Sieze the Issue of Immigration

With the undeniable success of the Iraqi elections of 30JAN05 President Bush is gaining credibility in foreign policly, albeit grudgingly from his detrectors. Before the glow of this most recent success fades, the President should also take the opportunity to sieze the issue of immigration.

All immigration, and especially the flood of illegals pouring over our southern border, and the dangerously porous border to the north. Not because the Canadians pose a threat per se. The problem is that their immigration policy is more dangerous than ours, with apparently far more lax standards that encourage infiltration by terrorists, who can then take advantage of our weak border controls along the border with Canada.

John Fund has a good piece in the WSJ citing Rush Limbaughs stern warning to the President on the issue. Rush is right about that. Some are concerned that Hillary will successfully co-opt the issue by using to the right of the GOP. Don't count on her actually doing anything substantive on the issue if she were elected. But that is not the point.

Like the rest of the scandal plagued Clinton years, Enron, World Com, Global Crossing all occured during Clintons tenure; but were successfully prosecuted by Bushes AG John Ashcroft.

The GOP has enjoyed a reputation earned by Richard Nixon of being a law and order party. You couldn't tell that by their lax enforcement of immigration policy, and especially since 11SEP01. Rush and John Fund are right, Bush should sieze the issue for the good of the country, and for the good of his party.
-SpinDaddy

Blue Fingered Patriots

Excellent post over at Powerline that demonstrates typical democratic hysteria. They do seem to be getting worse in their condition of displaying how repugnant they find any American success. Too bad we can't exchange the America-hating whiners for some of these Blue Fingerd Patriots. It would be a great trade, as these people in Iraq have more courage in their ink stained fingernails than these hedonistic-whiners we must suffer here. More great photoblogging at Florida Cracker .

I remember the usual suspects in the leftist MSM during the fall of the Berlin wall, at least feigning approval, and to be fair, CNNs Chistiane Amanpour seems to actually be pleased by what she has seen today. FNCs Geraldo is positively ecstatic in his coverage.

What really seems to torque the left off is the notion of Bush and his evil-neocon-corporatist-minions were right. They were right in a big way. God forbid, President Bush and the rest of his administration be right about anything.

Now if anybody on the left stops by here, in case you haven't been listening. Bush and Rice and company have been telling people for the last week or so that we still have more work to do in Iraq. Two more elections at least to complete the start of the process.

So look for the NYT and the usual suspects to begin their carping tomorrow morning. Something along the lines of "Okay the election is over, let's get out". Ted Kennedy has already started. There is no rest for the weary.

In the meantime, dip your finger in some blue ink and relish a sweet and poignant victory in the War on Terror in battle Iraq. -SpinDaddy

Masschusetts Senator on Russert 30JAN05

Unfortunately, it will be the junior Senator "...in a fashion remeniscent of Ghengis Kahn..." from the commonwealth, and not Oldsmobile Ted.

I am curious to see what Russert is made of .

1. Will he even bring up the senior Senators comments?

2. If he does, will he take Heinz-Kerry to the mat, so to speak, in order to get an answer out of him?

I'll be watching. Meet the Press airs at 1100hrs EST on NBC. -SpinDaddy

Update 30JAN05 1107: John Heinz-Kerry is warning against our overhyping our success in the elections in Iraq. He did manage to squeak out at forced acknowledgement to the fantastic job our troops have done to provide relatively secure eleections process. Interesting contrast with Kennedys position, that our troops are the problem in Iraq. Finally; something I can agree with Heinz-Kerry on.

He is right about the job our troops have done, even if his compliment was delivered through almost gritted teeth.

BravoZulu to our troops.

Alright here we go; Russert just stepped in it. Heinz-Kerry now claims he does not agree with Kennedys call for an immediate withdrawal of 12,000 troops.

Now Heinz-Kerry is making the absurd suggestion that W's administration will secretly ask the newly elected Iraqi government to ask us to leave.

Russert is playing Heinz-Kerry's $87 Billion vote-not-vote for him again. Now he is claiming he never advocated cutting and running. LOL. Is Kennedy against cutting and running too, in spite of what he said last week.

Still watching. This is really funny.

Now he claims he won the election in the battleground states as if they were the only states to decide the election and as he says, the only problem in Ohio was one of vote distribution. LOL. Yeah, the problem with distribution of votes in Ohio, was more of the votes were cast in W's favor.

Heinz-Kerry just acknowledged that there is a new communications model in America, and he did not utilize it right.

Now Russert has played the Christmas in Cambodia SwiftVet ad, and now he says he was right on the cambodia border that night, and Steve Gardner doesn't know what he is talking about.

Now he is claiming he was in Cambodia on a secret mission, just a different night. LOL!! Claims he has pictures and he is sure that [his] campaign has the pictures. Now claims he will sign Form-180, doesn't say when.

