December 1-3, 2006
Dec 01 01:32 NBC's Bias Showing? Dec 01 03:10 Monson Fired as Gopher Coach; Now It's Time to Dump Maturi, Too Dec 01 04:34 Strib's Corruption is Showing Dec 01 13:31 Pelosi deserves credit for barring Hastings from chair Dec 02 01:50 Article on CAIR's Website Bemoans "Kangaroo Court" Dec 02 02:42 Which Is It? Dec 02 16:20 Flying Imam Fiasco Update Dec 03 09:22 Whatever Dec 03 19:38 Democrats to Gut Missile Defense Budget
NBC's Bias Showing?
Newsbusters has the proof.
While liberals like Marty Kaplan of the Huffington Post have hailed NBC's boasting usage of "civil war" as the end of "the neo-Stalinist era of American political discourse," some might ask if NBC hasn't been gingerly with other politically sensitive terms.We've all likely heard about NBC's Matt Lauer's bold declaration that the violence happening in Iraq is a civil war. Nevermind the fact that the Pentagon says that it isn't. It isn't unreasonable to say that it's hotly disputed. Compare that with this:
NBC's Andrea Mitchell asked on Monday's NBC Nightly News: "What is Hezbollah and what is its end game?" Mitchell first answered that "experts say to prove it can damage Israel in ways Arab countries couldn't." But then she proceeded to refer to "Hezbollah's charismatic leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah," also describing him as "a Shiite populist" who she relayed, over video of kids, "provides social services where Lebanon's weak new government cannot." Mitchell refrained from labeling Hezbollah as "terrorist", or mentioning how its real "end game" is the destruction of Israel, going no further than to say it "operates militias."Nasrallah is a terrorist and Hezbollah wants Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Hezbollah, of course, is funded in large part by Ahmadinejad, who also wants Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Would Mitchell, who used to be a good reporter, say that Ahmadinejad funds militias, the most prominent of which is al-Sadr's Mahdi army? Would she describe Ahmadinejad as "Iran's charismatic leader"? Based on her reporting on Nasrallah, there's a possibility that she might.
Posted Friday, December 1, 2006 1:33 AM
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Monson Fired as Gopher Coach; Now It's Time to Dump Maturi, Too
Earlier today, Joel Maturi announced that Dan Monson, quite possibly the worst men's basketball coach in school history, had been fired. My only question to that news is "What took you so long to fire him"? Patrick Reusse and Jim Souhan have columns on the Strib's website on Monson's firing that I totally agree with.
I haven't been excited about a Gopher basketball game since Clem was putting Bobby Jackson out on the floor. To give you an idea of how long ago that is, Clem Haskins was run out of his job a year after Bobby Jackson took his game to the NBA. That's when Monson was hired. This is is Monson's eighth season as the Gopher's coach, which is at least six years too long.
Monson's been a better recruiter than coach, which is saying something because he's an awful recruiter. Reusse's listed the retreads that Monson's put on his team, which only tells part of the story. There used to be a time when the Gophers' roster was littered with players like Kevin McHale, Mychal Thompson, Sam Jacobson, Bobby Jackson and Willie Burton. Now the Gophers have a roster littered with walk-ons with names like Jamal Abu-Shamala, Dusty Reichert, Zach Puchtel and other forgettables. These aren't D-1 players much less Big Ten competitors. They're nobodies who'd have difficulty starting for SCSU's team.
I can't blame Maturi for hiring Monson. That blame goes to Mark Dienhart. However, criticizing Maturi for extending Monson's contracts is legitimate. For that matter, extending Glen Mason's contract wasn't that brilliant, either. As Sid pointed out, Maturi was given permission by the University's president, Robert Bruininks, to fire Monson after last season's humiliating early round loss in the NIT.
Instead of firing Monson and admitting failure, Maturi kept Monson around until last week's embarassing losses left Maturi without other options. Monson had to go. That's now official.
