Sadaam killing his own lawyers?

Update:

If it does bear out, its a great strategy.

Kill off your own lawyers. Soon no one will want to defend you for fear of their lives. No lawyers, no trial. Next he'll petition to move the trial to another country.
(Update: The lawyers already have - rtfa before posting. sorry)

This is 'normal'?

Here's the money quote:

"We returned to an almost normal situation in Ile de France," said Gaudin, referring to the Paris region. He said that 86 vehicles were burned, which he said was about normal.

Saddam's strategy?

Could Saddam Hussein be killing his own defense team?

It makes sense to me. How can you possibly get a fair trial when your lawyers are getting killed and your remaining lawyers 'suspend' their work?

The Washington Post Lies

The Washington Post's unbelievable, blatant lying:

"Wilson's central assertion -- disputing President Bush's 2003 State of the Union claim that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Niger -- has been validated by postwar weapons inspections."

Can nothing be done about this? This is criminal. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee had found that Wilson's credibility was basically zero and that in fact the opposite of reality. I don't understand how a newspaper can print the opposite of the truth (well, okay, I know, but it still just makes me want to scream).

Must Read

Be sure to check out this amazing opinion piece in the NY Sun.

They tlak about the autophagy of the New York Times.

Autophagy is a great word. It is defined as: The process of self-digestion by a cell through the action of enzymes originating within the same cell.

Can this be real?

If there is any truth to this, can anything be done about it?

We all already know about Roe v Wade, right?

Unbelievable.

Can't Get No Respect

I just heard Mara Liasson (of NPR) on Fox News say that this miraclulous Constitution that Iraq just voted on represented 'inching forward'.

Unbelievable. No wonder they don't win elections anymore.

More Proof that the Media is not on Our Side

I cannot describe how disgusted I am (once again) with the 'mainstream media (msm)'.

The President sets up a question/answer session with some soldiers in Iraq requiring a bit of logistical coordination. Well, apparently the AP believes the coordination necessary in every live video hookup between the POTUS and a group of soldiers who - up until a few minutes prior - have been fighting for the Freedom of Iraq amounts to a 'staging'.

Well, Sgt Ron Long of the 278th RCT in Iraq was one of the Soldiers actually present for the teleconference. Read his report and decide the truth for yourself.

No more Missile Shield?

If this is true, this is bad...

"I Hate my Boss", by A. M. al-Zarqawi

I love the guys over at Iowahawk.

They can always be counted on to get it funny.

Get ready for H5N1

Beginning in East Asia, the deadly H5N1 virus has moved from China and Russia into Turkey and probably Romania. Next stop Europe proper.

A pandemic is almost certainly coming. If not this virus, this season, it will be next virus, next season.

Mark Levin vs. Hugh Hewitt on Miers

This is about as good as it gets. The most intelligent defender of the Miers nomination going mano a mano with her most intelligent detractor.

Mark Levin: "Where do I have to go to find her judicial philosophy? To a Chinese restaurant and crack open a fortune cookie?"

You gotta love that!

Read the whole thing. Its well worth it.

The News in Iraq Just Keeps Getting Better

This will be really hard on the Left, but it appears that the Sunnis have joined the political process to do more than try to defeat the Constitution.

A large faction of Sunnis have reached an agreement whereby they are now pushing for the passage of the Constitution!

Arab League trying to meet with Saddam?

For anyone interested in knowing what's going on on the ground in Iraq along with a local perspective, you need to check out Iraq the Model.

The most recent post discussing the Arab League gives you a sense of how the Arab States of the region are viewed: With distrust and anger.

Soldiers or Fish? I choose Soldiers

I love cool military tech. Here's some neat anti-torpedo technology.

Ginsburg v Miers

Here's an interesting perspective I heard this morning:

The Senate confirmed ultra left wing Ruth Bader Ginsburg 92-0. That means every GOPer who voted, voted yes for this radical ACLU lawyer.

So, based on that, how can Miers not get 100% GOP support? (I think she may in the end, anyway)

The Senate thought BJ Clinton's Ginsburg was okay for a 100% vote, but not GW Bush's pick high court (particularly his own party)?

I find this to be an interesting argument that is not easily dismissed (although I'm sure it already has been by Miers' detractors - I just haven't read about it yet).

As of today, I still don't support the Miers nomination, but I also think that the President is due deference to pick who he will and have them go before the Senate before being ripped apart.

Trust Me?

Why did we elect George Bush? One main reason: He supports Justices like Thomas and Scalia.

So, first he picks Roberts, who was suprising, but 'hopefully' fine. Now he picks Harriet Miers. Who? One thing I don't want to be accused of is being an elitest. I don't think that a Justice must necessarily come from the realm of the court (afaik, Rhenquist was not a judge prior to his being on the Supreme Court). Nor does a Justice have to go to a certain school (like Harvard Law).

