Recently in It's Fargin' War! Category

Lawrence Auster rightly calls counter terrorism czar John Brennan "The Nothing Man."

The video available at Gateway Pundit about his walking out of an interview at the Washington Times editorial conference room. He was being queried by editiorial head honcho James Robbins and was put in a position to discuss historical examples of jihad that had more to do with warfare than moral rejuvenation.

It's amazing the empty suits we've got in charge.

George Santayana once warned us about not learning the lessons of history: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." Over 6 of the past 7 decades I've seen this axiom proven again and again, yet somehow we still ignore history and go on to repeat the mistakes of the past.

One of the biggest mistakes we, meaning the US, have made over and over again during the past 234 years of our nation has been cutting defense spending too deeply and too quickly after a conflict has ended. Every time we have done that we have been caught with an unprepared and undermanned military that ended up causing much greater loss of American lives than if we had been prepared. That presumes, of course, that such an event would even have occurred if we'd still had a credible military. History abounds with examples where we made the wrong decision and ended up paying the price for it, sometimes for decades.

The prospect of an exit from Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked rumblings on Capitol Hill that it's time to cut the defense budget.

If there were ever evidence that it's impossible to learn from history -- or at least that it's difficult for politicians to do so -- this is it. Before they rush to cut defense spending, lawmakers should consider the consequences of previous attempts to cash in on a "peace dividend."

After the American Revolution, our armed forces shrank from 35,00 men in 1778 (plus tens of thousands of militiamen) to just 10,000 by 1800. The result was that we were ill-prepared to fight the Whiskey Rebellion, the quasi-war with France, the Barbary wars and the War of 1812 -- all of which might have been averted if the new republic had had an army and a navy that commanded the respect of prospective enemies, foreign and domestic.

After the Civil War, our armed forces shrank from more than a million men in 1865 to just 50,000 in 1870. This made the failure of Reconstruction inevitable -- there were simply too few federal troops left to enforce the rule of law in the South and to overcome the ruthless terrorist campaign waged by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. Segregation would remain a blot on U.S. history for another century.

The same thing happened after World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and the Gulf War. And each time it ended up crippling our military and causing far more problems and costing more than if we'd maintained some semblance of a strong military.

As the old saying goes, "If you want to preserve peace, prepare for war."

With a weak military, or one perceived as weak, enemies are more likely to push the limits, up to and including an attack on American forces or civilian targets. That has been the pattern throughout history, where an aggressor takes advantage of nation's weakness. Just because it's the 21^st Century doesn't mean there aren't nations or ideological groups out there waiting for us to cripple ourselves, allowing them to move with impunity. But if they know without a shadow of doubt that we would retaliate with the full force of our superior military forces, such an attack would be far less likely.

It's too bad our present occupant of the White House and the members of Congress are choosing to ignore the lessons of history and will be trying to send us down the same path to the same ends as many of their predecessors have.

On the National Geographic channel, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, is a show (an introduction for it on 33-minutes.com) on the dangers the U.S. faces over the possibility of a nuclear device being detonated over the atmosphere, creating an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) that could send us back into the nineteenth century in an instant. A re-airing is scheduled for tomorrow night.

A cool mini physics lecture and a guy saying, as if it needed saying, "It's a game-changer." Yeah think?

I bet Iran is thinking about it. And what are we doing to shield the electronic grid? Nothing. We're too busy mailing Social Security checks and the like. No money left over.

William Kilpatrick, a consistently wise voice whose 1992 book is outstanding, writes at FrontPage:

Ordinarily it's not a good idea to go around questioning other people's firmly held beliefs. But these are not ordinary times, and Islam is no ordinary religion. As any number of observes have noted, it's partly a religion and partly a supremacist political ideology--although no one seems to be able to say exactly what percent is political ideology and what percent is religion. Is it 50/50 or 60/40 or 80/20? Is it legitimate to criticize the political part of it, but not the religious part? How do you tell where the politics leaves off and the religion begins? Or are they so bound together that they can't be separated?

He gets it. Diana West gets it. Do you do, too? BTW, Kilpatrick's book is Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong.

But a bigger story was given short shrift, the 81 killed by jihadi terrorists who viewed another sect of Islam as not being sufficiently acceptable. They went on the rampage in Pakistan in the minority sect's mosque. But for the BBC it was yawn. Yawn. They were too busy covering the flotilla.

Reminds me when the drive-by shooting on Coptic Christmas in Egypt as they were leaving midnight services was ignored by the Economist magazine.

While it isn't pretty, some close to the President's ear are still open minded. Yet, Diana West gives a couple of facts from yesteryear--How soon we forget!--that are truly disturbing. The year-long torture of William Buckley and the horrific (and apparently gigantic) truck bombing of the Beirut barracks occupied by U.S. Marines in 1983, killing 241. I know there was an audio of the tortures of Mr. Buckley that the evil scum sent to the Americans and CIA head Bill Casey was really shook up over it.

