As Saddam is buried, a new milestone in the war in Iraq is reached

On the same day Saddam Hussein was buried in his hometown of Tikrit, the U.S. announced the deaths of two U.S. soldiers bringing the toll on the U.S. Military to at least 3,000, as this war approaches its fourth year.

The moonbats claim, "It's official that G W Bush is now responsible for more American deaths than Osaam bin Laden."

Of course that's utter nonsense, on both points.

For one, G W Bush is no more or less responsible for prosecuting the wart in Iraq than were the 98 Senators who signed onto the Bush Doctrine in October of 2001, nor the Congress that gave the administration the carte blanche it needed to prosecute this war.

Moreover, the "war" in Iraq ended in less than a month when Saddam Hussein's forces were defeated.

Since that time, the Kurdish north has moved on in relative peace and grateful prosperity, while the Sunni minority, angry at their being displaced from control of that country and fearful of resentful Shiites have been at each other's throats.

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Iran's Persian Shiite population has seen an opportunity to increase its influence over that region, something the U.S. cannot allow to happen.

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On the other side of that inane statement, Osamma bin Laden isn't responsible for the nearly 3,000 deaths of 9/11/01, it was most likely al Zawahiri who was the planner behind 9/11/01.

Moreover, what we've learned since 9/11 is that the War on Terror (WoT) is not a merely fight against al Qaeda, or even "radical Islam," it's a war between Sharia-based Islam and the West. Of that there is no doubt.

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All one need do is to look around the world today and observe the many ethnic clashes. In Kashmir traditional Sharia-based Muslims (NOT al Qaeda) clash with Hindus. In Darfur, in the Sudan, traditional Sharia-based Muslims are systematically raping and killing the non-Muslims of the Sudan. In Kosovo, traditional Sharia-based Muslims initiated that conflict by engaging in the first genocide in that region. In Indonesia, traditional Sharia-based Muslims clash with Catholics and throughout Europe traditional Sharia-based Muslims are now clashing with Europeans and claiming that they will not stop pushing until Sharia Law is the law over all of Europe.

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With that in mind, there are two kinds of Westerners today, those that understand that the WoT is actually a war between Medieval, Sharia-based Islam and the modern West and those who don't.

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As a matter of fact, it's a war that's been building for decades and one that has been waged by the Arab-Muslim world against the West, in earnest (full-time) since about 1991.

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Those who refuse to believe that, even those who cling to some hope of a negotiated settlement are, wittingly or not, friends (or at least "useful idiots") of the jihad. There is no way for traditional Sharia-based Islam to peacefully co-exist with what it sees as the "decadent and immoral West."

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There is no chance for any kind of negotiated peace, there is no backing away from this growing global war between two competing ideologies.

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Check out http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/ for one of the best documentaries on the subject.

Good NEWS on the MCRI Front!

Jennifer Gratz (pictured left) has posted that the 6th Circuit Court lifted the preliminary injunction against Proposition-2 in Michigan – the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, so Prop-2 will go into effect immediately!


“An update on the legal front...this evening (about 3 hours ago) the 6th Circuit lifted the preliminary injunction — which means Proposal 2 will be implemented immediately.”

“The decision also debunks many of the claims made by BAMN, the ACLU, the NAACP, the Universities, etc. The decision can be read here:”


http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/06a0476p-06.pdf

Saddam Hanged!

Just after 6 am ET, Saddam Hussein's execution by hanging was carried out.

He refused to wear a hood during his execution.

According to CNN World News;

"Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr moments before he was hanged, a witness said Saturday.

"The Iraqi government executed Hussein before dawn as punishment for his role in a massacre of his own people, more than two decades before he was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion.

"witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room.

"As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader.

"Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account.

The judge said Hussein appeared "totally oblivious to what was going on around him. I was very surprised. He was not afraid of death."


http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/30/hussein/

The execution, it is hoped, will put an end to any remaining Sunni hopes of a resurgent Hussein regime.

Race Hustlers Fight for Special Preferences for Blacks in Michigan, While Openly Endorsing White Supremacy

Michigan’s State Universities and it’s Governor Challenge the Will of the People of Michigan (their bosses) in Court!

The Michigan Citizen breathlessly reports, “Civil rights advocates are optimistic that the voter-approved affirmative action ban will eventually be completely rescinded. To delay the implementation of Proposal 2 at three major state universities is considered a win.

“I think this is a tremendous victory,” said George Washington, attorney for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “Now we must mobilize to win a stay for the rest of the year and every year afterwards. We have an excellent chance of winning our lawsuit against this racist law.”

According to Mr. Washington, attorney for BAMN, “Proposal 2 created discrimination at the heart of the political process,” he said. “A veteran, a resident, an alumni, a son of a congressman or a university administrator can still get preferential treatment at the universities, but the only people who cannot are Blacks, Latinos and other minorities, and women.”

