That isn't my assessment -- that is the assessment of the Washington Post. And while they insert a few weasel words to make it clear that they don't support the war or the policy, they do concede that those who claim violence and deaths are up are simply wrong.

The trend could change quickly and tragically, of course. Casualties have dropped in the past for a few weeks only to spike again. There are, however, plausible reasons for a decrease in violence. Sunni tribes in Anbar province that once fueled the insurgency have switched sides and declared war on al-Qaeda. The radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr ordered a cease-fire last month by his Mahdi Army. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top day-to-day commander in Iraq, says al-Qaeda's sanctuaries have been reduced 60 to 70 percent by the surge.

This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won. U.S. military commanders have said that no reduction in violence will be sustainable unless Iraqis reach political solutions -- and there has been little progress on that front. Nevertheless, it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong.

Actually, what it indicates is that there are concrete US successes in Iraq, and that we can win if we maintain the will.

The question is, does America have the will to win. And more to the point, do the Democrats have the will to win if they are victorious in the 2008 elections.

H/T Don Surber, Captain's Quarters

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I'm sorry, but if you want to hang out with convicted felons during your free time, you need to be in a business other than law enforcement.

An African-American Chicago Police officer contends that a rule barring cops from associating with criminals discriminates against black officers.

The officer argues the rule is more restrictive on black officers because of the disproportionate number of African Americans who have had contact with the criminal justice system.

Last month, a supervisor warned Officer Sylvia Broadway she might have violated department rules -- asking if she knew that a man driving her car was a convicted felon.

Broadway, a 13-year veteran in the Wentworth District, said she was unaware the man was a felon until she asked him later.

The department is enforcing a "policy that appears to have bias overtones against a specific racial group, namely African Americans," she said to the supervisor in a memo. "It is as though a deliberate trap has been set for African-American police officers."

Some 8.4 percent of all black males ages 25 to 29 were in the U.S. prison population, according to a 2004 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, compared with 2.5 percent of Hispanic males that age, and 1.2 percent of white males.

Actually, the policy is racially neutral and based upon conduct and status, not race.

And if you want to find a solution to this problem, it might consist in having African-American men stop committing felonies -- and for the African-American community to quit tolerating and excusing it.

Posted by: Greg at 04:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Frank Rich can be officially dismissed as a serious commentator on the war (not that he ever really credibility) after this column today.

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

Rich earlier notes that a term in an American document on interrogation techniques is the same as one used in a Nazi document on the same subject, thereby constituting proof that the Bush Administration is no different that the Nazi regime, and the US has become Nazi Germany.

This is the classic reductio ad Hitlerum intended to cut off all debate or discussion -- and as such, as per common application of Godwin's Law, Mr. Rich loses.

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Guys, Barack Obama is a Christian. I may have some serious problems with his theology -- after all, the UCC is such a mess theologically that it approaches apostasy on a regular basis -- but I have no reason to doubt his sincerity when he calls himself a Christian.

That is why this smear, which I condemned nearly a year ago, deserves repeated condemnation.

When Fox News aired a report in January claiming that Sen. Barack Obama had been educated at a radical Muslim madrassa, his campaign beat the story back — hard — with the candidate himself going on television to call it “ludicrous” and a “smear.”

And his aggressive defense worked, or so it seemed at the time: The notion that Obama has secret Muslim roots faded from the mainstream media, and even from most conservative blogs and magazines.

But rather than vanish, the whispered smear campaign appears to have gone underground, and in its purest form: Obama himself, according to a pair of widely circulated anonymous e-mails, is a Muslim.

“Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background,” warns an e-mail titled “Who Is Barack Obama,” that was circulating in South Carolina political circles this summer and sent to Politico by a South Carolina Democrat.

“The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?”

“Please forward to everyone you know,” it ended.

The other widely forwarded e-mail is titled “Can a good Muslim become a good American” and answers that question in the negative, before concluding: “And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our president!!!”

Why does the claim still have some credence? Because Obama himself indicates that he attended a Muslim school and studied the Quran as a child. This does not indicate that he was ever a practicing Muslim, but does show that there was at least a veneer of Islamic upbringing in his life. But how he was educated over 30 years ago does not indicate that he embraces Islam today -- and I accept him at his word that he does not.

Slightly more problematic is the perception of Barack Obama by Muslims abroad. As I pointed out earlier this year, there is reason to believe that some extremist elements might well view the son of a Muslim with a Muslim name and a Muslim education as a Muslim -- and, more importantly, as a Muslim apostate given his very public embrace of Christianity. I wish he would use that status to speak out forcefully for religious freedom in the Muslim world.

But regardless, none of the questions of religion and upbringing are a legitimate basis for opposing Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. There are much better reasons for doing so -- both the policies he proposes, and his lack of appropriate experience. I urge my fellow conservatives -- and any liberals involved as well -- to drop this line of attack.

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After all, the political class would rather that "We, the People" leave the policymaking to them.

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors chairman has used taxpayer money to mail postcards about a meeting on a resolution to crack down on illegal immigration, angering board colleagues and others.

The postcard, from Corey A. Stewart (R), calls on residents to voice their opinions on the controversial resolution before and during a meeting Tuesday. The board will vote on funding and "implementing its policy to crack down on illegal immigration and cut off taxpayer-funded services to illegal aliens," according to the postcard.

Yeah, heaven forbid that the citizens of Prince William County have a say -- either way -- on this issue.

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Just like in 1981, the Israelis have protected the Middle East from a rogue regime seeking a nuclear program.

IsraelÂ’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state. The Bush administration was divided at the time about the wisdom of IsraelÂ’s strike, American officials said, and some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature.

The attack on the reactor project has echoes of an Israeli raid more than a quarter century ago, in 1981, when Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq shortly before it was to have begun operating. That attack was officially condemned by the Reagan administration, though Israelis consider it among their militaryÂ’s finest moments. In the weeks before the Iraq war, Bush administration officials said they believed that the attack set back IraqÂ’s nuclear ambitions by many years.

By contrast, the facility that the Israelis struck in Syria appears to have been much further from completion, the American and foreign officials said. They said it would have been years before the Syrians could have used the reactor to produce the spent nuclear fuel that could, through a series of additional steps, be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium.

Israel had to act now. Waiting a year would have made the attack a political issue during the height of the presidential campaign in the US. Waiting longer than that could mean a Democrat administration headed by a woman who kissed on Yassir Arafat's wife and a House Speaker who embraced Syria's dictator in an unauthorized diplomatic mission earlier this year. Israel must act to protect Israel, and must do so in a manner that best assures the survival of the Jewish state.

Posted by: Greg at 03:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Liberty Papers, I read the following from Atlas Blogged.

