Savage Republican

I think this is going to be a long running multi-parter.

Al Franken strikes again. This time in New York where he presumed to lecture Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on “judicial demeanor”. The New York Post reports that Mr. Franken queried Justice Scalia about the “appropriateness” of hearing the case of someone he had gone hunting with (an obvious reference to the 2000 case Bush V. Gore). When the host of the event (Conversations on the Circle) opened the floor to questions, Franken got up and started lecturing about “judicial demeanor”. Justice Scalia retorted (in what sounded to be a classic smack down) that “Demeanor is the wrong word. You mean ethics.” He then went on further to explain that “It has never been the case where you recuse because of friendship.”

In the quote of the article, Time Warner chairman Dick Parsons later told the Post: “Al was not quite ready for prime time.”

So Al Franken thinks he has the gravitas to be a Senator? After this little show, I think Mr. Franken needs to go back to Civics class. My pre-teen has a better grasp on what politics is about than Al seems to have…..

(Hat Tip KvM)

MDE over at Minnesota Democrats Exposed is an amazing person. He has access to information on our local politicians that they would really rather he not have. As a result, many people have tried to “out” MDE. Their reasoning is simple….expose his identity and dry up his (or her) resources and thus put MDE out of business.

The latest attempt comes via the weblog Inside Minnesota Politics. Now, IMP does not require registration or subscription. Their content is as available for anyone to peruse as it is here at Savage Republican. MDE has quoted content from their site in the past – all properly sourced as it should be. Well apparently that is not good enough for the operators of IMP and they are suing MDE for “copyright infringement”. MDE posted a picture from IMP and sourced it to their site. Then 2 weeks ago, MDE was notified (through his/her hosting company) that a “cease and desist order” had been issued. MDE apologized and pulled the offending picture immediately. Then today MDE was informed that IMP and their lawyers were still pushing for his/her hosting company for his/her identity so that the “proper legal papers” could be filed with him/her!

Now many people blog anonymously for a variety of reasons. Some do so because of safety concerns, so do so because of work “conflicts”. Whatever the reason, that person should be allowed to exercise his/her free speech rights anynomously if that is that person’s desire. No one should be forced to reveal his/her identity because of some sue happy lawyer.

MDE will be looking for help with his/her legal fund. Hopefully, some of the great legal minds that are affiliated with the MOB (Minnesota Organization of Blogs) will be able to assist MDE in his/her time of need. I hope all of you will support MDE, financially if possible, and with your traffic! MDE has done a fabulous job exposing the Democrats for what they are. Their answer, as always, is to try to stifle dissenting voices. WE CAN NOT LET THEM WIN!

This is by far the funniest story of the year. During the live CNN broadcast of Vice President Cheney’s speech on Monday, an “X” showed up across the VP’s face. Republican pundits were (rightly) outraged and at first CNN blew it off with a dismissive “This was a technolgical malfunction, not an issue of operator error. A portion of the switcher experienced a momentary glitch.” Now I am not by nature a cynical person, but please….can we have a lamer excuse? I mean really….the only network MORE hostile to the Bush Administration than CNN is MSNBC and that is a judgement call! The website that broke the story (The Drudge Report) is reporting today that a control room operator “laughed” when the image first appeared and somehow that doesn’t shock me at all.

The blatent hatred of the anti-Bush crowd has reached it’s most frantic. The fun thing is, we have another 3 years of this to go. My only worry is that they (they hysterical left fringe) peaks too soon. If they do peak before the ’08 election things could be boring for those who make a living at political analysis.

That the legacy media is biased against President Bush is no surprise. What is surprising me is how they are not even trying to hide it. I have no doubt that we will see more and more of the anti-Bush hysteria.

According to this report by the AP, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been killed by coalition troops in Mosul yesterday. If true, this will definately help turn the rhetorical tide in DC!

Stay tuned….

The Senate lost it’s backbone and House found theirs.

The Senate, in a widely debated vote, defeated a call for setting a withdrawal timetable – then passed a bill that calls for greater accountability on the conduct of the war. Pundits like Hugh Hewitt called it a “vote of no-confidence” and that their timing of the vote was a “slap in the Presidents face”. Make no doubt about this, the timing of the vote was intentional! The Senate Democrats (weasles that they are) held their proposal specifically for the day when the President was travelling. However, I can see why the Republican leadership responded in the way they did. The only way for the Administration to win the war of words right now is to take the progress reports directly to the American people and I can think of no better way for the President to take control of the discussion. The Senate redeemed themselves (slightly) when they found the will to cut $50b in earmarked spending.

The House leadership, conversely, finally showed their collective will. When Rep Joe Murtha called for an “immediate redeplyment” of US troops the House leadership said “let’s put it to a vote”. The Democratic Leadership immediately cried “FOWL” even going so far as to call it “personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most respected members of this House”. What a joke! They have been calling for a complete withdrawl ever since Cindy Sheehan appeared on the scene! To call Friday’s debate an exercise in hypocricy would be an understatement of epic proportions!

