Out of the Valley

All Gave Some, Some Gave All

2006-04-01T21:27:00.000-05:00

Here's the link to the story of the valor displayed by the first Medal of Honor winner in the Iraq War, Sgt. Paul Ray Smith. Sgt. Smith was a career military man with extensive experience in war zones who gave his life so that his men could live. Men who fight for unworthy or lost causes DO NOT fight like this man.
God Bless Paul Ray Smith, his wife and family, and all the men and women who fight every day for the noblest of causes, our continued freedom and liberty.
God Bless America!!

Border!? What Border?

2006-04-01T07:32:00.000-05:00

If you don't think that a wall at the Mexican border is necessary maybe this article will change your mind. These are the same people for whom the Israelis built their wall and we have seen, by the decline in homicide bombings since wall construction, that they are obviously poor climbers.

Also check here for the first report I have seen of backlash against the invading Mexican hordes and their student sympathizers. It's good to see people starting to stand up for our country and flag. Speaking of standing up, don't forget the Minutemen are holding a month long border protection program starting this month which will mirror their very successful program last year.

We're All Just a Bunch of Bushie Automatons

2006-03-28T10:38:00.000-05:00

I've never liked when the president goes the compassionate conservative route as he has done on immigration since his time as Texas governor. Compassionate conservatism is just a codeword for moderate. Moderates make bad leaders because they often lack strength of conviction and clarity of purpose, seeking to make everyone happy and doing the politically expedient thing. Bush has always been weak on immigration and his failure to lead decisively will damage this country.

I think this well known blogger might agree with me.

Gonna Hit Ya' in The Face!

2006-03-26T00:00:00.001-05:00

Check out this editorial in the WaPo about the immigration problem.

Update 3/28/06

Here's what the Senate Judiciary Committee did last night.

News coverage here.

Does Anyone Smell Gunsmoke?

2006-03-25T16:02:00.000-05:00

To all my fans, that would be both of you, sorry for not posting for so long. I hereby solemnly swear to try harder and post more.
As I'm sure you are aware over the past few weeks the Bush administration has declassified formerly secret papers and records discovered over the past three years in Iraq. They are being combed through and translated and you can access all the documents and images here.
ABC News has summaries of seven of the documents here. Included in these summaries are documents about direct communication between Osama bin Laden and Saddam's government. Also summarized are two particularly damning documents from 2003 that implicate the Russian government directly in providing pre-war intelligence from spies at the U.S. Cent Com in Qatar to the Iraqi military. The Washington Times has more on this and other revelations here.
Look for frequent document updates here.

Since When Is Positivity Un-American?

2006-02-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

Check out this link to Powerline concerning the Minnesota Democratic Party's attempts to silence the positive messages from Iraq War vets and families of soldiers killed in Iraq as expressed in TV ads last week. Make sure to check out the links to the two, 1 minute commercials. What do you expect from the people who brought us the Wellstone Memorial debacle?

Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech

2006-02-13T19:33:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, The Brussels Journal ran a translation of a great piece by Per Nyholm. This article originally ran last Friday in the Jyllands-Posten, which is the paper that called for and ran the Muhammed cartoons. Noone that I have read thus far has expressed themselves any better then Mr. Nyholm about the current battle with Islam over free-speech and Western values. Here's the translation below.

We are being pissed upon

I think it was the long departed H.C. Hansen, one of the great Danish statesmen of the last century, who – as the communists were demonstrating in front of Christiansborg [the Danish Parliament] – cast his gaze across the palace square and remarked: “I will not be pissed upon.”

Then he did what was necessary.

I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a rule of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice towards our fellow men.

And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Government of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Muslim regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian aid, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the drawings of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.

What is going on? I am not referring so much to the threats against Danish citizens and Danish commerce. Nor to the burnt down Embassies. I am thinking of a word that keeps popping up whenever the Mohammed cartoons are mentioned.

That word is BUT. A sneaky word. It is used to deny or qualify what one has just said.
How many times lately have we not heard people of power, the Opinion Makers and others say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT.

They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to our own Bendt Bendtsen [a Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive to the easily hurt feelings of the Nazis, then came the Communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say ‘Islamists’ is that I do not for a moment believe all the world’s Muslims are pissing on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenshit politicians.