Suppose the CIA wants to eavesdrop on Vladimir Putin. They donÂ’t need a warrant. They just listen in on his phone conversations and they are legally within bounds as far as US laws are concerned. Vladimir calls Kim Jong Ill, they listen in. Vladimir calls Osama bin Laden, they listen in. Everything is kosher so far. And then Vladimir calls me. The CIA does not have the legal authority to eavesdrop on my phone calls, but they do have the legal authority to eavesdrop on PutinÂ’s. Can they legally listen to that phone call Putin has with me? Keep in mind that domestic police can legally listen to RammageÂ’s call to me, despite having no legal authority to eavesdrop on my phone calls. The domestic police do not have to drop that call on account of my rights and run out and get another warrant, this one with my name on it, in order to listen in to the conversation with Rammage.

My argument on the matter is quite simple -- if the purpose is to listen to the party from abroad, then national intelligence agencies are well-within their bounds listening to calls made from abroad with parties in America. What's more, they are also well-within their bounds listening to calls from America to parties they are surveilling abroad. Only when the target of the surveillance is within America is a warrant needed -- and the warrants in such cases should be issued to the FBI, not the CIA or other intelligence agency.

Remember, the Constitution only applies in America, folks -- and not to our enemies abroad. Any incidental surveillance of calls to or from the US is permitted on the same basis that both sides of a call may be monitored under a search warrant.

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Either that, or Thomas Friedman comes from a different universe than the rest of us.

For Mr. Gore, it was winning the popular vote and having the election taken away from him by a Republican-dominated Supreme Court.

* * *

Mr. Gore lost the presidency, but in the dignity and grace with which he gave up his legal fight, he united America.

What a load of crap. Al Gore sent people out into every county in Florida, seeking to invalidate GOP votes (especially those of our troops) while getting invalid Democrat votes counted. When he still lost under the laws in place on election day, he repeatedly sought to have them overturned and a court (any court) declare him victor. After he lost, Gore and his minions sought to overturn the results of the election in the Electoral College and then in Congress. We have spent the last seven years with Gore's acolytes insisting that he won the election when the US Constitution says otherwise -- and his actions following the 2000 election fostered the division and political acrimony that have followed for the last 7 years.

So I'm sorry, but Thomas Friedman is clearly trying to pass off fantasy as reality -- or he comes from a bizarro universe where black is white and up is down. Or he needs psychiatric medication.

More At The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Matt Ortega

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The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Murtha: Underhanded and Overlawyered by Big Lizards, and Battleground Che by Publius Pundit.  Here are the full results of the vote:

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The awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor to a New Yorker didn't make the cut for the Paper of Wreckage.

The posthumous award of the nation's highest battlefield honor to a Long Island war hero has become an other black mark for the Gray Lady.

The New York Times carried not a whisper of news yesterday about the bestowal of the Medal of Honor to Navy Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue - the first time the honor has been given for action in Afghanistan.

How did other papers cover the story?

Every major daily paper in New York took note of President Bush's deci sion to bestow the first Medal of Honor of Operation Enduring Freedom on Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy - a Long Islander who gave his life for his country and his fellow SEALs.

Every paper but one, that is.

And it shouldn't be particularly hard to guess which one.

By now, most folks know exactly how much The New York Times despises the U.S. military.

Utterly shameful, that's the only way to describe this case of editorial malpractice.

Can we concede that Ann Coulter had it right about them?

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It should be obvious what is wrong with the headline and beginning of this story from the New York Times.

Ex-Aide to Giuliani Plans Fight to Avoid Charges

Lawyers for Rudolph W. GiulianiÂ’s disgraced former police commissioner in New York City said yesterday that they were preparing a last-ditch effort to avoid federal criminal charges, but, either way, Mr. Giuliani said he was not worried about how such a case might affect his presidential campaign.

“I am not concerned about it,” Mr. Giuliani said at a campaign appearance in Charleston, S.C., adding that he hoped voters would judge him on the many good personnel choices he had made. “When you have a long record like I do, your record is going to have successes and failures.”

The former commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik, is trying to avoid a criminal indictment on tax fraud charges and what people briefed on the case describe as a range of other possible crimes, including bribery.

Figured it out yet?

It should be obvious.

Go back and take a look again, and then look for the answer below the fold. more...

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In the CIA, the Inspector General is supposed to be an independent investigator. But what happens when there is reason to suspect that the IG is not being independent, but is instead operating with an agenda designed to direct policy in a certain direction? Who investigates?

That is the problem today.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agencyÂ’s inspector general, whose aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.Â’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives.

A small team working for General Hayden is looking into the conduct of the agencyÂ’s watchdog office, which is led by Inspector General John L. Helgerson. Current and former government officials said the review had caused anxiety and anger in Mr. HelgersonÂ’s office and aroused concern on Capitol Hill that it posed a conflict of interest.

The review is particularly focused on complaints that Mr. HelgersonÂ’s office has not acted as a fair and impartial judge of agency operations but instead has begun a crusade against those who have participated in controversial detention programs.

Any move by the agencyÂ’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say.

Now this is dangerous ground, I'll concede that. But if you have a supposedly neutral party that isn't neutral, isn't it reasonable that there be an investigation launched? Especially given the number of possible leaks and one-sided assessments that have come out of the IG's office.

Some don't see it that way.

Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees expressed concern today about an unusual inquiry into the work of the Central Intelligence AgencyÂ’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, saying that it could undermine his role as independent watchdog.

The inquiry was ordered by General Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director. Representative Silvestre Reyes, the Texas Democrat who is chairman of the House committee, called news of the inquiry “troubling,” noting that the inspector general’s independence is written into law.

“It is this independence that Congress established and will very aggressively preserve,” Mr. Reyes said in a statement.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said he was sending a letter to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, asking him to instruct General Hayden to drop the inquiry.

“I just don’t want to see I.G.’s intimidated,” said Mr. Wyden, using the abbreviation for inspector general. “People who know they’re doing the right thing are not afraid of oversight.”

Interestingly enough, Reyes and Wyden are both partisans that like the fact that the Inspector General's office has operated as it has, consistently taking positions supported by the Democrats rather than the administration. They certainly don't want that to stop -- even if it is the result of ideology, not impartial investigation. But it begs the question -- what should be done if the IG is not being impartial and independent?

Well, there are two routs.

Under federal procedures, agency heads who are unhappy with the conduct of their inspectors general have at least two places to file complaints. One is the Integrity Committee of the PresidentÂ’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which oversees all the inspectors general. The aggrieved agency head can also go directly to the White House.

If serious accusations against an inspector general are sustained by evidence, the president can dismiss him.

Both those routes avoid the awkward situation officials describe at the C.I.A. and preserve the independence of the inspector general.

Which, of course, would result in all sorts of political problems, given that the issue is whether or not the Inspector General's office is operating with a bias against the President's own policies. It would appear, even if it were not true, that there was an attempt to undermine the office's independence.

