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Heavy-Handed Politics

"€œGod willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world
without the United States and Zionism."€ -- Iran President Ahmadi-Nejad

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Democracy

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of
government. It can only exist until the voters discover
that they can vote themselves largess from the public
treasury. From that time on the majority always votes
for the candidates promising the most benefits from the
public treasury, with the results that a democracy
always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed
by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's great civilizations
has been 200 years. These nations have
progressed through this sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith
from spiritual faith to great courage
from courage to liberty
from liberty to abundance
from abundance to selfishness
from selfishness to complacency
from complacency to apathy
from apathy to dependency
from dependency back to bondage.
-- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)

Obesity

Some pearls from Tom DeWeese on the subject of obesity:

"Obesity has become the tobacco of the day as trial lawyers line up to file class action suits to make restaurants responsible if you get fat.

The nation is in a panic. Americans are too fat, moan the food police. The government has to do something, cries the herd.

What we have are lies, lawyers and fraud. Obesity is the disease of the day - even if it's just a fabrication.

There are too many federal grants to be gained to tell the truth now. And the lawyers intend to ignore the report as well. Money is money.

It's a lie. There is no obesity epidemic. There is only the disease of government run by overweight, droopy-joweled bureaucrats, fat-headed special interest groups hoping to feed at the federal trough, and lawyers."

The American’s Creed

The American’s Creed written by William Tyler Page in 1917.

"I believe in the United States of America as a Government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies."

Hizballah: All northern Israel in our sights

"Hizballah has over 12,000 missiles deployed throughout southern Lebanon capable of hitting every part of northern Israel, the terrorist organization's leader said during a rally Wednesday.

'All of the north of occupied Palestine [sic], its settlements, airports, seaports, fields, factories and farms is under the feet and hands of the Islamic resistance,' Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told supporters in the town of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon's the former Israeli-occupied security zone."

Israel - Palestinian News

White House gives Abbas more money, despite Abbas' failure to dismantle terror groups.

Sharon set to free 400 more terrorists in his own gesture toward Abbas.

Subjugate Christians, Exterminate Jews!

From an article dated May 18, 2005 , a sermon broadcast last Friday (May 13th) on Palestinian Authority TV called for "the subjugation of all Christian countries under Islam and the extermination of every Jew."
The Moslem cleric, Ibrahim Mudayris, told his Arab audience, “The day will come and we shall rule America, Britain, we shall rule the entire world, except the Jews.” He explained that, unlike the Christian countries, Jews cannot be placed under subjugation. He told PA television viewers that the only fate awaiting Jews is death by extermination.

The sermon’s content clearly indicates that the PA under Mahmoud Abbas has not met its commitment to stem anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement in his media. The cleric’s sermon was as virulent and hateful as any of the Jew-hatred published by the Nazi German regime, making the Palestinian Authority one of the primary proponents of anti-Semitic propaganda in the world today.

In the sermon, which was translated by Itmar Marcus and Barbara Cook of Palestinian Media Watch, Ibrahim Mudayris reiterated many of the oft-repeated PA justifications for the anticipated genocide, including the following hate message:

* 1. The Jews have inherently evil character traits that Muhammad warned Muslims about in the Koran.
* 2. The Jews have been the source of conflict throughout all of history: “The Jews are a virus similar to AIDS, from which the entire world is suffering.”
* 3. The persecution of Jews throughout history is presented as a natural response of self-defense by numerous countries against the evil of the Jews. Britain, France, Portugal, Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany, all persecuted and/or expelled Jews – as acts of self-defense and revenge.
* 4. Zionism was created by Britain in order solve its Jewish problem by sending them to Israel.
* 5. God has predetermined that the Jewish problem will be solved with the extermination of the Jews.
* 6. God has predetermined that the Christian-Islam interactions will end with today's Christian countries coming under Islam rule.
* 7. Israel has no right to exist and will be destroyed.

A partial transcript of the sermon reads as follows:

"...Had Allah not protected your Beloved, he would have been a victim of the Jews’ treachery, he would have been one of the thousands of prophets that were murdered by the Jews… This [May 15, the day the PA marks Israel’s Independence] is the hardest day of remembrance for the Palestinian people … because with the loss of Palestine, the Arab nation was lost, and with the establishment of the false State of Israel, the whole Muslim nation was lost.

"With the establishment of the State of Israel, the entire Muslim nation was lost because Israel is a cancer that spread in the body of the Islamic nation; because the Jews are a virus similar to AIDS, from which the entire world is suffering. This has been proven in history. Read the history! I don’t want you to read the Koran, because the Koran is clear and permanent and we all believe it, but for those who do not believe the Koran, we say to them: read the history...

