Wanted to write about this for the last several days, but haven't had time.
I cannot believe that a Republican is actually a very potential candidate to take over the senate seat that had belonged to Teddy Kennedy in "Taxachusetts."
What is the country coming to?
That Senator Nelson from Nebraska, who got his state excused from the coming crushing Medicaid expenses under socialized medicine, is now trying to broker the same deal for all the states -- since his own constituency is embarrassed about him. Apparently he's trying to make good by spreading the swill around. I don't know. Would you agree to share in his corruption if it gets you off the hook for paying for health insurance?
And also, under one recent version of the socialized medicine bill, the unions don't have to pay the 40% tax on "Cadillac" health insurance until 2018 or something like that -- when the USA will be over and done with, apparently.
So who is going to pay for this piece of crap? Apparently only those who refuse to vote for it.
What the hell kind of legislative representation is this?
No one wants socialized medicine except the Comrade and his minions. So why are the democrats in congress pushing it so hard? It very obviously will mean the end of their political careers.
This is insane. No one wants this legislation. I think the dems support it only to display what they perceive to be their "power." We'll see how much power they have next November. And we don't even have to wait that long -- the Massachusetts special election is Tuesday.
The dems are telling themselves and others that "once this passes" everyone will like it.
Think again. "Once this passes," if it does, it means four to five years of new and/or increasing taxes before anyone sees any benefits at all -- and I seriously doubt anyone will see any benefits, EVER, based on the results of socialized medicine in other countries. This pretty much guarantees Republican majorities in congress in perpetuity.
So, sure, go ahead, vote for "Maetha" what's-her-face. Then when the Reps win big in November, they can repeal it all, and the dem party will be dead in the water.
Sounds good to me. I've been predicting the demise of the dems since Bill Clinton. So go ahead, make my day.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Washington DC's "Daybreakers"
I've only seen ads for the movie "Daybreakers." Or maybe it's a TV show. Not sure. At any rate, it's about when vampires have taken over the world and outnumber the non-vampires. The problem with this?
No blood. No one producing blood, everyone sucking it out of the few producers who are left.
Is this a parody on the Obama administration, or what?
That's all for now. Have work to do.
No blood. No one producing blood, everyone sucking it out of the few producers who are left.
Is this a parody on the Obama administration, or what?
That's all for now. Have work to do.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The magic tax
First, I must say: poor Haiti! Haiti already is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, probably the least able to recover from a major disaster like the earthquake of a couple days ago. Here's hoping the relief ships and planes find a way in to provide some help. What a catastrophe.
Second, the Comrade made a brief announcement today. He wants to get a tax on those "too big to fail" financial institutions that accepted help from the TARP fund. He said that although the TARP money has mostly been paid back, those institutions continue to "do business as usual," "take too many risks," and "hand out huge bonuses." Taxing them, according to the Comrade, will fix all this. I don't know how or why it would.
As I was listening, I kept thinking, "Does this man know nothing about business?" A tax on financial businesses that are actually earning money would only guarantee that a general economic recovery will NEVER happen. What an idiot. That's what happens when you elect a community organizer to the presidency. He just doesn't get it: there is no Santa Claus.
And, hey, Mr. Comrade, any loan to a business is a risky venture. That's why the winners make so damn much money. You've got to have a pretty accurate crystal ball to win at this. You feds were dorking around with mortgage interest rates and such, and you see what happened? Major financial collapse. Maybe you-all should just butt out. You don't know what you're doing. Leave it the hell alone.
I think these financial guys work for what they get. The Comrade came off actually sounding like he envied those big bonuses, or else just tired of repeating the tired-out drum-call to class warfare. Most of the millions that go to bonuses get re-invested in the economy one way or another. You can bet those high-earners take that money and form venture capital funds and things like that. Even if they just leave it in the bank, it gets re-invested in the economy. That's where the jobs and new ideas come from, Mr. Comrade -- NOT from the federal government. The money is much better and wisely spent privately.