As John Rosenberg of Discriminations (http://www.discriminations.us/) points out, “By BAMN logic, a “veteran, a resident, an alumni, a son of a congressman or a university administrator” could all be excluded from or denied benefits of or be subject to discrimination under some educational program receiving federal assistance without running afoul of Title VI. Title VI, in this twisted view, affirmatively encourages discrimination against everyone except a small subset of people who are protected because of their specially protected “race, color, or national origin.” ”

There is nothing more "racist" (and I hate using that word) than presuming incompetence on the part of another.

Sadly, it is the essence of the white Liberal or "do-gooder." It's why those folks tend to see their ilk (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry, etc) as "erudite elites" and Conservatives from Dan Quayle to G W Bush as stumbling, bumbling imbeciles, who aren't as "enlightened" as they are.

Of course, these folks are actually pseudo-elites. Al Gore, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry all did far worse in College than did G W Bush.

Carter was a bright man, with absolutely no common sense and Bill Clinton was another bright man, who'd come up from poverty, but never developed a conscience in his travels.

Still, Clinton, at least had the common sense to be a pragmatist. He headed the DLC that tried to move the Democratic Party t the Right (back toward the center) and he signed onto 7 of the 10 planks of Gingrich's "Contract With America."

But back to preferences and presumed incompetence - when I first got on the FDNY (back in March of 1986), I worked with a black Battalion Chief named Reggie Julius (a real great guy, who'd worked with my Dad in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn back in the "war years" - the late sixties and early seventies, when ONE THIRD of the buildings in NYC burned down).

Chief Julius was not only a very bright guy, but he was a real character as well and he had a real problem with race and gender based preferences.

At that time, I'd met few blacks who opposed such things and was curious, so one day I asked him about it, and his response was, "Every time I walk into a room, I KNOW most of the people in there think I was given these stars (Battalion Chiefs wear two gold stars, one on each collar) and it pisses me off cause I was never given nuthin and never asked to be given nuthin by anybody. I scored at the top of every exam list on every test I took and I resent people assuming I didn't, but that's the stigma that quotas put on us - people just assume every black person is unable to compete."

Chief Julius had real self pride, not "ethnic pride," nobody ever "earned" their ethnicity, he was rightfully proud of the person he forged himself into being.

I think the thing that Chief Julious and other blacks who oppose preferences really understand is that there is no more tacit an endorsement of white supremacy than accepting race/gender-based preferences as necessary, as it endorses black incompetence and thus white supremacy.

In that regard, the real "white supremacists" are those who support race/gender-based preferences and the blacks who support them are the ones who've accepted white supremacy/black incompetence as reality.

It's NOT reality.

It's a false reality, partially enhanced by the stigma that so-good whites have heaped on those they claim they want to help.

The problem with "helpers" is that you're always looking down to those you help and unless you do a lot of self reflection, you can easily slip into feeling "better than" others.

That's probably why so much harm has been done in the name of "good intentions."

Education is access to knowledge and knowledge is a form of wealth and like any form of wealth, you can only get out of it, what you are able to put in.

That's why there are people like Bill Gates and others who've used knowledge effectively even though they've dropped out of College and why so many Lottery winners quickly wind up bankrupt after a few years - they're not prepared to leverage that money to earn them even more money, or to "grow their assets."

Even the premise that ethnic diversity holds some sort of mythical positive value is flawed, to say the least. In point of fact, ethnic diversity is value-neutral - that is, it has neither a positive nor a negative value.

Japan and Iceland do incredibly well with their homogeneous (non-diverse) populations, and places like Britain and France are now suffering with increasing diversity, albeit the root cause of those nation's problem seems to be an increasing Muslim population, not mere ethnic diversity.

Self-segregation is a fact of life.

I dealt with it in College, where the bulk of both blacks & whites CHOSE to sit together in class and in the cafeteria. I was one of two white players on the basketball team and saw this first-hand - sometimes members of the team would sit together and other times, they went their own ways.

Again, the problem with the very premise of race/gender preferences is the presumed incompetence it is rooted in.

Given that there is no such thing as "test bias," (there isn't), as Thomas Sowell has shown that the area with the greatest ethnic variance on such standardized exams, isn't the verbal section, as most would think, but the math section and in math, as Dr. Sowell notes, "Numbers are the same in the inner city, as they are in the suburbs," so the ONLY rationalization for race/gender preferences is the presumed incompetence of those groups who are deemed to require such preferences.

Are "donor," "alumni" and "geographic" preferences equally wrong?

Of course, in my view they are, though for different reasons - donor & alumni preferences amount to an illicit quid pro quo that shouldn't exist in the admissions process, while geographic preferences are themselves rooted in the fallacy that "geographic diversity" holds some mythic value that it quantifiably does not, as it too, is value neutral.