The cartoons are no longer something Jyllands-Posten can control. They have already been manipulated and misrepresented to the point that few know what is going on and fewer know how to stop it. This affair is artifically being kept buoyant in a sea of lies, suppressions of the truth, misconceptions, lunacy and hypocrisy, for which this newspaper bears no blame. The only thing Jyllands-Posten did was provide a pin-prick which has made a boil of nastiness erupt. This would have happened sooner or later. That it happened more than four months after the publication of the cartoons, raises a question of its own. Are we dealing with random events or with a staged clash of civilizations? One might hope for the former yet be prepared to expect the latter.

That is why I say: Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech. There is no but.

Initially I was doubtful of the timeliness of publishing the cartoons. Later events have convinced me that it was both just and useful to do so. That they are consistent with Danish law and Danish custom seem to me less important than this: that we now know that remote, primitive countries deem themselves justified in telling us what to do. Unfortunately we must also note that governments close to us are agreeing with them in the name of expedience.

It was right and just for this newspaper to launch an offensive for Freedom of Speech, and useful, as we have now acquired new knowledge. Welcome to a brave new world where even our Prime Minister – in spite of his laudable firmness – must gaze out upon a scorched political landscape. True, his friend in Washington, George Bush, has uttered the customary condemnation of the torching of our embassies, but his State Department alludes to us as being the guilty ones in this case. The suggestion that Danish troops might contribute to democratization is buried under the charred remains of our diplomatic representations in Beirut and Damascus.

Perhaps it is time we started mopping up this mess. Perhaps Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste ought to remove his apology which has gone stale sitting so long on the front page of our internet edition and which does not seem to interest the madmen. Perhaps our government ought to announce to Mona Omar Attia, the strange Ambassador of Egypt, that she is persona non grata.

Perhaps the ambassadors that have been called home to fictitious consultations in the Middle East should be told that they may spare themselves the cost of the return ticket.
In so far as possible The Lying Imams probably ought to be expelled. And then we ought to make an effort to support those Muslims who in a difficult situation have proven themselves to be true Citizens.

We, for our part, have no wish to be a burden to the Arab governments. We will happily withdraw our soldiers, policemen and diplomats. If they think our money smells, we will retract our aid. Our trade must make do as well as it can. We promise to not bear a grudge and, in time, we will be glad to return, but we are through with the hypocrisy. We have better things to do than being pissed upon at our own expense.

Cut down our activities in the Middle East. The world holds plenty of other opportunities.

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

2006-02-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a quote from one of the greatest men that Europe has ever produced, Sir Winston Churchill.(H.T. The American Thinker) The saddest thing is that under current law in England, Churchill would be prosecuted for 'hate-speech' against Muslims.

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.
The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
-Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

Radical Islam must be seen for what it is, a repressive violent religion that preaches hate and death as one of its most basic tenets, not a religion of peace. We must realize that we are at war with people who think they are acting on God's will and all those who do not think as they do are deserved of nothing but death. Western people must stop being afraid of hurting other peoples' feelings and beliefs and start calling the followers of today's form of perverted Islam the savage barbarians that they are. Tolerance and understanding in the name of diversity and inclusion, as practiced by the 'enlightened' institutions of the West, gets us nowhere with these people and only invites further violence.

The Islamists are attempting to cow us into a state of self-imposed Shari'a law by their violent, coordinated outbursts in response to some cartoons and it seems that many in government and the MSM, both in Europe and the U.S.A., are all to willing to give them what they want. This is a fight that we must not lose. If we show the Islamists that we will cave into their riots, like the French did this past fall, then they will see it as further signs of the West's weakness and continue their assaults on our way of life. Make no mistake that the jihadis are waging a holy war against what they view as the heretical West and that they will stop at nothing to impose their way of thinking on the entire world. We free people of the West must wake up and defend our culture and freedoms with the same zeal and sense of purpose as those who wish to destroy us or risk losing everything we hold dear.

