the time for discipline.
As another poet said, "America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law." Katherine Lee Bates, 1895.
