With a great big tip o’ me tam to that most stalwart of Patriots, Johnny Cash
Original here.

The Ragged Old Flag Flies Again

I walked down the streets of my old hometown
Through crowds of people protestin’
Who said we were racists and nazis and worse
For demanding our gub’mint protect us
From criminals, thieves and terrorist scum
That would sneak o’or our borders at night
And steal all our jobs for a pitiful wage
And never give us a fair fight

They march through our streets hoisting high
Our flag that has seen us along
Making the show that this one simple act
Will prove that they truly belong
But that ragged old flag that tugs at our hearts
And has seen her share of the pain
That helped forge a nation of wretched refuse
Is being drug through the muck and is stained
She stood tall at the fort when our anthem was writ
And she led e’ery charge in the south
And she stood tall and proud when the japs came a’callin’
At Pearl Harbors doomed mouth
She flew brave and true on Mount Suribachi
And solemnly she waved on the morn
When the japanese people surrendered at last
‘Neath the guns of Big Mo’s mighty form

She sailed on the ships that delivered our boys
To the dark rancid jungles of ‘Nam
And led all the fights that raged through the nights
Heavy with death and napalm
She carried the fight to the Taliban thugs
That harbored our enemies might
And led the brave charge of the Lads of Fal’ujah
Who gave of their all in that fight
She continues to sail o’er every sea
And to bring hope and light to the masses
But the latest attack on Old Glories greatness
Is being trampled in our highschool classes

The kids of today take Ol’ Glory down
And use her to take a bold stand
By hoisting her up ‘neath a mexican flag
Upside down, stating “This is our land”

She’s held in esteem for her history is brave
For with her comes freedom unhinged
But her brave noble past is taken away
And used by the criminal fringe
But one can’t fly the flag
And hold true to the heart
Of what truth Old Glory stands for
If you do not realize that by breaking the law
You haven’t earned your place on our shore.

Said Kender @ 7:07 pm Comments (1) | Permalink   

He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform….I know that money corrupts….I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government.”

Watch the video at Stop The ACLU.

Said Jay777 @ 3:12 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

We can depend on the MSM to get it wrong, it’s now an expectation rather than a mere suspicion.

From the Superpatriots’ website:

Details Are Sketchy: This is what we know- Four-time Emmy Award winning journalist Edward Caraballo was released Sunday afternoon, April 30. He was ordered released several days ago, packed up, and waiting for a ride to the airport when the US Embassy interceded and stopped the release. Over the next two days Afghan officials worked to free him, and finally ignored the US Ambassador’s demands to hold him. According to a top-ranking General in the Ministry of Justice, Caraballo walked out of Pulacharke Sunday around 3pm. The US Embassy then detained him and sent back to New York on the next plane out. Interestingly enough it comes just 4 days before a hearing in the US Federal Court in Washington on the rendition of the four men by the American FBI. There is little doubt that the US State Dept will use this to spin a defense that Caraballo’s release proves the US Govt. is not behind their illegal conviction. The press is reporting that it was Karzai’s early release order, but if you read that order it specifically excludes the crimes Caraballo was charged with. And, if it was Karzai’s early release order then why was Caraballo the ONLY prisoner released today? For those that say they were “convicted” in a “court of law,” just respond with this: No sworn witnesses, no evidence presented, only newspapers articles used as evidence against them, no cross-examination, a trial which was barely translated with always incorrect translation, the defense statement was stopped after ten minutes, both defense attorneys were threatened with arrest if they tried to present evidence of actual innocence or complain about the lack of legal rights, Afghan lawyers for Bennett and Banderas were threatened with arrest and death if they attempted to defend their clients, and only one person in the trial gave a statement under oath (on the Koran), and that was Jack Idema. Yet lawyers against Idema in US civil cases are saying they were convicted by a fair trial. We find that disgusting from anyone, no less “American” lawyers.

Sunday 6pm, Ariana National Television announces that all Americans were released and all the Afghans on Task Force Saber released with them.

