January 30, 2007
Jan 30 03:39 UFPJ: United for Peace & Destruction? Jan 30 03:55 Town Hall Meeting Schedule Jan 30 11:17 Missile Defense of Future? Jan 30 14:39 Exposing DFL For Who They Are Jan 30 16:31 Waxman To Prove Global Warming's Validity Jan 30 17:48 Constitutional Showdown Looming
Prior Years: 2006
UFPJ: United for Peace & Destruction?
This weekend, United for Peace and Justice held an anti-war rally on the Washington Mall. Based on their website, they saw this as a huge success:
January 27th was an extraordinary outpouring for peace in Washington DC and in communities all around the country. On Saturday, the National Mall was filled with the voices of 500,000 people committed to doing their part to end the war in Iraq and bring all of the troops home. And the energy in this massive turnout was electric.If you're wondering, Code Pink also sponsored this event. In fact, their pre-event press release tells us that Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Rhea Perlman were among the guest speakers expected to attend:
Women celebrities who oppose the Iraq war, including Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Rhea Perlman, Eve Ensler, Mimi Kennedy, and Q'orianka Kilcher will be featured at a women's peace rally on Saturday, January 27th at 10 AM. The rally, sponsored by the national women's peace group CODEPINK, will draw thousands of women from throughout the United States, most of them dressed in the group's signature color, pink. After the rally, the women will join up with the tens of thousands of people participating in the United for Peace and Justice anti-war march.Code Pink gave John Murtha an award for his anti-war position while UFPJ seemed to be the source for Murtha's immediate redeployment policy.
It's worth noting that Code Pink and UFPJ often coordinate their events with International A.N.S.W.E.R. These groups are as far outside the mainstream of American politics as east is from the west. It's also worth noting the similarity between UFPJ's Iraq policy and Murtha's:
UFPJ: 1. Bring the U.S. troops home now.Think of what this means. CODEPINK and UFPJ think the world of John Murtha, Jane Fonda and Tim Robbins. In fact, it isn't out of line to say that Fonda, Murtha, Robbins, Sean Penn share the same beliefs with regard to Iraq policy. That thought should scare the daylights out of thoughtful people who want victory over the terrorists.
Murtha: I believe we must begin discussions for an immediate re-deployment of U.S. forces from Iraq.
UFPJ: 2. Iraqi sovereignty must be reestablished immediately.
Murtha: We must insist that the Iraqis step up and seize their own destiny.
From Murtha's Press Conference:
All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free, free from a United States occupation.
UFPJ: 3. The United Nations and other international organizations should refuse to endorse or collaborate with the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Murtha: I said two year ago, "The key to progress in Iraq is Iraqitize, internationalize and energize."
Here's a quote from Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CODEPINK, that should scare voters:
"What is George Bush thinking? Right after the voters send a huge anti-war message in the mid-term elections, he calls for an escalation of the war. The American people want our leaders to end this war and bring the troops home, and we're here this weekend to give that message to the President and to the new Congress."Frankly, that quote is pure spin. It's also dead wrong. The American people didn't say that we should abandon our patriotic ally Iraq. The American people didn't tell us that they didn't want to win in Iraq. More than anything else, conservatives stayed home over the GOP's reckless spending habits and immigration. If those conservatives would have voted like they did in 2002, we'd still have GOP majorities in both houses.
You tell me whether this Fonda diatribe sounds like a voice of mainstream America:
FONDA: Thank you so much for the courage to stand up against this mean-spirited, vengeful administration. I haven't spoken at an anti-war rally in 34 years because I've been afraid that because of the lies that has, have been and continue to be spread about me and that war, that they would be used to hurt this new anti-war movement, but silence is no longer an option.I admit that it sounds like typical BDS-afflicted pacifists but I'd seriously doubt that that's mainstream political thinking. Only BDS-afflicted liberals think that the Bush administration is mean-spirited and vengeful. The facts simply don't support that statement.
Here's some other star-studded statements from the anti-war protest:
ROBBINS: This past November the American people sent a resounding message to Washington, DC, and the world, "We want change. We want this war to end." And how did Bush respond? 21,500 more will risk their lives for his misguided war. Is impeachment still off the table?Talk about Kook City, USA. Yikes. That's the chants of an ill-informed simpleton. The first question I'd ask Robbins is if the God he'd recognize is as hate-filled as he is.