And... How are the banks supposed to do business, except "as usual"? I'd just like to know, that's all. The Comrade noted that most of the TARP money has been paid back. By doing business as usual, no doubt. Has the Comrade got a better idea? One that's more productive? Perhaps the Comrade is a bit dismayed that the money the banks earn is NOT going to SEIU and GM. Well, screw him and the unions. I'd much rather see it privately invested and used to build, not to buy votes and voters and develop a dependent and therefore captive membership for the socialist-democrats.
By the way, if the TARP money has been mostly paid back, where the hell is it? I suppose the Comrade and his merry marxists want to donate it to socialized medicine now. I don't think so. I think they should just give it back to the Treasury (though I don't really trust Geithner, after all, he's the one who can't seem to find the TARP money) to help underwrite the USA's monumental, crushing debt -- developed by the socialist-democrats over last year.
Christine Romer also said recently that only about 30% of the Stimulus Bill has been spent. Why not cancel the rest of that while you're at it? It hasn't done much good anyway. Return that to the Treasury and maybe the USA can avoid going into default and becoming another Zimbabwe. Of course, we're all becoming aware of the fact that that's exactly the direction this administration wants to go -- toward poverty and dependency.
Just a few thoughts.
Second, the Comrade made a brief announcement today. He wants to get a tax on those "too big to fail" financial institutions that accepted help from the TARP fund. He said that although the TARP money has mostly been paid back, those institutions continue to "do business as usual," "take too many risks," and "hand out huge bonuses." Taxing them, according to the Comrade, will fix all this. I don't know how or why it would.
As I was listening, I kept thinking, "Does this man know nothing about business?" A tax on financial businesses that are actually earning money would only guarantee that a general economic recovery will NEVER happen. What an idiot. That's what happens when you elect a community organizer to the presidency. He just doesn't get it: there is no Santa Claus.
And, hey, Mr. Comrade, any loan to a business is a risky venture. That's why the winners make so damn much money. You've got to have a pretty accurate crystal ball to win at this. You feds were dorking around with mortgage interest rates and such, and you see what happened? Major financial collapse. Maybe you-all should just butt out. You don't know what you're doing. Leave it the hell alone.
I think these financial guys work for what they get. The Comrade came off actually sounding like he envied those big bonuses, or else just tired of repeating the tired-out drum-call to class warfare. Most of the millions that go to bonuses get re-invested in the economy one way or another. You can bet those high-earners take that money and form venture capital funds and things like that. Even if they just leave it in the bank, it gets re-invested in the economy. That's where the jobs and new ideas come from, Mr. Comrade -- NOT from the federal government. The money is much better and wisely spent privately.
And... How are the banks supposed to do business, except "as usual"? I'd just like to know, that's all. The Comrade noted that most of the TARP money has been paid back. By doing business as usual, no doubt. Has the Comrade got a better idea? One that's more productive? Perhaps the Comrade is a bit dismayed that the money the banks earn is NOT going to SEIU and GM. Well, screw him and the unions. I'd much rather see it privately invested and used to build, not to buy votes and voters and develop a dependent and therefore captive membership for the socialist-democrats.
By the way, if the TARP money has been mostly paid back, where the hell is it? I suppose the Comrade and his merry marxists want to donate it to socialized medicine now. I don't think so. I think they should just give it back to the Treasury (though I don't really trust Geithner, after all, he's the one who can't seem to find the TARP money) to help underwrite the USA's monumental, crushing debt -- developed by the socialist-democrats over last year.
Christine Romer also said recently that only about 30% of the Stimulus Bill has been spent. Why not cancel the rest of that while you're at it? It hasn't done much good anyway. Return that to the Treasury and maybe the USA can avoid going into default and becoming another Zimbabwe. Of course, we're all becoming aware of the fact that that's exactly the direction this administration wants to go -- toward poverty and dependency.