Now he says he is a poll expert, yet he turns around and claims polls are irrelavent. Which is it Flop-flipper?

He is too funny. He's still got it.

Hey Washington state readers of BumperStickerPolitix; Heinz-Kerry is thumping his chest about giving some of his leftover campaign money to Gregoires recount effort! That ought to play well in the Evergreen state.

Russert cites poll data from Massachusetts that shows 6 out of 10 in the commonwealth do not want him as their Senator. Hmmm

Oh man, he's wriggling around in his own petard again re: abortion. Now claims that being Pro-Choice is not the same thing as being Pro-Abortion. He is mimicing Hillary now, blaming Bush for a "Draconian" policy that has caused an increase in abortions! He probably doesn't even know who Dracos was.

What a wealth of material here. He just called Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rigid in his philosophy; well yeah, compared to you John. Senator Kerry, my cat is philosophically rigid compared to you.

-SpinDaddy

Update 30JAN05 1346hrs: Opaque Lucidity could not resist liveblogging Heinz-Kerrys appearance on Meet the Press either. See it Here. The Big Trunk over at Powerline is in on the fun as well.

Blue Finger Revolution Under Way

Voting under way in Iraq at this time. Multiple developments. Thousands upon thousands of Iraqi citizens are holding up a blue finger in defiance.

A blue finger as a badge of HONOR.

As show of solidarity with the Iraqi people, and out of respect for members of the US and coalition forces who have paid the highest price possible for these elections, my seven year old son and I colored one of our fingers blue.

FoxNews, MSNBC and even CNN reporting good turnout, in spite of explosions in different areas. C Amanpour is, of course, surprised by the turnout.

Many Iraq Blogs here, including the one and only IraqTheModel . Hat tip to RealClear Politics. Roger L Simon and Iraq Elections newswire are liveblogging the election, Cigars In the Sand has a photoBLOG of the election going, many pics of Proud Iraqis holding up their blue stained fingers; hat tip to the "Blogfather" for that one. Wretchard over at the Belmont Club has some good posts up as well. Powerline has a good list of sites up as well. Opaque Lucidity is on this one too, the blogs are all over this.

Earlier yesterday Fox News reports, two were killed in the "Green-Zone". One a Defense department contractor, the other a US Naval Officer.

The amazing part of this story is how US was able to track missile on radar, bring UAV to bear at the coordinates of the missiles origin, and begin tracking the Islamo-Fascists running from the launch site only to be tracked by the UAV. US troops responded and now these jerks are in custody. They all responded positive to a field test for rocket fuel residue, and are being interrogated at this hour. They ran to two seperate houses according to the Fox report, and were apprehended quickly. This all happened in real time and ought to serve as a powerful warning to those who would attempt the same thing.

This is a stunning technological feat as the rocket was fired from some 15 klicks away. Can you imagine the looks on their faces when our boys kicked the door in only minutes after they closed it, probably thinking they had gotten away with it. I would love to see a picture of that look.

With over 5000 polling places in Iraq; indeed, around the world it will be impossible to guarantee safety at each one, but I am convinced the scent of Liberty burns more pungently in the nostrils of the Iraqi citizen, than the smoke of the terrorists bombs.

Other reports are of car bombs exploding at checkpoints, short of the actual polling location. If correct this is an illustration that security precautions are working as intended.

Iyad Allawi is casting his vote now.

Susan Estrich is beefing to Geraldo on Fox that "it's great that the Iraqi people are getting to vote BUT (there is always that BUT with Democrats who are about to dump on a good thing) establishing democracy is not why we went to Iraq; we went to Iraq for WMD BLAH, BLAh...free health care....blab, blah...Halliburton...blah BLAH Blah..in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Kahn...bla blah, BLAH "

Maybe Susan Estrich wasn't paying attention, but I was. And I remember Bush-Cheney-Powell-Rice-Rumsfeld clearly articulating just such an event as we are seeing today.

They were right then, and they are right today (see ColdFury link here) more than ever. -SpinDaddy

Update 30JAN05 0823hrs: MSNBC, and FoxNews are reporting turnouts in the 70-90% in some areas. This is astounding. Of course we can count on MSM punditry to dismiss it as a failure and ignore it the way they have in the Afghan elections.

This also points up how Americans take their liberty for granted. We do good to get a 50% turnout, and nobody is shooting at us when we vote. Americans have the audacity to complain about long lines and a little rain. -SpinDaddy

Update 30JAN05 0902hrs: Polls in Iraq are closing now after an historic day. This is a huge victory for Bushes Middle East policy. Afghan elections. Palestinian elections. Iraqi elections all in the books now.

A huge sea change is underway in the Middle East, and only the seriously myopic could miss it. Unfortunately too many of the myopic populate the MSM. Too bad.