CROWD: Noooooooooo!
ROBBINS: Let's get him out of office.
CROWD: Impeach Bush! Impeach Bush! Impeach Bush!
ROBBINS: Let's get him out of office before he starts ruling from a bunker. Let's get him out of office before the only one on his side is his dog, Barney. Nixon, Richard Nixon, talked to the walls. Bush is talking to God. But it's not a god I recognize.
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007 3:41 AM
No comments.
Town Hall Meeting Schedule
Sen. Tarryl Clark's office has circulated a schedule for town hall meetings. Here is that schedule:
Saturday, Feb. 3
St. Cloud Technical College
10:30-11:30- Education Issues
Saturday, Feb. 10
Presented by Sen. D. Scott Dibble and Rep. Frank Hornstein with Sen. Clark, Rep. Haws and Rep. Hosch. Location & time to be determined.
Transportation issues
Saturday, Feb. 24
St. Cloud Technical College
10:00-11:00 am- Workforce & Economic Development Issues
Saturday, March 10
Haven Township Hall
10:00-11:00 am- Mississippi River & Development Issues
I'd strongly urge conservatives to show up to these meetings to make your voices heard. I'm not hinting that it will change the DFL's agenda but it will put them on notice that, though we're the minority party, we don't plan on keeping that status long.
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007 3:55 AM
No comments.
Missile Defense of Future?
Not if this Reuters article is right. They're saying it will be operational within a year:
Within a year, the U.S. missile defense system should be able to guard against enemy attacks, while testing new technologies, the deputy director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said on Monday.This will be a great day for the United States. I suspect that other countries, especially North Korea, have taken notice. This also means that they'll soon be refining existing technologies that will make this even more effective.
The United States activated the ground-based system last summer when North Korea launched one long-range and six short-range missiles.
North Korea's intercontinental Taepodong 2 missile fell into the Sea of Japan shortly after launch but the short-range tests appeared successful, said Brig. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, deputy director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
O'Reilly said work by North Korea and Iran on long-range ballistic missiles underscored the need for a viable U.S. missile defense system.I wonder if Reuters intentionally misquoted O'Reilly when they quote him using the term "Hezbollah militants." I find it odd that a military commander wouldn't call Hezbollah terrorists. Maybe O'Reilly said that. I just think that it sounds odd.
The war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militants last summer also highlighted the dangers of ballistic missiles and their use by non-state actors, he said. "We know we must be prepared for all contingencies."
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007 11:18 AM
No comments.
Exposing DFL For Who They Are
The Strib quoted Margaret Anderson-Kelliher as saying that the DFL was "fiscally moderate" during this session's first week. I'm still searching for proof of that 'moderation' since reading that quote. I'm not holding my breath during my examination of the DFL's 'fiscal moderation', either. Here's Ms. Anderson-Kelliher's quote:
"We're a fiscally moderate caucus," Kelliher said of the sprawling 85-member majority that now includes significant numbers of moderates from the suburbs, exurbs and rural areas.If Ms. Kelliher truly was a fiscal moderate, whatever that is, why would she rule that Assistant Minority Leader Laura Brod's series of tax cut proposals weren't "germane" to the tax bill they were debating? For that matter, why hasn't Ms. Anderson-Kelliher promoted a legislature that debates important fiscal matters? Why didn't she let the House pay raise get debated?
Going back on a promise to Minnesotans that they would legislate in a "fiscally responsible" manner, House Democrats, with some support from a handful of Republican legislators, recently pushed through a healthy pay raise. What's equally concerning, according to State Representative Laura Brod (R-New Prague) is that the move was made just less than two weeks into the 2007 session and was made without a vote of the entire House of Representatives.Thus far, Ms. Anderson-Kelliher has avoided debate on GOP tax cuts and the House's pay raise. There is a motive behind this & it isn't good. Ms. Anderson-Kelliher doesn't want to have her vulnerable freshman class vote against the tax cuts or for the pay raise. She knows that that would be a major political millstone around their necks in 2008.
"If this is the type of fiscal responsibility we're going to see in January, just imagine what's coming down the pike in May," Brod said. "Hold on to your wallets."