Not true– here is what we know. Parliament had signed a release order for Task Force Saber, all of them, but Karzai required that Jack sign a similar Amnesty agreement as they had offered him three times before. Jack refused (imagine that). Then Parliament decided to just release them on Mujahadeen Day (April 28th), the day of Afghan Holy Warriors. The US Embassy promptly stepped in and started lodging “informal” objections to a declaration of innocence. Then the Ministry of Justice ordered them all released Sunday morning. So far it is only confirmed that Caraballo has left by airplane to Dubai. Meanwhile, everyone in Afghanistan thinks Jack has been released because by 7pm it was on every channel in Southwest Asia. Last we heard they were still at Pulacharke. This is going to get interesting. Especially since TOLO TV reported Jack at a local bar celebrating an hour ago.

The SuperPatriots and Jack images on this site are used by Cao’s Blog and The Wide Awakes with written copyright permission and any use by any third party is subject to legal action by SuperPatriots.US

This post at CB will probably be updated throughout the day. There is no telling what’s going to happen as time goes on in this goofy story.

Said Cao @ 3:02 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

And help render the chickenhawk argument even more useless. Check out Captain’s Quarters and sign up!

Said Cao @ 2:57 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

Reposted from April 5th. In honor of the fact that alleged millions of people that support criminals are planning to basically commit what amounts to treason by trying to attack the economic viability of the United States tomorrow I am going to state again that I agree with this boycott, but not because I agree with the ideals of those organizing this action or think that we should reward millions of criminals in our midst, but because this boycott is going to backfire on these people, and the disruption they cause to millions of LEGAL CITIZENS who, in the course of living their legal lives of doing their duty to make this country great are goiing to have to endure millions of whiny criminals and their supporters blocking the streets and taking up airtime on our TV’s, making their day that much harder.

Anyone that takes the day off to protest should be fired. But that may only happen in a handful of cases. On the other hand, this protest is going to hurt the educations of the kids that are out in the middle of this, and that is fine by me.

Outlined below is my support for this boycott. As far as I am concerned these people can boycott for the rest of their lives. They are much cheaper to hire when they are legal citizens without a decent education.

I Agree with the Boycott

That’s right, I agree with the boycott.

Especially for the kids.

Everybody listen up, on May 1st stay home from school.

Do NOT go to school. Stay home and sleep, go protest and work on that car in your driveway while hanging clothes on the line tied between the apartment building and the dead tree, and I will tell you why:

Because when you stay home from school your school loses valuable money that is used to educate your stupid asses, and maybe if your education drops to a low enough level you will be forever stuck cleaning the toilets, washing the cars and mowing the lawns of the people that know what it means to be an American, and your lower economic status will be assured, hence your power in society will be limited to threatening to leave the rest of us with long grass and dirty dishes at the restaurant.

So stay home, little latino children, and make sure your stupid friends of whatever color do the same…..stay home, stay stupid, do the American citizens that understand what it means to be American a favor….I can pay you a hell of a lot less that way.

Said Kender @ 11:11 am Comments (1) | Permalink   

And the news comes down that Ed Carabello, convert to Islam and a man that was seen acting insane during a recent uprising at Pulacharke prison in Afghanistan has reportedly been released and is on his way home.

For more an breaking news on that front go see Cao’s Blog, one of our co-founders and a blogger that has been under constant attack by those that hate Jack Idema for no other reason that this writer can fathom other than they are cowards and can’t stand that someone has actual balls.

The attacks on Cao, and indeed several of The Wide Awakes by the people writing the stoopidpats site (which I refuse to link to) is ongoing, with allegations that Cao is a “liar crook and a fraud” being the most recent and specious of the attacks, and one I can’t wait to see them try to defend in court.

The fact that they have shut off comments at the little hate fest of a blog they keep is just further proof that these anonymous cowards hate free speech and can’t brrok further attacks from their resident troll, ME!!!!

By the way kids, Donald Orum is not too happy that you linked his name with us, because he isn’t involved in any of this, and he has been advised to seek counsel on this matter.

Good luck with that.

I wonder if Carabellos daughter will have to cover her head now that daddy is coming home a full fledged mooslim adherent now?

Said Kender @ 10:52 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Who do you trust to lower gas prices?

How can anyone trust the Dems to lower gas prices? HOW can the Dems lower gas prices except by lowering the federal tax levied on a gallon of gas? How can the Dems sustain ANY tax cut without going through withdrawl?