The fact is that most blacks prefer to live among other blacks, most whites among other whites and Hispanics among Hispanics. It may well be a false comfort, but for many, it is a comforting factor none-the-less.

It is probably why some blacks vehemently opposed the gentrification of Harlem and Bill Clinton opening an office up there almost ten years ago. They saw Harlem as "their community," and didn't want it changed.

Since Harlem has been "gentrified" many blacks have moved out, though some would say "they were forced out due to rising rents, etc.," it's just as true that many of them reacted the same way that many whites do when a white area becomes predominantly black or Hispanic - there's a sense of "not belonging," that comes with that and that is what many of the blacks who've left Harlem have articulated.

Choice, even short-sighted choice doesn't necessarily make one a bigot, because while bigotry is malevolent, such personal choices usually aren't. For instance, to a white male who is attracted to black women, a black women asserting that she's only interested in dating black males, might seem "prejudicial," if only because it impacts him negatively, but that woman certainly and without question has a basic right to date whomever she pleases, doesn't she?

Indeed, I can't imagine anyone denying that she has a basic human right to be discriminating in her own tastes. We ALL do, and we exercise such "discrimination" when choosing the color of our car, or the walls of our home, or our favorite foods...and yes, often when we choose our friends.

In fact, that's why preferences on standardized exams are not only wrong, but patently absurd. So long as the same exam is given to everyone, the rim is the same 10' for us all.

Now, if one were to argue that the jobs that DON'T rely on any standardized criteria and rely entirely upon the subjective "interview process," then I'd agree that THAT system relies on too many subjective, non-standardized criteria to be considered "fair." An interviewer black or white, may subconcsciously have an aversion to a candidate of a different background. I've always felt that such interviews should be vocoded (so you couldn't tell if its a man or woman by voice) and in a sort of Confessional box, where you couldn't see anything bu the interviewee's silhouette, ideally, in my view, most jobs should be filled via some objective, quantifiable standards, ideally some form of standardized exam.

Bottom line, any and all race/gender preferences violate both equal access to opportunity, as well as equality before the law. Of that, there is no question, for to give a preference to one ethnic group or gender is to deny that same preference (access to opportunity) and indeed inflict a barrier upon another.

The very idea of ethnic preferences spits in the face of the most basic principles this country was founded upon.



UPDATE:

In a recent development U.S. District Court judge David Lawson has barred intervention in the case by Ward Connerly and Jennifer Gratz, as the 6th Circuit Court has ordered an expedited briefing on Judge Lawson’s order enjoining Proposition 2.

It’s astounding that a federal judge doesn’t understand that a Constitutional Amendment that passed with nearly 60% of the popular vote, that bars race based preferences would even delay that law’s implementation.

trackback: http://www.discriminations.us/

trackback: http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/12/29/more-michigan/trackback/

Guess who's Undermining American Interests...AGAIN???

If you guessed the ACLU, you're right....as usual.

This time the ACLU has joined with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund to try and thwart a Texas town's ordinance that bars apartment owners from renting to illegal aliens.

I kid you not.

"The American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund is asking a federal court here to block the suburb from enforcing an ordinance banning apartment managers from leasing to illegal immigrants. "

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2006/12/law_targeting_i.php

The ACLU has fought similar ordinances in both Hazleton, Pa., and Escondido, California.

Wherever traditional values and support for American principles goes, there is the ACLU to fight them as vigorously as possible.

Why has "Liberalism" become such a "dirty word?"

Because they continue to bring it on themselves, with these kinds of things.

Duke Rape Case Unraveling Fast

According to a recent article by Stuart Taylor Jr. AND K C Johnson. “last spring, Durham D.A. Michael Nifong, who is white, was facing a primary in a racially divided electorate. He was badly behind and out of campaign money, excepting almost $30,000 in loans from his personal funds. Then came the accuser's allegations. Mr. Nifong responded by assuming control of the police investigation and making racially inflammatory statements pronouncing the Duke lacrosse players guilty of rape. Even as evidence of their innocence accumulated, he brought rape, sexual assault and kidnapping charges that fed the racial resentments he had stoked. The black vote put him over the top in both the May 2 primary and the Nov. 7 general election.”

Thus, seemed to begin, the sordid saga of the “Duke Lacrosse Rape case.”

Even though the rape allegations have been known to be clearly false for months, since none of the accused’s DNA was found on the victim, the case still had its fair share of supporters nationwide.

As Johnson and Taylor ask and answer, “How can we be confident that the charges are false?

“Let us count the ways: The police who interviewed the accuser after she left the March 13-14 lacrosse team party where she and another woman had performed as strippers found her rape charge incredible, and for good reason. She said nothing about rape to three cops and two others during the first 90 minutes after the party. Only when being involuntarily confined in a mental health facility did she mention rape. This predictably got her released to the Duke emergency room for a rape workup, whereupon she recanted the rape charge.