The good news is the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. generally aren't subjected to the indoctriantion of the MSM. Of course they do have al Jazeera, but they have lived history, now they know better than what they see on TV. -SpinDaddy

Iraq Watch

Speculation abounds regarding the status of Islamo-thug al Zarqawi. Powerline has this post. Fox news has this story.

Perhaps someday, historians will recognize the significance of todays events for the region, if not the world. But that is historians in the future. Todays MSM can be counted on to wear their collective myopia on their sleeve as it were.

Continuing to watch with great interest, Iraqi elections. -SpinDaddy

Update 29JAN05 2158hrs: InstaPundit steered me to this excellent post at the Belgravia Dispatch of London -SpinDaddy

Update 29JAN05 2250hrs: Polls open in Iraq in ten minutes. -Spin

BLOG Explosion Achieves Critical Mass

Fascinating tidbit from Wizbang...the MSM seem an awful lot like buggy-whip manufacturers in the late 1800's. The MSM has completely lost site of their core function which should be the dissemination of information, communication. Instead they have arrogantly concluded that their calling is to indoctrtinate the public with their quasi-socialist-America-hating agenda under the guise of "news and entertainment".

The buggy-whip manufacturers of the late 1800's failed to understand they were in the "vehicle-acceleration" business, and didn't begin producing carburetors. The very same fate of the buggy-whip industry probably awaits the MSM.
-SpinDaddy

" . . . Slate Editor-in-chief, Jack Shafer, on the "Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility" conference at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government:
I hadn't witnessed such public expressions of high self-esteem since the last time I attended a journalism awards ceremony.Captain Ed writes eloquently as to how Shafer missed the revolution.
While there may be 7 million bloggers, there are some that are already beating other more established media outlets on the web. For example, who gets more web traffic according to Alexa?

Daily Kos or Rush Limbaugh?
Instapundit or The Weekly Standard?
Power Line or Sean Hannity?
Talking Points Memo or The New Yorker?
Wizbang or The American Prospect?

If you picked the blog in each case, you were right. The rankings come from John Hawkins analysis of the traffic rankings for the top 125 political sites. The rankings may surprise you, and I'm pretty certain they'd surprise Jack Shafer. . . "

Vote Iraq Vote ! ! ! !

Yesterday, Ted Kennedy called for our hasty retreat from battle Iraq. Good plan. Here we are at the tipping point in this battle, and he wants to cut and run.

Good.

That should warm Zarqawis heart. Surely he and the other Islamo-thugs over there factor this into their calculus when planning how to maim and kill innocent Iraqis, and not to mention our troops.

Massachusetts, you should be so proud.

"Hmmm...the one-who-does-not-drive-so-well says on al Jazeera today great Satan should get out of Iraq."

"Quick Abdul! , get much more explosive, our brilliant plan to quash the infidels is working, Glory-be-to-Allah!!"

But alas, despite Ted Kennedys weak constitution, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Iraqis with far more courage and gumption than he are about to prove him wrong. Very wrong. Again.

Iraqi ex-pats are already voting in Australia, and this time there is more than one name on the ballot.
-SpinDaddy

Update 29JAN05 1459hrs: Powerline has some good commentary on this also, click here. -SpinDaddy

Update 29JAN05 2234hrs: Vodkapundits Will Collier has this cogent analysis of the senior senator from Massachusetts' rantings. -SpinDaddy

" . . . Posted by Will Collier · 29 January 2005 ·
Glenn asks,
The question is, will the Democrats be willing to do to Ted Kennedy, for his remarks on the war, what Republicans did to Trent Lott, for his remarks on Strom Thurmond and the 1948 election?

The answer: absolutely not, because unlike in Lott's case, the majority of the party, and the overwhelming majority of the activists and donors agree with Kennedy completely. They also have the added benefit of knowing the MSM will never call Kennedy to account for anything he says . . . "

WA State Keeps Laughing

The laughs just keep on rolling in out there in the great state of Washington. SoundPolitics reports that WA SecState Reed released voter birthdate records to the Seattle Times, a local newspaper; then claims that releasing them was improper. Now the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wants the records too.

Last I heard, the "so-called" governor Gregoire has named him to head a commission to look into the highly suspect goings on in the last election. Yeah, that should work. -SpinDaddy


From SoundPolitics:

Happy Birthday
We reported two weeks ago that the Seattle Times managed to obtain an exclusive copy of the state's voter registration database that included birthdates.
The Secretary of State claimed that it released the birthdate data in error and in violation of the law and demanded that the Times return the data. The Times claims that the SoS interpretation of the law is incorrect, and that it was legal for the data to be released in the first place.
Now the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had its lawyers write a stern letter to the Secretary of State demanding that it too be allowed to obtain a copy of the birthday file.
I support both the Times and the P-I on this one. The law does not preclude the Secretary of State from releasing voter birthdates, which is vital public information. Especially since our election officials insist that it's not their job to enforce voting eligibility rules, it's the electorate's job. The electorate deserves the data. That includes the Times, the P-I, and everybody else in the state. And if the SoS is going to refuse to release the data to the P-I, shouldn't the Times simply make the data available to the general public? Isn't it their duty to publish information, even (especially) when it's information the government is inappropriately keeping secret?
And kudos to the P-I for fighting to get this data. I look forward to their investigative reports!
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at 05:32 PM Comments (2)