And besides -- where do you get the evidence that could sustain the accusations of wrongdoing unless you conduct an investigation.

Catch-22.

Posted by: Greg at 05:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When terrorists attack from among civilians and US troops respond, whose fault is it when civilians die?

The American military said on Friday that it was vigorously investigating a Thursday evening airstrike on a stronghold of insurgent leaders northwest of Baghdad that also killed nine children and six women. The civilian toll is one of the highest to result from a single American military action since the beginning of the Iraq war.

Rear Adm. Greg Smith, an American military spokesman here, said the killings were “absolutely regrettable,” but blamed the enemy fighters for engaging American forces while using civilians as a shield.

“We do not target civilians,” the admiral said in an interview on Friday. “But when our forces are fired upon, as they are routinely, then they have no option but to return fire.”

By any definition, the US policy is absolutely correct. To argue otherwise is to legitimize hostage-taking and the use of human shields.

The terrorists could end most civilian casualties in Iraq by not using human shields and not targeting civilians with bombs. They choose not to do so because it would result in their military defeat -- and would deny their supporter in America fodder for false claims of war crimes with which to fight the propaganda war.

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And Andrew Sullivan points out quite forthrightly that Stalinism remains alive and well on the Left today, in the demand that one sacrifice independent thought for ideological purity.

I can't say I read him very often but I came across this chilling post of his from last week. It's an attack on any independent thought outside of the situational demands of a political coalition. It is a full-throated and not-even-regretful support for the subjugation of free inquiry and free ideas to the demands of political organization. It makes Sidney Blumenthal seem intellectually honest. Money quote:

Roger Cohen may feel like he is a liberal hawk, and thus distinct. But what Roger Cohen feels does not matter, because Roger Cohen does not control any branch of the American military. Who he empowers, and which actors in American politics find their ideas legitimized by his columns, is all that matters. And in that, he is worse than a neoconservative. He's a liberal hawk who knows better, but whose interest in writing about his own virtue overwhelms his judgments concerning the actual actions of those who wield power. He is not a neoconservative. He is a narcissist.

Klein slips in a bogus word here: feels. Cohen doesn't feel he is a liberal hawk; he believes he is. He has arguments to make, arguments that can be agreed with or disagreed with, but that have merits of their own that should be addressed regardless of the arrangement of political power at the time. This isn't narcissism; it is the duty of any writer and thinker to state his own views as best he can without concern for how the world might greet them, who might use them unfairly, or who might expropriate them for insincere purposes. Without this independence, a writer is merely a hack. Or, worse for a writer, an activist.

Now I'll be honest -- I am not always a fan of Sullivan, and I view him as being completely wrong-headed on a number of issues, especially as regards his comments on people of faith daring to participate in the political process. But here he points to a really dangerous notion swirling on the Left -- that the needs and ideology of the Party must take precedence over the free and forthright expression of one's own views.

The Washington Post reported on such demands for ideological purity yesterday.

Sounds more like these folks have taken the CPUSA from the 1930s to the 1950s as their model. But then again, we should have known that from watching their treatment of Joe Lieberman last year.

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Posted by: Greg at 04:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm always struck by how the headlines of a story can misrepresent the story itself. Take the latest criticism of the Bush Administration by retired General Ricardo Sanchez.

NY Times: Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is ‘a Nightmare’

YahooNews: Ex-general: Iraq `nightmare' for US

YahooNews: Ex-general: 'No end in sight' in Iraq

And even the Washington Post highlights the most extreme phrases in its subtitle and its opening paragraph.

But interestingly enough, what you get when you read deeper is a different story, one in which Sanchez says the following:

"The American military finds itself in an intractable situation ... America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq."

Gee, I wonder why that little tidbit didn't make the headline -- and why the Washington Post, among others, left that assessment out of their coverage of the story. I guess it didn't fit the "retreat now" template.

When all is said and done, Sanchez reveals nothing new. Everyone recognizes that there were overly optimistic assessments made of what would happen in Iraq. But I find it difficult to take seriously the words of General Sanchez when he criticizes current strategy in Iraq, at least in part because we see it working and he has admitted that he was willing to be less than honest in his statements in the past.

Asked following his remarks why he waited nearly a year after his retirement to outline his views, he responded that that it was not the place of active duty officers to challenge lawful orders from civilian authorities. General Sanchez, who is said to be considering a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.

I'll set aside the issue of the book deal and note one key thing here -- if Sanchez really believed that the strategy and the orders were so fundamentally flawed, he had an obligation, both moral and legal, to tell that to his superiors. Furthermore, he had a moral obligation to step forward -- whatever the personal consequences -- to speak up at the time if he really found things that bad. Heroism is doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason, no matter the personal cost. It should be expected of our commanders no less than our troops in the field.

And remember -- this is the same Sanchez who said this in 2004:

"I really believe that the only way we are going to lose here, is if we walk away from it like we did in Vietnam."

He was right then, and this assessment is correct today -- and we should listen to those still in the field who continue to say this, from infantrymen to non-coms to junior officers to senior commanders.

H/T Don Surber

UPDATE: It is interesting what elements of the speech that these journalists chose not to report on.

Almost invariably, my perception is that the sensationalistic value of these assessments is what provided the edge that you seek for self agrandizement [sic] or to advance your individual quest for getting on the front page with your stories! As I understand it, your measure of worth is how many front page stories you have written and unfortunately some of you will compromise your integrity and display questionable ethics as you seek to keep America informed. This is much like the intelligence analysts whose effectiveness was measured by the number of intelligence reports he produced. For some, it seems that as long as you get a front page story there is little or no regard for the "collateral damage" you will cause. Personal reputations have no value and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct.

Given the near instantaneous ability to report actions on the ground, the responsibility to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance. The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry. An Arab proverb states - "four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, the neglected opportunity." Once reported, your assessments become conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change. Other major challenges are your willingness to be manipulated by "high level officials" who leak stories and by lawyers who use hyperbole to strengthen their arguments. Your unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda driven biases contribute to this corrosive environment.

All of these challenges combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to America. Over the course of this war tactically insignificant events have become strategic defeats for America because of the tremendous power and impact of the media and by extension you the journalist. In many cases the media has unjustly destroyed the individual reputations and careers of those involved. We realize that because of the near real time reporting environment that you face it is difficult to report accurately. In my business one of our fundamental truths is that "the first report is always wrong." Unfortunately, in your business "the first report" gives Americans who rely on the snippets of CNN, if you will, their "truths" and perspectives on an issue. As a corollary to this deadline driven need to publish "initial impressions or observations" versus objective facts there is an additional challenge for us who are the subject of your reporting. When you assume that you are correct and on the moral high ground on a story because we have not respond to questions you provided is the ultimate arrogance and distortion of ethics. One of your highly repected fellow journalists once told me that there are some amongst you who "feed from a pig's trough." if that is who I am dealing with then I will never respond otherwise we will both get dirty and the pig will love it. This does not mean that your story is accurate.