All in all, I think that this week is the beginning of the end for the debate on the war. The Democrats left themselves wide open for this. Their rhetoric (in calling for a withdrawal) lead them to this precipice and the Republicans finally called their bluff. All I can say is, it’s about time!

Well you have to give Mike Hatch credit. He is persistant if nothing else! Fresh off of his resounding judicial defeat in Rochester we have this. Apparently he is now going after the current MN GOP Chair Ron Carey! Mr. Carey’s crime? Advocating for his autistic child. Yes, folks you read right! Based on this article in the fishwrap (which I opined about here)Attorney General Hatch is going after Ron Carey for advocating for his child.

According to the article, ” the chairwoman of the Legislative Audit Commission, Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, asked (Legislative Auditor Jim) Nobles to conduct a preliminary assessment of the autism center’s books after news reports raised questions about whether the center misspent state money. ” After starting his investigation, Nobles told the audit commission Thursday it was unnecessary for his staff to conduct an investigation parallel to the attorney general’s.

Sen. Tom Neuville (a Northfield Republican and commission member) expressed “concern” about AG Hatch going after yet another MN GOP Chair and he is absolutely correct! It is obvious to this voter that AG Hatch is simply trophy hunting. AG Hatch wants to be Governor more than anything else – he has said as much – and he has shown that he will STOP AT NOTHING to get to the mansion on Summit Ave.

It is time for the voters of Minnesota to stand up to this obvious abuse of power! I hope you will join me in calling for AG Hatch to cease his investigation and let the non-partisan Legislative Auditor take over any potential investigation. It is also time for the voters of Minnestoa to pay attention. Precinct caucuses are coming up quickly (March 7 2006). AG Hatch needs to be removed from the office that is allowing him to go after his political enemies with such abandon.

The big news out of Rochester this week that a jury found Ron Eibensteiner (former chairman of the MN GOP) not guilty of arranging an illegal corporate campaign contribution. Do the charges sound familiar dear readers? They certainly should because they are the same charges that Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) is facing.

The charges stem from a note that had the chairman’s signature on it thanking lobbyist Ron Jerich for American Bankers (a Florida insurance company) contribution to the party. Company officials admitted that they mailed checkes to both the MN Republican and DFL Parties in the hopes on influencing the 2002 Minnesota Governors race (which Tim Pawlenty won). What the letter did not indicate was the fact (a fact which was key to the trial) that the check was forwarded on per Minnesota law to the RNC. None of the money was ever returned to Minnesota.

The Eibensteiner defense team has stated all along (without much argument from our friends in the local media outlets) that this was a hit job, engineered by Attorney General Mike Hatch in order to further his chances at gaining his “Holy Grail” – election to the Governors office. AG Hatch never disputed that fact…..that is until the day that the verdict was reached! Then all of a sudden we hear (out of the AG’s office) that it was “not our trial”. DFL Chairman Brian Melendez said (in a Star Tribune quote) that “Mike Hatch was a witness in the case. The Mower County attorney made the decision to prosecute, Hatch did not.” One problem with that statement Brian. The “crime” did not take place in Mower County – it allegedly took place in St. Paul at the MN GOP Headquarters. Also, the Mower County attorney was not prosecuting the case – a “special prosecutor” was brought in from….St Paul! Even Ron Jerich (who was a Hatch supporter) said that this should have never come to trial – that the only reason it came to trial was to “get at the Republicans.” It appears that, like Ronnie Earl in Texas, the only reason the charges were filed in Mower County is because AG Hatch was able to find a friendly county attorney in a heavily DFL leaning county to file charges. In essense – jury shopping, just like Ronnie Earl.

Many pundits, both in the legacy media and in the blogosphere have made the connection between the two trials. AG Hatch allegedly made the connection in off the record remarks to reporters from KAAL “”You know, and I was just talking about this in the office the other day, no one in the press had made the Austin/Austin connection. You know, Austin Texas and Austin Minnesota. ” Well Mr. Hatch, I hope the two are indeed that connected. Because if there is an Austin/Austin connection, then Rep. DeLay should have a field day when he gets his chance at trial. For if Ronnie Earl did his homework as shoddily as AG Hatch did, the Rep. DeLay should be cleared and back in DC in time to save us from the weak kneed leadership that has taken over in his absense. Hurry up Hammer – we need you now more than ever!

It was just another day in the Lady Logician’s life…..I was doing laundry and preparing to start supper all the while reminding the dear child to finish his homework. I had the radio on in the background, tuned into Hugh Hewitt’s first hour. OK – Hugh is talking about Senator Reid railing about Vice President Cheney again….nothing new right????? Coming back from commercial they are playing the 3 Stooges theme….The 3 Stooges theme?!?!?! Now he has my attention. This is what Hugh was talking about. Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer and Stabenow have sent a letter to the President asking him to “rule out the option of a pardon” for Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Pardon me (pun intended) Senator Reid, Senator Schumer…..did I miss something like a conviction here????? I could have sworn the man had not even gone to trial yet….aren’t we jumping the gun just a little????? Hoping for a kangaroon court are we?????