Then she re-recanted, offering a ludicrous parade of wildly implausible and mutually contradictory stories of being gang-raped by 20, five, four, three or two lacrosse players, with the other stripper assisting the rapists in some versions.”

Moreover, they added, “Above all, DNA tests by state and private labs, which Mr. Nifong's office had said would "immediately rule out any innocent persons," did just that. They found no lacrosse player's DNA anywhere on or in the accuser and none of her DNA in the bathroom.”

Despite all this, it was less than ten days ago that the rape charges were dropped only AFTER Defense lawyers were able to show that Nifong’s office illegally kept the private lab used in this case, from unveiling the complete DNA findings – that the DNA of “multiple males” were present on the alleged victim, although NONE of that DNA matched any of the Duke Lacrosse players.

K C Johnson and Stuart Taylor, Jr. put Mike Nifong’s predicament into a very clear perspective, “But Mr. Nifong had driven the black community into a rage with dozens of guilt-presuming, race-baiting attacks on the lacrosse players like this one, on March 27: "The contempt that was shown for the victim, based on her race, was totally abhorrent."

“Such statements flagrantly violated North Carolina ethical rules requiring prosecutors to "refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused." They also poured gasoline on the flames of racial rage.”

And they go on to lay out how flawed, the illegal photo-line up of 4/4/06 really was, “On April 4, when this third photo-ID process took place, the message to the accuser was, effectively: Pick three, any three. At random, if you like. You can't go wrong. This setup trashed the defendants' constitutional due process rights and specific Durham, state, and federal principles for identification procedures. To test the reliability of often-mistaken eyewitness ID's, these principles require showing at least five "fillers" (non-suspects) with each suspect and telling the witness that the lineup may or may not include a suspect.

“Mr. Nifong recently defended his procedure through word games, asking, "What is a lineup?" "

The entire case, replete with outrageous “race & classed based politics,” through statements like, “White innocence means black guilt. Men’s innocence means women’s guilt,” by Karla Holloway (Duke University Professor), has been a travesty of modern American jurisprudence and another in the long indictment of the twisted Leftist tradition that has grown like a weed in contemporary American academia, the media and the law.

As Johnson and Taylor make painfully clear, the real harm done by the supporters of Mike Nifong’s illicit use of a troubled woman’s racially inflammatory accusations for his own political gain, is that they have tacitly endorsed the abuse of the legal process in pursuit of “desired ends,” a course that inevitable leads to such abuses becoming even more routinely used against poorer and less well connected suspects.


The entire article by K C Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr. can be read here:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009444


Trackback to K C Johnson’s awesome blog on the Duke case:
http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/


Trackback to Lashawn Barber, a great blogger on this topic;
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/12/27/mike-nifong-will-drop-all-charges/trackback/

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UPDATE: 12/28/2006: North Carolina Bar Files Ethics Charges Against Nifong:

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"The North Carolina bar filed ethics charges Thursday against the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case, accusing him of saying misleading or inflammatory things to the news media about the athletes under suspicion.

"The punishment for ethics violations can range from admonishment to disbarment."

Apparently these ethics charges stem from Nifong's statements like, "The contempt that was shown for the victim, based on her race, was totally abhorrent."

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Another of the ethics charges stems from Nifong's statements that may violate statutes that forbid "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation." The NCBA said that when DNA testing failed to find any evidence that any of the Duke lacrosse players raped the accuser, Nifong told a reporter that the players may have used a condom, despite his having received a report from an emergency room nurse in which the accuser said her attackers did not use a condom.

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See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/ap_on_re_us/duke_lacrosse_ethics

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Could that be the smell of disbarment in the air?

All Those Who've Criticized Virgil Goode as a “Bigot” Are Friends of Jihad & Enemies of America

In a better America, there wouldn’t have been any “firestorm” of faux outrage over Virginia Representative, Virgil Goode’s comments, “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.”

For there’s absolutely nothing in them that warrants any rational criticism.

We currently find ourselves at war with all of Sharia-based Islam.

This war was not of choosing and cannot be negotiated away. In fact, the greatest gift the current administration could give to America would be to fracture any remaining relations we have with the Sharia-based Islamic world, to the extent that any future negotiation betwen us is rendered impossible. This war can only be prosecuted militarily.

Anyone who doubts or doesn’t believe that we are at war with the Sharia-based Islam is wittingly or unwittingly a friend of Jihad and an enemy of America.

Goode merely stated the truth that stems from the simple and unavoidable fact that Sharia-based Islam is completely incompatible with the West.

At this very moment European resentment of the invading Muslims now residing in Western Europe is growing and seething.

Soon Western Europe will be faced with the stark choice between its very survival and the expulsion of the Muslims now living there. I support and hope for the latter.