"You’ll find that Jews behind every conflict on Earth. The suffering of nations? The Jews are behind it! Ask Britain! What did it do to the Jews at the beginning of the sixth century? What did they do to the Jews? [They] chased them down them, made them suffer, and prevented them from entering for more than 300 consecutive years...

"Ask France what it did to the Jews! They made them suffer, chased them down and burned their Talmud, for the conflicts that they [i.e. Jews] tried to ignite in France in the period of Louis XIX. Ask Portugal what it did to the Jews!

"Ask Czarist Russia - who hosted the Jews and they plotted to murder the Czar! And they were massacred again and again. Don’t ask Germany what it did to the Jews, since the Jews are the ones who provoked the Nazis so the world would go to war against it.

"The Jews did not have a national home on this earth because they are liars! They are liars if they say that the establishment of a national home in Palestine appears in their faith. They were never interested in and never considered the establishment of a national home in Palestine itself. They were interested in a national home in any place at all, any place at all...

"Britain is the one that promised them the establishment of a national home on the land of Palestine. Why? Because Britain was disgusted by the Jewish presence there, in Britain, and wanted to be relieved of them, and therefore promised to establish a national home in Palestine…

"The Palestinian nation is the strongest on earth. Look at all the civilizations! Look at all the states! Look at all the civilizations and forces and empires. Where did Great Britain disappear? Where did the Czar’s Russia disappear? Where did France, which almost ruled the world, disappear? Where did Nazi Germany, which massacred millions and ruled the earth, disappear? Where did all those forces disappear? In Allah’s will, He will get rid of the USA like he got rid of them. He caused Russia to disappear within a day, and He is the one Who can remove the USA and bring it down, and so He shall do it, in Allah’s will...

"We [Muslims] have ruled the world [in the past] and a day will come, by Allah, and we shall rule the world [again]. The day will come and we shall rule America, Britain, we shall rule the entire world, except the Jews. The Jews will not live under our rule agreeably permanently, since they have been treacherous in nature throughout history."


If only.......we could find a way.........for them to..........no, check that....If only we could find.............a way to make them like us better....everything would be OKAY.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Assault On the Media

E. J. Dionne Jr. has written an article for the Washington Post, titled "Assault On the Media" in which he does a pretty solid job in playing the victim card. The poor media is under attack. That's what a true blue liberal does -play the part of a victim.

E.J. says that the FBI has "documents showing that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained about the mistreatment of the Koran....................."

Yeh, like the one case in which an interrogator stacked two Korans on a television set. Oh, my God! I am sure (to borrow a popular refrain) that this is probably one of the worst things you could do....................................ya da, ya da ya da.

The documents specifically include an allegation from a prisoner that guards had "flushed a Koran in the toilet."

And yesterday, Pentagon officials said investigators have identified five incidents of "mishandling" the Koran by military guards and investigators. It was the first time Pentagon officials had acknowledged mistreatment of the Muslim holy book, though they insisted that the episodes were minor and occurred in the Guantanamo facility's early days.

He complains of the Bush administration's furious assault against Newsweek. I don't recall it being all that furious, folks. To denounce a story that they say is not accurate, to say that it does not help our cause, to ask them for a correction, and to be more careful with what they report, constitutes a furious attack? Pull..lleeeeze!! Talk about thin-skinned.

Let's be clear: Newsweek originally reported that an internal military investigation had "confirmed" infractions alleged in "internal FBI e-mails." The documents made public Wednesday include only an allegation from a prisoner about the flushing of the Koran, and the Pentagon insisted that the same prisoner, reinterviewed on May 14, couldn't corroborate his earlier claim.

The war on Newsweek shifted attention away from how the Guantanamo prisoners have been treated, how that treatment has affected the battle against terrorism and what American policies should be. Newsweek-bashing also furthered a long-term and so far successful campaign by the administration and the conservative movement to dismiss all negative reports about their side as the product of some entity they call "the liberal media."

If the administration had been as successful in this endeavor as E.J. claims, there wouldn't' be ANY news (real or not/ fake but accurate) since negative news is all they report.

He fears that "too many people in traditional journalism are becoming dangerously defensive in the face of a brilliantly conceived (i.e. Karl Rove - H.H.) conservative attack on the independent media."

Heh, heh. (Trying to withhold laughter.)

