February 14-15, 2007
Feb 14 02:37 Headline of the Day Feb 14 03:09 Thompson Unloads on Fitzgerald Feb 14 05:27 Bush's Plan Is Working Feb 14 18:23 Bush Recovery Rolls On Feb 15 03:05 Invested In Defeat Feb 15 11:06 Murtha: From 'Hawk' to Defeatist Feb 15 15:19 al-Sadr Shows His True Colors (Yellow)
Prior Months: Jan
Prior Years: 2006
Headline of the Day
I can't help thinking that this might be the best headline of the year:
HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER SNOW/ICE STORMIf that isn't the most delicious-sounding headline of the year, I don't know what is. That's what makes this op-ed by Joe Lieberman and John McCain seem utterly out of touch. Don't get me wrong. McCain and Lieberman are both honorable men for the most part but they're out of touch with reality on this. Listen to this paragraph:
THERE IS NOW a broad consensus in this country, and indeed in the world, that global warming is happening, that it is a serious problem, and that humans are causing it. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there is a greater than 90 percent chance that greenhouse gases released by human activities like burning oil in cars and coal in power plants are causing most of the observed global warming. This report puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming.This is what happens when you rely on the UN report and the Agenda Media for your information. There isn't a hint in that paragraph that says that they've independently researched the subject. That's inexcusable at a time when Gore's information superhighway gives us access to tons of verifiable information that's far more trustworthy than Al Gore's rantings and the IPCC's propaganda.
This isn't Lieberman's and McCain's finest moment in terms of courage. They showed that they're more interested in consensus based on refutable facts. If they'd shown the courage on this that they've shown in fighting the jihadists, they would've written a totally different op-ed.
Furthermore, I cringe anytime I hear the phrase "There is broad consensus". Consensus just means that a bunch of liars have gotten together to perpetrate a hoax on the people. These scientists offer nothing in terms of verifiable, repeatable data. I don't know that they've even offered a methodology by which they've arrived at their opinions. It isn't science that they used to arrive at their opinions. It was their need to keep getting grants that drove them to their opinions.
As I said here, global warming isn't science; it's a political movement. Until they stop manipulating the data like they did here, I won't accept their opinions as scientific findings:
Michael Mann and his co-workers published an estimate of global temperatures from the year 1000 to 1980. Mann's results appeared to show a spike in recent temperatures that was unprecedented in the last thousand years. His alarming report formed the centerpiece of the U.N.'s Third Assessment Report, in 2001. Mann's work was immediately criticized because it didn't show the well-known Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures were warmer than they are today, or the Little Ice Age that began around 1500, when the climate was colder than today.
Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:38 AM
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Thompson Unloads on Fitzgerald
One of my favorite conservatives, Fred Dalton Thompson lambasted Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of Scooter Libby. Here's his first rip on Fitzgerald:
"There was no indication that a law had been violated," said Thompson. "That's borne out by the fact that nobody's been charged with outing her. The Justice Department knew that early on. The CIA should have known that early on. Special Counsel Fitzgerald had to have known that at the very beginning. There was no law that had been violated at the time the investigation had been started," he added.In other words, Fitzgerald shouldn't have even convened a grand jury. Fitzgerald was hired to see if the disclosing of Valerie Plame's name triggered a violation of the IIPA. They knew before the grand jury was convened that Richard Armitage was the leaker and that Plame wasn't covered by the IIPA. Fitzgerald should've closed the investigation at that point and explained why. He didn't and now he's about to have his case collapse.
Here's another dig that Sen. Thompson got in on Fitzgerald:
"You can get someone caught up on a faulty memory and make this kind of accusation in almost any investigation. Here, everybody connected with the case has a faulty memory. We've seen an array of prosecution witnesses, one after another, who cannot remember entire conversations they had with people."As I said here and here, the prosecution's witnesses practically made the defense's case for them. I think that's why the defense has decided to not have Dick Cheney or Scooter Libby testify. Here's Sen. Thompson's last dig of the article:
"He turned out to be a fella who can see miles and miles in a straight line, but had no peripheral vision at all and didn't realize apparently that he was caught up in a bureaucratic political dogfight."That sounds like the best description I've heard yet of Patrick Fitzgerald.
Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007 3:10 AM
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Bush's Plan Is Working
That's what I'd take this headline to mean:
Al Sadr Fled Iraq, Fearing U.S. Bombs
Here's the details, according to ABCNews:
While members of the U.S. House of Representatives take turns weighing in on President Bush's planned troop surge in Iraq, the focus in Iraq is not on the arrival of more U.S. troops, but the departure of one of the country's most powerful men, Moqtada al Sadr and members of his army. According to senior military officials, al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.This is great news for President Bush and a heaping helping of crow for Pelosi's gang of defeatists. The most delicious part about this is that this news comes before a vote on a resolution that says that the surge is a failure. Obviously, Muqtada al-Sadr doesn't agree with the spineless Democrats that the President's strategy is a failure. I suspect that alot of RINO Republicans immediately developed a spine after this.
Al Sadr commands the Mahdi army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad. Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News' Martha Raddatz, "He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house."
This news won't sit well with the voters of MN-1. According to this Strib article, Tim Walz was "expected to address the House three times Tuesday on the war in Iraq, favoring the resolution expressing support for U. S. troops and urging President Bush not to increase troops in Iraq." Here's the full text of his first speech:
"Madame Speaker, this week the House will have an opportunity to truly support our troops by having a substantial debate here in the House about the President's latest troop escalation plan.Where do you start with a speech like this? If this speech were a poker hand, the only right way to this hand would be away. When he says "First and foremost, we support them, and we support them by saying, 'enough is enough' with the bad planning", he's stating an opinion based on partisanship and poll-tested 'wisdom'. That isn't leadership. That's a profile in intellectual cowardice.
Some of my Republican colleagues say that such debate undermines our troops' efforts in Iraq. Nothing could be further from the truth.
How can this Congress stand on the sidelines when the President has been told by his generals, by an independent commission created by the old Republican Congress, by the American people, and by both Democrats and Republicans in the new Congress that this plan will not work?
How can this Congress stand on the sidelines while our troops continue to serve as referees in a situation on the ground that our own intelligence agencies say is worse than a Civil War?
Madame Speaker, the resolution we will begin debating today has the well-being of our troops first. First and foremost, we support them, and we support them by saying, 'enough is enough' with the bad planning. The President should not send more troops to Iraq for the simple reason that it will not make any difference on a deteriorating situation on the ground."
This is a major indicator that Tim Walz will be a one term wonder. First, he co-sponsored minimum wage legislation that was a gift to Nancy Pelosi's special interest friends. Now he's making speeches about the President's failed Iraq strategy on the day that the news broke that Muqtada al-Sadr, the man who's been causing the sectarian strife, has run like a scared little boy to Iran.
Here's the text of his second speech:
Mr. Speaker, today we begin a long overdue debate on the President's troop escalation plans and the Iraq war in general. I spoke earlier this morning, and I had the opportunity to address some of the conflicts between the testimony of experts and the Administration's wishful thinking in regard to the escalation.Tim Walz might sound like he's looking out for the little guy but he's advocating a military defeat that will embolden the jihadists, which will cause future terrorist attacks. That's hardly a wise strategy. Furthermore, I'm betting that, if the troops were given the option, the troops would rather stay deployed than let another terrorist happen.
What is said here on this floor of Congress, what is said by our experts and what is said by this Administration matters. It matters because our troops will be asked to fulfill the mission that comes out of these discussions. Our debate on this resolution is about far more than expressing our disapproval of the President. We offer this debate in the hopes that it will shape the mission that our soldiers are asked to carry out, one that is based on facts and reality not blind ideology.
I retired for the National Guard in 2005 and the unit I served with is now in Iraq. Many of these soldiers are kids that I taught in my high school class room and coached on our school football team. They joined my Guard unit and I trained them. We deployed together in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and now they are deployed again to Iraq.
As a 24 year veteran of the Army National Guard, I know that our soldiers are trained to fulfill the mission they are given. But having a mission that is achievable is the key to any military success. The previous Republican Congress failed to hold the administration accountable for providing a mission that could succeed and in doing so they failed to support our troops.
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with a Field Commander of the Minnesota National Guard who is serving in Iraq. He told me that our soldiers are performing magnificently, every minute of every hour of every day, that's not the issue that's at hand here. The issue at hand is providing a mission that can succeed.