Seems like he had his audience pegged -- for the pigs at the trough picked out the elements of the speech they wanted to report upon, and left out the sharp criticism of the pathetic practices of journalists more interested in headlines and bylines than upon accuracy and truth. Seems to me that the coverage of this story reflects exactly what Sanchez is talking about -- the manner in which the media selectively covers the news to fit the desired spin, regardless of the consequences. Where is the story on this part of the speech?

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One of the problems with Ann Coulter is that when she is right she manages to offend folks. Take the most recent flap in which she said something correct in a way that sounds just awful.

Conservative author Ann Coulter finds herself in the middle of a firestorm once again after remarks on a CNBC television show in which she said Jews need "to be perfected" and suggested the nation would be better off if it were all-Christian.

Appearing on "The Big Idea" with host Donny Deutsch on Monday, she said Christians were tolerant of racial diversity but that it "would be a lot easier" for Jews if they were to become Christians.

Deutsch, who described himself as a practicing Jew on the show, was clearly dismayed by the remarks, which he called "hateful" and "antisemitic," according to a transcript published on the Web by Editor and Publisher.

Yep, that’s our Ann – managing to put her foot in her mouth even when she expresses a view that is well-within the realm of Christian orthodoxy.

The problem is, of course, that she said what she said in a way that does not communicate it well.

What she should have said is that we Christians believe that the coming of Christ as the Messiah perfected the Covenant of the Old Testament and transformed it into something new. That is, of course, the message of the New Testament, which emphasizes salvation by faith and not by a rigid adherence to the Law of the Old Testament. As such, Christianity can be legitimately said to be “perfected Judaism”.

However, Coulter is wrong in how she communicates one point. We as individual Christians are not perfected – indeed, as one pop theology cliché states, Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven. As a more abstract theological statement, coming from one of the great theologians of the Reformation, would have it that we are covered by Christ’s righteousness, but are not ourselves righteous due to our sinful human nature. That is why I consider Coulter’s way of phrasing her point to have been very sloppy, to the point of unintentional offensiveness – but it is not anti-Semitic.

This brings me to two other points that I view as quite important. The Christian Scriptures include Jesus’ call to “make of all disciples”. As such, it is our baptismal mission to preach to and convert others. It is our hope that every person will truly embrace Christ in faith – to come under the Covenant made perfect by the death and resurrection of God Made Flesh. And yes, that includes the Jews, who we were the first people to hear the Gospel message and many of whom, we are told in the Book of Revelation, will accept Christ as their Savior in the last days as they recognize that the words of the prophets are fulfilled in him. And those things, my friends, are essential elements of Christianity – not the “be nice to everyone, help others” notions of pop theology that I heard proclaimed as “Real Christianity” by some of the scripturally and theologically ignorant talking heads as I prepared for school today.

And IÂ’d like to close with the thoughts of commentator and blogger Debbie Schlussel, who is herself a proud observant Jew. She notes that she actually knows An Coulter, and based upon that knows that Coulter is not an anti-Semite. She also points out that the beliefs expressed by Ann Coulter should offend her fellow Jews no more than the beliefs of Jews should offend Coulter and others.

To wit: That we, as Jews, don't accept the full Christian Bible, and therefore, it's the Christian belief that we need to be fully accepting of it. She said "That is what we [Christians] believe we are--perfected Jews."

Why should that offend me? I've had brunch with Ann, and we've had many conversations through e-mail, etc. During all of that, she's never once told me she's offended that I believe that I am part of the Chosen People. To you far-left Jews and other uber-liberals who want to rush off and call Ann an anti-Semite, that means that we as Jews believe Christians and Hindus and Bahai Faithers (and definitely, Muslims) are not Chosen. Does that make me a religious bigot? Nope. It just means I actually believe in my religion. Just like Ann does. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Would that such common sense will prevail here – though given that Coulter (of whom I am not a great fan, by the way) has been the subject of an unrelenting witch hunt by liberals intent upon ridding the media of the popular columnist and commentator, I doubt that it will do so among those most intent upon stirring up another faux scandal involving a conservative pundit.

UPDATE: Jewish group says Christians can't claim their faith is correct without being anti-Semitic. Sounds mighty intolerant, anti-Christian, and bigoted to me. After all, they are daring to say that Christians are wrong in what they believe and need to believe something else to be correct -- just what they are condemning Ann Coulter for doing.

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The New York Post puts it so much better than I could.

October 12, 2007 -- President Bush announced yesterday that the nation's highest military distinction will be awarded - posthumously - to a Long Islander of incredible valor.

Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Patchogue native and Navy SEAL, was deep in enemy territory in Afghanistan two years ago when Taliban gunmen ambushed his unit. Forsaking cover, he was shot as he scrambled into the open to send a distress signal back to the base.

He succeeded - but was killed in the ensuing gunfight.

Lt. Murphy will be the first to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism in Operation Enduring Freedom. The president will present it to his parents at the White House on Oct. 22.

Make no mistake: Americans owe their freedom to all the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. But the courage and instant self-sacrifice that sustains their effort can be seen most clearly in heroes like Lt. Murphy.

His father told a reporter that he considers the medal "a public recognition of what we knew about Michael - of his intensity, his focus, his devout loyalty to home and family, his country and especially his SEAL teammates and the SEAL community."

No one could be more deserving of the honor.

All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Murphy - and New Yorkers can take special pride in the memory of a local hero.

Murphy, 29, was leading a four-man observation team in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains when they were spotted by Taliban fighters on June 28, 2005. During the intense battle, Murphy and two of his men — Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class (SEAL) Danny Dietz and Sonar Technician 2nd Class (SEAL) Matthew Axelson — were killed, and a fourth man, former Special Warfare Operator 1st Class (SEAL) Marcus Luttrell, was seriously wounded but managed to escape. Luttrell was rescued days later.

Murphy, known as “Mikey” to his friends and family, shot and wounded, managed to crawl onto a ridgeline and radio headquarters at the nearby air base for them to send in reinforcements. Taliban fighters were closing in on the team’s position, shooting their weapons and firing rocket-propelled grenades.

“Mikey was ignoring his wound and fighting like a SEAL officer should, uncompromising, steady, hard-eyed, and professional,” Luttrell wrote in his recently published book, Lone Survivor, about his military experiences, his team and the events of that day and the deaths of his teammates, his friends.

What more can I add besides tears – tears of sadness, of admiration, and of pride that our nation produced a man who would “lay down his life for a friend”.

