Crush Liberalism

Sunnis, Shiites threaten to boycott legislature

What I wouldn’t give for Democrats to boycott government here in America! Hey, one can dream, right? Anyway, from the AP:

Dozens of Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups threatened to boycott Iraq’s new legislature Thursday if complaints about tainted voting are not reviewed by an international body.

A representative for former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi described the Dec. 15 vote as “fraudulent” and the elected lawmakers “illegitimate.”

That last paragraph sounds like Democrats did indeed make their way into Iraq! Aside from Baghdad Jim McDermott and John “Our troops can’t win, and I should know, ‘cuz I used to be one” Murtha’s trips, I mean.

As for the “reviewed by an international body”, how about the UN? They’ve been such great friends to the Iraqi people, haven’t they?

December 22, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Saddam: "U.S. Denials of Torture Are ‘Lies’"

From the AP:

Saddam Hussein insisted again Thursday that he had been beaten by his American captors, denouncing Washington’s denials as “lies” and mocking President Bush’s claim that Baghdad had chemical weapons.
…
On Wednesday Saddam told the court he’d been beaten “everywhere” on his body and insisted the marks were still there. He did not display any marks.

At least Saddam has allies in American government. After all, his claims of Americans torturing have been parroted by Dick Durbin, right?

Also, Saddam says that just because he doesn’t have any marks on his body does not mean that his claim is untrue. After all, no one has proven his claim is untrue, right? Hmmm…this sounds an awful lot like the CBS Memogate defense, doesn’t it?

December 22, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Headline: "Double-Mouthed Fish Pulled From Neb. Lake"

Yes, there is a picture at the link. From the AP:

This fish didn’t have a chance. A rainbow trout pulled out of Holmes Lake last weekend had double the chance to get hooked: It had two mouths.

Clarence Olberding, 57, wasn’t just telling a fisherman’s fib when he called over another angler to look at the two-mouthed trout. It weighed in at about a pound.

“I reached down and grabbed it to take the hook out, and that’s when I noticed that the hook was in the upper mouth and there was another jaw protruding out below,” said Olberding.

Since the fish is double-mouthed, scientists are confused as to whether the fish should be renamed “John Kerry trout” or “Hillary Clinton trout.” At least they agree on the “trout” part!

December 22, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

In time for the holidays!

To show what kind of guy I am, I’ve decided to spread a little holiday cheer to everyone, including our friends on the left. So I give to you, as passed on to me, “The Twelve Politically Correct Days of Christmas (a Non-Denominational Winter Holiday)”:

On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my Significant Other(s) in a consenting adult relationship gave to me:

TWELVE oppressive patriarchs reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming,

ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 8-member pit orchestra made up of members in good standing of the Musicians Equity Union as called for in their union contract even though they will not be asked to play a note),

TEN melanin-deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling class system leaping,

NINE liberated womyn engaged in rhythmic self-expression,

EIGHT economically disadvantaged womyn stealing milk from (and inflicting physical discomfort on) enslaved Bovine-Americans,

SEVEN endangered swans swimming on federally protected wetlands,

SIX enslaved Fowl-Americans producing stolen non-human animal products,

FIVE golden symbols of culturally sanctioned enforced domestic incarceration,

(NOTE: after members of the Animal Liberation Front threatened to throw red paint at my computer, the calling birds, French hens, turtledoves, and partridge have been reintroduced to their native habitat. To avoid further Animal-American enslavement, the remaining gift package has been revised.)

FOUR hours of recorded whale songs,

THREE deconstructionist poets,

TWO Sierra Club calendars printed on recycled processed tree carcasses, and…

A Spotted Owl activist chained to an old-growth pear tree.

Happy* Holiday! (unless otherwise prohibited by law)

* Unless, of course, you are suffering from Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD). If this be the case, please substitute this gratuitous call for celebration with a suggestion that your have a thoroughly adequate day.

December 22, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

The "deficit reduction" bill

Wonder why I’m no Republican, and am instead a libertarian? How about fiscal discipline, for starters? From Breitbart:

The Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation to cut federal deficits by $39.7 billion on Wednesday by the narrowest of margins, 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote.

The measure, the product of a year’s labors by the White House and the GOP in Congress, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

First of all, how can it be a true “deficit reduction” bill if it only cuts $40 billion from the bloated budget we’ve become accustomed to seeing every year? Like Chris Farley’s character Matt Foley used to say on SNL, “that, and a nickel, will get you a hot cup of jack squat!“

Secondly, how pathetic is it that the GOP, the purported “party of limited government and fiscal discipline”, needed the VP to break a tie?

Thirdly, how come the mountains of pork contained in the energy and transporation budgets couldn’t be stripped? Actually, that question is rhetorical, since we all know the answer to THAT!

Finally, I’d like to see specifics of what was reduced from Medicade, Medicare, and student loans before reflexively saying “Those heartless bastards!” After all, there’s so much fraud, waste, and duplication at several levels in the federal government, so if those were some of the targets of the cuts, I have no problem with that. We need more of that.

If not for national defense and resistance to the left’s harmful and punitive tax (and social) policies, I’d have little need for the Republican Party at all.

December 22, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Formerly "Is it illegal?", currently "Is it improper?"

The implications from the beginning of the “Bush spied” story has been that Bush’s authorization of wiretapping international calls to/from terrorism suspects was illegal. Now, more and more legal experts, as well as bloggers doing the job that journalists used to do, are discovering that the warrantless wiretaps are certainly and unquestionably legal. The latest legal opinion comes from, of all people, Clinton’s former associate A.G. John Schmidt. From the Chicago Tribune:

President Bush’s post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.
…
In the Supreme Court’s 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president’s authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.

In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that “All the … courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence … We take for granted that the president does have that authority.”
…
But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, “FISA could not encroach on the president’s constitutional power.”

You know…”constitutional power”? For those of you stuck on stupid and vote Democrat, the Constitution is that document that you folks find quaint that forms the blueprint of our government. Usually, you guys only reference the Consitution when you’re inventing new “rights” and ignoring the original rights expressly stated. But I digress…

Please read Schmidt’s article…it’s not very long, but it gives great legal insight (without drowning the reader in “legalese”) to the matter. Schmidt does close with a valid point about potential abuse:

Should we be afraid of this inherent presidential power? Of course. If surveillance is used only for the purpose of preventing another Sept. 11 type of attack or a similar threat, the harm of interfering with the privacy of people in this country is minimal and the benefit is immense. The danger is that surveillance will not be used solely for that narrow and extraordinary purpose.

But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept.11. I do not believe the Constitution allows Congress to take away from the president the inherent authority to act in response to a foreign attack. That inherent power is reason to be careful about who we elect as president, but it is authority we have needed in the past and, in the light of history, could well need again.

So the question can no longer be “Is it illegal?”, since the answer is clearly “No.” The question then becomes “Is it improper?” That, my friends, is a valid question on which reasonable people (which will exclude a lot of folks) can disagree.

If the left’s genuine concern was the potential for abuse of such monitoring, such as what their stud Bill Clinton did with anti-abortion clergy or American companies, then I could see their cause for concern. However, considering that their concerns are more driven by BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) than any faux fears of privacy or defense (* snort! * Yeah, libs and defense!), you’ll have to forgive me for reflexively dismissing their concerns.

December 22, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment