Wednesday, August 17, 2005

NY'S Cassandra

By Deborah Orin - August 17, 2005 - New York Post

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's team ignored dire warnings that its approach to terrorism was "very dangerous" and could have "deadly results," according to a blistering memo just obtained by The Post.

Then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote the memo as she pleaded in vain with Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to tear down the wall between intelligence and prosecutors, a wall that went beyond legal requirements.

Looking back after 9/11, the memo makes for eerie reading — because White's team foresaw, years in advance, that the Clinton-era wall would make it tougher to stop mass murder.

A Cassandra is someone who predicts the future but is not believed. The 9/11 Commission was nothing but a coverup and this was predicted by Mary Jo White. She must have felt extreme frustration at allowing Jamie Gorelick onto the 9/11 commission. Why did the Republicans allow this? What was gained by allowing Gorelick to be a part of the commission?

Was there no one who had enough brains to see that the action Gorelick took in creating the WALL, and the agressiveness with which she defended it, made her totally unfit to sit on a commission that was investigating the issue that wall was intended to affect?

Where are the Republicans who are as agressively interested in defending America as the democrats are agressive in subverting America? Time and time again we go along when democrats start shouting, as they did when the 9/11 commission was being formed, as we cannot see why they are so upset. We only find out years later what we should have seen at the start.


How many Cassandras will we ignore? Will we ever learn?



Sunday, August 14, 2005

Atta Way To Blow 9/11 Panel's Credibility

By Mark Steyn - August 14, 2005 - Chicago Sun-Times

How'd that happen? Well, as Felzenberg [9/11 Commission official spokesman] says so disarmingly, "this information [that Atta was in the U.S. earlier than INS records indicated] was not meshing with the other information.'' As a glimpse into the mindset of the commission, that's astonishing. Sept. 11 happened, in part, because the various federal bureaucracies involved were unable to process information that didn't "mesh" with conventional wisdom. Now we find that the official commission intended to identify those problems and ensure they don't recur is, in fact, guilty of the very same fatal flaw. The new information didn't "mesh" with the old information, so they disregarded it.

At least one primary reason that the commission seemed more intent on covering up the systemic failure of 9/11 than getting to the bottom of it is that Jamie Gorelick, Hilary Clinton's personal choice for Attorney General and the main architect of the "wall" that so exacerbated the systemic failure, was a key player on the commission investigating what kind of job she did.

How could we possibly allow such a blatant conflict of intetest? At what point will we acknowledge the "9/11 Commission" was a political farce? The Republican appointees on the commission were duped. Eveyone was so busy trying to avoid pointing fingers that we let people with a conflict of interest sabotage the investigation. This "best selling" report is only usefull as an example of an incredible political con job.




Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Politics And Housing Prices

by Thomas Lifson - August 9th, 2005 - The American Thinker
High housing prices make people blue. Not just the young first-time home-buyers stunned at what a starter house or condo costs, or the families scrimping to pay an oversized variable-interest mortgage. There is very substantial statistical evidence and logic supporting the notion that sustained high housing prices lead to liberal dominance of local politics.

You would hope that this is an unintended consequence and not something that democrats have actually planned. Thomas Lifson has provided an intelligently reasoned explanation for why democrat practices drive home prices up and price the young out of the market. Stopping home construction and stopping the construction of roads have both caused serious damage to our nation, especially our children. What will it take to change this direction and get back to a nation of affordable housing and rapid growth?

Monday, August 08, 2005

Democrats' New Strategy: Almost Winning

BY Mark Steyn - August 7, 2005 - Chicago Sun-Times
The other day an official with a British teachers' union proposed that the concept of "failing" exams should be abolished. Instead of being given a "failing" grade, she said, the pupil would instead be given a "deferred success."

Oh, sure, you can scoff. But evidently the system's already being test-piloted in Howard Dean's Democratic Party. That's why the Dems' Congressional Campaign Committee hailed their electoral failure in last week's Ohio special election as a triumphant "deferred success."

Has anyone noticed how quiet Hollywood has been recently? No proud denunciations of the evil Republicans to show how left wing they are? Now the democrats claim a loss against a weak candidate as "deferred success". All of the discussions by democrats are about how to "appear" more religious and "appear" to be patriotic and "appear" to be concerned with third term abortions and "appear" to endorse marraiage as it has been for 10 thousand years and "appear" to accept free enterprise. No acknowledgement that any of their issues are wrong. It is just how they present them. However recent defeats seems to have confused them. What else but confusion would leave them struggling for something to say and so desparate that they claim a loss as victory.

Steyn is a good writer. I have seen a couple of comments comparing him to Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He could be that good. This article is clearly funny to those of us on the right (and even a few in the middle). It is sad that those on the left cannot see how ridiculous they have become while hurling insults at those on the right. I think it is because of the success of their causes. As they won on many of the moral issues over the last 60 years, they had to move further and further left until socialism was all they could really endorse that had not already become the way we governed.

The problem is that socialsim will not work for reasons they simply refuse to accept. They therefore cannot be honest about what they are working for, since they are working for something that they cannot acknowledge. Maybe in that situation, "almost winning" seems a good thing.

Friday, August 05, 2005

"I Have Rights!"

The latest article by Jonah Goldberg provides an interesting portrait of our adversaries. This is obvious from the following excerpts.
Consider Hussain Osman, another of the alleged conspirators .... Explaining to Italian authorities that he "preferred" not to be extradited to Britain - isn't that special? - Osman insisted that he was no "terrorist." After all, "We didn't want to kill, just sow terror. [emphsis added]"

Goldberg calls him an idiot. I can't say I disagree. However we should not think that his being stupid is typical of all who wish us ill. It is amazing though, as Goldberg points out, that our MSM has this tendency to overlook comments like "I have rights" and "We didn't want to kill, just sow terror". Neither comment got much coverage. I wonder why?

Singling Out Muslims Is Un-American

By Mansour El-Kikhia - August 5th, 2005 - San Antonio Express-News
In all my years, I have rarely seen Islamic publications condemning or belittling Jesus Christ, his mother or his apostles. Nor have I seen any belittling Judaism, Moses or David. Indeed, to go further, I have never seen a mainstream publication in Arab or Muslim states condemning Christianity or Judaism. Even the majority of fundamentalist publications do not touch either negatively.

What? Bloggers quickly filled volumes with examples of articles that refute this claim. This article is filled with anger that Americans are considering focusing our efforts to stop terrorism on young Muslim-Arab males. The logic is bizarre but goes into fantasy land when it makes the above claim that Muslims never "belittle" Jews or Christians. The essense of the article is that we have to find some way to stop young Muslim-Arab males from blowing us up and beheading us that does not LOOK FOR young Muslim-Arab males. I think this article's lack of reality shows why we NEED TO PROFILE young Muslim-Arab males.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Air America: Stealing From Poor Kids?!

By Michelle Malkin - July 27, 2005 - michellemalkin.com


Air America is being investigated in New York for diverting federal/local funds--possibly "hundreds of thousands of dollars"--meant for inner-city kids and seniors into the station's coffers.

Have you heard of Air America? It is composed of Al Franken and other noted liberals. They are forming a new broadcast network under the premise that the MSM is too conservative. (ABC and CNN are too conservative?)

To fund their new network, Air America has apparently taken money meant to be spent on poor kids. Now the group is arguing that though they don't have to pay it back, they will. However they haven't yet. Al Franken is rich. Why can't he come up with the money?

There are some great links in Michelle's article that really show how deep the corruption in this scandal goes.

Another good editorial on the same topic from the Washington Times can be found here.