Hewitt More Diplomatic Than SpinDaddy

Hugh Hewittt was on Fox & Friends this AM plugging his book, and the Blogosphere generally. He gave some good points for the still generally not-blog-savvy-public, and very graciously gave a tip of the hat to the Belmont Club and Mudville Gazzette among others. He also appeared on the CNN morning show, but I did not see that, so I will confine my comments to the Fox & Friends segment.

Hugh was very diplomatic with what seemed to be a loaded question from Kiran Chetry. She usually comes across as very sincere, and sweet. However in this mornings show she sounded like she was trying to sandbag Mr. Hewitt during a very brief segment.

Chetry asked if Blogs were unaccountable, and specifically mentioned the MSM platforms of TV, and Print. Hewitts response was right on the money, he pointed out the immediacy with which fellow bloggers quickly pounce on those playing fast and loose with the facts.

But to Chetrys question... Unaccountable!? Compared to what, CBS?

Dan Rather and Mary Mapes?

The New York Times?

NBCs Dateline, and exploding GM pickup trucks?

Unaccountability and in some cases outright fraud, not to mention a less than transparent bias are rampant in the MSM. Thus explaining the exploding popularity of the blogosphere, as an alternative. Ms. Chetry would be well served to remember that.

Excerpt from Hugh Hewitts post below. Morning Glory and Evening Grace -SpinDaddy

". . . I flogged Blog on Fox & Friends at 6:50 AM this morning, then strolled up the frigid Avenue of the Americas and flogged it again on CNN. Soledad O'Brien did the CNN interview and all three Fox hosts participated. Very professional sit-downs on both sets, as one would expect from these folks, but one question seemed to me to be on everyone's minds: "Bloggers aren't journalists and so they are not accountable, right?" I'll check a transcript if one is posted when I get back to California, but I think that is pretty much how the question was posed, as opposed to the more neutral: "Are bloggers journalists?"

[CNN transcript here. Scroll down. No transcript yet for F&F. Send me a pointer if you see one.]]

On both sets I tried to explain blogosphere accountability, and I may have been a touch short with Ms. O'Brien when I pointed out I have been a journalist for 15 years, in television, radio, print, and now text, and that of all the platforms, the blogosphere was the most accountable. The blogosphere has tremendous forces working to assure accuracy and almost instant correction of error, so that the blogosphere is really far more accountable than any of the other platforms. Its opinions are sharp, as are the elbows, but there are very few hidden biases. They are all out in the open . . . "

RecallReed NOW

An effort to recall the Washington secretary of State Sam Reed is well under way. Proponents of the recall effort claim that Reed was misfeasant, if not malfeasant in his certification of the questionable results in the Washington state gubernatorial race. There is more than a little information that supports this conclusion.

Democrat Christine Gregoire was installed last week after Reed certified the election apparently in contradiction to state laws regarding how counties should report their results to his office. Some Rossi supporters are concerned that the effort to recall Reed could distract from the effort to have a revote.

A revote is fine, but having a SecState that is at minimum misfeasant in the execution of his office should not be allowed to stand. Especially when his misfeasance may have led to the successful theft of a state election.

I have written previously in this forum how the WA state election will serve as a model for future democrat office seekers, they should not forget to include in their calculus, a weak-willed-spineless-bureaucratic-hacks like Sam Reed and what appear to be purely partisan election officials like those found in King County in particular in their quest to steal power.

-SpinDaddy

Endangered Species

Found this link to an excellent BLOG over at the BelmontClub . If these guys are for real, they are indeed an endangered species. They comprise the SDRU State Department Republican Underground. Obviously, conservative Republicans working at SecState, would have to be under deep cover.

Their BLOG is called the Daily Demarche, and I have posted a link to their site in the Spin Reccomends section to the right. With Condi about to take over at Foggy Bottom, and these guys watching her six, there may be hope yet. -SpinDaddy

Boxers Foolish Indignation

Sen. Boxer of CA really demonstrated her hubris yesterday during the so called "questioning" of Condi Rice for her new job as Sec State. Clearly pandering to her hyper-liberal-socialist base in CA, she demonstrated once again how out of touch the left is with the rest of America.

I am pleased to see this as it bodes well for the continued ascendancy of conservative politics. I sincerely hope Boxer keeps it up, there is some time remaining today. Hopefully Boxer will step in it again today.

