Savage Republican

Many opined (in the days following the Abramoff plea agreement) that we were going to see affirmation of the “culture of corruption” charges that the Democratic leadership has leveled at the Republican Party. Well, according to this article in todays Washington Times (free registration required) that charge may have been greatly exaggerated.

” Law-enforcement authorities and others said the investigation’s opening phase is scrutinizing Sens. Conrad Burns, Montana Republican; Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat; and Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, along with Reps. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, and Bob Ney, Ohio Republican. “

Now I fully grasp that this is the “opening phase” of the investigation, but I find it telling that the ranking member that is implicated is none other that Nevada’s Harry Reid! Not Tom DeLay, not Bill Frist, but Harry Reid the Senate Minority Leader.

Much hay has been made about the so-called Republican “culture of corruption”. I think that the most correct assessment is the culture of corruption that permeates Washington DC. The country has reached a cross-roads. It is imperative that one party take the lead in reforming the way business is done in DC. If the Republicans are smart, they will be the ones to take the lead. That will pave the way to success in November. Will it happen? It will if the American people demand that it happen. Are you up to the challenge dear readers?

I have been trying (as best as I can given a work schedule) to follow the Alito hearings over the last three days. Thanks to the Internet, I can catch up on a lot that I have missed. For those who, like me, have to work during the hearings, this website has been a godsend. I plan to write about some of these transcripts as time allows, but following the transcripts is a great way to see what is going on.

You know things are bad (for the Dems) when even your most stalwart supporter, the New York Times, is admitting that you’re not getting the job done.

“Judge Alito’s default impulse frequently seemed to be to try to give a direct response to the senators’ often rambling questions.”

Rambling is an understatement. For the most part, when the Democratic Senators had their 30 minutes to “ask questions” they spent the majority of that time bloviating! Senator Leahy spent 18 of his 30 minutes talking, Senator Kennedy spent 24 of his 30 minutes speaking (he ended up needing an extension of his time because he was rambling so much) – as did Senator Biden,. All of which made Senator Leahy’s comments (at the beginning of his time) even more ironic;

“So glad you survived yesterday listening to us. Now we have a chance to hear you.”

While the Senators asked a number of questions that were based on actual decisions (they mentioned Doe v. Groody and Baker v. Monroe Township) but when they realized that they could not get him on the issues, the attacks turned personal! During the questioning this afternoon, Mrs. Alito left the chamber in tears after listening to Senator Graham gallantly apologize to the nominee for his compatriots horrible behavior!

I used to think (naively) that when it came to doing “the people’s business” that partisan politics would somehow get put aside….that the “world’s greatest deliberative body” would not stoop to such lows (as personal attacks on nominees) but as I saw today, I was sadly mistaken. Senator Schumer, in his haranguing remarks late this afternoon, made it decided clear that the Democratic partisans have no interests in doing what is best for this country. While I am sad that my naïve views of the Senate have been so brutally crushed, I am glad to see that it happened now, in the build up to the 2006 elections. The people of the country have got to be horrified at this turn of developments in DC. Hopefully they will do the right thing come next November!

UPDATE: Captain Ed has a great post today about the McCarthyesque tone that Senator Kennedy’s line of questioning took. It is a must read!

Reviewing my post below, I now find out that I am now open to spending two years in a federal prison plus face a heavy fine .
It is now a federal crime to “annoy” someone either on the web or in an email without disclosing your, or my, true identity ( article here ). Not libel. Not threaten. Annoy.
This prohibition is buried in the “Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act” (always glad to see that Violence Against Men is OK as far as the Senate is concerned. And what did ever did happen to “equal protection under the law”? Obviously an outmoded concept…along with federalism).
Yup. Annoy someone and not use your name, off to Leavenworth you go!!
And if you want to see how this piece of Senate sausage is made, go here ,click on either item 5 or 6 and just read the section titles and see how your money is spent, and see the reach of the Imperial Congress and agreed to by GWB.
Had enough yet?