Conservative academics have long attacked "postmodernist" philosophies for questioning whether "truth" exists at all and claiming that what we take as "truths" are merely "narratives" woven around some ideological predisposition. Today's conservative activists have become the new postmodernists. They shift attention away from the truth or falsity of specific facts and allegations -- and move the discussion to the motives of the journalists and media organizations putting them forward. Just a modest number of failures can be used to discredit an entire enterprise.

(emphasis mine - H.H.)

Not unlike when the liberal media uses the same incident over and over again where prisoners "complained about the mistreatment of the Koran" as if to say to us to believe, for example, that the same one incident complained about by, lets say, 200 detainees is actually worse than having that same one incident complained about by only one detainee.

Of course journalists make mistakes, sometimes stupid ones. Dan Rather should not have used those wacky documents in reporting on President Bush's Air National Guard service. Newsweek has been admirably self-critical about what it sees as its own mistakes on the Guantanamo story. Anonymous sources are overused. Why quote a nameless conservative saying a particular columnist is "an idiot liberal" when many loyal right-wingers could be found to say the same thing even more colorfully on the record?

I think E. J. gets sidetracked here with that sarcastic comment.

But this particular anti-press campaign is not about Journalism 101. It is about Power 101. It is a sophisticated effort to demolish the idea of a press independent of political parties..................
(bwwwaaaa.....ha....haaaaahaaaaaaaa.....can't.... stop.... laughing.....)
..... by way of discouraging scrutiny of conservative politicians in power. By using bad documents, Dan Rather helped Bush, not John Kerry, because Rather gave Bush's skilled lieutenants the chance to use the CBS mistake to close off an entire line of inquiry about the president. In the case of Guantanamo, the administration, for a while, cast its actions as less important than Newsweek's.

When the press fails, it should be called on the carpet. But when the press confronts a politically motivated campaign of intimidation, its obligation is to resist -- and to keep reporting.

We can only wish.

China Makes Its Move

Richard Holbrooke, writing for the Washington Post, has written an article and makes some intresting observations in "China Makes Its Move".

While seeking an open door policy with China, "the secretary of the Treasury and an enraged Congress are hammering China to revalue its currency to give U.S. companies a better chance to compete with the world's fastest-growing major economy."

"Arguments over the exchange rate are a small part of what goes on these days between the two most important nations in the world."

According to Holbrook, and both sides deny this, our relationships "are slowly fraying while other issues take up the attention of senior American officials."

Beyond the never-ending Taiwan issue and Washington's concern over China's growing military muscle, two huge factors put the relationship under constant pressure: first, substantially different attitudes toward the rights of people to express themselves freely and, second, the massive trade imbalance.

What vastly complicates U.S. relations with China is that every major foreign policy issue between the two countries is also a domestic matter, with its own lobbying groups and nongovernmental organizations ranging across the entire American political spectrum, from human rights to pro-life, from pro-Tibet to organized labor. The bilateral agenda, even a partial one, is daunting: Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, religious freedom, press freedom, the Falun Gong, slave labor, North Korea, Iran, trade, the exchange rate, intellectual property rights, access to Chinese markets, export of sensitive technology and the arms embargo.

He makes an excellent point when he says:

In Washington, where different parts of the executive branch dominate on each issue and Congress plays a major role, it can be difficult to stick to a coherent overall policy. China, on the other hand, with its highly secretive, tightly disciplined and undemocratic system, can establish long-term policy goals and then work slowly toward them: The Chinese, are, as they like to remind visitors, a patient people.

Holbrook writes that China's advance toward long-term goals has produced extraordinary economic results since reforms began in 1979. "In foreign policy, however, things had been different until recently. After its war against Vietnam in 1979, China became defensive, even passive, on the world stage," he writes.

"But China's new leaders have begun to match their economic power with a more assertive foreign policy." Some recent examples of their long term strategy:

· Premier Wen Jiabao's self-proclaimed "historic visit" to India in April, during which the world's two largest nations announced a "strategic partnership"

· President Hu Jintao's stunning meetings in late April and early May with two top Taiwanese political leaders

· The (government approved) anti-Japanese riots in April

· The highly unusual public criticism on May 12 by a Chinese Foreign Ministry official of American policy toward North Korea.

· China's intent to play a central role in the choice of the next U.N. secretary general

· Finally, China has begun buying oil fields in such remote areas as Sudan and Angola, part of a long-term strategy to address its rapidly growing energy needs. With energy policy come major foreign policy interests; this is probably related, for example, to China's reluctant attitude toward strong U.N. action in the Darfur region of Sudan.