H/t Don Surber, Michelle Malkin

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I just knew that the administration at GWU wasnÂ’t going to apply the same rules to the leftists who put up a poster containing hate speech against both Muslims and conservatives as they would have if the conservatives had been responsible for the hate speech against Muslims.

George Washington University President Steven Knapp has no plans to take disciplinary action against a group of students involved in an anti-Muslim flier hoax, a university spokeswoman said yesterday.

"We have established judicial policies and procedures," university spokeswoman Tracy Schario said. "I am confident that President Knapp will let them take their course."

However, Mr. Knapp "reserves the right to intervene" in the university's student-judicial process, she said.

Graduate student Adam Kokesh and senior Brian Tierney with five other students took responsibility Tuesday for the fliers, which contained the phrase "Hate Muslims? So Do We!" The students said the posters were "creative political action" to draw attention to the upcoming Islamo-Facism Awareness Week starting Oct. 22.

Jason Mattera, spokesman for the national conservative group Young America's Foundation said Mr. Knapp's inaction shows political bias and is unfair to the campus chapter of the group, whose name was inserted the fliers.

"He's going to expose himself as a liar," Mr. Mattera said. "When it first emerged, he said we're not going to tolerate it. Now that it turns out it's liberals he's going to show where his political views lie."

When President Knapp thought that the conservatives had made and posted these fliers, it was stated that such speech would not be tolerated and the perpetrators would be expelled. Now that a group of liberals have confessed their guilt in this case, he has backed off that statement and will let them off with a slap on the wrist.

WhereÂ’s Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to protest this injustice? Too busy protecting the Jena thugs, no doubt.

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Because after all, George Washington was known for intentionally targeting children with explosives hidden among toys.\

A bomb hidden in a cart of toys killed two children and wounded 17 others in a playground in northern Iraq on Friday, the first day of a national holiday to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The attack came the day after U.S. forces killed nine children and six women in an air strike northwest of Baghdad targeting suspected al Qaeda leaders. The U.N. mission in Iraq urged U.S. forces to conduct a "vigorous" probe into the strike.

Police Colonel Abbas Mohammed said a would-be suicide bomber pushed the cart into a play area in the predominantly Shi'ite northern town of Tuz Khurmato. He said the bomber was wounded.

The town's mayor, Mohammed Rasheed, told Reuters two boys aged between 10 and 12 had died and another 17 people under the age of 18 had been wounded in the deadly attack.

Utterly despicable – and sadly typical of the civilized world fights.

I love the little moral equivalency dig in this piece, though. After all, the air strike was targeted at terrorists, with unfortunate civilian casualties. On the other hand, this attack was intentionally directed against the children of Baghdad. Anyone with a moral compass would recognize that the two incidents are not even remotely comparable – which may explain why the al-Reuters report includes such a comparison

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This is cool stuff – stashed away for seven centuries, we can now get access to the evidence that was used to destroy that famous order of Crusader Knights, the Knights Templar.

The Vatican has published secret archive documents about the trial of the Knights Templar, including a long-lost parchment that shows that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval Christian order from accusations of heresy, officials said Friday.

The 300-page volume recently came out in a limited edition -- 799 copies -- each priced at $8,377, said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives.

* * *

The work reproduces the entire documentation on the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 under charges of heresy and immorality.

The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land following the First Crusade.

As their military might increased, the Templars also grew in wealth, acquiring property throughout Europe and running a primitive banking system. After the Templars left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers and sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.

Historians believe that Philip owed debts to the Templars and seized on the accusations to arrest their leaders and extort confessions of heresy under torture as a way to seize the order's riches.

Of particular interest is the fact that Pope Clement was prepared to absolve the Templars of the heresy charge, only to relent later and suppress the order at the insistence of Phillip. Given that this is an area of history that IÂ’m not familiar with, IÂ’d love to know more.

However, I won’t be buying this book – at over $8000, it is well beyond my reach.

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For promoting false, pseudo-scientific theories that can be disproven by a careful analysis of the historical data.

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

''I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,'' Gore said. ''We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.''

Gore's film ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' a documentary on global warming, won an Academy Award this year and he had been widely expected to win the prize.

That would be the same film that was just ruled to be so highly inaccurate that it must be labeled with disclaimers before it can be shown in British schools.

Given that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to terrorists and liars in the past, I guess I should not be surprised or alarmed that it goes to a hypocritical fraud this year. The award has long since lost the credibility it has when it was given to truly heroic figures like Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa.

To paraphrase another former Democrat Vice President, today's announcement proves that the Nobel Peace Prize isn't worth a bucket of warm piss.

More at Malkin

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Anti-Semitic graffiti found at Columbia.

An anti-semitic message that included a swastika was found etched into the wall of a bathroom at Columbia University on Thursday, just two days after a noose was discovered hanging from the door of a professor at Teachers College.

In a message to the Columbia community, President Lee Bollinger said he was saddend by the second incident of hate in a week.

"One of the bathrooms in Lewisohn Hall -was sullied with an anti-Semitic smear," said Bollinger's note. "It has been promptly removed and is now being investigated."

I'd suggest that the invitation to the Iranian president to speak at Columbia created a hostile environment that encouraged anti-Semitism, but it is well-documented that such an environment has existed and been encouraged by faculty members there for years.

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Imagine that -- an unprovoked, race-based violent assault upon an innocent kid violates the terms of Mychal Bell's probation!

What was that? What probation?

This probation.

A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy was back in jail Thursday after a judge decided the fight that put him in the national spotlight violated terms of his probation for a previous conviction, his attorney said.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell's attorneys.

Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

He had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker. Details on the previous charges, which were handled in juvenile court, were unclear.

"He's locked up again," Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. "No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."

You see, Bell is not some innocent kid caught up in a racist system out to get him because of the color of his skin. He is a violent thug, whose adult charges that were a cause celebre were clearly warranted.

Race-baiter Al Sharpton, however, disagrees.

Sharpton reacted swiftly upon learning Bell was back in jail Thursday.

"We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement," said Sharpton, who was instrumental in organizing the protest held Sept. 20, the day Bell was originally supposed to be sentenced in the case.

I call bullshit. Al Sharpton, you would be outraged if Bell were white and his victims black. Why can't you apply the same standard here and be outraged because a black thug was allowed to get away with a violent, racist assault -- and is being forced to live up to the terms of his probation by going to jail. Heck, I don't remember any outrage when one of the Duke players had his probation revoked and was jailed because the false charges (which you supported on the word of a lying whore ) brought by a corrupt prosecutor. Indeed, I don't recall you apologizing for your defamation of those young men. Your hypocrisy is showing, sir, and your credibility in this case is shot as a result.

And I predict that we will see Mychal bell in and out of jail for the next several years, constantly playing the race card -- until he kills someone and is executed for that crime.