The ever vigilant Federal Government took possession of 30,000 weapons in Minneapolis yesterday in a sweep through our little community that certainly found us napping, but not the always alert Feds and the FDA!
These nasty little instruments of terror, disguised as loaves of bread, were improperly labeled according to a small and recent change in the labeling commandments from the front line defense from terror, the Food and Drug Administration.
I can’t tell you how relieved I am knowing that taxpayers money is so well spent as this action evidences. This brave engagement proves that all the issues I thought were pressing are now obviously well under control.
I also noticed that another potential local perpetrator of terror has ONLY SIX people who do nothing but check label compliance. My lands, what is this capitalist thinking? I would hope that the FDA immediately demand that ALL employees be trained in spotting label non-compliance. Immediately I say!!!
We all know that label non-compliance and gluten intolerance is eroding the Republic. And I am saddened to find that this insidious activity and threat has been found here in the heartland. But, I’m quite encouraged, even elated to see that our brave federal officials are on the ball and not to be trifled with!
Now that label non-compliance and gluten intolerance have been firmly addressed and the bakery community put on HARD notice, I can only hope and wish that shoelace length discrepancies will now be in the Federal crosshairs!
(Information in this article found here in Prairie Pravda).

Saw this at The Corner this morning.

PREDICTION [Jonah Goldberg]
This exchange from CNN yesterday will come back to haunt Howard Dean:
BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?
DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we’ve looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that’s true.
BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.
DEAN: That’s not true either. There’s no evidence for that either. There is no evidence…
BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?
DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They’re not agents of Jack Abramoff. There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They’re scared. They should be scared. They haven’t told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they’re stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.

I would laugh, except that I heard Ember Reichgott Junge (former DFL State Senator) spout the same talking points yesterday on “At Issue with Tom Hauser” (a local political talk show). Unfortunately it was not the last time I hear that yesterday either. They think that they can spin this, but it is not going to work. The American people are not that stupid! They can see through the spin and the distortions.

An email was forwarded to me today. The email was from the Media Research Council and it was decrying the “bias” in reporting on Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Media bias, you say???? NOOOOOOOO it can’t be so.

Oh wait a minute. I missed this screed in Boston Globe.

“IN THE 1998 movie ”Pleasantville,” Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play typical ’90s kids who are inadvertently transported into the unreal reality of a 1950s sitcom. They use their ’90s values to teach the sitcom world some lessons about diversity and tolerance.
Today many people have a stylized, ”Pleasantville” vision of the pre-Roe era in which I grew up. They imagine fondly that almost all families had a Daddy at the office and a Mommy in the kitchen; that almost all family relations were well-ordered and unthreatening; in short, that life looked like ”Leave It to Beaver” — and that, with a few legal adjustments, it could do so again.”

OHMIGOSH!!!! We have a WHAT???????? Here are a couple of those stylized “Pleasantville” visions….

Short Term Physical Dangers: An abortion is an unnatural, invasive act on the female body. The cervix is not meant to be forced open. The uterus is not meant to be scraped and vacuumed empty. Women can experience immediate physical problems related to their abortions.
Infection: Infection is the most common abortion complication. It can easily occur if any placental or fetal material is left in the uterus. Lacerations or other injuries to the uterine wall can also lead to infection. Women who have an abortion while infected with chlamydia have an especially high risk of getting pelvic inflamatory disease, which can lead to infertility.
Perforations : Common abortion procedures involve inserting sharp tools into the uterus. Women can suffer cuts or perforations of the uterus or bowel, which can lead to blood poisoning and even death. (And a hospital may report the cause of death as blood poisoning, and not as a botched abortion.)
Cervical Damage: During normal childbirth, the cervix – the lowest muscle in the uterus – softens and slowly stretches open to allow the baby to be born. The cervix is not prepared to be forced open earlier in the pregnancy. Stretching the stiff cervix muscle to insert tools or remove fetal parts can tear and weaken the cervical muscle, especially in a first pregnancy.
Others: Other side-effects of an abortion can include excessive bleeding, hemorrhaging, endotoxic shock, fever, and vomiting.

And those are just the some of the short term damages…..