He sums it up with:

China's gradual emergence as a political player on the world stage comes when there is a growing impression among other countries in East Asia that Washington is not paying the region sufficient attention. (Ironically, this is in sharp contrast to India, where relations with the United States are at their historical best.) If we lose interest and political influence in the Asia-Pacific region just as it grows in economic importance, the imbalance will surely return later to haunt a new generation of policymakers -- and the nation. The challenge is obvious, but the lack of clear focus at the highest levels in Washington on our vital national security interests in the region is disturbing.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Sex Offender Lists Fall Short

From The Washington Post
The Justice Department is working on an ambitious plan to link the states' sex offender registries into a national online database. The problem is, the states are struggling to keep their lists updated.

Heavy Handed wants to know. What is the purpose of the national on-line database for sex offenders ? What is it for? A new program to simplify on how to get Viagara into the hands of these sex offenders by perhaps offering Viagara via internet pharmacies?

Just wondering.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

When Will the Media Stop Hating U.S.?

"Prime Minister Golda Meir once said that peace with the Palestinians would be possible only when the Palestinians started loving their own children more than they hated Israelis. I am reminded of that observation after reading the media-bashing column today by John Leo of U.S. News and World Report. Leo reviews the media distortions of America's role abroad in recent years, tracing them to hatred of the military since the Vietnam War, and the media's covering up for despots, attributing that to their youthful adulation of Fidel Castro.

I think he is right as far as he goes, but I think something like Meir's perspective is in order. Leo believes, especially when media people like Terry Moran of ABC recently and Evan Thomas of Newsweek last year admit their political biases, that "Something has to change." That thought never recommended itself to old French Bourbons, and it won't fly with the Old Media today. I believe change will come only when the media come to love the truth more than they hate their own country. While we're waiting for this to happen (after all, the Palestinians haven't stoppped hating the Jews), maybe we should just keep plugging away in the New Media and put the Old Media on the road to ultimate political extinction."

Richard Reeb
Claremont Institute

Low Point

I found Senator Lindsey Graham's comment about how he changed his mind on the filibustering situation because "we are at war, and kids are dying," very disgusting and nonsensical, and really quite a disconnect. Filibuster>>War. War>>Filibuster.

OooooooooKkkkkaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy then.

Hugh Hewitt agrees:
Lindsey Graham's short speech about "we are at war, and kids are dying," was a low, low point for him. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are fighting and sometimes dying for freedom and human dignity, not for Senate "comity" and Robert Byrd's fuzzy grasp of history. The injustice done especially to William Meyer and Henry Saad is manifestly not what they are fighting for, and covering low political calculation and backroom deal-making--sometimes necessary but never noble-- in rhetoric about wartime is repulsive. Graham admitted that his folks at home will be angry, so he acted with full awareness that he was abandoning the people who put him into office."

7 Republicans abandon GOP on filibuster

Excerpts from an article by Charles Hurt of the THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Seven Senate Republicans bolted from their leaders last night and dropped their support for the "nuclear option" in exchange for seven Democrats' abandoning filibusters against three of President Bush's judicial nominees.
"This is really good news for every American tonight," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said moments after the deal was announced last night on live television. "This is a significant victory."
For the Donkeys, yeah. The spineless Elephants, blinked.
The deal didn't satisfy Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has maintained that the Constitution requires up-or-down votes on all judicial nominees.
"The agreement announced tonight falls short of that principle," the Tennessee Republican said on the Senate floor. "It falls short. It has some good news, and it has some disappointing news." The deal leaves him essentially powerless to ban filibusters against judicial nominees before a fight over a Supreme Court nomination -- at least one of which is expected this summer.
What a gutsy move by the 7 Sellouts Republicans. For the first time in my life, I made a political contribution directly to the campaign of an out of state senator, John Thune. I thought it was so important to get rid of Senator Daschle so we could get on with business - to stop the obstructionism at almost every turn - and particularily the judge nominations. We now have nothing to show for the Thune victory and the extra senatorial seats we picked up.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was contacted by the RNC looking for donations recently....I told them not until I see some results. He assured me that they would fight for those things I mentioned, but that they needed money to do so; and, again asked for donations, albeit a smaller amount was then requested.