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I won't comment on the story, which is all about liberals eating their own young. But I just love this opening paragraph!

Of the three most recognizable Barneys in America, one is a singing purple dinosaur, another is a prehistoric cartoon character and the third is a gay congressman from Massachusetts.

This is supposed to be serious reporting?

And as my wife asked, "What happened to Barney Fife?"

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Don't you hate it when the truth gets in the way of the media spin?

Foreclosure filings across the U.S. nearly doubled last month compared with September 2006, as financially strapped homeowners already behind on mortgage payments defaulted on their loans or came closer to losing their homes to foreclosure, a real estate information company said Thursday.

A total of 223,538 foreclosure filings were reported in September, up from 112,210 in the same month a year ago, according to Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc.

The number of filings in September was down 8 percent from August's 243,947, the firm said.

Despite the sequential decline, the September figure represents the second-highest total for filings in a single month since the company began tracking monthly filings two years ago.

"August was an extraordinarily high month for foreclosure activity, so some falloff was almost predictable," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's vice president for marketing.

But the home mortgage crisis appears to be over, based upon all reports, and the decline in foreclosure activity is indicative of this. But since the template insists that the crisis still continues, that is how the wire services are going to report it -- by trying to discredit any signs of progress and recovery in the mortgage field.

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And so are turning against al-Sadr's Mahdi Army --to the benefit of American troops and the new Iraqi Army.

In a number of Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad, residents are beginning to turn away from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia they once saw as their only protector against Sunni militants. Now they resent it as a band of street thugs without ideology.

The hardening Shiite feeling in Baghdad opens an opportunity for the American military, which has long struggled against the Mahdi Army, as American commanders rely increasingly on tribes and local leaders in their prosecution of the war.

The sectarian landscape has shifted, with Sunni extremists largely defeated in many Shiite neighborhoods, and the war in those places has sunk into a criminality that is often blind to sect.

In interviews, 10 Shiites from four neighborhoods in eastern and western Baghdad described a pattern in which militia members, looking for new sources of income, turned on Shiites.

But don't say that the Surge is working -- it might upset the liberals, who are in denial about that every bit as much as the Turks are about the Armenian genocide.

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To this day, Turkey denies the Armenian genocide.

Not only that, it punishes its citizens who speak of the Armenian genocide.

And it also rails against those outside its borders who dare to speak the truth about the Armenian genocide.

Turkey reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in Washington to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey that began during World War I, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war.

In uncharacteristically strong language, President Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency, and warned that the decision could work against the United States.

“Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games,” President Gul said.

Sorry, but the shameful thing here is that it has taken over two decades for even one committee in Congress to say what Ronald Reagan did some twenty years ago -- that the Armenians were systematically murdered by the Turks, including the beloved hero and founder of secular Turkey, Kemal Ataturk. No president since that time has had the intellectual honesty and moral courage to stand up and repeat the truth uttered by the greatest president of the twentieth century -- and his successors have actively discouraged officially acknowledging that truth.

Does this vote come at a bad time, in terms of our military and diplomatic relations with Turkey, a valued ally in NATO, which has provided, albeit inconsistently, assistance in the War on Terror? Yes, it does -- because for the Turks, any time that anyone attempts to set the historical record straight is a bad time. The current threats and rumblings are therefore irrelevant.

But those who support the resolution can count their blessings on one score -- no longer are those who publicly proclaim th truth about the Armenian genocide subject to death threats and untimely deaths at the hands of Turkish nationalists and intelligence agencies.

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At least if they insist that the “survival of the world” is at stake.

The "survival of the world" is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today.

In an unprecedented open letter signed by 138 leading scholars from every sect of Islam, the Muslims plead with Christian leaders "to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions" and spell out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the Koran.

The scholars state: "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."

Excuse me, but the last time I checked it was Muslims who have been attacking Christians since the time of Muhammad, waging war on us on account of our religion, oppressing us, and driving us out of our homes. Remember – much of the Middle East and all of North Africa was Christian in the year 600 AD – but by 700 AD it was Muslim.

Only the heroic stand of Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732 stopped the advance of the Islamic horde into Western Europe – and it took another seven-and-a-half centuries to reclaim Christian Spain from the clutches of the Moors.

Constantinople, the Christian city of the first Christian emperor, is today in a Muslim land and its cathedral, Hagia Sophia, has never been returned to the hands of the Christian faithful from whom it was stolen by the Turks in 1453.

As late as the 1600s, Muslim troops stood at the gates of European cities, threatening to impose their rule and their faith upon the Christian inhabitants thereof.

Today, Christians in the Muslim world – where they are not forbidden entirely – live an existence as a persecuted minority with second-class citizenship. Just this week, one such Christian was murdered for the crime of selling Christian books in Gaza, and he is only one of the hundreds who will be martyred at the hands of Muslim fanatics this year.

Peace with Islam? I’d love to see it. But the problem here is not the Christians – it is the followers of Islam, and the cancerous forces of violence that are drawn from the Quran itself, that are the problem. Until the Muslim faith gets its own house in order, peace is impossible.

I, for one, applaud the stand taken by this courageous British churchman who knows quite well the true nature of Islam and the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The first reaction to the letter, from the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, a leading Anglican expert on Islam, appeared to be critical.

Dr Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, welcomed the Muslim scholars' deisire for a dialogue, but said that the appeal was based on the Muslim belief in the oneness of God.

"What I would say to that is that Christians uphold belief in one God vigorously but our understanding of the oneness of God is not the Muslim understanding," he told The Times. "We believe in God as source from whom everything is brought into being. Jesus is God's word and presence for us but is also human."

He added: "One partner cannot dictate the terms on which dialogue must be conducted. This document seems to be on the verge of doing that."

Peace between us? Yes. But it must be a true peace, not a Munich-style “peace in our times” with an aggressive enemy that seeks out ultimate destruction.

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You know, after making it clear that hate speech would not be tolerated and would be dealt with harshly when they thought it came from conservatives, will they impose the same penalty upon the actual perps?

A national conservative group yesterday called on George Washington University to expel students who admitted that they targeted the group in a hoax that covered the campus with hundreds of anti-Muslim posters.

"Vicious personal attacks levied on students are intolerable and should not go unpunished," Ron Robinson, president of the Young America"s Foundation, told university President Steven Knapp.

In a letter obtained by The Washington Times, Mr. Robinson cited a statement by Student Association Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger, who said he "would support expulsion" of students responsible for distributing the "heinous" posters.

After the browbeating of the Young America’s Foundation chapter leaders and demanding that they voluntarily limit their own speech activities in light of the posters “as a sign of good faith”, the GWU officials need to make sure that little clique of left-wing and Islamist students seeking to censor the conservative organization receives precisely the punishment that the administration had in mind for the victims of this attack. After all, this was hate speech against both Muslims and conservatives – and unless GWU wishes to be shown to be an intellectually and morally vacant cesspool of liberalism, they need to stand by their publicly declared standards.