“He (Reid) challenged the president in personal terms, urging him to “avoid falling in the footsteps of his father who pardoned six men, some were convicted, some were indicted in the
Iran-Contra scandal.”

President Clinton also pardoned a bunch of people too as I recall. He pardoned some 140 people including Susan McDougal (Whitewater Scandal), HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros (lied to the FBI), first brother Roger Clinton (convicted of drug charges), CIA Director John Duetsch (faced criminal charges in connection with his having national secrets on his home computer) and Marc Rich (big time Clinton donor who was indicted of tax evasion ). More details can be found here. The Presidential pardon is a controversial privilege of office. Asking this President to forego that privilege is pandering, political posturing. In a situation like this (where they are in essence demanding that the President bow to the whim of the people that lost the last election) one has to wonder what, if anything, these Senators are willing to give up. Are they willing to give up their privilege of Advise and Consent on Presidential appointments? Somehow I think not. So their grandstanding goes….the Senate Democratic leadership preens before the fawning press and makes a request which the President will (if he is wise) dismiss out of hand.

I have tried really hard not to add yet another voice against Islam. It is not the those voices are wrong, necessarily, it’s just that there are so many of those voices, that my one small voice would just add to the cacophany. However, after seeing this story, combined with the non-stop coverage out of Paris – where Muslim youth are rioting against the government, I really have to wonder what they are teaching their children.

The story talks about a childrens program that glorifies homicide bombing. The cartoon was shown in Iranian National Television recently. It appears to be part of the campaign that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched – a campaign calling for the complete destruction of Isreal. It tells the story of two young boys, Abd and Karim, who are taught by an older neighbor how to rig themselves up with explosives in order to “Go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine.”

As the mother of a son, it breaks my heart to see this. I can not help but put myself in the shoes of a mother over there. Would I really rejoice if my son blew himself up in order to kill others? No. But there are those who do. I guess this really does go to show how different our cultures are. Where we teach our children to respect others and to look out for others, another parent is teaching his child how to hate those who are “different” (not Islamist).

How does all of this tie into the riots in Paris? Again, these young people, most of whom have lived their entire lives in France, were taught to hate their home country. They were taught this by their parents and by their Imams. Which leads me to this question? If you hate the country so much, why did you move there? Now I know that there are those who will say that they moved there in order to “Islamicize” the country. While I don’t know if that is indeed the case (for I do not know what is in their hearts) I have to conclude that this may be the case, just by looking at their actions…..

Look what happens when we teach our children to hate.

The Dems love to harp about “lies” that were told leading up to the war, but just who has been lying to whom?

The Dems say that the Bush Administration told America that there was a 9/11 link to Saddam and yet in his interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Vice President Cheney said ” “[O]n the 9/11 question, we’ve never had confirmation one way or another.” However, the UK Guardian did claim that there was an Iraq/al Qaeda link in this 1999 report

The Dems have said that there Saddam had NO WMD’s. However, Iraq disclosures to the U.N., culminating in September 1997, admitted that Iraq had produced large quantities of the banned weapons. In its 1999 UNSCOM report, the United Nations concluded that Iraq had under-reported its production of those materials, including anthrax and VX, had systematically lied to and deceived the U.N. inspectors, and had wholly failed to account for the weapons’ current whereabouts. (See, for example, paragraph 85.) And the U.N., in its March 2003 UNMOVIC report, concluded: “Based on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and may still exist.” Then there is this BBC report that talks about the bomb making factory that was discovered in Baghdad in 2003. It also mentions an encounter that the Polish coalition troops had “On Friday, Poland’s defence ministry said its troops in Iraq had thwarted an attempt by militants to buy a quantity of warheads containing nerve agents. ” Warheads equipped with nerve agents…..and those aren’t WMD’s????? This report talks about all of the other WMD’s that were found shortly after going into Iraq. Funny how the Democratic leadership chooses not to utilize this data…

The infamous 16 words in the State of the Union Address…the Dems say that the President said (in his 2003 State of the Union address) that Saddam bought yellowcake uranium from the government of Niger (whose main export is – surprise – yellowcake uranium) a claim which Joseph Wilson claimed to have debunked. According to Wilson, this claim was based on a forged US intelligence document. The problem is that is not what the president said. The quote was “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,”. I realize that the words “sought” and “bought” are similar in sound and spelling, but the meanings are very different! Then there is this little gem from the BBC that talks about the 1.77 tons of enriched uranium that was secretly taken out of Iraq by the US government. Meanwhile, the Butler Report reaffirmed the President’s claim and the accuracy of the real original report.

So there you have it…..the lies of the Iraq War and the liars who told them. Are there any more lies that we need to discuss?????