The next important question to ask is whether you'd trust Maturi's judgment enough to let him hire the next coach. I don't. It's time to bring in a team of professionals to run the Gopher athletic department so they can start filling up the Old Barn like we did during the Haskins and Dutcher eras. It's long past time.
That's why I'm asking other Gopher fans to jump on the bandwagon and help get Joel Maturi fired ASAP. It's time for a housecleaning. It's time for some competence. It's time to return to the big leagues.
I'm asking that you leave a comment on why you think Joel Maturi should be fired or kept and why. This could get interesting.
Posted Friday, December 1, 2006 3:10 AM
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Strib's Corruption is Showing
The AP's Patrick Condon is reporting that the Strib has suspended "Steve Berg, who has worked at the Star Tribune for 30 years" until it completes its investigation into whether Berg plagiarized some writing done by Hendrik Hertzberg. Here's the heart of the issue:
Hertzberg, in a Nov. 6 piece criticizing President Bush and the Republican Congress, included this line: "Repeated efforts to suppress scientific truth; a set of economic and fiscal policies that have slowed growth, spurred inequality, replenished the ranks of the poor and uninsured, and exacerbated the insecurities of the middle class."Though they aren't identical, they're pretty similar. The public shouldn't cut the Strib any slack on this, either, because their journalistic standards are almost non-existent. They refused to lay a glove on Amy Klobuchar during her campaign for US Senate. They refused to mention any of Keith Ellison's numerous ethical lapses. Most of that work was left to Minnesota bloggers, a job we took substantially more seriously than did the Strib.
A passage from the Star Tribune's Nov. 10 editorial on the same subject read: "Then there's the mounting deficit, the Katrina aftermath, the constant suppression of scientific truth, and the economic policies that exacerbate inequality, heighten middle-class anxiety and expand the ranks of the poor and uninsured."
The sad thing is that they had more than enough information to give Amy Klobuchar a huge smackdown. She was the Hennepin County attorney at a time when violent crime was skyrocketing. They never lifted a finger in telling their readers that Ms. Klobuchar never prosecuted a criminal case in her 8 years on the job even though she ran ads touting herself as a tough prosecutor.
The Strib barely mentioned that a liberal Minnesota blogger named Noah Kunin hacked into the website for Scott Howell's website. Howell did all of Mark Kennedy's ads in his bid against Ms. Klobuchar. In fact, the Strib quoted a lawyer who said that what Kunin did might not be that big a deal:
But a former federal cybercrimes prosecutor suggested Kunin might have done nothing more than bypass a "speed bump." That's Web-speak for a password that exists not to bar entry to people, but to keep spammers and robotic Webcrawlers from tying up the site. Speed-bump passwords often are simple and not up to stringent security standards. "Passwords can serve many functions and come in many forms," said Minneapolis attorney Paul Luehr, who has been hired by Kunin's legal defense team to assess the incident independently. "That can make the facts of a specific case more ambiguous."This they put into the article a mere paragraph after this:
That's not what happened, said Dan Allen of Scott Howell & Co., the Dallas-based agency handling Kennedy advertising. "He tried more than a dozen names -- 18 in all," Allen said. "The fact that he was trying other names proves [Kunin's explanation] to be false. It's a password-protected, secure site."It's this type of loose standards that have caused the Strib to lose lots of its readership over the past 5 years. The truth is that the truth is hard to find in the Strib if a Democrat's done wrong.
Mr. Berg's possible plagiarization of Hendrik Hertzberg's work is only the most egregious example of the shoddy product put out on a daily basis by the Strib.
Another question that I want answered is why Mr. Berg's editors didn't recognize the striking similarities between Berg's column and Mr. Hertzberg's. They should recognize that if a 'lowly blogger' like Powerline spotted it. So much for this nonsense about bloggers not being real journalists. So much for the notion that you're only legitimate if you employ editors.
The truth is that editors are only worthwhile if they have high journalistic and ethical standards. It's charitable to say that that's in question these days.
Posted Friday, December 1, 2006 4:36 AM
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Pelosi deserves credit for barring Hastings from chair
That's the title of this article. It's also an argument I'm not willing to accept.
