Two Trillion Tons and A Whole Lot More

Okay, there are a lot of things wrong with this; Obama's not really a "leftist" and it's not just those evil Democrats that "tax and spend", and the destruction of the dollar has been going on ever since the Federal Reserve was established about a hundred years ago. Conservative hero Ronald Reagan (and Bush I and Bush II) also ran up huge deficits during their terms. As one YouTube commenter said "This could be sung for any administration Republican or Democrat". Other than that...


Via The Ornery Conservative

Terrorist sympathizers in the DOJ? Oh no! Say it ain’t so!

Anymore, hearing the words “traditional values” is all it takes to piss me off. Not because I’m living some wild bohemian lifestyle; it’s just that experience has taught me that people who use such language usually have no values of their own.

Case in point: the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). Led by Reverend Louis P. Sheldon, one of those nutcases who thinks there’s a gay rights agenda lurking behind every corner, theTVC currently has its panties in a bunch because Attorney General Eric Holder has revealed that nine Department of Justice (DOJ) appointees had previously provided legal assistance to Guantanamo detainees and/or spoken out in defense of detainee rights.

One appointee, Neal Katyal, argued before the Supreme Court that Bush’s military commissions violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. (The Supreme Court decided that he was right.) Another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, worked for Human Rights Watch, where she advocated that defendants in the military commissions system be afforded fair trails. The other seven appointees have not been identified.

Writes the TVC: “Who are the other seven individuals (at a minimum) in DOJ who have defended terrorists? Every one of them should be purged from their posts. No one sympathetic to Islamic terrorism has any legitimate place in the Department of Justice.

“Yet, it is unlikely that Obama will purge the DOJ of these subversive influences. Clearly, he wants them there.”

Now a couple things need to be said here. First of all, it’s simply nonsensical to refer to these individuals as “terrorist detainees.” Since we don’t know who these detainees are, we have no way of knowing if they’re actually terrorists. And it’s been well-established that most of the people taken to Guantanamo Bay were not terrorists. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell’s chief of staff, of the 779 individuals taken to Gitmo, only “two dozen or so” were actual terrorists. Indeed the government has implicitly admitted that the vast majority of Gitmo detainees have been innocent and to date has released 585 detainees and approved for the release of another 75. (Most of these men, it should be noted, were let go during the Bush years.)

Secondly, it’s just as nonsensical to claim that these DOJ appointees are “sympathetic to Islamic terrorism.” Does anyone honestly believe that an attorney who defends someone accused of committing Crime X is therefore sympathetic to Crime X? If an attorney defends someone who’s been accused—perhaps wrongfully accused—of committing, say, tax-fraud, does it therefore follow that he or she is sympathetic to tax-fraud?

As an organization that claims to “believe in the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the writings of our Founding Fathers,” the TVC shouldn’t so be so quick to condemn those who provide counsel to criminal defendants and/or speak out for these defendant’s basic human rights. According to the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, individuals—citizens and non-citizens alike—must be afforded the presumption of innocence; moreover, they are entitled to receive the assistance of counsel and a trial by an impartial jury before the state can deprive them of their life, liberty, or property.

Therefore, it’s beyond hypocrisy for the TVC to castigate people who, in full accordance with the law, have, at most, provided legal counsel to people accused of committing certain crimes. Perhaps Rev. Sheldon and his boys would prefer that we just blindly trust the government. Perhaps they believe that, whenever the government charges someone with a crime, we have the duty to just roll over and assume that the government is right. Remarkable faith in Big Brother from a group of self-described constitutional conservatives. For their sake, I just hope that they’re never wrongly accused of a crime.

Sadly—but not surprisingly—the Family Research Council (FRC) shares the TVC’s beliefs in this matter. In a recent article (entitled “DOJ: Sleeping with the Enemy?”), the FRC states that the country depends upon DOJ officials “to represent the United States’ best interests—a role complicated by [these appointees'] past ties. What makes this situation unique is that it involves a conflict of interest with national security, not, say, the financial district. Most of us would agree that it seems counterproductive to send our soldiers to fight the enemies while our own Justice attorneys defend them.”

Though slightly more coherent than the TVC’s argument, the FRC’s logic also fails. As Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich has pointed out [.pdf], it is common for attorneys who enter the government “to work in issue areas that overlap with their prior practice.” For example, sometimes attorneys who formerly defended individuals accused of white-collar crimes go on to prosecute such cases, and so on.

According to the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, a conflict of interest arises when an attorney works on a case involving a previous client, not when an attorney works on a case involving an issue he or she has formerly worked on. And in accordance with these rules, DOJ attorneys cannot work on cases involving previous clients.