Mr. Speaker, when we recess for our district work period next week, I will go home and look in to the eyes of the families of these soldiers. These are the same families and the men and women who learned on cable TV that they would be extended in their tour of duty. These are the same men and women who will face financial loss because many of them had planned to return to their jobs after an 18 month deployment to work in the agricultural and construction businesses and now they will be delayed in their return. They'll miss the critical seasons. They have been deployed for two and a half of the last four years.
Mr. Speaker, we can and must do better by our soldiers. The resolution that we will debate today, and I am in support of is meant as a first step in giving our troops an achievable mission and a chance to return. Our soldiers are trained to fulfill their mission without question. We as civilian leaders have a duty to question it on their behalf. For the past four years this Republican-led Congress has failed in their duty.
This resolution is about this Congress standing up and saying, "we will achieve our duty to the same level of excellence as our soldiers have."
Finally, Walz's statement that "This resolution is about this Congress standing up and saying, "we will achieve our duty to the same level of excellence as our soldiers have" is utter nonsense. If this resolution is Walz's benchmark of excellence, then we can't afford to have him represent MN-1 for more than a full term.
Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007 5:27 AM
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Bush Recovery Rolls On
Stocks rallied today based on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony. First, here's what Reuters reported on the Dow record close:
Stocks soared on Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to an all-time high, as investors drew confidence from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that inflation is poised to ease while the economy grows moderately.Here's what Reuters reported on Bernanke's testimony:
Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 86.53 points, or 0.68 percent, to unofficially end at 12,741.38, a record closing high. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 11.02 points, or 0.76 percent, to finish unofficially at 1,455.28, a fresh six-year high. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 28.50 points, or 1.16 percent, to close unofficially at 2,488.38.
Bernanke, delivering the Fed's first economic report for 2007 to Capitol Hill, offered a mostly upbeat assessment of the economy's outlook. Besides improvements on the inflation front, the Fed chief also cited some signs of stabilization in the ailing housing market.Larry Kudlow of Kudlow & Company opened his show by saying that Bernanke had embraced Goldilocks and we might be looking at a "runaway bull market", something that Bob Pisani agreed with in his report from the NYSE floor. With the deficit shrinking with each new forecast even while we're fighting an expensive war, and with forecasts predicting a balanced budget by 2012, a case can be made that the Bush recovery, spurred in large part by the Bush tax cuts, is a sturdier, more sustainable economy than was the Clinton economy.
"Overall, the U.S. economy seems likely to expand at a moderate pace this year and next, with growth strengthening somewhat as the drag from housing diminishes," the Fed chief said in prepared remarks to the Senate Banking Committee. Currently, interest rates are at a level that is "likely to foster sustainable economic growth and a gradual ebbing of core inflation," he added.
Another thing that will eventually happen is that we'll secure Iraq, which will allow us to bring our troops home and dramatically reduce our military expenditures. The bottom line is that the sooner we clean up Iraq, the sooner we'll run surpluses. After all, Bernanke said that we should see sustainable growth for the rest of Bush's administration.
Meanwhile, this week's news should scare Democrats. We're getting conflicting reports on whether al-Sadr left Iraq with it being most likely that he left for Iran. That means that there's a strong chance of eliminating most of the sectarian violence, especially in Baghdad. We have the economy running strong. Then you factor in a rapidly shrinking deficit with sizable surpluses in the near future and you've got a difficult terrain for Hillary to navigate.
Imagine the implications. Hillary's shrill stump speeches where she's advocating a return to Clintonomics, aka major tax increases, while caving to her anti-war base, won't make for an appealing message. That isn't to say that she won't be a formidable opponent but it likely means that she'll have to alter her scripted plans, which might mean disaster. As we've seen, she isn't good at ad-libbing.
Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:26 PM
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Invested In Defeat
While the media is focused on the non-binding resolution, John Murtha is surreptitiously crafting legislation that will restrict the President's ability to wage war. The dirty little secret is that it's an underhanded way for the House Democrats to micromanage the war into a defeat. Expect this strategy to utterly backfire. Here's how Rush sees it:
This is their strategery. This is their investment in defeat. This is because they, as I have reminded you countless times here, my friends, cannot allow a victory to take place. They don't have the guts to end the war because of their fear the public would think that they're not supporting the troops. So now they're going to go around the backside, do an end run and a slow bleed by eliminating the number of troops available for rotation duty in Iraq, forcing the president to pull everybody out in that manner, and they're going to have a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to support this, in the midst of a surge which is designed to rout the insurgency out of Baghdad and bring stability to it.Don't expect the Senate to debate this legislation. They'll treat this like it's more radioactive than Chernobyl's nuclear facility right after the meltdown. Another contributing factor to this is that Hillary doesn't want anything to do with any legislation that would force her to make a decision on Iraq policy, especially considering how bad she'd look against Rudy Giuliani's steadfastness.