Meanwhile, a vast majority of the country feels that there are certain reasonable restrictions. If a child/teen-ager wants to have an abortion, the parents should be notified that their daughter was undergoing a surgical proceedure (anything invasise like this is technically a surgical proceedure). After all, if a child needs a parent’s permission to get her ears pierced, it is only reasonable that a child should need parental involvement for an abortion. If a woman seeking an abortion is married, that her husband be told that she is having the proceedure. No permission is being sought! Simple notification. No abortions should be committed in the final trimester of a pregnancy unless finishing the pregnancy would severely harm the mother’s health. There is some debate on this. Thanks to medical technology, a baby that is 8-10 weeks premature can live, but it will require intensive care. If that is the case, should the baby be delivered and if they are, who will pay for the expensive care that this child will require?

No one wants to return to the days of unsafe back alley abortions Ms. Michelman. Neither is Judge Alito out of step with “mainstream America”. That honor belongs to people like you who insist on supporting abortion on demand.

There is a dire lack of Constitutional knowledge in the Senate and that needs to be corrected. How can I say this? I say this based on the build up to the beginning of today’s confirmation hearings for Judge Alito.

Think I am exhaggerating? This is from Senator Leahey’s (the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary committee) opening remarks today:

“No President should be allowed to pack the courts, and especially the Supreme Court, with nominees selected to enshrine presidential claims of Government power. “

The Constitution says flat out that the President was ABLE to appoint judges as openings came available. When Bill Clinton was President, he was able to put a former ACLU lawyer (Ginsberg) and a former staffer to Senator Ted Kennedy (Breyer) on the Supreme Court. Both are distinguished jurists, however, everyone knew going in exactly what their political temperment was and how it matched up with President Clinton. Why were there no concerns then about “packing the court”?

Speaking of the distinguised Senior Senator from Massachuesttes, what did Senator Kennedy have to say in his opening remarks?

“When he was before this committee in 1990, applying for a job to the circuit court, he promised under oath that he would recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard, the mutual fund company in which he had most of his investments. But as a judge, he participated in a Vanguard case anyway, and has offered many conflicting reasons to explain why he broke his word.”

There is nothing in the Constitution that says one must recuse themselves from a case that involves your mutual funds, and there is even precedent to the contrary where a lower court judge ruled in a case against a different mutual fund company that the judge owned shares in (I have to look up details on the case as I just heard it on the radio).

This is what Senator Joe Biden had to say (in his opening remarks) on the Roe debate:

“The fundamental question here (ed talking about abortion rights) is will you continue to support that consensus – or will you seek to reverse it as at least two, and possibly as many as four of our sitting Justices would like to do? “

Senator Diane Feinstein said (I am looking for a link to this quote as well) that unless Judge Alito would guarantee her that he would “never touch Roe” that she would not vote for him. Excuse me Senator, you know better than that. A judicial nominee is expressly unable (the Ginsburg precident) to comment on specifics on ANY case that may come before him or her in the court!

It is depressing. These people are supposed to “know better”.

Judge Alito, to his credit, promised that he had no agenda and that he would not prejudge any case coming before him. Too bad we can not say the same thing about the Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Every now and then, Pravda on the Mississippi surprises me. This was one of those times. This story was in the Faith & Values section of yesterdays paper.

“What’s in a name? U.S. military chaplains and Christians offering public prayers are being forced to consider that question as they are discouraged, and in some cases prohibited, from praying in the name of Jesus.”

The author is speaking about Navy Chaplain Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt who was on hunger strike after being transferred off of his ship because he refused to follow an order to quit praying “in Jesus name”. To the commanding officer who made that order, I have one little question…What part of the First Amendment are you unclear on?

The establishment clause of the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

There is another case that was mentioned in the article. Apparently a US District judge has ruled that it is illegal for Christian prayers to be offered in the Indiana House of Representatives. I like how the author of the article put it…

The establishment clause of the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Yet the above-mentioned cases do establish a preference for non-Christian faiths and non-religion over Christianity, and most certainly prohibit free exercise…

…Why? Because praying in the name of Jesus is not form or fashion, but essence. It is a fundamental function of the faith itself that transcends religion and rests on relationship. Just one of many scriptures on the topic illuminates why: “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

While I normally do not feel that this kind of thing is something government should do, it is obviously something that is long overdue. Then, after the President signs the executive order (protecting the rights of military chaplains to pray in Jesus name) I think it is time for someone to look into ways to remove Judge Hamilton from his seat. If this judge can’t understand what establishment is (and is not) then obviously he needs to go back to Con Law. Maybe Hugh Hewitt will let him audit one of his classes…

I will let the Strib have the final word on this…

“Leave Jesus out of my prayer and deny the person on whom the faith is founded? Absolutely not. The name and person of Jesus — his life, crucifixion and resurrection — is the essence of Christianity, the how of my prayer. “

Amen and AMEN!!!!!