What grounds are there for believing that an attorney who once defended Person X cannot be trusted to prosecute Person Y, just because both Person X and Person Y were accused of committing similar crimes? Let’s say that an attorney once defended Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen whom US officials rendered to Syria in 2002. (Though Arar was brutally tortured, he was later released and found by the Canadian government to be completely innocent.) Would it therefore follow that that attorney could not be trusted to prosecute, say, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Osama bin Laden? Because someone defended one terror suspect (in this case, one who was completely innocent), does it follow that he or she cannot be trusted to prosecute another terror suspect? Does this make any sense?

Does any of this make any sense whatsoever?

I'm Going To Stay Dirty

..at least for the next couple days. I was procrastinating about taking a shower, and you should never procrastinate about that, unless there is what seems a good reason, and there was, sort of, as I had the day off from work. I had nothing particular to do yesterday, but I did plan on going out to the garage and looking through some boxes of books. So, after a lazy morning and as noon started to recede, I got myself in the mood and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Nothing like a nice warm shower to make me feel better.

Mostly I just hate feeling dirty, and can't stand it if I go even a day without washing my hair. So there I was waiting for the water to get hot (it usually takes at least a few seconds) and as I waited it occurred to me that it wasn't getting warmer, in fact, it was actually getting colder. Did I turn the knob the wrong way by mistake? No, but I made sure I then turned it all the way to SUPER HOT. I waited another minute, exposing myself to hypothermia, and then turned the water off and got out and put my clothes back on.

This looked like a job for Water Heater Man! Which unfortunately was me. I had to go outside and around to the side of the house (and fight my way through a jungle of weeds with a machete) to reach the door to the water heater. Once there and inside the tiny water heater room (which had once been occupied by a stray cat and her litter of kittens) I got to work, which in this case consisted of getting down low and peering through a tiny window where a pilot light should have been visible but was not.

What to do? Follow the instructions on the side of the tank, naturally. Okay, there was a reset button and an igniter switch and I'm supposed to turn a dial to "pilot" before pressing anything, but the dial won't turn far enough clockwise. I started pressing buttons anyway, but no pilot light reignited.

I looked the outside of the tank over and discovered that there was a six year warranty. When I called the manufacturer I was ready for a water heater emergency response team to come to our aid as soon as I informed them that the warranty was still good. It was explained that the "warranty" is only good if you're the original purchaser of the heater; warranty coverage is NOT passed along to the subsequent owner, even if the thing is at the original house as it was installed when new.

There would be no rapid response team coming to my rescue, no hot water heroes racing to save the day. The company is instead sending some parts that will take two days to arrive. I should be able to fix it myself, they tell me.

To tell you the truth, when those parts arrive I think I'll be calling the man. In the meantime, it looks like I'll stay dirty.



"Aunt Bee, call the man!"

Frappuccino With A Cinnamon Gun

Starbucks refuses to cave to the anti-gun nuts. Dale Welch walked into a Starbucks with his gun at his side and ordered his coffee and cinnamon bun. Said Welch: "I don't know of anybody who would provide me with defense other than myself, so I routinely as a way of life carry a weapon — and that extends to my coffee shops".

Even in some "open carry" states, businesses are allowed to ban guns in their stores. And some have, creating political confrontations with gun owners. But Starbucks, the largest chain targeted, has refused to take the bait, saying in a statement this month that it follows state and local laws and has its own safety measures in its stores.

"Starbucks is a special target because it's from the hippie West Coast, and a lot of dedicated consumers who pay $4 for coffee have expectations that Starbucks would ban guns. And here they aren't," said John Bruce, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi who is an expert in gun policy.

Real Conservatives Oppose the War on Terror

By Philip Giraldi

Benjamin Franklin once observed that those who would trade their liberties for security will wind up losing both. James Madison stated that no nation can preserve freedom in the midst of perpetual warfare. Few can question that America's Founding Fathers epitomize true conservatism. There is something seriously wrong in America today precisely because the elites from both political parties have forgotten about Franklin and Madison and ignored their wise counsel.

No one should doubt that ill-conceived security measures and the greatly exaggerated fear of terrorism have driven much of both foreign and domestic policy since 9/11 -- it was undeniably a horrific experience for this nation, but it did not threaten the survival of the American Republic. Its perpetrators and their heirs do not do so today. Only we Americans can do that and we are doing so by overreacting to the danger and compromising our own liberties.

The War on Terror Is Anti-Conservative

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served 19 years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain.

h/t Liberty Pulse

CPAC 2010: "Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism, Part 1" from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

CPAC 2010: "Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism, Part 2" from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

Videos via Antiwar.com blog

Blog of the Moment: The Whore of All the Earth

The blog of Leah Elliott Hauge: "I come from a background of being raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). I was very devout for the first twenty-two years of my life, then began questioning. My journey has led me to atheism."




The Whore of All the Earth

How to Tell Your Religious Parents You're an Atheist

A guide to kids and teenagers in opening up to their parents.