In the mean time, America should take heed of both Europe’s plight and the common sense of people like Virgil Goode. Our immigration laws are set at the discretion of our elected government. It’s well past time that we bar Muslims and Arabs from emigrating to the United States and consider expelling those here both illegally and on visas.

Muslim culture is not merely Medieval, but it’s completely incompatible with the modern Western tradition.

Virgil Goode’s no pariah, he’s a true American hero and those who vilify him are wittingly or not, both friends of the jihad and enemies of America.

America’s longest living President dies

Though he served just over twenty-nine months as President, Aug. 9, 1974 – January 21st, 1977, Gerald Ford presided over one of the more tumultuous periods in recent American history.

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As President, Ford moved away from Nixon’s Keynesianism and acted to curb the trend toward Government intervention and spending as a means of solving the problems of American society and the economy. In the long run, he believed, this shift would bring a better life for all Americans.
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By granting Richard M Nixon a full pardon, Ford tried to calm the swirling controversies generated by Watergate.
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He nominated Nelson Rockefeller (the former Governor of New York) for Vice President and thus Rockefeller became only the second person to fill that office by appointment (Ford was the first). Gradually, over that first year, Ford selected a cabinet of his own.
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And Ford established his own policies during his first year in office, despite opposition from a heavily Democratic Congress.

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His first goal, in office, was to curb inflation.
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When recession became the Nation's most serious domestic problem, he shifted to measures aimed at stimulating the economy. But, still fearing inflation, Ford vetoed a number of non-military appropriations bills that would have further increased the already heavy budgetary deficit. During his first 14 months as President he vetoed 39 measures. His vetoes were usually sustained.
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Ford continued as he had in his Congressional days to view himself as "a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs." A major goal was to help business operate more freely by reducing taxes upon it and easing the controls exercised by regulatory agencies. "We...declared our independence 200 years ago, and we are not about to lose it now to paper shufflers and computers," he said.
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In foreign affairs Ford acted vigorously to maintain U. S. power and prestige after the debacles in Cambodia and South Viet Nam. Preventing a new war in the Middle East remained a major objective; by providing aid to both Israel and Egypt, the Ford Administration helped persuade the two countries to accept an interim truce agreement. Detente with the Soviet Union continued. President Ford and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev set new limitations upon nuclear weapons.
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Ford served on the famous Warren Commission that investigated JFK’s assassination, and played a vital role in maintaining the “single bullet theory.” In 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released a document that revealed that Ford had altered the first draft of the report to read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to support the single bullet theory."
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With rising inflation damaging the American economy, Ford went before the American public in October of 1974 and asked them to "whip inflation now." As part of this program, he urged people to wear "WIN" buttons.
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In hindsight, even he acknowledged that it was a mere public relations gimmick, that offered little in the way of any effective means of solving the underlying problems. At the time, inflation was around 7%.
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The economic focus began to change as the country sank into a mild recession, and in March 1975, Ford and Congress signed into law income tax rebates as part of the Tax Reduction Act of 1975 to boost the economy. When New York City faced bankruptcy in 1975, Mayor Abraham Beame was unsuccessful in obtaining Ford's support for a federal bailout. The incident prompted one of the most famous New York Daily News' headlines: "Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
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As bad as things were under Ford, they'd soon get much, much worse under Carter who took office in January of 1977 and went back to the Keynesian policies of LBJ & Nixon.

Conservative (Blue Dog) Dems are demanding larger role in 110th Congress

With the last election America saw a very hopeful sign, the rise of the Conservative (Blue Dog) Democrat. Now they are demanding a larger role in the newest Congress, claiming the bulk of the credit for the Democrat’s victory last November.

"Republicans “did not lose their seats to liberal Democrats” in November’s elections, said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. “Republicans lost their seats to Blue Dog Democrats.”

“We’ll have a lot to say about what passes and what doesn’t” when the 110th Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control for the first time in 12 years, said Ross, new communications director for the caucus.

With the addition of nine newly elected freshmen, the Blue Dogs claim 44 members, nearly 20 percent of the incoming Democratic majority. They will be led by Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., and include Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., in line to become the next Agriculture Committee chairman."


http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=167483

The Blue Dogs came into existence in 1994 after Republicans swept many of the long-entrenched Liberal Democrats from power.

The “Blue Dogs” tend to be social conservatives on such issues as abortion, but their biggest issue is fiscal discipline - balancing the budget and reducing the federal debt.

Leaders from both parties have been courting their vote in the months prior to the Democratic takeover of Congress. Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, a California liberal, has promised to make “paygo,” a Blue Dog-backed principle that any new spending be paid for with cuts in other programs or new revenues, one of her first legislative goals.