These and other attacks against us were all not responded to by Pres. Reagan, and now we have a hard leftist in charge. God help us!

And I'm tempted to talk about the State Dept. official who complained to his Chinese counterparts about Arizona's recent actions.

The people we entrust to guard us sometimes aren't up to the challenge. I have come to expect higher standards, alas, from the people working at my local supermarket.

This letter to the editor appeared in Monday's Laconia Daily Sun. The author, one E. Scott Cracraft managed to use every single discredited and bigoted cliché in the book in his effort to paint the TEA party and its activists and supporters as the next Nazi Party. Originally I thought to just post it and my reply and leave it at that. But after rereading Mister Cracraft's diatribe, I realized what it really deserved was a complete fisking to show what a clueless and unthinking "useful idiot" he has become.

In spite of the efforts by the Tea Partiers (and the corporate media) to make the "Tea Party" movement appear "mainstream," the movement's "core" is far from mainstream. This movement includes people who arm themselves to overthrow a legally elected government. In some states, they have advocated succession from the Union. Some anti-Obama activists have even gone as far as calling for a military coup against the Obama administration.

This guy has tried to tie just about every fringe group he can think of to the TEA party movement. I'm surprised he hasn't tried to include the Weather Underground. Oh. Wait. It's President Obama who has ties to members of that domestic terrorist organization!

Cracraft's accusations ring hollow if for no other reason that there's been absolutely no evidence tying any of the militia groups to the movement. The "core' as he calls it has no desire to overthrow the government except by the same means the present government came to power - the ballot box. But there will be one difference: we won't need to stuff ballot boxes or commit massive voter fraud in order to throw the bums out.

The Tea Partiers also include religious conservatives who have forgotten that the U.S. Constitution does not make the American Republic a "Christian Country" but rather separates church and state while providing the most religious freedom possible. Others want to ban a woman's right to reproductive freedom. Interestingly, these same people who cry out against abortion also judge "welfare moms" for having too many babies! And yes, in spite of the movement's public rejection of racism, there are some racists in that movement These people cannot accept the fact that the American people (and the Electoral College) elected an African-American President with a "foreign" sounding name. Many of these are "Birthers," who even question President Obama's right to be president even though he won the election fairly and legally. No mainstream politician of either party has supported this lie but this urban legend persists, largely due to some of whom are in the Tea Party movement or who support it.

This country was first settled by religious refugees seeking to be free to practice their religion without interference from either their rulers or the established churches. Cracraft seems to forgotten this as well as the Constitution states there is a freedom of religion, not just freedom from religion. Over the past 50 years or so too many in this country have done their best to drive free expression of religious belief underground as if it were a dirty little secret to be hidden away from prying eyes. They have used the courts to redefine the meaning of the First Amendment in such a way as to ban almost all public displays of belief. Being a person of faith is not a disqualifier for holding public office, despite what Mr. Cracraft would apparently like to believe.

He also seems to believe that only the TEA party has racists. I hate to disillusion him, but there are far more racists within the Democratic Party than the TEA parties. He also ignores the fact that quite a few TEA party supporters voted for Obama and have since come to see him for the disingenuous big-government socialist he is. That isn't racism. That's regret. The only similarity between the two is that they both begin with the letter 'r'.

Then too, the anti-immigrant sentiment on the part of many Tea Partiers can be construed as racist. I rarely hear those opposed to immigration reform talking about white, European immigrants. It is usually about Asians, people from the Middle East, and Hispanics. Racist or not, there does seem to be and element of the "politics of meanness" among the Tea Partiers.

We aren't anti-immigrant. Many of us are immigrants or children of immigrants. We are anti-illegal immigrant. There's a big difference between the two. It's possible Cracraft is incapable of telling the difference because to him all the illegal immigrants are future Democrat supporters...once they can figure out a way to grant them amnesty and a short ride to citizenship. Never mind the legal immigrants such a move will screw over.

Conservatives have frequently criticized liberal presidents in the past, including President Clinton, but no conservative has gone so far as to question their qualifications to serve. "Red-baiting" has become common on Tea Party signs and at Tea Party gatherings. No liberal candidate has been called a "communist" or a "traitor" to his or her country in a long time. This includes people that are more liberal than Obama. The Constitution, in order to protect our political freedom, narrowly defines what "treason" is and I fail to see how our current president fits this definition. Thus, I cannot help but believe that there is a strong racist element in the movement against President Obama.

