Savage Republican

I’m stunned! For months we have heard about “detainee abuse” out of the Gitmo detention center. This week the NY Times breathlessly reported the newest abuse…force feeding detainees that are trying to starve themselves to death!

So let me see if I understand this…..we feed them gormet hilal food, they refuse to eat it or they purge themselves (bulimic) and when we try to make sure that they get enough food to stay alive we are the ones in the wrong?????

There is nothing that our troops can do to make the prisioners OR the NY Times happy so why do they even try? Do whatever it takes, within the letter of the law and nothing more. The prisioners at Gitmo want to kill Americans – something that our government can and should not let them do. Why should the same Americans that they want to kill make it easier for them to do so??????

Every time an evangelical church gets involved in “politics” the ACLU starts screaming about separation of church and state. Yet that does not stop Democrats from campaigning from the pulpit. This week, the Washington Times reports that the IRS finds this kind of activity “disturbing”. Oh NOW they say that….

“We want to stop improper activity during — not after — the election cycle,” said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. “Now is the time to act, before it is too late” to prevent churches and charities from becoming deeply embroiled in politics and the fundraising process.

The article goes on to talk about the over 100 complaints that were filed with the agency. Here is a hot tip for the IRS…don’t wait for complaints to be filed. When there is a news story about any candidate campaigning from the pulpit, consider that to be the complaint! We should not have to file a formal complaint for the IRS to do it’s job.

Here’s the deal…if the left does not want the “religious right” to campaign in their places of worship, they should not be inviting candidates to be campaigning from their pulpits. The law works both ways and we need to make sure that the law is enforced both ways!

This is one reason why we should resist universal health care. What is wrong with humanity when we will refuse to administer care to an ailing child. The death with dignity people will say that the child is terminal and her suffering should not be “prolonged”. But what about the patients in Canada who had to sue to get private health care or are routinely denied lifesaving services because of expense or made to wait to get care (as they are in the UK).

Even Canadians are recognizing that their once touted system has sometimes fatal flaws. Here in the US, as we creep closer and closer to a universal system, we are running into the same problem. Seniors are denied doctor prescribed therapy because they are only allotted a certain dollar amount a year for that therapy and they have already surpassed their amount! More and more hospitals are cutting services because the costs of providing those services are not picked up by HMO’s and Medicare.

We do have a health care crisis brewing in America and it is called universal health care. We do need to fix our current system, no doubt, but replacing it with a Canadian or UK style single payer system is not the fix that we need.

If you went by the headlines, you would think Iraq was a lost cause. The press breathlessly tells us how the “Violent Cycle of Revenge Stuns Iraqis” and “More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins “(NY Times), or “Reprisals kill scores in Baghdad” (WaTimes) or “A Nation Teeters on Brink of Civil War” (LA Times). They aren’t so quick to tell you about this or this or this.

I understand the old news adage “If it bleeds, it leads”, but really. Just once I would like to see some of the Good News out of Iraq lead. There is progress being made over in Iraq. The media needs to start writing about it.

If you want to know what is really going on in Iraq, you need to be a better consumer of the news. Do not rely on our friends in the MSM. Instead, rely on the word of people who are living through the good and the bad in Iraq. I recommend sites like Iraq the Model or any of the other Iraqi blogs listed on their blogroll.

Tracy started a very thoughful discussion on partial birth abortion Wednesday over at Anti-Strib. I bring this up because there were some comments made in the discussion that tie into what I am about to talk about.

MN Education Reform News Scholars Notebook tells us that the MN Legislature is considering the possibility of mandating mental health screening for all pre-school children. This would require that all children be screened at least once before the age of 3. BEFORE THE AGE OF 3 PEOPLE!!!!! The “logic” of this plan is to try to identify “at risk” behavior as early as possible and administer the appropriate medications to control said behavior. What kind of behavior you ask? From EdWatch MN:

“An eligible child is one who has “been removed from child care, Head Start, or preschool for behavioral reasons or is at risk of being so removed” or “been exposed to parental depression or other mental illness.”

So if your child gets suspended for misbehaving, “drug ’em”. Parents have depression “drug the kid”….the worst part is this is part of the No Child Left Behind Act!

Then we had two letters to the editor of the Fishwrap from Tuesday where the authors are advocating that government mandate pre-screening of all infants for genetic diseases. The “logic” for this intrusion??? It’s “for the children”….which leads me back to the abortion discussion. Along the course of discussion, one of the commenters mentioned that if there is testing that shows that the fetus has a “terminal illness” (the example was hydrocephalis) then maybe we should allow a 3rd trimester abortion. My problem with that is where do we stop? Do you test for Tay Sachs disease (a genetic disorder that effects people of Jewish lineage)? How about sickle cell disease? Or hemophelia or AIDS? If we test for these kinds of diseases, do we test for physical or mental handicaps? If we do that, do we choose to abort babies who have Down Syndrome? Where does it stop?

I got pregnant (late in life) with the Junior Logician. As part of my pre-natal care, I was given the option to test for Down Syndrome in utero. I chose not to in part because of the risks to my unborn child and partly due to the fact that I felt that if I did have a Down Syndrome child (which was a distinct possibility due to a number of reasons) I would handle it. I want to stress that this was an optional test!

What strikes me as odd about this is that the same people who are advocating the intrusion of government in this medical condition are the very same ones that demand that government stay out of it when they choose to kill their unborn child! Where is the logic in that?

Update: This via the Chicago Sun Times…..genetic manipulation to determine the gender of your baby. Again, just where does this end?

For years Republicans have been “scolded” for questioning the patriotism of the anti-war left. Can we finally question it? Why you ask? This story in the Prairie Pravda will tell you.