Rep. Mike Pence (D-IND, pictured above) said, “We also will attempt to restart the old GOP-Boll Weevil coalition that proved so successful in the 1980s to advance President Reagan’s revolution.” Adding, “There are Blue Dog Democrats that want to balance the budget, address our nation’s abounding debt, strengthen Social Security and protect life and marriage. Our minority will look for opportunities to work with them when there is agreement.”


This is a huge opportunity for the Democratic Party to see the writing on the wall and move Right, back toward the center and away from the Gore-Moore-Sheehan-Kucinich axis that has compromised that Party’s credibility in recent years.

Not So FUN Facts on Illegal Immigration

From the L.A. Times


1. 40% of all workers in L.A. County ( L.A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.


2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.


3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.


4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.


5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.


6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.


7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.


8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.


9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.


10. In L.A. County 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish.

(There are 10.2 million people in L.A. County).


(All of the above courtesy of the Los Angeles Times)

AND...

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.

Over 70% of the United States' annual population growth (and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York) results from immigration.

The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was, (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay), a NET $70 BILLION/ year, [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University ]. The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE number.

29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

Issue Ads OK During Elections

Quietly, some of the McCain-Feingold provisions have been scaled back.

"A federal court on Thursday loosened restrictions on corporations, unions and other special interest groups that run political advertising in peak election season.

"The 2-1 ruling said groups may mention candidates by name in commercials as long as they are trying to influence public policy, rather than sway an election.

"The ruling came in a challenge to the so-called McCain Feingold law designed to reduce the influence of big money in political campaigns. The law banned groups from using unrestricted money to run advertisements that name candidates two months before a general election or one month before a primary."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061221/ap_on_el_ge/campaign_finance_lawsuit


This is a great step in the direction of protecting free speech.


"The Federal Election Commission had argued that it needed a consistent "bright line" rule to prevent organizations from influencing elections using phony issue advertisements, but the three-judge panel disagreed.

"The virtues of a bright-line rule surely cannot alone justify regulating constitutional speech," U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote."

(IBID)

Have Yourself a Merry F'ing Christmas

An "anti-religious" protestor set himself on fire on Friday, December 22nd to protest the San Joaquin Valley School district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacations.

The man whose name was not released doused himself with a flammable liquid and set fire to himself in front of the town square's Liberty Bell, where public events and demonstrations are common.

The unidentified man, draped in an American flag, first set fire to a Christmas tree he stood near. When Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson saw the flames, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and raced toward the man.

As the deputy approached, the man poured the liquid over his head and quickly burst into flames, as the fumes from the gas met the flames from the tree.

The deputy ordered the man to drop to the ground as he sprayed him with fire extinguishers.

"The man stood there like this," the deputy said with his arms across his chest and his head bent down, "Saying no, no, no."

The man suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms, Milam said.

Kern County Sheriff's Deputy John Leyendecker said the man had a sign that read: "(expletive) the religious establishment and KHSD."

On Thursday, the Kern High School Board of Trustees voted to use the names Christmas and Easter instead of winter and spring breaks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061223/ap_on_re_us/man_on_fire

Allah pundit has some great pictures and some better questions...

http://hotair.com/archives/2006/12/23/another-moron-lights-himself-on-fire/

An Idea Whose Time Has Come...

Calls for harsher sentences for child-sex crimes, including the death penalty, are growing throughout the country.


Oklahoma's governor, Brad Henry, a Democrat, signed a bill last month that would allow jurors to sentence to death repeat sex offenders for crimes against children younger than 14. One day earlier, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, signed a similar bill that would allow capital punishment for repeat offenders guilty of sex crimes against children younger than 11.


Currently, Louisiana has the only death-row inmate convicted of a child rape that did not result in murder. Patrick Kennedy, convicted in 2003 of raping an 8-year-old girl, was sentenced under a 1995 law that allows the death penalty for the rape of a child younger than 12. His case is on appeal.


Richard Allen Davis (pictured above) remains on death row in California for his 1996 conviction for first-degree murder and four special circumstances (robbery, burglary, kidnapping and a lewd act on a child) of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. While many opponents of this law claim it might create many more Richard Allen Davis', proponents argue that with the extremely high recidivism rate and the often graduating nature of such criminals (each attack becoming more violent) that the very nature of this crime tends toward that end, so better to mete out a final punishment early, rather than too late.


In 1996, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the state's death-penalty law for child rapists. In 1977, however, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a person convicted of raping a woman cannot be sentenced to death because the punishment is out of proportion with the crime. Of course that Supreme Court Decision did not address child molestation, a crime most people see as one of the most egregious of all violent crimes.


In recent months, similar ideas have been pushed by lawmakers in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and even Minnesota, which doesn't have the death penalty.


With Florida's Jessica's Law (mandatory sentencing for child molesters) gaining support throughout the country, is Capital Punishment for child molesters an idea whose time has come?