As the old saying goes, "You shall know them by the company they keep." It is Obama who has consorted with known and self-avowed anti-American terrorists (Bill Ayer and Bernadine Dohrn, just to name two). It is Obama who, for almost 20 years, attended an unabashedly racist church with a pastor who spouted bigoted, racist rhetoric and called upon God to damn America, much like any radical Muslim cleric.

Of all our previous Presidents, only Obama has worked so hard to conceal his past, the details of his upbringing, his scholarship, and his vital statistics. Every other President's life was an open book. But not Obama's. We know nothing of his academic achievements. We know nothing of any articles or papers he might have authored while editor of the Harvard Law Review. And what we do know of his time at HLR is not flattering, with more than one colleague of his from his time there saying he was basically a do-nothing editor-in-name-only, deigning to grace the others working there with his presence from time to time and not much more.

The Tea Partiers are not engaging in "mainstream" talk. They have an extreme reactionary agenda which should be a concern of every American. They are using violent language, arming themselves, and even calling themselves "right wing terrorists." I have to laugh when a self-commissioned militia "colonel" spoke of defending themselves against leftists at a recent Tea Party in Washington. In case you have not heard, armed left-wing groups in the United States pretty much died out with the Weather Underground in the 1970s. It is not the liberals or progressives who are dressing up in camouflage and conducting field maneuvers utilizing automatic weapons (I think the Second Amendment calls for a "well regulated militia" with a chain of command subordinate to the elected civilian authorities and not a bunch of grown boys playing army in the woods). Nor is it the liberals and progressives who are making death threats to members of Congress with whom they disagree.

There he goes again, painting a picture of the TEA party supporters as fringe militant wackos. Well guess what? All these guys are are fringe element wackos, but they aren't TEA party folks. They have as much to do with the core of the TEA party movement as you do, which means none.

If all he knows of the TEA party is what he's seen on TV or from the New York Times, Washington Post, the Huffington Post, or the Daily Kos, then Cracraft is so mis- and un-informed as to be laughable. Not one of these 'sources' is reliable, unbiased, or without a political agenda that does not have the good of the American people as their focus. Like any media source, left or right, they can't be trusted. The fact that he appears to do so shows he's become incapable of thinking for himself and can only parrot what these sources have programmed him to say.

Some Tea Partiers, in their literature and websites, even call for employers to fire liberal employees simply because they are liberal. It does not matter what the employee's work performance is like. They also want to remove liberal teachers from our schools whether or not they are good teachers. They even encourage their followers to break off social relations with liberals and to totally marginalize them. And they accuse liberals of "intolerance?"

I've heard this claim, but I haven't seen a shred of evidence. He's made the claim. It's up to him to prove it.

I know I don't want the good teachers to be fired. But what I don't want are educators that aren't teaching what they're supposed to be teaching and are instead indoctrinating our children, teaching them what to think, not how to think, how to reason things out on their own. These days far too many of our kids are coming out of school totally unprepared to make it in the real world. They haven't been taught the critical thinking skills that will allow them to succeed away from the indoctrination centers we call schools. All they've been taught is how to allow others to think for them and to not question what they've been told.

As far as tolerance is concerned. The most intolerant people I have come across in my life have all been liberals. For them, tolerance is something other people must have, not them.

The Tea Partiers and their ilk protest and claim that as a "grass roots" movement, they are not responsible if there are some "wackos" in their ranks. But, while urging the American people not to "paint them with the same brush," the Tea Partiers seem to paint all liberals and progressives as Marxists, communists or terrorists, if not worse. And, I am not sure that they are even using these terms accurately. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that many of their opponents tend to paint them as "racists" and "fascists."

When a large majority of the liberals/progressives in power spout Marxist/Communist ideals and support leftist/fascist dictators over democratically elected governments, then yes we'll call them Marxists and Communists and fascists.

When our President insults our staunchest allies and embraces our enemies with open arms, then yes, we will paint him with the same broad brush. To quote yet another old saying, "By their actions you shall know them." So far our President's "smart diplomacy" has done more damage to America's foreign relations in a little over a year than eight years of Dubya's presidency.

One also has to be cynical about the "grassroots" label: the Tea Partiers and their Tea Parties are being funded by some very wealthy conservative interests. Some of these interests do not want banking reform. Others have a personal stake in seeing that meaningful health care reform is eventually defeated. How else could Sarah Palin pull down $100,000 per speech? Also, one look at a typical Tea Party website shows the movement's close association with extreme right-wing national movements and organizations.

Oh, really?Just who is financing the TEA party movement? I notice he didn't name names. He made the claim, it's up to him to prove it.