“The concert, dubbed “Bring ‘Em Home Now!” will be held at the Hammerstein Ballroom on March 20, the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Rufus Wainwright and Bright Eyes will also perform, organizers said Wednesday.”

Sigh…..when is it time for us to finally start questioning their patriotism?????

I got a strange phone call the other night. A recorded voice asked me if I approved of the President’s handling of something or another and to press 1 for yes and 2 for no. Out of curiosity I pressed 1 and then the recorded voice asked me if I approved of the government’s handling of a case that I have never heard of. I hung up on the call on principle. I refuse to participate in any unsolicited call that involves pre-recorded questions. If you really want to know what I think on an issue, have the decency to ask me in person!

In reading today’s Washington Post, I found out that I was on one end of a push poll call. I have always found push polls to be odious at best and downright deceptive at the worst and I refuse to take part in them.

Attention all you candidates and pollsters – ditch the push poll! Polling is a dubious science as it is and push polling is it’s seemy underbelly. We have all heard the horror stories out of the 2000 Republican primaries in South Carolina. You don’t want your campaign tainted by that…do you????

Late last night I was talking to one of my clients. He is in his late 70’s. He made a comment that what we needed were more programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration from the New Deal.He felt that with all welfare recipients working and getting a paycheck would be a real boon. I mentioned that the reason that the Great Depression came about was that the Federal reserve horrible monetary policy. And that a great many of the New Deal programs and more Fed Res policy made it incredibly difficult for employers to create jobs.I sent him to a great site on the Great Depression and how it all came about because of government meddling and was made worse because of government programs.
I then saw a link asking if we are going the way of Rome ? It started by telling a story about wild hogs and the seemingly impossible task of capturing them. It then told the history of Rome going from a republic to an empire to a welfare state to ruin and finally to eclipse.
And as I read the where Emperor Aurelian started to make government bread an inherited right (welfare rights in other words. Sound familiar? How do you feel that there are people who say that other people have a right to your money that preempts your right to your money? Just curious. And that the government does this by threatening you with confiscation or jail or both if you don’t fall in line.)
And as the story unfolded, I was reminded of the real story of the Pilgrims (which had not been known until the discovery of Gov. William Bradford’s lost diaries) and their one growing and harvest season experiment with socialism (that nearly killed them).
I was then reminded of de Tocqueville’s comments on this experiment he called Anglo-America. He traveled America in the early 1830’s and mused that this great experiment would last just up until the time that people realized that they could take what belonged to their neighbors by whom they voted into office.
Just look at the Katrina hurricane people (I refuse to call them victims as they chose to live in an area that was at or below sea level and prone to hurricanes). And how they demand your money to pay for their choices.
And GWB is giving them $200,000,000,000 of your money. And he’s considered uncompassionate because he’s not taking enough of your money, by force, to give to them. As the article states, the government can only give what it first takes.
Read the article, fellow Roman.

Last night I was listening to Frank Gaffney and John Podhoretz on Hugh Hewitt. The topic, as Frank is an expert on national security issues and John is a political columnist of the first rank , was the UAE port deal. And always remember, in politics, perception is reality. Gaffney and Podhoretz interviews are on Radio Blogger. Read them.
Right now I’m listening to Rush and he is vainly trying to support GWB in this.And he’s going into minutiae. And when you have to explain a position in this much detail you’ve already lost the argument. (This reminds me of the “Guest Worker Progam” where I got a number of emailed talking points from the National Republican Committee as to the GWP NOT being an amnesty. When the RNC thinks we need that many talking points, it’s an amnesty. Perception=reality).
Rush. Let it go. Now! You’re morphing from an apologist to a syncophant.
Podhoretz says that in this situation there is no Krauthammer strategy (Harriet Meirs, ex SCUS appointee, could just take her name out of consideration). Gaffney blends the security with the politics. And he also refers to the security issues with the spread of radical Islam into Africa and its financing centers in the Middle East.
And again, here is GWB talking veto, and even those who usually support him are saying that a veto WILL be overridden.
There is NO upside to this for GWB, it’s all a down side for him and he’s handing a very timely political story to the lefties who, as Podhoretz says , are naked on national security to this point and the President has given the Dems at least a loin cloth. And if that’s not bad enough, he’s got Jimmy Carter on his side! Now, that makes a point that will bring the real consevatives out in droves this fall! Hugh Hewitt was not aware that Jimmy was on board with GWB and he nearly swallowed his microphone when John McIntyre of Real Clear Politics laid that on him!
BTW, also read the Bill Frist and John McIntyre (Real Clear Politics )interviews on the Radio Blogger site, all on the UAE port deal.

I had not posted on this issue yet for a reason. Partly because I felt that I did not know enough about the subject to speak on the issue and partly because it has been covered so very thoroughly by Michelle Malkin. My initial gut reaction is that this was not a good thing. That reaction was cemented today when I heard this on my way into the office this morning.

President Bush is taking a battering from fellow Republicans, even the governors of New York and Maryland, over the administration’s support for a decision that gives an Arab company control of some commercial operations at six major seaports — including Miami-Dade’s.
But he got a boost Monday from an unlikely source, frequent critic and former president Jimmy Carter, who downplayed fears that the deal poses a risk.

Why am I suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to sing “Whatever it is, I’m against it”? For those of you who are much younger than the Lady Logician, that song is one of the classic Marx Brothers songs. Grouch Marx opens the movie “Horse Feathers” with it.

I don’t care what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is I’m against it!- Groucho Marx in “Horse Feathers”

If Jimmy Carter is for it….whatever it is, I’m against it!

I see where my friend Amendment X has chimed in on the issue as well. I share his disappointment with the President on this issue. He can’t be bothered to veto any out of control spending but he can be moved to veto this????? Unreal!