Only time will tell.

The "Godfather of Soul" Died Christmas Morning

James Brown died of heart failure in an Atlanta Hospital on Christmas morning, just three days after checking into Emory Crawford Long Hospital suffering from pneumonia.

Brown was 73 years old.

James Brown was born into grinding poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933. He was abandoned by his parents at age 4 and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., under the care of relatives and friends. By the time he reached his teens he'd been sent to Reform School for breaking into cars. By age 16 he had served 3 1/2 years in Reform School where he met gospel singer Bobby Byrd. The two became friends, in fact Byrd's family took Brown into their home. Bobby Byrd also took Brown into his singing group, the Gospel Starlighters, which would soon evolve into an R&B group, the Famous Flames.

From the mid-1950s through the mid-1980s Brown was one of the most innovative entertainers of that era and rigfht up to the end, frineds insist, he was "the hardest working man in Show Business."

Do YOU Know this man?

Than you might be next!

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"Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was killed Tuesday by a U.S. airstrike while traveling by vehicle in a deserted area in the southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said. Two associates also were killed, it said."

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Helmand is a province near the border of Pakistan.

MUllah Osmani, is regarded as one of three top associates of Mullah Omar, and is the highest-ranking Taliban leader the coalition has claimed to have killed or captured since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 for hosting bin Laden.

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U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins described Osmani's death as a "big loss" for the Taliban militia.

Changes afoot at the NY Times?

A series of recent articles suggest that some major investors at the NY Times are extremely unhappy about both the loss of revenue (declining circulation and ad revenues) and the unresponsiveness of the current Board and that one major investor, Morgan Stanley, has sought to run a new slate for the board of directors this January, in an attempt to oust Arthur Salzberger the family scion.In fact, at least one Morgan Stanley analyst has downgraded NY Times stock from a "hold" to an "underweight" - a sell.

This, along with a highly negative report, came a day after Morgan Stanley pushed to have Arthur Salzberger removed from either his publisher or chairmanship posts. "The downgrade hit the company hard. The Times stock ended regular trading on the NYSE down 60 cents, or 2.5% per share at $23.93/share."

And that seems just the beginning of this internal investors revolt at the NY Times.Could be good news ahead for NY Times critics.Check the articles out yourself;

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11092006/business/squeezing_pinch_business_janet_whitman.htm

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11102006/business/times_scared_business_janet_whitman.htm

De Facto Whiteness and Black Racism

There have been a number of high profile shootings in New York City and until the November 24th, 2006 Sean Bell shooting, none even came close to fitting the demographics needed to claim “bias” by the anti-Police crowd.

On July 24th, 2006 an NYPD officer shot a man at Brooklyn Bar-B-Q after a scuffle broke out between police and revelers who refused to comply with directives a noise complaint. In the brief scuffle, a patron (28 y/o Robert Ramirez) hit one of the cops in the back of the head with a metal scooter and that cop’s partner then shot Ramirez, who was taken to the hospital and listed in critical but stable condition with a chest wound.

In early October a man who was holding a knife to the throat of a 54 y/o woman was shot and killed by NYPD Police when he refused to drop his weapon.

In late October, a police sergeant shot an armed man in the face early Friday morning after he backed a stolen car into an officer and broke her leg in three places, authorities said.

Both the man and the officer were hospitalized in stable condition.

The incident occurred near 4 a.m. while the sergeant, the female officer and a third officer (all in uniform) were searching for stolen cars police said.

The officers discovered a parked 2003 black Lexus that had the wrong license plates. After running a check of the vehicle's identification number, they learned it had been car-jacked at gunpoint the previous week from a car dealership in Queens and they decided to wait for the driver to return, police stated.

Earlier that same day, Seargent James Rector was returning home from his job in NYPD Recruitment, when he passed a Brooklyn Housing Project where he spotted a man holding a gun to the head of a kneeling man. Rector identified himself and ordered the man with the gun to drop his weapon, where upon the gunman wheeled and fired at Rector striking him in the ankle and hitting his cell phone on his belt. Seargent Rector was able to return fire, with eleven rounds, striking and killing 17 year old Eric Hines.

In this case, as well, the demographics were not suitable for demagoguery, as both Hines and Rector are both black.

Even in the recent Sean Bell shooting three of the five officers who fired their weapons were minorities. The undercover officer, who confronted their car and was clipped by it, initiating the shooting, was black.

These facts are overlooked by race-hustlers like Al Sharpton and Charles Barron (a former Black Panther, now a Brooklyn Councilman)) by their declaring that these minority officers “think Blue, not black,” a claim that seems to indict all minority police officers as “de facto whites.”

This is hardly a new tact.

Black Conservatives have been assailed in that exact way since the days of S B Fuller was assailed by the NAACP in the mid-1960s.

