Politics Blog

The old media no longer considers this “news:”

1st Lt. Benjamin D. Keating, 27, of Shapleigh, Maine, died Nov. 26 in Kamdesh, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when his vehicle turned over. Keating was assigned to 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment (Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Target Acquisition), 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.

God Bless You, L.T.

Well the “grand” NATO Summit is over and here is what the alliance did:

NATO leaders pledged in a closing statement to stay the course in Afghanistan.

I know a whole bunch of guys that will be “thrilled” with that news. /sarcasm off

Surely, that was not the purpose of the meeting. Of course not, there was an attempt to ensure that the NATO troop contributions were more useful than Americans donating toys with missing parts to Hurricane Katrina victims:

NATO leaders finished a two-day summit Wednesday without agreement on some members’ refusal to send troops into combat in Afghanistan’s most dangerous regions, where casualties are mounting in the fight against Taliban insurgents.

The worse part of all this is “we” have to accept the “donations” from NATO members knowing damn well their “contribution” is simply taking up space.

August 1992, President George H.W. Bush orders emergency airlifts to President Bush.

November 1992, William Jefferson Clinton elected President of the United States.

October 1993, Eighteen US Rangers and Delta Force specialists died in a raid in Somalia and over 70 were wounded.

October 1993. “A few days after the Rangers’ deaths and the humiliating CNN coverage, Clinton did completely reverse course. He announced it had been a mistake to “personalize the conflict.”

November 1996, the American People re-elect President Clinton to a second term.

Today:

Al-Qaida militants are operating with “great comfort” in Somalia, providing training and assistance to a radical military element loyal to the Islamic group that controls most of southern Somalia, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.

Do I “fault” President Clinton for his decision? Good or bad, he was simply following the “will” of the electorate and I am sure he had the internal polling to make “his decision.”

Will America ever learn? All I can do, along with many others, is make sure that the institutional military is as ready as possible to fight another day in another place.

Remember the Democrats promising to implement ALL of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations if they were elected, they sure said it enough times, especially San Fran Nan:

If you honor Democratic candidates with your vote today, in the first hundred hours of a Democratic Congress: We will make our nation safer and we will begin by implementing the recommendations of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

Well, I guess it depends on what your definition of ALL is:

It was a solemn pledge, repeated by Democratic leaders and candidates over and over: If elected to the majority in Congress, Democrats would implement all of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that examined the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation’s intelligence agencies.

Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed state health care coverage for all Californians. “Californians,” under Schwarzenegger’s definition, does not mean legal residents of the state of California. It means free health care for anyone who decides to sneak across the border.

Fortunately, the Republican legislative minority is united against this dumb idea, and probably has enough Constitutional power to stop it:

“California is not responsible for paying for the medical care of the undocumented – people who are here illegally, period,” said Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks (Sacramento County). “We are not the health maintenance organization for Mexico.”

Schwarzenegger has not yet revealed details of his health care initiative, and there is no indication whether he will propose spending tax money to extend care to undocumented immigrants.

But the governor said Sunday on a national TV news program that his goal was to extend coverage to all 6.7 million Californians who are without health insurance – a figure that includes an estimated 1.6 million undocumented immigrants, according to figures from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

A spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger would not comment Wednesday directly on the warnings from GOP lawmakers. But Kim Belshé, the governor’s secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that debate over health care reform needs to include undocumented immigrants.

Because, you know, we’re just not attracting enough illegal aliens with free schools, free emergency services, and automatic citizenship for their babies.

This is quickly becoming one of my “big” issues (that is while we’re here, until we’re hit with a large meteor devasting earth, or AQ, embolded by the Democratic party, destroys a city or two):

Around 4 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 25, several New York City police officers in plain clothes fired an estimated 50 shots at a car, wounding two black men and killing a third, 23-year-old Sean Bell. Some police bullets penetrated nearby homes. Although an undercover officer had called for back-up, indicating that the three suspects had a gun, no weapon was found in the aftermath.

Talk about over-reaction. This post at Instapundit notes:

The officers fired 50 or so rounds and only hit *the car* 21 times, much less its occupants. That’s spraying and praying, and ought to be considered reckless endangerment, no matter how evil the guys they’re trying to take down.

In the wake of the Atlanta no-knock raid disaster, Glenn Reynolds also has a column in Popular Mechanics on this topic.

Also related: “7M in U.S. Jails, on Probation or Parole”

That’s right, 1 in 32 American adults is a ward of the criminal justice system. I doubt the signers of the Declaration had this in mind in forming our governmental instutions.

Newsbusters has the story of this drunken dwarf noting:

DeVito then began what was supposed to be mimicry of Bush, making a variety of weird sounds and facial expressions. It’s impossible to really capture DeVito’s performance in words (he’d admitted he’d been up partying all night with George Clooney)

Check out the video, and of course people in the audience are laughing.