Pastor Airs Gay Porn in Church

Uh, so he can gather support for a bill that will impose the death penalty on homosexuals.

The pastor "plans to show the films regularly to educate churchgoers on gay sex".


Uganda Pastor Airs Gay Porn in Church

h/t The Uncredible Hallq

Housing Will Not Recover

Bernanke delivers blunt warning on U.S. debt

Extended jobless benefits start ending

The name’s Obama, George W. Obama

For some time now, I’ve been arguing that Barack Obama might as well be a Republican. Yes, I know there’s a D after his name, but he governs like a Republican. In fact, had George W. Bush stayed in office, I imagine things would be almost exactly the same as they are now.

But amazingly—well, maybe not amazingly—I guess I should say predictably—predictably—disturbingly—sadly—nauseatingly—Republicans refuse to accept him as one of their own. They continue seething with rage over his “radical leftist policies,” his “coddling of terrorists,” his “disdain for Israel,” etc., etc.

I visited my grandparents the other day, and, as usual, my grandpa was watching Fox News. Also as usual, whenever Obama’s picture came onto the screen, my grandpa would start shaking his head and muttering, usually saying something like, “Goddamn Muslim.”

At one point, he asked what I thought about Obama. He always does this, not just about Obama but about lots of things. It’s always a test. If I pass, he’ll tell me how glad he is that I’ve reached that conclusion. If I don’t pass, he’ll shake his head and tell me that I’m a liberal (in his world, the worse thing one can be) and that now he knows everything he needs to know about my character.

Anyway, I told him that I didn’t like Obama. He nodded his head, expressed his happiness. (I wasn’t a liberal. Whew.) But then, thinking I might be able to teach him something—because, no matter how old we get, we never stop believing that we might be able to teach our elders something—I told him that I disliked Obama for the same reason I disliked Bush.

“Two sides to the same coin,” I said, or something like that. My grandpa shook his head, brushed me away with his hand, uttered something I couldn’t quite make out. I hope it wasn’t worse than “liberal.” Wait, what am I thinking? There is nothing worse than “liberal.”

Now I imagine some of you reading this might be like my grandpa. You appreciate my anti-Obama tirades but think I’m a total dipshit whenever I attack the Republicans. Also like my grandpa, I imagine many of you just don’t believe me when I say that Obama governs like a Republican. After all, your trusted conservative writers, those geniuses who grace the pages of Townhall.com and Human Events, tell you that Obama’s nothing more than a raging left-winged piece of scum, and they must be right. Right?

Well you don’t have to take my word for it any longer. Finally one of your own, none other than Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC official who was caught spying for Israel, has come out and admitted that, far from being a liberal, Obama is a neoconservative, an Israel-firster, an imperialist. In sum, an evil, racist, warmongering piece of slime, just like the rest of you.

As evidence for this, Rosen notes that Obama has “increased the Bush defense budget from $513 billion in fiscal year 2009 to $537 billion for fiscal year 2010 and $549 for 2011.” Rosen comments: “If defense budgets are one of the best indicators of the direction of policy, Obama’s defense budgets mark him as no leftist.”

More evidence that Obama’s no leftist is his “willingness to accept human life costs for national security goals.” In other words, he has no problem murdering brown-skinned people. Rosen writers: “Obama is putting American soldiers at risk in Afghanistan, and he seems to accept that some level of civilian casualties is a regrettable but unavoidable reality if global security objectives are to be achieved. Obama has greatly increased drone strikes against al Qaeda in Pakistan, undeterred by frequent reports of civilian casualties. In December, the president personally issued the order for U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, killing 35 suspected Al Qaeda agents but also, collaterally, dozens of civilians.”

And there’s more...

While conceding that, yes, Obama did win the Nobel Peace Prize, Rosen quickly points out that his acceptance speech “could have been written by a conservative.” Something I lamented at the time.

Regarding Iran, Rosen notes that Obama has made it clear that his days of reaching out to the regime are over. And regarding Israel, he reminds us that Obama accepted Netanyahu’s settlement non-freeze and insistence that, contrary to international law, Israel will continue building settlements in East Jerusalem. And, like a true Likudnik, Obama has made it clear that he’s not going to negotiate with Hamas.

Given all this, Rosen concludes that, not only is Obama not a liberal, but that he never was one. Turns out that Obama “merely postured as a progressive candidate in 2008 to outflank Clinton in the Democratic primaries.” Wow, imagine that.

So there you have it, all you red-state fascists out there. I know some of you might feel disappointed; it is, after all, fun having an enemy. But despair not. There are other people out there you can hate. Last time I checked, there were still many real liberals out there, as well as real conservatives and real libertarians, people who actually have moral values and believe in the Bill of Rights.

But please, for the sake of my own sanity, stop attacking Barack Obama. Welcome him into your hate-filled family. He is you. You are him. Get it straight.