It rankled me. It seems to me talk is not only cheap, it can also be free. I told him how much I was "confuzzled" over why it should cost anything to open one's mouth and speak. What were they going to do with the money I sent them .... buy a spine?
The agreement also leaves open the possibility of Democrats' mounting a filibuster against judicial nominees "under extraordinary circumstances." There is no similar explicit out in the agreement for Republican signers, beyond a pledge of "mutual trust and confidence."
Oh, boy. My confidence is soaring now.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said her group was "heartened that the crisis has been averted and the right to filibuster preserved for upcoming Supreme Court nominations. We are confident that a Supreme Court nominee who won't even state a position on Roe v. Wade is the kind of 'extraordinary circumstance' this deal envisions."
Yep. The slimy 7 snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
"The desire of millions of Americans to restore balance to our federal courts has been thwarted behind closed doors by 14 senators," Mr. Bauer said.
Exactly.
Sen. Allen added that it was "not a good deal for the two nominees who were accorded a nice wake by being thrown overboard at sea."
The National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters said such terms as "extraordinary circumstances" and "mutual trust" are meaningless because "Democrats have shown themselves to be without any principle."
Indeed.
"Today's deal not only establishes a minority veto even smaller than the previously maintained obstruction, vesting power not in 100 senators, not in 60, not in 51, but in a small number of 14," the group said.
Mr. Frist has said that the issue isn't about horse-trading over particular nominees, but rather about the principle of having final votes on all nominees.
"If Owen, Pryor and Brown can receive the courtesy and respect of a fair up-or-down vote, so can Myers and Saad," Mr. Frist said. "So I will continue to work with everything in my power to see that these judicial nominees also receive that fair up-or-down vote that they deserve."

With the vote count already tight, the loss of seven Republicans ensures that Mr. Frist wouldn't get the votes needed to use the "nuclear option" to ban judicial filibusters."

So in the end, much like a suicide bomber that has been thwarted by early detonation, the Elephants threatened the use of the nuclear option, and instead blew themselves up. You should be thrown overboard at sea along with the judge nominees that you so casually dismissed.

Pathetic.

Oh, and by the way..... you remember that money donation thing .... about wanting to see results before I sent money? I'm white knuckling my wallet.


Monday, May 23, 2005

Dear U.N Weasels - Just Shut the Hell Up

From the Washington Post
U.N. official Calls U.S. "Ungainly Giant"
By DESMOND BUTLER

NEW YORK -- Secretary General Kofi Annan's chief of staff called the United States an "ungainly giant" that only plays by its own rules, criticizing the U.N.'s largest donor in unusually strong terms Sunday.

Mark Malloch Brown said the U.S. contributed most to the development of international law in the last century, but was now the country most opposed to international constraints.

"This ungainly giant of a nation that has led the world in advancing freedom, democracy and decency, cannot quite accept membership in the global neighborhood association, and the principle of all neighborhoods _ that it must abide by others' rules as well as its own," Malloch Brown said at the commencement address to Pace University law students.

Senate Deal Struck

PoliPundit says,
The 7 deal-making Democrats have promised not to filibuster, except in 'extraordinary circumstances.'

And makes these two predictions:

Prediction 1: If a Supreme Court nominee is to the right of Karl Marx, these Democrats will filibuster him or her.

Prediction 2: If the Democrats ever manage to become a majority in the Senate, they will employ the “nuclear option.”


The Dems won this fight. The elephants blinked. I agree with both of these predictions and posted earlier, here, that it's just a matter of time before the Dems regain the Senate and they will have no compunction in invoking the nuclear option.

Leprosy

WorldNet Daily has an article, Are illegals making U.S. a leper colony?, and it appears illegals are bringing leprosy into the US. (Hat tip to Mover Mike)
"For example, in 40 years, only 900 persons were afflicted by leprosy in the U.S.; in the past three years, more than 7,000 cases have been presented."
Dr. William Levis, head of the New York Hansen's Disease Clinic, told Columbia News Service.
"This is a real phenomenon. It's a public health threat. New York is endemic now, and nobody's noticed."

"Levis thinks America could be on the verge of an epidemic."

The Koran Flushing Caper

CAPER: (n) A crime; A ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement; Gay or light-hearted recreational activity for diversion or amusement.

Very interesting. (hat tip to M.A.W.B. Squad) I am in a state of shock, shock I say, with the thought that our enemies could be lying to us.

Al Qaeda Training Manual

"Since NEWSWEaK and other media outlets do not seem to be interested in what Al Qaeda members are trained to do especially with regards to rumors and treatment in prison, I would like to point them to the Al Qaeda Training Manual siezed in Machester England. Any COMPLETE report would that discusses allegations made by Al Qaeda members held prisoner would include this information BEFORE the allegations to put those charges in the context, since this is part of the most basic Al Qaeda training.