Brod noted that the action allows House lawmakers to receive $77 dollars each day for per diem, or a meal allowance, whether they spend it or not. They can also receive $1,200 per month to find a place to live. They can also receive this funding for the entire year. The Minnesota House is only in session for five months.
The move was approved by the DFL-controlled House Rules Committee, and does not require a full House floor vote.
"This is nothing more than a back door pay increase without open and honest debate," Brod said. "I have taken dozens of calls on this issue. People are outraged, and they have every right to be."
By ruling tax cut legislation not germane to tax legislation, she prevented debate on those cuts while protecting her freshmen. By having a the Rules Committee pass the pay raise, she spent taxpayers' money without a full floor debate and without exposing her freshmen to cries of cronyism.
These processes couldn't be more secretive. The results of this secretiveness tell us everything we need to know about the DFL's spendaholic ways. It's clear that this Speaker is comfortable with stifling debate, whether it's on tax policy or House pay raises. This begs another question: What other issues will Anderson-Kelliher's House deal with secretively?
If Anderson-Kelliher wants to live up to her "fiscally moderate" claim, she'll have to have a dramatic change of heart. She hasn't proven anything other than the fact that she's a 'secretive' spendaholic.
"This is an awful message to our citizens and I strongly oppose it. Personally, I will not be accepting this per diem increase or the housing allowance," Brod concluded.Congratulations, Rep. Brod, for not compromising your principles. Let's hope that more politicians follow your lead. The GOP's fighting for tax cuts, coupled with the DFL's spendaholic ways, should motivate GOP activists to work hard & get Republican candidates elected.
These gimmicks simply prove that Democrats are really fiscal liberals trying to hide behind focus-grouped catch phrases.
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007 2:39 PM
No comments.
Waxman To Prove Global Warming's Validity
That's the thrust of this article. Rep. Waxman is planning a hearing into whether the Bush administration misled them about global warming.
The Democratic chairman of a House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."I'm wondering how Rep. Waxman will prove that the science surrounding global warming. Look at all of the headlines on global warming today:
10 Years to Save the Planet
U.N. agency pressures Ban on climate crisis summit
Climate change means hunger and thirst for billions: report
Rep. Waxman wants people to think that global warming is Gospel fact. The bad news for Rep. Waxman is that intelligent people are shooting holes in the global warming theory, chief among them Michael Crichton. The truth is that most people accept that Earth's climate is changing but they're skeptical of global warming claims. Reports like this don't help sell global warming:
Billions of people will suffer water shortages and the number of hungry will grow by hundreds of millions by 2080 as global temperatures rise, scientists warn in a new report.We heard the same thing in the 70's. We've been told that Earth was speeding towards ecological disaster if we didn't dramatically change our ways. We've been told that the polar ice caps would melt, flooding the United States. We've been told that we'd see wide scale water shortages. We've heard Ted Turner say that the internal combustible engine was a greater danger than was terrorism. We've heard Ted Danson say in the 1980's that we had 10 years to save the planet.
The report estimates that between 1.1 billion and 3.2 billion people will be suffering from water scarcity problems by 2080 and between 200 million and 600 million more people will be going hungry.
Simply put, the environmental extremists have predicted the end of the world as we know it so many times that it isn't credible anymore. The sad part is that this lunacy isn't confined to the celebrity moonbats. It's rampant in the 'scientific community', too. Here's part of Michael Crichton's congressional testimony:
To summarize it briefly: in 1998-99 the American climate researcher 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.In other words, reports predicting doom and gloom have been with us for ages because whatever study 'reports' global warming as fact isn't examined with a critical eye; it's simply accepted as Gospel fact. Crichton's testimony is powerful proof that global warming can't be supported with verified facts.
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. But real fireworks began when two Canadian researchers, McIntyre and McKitrick, attempted to replicate Mann's study. They found grave errors in the work, which they detailed in 2003: calculation errors, data used twice, data filled in, and a computer program that generated a hockeystick out of any data fed to it-even random data. Mann's work has since been dismissed by scientists around the world who subscribe to global warning.
Why did the UN accept Mann's report so uncritically? Why didn't they catch the errors? Because the IPCC doesn't do independent verification. And perhaps because Mann himself was in charge of the section of the report that included his work.