How Plain Can They Make It

2006-02-07T11:52:00.000-05:00

This past weekend at the Munich security conference German chancellor Angela Merkel compared the threat posed by Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and the world's lukewarm response to this crisis to the early days of the rise of the Nazi party and the inaction of the world's governments at that time. Merkel stated that in the 1930's, "there were many outside of Germany who said 'It's only rhetoric-- don't get excited', " in reference to the Nazi's teachings and beliefs, and we all know what the consequences of this line of thinking were. In light of this lesson of history Merkel stated, " Germany is obliged to do something at the early stages... We want to, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program." Merkel understands that the Iranian nuclear threat must be taken seriously and addressed now.
In response to Merkel, Sen. Joe Lieberman made a statement that showed real clarity of thinking on the matter of the Iranians in particular and the war on terror overall. Lieberman stated, "From the writings of Hitler during the 1930's and Mein Kampf to the polemics of bin Laden in the 1990's, there is ample evidence that some times when people write and say that they hate you and ... they want to destroy you, in fact they mean it and will try." Sen. Lieberman knows that there are people and regimes who mean us great harm. Lieberman also understands that we are at war for the very soul of Western culture and that we must conduct our selves as such. Lieberman's party and others on the left do not share this clarity but instead seem to want to 'understand the cause' of this hatred and not get too excited lest we offend any group's sensitivities.
Understand that there is no question as to purpose when it comes to the followers of bin Laden and other radical Islamists. These followers of a perverted form of Islam exist to destroy Western style democracy and society and replace it with a worldwide Islamic government which follows Shari'a law. We must take them at their word when they say they seek to destroy the West because to do otherwise, as was the modus operandi of the Clinton administration, only invites continued attacks which will escalate over time. There is a great essay today on The American Thinker which very plainly speaks to these points.
This current war is a zero-sum game with no chance for reconciliation or compromise, we either defend our way of life with everything we have or we give in to those who would impose upon us a system of law better suited to the 1500's than today's modern age.

Abramoff's Reach Crossed the Aisle

2006-02-03T20:34:00.000-05:00

The Jack Abramoff dust-up promises to effect the environment in D.C. for the immediate foreseeable future. Contrary to the hopes of the Democrats this promises to be an equal opportunity scandal. With the release today of reports that show Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada received over $50,000 from four Indian tribes with interests in gaming after they hired Jack Abramoff, DNC chair Howard Dean's assertion that "this is a Republican scandal" seems less than accurate.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte(DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte(DCCC) were the number 3 and 4 biggest recipients from Abramoff and those he represented. The DSCC and DCCC received a total of over $540,000 combined. Even the much maligned former majority leader Tom Delay, who has been inexorably tied to Abramoff through the media, received donations from Abramoff linked sources in amounts less than or equal to amounts given to five individual Democrat members of the House and Senate and the DNC. Look here for a full list of recipients of Abramoff cash.
Granted, total dollars are greater on the GOP side. This is a major part of why Roy Blunt did not win the Republican House Leader race and why the Republicans are leading the charge to reform how Washington does business. Power does have the ability to corrupt and it also breeds complacency. A little shakeup/wakeup to the powers that be and a reminder of who they really work for is very good for the system. As I stated before this is an equal opportunity scandal with both sides of the aisle having egg on their face, it is not a Republican scandal

The Original Mohammed Cartoons from Danish Newspaper Jyllands-Posten

2006-02-03T12:41:00.000-05:00

Support Denmark!!!

2006-02-01T16:20:00.000-05:00

Remember to support our friends the Danes in the worldwide free speech battle. There is a large boycott of Danish goods in the Muslim world over cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper in September. There have also been flag-burnings, beatings of Danish aid workers and an attack and takeover of an EU office in Gaza over these cartoons. Thankfully, and surprisingly, the Europeans and their Press seem to be stepping up on the Danes' side and for once are not being cowed by the threats.

Buy Havarti cheese, Carlsberg or Tuborg beers, Gevalia coffee, Danish Crown (DAK)hams, White Clover Dairy or Holland Farm Brand, and LEGO.

If the Islamists are allowed to dictate what we say/print/read/see through fear of violent upheaval in the European Muslim community or through some misguided PC driven desire not to offend, then they are closer to achieving their caliphate in Europe than we thought.

You can also go here if you want to send an e-mail or letter of support to the Danish Embassy in D.C.

I Heard Her Called 'the Hildebeast' Today

2006-02-01T15:56:00.000-05:00

Watch Hilary Rodham-Rodham's response to when President Bush said this last night in the SOTU address:

"The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."

Doesn't she know that there are cameras present or, is her smug smile and head turn just a signal to the 'al Qaeda is a myth' kook-fringe that she is still on their side?