Meanwhile, this Guardian article might give Democrats more than a little heartburn:
Senior commanders of the Mahdi army, the militia loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, have been spirited away to Iran to avoid being targeted in the new security push in Baghdad, a high-level Iraqi official told the Guardian yesterday. On the day the Iraqi government formally launched its crackdown on insurgents and amid disputed claims about the whereabouts of Mr Sadr, the official said the Mahdi army leadership had withdrawn across the border into Iran to regroup and retrain.While Pelosi and Murtha try to secretly undermine the war effort, Iran is showing the world that President Bush's surge isn't something that they want to deal with. If they didn't think that it would be successful, they wouldn't have spirited al-Sadr and his militia into Tehran. It's being reported that Democrats are planning a big ad buy on this issue. Here's what the Politico is reporting:
"Over the last three weeks, they [Iran] have taken away from Baghdad the first and second-tier military leaders of the Mahdi army," he said. The aim of the Iranians was to "prevent the dismantling of the infrastructure of the Shia militias" in the Iraqi capital, one of the chief aims of the US-backed security drive. "The strategy is to lie low until the storm passes, and then let them return and fill the vacuum," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Tehran authorities were "playing a waiting game" until the commanders could return to Baghdad and resume their activities. "All indications are that Moqtada is in Iran, but that is not really the point," he added.
The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.The RNC should wait for this debate to end and the ads to start running before making their own multi-million dollar ad buy. I'd then recommend that the advertisement have the Defeatocrats' debating their resolution, then showing the headlines of Sadr fleeing Iraq before the big offensive hits.
For instance, I'd open with a caption of Nancy Pelosi's opening statement, followed by the Guardian's headline. I'd show Murtha's statements about undercutting the President next, followed by the headlines showing that sectarian fighting decreased rapidly. I'd definitely include this caption from Tim Walz's first speech:
How can this Congress stand on the sidelines when the President has been told by his generals, by an independent commission created by the old Republican Congress, by the American people, and by both Democrats and Republicans in the new Congress that this plan will not work?If Democrats are going to run ads in GOP districts that they think are their best bets at pickups, then we should do the same. I can't think of many Democrats who are more vulnerable than Tim Walz right now. If the Defeatocrats try pushing this issue, then this is the perfect time to push back. This is a fight that we're loaded for bear on. This is a fight where the headlines now favor the GOP.
I'd run the GOP ads in Heath Shuler's district, Nick Lampson's district and Tim Mahoney's district. That's just for starters. I'd follow that ad buy up with ads against Tim Murphy in Pennsylvania and Zach Space in Ohio. They'll wish they'd never picked this fight. Finally, I'd run ads against Murtha, too. Show them what a walking disaster he's become.
Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 3:06 AM
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Murtha: From 'Hawk' to Defeatist
John Murtha has sold his soul to the anti-war devil. It's common knowledge that he's writing legislation that would lead to defeat in Iraq. This Washington Post article now provides a glimpse into Murtha's legislation.
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, will formally outline the Democrats' plan today to antiwar groups agitating for binding action against the war. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a subcommittee member who helped arrange the Internet event, said the plan is aimed at tamping down calls from the Democrats' liberal wing for Congress to simply end funding for the war.Murtha isn't letting the success of the President's surge plan get in the way of his sellout to
The Murtha plan, based on existing military guidelines, includes a stipulation that Army troops who have already served in Iraq must be granted two years at home before an additional deployment, Marines must be given 14 months at home, and any troops sent to Iraq must be those deemed fully trained and equipped under existing military standards. The idea is to slowly choke off the war by stopping the deployment of troops from units that have been badly degraded by four years of combat.
"They won't be able to deploy troops unless they extend troops overseas. And if we limit the extension, then it'll be very difficult for them to continue this surge, which the American people are against and the Iraqis don't want," Murtha said yesterday on National Public Radio.