I don’t know what to make of this:

The report recommends that Mr. Bush make it clear that he intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people familiar with the debateover the final language said the implicit message was that the process should begin sometime next year.

The report leaves unstated whether the 15 combat brigades that are the bulk of American fighting forces in Iraq would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries. (A brigade typically consists of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.) From those bases, they would still be responsible for protecting a substantial number of American troops who would remain in Iraq, including 70,000 or more American trainers, logistics experts and members of a rapid reaction force.

Same story:

Even as word of the study group’s conclusions began to leak out, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said two or three battalions of American troops were being sent to Baghdad from elsewhere in Iraq to assist in shoring up security there. Another Pentagon official said the additional troops for Baghdad would be drawn from a brigade in Mosul equipped with fast-moving, armored Stryker vehicles.

Quite honestly these people, our political class, have fatigued me to the point that I don’t know what to think. The country just elected a bunch of Marxists who actively hate the ideas America was founded on and so it’s hard for me to care what James Baker and Vernon Jordon (yes of Lewinski fame) think about Iraq. I’m quickly taking the view of “bomb these people into 2006 or leave.”

More from Rich Lowry:

This Baker-Hamilton recommendation, if the New York Times report is accurate, is a disaster. It represents, as Cliff noted earlier, the establishment quitting on the war.

To say our political class is underwhelming is a gross understatement.

Now that Republicans will be in the minority next Congress, will they move further from their roots? Will a primary concern of regaining the majority result in a move to theLeft to gain that end? Will those concerns lead to greater growth in government size and spending? Or, will they realize the error of such tactics, and that it was exactly such moves that lead to their losses this cycle?

If history is an indicator the answer to the first three questions will be yes, the fourth no, and Republicans will continue to bind themselves within the growing box created by liberalism. If Republicans continue pandering to the Left, their actions will continue to move American policy further in that direction and produce ends they supposedly stand against. In fact, it has been Republican moves to accommodate liberalism, not action based upon the will of the American majority, that have caused government growth and moved national policies to the left. Over the years Republicans have strayed from conservatism and operated within - as well as expanded - the liberal paradigm.

If this trend continues, how can Republicans return to their roots and regain the confidence of the American people?

Whether they realize it or not, the overwhelming number of Americans support conservative principles and governance. They believe in Freedom and Liberty, in individual rights with corresponding responsibilities, and they remember that government flows from the individual, not the reverse; they believe government’s role is to protect opportunities to enjoy God given rights, not to control individual action or play the role of the Creator. They understand the true meaning of a government “of,” “by,” and “for the people.”

Congress, however, has strayed and fostered a liberal socialistic interpretation of the third phrase leading to further growth of government. The more government grows, the more it becomes a nebulous expanse of its own creation and power. Once that is allowed to occur it is perceived as an authority from which the people derive their rights; government (or those in control of government), not God, becomes supreme. Such governmental growth and control is part of the liberal agenda; but, at that point government no longer flows from the people, the people are no longer free, and they can no longer enjoy the Liberty that God granted to - and intended for - them

To prevent such an end, while in the minority Republicans must no longer fall for liberal talk of “bi-partisan” action. From a liberal that is merely rhetoric trying to pressure the opposition into concession to their desired ends. Talk of “bi-partisanship” by a liberal means they take everything and give nothing; demands to surrender personal independence for government growth, superiority, and dependence, while affording no concessions in return. If the liberal agenda were truly the will of the people - and the form of government created by the Constitution - they would not need to talk in such phrases now that they will be in the majority; incessant reference to “bi-partisanship” is indicative of an acknowledgment that the intentions and means are contrary to the American majority, and the Constitution. Republican silence and acquiescence to those tactics have been an implicit endorsement of the self serving scheme that is the liberal agenda.

At this point, rather than staying within the current box, conservatives and Republicans must move the mainstream debate “outside the box;” discussions should focus on returning to the original framework of limited government outlined in the Constitution, and the oppressive consequences of government expansion. Why must we only discuss, and work within, the structure that currently exists in lieu of shrinking the extent of that structure?

From this point forward it is critical that Republicans highlight the debate of reducing government’s size and scope, and the consequences of failing to do so; the latter being the continued trend toward a totalitarian, atheistic, oppressive government. If Republicans follow a clearly expressed conservative agenda of limited government such will be supported by theAmerican majority. The question is whether Republicans will have the character and political will follow that path.

ACLU “allowing” public school to screen the movie “The Nativity Story":

ACLU Virginia spokesman Kent Willis said the screenings were “perfectly acceptable” as long as the schools were not sponsoring the event, they were not mandatory, and the Christian group was not getting any special treatment other student organizations would be unable to get.

Real gems over there at the ACLU, you know ?