A few scenarios:

Cut federal taxes on gas. Result? States raise taxes on gas to make up for the loss of federal revenue for road repair and other goodies.

Winfall profit tax. Result? Over 3 million investors (think about all the retirement/pension plans out there that include oil company stock) get pissed off due to decrease in EPS, oil companies raise the price of gas to make up for loss of profit, reliance on foreign oil increases, investments in exploration, extraction, and refining decrease.

Break up oil companies. Result? Now smaller oil copmanies don’t have the capital for extraction, exploration, or refining investments, so the price of gas goes way up to increase revenue for future investment, reliance on foreign oil increases.

It is a supply and demand issue, pure and simple. Increase supply, and prices will go down. How do you increase supply? Drill for more oil. It’s not rocket science. It might seem that way for Dems (and unfortunately for the majority of the public), but it really is simple.

Said cracker @ 7:38 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Chuck Schumer (Dem., N.Y.) recently asked “If $75 a barrel oil and a $3 average for a gallon of gasoline isn’t a wake-up call, then what is?” and as the Wall Street Journal notes it is indeed a fine question for Senator Schumer to ask. They go on to note:

In fact, Mr. Schumer and most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate–the very crowd shouting the loudest about “obscene” gas prices–have voted uniformly for nearly 20 years against allowing most domestic oil production. They have vetoed opening even a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas production. If there is as much oil as the U.S. Geological Survey estimates, this would increase America’s proven domestic oil reserves by about 50%.”

[…]

The dirty little secret about oil politics is that today’s high gas price is precisely the policy result that Mr. Schumer and other liberals have long desired. High prices have been the prod that the left has favored to persuade Americans to abandon their SUVs and minivans, use mass transit, turn the thermostat down, produce less consumer goods and services, and stop emitting those satanic greenhouse gases. “Why isn’t the left dancing in the streets over $3 a gallon gas?” asks Sam Kazman, an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who’s followed the gasoline wars for years.”

This graph shows the average price of gasoline, per gallon, in both the United States and some European countries. Click this Link to see where Mr. Schumer really wants gas prices to go (he won’t tell you, I just did) Is that what you want Mr. Schumer? If it is, then be at least honest enough to say so without the fancy footwork designed to make you look indignant (when you aren’t) and gouge the American People under the guise of concern which you are obviously trying to do.

Let us be honest in this debate about gasoline prices. First, there is no evidence of price gouging to date. Since the 1990’s the SEC and FTC have been scrutinizing the oil companies without finding any evidence. Second, the inflation adjusted price of gasoline today is less than the cost of gasoline in 1979/80. View image! As you can see from the graph, the cost of gasoline of gasoline was higher in 80/81 than now. That does not mean that gasoline won’t go still higher and break records but the reasons for that are not necessarily under the control of the oil companies. It is called supply and demand and with India and China feverishly working to increase their supplies, that will drive the price up all else remaining the same.

Looking at the cost as a percent of personal comsumption expendatures on a monthly basis, you will see that while expenditures are indeed up, the cost are still below the ‘80/’81 levels View image. Again, while the costs and expense for families is high, it has been higher.

We also need to take a look at where the real costs of gas at the pump come from. The hype of the left is that the oil companies get it all, or at least that is what they want you to believe. The reality is that the cost of crude (and remember we import way too much oil) is 47% of the cost. So, at $3.00 a gallon $1.47 of that is just for the cost of the oil to make the gas. Add to that another $0.69 for state and federal taxes and you are already over two thirds of the cost of a gallon of gasoline. But wait, we aren’t done yet. It costs $0.36 to get the gasoline to you and to advertise their product and we are now up to $2.46 of the cost of a gallon of gas at $3.00. That is just shy of 84% of the cost. View image According to the Energy Information Administration: Department of Transportation: Bureau of Economic Analysis, those folks charged with knowing how much you have to pay for gasoline, only about 27 cents is profit and another 27 cents goes into refining costs. TWENTY SEVEN CENTS!!! Yeppers, that’s price gouging. NOT! Economics are obviously not the forte of Mr. Schumer and his cohorts.

