Anyone? Beuller? Bueller?

I read some of the articles in the American Spectator to get my blood boiling enough to post once in a while. Ben Stein and Jay D. Homnick have done the job. In an article posted 10/20/06, Mr. Homnick exposes Hillary Clinton for lying. Something that no politician on either side of the aisle has ever done. Obviously the Clintons have the lying thing down much better than Bush family.

The basis for his article is that Hillary Clinton just found out that she was not named for Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed Mt. Everest in 1953. This obviously can’t be true since Hillary was born in 1947. The story goes that Hillary’s mother told her this when she was young and Hillary did not bother to fact check her Mom.

In the article he uses this as a basis for convicting Hillary for everything she ever lied about ever, without supporting those other lies with real examples. The only one he manages to give is when Bill Clinton lied about tax cuts for the middle-class. Of course the Monica Lewinsky fiasco. What this has to do with Hillary Clinton’s mother telling her she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary to inspire her to great things, I have no idea.

In the end Mr. Homnick draws a direct line between this event (Hillary’s political office saying that Hillary understands why her mother told her this untruth as a young woman) and Hillary’s covert run at the 2008 Presidential Democratic ticket.

The final straw is that he took a great Bob Dylan song (Lay, Lady, Lay) and repurposed it for the article’s title (lie, Lady, Lie). That is an unforgivable offense.

Ben Stein is best known by people of my generation for his wonderful role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He played a boring teacher whose famous line is, “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?” or his speech describing, “Voodoo economics.” Classic. Stein is also known as the former speechwriter for Nixon, among other things. No doubt he’s smart. He writes economics articles, he is a lawyer and he’s rather funny.

But I do not like his political ideology. Stein was at one time suspected of being the famous “Deep Throat,” Bob Woodward’s informant. He deflected this accusation by in fact, turning the accusations against Bob Woodward and stating quite often that he believed there was no “Deep Throat” and that Mr. Woodward made the informant up.

When W. Mark Felt outed himself ads the Woodward informant, Stein reacted angrily against Mr. Felt. He believes that given the opportunity, Nixon may have helped stem the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. (This was taken directly from Wikipedia’s article on Ben Stein) Stein has been a staunch defender of Nixon over the years. Although he recognizes Nixon was a lying, coniving, sham of a politician, he did so with peaceful intentions, while JFK and Clinton were liars and conivers but were also immoral so they deserve everything they got. (Aparantly he doesn’t dig too deep into the record.)

An article I stumbled across in the Spectator got me riled up.

Yes, it’s old and it is almost forgotten but I do not understand the basis for his arguments. I remember back during the 2004 election campaign. The Dems really screwed that one up by reacting and bending and basically being flipilty-flopity all over the place. But the Republicans sorta just eeked that one out. They may have gotten the electorate but the popular vote just tells me that they were better at mobilizing their base. (I blame myself.)

Mr. Stein’s position is that the Democrats thought that Bush was not fit to lead because he didn’t fight in Vietnam and that Kerry was better because he did. He even goes further saying that Dems also are trying to say that Kerry is better than Bush because he killed someone in Vietanam!

Was he watching the same election or one that Hollywood made up. I think the line the Dems were trying to put out there is that Bush lied (back to lying) about getting us into the war in Iraq and he lied about his service record (or at the very least tried to avoid the issue). The point of Kerry’s record and subsiquent protest of the War was that this guy puts his money where his mouth is. He is a stand-up guy who went to war because he believed in America and when he came back, didn’t like what he saw despite doing his duty and by the way winning a few metals along the way. He protested because he had a moral concious and stood up for what he believed in.

The problem with that election campaign was that the Republicans were too good at back spinning even the good stories about Kerry and the Democrats found themselves with a poor return. (Why they didn’t ask me is beying comprehension.)

Mr. Stein ends his article with an obtuse pronouncement that the Democrats—the anti-war, anti-military party—thinks that only a cold-blooded warrior can lead the country, implying that the Democrats don’t know what they’re talking about. I thinkt he Democrats knew what they wanted to say—and it made a lot of sense—it’s that they didn’t have the organization and dare I say balls to say it.

Someone as smart as Ben Stein should know better than to engage in the type of mud-slinging found in this article. Let’s hope he has clearer vision in 2008.

L.S.C.

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Have you seen this email? See below the email to get my response.

Disgusting !!!!!! And not just the highlighted ones. If you are so inclined, give it the widest distribution possible.