Hilary also led the way in the raucous applause from the Dems to their turning a blind eye to the impending Social Security crisis, which is on the not to distant horizon. Nothing like an innappropriate, smart-ass response during an important event to show the world that the do-nothing Dems are conducting themselves like spoiled ill-mannered children.

Today on IBD

2006-01-31T17:39:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to a great editorial on Investor's Business Daily that talks about the defense implications of not being able to exploit our own energy resources. The enviro-wingnuts and their 'every lichen is sacred mindset' has put us at great risk and continues to put us at the whim of oil-rich countries that are increasingly run by leftist dictators or radical Islamists. This article is a very good read.

Tax Breaks for the Rich?

2006-01-31T10:10:00.000-05:00

This is taken from data for calendar year 2003 released in October 2005 from the IRS and is the most recent data available.

The top 1% are the individuals/couples who earned $295,495 and up. The top 1% of wage earners paid 34.27% of all income taxes, up from 33.71% in 2002. This is with an actual tax rate reduction from 27.25% to 24.31%.

The top 50% are the individuals/couples who earned $29,019 and up. The 96.54% share is up from 96.5% in 2002.

The bottom 50% pay 3.46% of all income taxes. These are the people that the Democrats feel deserve the tax-cuts the most. How much can you cut 3.46%?

Its the Economy Stupid Redux

2006-01-30T18:10:00.000-05:00

Ahead of the President's State of the Union address I thought some more good news about the economy was in order. I'm sure that the President will mention some of these economic statistics tomorrow night and I thought it would be nice if it wasn't the first time that you heard about them. Lord knows that the MSM isn't putting this info out there. All of these stats and more are easily found at the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Unemployment now stands at a three decade low of 4.9%.
Personal income rose 0.4% in December with wages and salaries, the largest component, growing by 0.3%.
Real disposable income, which is the amount of personal income available for spending/saving, rose 0.4% in December which followed an increase of 0.8% in November.
Average hourly earnings rose to a record $16.34 in December.
Productivity data from the 3rd qtr., which is the most recent available, was revised upward to 5.4% in the business sector and 4.7% in the nonfarm business sector. Remember that productivity is measured by output per hour of all persons.
Consumer Price Index has decreased by 0.6% in November and 0.1% in December.
These are but a few positive economic indicators that point to our economy being strong and robust with continued upward mobility.

Not Such a Bad Year After All

2006-01-20T11:36:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to a good article from earlier this month on gulfnews.com. I've been saying all along that, despite what you hear from the leftists and their propagandists in theMSM, we are witnessing significant historical changes for the betterment of the whole world. This article by an Iranian author hits on some of the major highlights of 2005 and should be required reading for any and all doom and gloomers that you know.

Collect the dots

2006-01-18T13:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a video that the White House should use as their commercial for why the NSA wiretapping of suspected terrorists should continue.

Go PSU!!!

2006-01-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

Dear Lord,

The Penn State Nittany Lions are about to take the field in the Orange Bowl. Please Lord Guide and protect them in their endeavors. Please continue to bless JOEPA and give him the wisdom to lead his team to a victory. Please Lord guide Michael Robinson, bless his arm and make his passes true and please bless his legs with speed and agility. Please make the offensive line an impenetrable wall and give them the power to open big holes in the FSU defense. Please make the Lion's defense strong and stout and remind the world why Penn State is 'Linebacker U.' Please Lord help the Lions beat their opponents and bring pride to Pennsylvania.

Amen

Two anti-American Peas in a Pod

2005-12-29T17:46:00.000-05:00

Hugo Chavez & Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Here is a picture that made my blood run cold. Venezualan Socialist strongman Chavez and Islamo-fascist Iranian president Ahmadinejad sitting together no doubt thinking about how to destroy the Americans and the Jews in one fell swoop.

To paraphrase Ann Coulter, we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and take their oil. Not a very enlightened sentiment but hey, what do you expect from a right wing nut job.