On the other hand, the Democrats, and particularly the extreme left-wing of the party, has been heavily financed by multi-billionaire George Soros, an unabashed socialist (his claim, not mine) and someone who is not a friend of the American people. Like most on the Left, he believes we aren't capable of making our own decisions and he's willing to spend his billions to make sure our ability to do so will be stripped from us, one step, one right at a time. Also, much of the Hollywood elite are willing to support political causes most Americans find repugnant. They pour millions into the Democrat party to help elect candidates that are more than willing to dismantle the Constitution because we're too stupid to understand that we need the morally bankrupt progressives to tell us what we need.

As to Sarah Palin's $100,000 speaking fee: So what? When she speaks at TEA party functions she has given that money to help fund the movement on more than one occasion. Bill Clinton pulls down that much for the same thing, but Cracraft hasn't asked who's financing his speaking engagements, has he? It's a specious point. Get over it.

I have no doubt that there are well-meaning members of the "silent majority" in the Tea Party movement who are simply afraid of government and who came blame them? The Federal Government can be scary to all of us! After eight years of George Bush, who turned a federal budget surplus into a deficit through his wars and giving tax breaks to rich Americans, who would not be suspicious of the federal government and its motives? The well-meaning Tea Partiers should consider who their real "enemy" is: the "Military/Industrial Complex" (a term, incidentally, coined by a Republican, not a liberal Democrat) which has received more taxpayer money than every "welfare cheat" combined.

First, a good part of Clinton's budget surplus was funded by borrowing money from the Social Security Trust Fund, which has not been paid back and never will be.

Second, Bush didn't give tax breaks just to the rich. He gave them to every tax payer...unless Cracraft's definition of 'rich' is the same as that of the Democrats in Congress - Anyone with a job.

Third, at least one of those wars was not started by us, not by George Bush. It was started by Osama Bib Laden after his follower committed an act of war against the United States, one that was greater than the attack on Pearl Harbor back on December 7, 1941.

Fourth, the other war was started by Saddam Hussein in 1990. We merely got around to finishing it.

Initially, this anti-government movement included a large number of libertarians. While not always agreeing with them, I have always respected the libertarians more than the Republicans who seek to hijack their movement. The libertarians oppose government intrusion into any aspect of our lives. While they are against taxation and "big government," at least they are consistent. They may oppose taxation but they also are champions of personal liberty and oppose government interference in what one smokes or who one sleeps with.

I have to agree that the GOP has been trying to hijack the TEA party, trying to 'bring it into the fold', as it were. But we're too pissed off at the GOP, and particularly those within the party that we call RINOS, - Republicans In Name Only. The GOP betrayed its libertarian roots and became a somewhat less liberal version of the Democrat Party with the same spendthrift tendencies.

As we have seen, the RINOS had no problem spending money the American people didn't have. But that's no excuse for the Democrats to double down and create a deficit in one year that was bigger than Bush's deficit over eight years. (And we must remember these two things: the Democrats controlled Congress during the last two years of the Bush Administration - a time during which the two biggest budget deficits occurred - and that all spending starts in the House of Representatives.)

Mainstream America is sick and tired of being ignored by our employees, who spend without our leave, impose programs upon us we neither want or can afford to pay for, and forget that they work for us, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party Movement seems to have been taken over by extreme GOP conservative hypocrites who are committed to protecting corporate interests. While they whine about government interference in terms of regulating business, they seem to have no problem with regulating a person's personal lifestyle choices. While the Tea Partiers oppose government getting involved in health care, they seem to have no issue with banning same-sex marriage or medical marijuana. I hope the "well-meaning" Tea Partiers eventually realize which side they are really on.

Oh, and the Democrats haven't been doing just that, and rather blatantly while they're at it? They haven't passed legislation that created 'regulations' and 'rules' and laws whose sole aim is to cripple competition and lock out the small guy. They aren't pandering to those same corporate interests?

Cracraft has attributed far too many motivations to the a vast majority of TEA party supporters and activists. Mostly, we want to be left alone by government, want government to get its financial house in order, want the government to start following the Constitution, want the government to stop spending money it doesn't have and won't have in the future. Abortion, gay marriage, and a host of other social issues aren't even a blip on our agenda. The resistance to health care has nothing to do with denying people health care, but does have to do with its unsustainable cost, its intrusive nature, and its destruction of one of the best health care systems in the world all in the name the overused and purposely misdefined term 'fairness'. My question is, fair to who?

'Nuff said.

Tea Party Derangement Syndrome is making itself more widely known in a number of ways, but it seems to be manifesting itself as claims of incipient violence against all "right-thinking people", meaning liberal Democrats.

But more often the violence is threatened or committed by members of the very groups claiming tea party supporters are the ones going to commit violence. Union members seem to be the ones most often committing acts of violence against tea party activists.

But it isn't limited to just union thugs. It seems to affect Congressmen, too.