Note to the honorable Sen. Lugar of IN. Please allow ample time for Sen Boxer CA to "question" Condi Rice during this mornings hearings, yesterdays soundbites were great. -SpinDaddy

51% Say Gregoire "win" Illegitimate

Interesting poll results in WA state. Third question identifies the above majority in response to the "legitimatacy" question. Intersting poll results, take a look for yourself. -SpinDaddy


3. Regardless of who you voted for in November's gubernatorial election, will you view Christine Gregoire as the legitimate governor if she is sworn in on January 12th?

01/13
Yes 41%
No 51%
Undecided
8%

And in this question 52% differ with the obviously questionable results.


2. Regardless of who you voted for in November's gubernatorial election, who do you believe actually won the gubernatorial election, Democrat Christine Gregoire or Republican Dino Rossi?

01/13
Christine Gregoire 37%
Dino Rossi 52%
Undecided
11%

Marxisms Next Victim

Excellent observations in Foreign Policy, regarding Marxisms next disguise, healthcare.

I would also argue that the whole "save-the-environment-from-greedy-evil-corporations" might also be a front for imposing Marxism/Socialism through the back door; but hey what do I know? -SpinDaddy

" . . . When the price of medical care takes up just a small percentage of national income, it is hard to argue with the notion that everyone should enjoy similar [define "similar", similar compared to what?] medical treatment. Sure, critics may gripe that the higher taxes needed to pay for universal health coverage may cut into economic growth a bit, but so what? A little redistribution[LOL isn't that like being a little bit pregnant?] won’t suddenly transform the United States into a failed, Soviet-style “workers’ paradise.” But as health costs creep up to, say, 25 percent of national income, things get more complicated. Americans would see their tax bills more than double, while total taxes could reach 75 percent of many Europeans’ income. With oppressive tax burdens and heavy state intervention in health—already the largest sector of the economy—socialism would have crept in through the back door. . ."

Too soft on Iraqi Thugs...

Over at David Horowitz weBLOG, an excellent article echoing a familiar refrain of BumperStickerPolitix. Read the whole thing, but the theme of the author Elan Journo is that we are being too soft on the insurgents in Iraq.

I have said that many, many times in this forum. If we are mishandling Iraq it is because we are not being suffiently aggressive with these thugs, and that is not because our troops lack the will, ability or desire. More likely it is crippling Bureuacracy at DepState and CIA. -SpinDaddy

" . . . Things are going badly not because, as some claim, the United States is arrogant and lacking in humility--but because it is self-effacing and compassionate.
The Bush Administration's war in Iraq embraces compassion instead of the rational goal of victory. Such an immoral approach to war wantonly sacrifices the lives of soldiers and emboldens our enemies throughout the Middle East to mount further attacks against us . . . "

Oil Aplenty

Interesting read at the American Enterprise Institute website. Article posits that; (get this) we only have as much oil as is economically rational to produce...gasp!!

I am being a little sarcastic there not because of the articles content, but because such a thing need be explained at all. Read all of it by clicking the link above, excerpt below. -SpinDaddy

" . . . In a televised address on April 18, 1977, president Jimmy Carter delivered a chilling prediction: "Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil that it can produce . . . at the time of Carter's speech, the Persian Gulf region was authoritatively reported to hold some 74 billion barrels of oil. And today, after three decades of frantic pumping, the region is estimated to hold almost 700 billion barrels of oil, or almost 10 times as much. These reserves may continue to grow. Or they may not. Everything depends on the market's expectations for the future price of oil . . . "

Urban Dictionary

While surfing around the blogosphere last night I came across the Urban Dictionay, an "open-source-dictionary" if you will. An invaluable resource in these trying times. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Almost woke up the family.

Word of CAUTION; some entries are rather raunchy and not suitable for family viewing. But there are some real jewels in there.

See the two definitions below for a good laugh. I couldn't help myself, I had to go in and add one definition of my own under "fahrvergnugen" , shout-out to my old college buddy Dave, who nowadays drives one very sweet Honda. Love ya' man. When I put in the definition "Stickler for Accuracy" definition was at the top of the listing. My definition has since moved up top to the number one postion?! -SpinDaddy


1. Fallujah
Medium sized city in Iraq, known nationally as the "City of Mosques" due to its numerous religious institutions. Famed worldwide for standing up to, and defeating, worlds remaining super-power. Suffered great civilian casualties in April 2003, and has been under daily aerial bombardment ever since.
"Dude, I wish I could be like those brave freedom fighters of Fallujah who showed the world how to kick imperialist ass!"
Source: Dony, Nov 1, 2004