I hope that President Bush takes this time to expose Murtha's plan while telling the American people that the source of Iraqi violence has fled to Tehran. That would turn people against Murtha's plan in a heartbeat.
Murtha's plan is based on his need for the limelight. He's now exposed as the most pacifistic Marine in history. He's obviously more concerned with having his time in the spotlight than he is with getting policy right. This also proves that he's the Democrats' point man in their quest to lose the Iraq war. They're invested in defeat because they can't win in 2008 if Iraq is a success.
Another reason why they're trotting John Murtha out for this online press conference is to keep the anti-war Left's campaign contributions flowing in. This legislation also guarantees these organizations' cooperation for their GOTV operation in 2008.
The good news is that this legislation doesn't stand a chance of being considered, much less adopted, by the Senate. In fact, if the House passes this legislation, they'll put a noose around every freshman's neck that votes for it.
It's time that the people of PA-12 put Murtha out of our misery. He's a defeatist and a pacifist at a time when we need a can-do warrior. This is a perfect example of why Murtha MUST GO!!!
Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 3:16 PM
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al-Sadr Shows His True Colors (Yellow)
My favorite military analyst/columnist Ralph Peters has written a wonderfully sarcastic article on Muqtada al-Sadr's departure to Tehran. Here's a sampling of his NY Post column:
LOOKS like our team won this round of Spook-the-Mook. A best-in-show source in Baghdad confirms that Muqtada al-Sadr took off on a road-trip to Iran. And he wasn't just cruising in search of a Reuben sandwich.In other words, the Bush Surge scared 'Little Mookie' so much that he's decided he'd rather have a career as a chicken-shit imam in Tehran than a legacy of being a heroic martyr in Najaf. He's lost all credibility within his Mahdi Army. He's essentially neutered himself by doing this. I don't know that this means the militia will set aside its weapons but it can't help troop morale. Remember, too, that al-Sadr took his advisers with him.
The game ain't over until the fat mullah's scared. No matter how he tries to explain it away, Muqtada's public cowardice is going to hurt him...after he encouraged his followers to martyr themselves. There already had been rumors of mutinies in the Mahdi Army that threatened Mookie himself.
One more reason to run.
It's going to be hard for him to maintain his image as an Iraqi nationalist after running to mommy back in Qom or Tehran. To be fair, the Mookster hasn't always done Iran's bidding in the past but now he's going to owe the Shiraz Sopranos.
Some news stories have hinted that Sadr's stay in Iran is temporary, only waiting until the American surge is over before returning to his place of power. With his militia's leadership in shambles and his cowardice exposed, Sadr is all but officially finished as a power broker.
We and the Free Iraqis shouldn't miss a chance to portray that melon-bellied bigmouth as a wuss. He's always been glad to deliver fiery sermons, but whenever we delivered firepower he disappeared, letting others do the fighting for him. In the past he at least went to ground on his home turf, hunkering down while his underlings fought and died. This time, his nerve failed him so badly that he jumped the border.Amen, Brother Peters. Preach it, Son.
Here's why Sadr fled:
The troop surge that Sen. Barack "I'm entitled!" Obama and so many others in Congress deride got his attention, too: Sadr City's no longer a safety zone.In other words, everything in Iraq has changed. Maliki had a 'come to Jesus' meeting with President Bush, who undoubtedly told him that his running interference for Sadr wouldn't stop American forces from filling him full of lead. Another contributing factor is that the U.S. changed the Rules of Engagement, meaning that the shackles came off of our soldiers. Finally, David Petraeus is totally ruthless, something that's been lacking until now. I suspect that Sadr decided to flee when he saw his top operatives weren't being protected.
And after being beaten sufficiently about the head and shoulders, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has decided that maybe Mookie's not the man of the future. Najaf and Karbala just don't feel safe anymore.
Over the past several weeks, we've taken out or busted nearly a dozen high-ranking Sadrists , the boys who decide where the bombs will go off and who choose the death-squad targets. It's hard to feel warm and fuzzy when your deputies keep going down.
And there's a new kid in town: Gen. Dave Petraeus is a different kind of adversary and Muqtada, who made his bones judging the limitations of his opponents, recognizes that the rules just changed. Petraeus has a tactile sense of Iraq that his predecessors in Baghdad simply lacked. And King David's out to win.
Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 5:04 PM
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