I know you are shocked to read that! What is it this time, you ask? This:

The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack – “on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives” – that aimed to kill “at least 10,000 people”, as well as an attack on “Italian citizens and interests” in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda’s deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. In their tapped phone conversations, Yamine Bouhrama, Mohamed Larbi and Khaled Serai described the 7 July London subway and bus bombings that killed over 50 and injured 700, and the 23 July Sharm El-Sheikh terror attacks that killed 90 people and injured over 150 as “highdays and holidays”, according to police. The three also spoke of having “documents ready”, “war on the infidel”, and “a bigger party” than the London attacks.

This was reported throughout the European media on November 18. What we did hear out of the American media was minimal at best. Check out this and this and compare them to the European reporting on the same subject! MSNBC does not even mention the fact that the intelligence was obtained via wiretaps and ABC buries the fact deep in the story.

I know that this is an old meme…but it is one that bears repeating hourly until such time as the US media cleans up their act. As long as they continue this type of poor reporting, they are going to loose readers to the internet and blogs (such as this one).

UPDATE AND BUMP: According to these two articles the terrorists were planning attacks in the US (among other places) and they wanted to “out-do” the 9/11 attacks! THIS is what the US press is keeping from us!

Hat tip to Red State and Powerline.

I wrote earlier today about Thomas Brewton in his blog “The View From 1776“. He writes about what he calls “The Unwritten Constitution“. In it he lays out that for our form of government to work, there needs to be certain underlying assumptions. That without this foundation and underpinning being maintained, the structure above it becomes weakened and eventually collapses. I recommended that you read it. As I read it again, I thought that it quite worthwhile to repeat it here:

The Unwritten Constitution

The United States was founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic that historically was the substance of Western civilization. Ours was a specifically English conception of individual morality and individual responsibility that, only in England and its North American colonies, had produced a government of laws, not men, a government in which even the king is subject to the statutes of the land and to a higher moral law.

This conception of government necessitates a citizenry self-regulated by moral precepts that are preserved and taught by religion. The government must similarly be restrained by the limits of natural law, which say that no legitimate government may infringe any individual’s rights to life, liberty, and private property.

No society can survive without a consensus about right and wrong, about what constitutes moral conduct. That consensus is the unwritten constitution of society, the content that gives meaning to a written constitution, the meat on the bones of the structure of government.

Opposing our original conception of government is the liberal jihad, driven by the ideology of socialism, sometimes called The Religion of Humanity. This religion was formalized in the 1789 French Revolution, the same year that our Constitution was ratified and became the law of the land.

Socialism is a secular religion. Like Islamic suicide bombers, liberals are so firmly persuaded that their cause is right, good, and just that they are prepared to go to any lengths necessary to destroy the Judeo-Christian ethic of individual morality and replace it with a rigidly regulated National-State collectivism, of which Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were extreme examples.

The religion of socialism is being taught unconstitutionally, at your expense, in public schools and colleges receiving Federal aid. Teaching the religious doctrine of socialism as scientific fact amounts to making liberal-socialism the officially established religion of the United States.

The only constitutional way to stop the liberal jihad is to force schools to present both sides of the story, traditionalist, as well as liberal. Publicly funded schools now teach only the amoral, secular materialism of the socialist religion. Schools no longer present true versions of American history and of our original ideas of civic virtue and personal morality that are historically the substance of Western civilization. Penetrating the shield of socialist teachers’ unions and the politicians whom they help elect is a very long-term project, but a vital one.

The largest volume of immigration in the nation’s history, both legal and illegal, coupled with liberals’ relentless efforts to destroy America’s original traditions of individual morality, leaves us with no core values and a diminishing will to defend ourselves against foreign enemies.