Give Nancy Pelosi credit for good judgment as well as courage for refusing to appoint U.S. Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, a Florida Democrat, as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.There's so many things in there that I disagree with.
With scandal a leading issue among politicians these days and an overriding concern of voters, elected officials at every level must live up to a reinforced standard of high moral and ethical conduct. Sadly, Mr. Hastings does not qualify and does not deserve elevation to the chairmanship. Good for Mrs. Pelosi for setting the bar high.
First of all, the "good judgment" that this article refers to doesn't exist. If Ms. Pelosi had that good of judgment, she wouldn't have considered Hastings in the first place. He's a sleazy politician after a brief career as a sleazy judge. He shouldn't be more than a backbencher serving on a nothing committee. That certainly doesn't qualify him to be a chairman of one of the most important committees in Congress.
Secondly, Ms. Pelosi hasn't exhibited courage in her entire political career. This announcement was a profile in political expediency. This 'decision' was motivated by someone approaching her and telling her that it would've been a PR disaster for Democrats. I suspect that someone like Rahm Emanuel approached her and prevented this certain disaster.
Thirdly, this unnamed author congratulates Ms. Pelosi for "setting the bar high" when she's done nothing of the sort. If she'd set the bar high, she would've prohibited John Murtha from getting the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense chairmanship. She would've already told Allan Mollahan that he won't be the chairman of the House Ethics Committee. She would've pushed William Jefferson's removal from Congress entirely.
Rather than setting a high ethical standard from the beginning, Ms. Pelosi instead tried to satisfy "the groups" within the Democratic Caucus.
That's hardly a profile in courage. That's hardly a reason for praising her.
Here's another blast of information that should've told Ms. Pelosi that Hastings was totally unacceptable:
The Washington Post at the time reported that Mr. Hastings "was convicted by the Senate yesterday of engaging in a "corrupt conspiracy" to extort a $150,000 bribe in a case before him, marking the first time a federal official has been impeached and removed from office for a crime he had been acquitted of by a jury (after the co-conspirator refused to testify).According to this information, the only reason why Hastings was acquitted was because the jury didn't hear the damning evidence against him. That's hardly something to be proud about. Then there's this information:
He is a frequent target of blogs, and earlier this year one cited what was called an old article from a Ft. Lauderdale area newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. It said: "Personal and political paybacks are the first order of business for Hastings." That's because Hastings put his girlfriend, a disgraced former lawyer who was disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court for 'multiple offenses,' on the public payroll as his 'office liaison and staff assistant.' According to the Sentinel, Alcee Hastings owed her 'more than $500,000 in legal fees for representing him during his 1983 bribery trial and his 1989 impeachment hearings before Congress.'? Alcee Hastings continues to employ her to this day."Talk about a "culture of corruption." The man who would've chaired the House Intel Committee hired a disbarred attorney for his political staff. If that isn't enough, Hastings owed this disbarred attorney half a million dollars after representing Hastings at trial.
It seems to me that simply considering Hastings for that powerful chairmanship lowered the ethical bar substantially.