However, when you campaign on Thomas and Scalia and then nominate someone who no one knows and say, 'Trust me'... That doesn't cut it! Trust me, Anthony Kennedy. Trust me John Paul Stevens. Trust me David Souter. Trust me nothing. 3 current Justices who were foisted upon an unsuspecting conservative base. Trust me? Right.

Even though Miers 'might' turn out 'okay', why would President Bush slap his base in the face this way? Its depressing and infuriating to find out yet again that its the heart of soul of the conservative movement that gets ignored and treated like children. Trust me. No thanks. I trust my eyes. Maybe you could show me why I should trust you, but of course you can't. There's nothing to show. Trust me.

I think the Republican party is in trouble. There is alot of anger out there. Hugh Hewitt is one of the few voices trying to hold back the tide of conservative anger and rage at Bush, but I'm not even sure that's a good idea. Maybe its time for a knockdown fight for the party. Kick out all the Rinos if they don't want to be team players and get new candidates that act like Conservatives rather than moderate Democrats.

Regardless of how Miers turns out, I feel betrayed by my President and that's a very ugly feeling.

Harriet Miers nomination

I've been thinking about this all day.

I am a fan of Mark Levin. He is not happy about this nomination.

I am also, a fan of Hugh Hewitt. He is optimistic.

This is a tough one. Hugh makes a very compelling argument. I want to believe that Hugh is right. This is such an important issue. Its the second most important issue in the country after 'homeland security'. I that I can't know with more certainty whether or not soon-to-be associate justice Harriet Miers will be faithful to the Constitution.

Beyond that, I was really spoiling for a fight with the left. Maybe Ginsburg will retire soon (wishful thinking) and Bush could nominiate Newt (although he's clearly looking at 08).

New Delay indictment?

I have read this twice now and can't seem to find Tom DeLay's name anywhere except to accuse him of money laundering. There are lots of other names of people doing things that are likely legal anyway - you know those loopholes... and of course, 'everyone does it'.

So, this appears to be yet another Ronnie Earle special. Cooked up charges, from a politically vengeful prosecutor who happened to have a movie crew following him for the last two years while they record his 'crusade' against the evil Tom DeLay.

Amazing.

Bush bails on Bennett

I was sorry to hear this.

I have heard the entire exchange within which Mr. Bennett said what he said.

Talk about taken out of context.

The left is trying to take out yet another conservative.

Major Garrett just had a report on Special Report where he ended up with a great line. I'll get the link, when its up, but basically he said that Bennett had put on his PhD hat and was arguing in a Socratic manner standing up a position just to knock it down. Major Garrett finished his report saying in today's racially charged post-katrina atmosphere, there seems to be little room for philosophers or Socrates. It was great.

Are you kidding me?

I hardly know what to say.

There has to be some mistake.

How can this be considered even remotely ethical for a "man" in his position?

Maybe I'm confused.

I doubt it.

Delay Indicted for What Exactly?

I've read over the indictment.

I don't get it. What did he do?

Oh, yeah. I remember. He kicked the crap out of Democrats in Texas.

Michelle Malkin does far more to tear this apart than I ever could.

Mark Levin has also been heard from.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Time to Vote!

Patrick Ruffini is running his new straw poll (Republican) for the 2008 Presidential Election. I'm with Broken Masterpieces. None of the 'main' candidates are very appealing. I just can't imagine voting for a senator unless he voted against all the pork/waste/free speech limits that our 'conservative' President has been signing off on.

I am becoming very disillusioned with the whole Republican Party.

Since 1994 they've turned into what they railed against: Big Government Liberal Money Wasters.

You know something? I didn't see Newt on that list. He should be there. He seems like the only 'big idea' guy out there.

Who's to blame?

Here's a great story that many people missed.

The evacuees place blame where blame is due.

Only the media doesn't get it.

What a shock.

Former Liar-in-Chief speaks

Powerline just shreds former President Clinton's attacks on President Bush. As well they should.

Do you recall Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan or Bush Sr. attacking Clinton while in office (or even after)? Nope. That's because they all followed the long standing tradition of Presidents not to criticize their successors in the name of national unity and patriotism.

Of course, Jimmy Carter has been viscously attacking President Bush for years.

Now, after better than four years of relative quiet from 'BJ' Clinton, he explodes on Stephanopolis's show in a disgusting tirade.

From Powerline:

AFP reports:

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

That entire quote is false. We had a coalition (oooh, but not that military and economic powerhouse of France), the inspections started in 1993 and were never going to by 'completed', 'no real urgency' doesn't even make any sense. And finally, how about this Clinton quote from July 23, 2003:

"[I]t is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons." Yeah, "no evidence".