2. Fallujah
Fawningly referred to by self-deprecating liberals as a "City of Mosques", this city has been the antithesis of the very liberal values they espouse. Base of Bin Laden deputy, Abu Musaib al Zarqawi, Fallujah was subdued by the U.S. military who immediately discovered torture rooms and mutilation camps of the "religion of peace". They also found a box of neatly sewn hijabs which they believe were intended for distribution at cocktail parties in Manhattan attended by the likes of Maureen Dowd, Tina Brown, Gloria Steinem, Barbara Streisand, Hillary Clinton and a rash of other blind liberals; many of whom viewed al Zarqawi as a freedom fighter against something called "empire".
Maureen Dowd felt the rough hand of a terrorist on her back. She spun around, and he forcefully shoved a hijab onto her head. "Wear it!" He commanded. Maureen was shaking. She had been startled because her back was facing the terrorist when he snuck up on her. She had been peering over the river looking for the fundamentalist Christian males she was sure were out there somewhere, waiting to force her to have a child against her will. She had grown a bit complacent, as the Christians were initially nowhere in sight. "They must have gone off to bother those poor, Islamic freedom fighters again..." she surmised, puzzled. Those poor, misunderstood victims of capitalism...The terrorist snatched her copy of the New York Times and smiled approvingly."This is good," he said gruffly, handing her a Koran "but this is better," he continued.Dazed, Maureen stumbled away toward her new life as a submissive wife. "Whatever happened to those Christians?" she wondered.
Source: Liberals really don't know who's actually protecting them., Nov 30, 2004

Update 13JAN05: For another good laugh, see also the definitions of "Dowding" and "Hillary Clinton"
-SpinDaddy

Fraud Prevails...for now

Democrats are licking their chops at the certification and inauguration of Gregoire in WA state today. SoundPolitics is all over it.

This will be trumpeted by lefties in the MSM as justice served. This is their new model for gaining power, that is to steal it through challenge (legitimate or not) and litigation.

This is because they are showing more and more they cannot win elections by simply winning a majority of the legally cast and correctly counted votes. -SpinDaddy

Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Anchor Desk

Well Disaster-Dan is still walking between the raindrops. Of course nobody in CBS' corporate heirarchy has the guts to tell him he is over.

The report also seems to have bent over backward to avoid dealing with the question at the heart of the issue., BIAS. And danced around the issue of whether or not Rather-Mapes phonied up documents.

Good read on this at the Weekly Standard . Townhall columnist Jay Bryant also has a good read on this. And of course don't miss the latest Dans-Doings over at RatherBiased.com -SpinDaddy

Sinking Fast

Stephen Green over at VodkaPundit has a piece called "Air Warfare by the Numbers" . Click on link and scroll down. It concerns the Pathetic ratings performance of the Air Amerika radio syndication featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garafo-whatever. Looks like the rats are jumping ship.

Surprising many observers who expected it to shine during election season, all-liberal upstart WLIB (1190 AM) -- base station for Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo -- actually headed south, shedding 15% of its summer audience to finish fall at 24th place in just-released ARBITRONS... [from Drudge Report]

Hmmm, reckon there could be something to all that let-the-market-decide stuff??

It could be perhaps that the socialist-wannabe gruel they push on there audience (such as it is) is obnoxious.

-SpinDaddy

Lock and Load

W is heading down to the corral for a legal showdown over the 2nd Amndmnt . Read the whole piece by Jess Bravin at the WSJ. This will surely have gun-grabbers Sarah Brady, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein etc. screaming bloody murder.

Fortunately few are listening to them. Americans have a better sense of how important the individually possessed right to keep and bear arms really is post 11SEP01. -SpinDaddy

" . . . Readying for a constitutional [I would argue that this is only a legal showdown, as the constitution speaks quite clearly on the issue. It's just that the gun-grabbers don't like what it says] showdown over gun control, the Bush administration has issued a 109-page memorandum aiming to prove that the Second Amendment grants individuals nearly unrestricted access to firearms . . . Reaching deep into English legal history and the practice of the British colonies prior to the American Revolution, the memorandum represents the administration's latest legal salvo to overturn judicial interpretations that have prevailed since the Supreme Court last spoke on the Second Amendment, in 1939 . . . "

It doesn't take a great deal of Constitutional analysis to determine that this is indeed an individual right. Such a state-milita-only reading as the liberals have long sought to impose on us does not stand up to any test of logic when one considers the rest of the constitution, the preamble and particularly the bill of rights.

Are the first amendment rights to constitutionally protected freedom of religion, peaceable assembly or freedom of the press, the rights of individuals?

What of the fifth amendments due process protections? Do these apply to the state government apparatus of the state of SouthCarolina, or Oregon, or Deleware; or do they apply to individual defendants in criminal precedings??

What of the eighth amendments protections against cruel and unusual punishment?? Do these apply to Missouri, Alaska, and New Hampshire state governments as entities, or do they apply to you??

In the tenth amendment when it reserves all other rights to the states and the people respectively; does this mean that states and people are the same thing? Hardly.