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CanÂ’t the dead be allowed to rest in peace? Or does latter-day dhimmitude mean that long dead Christians must make way for freshly dead Muslims?

A row has erupted over a plan to dig up a third of a million bodies from an historic east London cemetery to make way for a new Muslim burial site.
Tower Hamlets council in London is considering reopening the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in Mile End to answer a long-running campaign for a Muslim graveyard in the area.

The park, off Bow Common Lane, was deconsecrated as a Church of England cemetery by Parliament in 1966, after being deemed full with about 350,000 bodies buried there.

Yeah – the creation of Eurabia continues, as the heritage of Christian Europe is again disrespected and destroyed. That this is even being considered is shameful

But don’t worry – soon the Parliament will act to stop. . . the criticism of the destruction of part of the heritage of Great Britain by declaring it hate speech and punishing folks critical of the rape of the dead to provide special privileges for Muslims.

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The genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks in the early 20th century is clearly documented historical fact -- and was even cited by Hitler as evidence that the world would stand by and allow him to destroy the Jews.

Bravo to one committee of House of Representatives for daring to speak the truth on this matter in the face of White House pressure to respect the sensitivities of the nation that perpetrated that crime against humanity.

The Bush administration will try to soothe Turkish anger after a House panelÂ’s approval of a measure describing as genocide the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee defied warnings by President Bush with 27-21 approval Wednesday to send the measure to the full House for a vote. The administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders not to schedule a vote, though it is expected to pass.

Hours before the vote, Bush and his top two Cabinet members and other senior officials made last-minute appeals to lawmakers to reject the measure.

“Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,” Bush said.

I urge the House leadership to schedule a vote quickly -- and the Senate to take up the matter promptly. We must bear witness to the truth.

And to President Bush, let me say that your actions in this instance shame our country. What next -- a call to tear down the Holocaust Museum to spare the feelings of the Germans?

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Stop the presses -- the media has uncovered evidence that former Senator Fred Thompson, a regular on the television series Law & Order, WAS PAID FOR HIS ACTING WORK!

Fred ThompsonÂ’s radio, television and movie career gave him a high profile that has helped his fledgling presidential campaign.

It also made him rich — and that could provide fodder for opponents who have worked to cast the Republican as more style than substance.

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator who is perhaps best known for his role in NBC crime drama “Law & Order,” earned as much as $12.1 million since Jan. 1, 2006, from his various entertainment-related gigs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Federal Election Commission.

The report, which is mandatory for presidential candidates, lists only wide value ranges for income, assets and debts.

But it shows entertainment likely accounted for significantly more than half — and possibly as much as 75 percent — of Thompson’s income of as much as $16.5 million between Jan. 1, 2006, and last month, according to a Politico analysis.

Equally relevant is this National Enquirer report of an affair between John Edwards and a campaign staffer.

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Because the Syrian government says it didn't.

Foreign journalists perused the rows of corn and the groves of date palms pregnant with low-hanging fruit here this week, while agents of SyriaÂ’s ever present security services stood in the background, watching closely, almost nervously.

“You see — around us are farmers, corn, produce, nothing else,” said Ahmed Mehdi, the Deir ez Zor director of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands, a government agricultural research center, as he led two of the journalists around the facilities.

It was here at this research center in this sleepy Bedouin city in eastern Syria that an Israeli journalist reported that Israel had conducted an air raid in early September.

Ron Ben-Yishai, a writer for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, grabbed headlines when he suggested that the government facility here was attacked during the raid, snapping photos of himself for his article in front of a sign for the agricultural center.

He said he was denied access to the research center, which sits on the outskirts of the city, and he did not show any photos of the aftermath of the raid, though he said he saw some pits that looked like part of a mine or quarry, implying that they could also be sites where bombs fell.

Interesting analysis in the comments at Washington Monthly

And in related news, the Syrian government spokesman also denied that Senator Larry Craig was cruising for gay sex in a Minneapolis Airport restroom, and that Bill Clinton had sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski.

Posted by: Greg at 11:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You are required to have a valid Social Security number that matches with your name in order to work. My wife found that out not long after we married, when her new employer found that the name on her card and the name on her employment records did not match. She was duly sent to the local Social Security office to do the paperwork to correct the situation.

The necessary time to correct the problem? One hour -- after which she left the office with paperwork indicating the problem was fixed. She received a new card within weeks, reflecting the change.

Similarly, the IRS began requiring matches of names and numbers during the Clinton administration.

So why is a federal judge saying that enforcement of the law is burdensome on workers and employers, who have three months to correct the problem -- and therefore allowing millions to work illegally?

A federal judge barred the Bush administration yesterday from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially "staggering" impact on law-abiding workers and companies.

In a firm rebuke of the White House, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against the president's plan to press employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, starting this fall.

* * *

In a 22-page ruling, Breyer said the plaintiffs -- an unusual coalition that included the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- had raised serious questions about the legality of the administration's plan to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers.

"There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."

The government letters are intended to warn employers for the first time that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they do not, employers could face "stiff penalties," including fines and even criminal prosecution, for violating a federal law that bars knowingly employing illegal workers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said when he announced the plan Aug. 10.

The plaintiffs convinced the judge that the Social Security Administration database includes so many errors -- incorporated in the records of about 9.5 million people in 2003 alone -- that its use in firings would unfairly discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers, including native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens, and cause major workforce disruptions that would burden companies.

"The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than eight million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers," the judge wrote. "Moreover the threat of criminal prosecution . . . reflects a major change in DHS policy."

The reality is that most of those errors are easily resolved, such as the one in my wife's records. All it takes is a little bit of time and good-faith effort to comply.

In the mean time, we have a federal judge ignoring the laws of the country to protect the lawless.

I agree with Congressman Brian Bilbray on this issue.

"What part of 'illegal' does Judge Breyer not understand?" he said. "At a time when the federal government is finally trying to enforce current immigration law, we cannot have activist judges stand in the way of doing what is right."

Right now, employers know about these problems. Letters informing them have been sent out since the Clinton Administration. They have, however, been ignored by employers and workers because there is no enforcement behind them. Now that there is an attempt to enforce the law, those who have ignored a dozen years of warnings are shouting "No Fair!"

I'm curious -- what time frame would be acceptable to those who challenged the new policy? 120 days? 180 days? One year? We know the answer -- no enforcement of our nation's immigration laws would ever be acceptable to the plaintiffs and the lawless judge who ruled for them.

I'd like to urge Congressman Bilbray to handle this matter via a two-track strategy -- first, with a legislative fix making this process statutorily mandated; and second, bey introducing a resolution for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer.