It's time that we reached consensus that we should ignore the environmental extremists that produce such reports. Here's a last set of dire predictions on global warming:
The assessment is contained in a draft of a major international report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be released later this year, Australia's The Age newspaper said.Either The Age magazine is lying or Michael Crichton is. The IPCC can't be neutral or cautious on the one hand while refusing to do "independent verification" of its own reports. Given their track records, I'll trust Mr. Crichton.
Rising sea levels could flood seven million more homes, while Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef, treasured as the world's largest living organism, could be dead within decades, the scientists warn, the newspaper said.
The Age said it had obtained a copy of the report, believed to be one of three prepared for release by the IPCC, which is highly regarded for its neutrality and caution.
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007 4:32 PM
No comments.
Constitutional Showdown Looming
If you don't believe it, read the quotes from this NY Times article and tell my why I shouldn't expect it.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee began laying the constitutional groundwork today for an effort to block President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq and place new limits on the conduct of the war there, perhaps forcing a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.Specter is right in the sense that Congress has a role in going to war. They are the ones to formally declare war. They also can decide not to fund that war. Other than that, they aren't co-deciders. The Constitution is quite clear that there is one Commander-in-Chief, not 436.
They were joined by Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who led the panel for the last two years, in asserting that Mr. Bush cannot simply ignore Congressional opposition to his plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
"I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole decider," Mr. Specter said. "The decider is a joint and shared responsibility." Mr. Specter said he considered a clash over constitutional powers to be "imminent." The Senate next week will take up competing proposals that would express disapproval of Mr. Bush's plan.
As you might expect, Russ Feingold is in the middle of this imaginary brouhaha:
Senator Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who acted as chairman for the hearing, said he would soon introduce a resolution that would go much further. It would end all financing for the deployment of American military forces in Iraq after six months, other than a limited number working on counterterrorism operations or training the Iraqi army and police. In effect, it would call for all other American forces to be withdrawn by the six-month deadline. "Since the President is adamant about pursuing his failed policy in Iraq, Congress has a duty to stand up and prevent him," Mr. Feingold said.Sen. Feingold, bring it on. Please, please, please force the fence-straddling gutless wimps in your party to say that they're defeatists. Please force the fence-straddling gutless wimps in your party to say that their vote to go to war was purely political. Please tell the nation that Democrats are a spineless lot who don't give a damn about national security or defeating the terrorists. Please tell the nation that you can't be trusted with the nation's highest office. Please turn this nation against your party with a single piece of legislation. Please tell the nation that you're the Disgrace of Vietnam Party.
Mr. Feingold was joined by only two other Democrats at the hearing, Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, perhaps reflecting the wariness in the party's caucus about any direct attempt to thwart the president's strategy. Some Republicans, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have all but dared the war's opponents to try cutting off financing, a move they believe would be seen as undermining the nation's troops.It's obvious that Democrats want to raise a stink about this but they're too gutless to actually defund the war. They know that defunding the war is political suicide. If America really was vehemently opposed to the war, Democrats would be coming out of the woodwork with legislation cutting off funding of the war. It's that simple.
If history has taught us nothing else, it should've told us that Democrats are the party that votes for only those things that are inevitable. They aren't the bold party. They're the ultra-cautious party. That's why this is about "sound and fury, signifying nothing." To borrow an old cliche, when everything is said and done, more will be said than done.
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007 5:49 PM
Comment 1 by Deminn at 31-Jan-07 08:44 AM
And yet these same special interest party representatives believe that it's just fine to abdicate their responsibility specifically stated in the constitution to regulate commerce with foreign nations. They seem to think they can ignore the constitutions directive as long as they all vote on it. There could be more constitutional challenges of treasonous misuse or dereliction of duty than simply this.
And yet I'm betting that nothing is going to happen to upset the business as usual status party quo. It's simply, and offensively, disgusting. The entire basis of government standing to protect the constitutional interests of it's citizens seems to have been abandoned in favor of political authority and financial gain of a few. Our country really is rotting from within just like previous empires and most of us are just too durn disinterested or marginalized to stop the flushing.
Thank you special interest party who es for disrespecting the United States so. Such an improvement over basic human rights and the social compact set forth in the constitution.