Posted Friday, December 1, 2006 1:57 PM
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Article on CAIR's Website Bemoans "Kangaroo Court"
Why CAIR decided to include this article on their website baffles me. Here's the opening paragraph to the article:
So far, after 10 weeks of trial, all that the U.S. Government can say about Mohammed Salah and co-defendant Abdelhaleem Ashqar is that they opposed the Oslo Peace Accords and that they didn't believe that their Muslim children should mingle in peace with Jews. Actor Mel Gibson and comedian Michael Richards said far worse about the Jews and they haven't gone to jail for their anti-Semitism or racism. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, the Oslo Peace Accords were a miserable failure in part because Israel's governments dragged their feet on making real concessions in what was supposed to be "land for peace."Somehow, I doubt Mr. Hanania's account of the trial, especially after reading this:
He was charged in this case in October 2003, and Salah was added as a defendant a year later. The racketeering indictment alleges Ashqar served as a U.S.-based "information clearinghouse" for Hamas, meticulously tracking the group's terrorist operations overseas and alleged money-raising efforts here. He's portrayed by the government as a behind-the-scenes Hamas guru: In a warrantless search of Ashqar's home in 1993, agents found debriefing reports of local operatives returning from missions in the Middle East.Forgive me if I'm not buying Mr. Hanania's account in its entirety. It sounds to me like the U.S. government had quite a bit of information on Mr. Ashqar's racketeering activities. According to Wikipedia, RICO, which is short for the "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations" Statute, "is sufficiently broad to encompass illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce." Upon further digging, I found out that the Treasury Department "designated the al Aqsa foundation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity under Executive Order 13224." Here's the result of that designation:
As a result of this designation by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), all assets of the Al-Aqsa Foundation are blocked and transactions with the organization are prohibited.According to the Treasury Department's website, here's what OFAC's mission is:
"By designating the Al-Aqsa Foundation, we have deprived the Hamas terrorist organization of a vital source of funding and have shut off yet another pipeline of money financing terror. Today's action demonstrates our commitment to prevent the perversion of charitable organizations for terrorist ends," Secretary Snow stated.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under US jurisdiction. Many of the sanctions are based on United Nations and other international mandates, are multilateral in scope, and involve close cooperation with allied governments.What this means is that, far from Mr. Hanania's assertions that "all that the U.S. Government can say about Mohammed Salah and co-defendant Abdelhaleem Ashqar is that they opposed the Oslo Peace Accords and that they didn't believe that their Muslim children should mingle in peace with Jews", the U.S Government can prove quite a bit more than that. It looks like they can prove that Mr. Ashqar was extremely helpful in funding Hamas.
Mr. Hanania also tips his hand saying this:
Well, the government did have the testimony of one Judith Miller, the proven professional liar at the New York Times whose exposes on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" are lies that are far more criminal in nature than anything Salah or Ashqar have been proven to have done.Mr. Hanania's statement that Judith Miller is a "proven professional liar" is over-the-top at minimum. At worst, it's an attempt to say "my friend is innocent because she's a liar, not because he isn't guilty."
Then there's this:
Miller admitted that her access to Salah was facilitated by the Israeli MOSSAD and Government. In other words, Miller has even less credibility on this case than she does on the issue of WMD's. Let's not get into the time she spent in jail for lying about the outing of the wife of a diplomat who criticized President Bush's Iraq War policies.Mr. Hanania's statement infers that anyone who has dealt with MOSSAD or anything Jewish doesn't have credibility. Furthermore, Mr. Hanania's credibility is further damaged by saying Judith Miller was jailed for lying about Valerie Plame. She was jailed for contempt of court for not revealing her confidential source. While I didn't agree with her withholding that information, I don't agree that keeping one's silence is the same as lying.
The bigger point in this is that CAIR reveals itself by simply posting Mr. Hanania's article on their website. The biggest thing that this reveals is that CAIR will go out of its way to defend the indefensible as long as the defendant is Muslim.
Another thing that this reveals is that they'll publish articles that are written by authors who reveal their anti-Semitic bias. Clearly, that's the case here.
Isn't it fair to question CAIR's claims of being a moderate Muslim organization specializing in Muslims' civil rights when they publish anti-Semitic authors?
UPDATE: It now appears that CAIR no longer has Mr. Hanania's article posted on their website. It also appears that they've scrubbed it from their website. The reason I know this article was posted on CAIR's website is because I remember the green color to the article's title line and because the article posted on CAIR's website only went to the sentence that said:
Isn't the planning of violence a key component in a federal terrorism charge? Obviously not in this case.I further remember the line in the upper left corner of the CAIR post was a link to Mr. Hanania's article with the notice that said:
Click here to view full text ...On CAIR's page, the word HERE was used as a hyperlink to Arabisto.com. I'll keep tracking this and I'll update you with whatever I find.