There are other reasons for the significant rise in the cost of gasoline that the liberals/Democrats don’t want you to know. While the UN dithers with Iran, world concern regarding supplies have driven up costs lest the Iranians block the exit to the Persian Gulf or other major disruption of oil transshipment. There are also currently seventeen types of “botique” blends of gasoline and ethanol that are mandated by congress and or the states. This causes disruptions in delivery and where in one locality one type of fuel has to be turned down because it is not a mandated type. There is a move afoot in congress to whittle that number down to six.

Just a lowly eight months ago, Congress passed and the President signed an energy bill with significant tax breaks to get the oil companies up and moving because of the major disruption caused by Hurricaine Katrina and Rita. The disruption of the refinary capacity has caused part of the problem and we have not built any new refinaries in over 20 years. That is also part of the problem because the majority of refinaries located on the Gulf Coast were damaged and supplies disrupted. Now, congress is debating on rolling back the tax breaks but that will only increase receipts to the government because the fact of the matter is that corporations do NOT pay taxes. You do. Taxes are part of the economic mix that are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices IN ADDITION to the taxes you pay at the pump.

Then there is the move by the President to halt filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is almost full anyway and this will hardly make even a small dent in the cost of gas. Bold move Mr. Bush. NOT!

Which brings me to the Republican’s efforts (What efforts?…Ed! - precisely) in this mess. They are as busy with double talk and crapping on the oil companies making it look like they are so concerned and are acting just like Democrats. In fact, it is getting harder and harder to tell the two parties apart (execept the Republicans don’t have anyone near as deadly as Schumer when it comes to getting between Schumer and a TV camera). I fear the Reps will find out that we really don’t need two liberal parties in November and that the population will just vote for Democrats rather than Republicans acting like Democrats. But, maybe the Reps will wake up, it is not too late. YET!!!

Cross Posted at GM’s Corner

Said GM @ 6:30 am Comments (3) | Permalink   

I’ve been covering the energy issue in drips ‘n’ drabs ever since drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge returned as a hot political issue. Considering the current furor over high gas prices, a more comprehensive look at key aspects of the matter is called for.

High Profits, or High Taxes?

Oil Company Shareholders: Paying More Than Their Share of Taxes

In a January 2006 piece entitled “Large Oil Industry Tax Payments Undercut Case for Windfall Profits Tax” The Tax Foundation averaged the amount of taxes paid from the big three oil companies, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Exxon Mobil per share of stock and compared it to the amount of taxes paid for each share’s earnings. The result: where an average share paid $6.59 in earnings, it also paid $4.58 in taxes. Furthermore, for each worker employed by these companies, the company paid $249,336 in taxes.

To say that corporations which pay an effective tax rate of 41% are not paying enough is laughable.

United States Geologic Service National Oil and Gas Assessment Update 2005

(click here for larger image)

U.S. Oil Resources Sufficient to Meet Future Needs, If We Drill NOW!

The 2005 update to the USGS National Oil and Gas Assessment showed a 50% increase over the 1995 study in economically feasible and technically recoverable crude oil resources. New technology is allowing us to uncover previously unknown resources in both current oil production fields and untapped reserves.

Current available resources easily exceed the 112 billion barrels of oil (that’s BILLION) that the 1995 study (page 2) described as recoverable in the United States. That’s an amount that could, without any imports, fuel our nation for more than a decade as we transition towards an economy based on alternative sources of energy.

Yet, over the same time period domestic oil production dropped while imports and demand, along with prices, increased (see Energy Information Administration Annual U.S. Supply and Demand chart).

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: The Phony Debate

Opponents of further petroleum development chortle that it would take ten years to bring to market any new oil and gas resources from remote places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It will take time to develop the infrastructure to safely exploit those resources. Both houses of Congress passed a bill to allow safe drilling in ANWR in 1996 and it was vetoed by President Clinton. Had Clinton not vetoed the bill, ANWR oil would be available NOW!

Opponents of ANWR also spread the disinformation that the exploitable resources at ANWR aren’t enough to bother about. Yet every survey from the US Geologic Service suggests otherwise. Had ANWR been producing at the time Hurricane Katrina knocked out oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, ANWR would have replaced the entire amount, lost because of the storm, lessening the gas price shock of last fall.

full size image here.