On Thursday, April 8th, 2010, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat in Florida's 8th district, interrupted a district meeting of the local Orange County Republican Executive Committee. The meeting was being held at Perkins, a family restaurant.

Matthew Falconer, candidate for Orange County Mayor, quickly challenged Alan's rudeness. Grayson demanded not to be interrupted, but Falconer quickly reminded the congressman that he is in fact interrupting their meeting.

Grayson threatened Falconer by saying that he'll spend thousands of dollars making sure he doesn't get elected. Question: Is it legal or at least unethical for a sitting congressman to threaten to influence a local election? Why is Matt Falconer, running for local Mayor, even on the radar of Alan Grayson?

The answer: TPDS (not to be confused with PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Or maybe Grayson has come to believe he is entitled to his office and that anyone daring to displace him deserves nothing but contempt, derision, and ridicule.

It isn't only Grayson showing symptoms of TPDS, but a number of other CongressCritters too, including my own representative, Carol Shea-Porter.

Recently she's tried to make it seem as if she's been misunderstood, but we understand her all too well. She's shown nothing but contempt for those of us disagreeing with her and her socialist beliefs. Are we supposed to believe that she's suddenly seen the light and that we should re-elect her come November? Not likely.

I expect more incidents linked to TPDS to manifest themselves as we get closer to elections in November. I expect to see more union thugs committing acts of violence against tea party activists. I expect to see less civil discourse from Democrat incumbents towards tea party supporters. I expect the hysteria from the Left to reach deafening levels. And I expect the hateful and demeaning rhetoric aimed at tea party supporters to reach epidemic proportions.

It was reported today in the Berlin, NH Berlin Daily Sun that the new Federal Prison just completed near that city will be housing the detainees from Guantanamo Bay as that detention facility is phased out.

Word has it some of the detainees were dismayed to learn they would be moved to the new prison in northern New Hampshire in light of the much colder climate and the miles and miles of dense forests and the sparsely populated countryside. Supposedly one detainee was heard to say something about their new home being an "Allah-forsaken wilderness filled with bears, lions, and wolves."

The full story is below the fold.

In light of the increasing pressure from the President and the Congressional Democrat leadership to pass the overreaching and economy-busting health care destruction bill, a number of states have been proactive, working to short-circuit the Left's attempt to grab even more power over the lives of their citizens.

Idaho took the lead in a growing, nationwide fight against health care overhaul Wednesday when its governor became the first to sign a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government if residents are forced to buy health insurance.

Similar legislation is pending in 37 other states.

Constitutional law experts say the movement is mostly symbolic because federal laws supersede those of the states.

With Washington closing in on a deal in the months-long battle over health care overhaul, Republican state lawmakers opposed to the measure are stepping up opposition.

[Idaho Governor] Otter, a Republican, said he believes any future lawsuit from Idaho has a legitimate shot of winning, despite what the naysayers say.

"The ivory tower folks will tell you, 'No, they're not going anywhere,' " he told reporters. "But I'll tell you what, you get 36 states, that's a critical mass. That's a constitutional mass."

Considering Congressional Democrats and the President have been ignoring the will of a large majority of the American people, is it any wonder state legislators are taking measures to send a message to them, telling them we won't stand for having this version of health care reform shoved down our throats? The states are rebelling against the Left's arrogant belief that they know better than we what it is we need.

Throughout history such belief by the self-proclaimed elite has always led to grief, misery, and tyranny. They can justify any action as being for "the good of the people" even when it was only good for the elite. And so it is with Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the other members of the Leftist cabal. They do not believe we are capable of running our own lives, that we aren't smart enough to make our own decisions, that if we don't follow their leadership that we must be deranged and need to forced to surrender our will to the State.

That's what this whole ObamaCare kerfuffle is all about - Power.

While we're building or have built a gargantuan embassy in Baghdad larger than the entire Vatican State, one soldier speaking truth to power says we don't know what we're doing. Yep. I concur.

Read the soldier's remarkable letter, a real cry from the heart, here.

You [the incomparable Diana West] correctly assessed that we have not gained anything positive from our efforts in Iraq and that the nation is not our ally. (The same is true for Afghanistan.) I will go as far as saying that the Iraqis are our enemies--enemies better equipped to wage jihad against us than they have ever been. We will regret what we have done. We will regret that we created this officially Islamic nation. And we will regret that we created an officially Islamic Afghanistan. We will regret that we have placed ourselves in the service of Islam, waging jihad worldwide as we advance the Religion of Peace and eliminate Christians in the process. (So much for the accusation that the U.S. is on a "Crusade.") It is a shame that so many people refuse to recognize how horrible Islam is, and that the U.S. made a fatal mistake when it refused to declare war against Afghanistan and Islam--when it refused victory by binding the greatest military force of all time.