Posted Saturday, December 2, 2006 12:16 PM
Comment 1 by Vigilant at 02-Dec-06 06:04 PM
Google has proof of CAIRs posting of the article. Here is the cache link
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:fd7CrRry--MJ:www.cair-net.org/asp/article.asp%3Fid%3D41970%26page%3DNB+The+kangaroo+court+taking+place+in+Chicago+CAIR&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8
Comment 2 by Gail Bloomer at 13-Feb-07 12:40 PM
Re: Ray Hanania and CAIR.
Perhaps you should look up the definition of Semitic before you accuse people of being anti-Semitic. Don't be shocked.
Which Is It?
That's the question I'm left with after reading these seemingly contradictory articles.
I was left shaking my head after reading David Corn's post titled "Baker Report Puts Bush in a Corner" because it didn't square with anything that I've read thus far on Iraq. In fact, I've opined here that we wouldn't need to read the Baker Commission's Report after ABC reported that "U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories." That isn't just my opinion either. Here's what John Podhoretz wrote about the Baker Commission Report:
As one of the study group's members told the Times yesterday, "We had to move the national debate from 'whether to stay the course' to 'how do we start down the path out'."Only ultralibs like David Corn believe that the Baker Commission's Report is worth the paper it's printed on. Intellectual heavyweights like JPod and Thomas Joscelyn can't. Here's what Mr. Joscelyn wrote on the matter:
This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.
Its members also reached a consensus view that Depends is a really fine brand of adult diaper, and that they love reruns of "Murder, She Wrote."
You perhaps note that I am writing with extreme disrespect toward the Iraq Study Group. That's because its report is a scandal and an embarrassment ; it's flatly immoral to seek to make or guide policy in this fashion.
There is much talk these days about the possibility of the U.S. entering negotiations with Iran and Syria. The thinking goes that both regimes could be enticed into stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq as part of some "grand bargain." Foreign policy gurus ranging from those sitting on the much-heralded Baker-Hamilton Commission to Henry Kissinger to the incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have argued for this course. Unfortunately, their advice is grounded in a dangerous ignorance of our terrorist enemies.You know there's nothing good that can come from heeding Zibigniew Brzezinski's advice on foreign policy matters. For that matter, the only 'achievement' of Jim Baker's time at State was the coalition pulled together for Operation Desert Storm. Baker's 'involvement' was minimal even in that because President Bush the Elder was his own Secretary of State, making numerous calls that brought the most impressive coalition of my lifetime together.
There is no better example of this ignorance, which cuts across party lines, than a paper co-authored by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Gates in July 2004 for the Council on Foreign Relations titled, "Iran: Time for a New Approach." Amazingly, despite a wealth of historical evidence to the contrary, the authors proclaim that "the official enmity between Washington and Tehran belies the convergence of their interests in specific areas." And although "the strategic imperatives of the United States and Iran are by no means identical,they do intersect in significant ways, particularly with respect to the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan."
The authors come to this conclusion not through any rigorous analysis of Tehran's behavior, but instead simply through wishful thinking. In no way do Tehran's interests and American interests in Iraq, or anywhere else in the world, "converge." Below I have included two pointed examples of just how far off base this thinking is. The prospect for negotiations is not very high since our foreign policy establishment simply does not have a very good understanding of those they seek to negotiate with in the first place.
The truth is that the Baker Commission is like all other supposedly blue ribbon commissions: They're nice for getting some old political pros together to relive yesterday but they aren't much good in tackling problems which are nothing like anything they've ever dealt with before.
That's why the Baker Report doesn't paint President Bush into a box. However, it does present an opportunity for Democrats to overplay their hand. It'll be interesting to see if, and when, they do.