From the opinion issued by OLC - " . . . In any event, any possible doubt vanishes when "right" is conjoined with "the people," as it is in the Second Amendment. Such a right belongs to individuals: The "people" are not a "State," nor are they identical with the "Militia." Indeed, the Second Amendment distinctly [!] uses all three of these terms, yet it secures a "right" only to the "people." The phrase "the right of the people" appears two other times in the Bill of Rights, and both times refers to a personal right, which belongs to individuals. The First Amendment secures "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," and the Fourth safeguards "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." In addition, the Ninth Amendment refers to "rights . . . retained by the people." We see no reason to read the phrase in the Second Amendment to mean something other than what it plainly means in these neighboring and contemporaneous amendments. . ."

Once while at university, in a Sophomore English class of all things, the subject of poorly written compostions came up. The grad student "teaching" the class quickly offered up the 2nd amendment as some of the poorest writing he could think of. Well, it was written by a committee, and as such it may be a little awkward; but that doesn't change its meaning one wit.

" . . .The memo's authors, Justice Department lawyers Steven Bradbury, Howard Nielson Jr. and C. Kevin Marshall, dissect the amendment's language, arguing that under 18th century legal conventions, the clause concerning "a well-regulated militia" was "prefatory language" without binding force. " Thus, the amendment's declaratory preface could not overcome the unambiguously individual 'right of the people to keep and bear arms' conferred by the operative text," they write. They write that the drafters of the amendment envisioned a militia consisting of "all able-bodied white men" in a state, and suggest that they would be expected to keep arms not only if called up by the government but also on their own initiative, perhaps to fight rulers who threatened their liberties. . . "

Perhaps Thomas Jeffersons language from the Virginia house of burgesses would have been better, but the meaning is the same regardless- "Let no free man be debarred the use of arms"

A web site cited in the article references several opinions setting forth positions on various legal issues surrounding the topic.

Gregoire/Edwards '08

Below is a post from Sound Politics concerning the election for Governor of Washington State. Following it is my response in the comments section. Watch this as this is probably going to be the '08 Democratic candidates model for taking the White House.

This so called "margin-of-litigation" business with these Democrats keeps cropping up. A clear and distinct p a t t e r n is emerging here.

All of us should pay heed to this, if the Dems get away with this just once, and get a taste for blood in their mouths they'll be back for more. This clearly has national political implications.
-SpinDaddy

557 Magical Mystery People

Here's another fascinating discovery from the latest King County voter file.

[I now have four versions of the King County voter registration file, cut on June 1, Nov. 1, Dec. 29, 2004 and Jan. 7, 2005.]

There are 557 names in the Jan. 7 file for people who supposedly voted on Nov. 2, but who weren't listed in the Nov. 1 file. Only 94 of the 557 are in the Dec. 29 file. There are a number of pre-2004 registration dates among the 557, but many of these aren't in the June file. 280 of the 557 are shown to have registered on dates between Jun 7, 2004 and Oct. 2, 2004, yet did not appear in any of the earlier versions of the King County voter databases.

Oddly enough!

Here is another weird example :

Julianne B. is listed in the Jan 7 file as living in Auburn and having first registered to vote in King County in 1962. She does not appear in any of the three prior voter files that I have. Property records show that she used to live at the Auburn address listed in her brand new registration record, but that she and her husband sold the place in 2000 and bought a home in Pierce County the same year. Julianne B. is shown to have cast an absentee ballot in King County this year.

I'm sure there's a very good explanation for all of this.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky


SpinDaddy response:

"...I'm sure there's a very good explanation for all of this.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky..."

Of course there is a very good explanation for all this and an accurate one too. Here it is; the Democrats are stealing this election! Gregoire is the stuff of fantasy for 99.99% of democrats.
She is on track to pull off what AlGore was unable to do in 2000, what John Heinz-Kerry seriously contemplated the night of the election last November.

Watch out America, Gregoire is on the fast track to be the Dem party nominee in '08. She is proving her ability to fraudulently abscond with power.

I am in the mountains of NC now, but used to live in your neighboring state to the south, Oregon. I still follow regional politics out there, and this is just appalling.

I was in OR when the GOP threw off 40 years of Dem party political tyranny in the US house and senate, and I will never forget the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the original "Gore-Loser" Joleen Unsoeld (Sp?) in Vancouver WA.

She lacked the cojones to protest her defeat in order to change the outcome. She wailed and moaned about how the "baser instincts of the people were being displayed" or some such nonsense. She was representative of how out of touch the dems are, and now they are refining their model for desperately clawing to the last bits of power they retain. Litigate it until they achieve the desired outcome. This model has been very successful for them in the legislative arena. When they cannot get some offensive measure or program passed thru a legislative body, they litigate the policy into place. Call it "Policy-Litigation"

The rest of the nation is watching. Just the other night on FOX News' Brit Hume show, Mara Liasson of NPR could barely contain her glee at the prospect of Gregoire getting-away-with-stealing-the-election, which is distinctly different from trying-to-steal-the-election which we have seen before.