I'm not sure if he ever left the Left, merely seeing Islamic terror after Sept. 11 for the threat it truly is. But Charles Johnson, one of the "Four Horsemen" on this blog's left, is no longer read by me. In 2004 and '05 I'd check out Little Green Footballs almost every day. Back then he had to fight its being characterized as a hate site.

Surprisingly, the long NYT Mag piece isn't over-the-top sympathetic to Johnson, according a lot of space for the comments of Pamela Geller.

The whole story hinges on a Belgium political party and its leader--Flip Dewinter of Flaams Belang. Probably 99.9 percent of Americans don't have a clue about him or it. But one of our Cassandras--I just finished re-reading _The Death of the Grown-up_ by Diana West--goes all out for him in her MUST-READ post today, calling Mr. Dewinter "one of the true heroes of our times."

Who exactly is this man? Neo-Nazi bogeyman as Johnson characterizes him, liberally applying unsavory tactics himself? Or is he the Ricard the Lionheart figure dying Europe needs in order to muster its resources, which includes the quiescent spiritual, to defeat the rising tide of Muslim ferocity increasingly doting the landscape?  Time will tell.

But my sympathies are clearly with people like Diana West and Flip Dewinter.

Here. She's good, as always. I agree with her.

Michelle Malkin has the details how the State Department, totally corrupted by liberalism, allowed the groin-patch semtex Islamic nutjub a coveted temporary visa:

Like Abdulmutallab, not a single one of the unmarried, rootless Muslim male nomads who secured student and business visas to commit mass murder on American soil should have ever obtained a temporary visa in the first place.
 
But the reckless customer-service mentality prevails under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The department continues to operate the dangerous "Diversity Visa Lottery" program--handing out permanent residency visas (green cards) randomly to some 50,000 foreigners from "underrepresented" regions.

We could be smarter like Israel and not allow any male under forty without a family into the country who is identifiably Muslim.

For the longest time the major players in the MSM have either ignored or trivialized the TEA Party movement. But no more.

Tonight, ABC's World News had a report about the 'phenomenon' of the TEA parties, showing the effect they've been having and how the movement is growing. As political analyst Matthew Dowd put it:

"I think Republicans definitely dismiss this at their peril. I also think Democrats, by trying to marginalize it, underestimate the anger out there," political analyst Matthew Dowd said.

There are a lot of angry people out there. I'm but one of them.

I find it interesting that one of the favorite politicians among TEA party supporters is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. But it isn't all that surprising considering she implemented many of the TEA party core beliefs while she was governor, rooting out corruption, cutting profligate state spending, and scaling back the reach of state government until it was performing only the duties expected of it as laid out in the Alaska State Constitution.

The TEA parties aren't aiming their anger at any one party so much as the actions of those in Congress and the various statehouses, showing their anger at being ignored and seen as nothing more than a source of revenue for the tax-and-spenders in both the Democrat and Republican parties.

Maybe ABC started payi8ng attention when TEA party actions started bringing down politicians and party leaders who made the mistake of ignoring their constituents.

The most recent victim of "tea party' activists was Florida Republican Jim Greer, who resigned from as state party chairman this week, in part because of the activists' objections to his alliance with Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The activists are vocally supporting Crist's opponent -- a young, outspoken conservative, Marco Rubio -- and some believe the tea party group may bring down Crist, too.

The message is getting out: Politics as usual aren't going to work this time, at local, state, or federal level. You ignore us at your own peril for we have no problem firing you come next November, if not sooner. To quote Howard Beale from the great movie, Network, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!"

It's time those in both parties pay attention because the TEA parties aren't going away.

A former FBI profiler and MSNBC commentator Clint Van Zandt shows us many of the prominent red flags in the career of the Ft. Hood mass murderer. In hindsight it seems bizarre he was enabled to operate as he did, for example, on one or more occasions telling a soldier he was ministering to, "Islam can safe your soul."

Um, here's my explanation. It's more than political correctness, though that plays a large part. It's the desire to avoid being seen as "judgmental." But even that's not adequate, though Theodore Dalrymple has written a very good book on the topic.

Westerners are "Eloi," or sheeple, as Michael Savage rightly calls many. Lawrence Auster (LA) describes the Eloi:

As white America has progressively lost its belief in God, in objective truth and morality, in law, in nationhood and in race, whites have acquired an increasingly bland, complacent, pacific aspect. This seems to be true not only in the United States but in the white West as a whole. One is especially struck by this enervated quality in contemporary whites when observing them at their leisure, on Sundays, or on their innumerable vacations, or when they are shopping. In the all-white or predominantly white pockets of society, the environment is orderly and peaceful and aesthetically attractive, but something vital is missing....Whites seem have lost the energy, confidence and leadership qualities that once created a civilization.