Posted Saturday, December 2, 2006 2:43 AM
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Flying Imam Fiasco Update
Pajamas Media has posted an extensive article written by Richard Miniter on the 'flying Imam Fiasco'. It's understatement to say that it's must reading. Here's some of the things that the Agenda Media isn't telling us:
As the plane boarded, she said, no one refused to fly. The public prayers and Arabic phone call did not trigger any alarms - so much for the p.c. allegations that people were disturbed by Muslim prayers. (emphasis mine)Here's another important bit of information that wasn't reported before:
Another passenger, not the note writer, was an Arabic speaker sitting near two of the imams in the plane's tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside, and in a whisper, translated what the men were saying. They were invoking "bin Laden" and condemning America for "killing Saddam," according to police reports.Based on this detail alone, the passengers' reaction wasn't paranoia-driven, as the imams have suggested, but was based on a variety of strange things happening aboard the plane, not the least of which is this Arabic-speaking passenger who heard the imams "condemning America for 'killing Saddam'".
As I stated in my first post on this contrived fiasco, Imam Shahin made this ugly quote:
"I want to go home. I don't want phone numbers," Shahin said. "I want to buy six tickets. They have no reason to refuse service to us just because of the way we look ," he said "It's terrible. We want America to stay the way it is because we love this country."It's now apparent that they weren't refused service "because of the way we look." They were treated this way because what they did was alarming in a post 9/11 world. It isn't unreasonable to think that Shahin's comment was his attempt to conceal the facts.
Meanwhile an imam seated in first class asked for a seat-belt extension, even though according to both an on-duty flight attendant and another deadheading flight attendant, he looked too thin to need one. Hours later, when the passengers were being evacuated, the seat-belt extension was found on the floor near the imam's seat, police reports confirm. The U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader said she did not dispute the report, but said the airline's internal investigation cannot yet account for the seat-belt extension request or its subsequent use.Not only is it strange that a man would ask for a seat-belt extension when he didn't need it but then there's also new that only a single imam had purchased a first class ticket. The more I read, the more red flags that appear.
A seat-belt extension can easily be used as a weapon, by wrapping the open-end of the belt around your fist and swinging the heavy metal buckle.I imagine you could use it as weapon by grabbing either end of the strap, then cinching it up tight to choke someone with. I'm sure those aren't the only ways you can turn that extension into a weapon either.
Other factors were also considered: All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers - even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.I strongly recommend you read Mr. Miniter's entire article. I'll guarantee that it'll be an eye-opening experience.
UPDATE: Here's the link to Richard Miniter's NY Post article. It contains much of the same information but it's laid out a bit different. It's well worth the reading.
Originally posted Saturday, December 2, 2006, revised 03-Dec 12:15 AM
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Whatever
That's pretty much my reaction after reading this article.
Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week. Steve Wareham, director of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said other airports have "meditation rooms" used for prayers or by passengers who simply need quiet time.Later in this article, it's pointed out that several airports have chapel areas so this wouldn't be precedent. This article serves a different purpose for the imams, though. Here's what I think it is. I think the imams want us to pretend that this is the solution to what I affectionately call the 'Flying Imam Fiasco'.
The imams keep telling America that they were kicked off US Airways flight 300 in Minneapolis simply for praying. Thanks to Richard Miniter's article, we now know that that isn't true. We now know that there is much more to their getting removed from that flight than the imams have talked about. Here's some key information that the imams haven't talked about:
- An Arabic speaker was seated near two of the imams in the plane's tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside and, in a whisper, translated what the men were saying: invoking "bin Laden" and condemning America for "killing Saddam," according to police reports.
- All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers, even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.
- And, Pauline said, they spread out, just like the 9/11 hijackers. Two sat in first class, two in the middle and two back in the economy section, police reports show. Some, according to Rader, took seats not assigned to them.
- One more odd thing went unnoticed at the time: The men prayed both at the gate and on the plane. Yet observant Muslims pray only once at sundown, not twice.