As the Energy Administration analysis in the chart above shows, production from limited development at ANWR would be enough to prevent even further slippage in domestic crude oil production, which would still be woefully short of the 20 million barrels we use per day.

And, as we have already seen in previous USGS studies, the amount of actually recoverable oil from US deposits has increased dramatically over previous estimates. It’s much more likely that the amount available would be closer to or exceed the upper bounds of these projections.

Safety or Socialism the Prime Motivator for Oil Opponents?

Environmental concerns are often cited as the moral imperative among reasons not to drill in ANWR. Yet, development at the nearby Prudhoe Bay oil fields using older, less safe technology hasn’t resulted in environmental devastation. Even a much hyped “massive spill” in a pipeline leak in March turned out to be little more than a puddle, which you can see in this BBC report.

And let’s not forget Hurricane Katrina which knocked out all those oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Where were the scream headlines of environmental devastation, and photos of oil soaked beaches? Mainstream media coverup? Sure!

The caribou, ah the skittish caribou! They seem to be doing just fine adapting to the sight of oil production facilities (larger photo here) which would be substantially less physically and visually obtrusive in the even smaller area of development under discussion these many years at ANWR.

Environmental scaremongering has always been the socialist’s best tool for advancing their true agenda, which is placing limitations on the economic growth and freedom of the United States.

Left Funds Destruction of Amazon Rainforest with Boycott of Exxon

If you think the description of the left’s environmental agenda as described above is absurd, consider this:

In response to news reports that retiring Exxon Mobile Chairman, Lee Raymond, received a $400 million dollar retirement present, progressives began promoting a boycott of Exxon products and a BUYcott suggesting that fellow leftists buy CITGO gas instead.

CITGO is of a state owned enterprise under the sole control of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, whos is dubbed by progressives as the “Anti-Bush.” It’s suggested that leftists can “help fuel a democratic revolution in Venezuela” by buying CITGO gas.

Let’s leave aside for the moment that Chavez rammed through constitutional changes which makes him President for life, shut down media that criticized him, passed a law making it illegal to insult him and has ordered government thugs to harass, kidnap, imprison or kill his opponents. You can digest all that here.

But what really unmasks the left is that Chavez, the “Anti Bush,” is planning to use profits from CITGO to fund a natural gas pipeline running from Venezuela to Argentina, cutting straight through the blessed Amazon rain forest!

Yes, the holiest of holies among acolytes of the environmental religion are about to witness the raping of the rain forest by the very same scion of social justice that they are supporting with their buycott of CITGO gasoline.

Save that little tidbit for the next time some greenie accuses President Bush of destroying the planet. Warning: don’t stand too close, their head might pop!

The Bottom Line: DRILL FOR OIL!

The situation we face regarding energy will only get worse, not better, unless strong measures are taken. President Bush’s Energy Security Plan has many fine long term solutions like hydrogen fuel cells and shorter term solutions like increasing ethanol use.

But the transition over the next two decades to an energy supply independent of petroleum will not be possible without exploiting existing crude oil resources during this period. Failure to meet the demands for freely available and reasonably priced energy will choke the very economy we depend on to fund the development and implementation of alternatives.

It’s time to tell the demagogues using this issue for partisan gain to shut up and do the right thing.

Said Mike's America @ 2:40 pm Comments (4) | Permalink   

In a move that surprised nobody that was paying attention, California legislators, in a vote of 24-13 that split along party lines passed a resolution that supports the planned nationwide boycott by criminal aliens and their supporters.

SACRAMENTO - State senators on Thursday endorsed Monday’s boycott of schools, jobs and stores by illegal immigrants and their allies as supporters equated the protest with great social movements in American history.

By a 24-13 vote that split along party lines, the Senate approved a resolution that calls the one-day protest the Great American Boycott 2006 and describes it as an attempt to educate Americans “about the tremendous contribution immigrants make on a daily basis to our society and economy.”

“It’s one day … for immigrants to tell the country peacefully, ‘We matter … (we’re) not invisible,’” said Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, the resolution’s chief author. She said immigrants make up a third of California’s labor force and a quarter of its residents.

So teh Democrats now hate business so much that they want them to lose millions of dollars in revenue in their never ending quest for more votes. Apparently they think so little of the legal citizens of the country they help guide that they feel safe passing a resolution that basically states “Criminal aliens are here to stay, and we don’t have the intestinal fortitude to remove them.”