38 SENATORS VOTED TODAY AGAINST MAKING ENGLISH THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF AMERICA.

HERE THEY ARE.


Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Domenici (-NM)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D -WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)

REMEMBER THIS THE DAY YOU VOTE.


Feel free to send back my response:

Fellow Americans,

There has been an email circulating that claims Democrats voted against the English language being the national language of the United States. here is the whole story.

If you do some research you'll see that the email is referring to an amendment to a bill that was in Congress called the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006.

In that bill, which was passed, (some opponents said that this bill allowed easier legal status to illegal aliens) the amendment that was voted Nay by the Democrats did propose that "The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language of the United States of America." But it also said that "no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English." The Democrats were voting against that portion of the bill judging by the results of their votes on the following Amendment (Salazar Amdt. No. 4073 As Modified).

The Amendment (Salazar Amdt. No. 4073 As Modified) that was voted Yea by the Democrats listed below (including the dreaded Clinton) was a similar amendment. This one read that the government was "To declare that English is the common and unifying language of the United States, and to preserve and enhance the role of the English language." But that "Nothing herein shall diminish or expand any existing rights under the law of the United States relative to services or materials provided by the Government of the United States in any language other than English. " The Democrats all voted for this bill which basically said, we will preserve English as the language of America but we will noit restrict or for that matter even expand our existing rights to provide material and services in other languages. Keep things status quo.

The actual Bill, (Which you can read here) is very comprehensive and has many amendments (found here) The bill was about illegal aliens and border security issues. It was passed by a 62-36 bipartisan vote.

So in fact the email sent out is not even close to the whole story.

Remember THAT when you vote.

Refernce:

Snopes.com always gets their man! Or email fraud!

L.S.C.

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Give Peace A Chance (Or A Few Cents)

Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

Directly from Yahoo.com

Attack the causes of poverty and you remove the roots of conflict -- that is the message the Nobel Committee wanted to send out by awarding its Peace Prize to the creator of a micro-credit scheme which benefits millions, analysts said on Friday.

Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, the so-called "Banker to the Poor", and the Grameen Bank he founded three decades ago were the surprise winners of the award for pioneering a system of small-scale loans that has helped 6.6 million people escape the grind of poverty.

As the head of the Nobel Committee, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, said: "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty."

Click here to read full article on Yahoo.com.

Sounds like a brilliant idea to me. Possibly the root cause of all terrorism is not religious differences but poverty and lack of education.

L.S.C.

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In the months after September 11th, 2001, the administration of George W. Bush put together a plan to strike back at the terrorists who attacked the United States. In hindsight it is obvious that this was a misguided and incomplete plan. The reasons for going to war were fabricated and inaccurate. After a year of deliberation, the combined forces of the Unites States Intelligence Community developed vapid threads connecting Iraq to the Al-Qaida attackers. In fact, Bush practically made the case that Iraq could very well be behind all the terrorist threats to the free world and that we had to take the War on Terror to the shores of those who presented the greatest known threat.

Statements made by high profile members of the Bush administration before the intelligence analysis was complete created pressure on the Intelligence Community to come up with evidence to support their claims.

“Saddam Hussein has said in no uncertain terms, that he would use weapons of mass destruction against the United States. He has, at this moment, stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear weapons.” - Rumsfeld, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 9/19/02

“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. And the battlefield has now shifted to America…” - President Bush, 9/19/2002

“You can’t distinguish between Al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror” – President Bush, 9/25/02

“We know they have weapons of mass destruction. We know they have active programs.” - Rumsfeld, DoD News Briefing, 9/26/02

“The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons… and according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.” - President Bush, Radio Address, 9/28/06

On October 1, 2002 the National Intelligence Community presented the classified NIE report on Iraq’s WMD assessment. The NIE, or National Intelligence Estimate, is to provide policy-makers with the best, most unbiased, collaborative, assessment of the combined resources of the National Intelligence Community as a whole. Usually an assessment like this takes months to prepare but this NIE was cobbled together within weeks. A few days later the declassified White Papers were released. This report contained the evidence many congressmen used to base their decision to vote for the use of force, if necessary, in Iraq. As well, the public viewed the White Papers as the Intelligence Community’s final conclusions on the threat, which painted a grim picture of a madman with his finger on the button to destroy America and its interests at anytime.

Conclusion that the NIE drew, that Congress used to vote for the War in Iraq are outlined as follows:

- We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.
- Iraq has largely rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities.
- Baghdad has exceeded UN range limits of 150 km with its ballistic missiles and is working with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
- Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them.
- If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.
- Without such material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009
- We assess that Baghdad has begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX; its capability probably is more limited now than it was at the time of the Gulf war, although VX production and agent storage life probably have been improved.
- We judge that all key aspects--R&D, production, and weaponization--of Iraq's offensive BW program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf war.
- Iraq maintains a small missile force and several development programs, including for a UAV probably intended to deliver biological warfare agent.
- We have low confidence in our ability to assess when Saddam would use WMD.
- Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war.
- Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa'ida--with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States--could perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.

Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate:

High Confidence:

· Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.
· We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.
· Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.
· Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grad fissile material

Moderate Confidence:

· Iraq does not yet have a nuclear weapon or sufficient material to make one but is likely to have a weapon by 2007 to 2009. (See INR alternative view, page 84).

Low Confidence

· When Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction.
· Whether Saddam would engage in clandestine attacks against the US Homeland.
· Whether in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qa'ida.
The resolution to use force against Iraq passed the House on October 10, 2002, and by the Senate on October 11, 2002. Most of the Senators and Congressmen used this flawed report as a basis to vote for the use of force. President Bush signed the law on October 16, 2002.

In November the U.N. adopt Resolution 1441 that says that Iraq must submit to tougher U.N. inspections but does not allow for the United States to use force. The U.N. inspectors then had unfettered access to all the plants and sites that they want to inspect. Despite multiple pleas from the inspectors get copies of American Intelligence reports on the production of WMDs, the U.S.did not produce such documents. All the while, the administration claimed that they wanted more and better evidence that Iraq did not have an existing WMD program. Rumors abounded that Iraq buried the WMDs in the desert before the inspectors could find them. Saddam Hussein allowed the inspections to go on within Iraq.

In Press Conferences Ari Fleisher continued to reiterate the fact that the administration of the United States and the United Kingdom knew for sure that Iraq had WMDs and in order to stem an invasion attack, Saddam Hussein must produce them. He also flaunted the absurdity of believing Saddam Hussein over the opinions of highly respected Americans like George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

After weapons inspectors failed to prove or disprove Iraq harbored secret WMDs, Colin Powell stood in front of the U.N. to present his multi-part report that exposed Iraq’s danger to the world. Most of what he presented was uncorroborated and unverified. To date, the evidence against Iraq has been very thin and transparently fabricated from old reports and evidence based on what is not there rather than what is.

On the 20th of March of 2003 the United States, Great Britain and a loose coalition of nations went to war with the nation of Iraq. With an offensive attack called “Shock and awe” the United States dropped bombs and launched missiles into Baghdad that were meant to demoralize the enemy and break its will to fight. If the idea worked, there would be little if any ground fighting. American forces could march right into the capital, destruction laced among the buildings and thoroughfares of the Iraqi city, and take control with minimal U. S. casualties. Comparisons were made to Hiroshima; such was the impact the military meant to impose on Iraq.

“Shock and Awe” also is known in the National Defense University as rapid dominance. Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, the authors of the strtegy, describe rapid dominance as attempting "to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe," (1) and "impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels." (2)

Since that time it has been anything but a quick and decisive battle. Despite the proclamation of the president when he dressed up as a fighter pilot (ironic since in the Air National Guard he was suspended from flight duty) the mission has not been accomplished.

According to the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Iraq’s relationship to Al-Qaida was misread and unsupported considering his previous dealings with extremists groups.

He viewed extremists as a threat to his regime and any information about Al-Qaida’s view of the relationship was contradictory as both a desire to gain support from Saddam Hussein and a distain of working with secular regimes like Iraq. Debriefing of Abu Zubaydah, a captured Al-Qaida senior coordinator of training, revealed that Abu felt that any relationship between Saddam and Al-Qaida would be viewed by bin Laden as distracting to its mission although he did say that Al-Qaida contact Abu Mu’sab al-Zarqawi had a good relationship with Iraqi Intelligence. The assessment, despite evidence to the contrary, was that Al-Qaida and Iraq had meetings. The real evidence supports the assumption that the contacts were through third parties and not very strongly supported by the leadership on either side.

Reports that there were close ties between Iraq and Al-Qaida and that Al-Qaida had set up training facilities within Iraq’s borders are at the most unreliable and contradictory. The only two pieces of evidence connecting the Iraqi government to the September 11th hijackers were deemed by the CIA itself to be tenuous and unsubstantial. They relied on two instances where alleged Iraqi nationals were to have met with directly assisted in the facilitation of the attacks of the attackers.