Der Untergang des Abendlandes by Oswald Spengler comes immediately to mind.

Here is a link to two liberal Huffington Post writers quoting conservatives who are seeing the light. I feel like Ben Franklin reading a book attacking deism but being persuaded by quotations provided of the deists designed to be attacked.

I think it's important as a conservative to keep abreast of the other side. I do that principally by faithfully listening to the BBC and downloading its NewsPod. I also listen pretty regularly to National Public Radio (NPR), esp. the classical music from the Maine station, which seems to have employees over the age of 35 unlike the NH one.

The segment this morning on the Army Maj. who is a mass murderer was a whitewash as I expected it would be. It brought up the fact he may have been a Muslim extremist. But it didn't bring up any evidence that has been circulating in mainstream publications, such as this one, where he's reported to have told colleagues that "infidels should have their throats slit" and that suicide bombers who kill innocents are equivalent to soldiers who sacrifice themselves by throwing their bodies on a grenade ready to explode in order to save their buddies. Does NPR think we're stupid and lack an Internet connection?

But it did bring up the unsubstantiated claims he was harassed for being Muslim. They're quick to do that. It's the Christians who incited him!

Lawrence Auster puts it with wonderful acerbic wit:

[The liberal mainstream] media establishment are saying that the mass murder is bigoted America's fault, because the man's Army colleagues "harassed" him as a Muslim and made him lose his mind. In reality, far from being harassed, he was allowed complete freedom to make his numerous blood-curdling and treasonous statements, since everyone in today's diversity-cowed Army was afraid to make a formal complaint about him. Think of it: a jihadist enemy ensconced as a major in the U.S. Army makes classic jihadist threats against America, and then carries them out, while other Army officers do nothing to stop him; and now the U.S. establishment accuses the very people who did nothing to stop him of harassing him and so turning him into a mass murderer!

The other news account of interest to me is the US Supreme Court deciding to hear the disgraced former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skillings, who will receive a hearing for, among several things, the principal fact that the media circus of his trial in Houston prevented a fair trial.

I think there may be something to that in fact, having witnessed it at first hand. Years ago, in the early '90s, I was a bit disappointed the same court decided not to hear Pamela Smart's appeal on similar grounds: the truly bizarro media circus in that trial and the fact that the judge's seemingly questionable decision not to sequester the jury, may open up reasonable doubts that they were swayed.

What year was that, 1990? Coincidentally, I was a student at UNH and was interning at the NH public television station in Durham and the women there were glued to the TV. When the verdict came out, everyone came out and watched it on a huge screen and screamed with joy, hearing "Guilty."

I think it was ridiculous that when the media frenzy is in full gear a jury wouldn't be sequestered.

It looks like France has decided NATO efforts in Afghanistan won't require any more French troops.

France will not send any more troops to Afghanistan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in an interview with a French newspaper on Thursday.

Wow! What is this? Nicolas Sarkozy refuses to send another single troop to aid in Afghanistan? My god! How will we win now? Clearly, the French support we received to this point must have been the key to our current (albeit far from complete) successes so far, no? Such a blow to the effort... How shall we ever survive?

Oh, wait, France seems to have only contributed 2,780 troops to the effort, while our wonderful nation has assigned... over 29,000? Let's see here... Britain seems to have been able to send slightly over 8,000... Germany has sent 3,640... My god, even Canada has managed to send 2,830 troops to France. At this time, it seems Canada has a higher stake than France. Clearly, it must not be important to Mr. Sarkozy that this war be won, or that we even stay in Afghanistan. But then there's this:

"Is it necessary to stay in Afghanistan? I say 'yes'. And to stay to win ... But France will not send a single soldier more," Sarkozy told Le Figaro.

Oh, wait, it is important to stay? Not only important mind you, but necessary. "Necessary" implies requirement. So, we now know it is required that we stay, and stay to win. But somehow Mr. Sarkozy believes that he will help accomplish both without sending more troops? I'm not sure I follow his logic. Perhaps they've perfected cloning, and just plan to copy the troops they already have over there? Perhaps they've made a friend in US professional sports, and got a hella rate on steroids and are just planning to "jack up" their thousand troops to increase their effectiveness. Clearly he must have some secret plan...

Sarkozy said he wants instead to see more home-grown Afghan troops fight the Taliban guerrillas.

OK, well, that makes sense. I mean, we can't support them forever. At some point, they have to stand on their own two proverbial feet, right? Well, despite my original feeling, let's see what he has to say. Mr. Sarkozy, the floor is yours. Why do you feel that we need more "home-grown troops"?

"They will be the most effective in winning this war because it is their country."