Asshats!!!

Said Kender @ 6:00 am Comments (2) | Permalink   

On April 26, as he slept, my best friend for as long as I can remember passed away. He is survived by his two children, a nephew, his parents, his girlfriend and her daughter, and many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. He served for many years as a volunteer fire-fighter here in north Texas, and he will be missed.

Aside from this notice, Smokey won’t be around for a little while, as I am going to need time to help the family with many different, and very difficult tasks.

---

Below is a poem I found that is very fitting to what I, and my friends are feeling right now. I have changed a few words to fit my exact situation, but these changes do not alter the feeling of the poem at all.My brother was a fireman.
He drove a big red truck
and when he’d go to work each day
he’d say “Brother wish me luck”.
Then he would not come home again
’til some time the next day.
But the thing that bothered me the most
was the things some folks would say,
“A fireman’s life is easy,
he eats and sleeps and plays,
and sometime’s he won’t fight a fire
for days and days and day’s”.
When I first heard these words
I was to young to understand
but I knew when people had trouble
He was there to lend a hand.
Then my brother went to work one day
and he told us all goodbye
but little did we realize
that night we all would cry.
My brother lost his life that night
when the floor gave way below
and I’d wondered why he’d risked his life
for someone he didn’t know.
But now I truly realize
the greatest gift a man can give
is to lay his life upon the line
so that someone else might live.
So as we go from day to day
and we pray to God above
say a prayer for your local Firemen.
He may save the one’s you love.

Carved in stone at the National Monument for
Fallen Firefighters Colorado Springs, Co.

Link to original poem

---

While my brother in red did not lose his life battling the beast, he was a true fireman to the end. He thought very little of himself most times, loved to be with friends and was a FIERCE friend above all. Everyone who called him “friend” knew he would ALWAYS be ready to help in any way he could. It seems only fitting that today (at least where I am), it is raining. It’s as if the world also feels the loss that I feel and is mourning with me. With all of this said, I will leave you now to tend to my extended family, as that is what he is, family.

I would urge each and every person who reads this to NEVER miss an opportunity to tell those you love how you feel. Don’t let petty little squabbles get between you, and remember, none of us knows when we will be called home, so make sure those around you know how you feel, you may not see them this side of Heaven. My solice these passed few days has been that I WILL see him again, he is no longer in ANY pain, and he is with my Lord and my God and will be waiting for me when I go home.

To those who have expressed condolences and wishes to myself and the family, thank you. Knowing him the way I did, he would not ask that you even donate anything to any firefighter charity simply because of this, but he would ask that you remember the sacrifices each of the men on the truck make daily. Thank them for their service, let them know you DO appreciate them, and the next time you have to wait a few minutes because they are racing to save a life, remember this and don’t curse under your breath that they delayed you for a minute or so.

God Bless!

Smokey

Said The Smoke Eater @ 2:15 am Comments (3) | Permalink   

First, the poem by Robert Frost, then some comments in the extended portion of the post. Hang on, folks, cos this one takes a few twists and turns, ‘K?

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
…

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

>> Read more

Said mnmus @ 12:37 am Comments (2) | Permalink   

Did you know that Harry S. Truman’s approval ratings in 1951 were at 23%? Did you know that many scholars rank him in the top ten, as one of the best Presidents, in U.S. history?

History will judge the presidency of George W. Bush, after all of the facts are in. That takes years, sometimes. Leftists can talk their game, now. And the right can take some solace in that fact. But it won’t help them now. At some point, the left will have to look at their behavior for the past six years and the right will need to do some serious re-evaluations.

Here are some things that many are failing to grasp in this pre-occupation with polls:

1. The poll that counted was held a year ago, this past November.

2. Post-election poll questions are asked differently than in election years.

3. Many times poll questions are worded so as to elicit responses that will prove the hypothesis of the pollster, not for legitimate measurement purposes.

But the main thing to note in all of this is, most poll questions do not deal with why the approval is low. For instance, I don’t approve of how the President has handled some things, but for different reasons than the left. Whereby the left will accuse him of things that they perceive he has done wrong, I will criticize him for not doing things well enough. Polls don’t always tell that part of the story.