The Law is on Bush's Side

2005-12-22T23:06:00.000-05:00

The controversy that wasn't continues to play out in the MSM with various talking heads expressing/feigning shock and outrage at the President's authorization of wiretaps on some international calls and e-mails. Much has been made of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and how some feel that President Bush has violated the act. This is despite the fact that as recently as 2002 the FISA Court of Review said that "the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence...We take for granted that the president does have that authority." The issue can not be explained any clearer than that.
Further evidence that the President is well within his rights is the history of executive orders that have made changes to FISA since its inception in 1978.
First ,on May 23 1979, Jimmy Carter issued an executive order which was number 12139 entitled "Exercise of Certain Authority Respecting Electronic Surveillance". Section 1-101 of the order states:
"Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978(50U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section."
The President has made it very clear in his numerous addresses since the story ran in the NYT that the Attorney General has been consulted on every occasion of renewal of the program just as required.
Secondly, on February 13, 1995, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12949 . This order titled Foreign Intelligence Physical Searches states in Section 1:
"Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act(referring to FISA), the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section."
These are two recent orders that speak directly to the current situation and show that the President was working completely within legal boundaries. The most delicious part is that the orders were written by Democrats. Oh the irony!

Gasping but Not Dead Yet

2005-12-21T22:31:00.000-05:00

The Senate tonight reached a compromise to extend the Patriot Act as it presently stands for six months. The extension is longer than the three months proposed by Schumer and Co. but it is far from the full four year extension sought by the President and the Dept of Homeland Security and approved earlier by the House. Included in the deal is the possibility to revisit the sixteen expiring provisions and try to fix what opponents see as "civil rights issues". So, basically, in six months this whole ridiculous circus will start anew. Click here for a link to the story.

A Voice from the Clinton Justice Department

2005-12-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

John Schmitt, former associate attorney general of the United States from 1994-1997,wrote an article today laying out why President Bush has the legal authority to authorize wiretaps. Mr. Schmitt states that the action taken by President Bush "is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Departments under prior presidents."Click here for the link to the article in today's Chicago Tribune.

2005-12-17T14:01:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday and Friday our national security was the recipient of a one-two punch by two separate but intimately linked events.
The first blow was delivered by the media wing of the DNC at the New York Times. I'm referring of course to the article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau on 12/15 in which classified intelligence secrets were yet again splashed across the front page in the hopes of influencing the legislature and harming the Bush administration. The timing of the release the day of the important cloture vote in the Senate to end debate on the renewal of the Patriot act should leave no doubt as to the complicitous nature of the relation between the NYT and the Democrats. Chuck Schumer was holding a copy of the Friday NYT on the floor of the Senate and referred to it while he was debating the Patriot Act extension. No need to read between the lines there. The MSM once again shows it is willing to put the political agenda of the left ahead of national security.
This leads me to the second punch which was the refusal by the Senate on Friday to reauthorize major portions of the Patriot Act past the December 31st deadline. By a vote of 52-47, with 5 Republicans voting no and 2 Democrats voting yes, supporters did not achieve the 60 vote super-majority that was needed to stop the filibuster and call a vote. Now there are 16 provisions of the Patriot Act which were not made permanent in the original passage, including the controversial roving wiretaps and secret warrants for books and records provisions, that will expire at the end of the year taking away valuable weapons for intelligence gathering and usage from the agencies trying to keep America safe.
Critics charge that these provisions infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens. The fact is that in the four years since passage of the Patriot Act there have been no verifiable abuses of any provisions. This is most evident by the fact that there have been no claims or lawsuits filed pursuant to Section 223 of the Patriot Act which created the ability to sue for money damage for any person aggrieved by the violation of the Act. You know that if there were violations that could lead to big lawsuit payouts the lawyers would be lined up around the block filing suits ad infinitum.
So to recap we have now alerted the terrorists to yet another weapon we are using against them and taken away multiple other weapons that have been working for the past four years. We start the week less safe and protected as a country than we were last week. This is cause for great concern because the terrorists job just got easier.

No Pardon for Tookie

2005-12-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

Albert Owens, 26
Yen-I Yang, 76
Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63
Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43
These are the names and ages of the people who were brutally murdered by Tookie Williams in 1979. With all the attention being paid to the plight of poor Tookie lately, I thought it would be a good idea to remind everyone who his victims were because I have not seen one celebrity or activist speak up for them.
Tookie is set to die in under one hour,suffering the ultimate penalty for his crimes, and he has yet to voice anything approaching remorse for the murders which he committed. Tookie has never renounced his gang affiliation despite the bloodshed and violence that his creation, the Crips, has wrought upon the people of LA and the rest of the country. He can write all the children's books he wants but there is no way to atone for a life of evil that has effected generations.
You must reap what you sow and the plants that have sprung from Tookie's seed are still killing people to this day.