Saddam Hussein’s human rights records were also held up as reasons for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Although ancillary in its appeal when all else fails the supporters of the war effort could point to undeniably atrocious acts by Saddam Hussein and his regime on his own people. The list of his abuses is long and publicly available. It is well known that Saddam Hussein carried out atrocities against the Iraqi Kurdish minority, the Shia Arabs and that he used chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Iranian military in the Iran-Iraq War.

The White Papers report released in 2002 also outline the atrocities dating back to 1983. In that time, from 1983 to 1988, Hussein used chemical weapons such as Mustard Gas, a blister agent causing blistering and burning of skin, eyes and lungs and Tabun and other nerve agents which causes convulsions and loss of consciousness, against thousands of Kurds and Iranians. The period of time covered predates the War in Iraq by a period of 15 to 20 years. The report also outlined biological weapons testing—including Anthrax—from 1988 to 1991, a period predating the War in Iraq by 12 to 20 years.

Iraq has not stopped at human abuse and has showed little hesitation in using ecological destruction as part of its war efforts. During the Gulf War in 1991 he had his army set fires to the Kuwaiti oil wells and pumped oil into the Persian Gulf. He drained the marshlands of the Marsh Arabs to essentially destroying their habitat and culture.

Looking at the original claims and assesments of the Intelligence community in 2002, the terror threat to the United States and the free nations of the world have not significantly dropped. Countless acts of terror against countires in Eruope and against individuals in Iraq have been carried out against us in the Jihad of the Muslim extremists. Even in the shadow of the evil that these terrorists do, America’s reputation has been severly damaged on the world stage. Bush claimed in 2004, when he won the national election, that he had political capital to spend. He has now bankrupted the political coffer, taking all of America down with him.

Several sources were used to write this article:

Gpoaccess.gov
Report
Report

Iraq WMD National Intelligence Estimate Report retrieved from FAS website and the website of George Washington University.

Info on FAS from Wikipedia.

cooperativeresearch.org

Wikipedia:
1. Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock And Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance
2. Ullman and Wade, , Shock And Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance

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2006 Congressional Elections

CNN reports that Bush said "If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it sounds like -- it sounds like -- they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're attacked again."

I am not sure if he actually believes that or if this is just campaigning on the part of Republicans everywhere, like Dean Heller. Bush said this while visiting Nevada where Mr. Heller, Nevada’s Secretary of State, is running for Congress.

On November 7th all the House of Representative seats are up for election and 33 of the 100 Senatorial seats are running for election. This is an important mid-term election.

George Bush had been able to hold the country in a tight grip playing on our fears of a repeat of 9/11 and the increase of taxes that the Democrats will surely impose the minute they take power.

This election should bode well for Democrats given the current climate and growing dissatisfaction of the people with the War in Iraq, the Government’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina and other scandals that hit the current administration.

With an administration that shows very little regard for the very people it vows to protect and the economy that despite what the man on the street experiences, the government is smugly satisfied with, we can only hope for the prevailing wind to shift in by this important election year. I do not propose wholesale slaughter at the ballot boxes but I do predict a change in the tide.

Judging by the president’s comment about the Democrats I wonder if he even bothers to think about what his speechwriters put in front of him anymore. We certainly know he doesn’t read the papers. The brilliant work done by his political machine over the last six years seems to be breaking down.

National Security is certainly a major concern and legitimate issue in these elections. But when you make a blanket statement like that how can anyone take you seriously. I can point out that the Democrat’s or Republican’s strategy or plan is inefficient in keeping this country safe or may lead to more attacks but to say that the Democrats as a whole have a wait and see attitude on the terror threat is absurd.

In the same vein, one can say that the Republican’s idea of protecting our country is to take out troops and have them occupied in a war that has nothing to do with this nation’s security and that wastes valuable resources and lives. Their attitude is clearly one that deflects direct criticism rather than face it head on. They did it in the 2004 Presidential Election by throwing almost every accusation back by questioning the asker’s patriotism and or commitment to the American people. Only in this way can a draft dodger look like a war hero while a veteran can be made out to be soft.

If I could be neutral, I’d actually admire the way the Republican Political Machine gobbled up issues and threw them back with barbs attached. They ripped the Democrats to shreds who were unprepared and unwilling to fight back. Let’s hope we’ve come a long way since then and have learned to stand up and fight. And not let the other side define us before we’ve even defined ourselves.

L.S.C.

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