Rest assured, if the same scenario were to be played out in another election, just like the one in 2004, I would vote for him again. He was a lot better choice than Kerry, and by a mile too. But, until he starts to take some risks and step out of his current zone, his poll numbers will decline further. If that’s the way his Presidency ends up, his legacy will no longer be in his own hands. It will be in the hands of historians.

Cross posted at Political Yen/Yang

Said LASunsett @ 7:24 pm Comments (4) | Permalink   

If there really is a war going on between the White House and the CIA (and even the Washington Post said exactly that) then the very first salvo of the conflict was fired on March 17, 2003 by one of the most unusual groups ever formed in the history of US intelligence.

Calling themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), 25 ex-CIA officers threw down the gauntlet by calling on active duty intelligence professionals to damage the Bush Administration (and by extension, the government of the United States) by leaking the “truth” about the Iraq War:

Invoking the name of a Pentagon whistle-blower, a small group of retired, anti-war CIA officers are accusing the Bush administration of manipulating evidence against Iraq in order to push war while burying evidence that could show Iraq’s compliance with U.N demands for disarmament.

The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the release of evidence to match its penchant for war.

[…]

The group said officials who act as would-be whistle-blowers can use the same method as those now handing out information — giving it over to members of Congress who can both protect them and show the entire picture.

“They have to basically put conscience before career,” said Patrick Eddington, a VIPS member and former CIA agent who resigned in 1996 to protest what he describes as the agency’s refusal to investigate some of the possible causes of Gulf War veterans’ medical problems.

The question that has always nagged at me is that given the flood of leaks from the intelligence community both in the lead up and the aftermath of the Iraq war, what role (if any) did VIPS members play in facilitating those leaks?

Several VIPS members, including Larry Johnson, Mel Goodman, and Ray McGovern have emerged this past weekend, being quoted extensively in stories about the McCarthy leak case. The fact that they are never, ever identified as belonging to this far left group (their email address is in care of Counterpunch, the notorious left wing rag published by Alexander Cockburn) is almost surreal. Johnson can be safely dismissed as a publicity hound. But McGovern and Goodman have made it abundantly clear that they have it in for the Bush Administration.

Are there any strong connections between VIPS members and reporters? Certainly they appear together at forums like this CIP conference where Dana Priest shared the stage with Mel Goodman. So Goodman is out front defending McCarthy who is accused of leaking to Priest. And there’s proof that Goodman and Priest have at least a passing acquaintance.

Could such an association - casual and innocuous - have any meaning beyond coincidence?

VIPS is a group that has urged their colleagues to leak. Why is it so hard to believe that they would help in accomplishing that fact by acting as a go-between with the press? As a source for a journalist with the reputation of a Dana Priest, a VIPS member would enjoy a certain protection in that Priest would probably go to jail before exposing a source. And as an extra added bonus, the leaker could truthfully say that they never leaked that information to the press.

I want to be as cautious as possible in drawing any kind of conclusions. But here’s New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in promoting the group as pretty much of a non-partisan outfit:

But Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spooks, issued an open letter to President Bush yesterday reflecting the view of many in the intel community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Mr. Cheney’s resignation.

Here’s what William Sjostrom writing in the Atlantic Monthly wrote about Kristoff’s lack of clarity:

Kristof cites mostly the alleged views of unnamed intelligence officials. So we just have his word for it. Among the only people cited by name are a newly formed outfit, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Kristof treats them as a disinterested group of non-partisan, non-ideological experts. These are not crazed anti-Bush fanatics, like Paul Krugman or ANSWER. Yeah, right.

And Sjostrom fills in some details about some of the ideology behind VIPS members:

VIPS does not seem to have a website, but its email is vips@counterpunch.org, and their open letter appears to have been published at CounterPunch (run by Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist), an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler. VIPS also published an open letter in opposition to the war at Common Dreams back in February. The spokesman for VIPS is Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA analyst. McGovern’s email is also at CounterPunch. He is giving a briefing today with Rep. Dennis Kucinich. McGovern has compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, even saying that it could lead to nuclear war. He has charged that if WMDs are found in Iraq, they may well have been planted. He believes Tenet’s job is safe because if Tenet were fired, he would reveal that the White House ignored intelligence warnings pre-9/11. McGovern has urged CIA analysts to illegally release classified documents to show what he believes to be true, specifically citing Daniel Ellsberg.