Agreed. However, without sending more troops over there to help recruit, train, and deploy these fledgling soldiers, how can we expect them to stand on their own? In the US military, boot camp is only the beginning. It would be ridiculous to take a recruit straight out of boot camp, give him a route, and expect him to perform flawlessly at his job. He would need training, guidance, and supervision. These soldiers have been introduced to a completely new way of life, and while some may be ready, there are still legions that are not. So how, then, do you suppose that we can provide these still-developing soldiers with the support and guidance they'll need without sending over more (essentially) support (in this case, soldiers)?

"...we need to pay them more..." said the French president.

Oh? Pay them? Why yes! I've been so blind to the answer until just now! Clearly, these troops don't need us there, they just need money. Cash fixes everything, right? Banks failing, just throw some money at them, they'll be fine! Economy hurting and dollar falling? Hey, just a quick and easy loan of $787 billion and we'll be back to the superdollar in no time.

I guess history does support the idea of cash being a cure-all. Hey, we don't we withdraw all 30,000 (and soon to be more) of our troops, and instead just send over 30,000 wads of cash? Sure! Once those wads of cash get there, it'll be nicer than Mr. Rodger's neighborhood. I'm sure that'll fix everything. I'll bet if I took that fresh recruit right out of boot camp, gave him the patrol route and a $5,000 bonus, he'd be fine in no time. I guess it's just instinct to know all about counter-terrorism (keep in mind, there are still massive amounts that we still do not know about fighting terrorism), and all they need is a bit more money and soon enough they'll be keeping terrorists at bay so well even John McClane would be impressed.

I'm sorry Mr. Sarkozy. You can't have it both ways. Yes, loss of life is tragic. Yes, taking parents away on deployment is tragic. However, I would think it would be far more tragic for us to leave behind all those sacrifices that got us where we are today.

Am I happy about being in Afghanistan? No, but I see it as a consequence of a choice made previously. As unhappy as I am about being overseas, I would be far more unhappy about being "half-hearted" overseas. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-two heroes have given everything for Afghanistan since 2001 (almost 900 of them American). Am I the only one who thinks it would be nothing less than utmost disrespect to repay their commitment with some half-hearted bribe? I certainly hope not. Despite one's feelings on the war, it is a process that has been started. I do not believe retreat is an option, nor would I ever dare disrespect an American hero by so callously abandoning a cause which was clearly held so dear to him. If not for the good of the Afghan people, let us keep the cause for the sake of those that have given all to reach these goals. Should I die in the course of defending my country, I can rest in peace knowing my cause will be won, as I sacrificed under the American flag, and not the French.

A commenter to Mona Charen's opinion piece (lambasting CNN's advocacy of increased government spending and tax slavery) had the right of it: If the GOP wants to return to its roots and regain some power in Congress, then it must shift its focus.

You still don't get it.

Really, the road back for Republicans is not to champion lower taxes. Tell us something we don't know. That is way too narrow to appeal to ANYONE. The GOP must become conservative on many levels instead of a slightly right clone of the dems. Has no one figured it out? IT'S THE SPENDING STUPID. Every single congressional representative and every single senator MUST pay the price at the ballot box for supporting this insanity. They are all in the process of sinking this ship. Get the feds out of our lives and realize that no government can ever cure what ails this world. So stop taking all your little boo-boos to Uncle Sam and stand on your own two feet. You won't get dizzy, I promise.

While taxes are but one part of the problem, it is the spending that drives taxes. The GOP must focus on that aspect.

Compare between what the President and the Congress are planning to spend and average family and how they must handle their spending. Show the people what this profligate spending will do to them, how it will hurt them, hurt their employer, hurt their business, hurt their kids and their dreams. Show them how the plans of the Socialist-In-Chief will not bring about prosperity, but misery. Show the people that the government will end up holding a gun to their heads and emptying their wallets if nothing is done about the economy-busting budgets foreseen by the President and Congress. Show them the government has become a gang of looters that really doesn't have their best interests at heart.

Show them the GOP is just the opposite of that and maybe, just maybe we can stop this madness. And if the GOP can't or won't do this, then maybe it's time the party goes the way of the Whigs.

Like quite a few of my fellow Granite Staters, I attending the Tax Day Tea Party in Manchester late this afternoon It didn't take long for me to locate Doug and Skip of GraniteGrok once I got there. There was no mistaking their location, with their tents set up along 'blogger' row. Doug was set up to record video of rants by some of the attendees of the Tea Party.

While 700 were expected at the venue, I'm guesstimating that more than 3 times that number were there with us at Victory Park. (I counted out 100 people in a given area and then eyed the rest of the park and that's how I came up with my number. Then again, I started counting about a half hour before the event and more people showed up after I counted.)

And now for some pictures:


Many of those attending had a similar belief.

(More pictures "below the fold.")