I guess when Clinton made that declaration, we should have assumed that he was lying then as well.

I'm sure this is Bush's fault as well

Police from surrounding suburbs blocked evacuees from crossing a major bridge out of New Orleans.

Unbelievable.

Criminal Negligence?

So.

Everyone saw the pictures of the hungry and parched citizens of New Orleans on the overpasses and around the Convention Center and Superdome - not to mention the rest of the city? Why couldn't they get them water? Why couldn't they get them food? Reporters had no trouble...? It was very distressing to watch.

You have got to see this.

Major Garrett of Fox News has learned from effectively the President of the Red Cross, that the Red Cross had pre-positioned food, water and hygiene kits outside New Orleans and had them ready to go as soon as the storm cleared (probably before the levees broke, but I've no confirmation of that yet).

Um. So why no aid delivered to the suffering Citizens of New Orleans?

Apparently, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco's Department of Homeland Security forbid the Red Cross from delivering these relief supplies.

They have a "reason" though: We were trying to evacuate, we wanted people to leave... ???

As far as I know, the Red Cross is still blocked from helping the Citizens of New Orleans by the City's own State Government.

Update: Here

Time to impeach LA Gov. Blanco

A portion of a CNN (*spit*) interview dated September 5th with NOLA Mayor Nagin (*spit*).

NAGIN: Look, I've gotten promises to -- I can't stand anymore promises. I don't want to hear anymore promises. I want to see stuff done. And that's why I'm so happy that the president came down here, because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. And they were telling him things weren't as bad as it was. He came down and saw it, and he put a general on the field. His name is General Honore. And when he hit the field, we started to see action. And what the state was doing, I don't frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate.

And then, the president and the governor sat down. We were in Air Force One. I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die.'

S. O'BRIEN: What date was this? When did you say that? When did you say...

NAGIN: Whenever air Force One was here.

S. O'BRIEN: OK.

NAGIN: And this was after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two need to get together on the same page, because of the lack of coordination, people are dying in my city.'

S. O'BRIEN: That's two days ago.

NAGIN: They both shook -- I don't know the exact date. They both shook their head and said yes. I said, 'Great.' I said, 'Everybody in this room is getting ready to leave.' There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said, 'Everybody right now, we're leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.'

S. O'BRIEN: And was that done?

NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, "No, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane, and we're going to make a decision."

He called me in that office after that. And he said, "Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor." I said -- and I don't remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

S. O'BRIEN: You're telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

NAGIN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?

NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.

S. O'BRIEN: And the governor said no.

NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died.

Well... so. There you go.

"Who is responsible"

Don Singleton's Who is responsible is a terrific narrative detailing the apparent collapse of the New Orleans emergency response agency. An obvious example: The Superdome was designated as an emergency refuge prior to the hurricane arriving.

Where were the stocks of water and food - as called for in the emergency plan?

Where were the port-a-potties?

Why were none of the 560 some busses that the city had access to not used to evacuate the invalid and elderly? They could have evacuated almost 40,000 people !

On and on.

New Orleans has 3 - that's right - three boats in its possession for rescue. Two of them are broken. Are you kidding me?

I don't know if more may come to light showing where the feds dropped the ball in some horrible capacity (unlikely, but Feds are Feds and bureaucracy is always inefficient at the very least), but now that the National Guard and assorted other military units are on the scene, I expect that the radical improvement of the past few days will continue.

Too bad the Governor of Louisiana waited so long to authorize and/or request all that help.

I watched a press conference today with one of the NO police spokesmen who was asked how long he expected the military to stay in the city. He responded that they will leave when they are no longer needed. Seems like I've heard that before... I wonder how long it will take for the moonbats to start calling for us to set a firm date to withdraw from New Orleans.

RIP

Supreme Court Chief Justice has died.

RIP, Sir and God Bless You.

Please help as you can

Hurricane Katrina has caused untold devestation to parts of the Southeastern US.

Please visit The American Red Cross and donate as you can. Or please pick another charity. If you happen to think one is better than another, let me know which and why.

Scary Math

The deficits don't really bug me as much as it seems to bug CBS, but the sheer dollar amount really is staggering. A federal budget of $2.4T is:

$200 Billion a month
$6 1/2 Billion a day
$274 Million an hour
$4 1/2 Million a minute
$76 Thousand a second

... er .. roughly

Makes me really wish the Federal Gov't was not so omni-present in our lives in favor of a more States based system... which I believe most of our Founding Fathers anticipated our 'union' to be... not the 'central government'. Blame the New Deal. And the judges who allowed it.

This just struck me funny

From Drudge: The AP seems distressed. But here's Drudge's 'rebuttal'.

Gore used 65,600 some gallons of jet fuel to speak at a 'global warming' conference in Japan? That's enough fuel (jet fuel no less) to drive my big lifted 9 mpg 454 Suburban over 585,000 miles...