Another member of the VIPS steering committee is William Christison, who among other things believes that the Bush administration is attempting to colonize the Middle East, jointly with Israel. He believes that the war on terror is being used to turn the US into a military dictatorship. He is also a backer of the left-wing UrgentCall, along with people such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Julian Bond, and Jonathan Schell.

This “non-partisan” group also has several members involved with the National Security Whistelblowers, a group of professionals who have suffered persecution at various agencies, some of them for outing what they consider to be malfeasance by leaking to the press. Two names from that group - Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern - are of interest only because neither one of those worthy gentlemen blew the whistle on anybody or anything while they were on active duty. Only when President Bush came to power did they suddenly believe it necessary to support whistleblowers. A question that comes to my mind is what reason would those two gentlemen have in associating with leakers?

When Russ Tice, the self-proclaimed leaker of the NSA intercept program came in from the cold, none other than Ray McGovern was shepherding him around town from interview to interview. Tice may or may not be the ultimate source for the New York Times on the NSA intercept program but it is just a bit odd that he would attach himself to a man who urged people like him to leak secrets to the press.

I will repeat for those of you who may have missed this post: I am not a believer in conspiracy theories as a general rule and especially in this case where much more evidence is required to prove any collusion between VIPS and the media in leaking classified data. Having said that, some enterprising journalist may want to look into this web of innocuous but rather curious connections and see if there’s anything to the notion that members of VIPS may have acted as a conduit to the press in passing along classified information from active duty intelligence personnel.

Cross Posted at Right Wing Nuthouse

Said Rick Moran @ 6:57 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

I was going to post about Boston Globe’s Derrick Jackson and his wealth envy syndrome, but something suddenly came up…well not suddenly. Let’s just say I’ve had enough. When Arlen Specter – RINO, called for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies (http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20060424-122054-2765r.htm) , AND claimed “…a windfall-profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers hurting at the gas pump.” I snapped. That’s enough of Arlen Specter, he has to go, ASAP, and I blame GW for keeping him on the judiciary committee. He has been nothing but a backstabbing liberal. It’s time to VOTE HIM OUT!

Hey Arlen, in case you missed that day in class, America did implement a windfall profits tax and price controls on the oil companies in the ‘70’s – NEWSFLASH! – it didn’t work. Remember the long lines? Here is an analysis of what happened back then (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5352), and I suggest you click on the complete report and do a little research and investigation before you open that pie hole of yours and say something stupid…again! If you still don’t get it, here’s an article from The Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1168.html); it has a nice graph with pretty colors so even your liberal, pea-sized brain may be able to get it…maybe…probably not.

Exxon made its profits on a 9% margin (roughly); that’s not a huge profit margin, but then again, the $37 billion seems like a lot, enough to overshadow the facts. If you look at Exxon’s financials, you’ll see a they paid income taxes of $23.3 BILLION! Arlen, that means it goes to the government, you know the money you and your friends spend for bridges to nowhere, and toilet conventions? Yeah, that money. And that’s not all, If you look at page 38 (40 of 52), you’ll see Exxon spent $30.7 BILLION in Excise taxes AND $41.5 BILLION in Other Taxes and Duties. In fact, The Tax Foundation article (see link above) states that over the last 25 years, oil companies have paid more than $2.2 TRILLION (let me repeat that – it’s with a “T” not a “B”) $2.2 TRILLION in taxes adjusted for inflation, to federal and state governments. That is three (3) times the rate of profit. DID WE ALL GET THIS!? THE GOVERNMENT MAKES, ON AVERAGE, 3 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF PROFIT OF THE OIL COMPANIES!! Now we can start talking about who’s doing the price gouging!

So now we know the government makes 3 times the money the oil companies do on the sale of oil, AND any kind of windfall profits tax and price control will DEPRESS the domestic production and extraction industry, AND created more demand for FOREIGN OIL!

Now shut your pie hole and discover ways to DECREASE my taxes…and that goes for you too, Hastert!

Said cracker @ 4:52 pm Comments (2) | Permalink