Godspeed Washington, and we'll keep you in our thoughts and prayers. -Spin

Posted by SpinDaddy at January 8, 2005 08:01 AM

Patterns

Although she was unusually demure during the 2000 election fiasco, noticebly absent during John Heinz-Kerry's spectacular defeat in 2004, Hillary is now officially a subsciber to the Gore-Loser philosophy of the Democratic party.

That is; when you can't win an election steal it through litigation, challenge, and protest. If this doesn't work for the Democrats, (and I don't think this methodology has fully played out yet on their side) civil unrest will surely be their next gambit. The ends justify the means is their operative philosophy whether they will admit it or not. How far any particular Democrat is willing to carry this philosophy depends on their gumption.

Hillary is undoubtedly laying the groundwork for her bid in '08. This is her way of getting on the "everybody-knows-the-Republicans-steal-elections" bandwagon. Hillary and her lackeys are hoping for the successful theft of Washington states governors race by Gregoire (see above post) to provide further evidence of this. If Gregoire gets away with this, it will be trumpeted from the depths of Liberaldom and the MSM as justice finally being served.

Look to hear this become a talking point of democratic operatives more so than it already it is. It will become a familiar refrain in the next four years. Bet on it.

By the time Hillary gets around to filing lawsuits, and challenging outcome of her loss in '08, and encouraging unrest among the Democratic party base, the above refain will have become an accepted cliche in the MSM. Excerpt from NY Post piece below, read the whole thing.
-SpinDaddy

" . . .January 7, 2005 -- So much for the new, moderate — dare we say centrist — Hillary Rod ham Clinton.
Yesterday she lined up with her party's moonbat "They-Stole-Ohio" caucus to headline the first formal congressional challenge to a presidential election since 1877 — only to see the effort, in equal measures baseless and slanderous, fail spectacularly . . . "

Fools and their Indignation

I have been watching with great interest the C-SPAN replay the Senates confirmation hearing of Pres. Bushes AG nominee Alberto Gonzalez. That fool Ted Kennedy is all worked up into a lather and visibly indignant at the treatment of these poor terrorists who most likely had some part in, if not the planning of 11SEP01, then terror events similar in scope and intent.

The democrats in general; Kennedy, Leahy, and Biden in particular, are hellbent to blame Gonzalez for Abu Ghraib. They are all so outraged and indignant over the treatment of these poor souls at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.

Where is their outrage and indignation over 3,000 plus dead Americans!!?

Where is their indignation over the hundreds of thousands Saddam Hussein tortured, raped and killed during his tyrannical reign of terror!!?

Where is their indignation over the 1,000 plus soldiers, and marines who have paid the highest price in the liberation of Iraq!!?

There is an important distinction many of the democrats seem to be intentionally glossing over. That is this; the memorandum that they are grilling Gonzalez over was sought by Gonzalez (in his role as White House counsel) to determine the US legal responsibilities re: terrorists captured during the liberation of the "failed state" of Afghanistan.

This memorandum is not applicable to the nonsense that went on at Abu Ghraib. The administration has stated their position, time and again that the Geneva convention applies in Iraq. Our UCMJ will deal swiftly and severely with US military personnel found to be in violation of applicable conduct codes. I am not sure we have any such obligation to the terrorist insurgents acting against our forces in Iraq.

The distinction is a very important one. The terrorists captured in Afghanistan, and being held at Gitmo, are basically persona non grata under the tenets of the Geneva convention. Applying the Geneva convention would be tantamount to promoting these bloodthirsty vandals to the rank of soldier.

Sorry, but they don't have what it takes to pack that gear, and it is an insult to professional soldiers the world over. The Gitmo detainees (like the terrorists engaged in the insurgency in Iraq) don't have the guts to put on a uniform and come to the field of battle like men. They are cowards; and as such, lacking the courage of their convictions to such extent to declare their loyalties in a clear fashion, they have no rights as would a soldier fighting in uniform for his country. Basically anything goes for them. We owe them nothing.

As a matter of fact, in this authors opinion they are being treated far better than they deserve. Alberto Gonzalez has handled this foolishness with aplomb and grace, he will make a fine AG. -SpinDaddy

Update 0049hrs 06JAN05 : Rush Limbaugh has some funny commentary this topic archived at his website
-SpinDaddy

Update 0907hrs 07JAN05 : Jonah Goldberg is all over this, an excellent piece at Townhall.com
-SpinDaddy

Update 0951hrs 07JAN05: Must Read article this topic by Heather Mac Donald in the City Journal
-SpinDaddy