Forgive me for being cynical but I strongly believe that that was the imams' intent. I believe that because of this information:
Two days earlier, Ellison, an African-American convert who wants to criminalize Muslim profiling, spoke at a fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim-rights group that wasted no time condemning US Airways for "prejudice and ignorance." CAIR wants congressional hearings to investigate other incidents of "flying while Muslim." Incoming Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, (D-MI), has already drafted a resolution, borrowing from CAIR rhetoric, that gives Muslims special civil-rights protections.Logically thinking people might connect a few dots and come to the conclusion that the imams' goal was to get Congress to investigate this incident with the intent of stigmatizing US Airways as Islamophobic. Congressional hearings on the subject would be a shot across the bow to other airlines, essentially telling them they shouldn't react like US Airways reacted.
Logically thinking people might also conclude that John Conyers can't wait to hold these hearings, especially if they knew that he's carried CAIR's water for some time.
Working with Conyers, the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Democrats have introduced legislation to end racial profiling, limit the reach of the Patriot Act, and make immigration safe and accessible. Leader Pelosi is a proud cosponsor of the End Racial Profiling Act, the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE), and the Safe, Orderly, and Legal Visas Enforcement Act (SOLVE).This information was posted on CAIR's website and dated July 15, 2004. In other words, Democrats and CAIR have been trying for quite some time to end profiling even if it's a useful tool in preventing terrorist attacks.
It's time conscientious Americans asked Democrats and CAIR if they want to "limit the reach of the Patriot Act" so much that we can't protect ourselves from terrorist attacks. It's time for conscientious Americans asked Democrats and CAIR if they're more worried about perceived civil liberties abuses than they care about preventing terrorist attacks. Let's remember that, during the time they debated the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, they couldn't cite a specific instance of a person's civil rights being abused.
To give "Muslims special civil-rights protections" is a classic case of fixing what really isn't broken.
Doesn't this lead us to the point where conscientious Americans ask Democrats like Conyers and CAIR what their priorities are? Of course, they'll deny with their words that their legislation will weaken airport security. Their problem is that their words would be meaningless once Mr. Conyers' resolution is debated. Their words would further be diminished when Mr. Conyers' legislation is introduced.
It's time that we told the imams that we take airport security seriously and that we won't be intimidated by people seeking unwarranted, and potentially dangerous, special privileges. We should tell them that we'll keep doing what we've been doing to keep air travel safe.
We should tell them that we'll do that whether Minneapolis International Airport gets a prayer room or not.
Posted Sunday, December 3, 2006 9:22 AM
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Democrats to Gut Missile Defense Budget
Despite the growing threat of rogue nations acquiring nuclear-tipped ICBM's, the Democratic Congress plans to gut the budget for missile defense. Here's their strategy for rationalizing their action:
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney explains how the game works: "The idea is that we put it [missile defense] on ice until absolutely everybody is satisfied. It is a formula for not having the missile defense we need." Critics hope to stop missile defense by devoting its entire budget to testing, which is costly.The Democrats are essentially saying that we shouldn't spend money on something vital to protecting us from rogue nations like North Korea and Iran because we don't have all the bugs worked out. I remember when liberals were carping about spening money on the Stealth bomber program because there were some flaws in it. Less than a decade later, it was devastating Baghdad.
Simply put, this is proof that Democrats are more worried about public opinion than about protecting America. If the choice is whether we should be worried about allies or protecting Americans, I suspect that most people would choose protecting Americans over any other consideration.
While the Democratic lawmakers insist they support "fielding a limited defense capability that works," they still see missile defense as a boondoggle. The letter writers contend: "Since the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was launched in the mid 1980's the United States has spent nearly $100 billion dollars on missile defense programs and studies with little to show for it."Since when have Democrats been interested in military equipment that does what it's supposed to do? I've heard some insulting things in my life but that's within whispering distance of the top of the list.
That letter should be insulting to every American for another reason. Anything that Americans have set out to accomplish, they've accomplished. If man can dream it, Americans can accomplish it. It's that simple. Look at our history. We built a transcontinental railroad and the Golden Gate Bridge and we put a man on the moon when few people thought we could even orbit the earth.
Now Democrats are essentially saying that building a missile defense shield is impossible? That's downright scary.
Posted Sunday, December 3, 2006 7:39 PM
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