When a NY cartoonist ran overtly racist cartoons depicting Michael Steele in the most derogatory ways, the NAACP was silent, when detractors threw Oreo cookies at him, many Liberals and many in the "Black establishment" implied that he “deserved this” for his Conservative views.

Likewise Condoleezza Rice has been lampooned by syndicated kooks like Ted Rall in the most racially derogatory ways without any squawk from the NAACP or other such groups. Harry Belafonte called her a “house nigger” a few years back, again seeming to indict her as “de facto white.” One of Dave Chapelle’s skits, the “racial auction,” puts this view across in comedic style – the whites claimed Colin Powell and the black delegation agreed “on the condition that they also take Condoleeza Rice.”

Funny, but the sentiments expressed are all too true for some.

It is approaching Christmas 2006 and while Mssrs. Sharpton and Barron are still marching in protest of the Sean Bell shooting, two black NYPD Detectives (Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin) murdered taking guns off the streets of NYC, were buried and their killer convicted, Neither Sharpton, nor Barron could find the time to make either Funeral or condemn the killing.

But the likes of Sharpton and Barron have never attended such events for whites, apparently even de facto whites.

Now Duke University's President Wants Nifong to Step Down!

After initially jumping in on the side rushing to judgment, now Duke University's President (Richard Brodhead) is joining calls for Mike Nifong to resign!

Nifong should be disbarred for violating the law he was elected to uphold.

For that reason, anything short of disbarment for Mike Nifong would be a grave injustice.
He deliberately and calously used (and possibly manipulated) an inflamatory charge brought forward by an angry (the Duke party didn’t refused to pay the full fare for their abreviated “act”) and unstable (family acknowledges she’s bipolar) accuser who changed her story to investigators no less than five times for his own naked political gain.

Nifong has wantonly and needlessly wounded the city of Raleigh, NC, Duke University, the three apparently innocent men he’s dragged through this process and race relations nationwide, for his own personal gain.

Nifong withheld vital information from the defense (the initial DNA results) and set up a line-up that was not within legal limits - he’s bent, folded and otherwise broken the law.

Allowing him to resign and keep his law license would be a travesty of justice. He should be disbarred first and THEN forced from office on the grounds that he no longer has the required law license to serve in that capacity.


Two great bloggers on this are LaShawn Barber http://www.lashawnbarber.com/

and K C Johnson at Durham-in-Wonderland http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/


LaShawn Barber has a great article on these new developments at; http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/12/22/duke-rape-charges-dropped/

Virgil Goode is GREAT!

Sure, GOP Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia has unleashed a firestorm of controversy over his remarks about Minnesota's Kieth Ellison's insisting upon being sworn in using the Koran, being a harbinger of things to come "if Americans don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration."

To his credit, Goode's refused to back off from his comments and insists that they're just common sense.

Sure, Ellison isn't an immigrant, legal or illegal. His family's been in America for hundreds of years, but Goode's point is absolutely correct on two fronts (1) illegal immigration is doing massive harm to America and presents an enormous national security risk and (2) Sharia-based Islam is simply incompatible with the modern West at this point.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061222/pl_nm/koran_congress_dc

Indeed they ARE!

Mitt Romney Set to Toss His Hat in the Ring for '08

Mitt Romney is apparently set to announce his candidacy for the White House in early January.

According the AP, "The Massachusetts chief executive is expected to file paperwork as early as Jan. 2 with the Federal Election Commission, establishing a presidential campaign committee and permitting himself to begin raising money for his race on the first business day of the new year. Romney will leave office on Jan. 4."

The Boston Globe assailed Romney last month erroneously claiming that he "hired illegal aliens to work on his lawn."

In fact, Romney hired a reputable Landscaping Company and signed a contract with the owner, an American citizen.

There are currently 34 states considering various legislation that would fine those who knowingly hire illegal aliens, but in every one of those statutes, the onus is on the company, not on individual customers to vet out an employees background. In fact, most of these statutes have provisions that exonerate companies when illegal aliens hand in forged or fake documents, as there's no cost effective way for any company to detect fraudulent IDs without significant government assistance.

The traditionalist and Conservative Romney is one of the few candidates on either side of the aisle that seems to have a deep and real understanding of the massive problem that illegal immigration has become and that strict border enforcement must be the key, without any backdoor amnesty deals for those already here.

Consider that today 7 of 10 babies born in Parkland Memorial Hospital in Texas are born to illegal aliens.

Also consider that about 5 million of our older Americans haven't signed up yet for their Medicare, Part D, drug plan - most of them are old and confused.

We are NOT going to grant them an extension.

However, 12 million illegal aliens are in our country and we are going to allow them to stay, protest, procreate, receive support monies, attend schools, avoid paying income taxes, have our teachers take 300 hours of ESL (English as a Second Language) training at our expense, etc.

Romney's right on illegal immigration.