H/T Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin. STACLU, Bookworm Room

Posted by: Greg at 11:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you are under investigation by either a prosecutor or Congress, you are an idiot if you don't retain competent counsel to represent your interests, even if you are an attorney. After all, what is the saying about a laywer who represents himself.

No sooner did Alberto Gonzales resign as attorney general last month than he retained a high-powered Washington criminal-defense lawyer to represent him in continuing inquiries by Congress and the Justice Department.

Now that strikes me as a prudent move -- and one certainly contemplated by our Constitution, which enshrines the right to an attorney in the Bill of Rights. Why, then, does the subtitle of the article, which says Gonzales wants to "beat the rap", make it sound like the exercise of that right is somehow suspicious, or an admission of guilt?

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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IÂ’m shocked that more has not been made of this disgusting comment by Bill Maher.

He does not look well. His slogan should be 'tanned, rested and in remission.' And I'm not making fun of his health problems.

Notice the lie at the end of his statement. Yes, Mr. Maher, you are making fun of his cancer.

I’m curious – when will you make Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer a subject of your humor?

Posted by: Greg at 07:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don’t know about you, but I find this shirt sort of funny – in a sick sort of way, of course.

What I don't find at all amusing is the over-reaction of the universities involved, and the chilling of speech protected by the First Amendment.

Texas Tech has banned the sale of a T-shirt bearing the likeness of Michael Vick hanging the dog mascot of rival Texas A&M.

The red and black shirts, with text that says "VICK 'EM" on the front — in an apparent reference to the Aggies' slogan "Gig 'em" — was created by a Tech student who was trying to sell them before Saturday's game in Lubbock.

The back of the shirt shows a football player wearing the No. 7 Vick jersey holding a rope with an image of the mascot Reveille at the end of a noose. Vick, who faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal dogfighting charge, is suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

Tech officials announced the fraternity that sold the shirts was suspended temporarily and will face judicial review for allegedly violating the solicitation section of the students' code of conduct. The school said it wouldn't allow the sale on campus of items that are "derogatory, inflammatory, insensitive, or in such bad taste."

No more shirts are being produced, the school said in a release.

A&M officials, in a statement, thanked Tech administrators for "their response and action regarding this matter."

Now I realize that the Aggies take Miss Reveille very seriously. She goes to class with a cadet handler, and if the dog barks during class the professor is required to dismiss the students. They bury her predecessors in sight of the field, so they can still watch the games. But doesnÂ’t being so offended by a t-shirt go a bit too far?

And for the school to suspend a frat and hold hearings about a shirt that is a tastelessly satirical parody is a bit of a stretch. After all, the First Amendment does protect such speech – and as a state school, Texas Tech would appear to lack the authority to take any action against this constitutionally protected activity.

If anyone knows where I can get a couple in 3X, let me know.

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Posted by: Greg at 01:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I guess that the Mexican flag gets more protection than the American flag some places here in the formerly United States.

It caused some controversy, but it was supposed to. Now, one man is headed to municipal court for burning a Mexican flag in protest in front of the Alamo.

The city is charging 46-year old David Bohmfalk with burning without a permit, even though no one gives permits to burn a flag.

"I was raised to respect my country," Bohmfalk said.

All the rallies and talk of amnesty for undocumented immigrants in May 2006 lit the fires of patriotism for Bohmfalk, he said.

"I just got angry," he said. "I decided I had to do something, make my statement, and that's what I did."

Of course, since flag burning is protected speech, it seems difficult to call what Bohmfalk did a crime. Not, of course, that the San Antonio cops were arresting people for actual crimes that day. Besides letting illegal aliens walk free, they also ignored crimes against the person of Mr. Bohmfalk committed in their presence.

Bohmfalk says while he was detained by police, he was harassed, his life was threatened, and he was even assaulted by some tourists who spit on him. Ironically, all these offenses are punishable by law.

So much for equal protection of the law, hat he harassed any of the demonstrators, threatened them with death, and spit upon them, he would no doubt have been hauled away in cuffs and charged with hate crimes. I guess it wouldnÂ’t do to offend the immigration criminals and their supporters, though, so no arrests were made in the case of the crimes cited above.

Besides, it seems to me that burning a Mexican flag in front of the Alamo seems particularly appropriate. After all, the Mexicans burned the bodies of the Alamo martyrs.

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Posted by: Greg at 12:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Glad to see that the government is doing something to get these criminals out of circulation -- and out of our country.

About 1,300 violent gang members who are in this country illegally were arrested in a three-month summer crackdown, federal officials announced Tuesday.

“We’ve arrested quite a number of very serious criminals — individuals who frankly have worn out their welcome by coming into this country illegally and committing more crimes when they got here,” said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for immigration and customs enforcement.

Of the 1,313 individuals arrested this summer, 939 will be charged with immigration violations, and 374 were detained for criminal prosecution in federal, state or local courts. The operation also led to the arrests of 261 people who officials say were not affiliated with gangs but were in the country illegally.

“If we can’t prosecute them criminally, or they are here in the country illegally, we will have them deported,” Ms. Myers said.

Sadly, this group constitutes less than 1/10000 of the illegals currently in this country -- but they are among the worst of the worst. As a matter of public safety and national security, we need to pick up the pace of arrests and deportations of the violent criminals and drug dealers who have jumped the border with impunity before we even begin to talk about the status of the otherwise law-abiding individuals who break America's laws daily by remaining in this country illegally.

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Posted by: Greg at 11:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There are times when the security of the nation trumps the right to take the government to court. That is a long-standing legal doctrine -- one which, interestingly enough, the liberals would love to see overturned by the Supreme COourt despite their new-found love of stare decisis and insistence that the Roberts court leave in place the precedents that came before.

Thus they are displeased at the decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a case of a foreign national allegedly taken into custody by American intelligence officials in another country and taken to a third country for interrogation without ever setting foot in America.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for four months in a case of mistaken identity.

The administration has not publicly acknowledged that el-Masri was detained, and lower courts dismissed his suit after the administration asserted that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit were not blocked. The justices rejected his appeal without comment.

As I mentioned, liberals are apoplectic over the decision to respect precedent, though at least one lefty commentator is glad that the Supreme Court didn't take the case.

The only silver lining to this, I suppose, is that given the current composition of the Supreme Court it might be all for the best to keep it out of their hands. For all we know, they could have ended up expanding the government's power just as easily as they could have decided to limit it. For now, maybe we're better off with the status quo.

Oh, one minor detail -- the state secrets privilege grows out of a case decided by a Supreme Court composed entirely of FDR and Truman appointees. One would have thought that the Democrats would like that pedigree. But I guess not, at least not while George W. Bush is able to use it.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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