Is Pat Robertson Crazy?

Many seem to think so.

Is he "un-Christian" to suggest that we "take out" a Marxist strongman spreading his evil throughout the Western Hemisphere (and apparently working with Iran even)?

Clearly we should not be in the business of running around knocking off leaders we don't agree with, but there may come a time when we wish we had. I wonder how different things would have turned out had Saddam Hussein been 'taken out' during the 70s/80s/90s. Or Fidel Castro...

Hugo Chavez seems very much in the mold of Saddam Hussein. Strongman/Tyrant who has nearly unlimited access to funds via oil production. Not a good combination.

My Box

My box consisted of 33 pages.

The first 30 refer to the Reagan Administration's appeal to the SCOTUS of the July 9, 1984 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's decision finding certain Title I expenditures to be unconstitutional. In US Department of Education v. Betty-Louise Felton, the 2nd circuit found that Title I (education) funding for remedial students to be taught remedial classes by a public school teacher using public school remedial materials while located within a 'non public school' - which basically means religious. It had worked for 17 years in New York, but suddenly the 2nd Circuit found it to be defacto unconstitutional.

Roberts eloquently authors - on behalf of Counsel to the President, Fred F. Fielding - a comprehensive narrative describing the fundamentals of the case along with the reasons why the Supreme Court should immediately accept the appeal.

There is nothing striking in the document, other than the fact that is very competently written. There is certainly nothing surprising about a Reagan lawyer arguing on behalf of the Department of Education to save a the ability of the Federal government to continue to fund Title I projects in New York as they already had been for nearly two decades.

The largest surprise in what I read was the fact that the ACLU was not involved against to Department of Education... Maybe it was just behind the scenes.

The last 3 pages refer to crime legislation pending in the Congress. It discusses how the Senate had voted 91-1 to pass a comprehensive 46 part 'get tough on crime measure'. The House, on the other hand had taken a piecemeal approach and had 27 separate bills that were being bottled up by procedural maneuvers...

Hmmm... I'll have to go find out which party was in charge of which house of Congress. I have my suspicions as to which party would block tough crime reforms.

That's it. No smoking guns here.

Assignment Received

Got it... Here is my box:

Box 16-JGR/(Department of Justice)DOJ Daily Reports (1) Link

My preliminary review is that this pertains to the US Department of Education v. Betty-Louise Felton which is a case I am unfamiliar with.

I should have a complete synopsis complete by the end of Monday.

John McCain

I have little use for John McCain. When was the last time he did something for us here in Arizona, rather than grandstanding in Alaska with Hillary Clinton? Has he heard, perhaps, that we have a small national security issue here related to our border security (or lack thereof).

Sean Hannity has been doing a great job just by being on the border and getting some national exposure to what we deal with on a daily basis here.

Hoping for an Assignment

After hearing the call go out on Hugh's show to take on pouring over a box of docs released by the Reagan Library pertaining to Judge Roberts, I was immediately frustrated that I was in my car and not at home. I thought the sensible thing to do would be to try to email from my phone so I could claim a box. Alas, my phone does not allow more that 60(?) characters per message. That's not very many. I ended up sending 2 emails and actually got one back that said something along the lines of "I got part of it, but have no idea who you are"...

I have since gotten home and emailed via an actual computer (I happen to have access to one in my house) and am anxiously awaiting an assignment that should prove fun, boring and interesting all at the same time.

DT - The Courts

Mark Levin is right.

Our courts have seized power never intended for them while Congress sat on their hands and let them get away with it.

More to come.

DT - Federal Income Taxes

I have long followed Larken Rose and found his arguments and presentations compelling. He was recently charged with and even more recently convicted on 5 counts including 'wilfull failure to file' income taxes.

I am unsure how someone who believes they don't owe taxes can be found guilty of 'wilfull failure to file', when 'wilfull' means intentionally not filing when you know you have to. Larken believes the law (and has dedicated tremendous resources trying to elucidate his point) excludes what most other people believe to be 'taxable income'.

Hmmm. Not really sure where he's going to go from here (aside from the obvious appeals), but I hope he manages to continue his fight for a fair hearing of his beliefs.

First Light

Well. I finally wandered over to Blogspot from IraqtheModel and discovered that its as easy to set up as just about anything on the web. I had recently searched for a suitable url and found that americanfundamentalist.com was taken (by one of those stupid search engine things), however I was able to secure americanfundamentalist.us. My next step was finding blogging software and figuring out how to get it published. As a computer hardware near-expert, I have very little web publishing experience and frankly got slightly lost then distracted and haven't gotten back around to figuring it out.

This is obviously easier. Perhaps I will some day try to blog without these training wheels, but for now, this will suffice.