First, on page 13 in the FIRST LESSON, the manual lists “Missions Required of the Military Organization” ("the Military Organization” is how Al Qaeda refers to itself in the manual). On this top eight list, sitting at number five, we have:

5. Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy.

So Al Qaeda understands the basic purpose of their organization, along with blowing up things, is spreading rumors. NEWSWEaK should also understand that this is pretty much Isikoff’s agenda as well.

Now, what things are Al Qaeda members are suppose to do when captured? Again, I refer you to the Training Manual, Lesson Eighteen, “Prison and Detention Centers,” Page 176.

1. At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators] before the judge.
2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.

So, before they are even captured, Al Qaeda members are taught to make public accusations of torture.

This is not only part of their training, but IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING they are taught to do while in prison. While in prison, “spreading rumors” is the only one of their eight missions that they can fulfill. Without independent corroboration, such charges are less than groundless. You might say that they were a planned part of a conspiracy."

Showdown Time?

Sen. Allen predicts showdown will end in 'nuclear option' by James G. Lakely and Charles Hurt / The Washington Times.

"Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, said yesterday that he doesn't think a compromise can be reached with Senate Democrats and predicted his party has the 51 votes needed to employ the so-called 'nuclear option' that will prevent the filibustering of judicial nominees."

The article also reported on what Sen. John McCain said:
Some lawmakers were holding out hope for a compromise before tomorrow's vote. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, told "Fox News Sunday" that the nuclear option will "hurt the Senate in the long run."

"We're talking about changing the rules of the Senate with 51 votes, which has never happened in the history of the United States Senate," Mr. McCain said, adding that he was worried that eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominees would lead to the elimination of the 214-year-old parliamentary tactic altogether.

"If you have 51 votes changing the rules of the Senate, nominations of the president is next, and then legislation follows that, and we will now become an institution exactly like the House of Representatives," Mr. McCain said.

Where is Sen. McCain when you need him?

Heavy Handed says, to John McCain the man, to the American patriot, and to this veteran of the armed forces, I take off my hat; but to John McCain the "maverick" politician... I put it back on.

What's Wrong with this Picture ?

Salvadoran gangster fights deportation by Christina Bellantoni, The Washington Times.

"Federal immigration officials say it could take months to deport an MS-13 gang member who was acquitted of murder charges this week in Alexandria."

I'm sure glad our government and courts are so "concerned" for our safety.

Report urges troops sent to border

An article by Jerry Seper appears in THE WASHINGTON TIMES (registration required) that says "The deployment of 36,000 National Guard troops or state militia on the U.S.-Mexico border would stop the illegal flow of foreigners into America, says a congressional report that credits the Minuteman Project with proving that additional manpower could 'dramatically reduce if not virtually eliminate' illegal immigration."

Although I would love to see this action take place, I see that there is virtually no chance of this happening. The article can be read here.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

It has my approval..............

You won't find this "word" in your Funk & Wagnall (nor your Webster's for that matter).

Confuzzled: The state of being confused and puzzled simultaneously.

It has been awarded the Heavy-Handed seal of approval. Who knows; some day it may make it into the American lexicon.

MOB Meeting

Heavy Handed had a great time attending the MOB gathering in St. Cloud at Granite City where the beer was flowing and a conflux of the minds took place. Granite City did a superb job, with a big thanks going to King Banian for organizing it, and thanks to all those who attended bringing their bright and jocular personalities with them, making it a success.

HOWLIN' HOWIE

I know this quote has been out there for several days now by DNC Chairman Howard Dean, but I had only heard about this part of the quote: "I Think Tom DeLay Ought To Go Back To Houston, Where He Can Serve His Jail Sentence Down There ...

I think it is wrong, it is classless...even (D) Barney Frank wasn't happy Howlin' Howie said it....but I expect no less from these guys today.

Where Howlin' Howie got me howling (with laughter) is where he went on to say:"We Need A Country ... Where We Respect Other People's Views Even When They Disagree With Us. But We Need To Stop This Ugly, Nasty Dialogue That Is Coming From The Right Wing Of The American Republican Party."

This is hillarious. Not only is he talking out of both sides of his mouth .... being guilty himself of what he is railing about even before he has to stop to take another breath, has he forgotten this?

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.............."

Stop the insanity, please.

UPDATE: 5/23/05
"Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean insisted on Sunday's 'Meet the Press' that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay should be treated more harshly than Osama bin Laden."

But we need to "stop this ugly nasty dialogue" right Howie?