Just a few thoughts.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Cowboys and indians
Nothing much in the news. Obama apparently did once refer to "the war on al-qaeda," which generated considerable chatter but apparently has done not much else. What's more interesting to me is that the CIA or someone picked up five US citizens -- young male muslims -- who were trying to enlist in al-qaeda or some-such. One kid was asked if he thought it was wrong to do things like blow up high-rise office buildngs and murder 3,000 people who have nothing to do with your problems. The kid said something like, "It's not terrorism. It's jihad."
So apparently Osama bin Ladin now has attained a cult status similar to Batman or Spiderman. And he's inspiring ignorant and purposeless children to kill themselves and believe they're doing something fine and noble. Well, let's take a look at that.
Have you ever really lost your temper at some time and done something really stupid? Like, you're sitting in traffic, way back from the jam or the accident or whatever's holding everyone up. Out of frustration, you ram your car into the rear end of the guy in front of you, throw it into reverse, and charge full-bore into the car behind you. You keep ramming forward and reverse, forward and reverse, until one of the other drivers comes over and drags you out of your car and pounds the crap out of you. And your car is so messed up it's probably not worth repairing. Your insurance won't pay for it.
Now exactly what have you accomplished? You made a gigantic ass out of yourself, wrecked your own and other peoples' property, and will be paying the damages for a long time to come. And on the plus side? [Anyone? Anyone?]
Now exactly what has al-qaeda accomplished? I certainly wouldn't want the US Army coming after me with drones and night-flying helicopters equipped with heat-seeking missiles. And on the plus side?
The venerable Helen Thomas, White House reporter, asked Robert Gibbs, WH press secretary, why the islamo-terrorists are targeting the USA. Apparently Gibbs didn't have an answer. Much later, a commentator on Fox wondered where Helen has been for the last eight years.
But this whole thing kinda reminds me of cowboys and indians. There are few things sadder in the world than cultural wars. For example: a small caravan of pioneers are moving across the plains in the 1840s to resettle somewhere in the West. They're passing through land that is, at this moment, controlled by the Sioux -- although the Sioux only took it over by running out the Black Feet, and the Sioux's control is constantly being challenged by the Cheyenne and the Pawnee. But the hapless pioneers don't know anything about this tribal business at all.
So, the pioneers left Missouri with about four head of cattle. One of their cows takes sick, and rather than hold up the whole caravan for however long it will take for the cow to recover, they leave the cow behind. They do their 10 or 12 miles for the day and set up camp on the Platte, near water, etc., where they can rest for a couple days. They send a 12-year-old kid back for the cow.
The kid goes back and can't find the cow. However, he does run into a Sioux indian, who says, "Oh, was that your cow? We thought you didn't want it, so we took it and slaughtered it and ate it for dinner last night. Maybe we could give you a pony or something to make up for it?"
Well... no. The kid's family wouldn't accept any apologies or retribution. As far as the pioneer was concerned, the Sioux were vicious and trying to kill all white people. The pioneer got up some kind of posse and tried to burn down the indian village, and the indians, of course, retaliated to the best of their ability -- which was considerable.
And this actually happened. And it set off a bloody slaughter and hostilities that continued for decades.
Then poor Black Kettle, who was a Cheyenne chieftain, I believe. He actually went to Washington with one delegation or another and was quite impressed by the permanent-looking civilization on the eastern side of the Mississippi. Heretofore, most indians regarded the pioneers as something like scouts for another tribe. I suppose in a way they were.
At any rate, Black Kettle just decided that indians could not win against the whites. He counseled his tribe to simply give up and go along. His tribe was attacked and massacred at Sand Creek, east of Denver, in the early days of the Civil War. Again, due to some kind of cattle disappearance or something like that, combined with the frustrated bravado of a butthead self-appointed militia colonel who wanted to be defending the Union somehow.
Black Kettle moved, at the behest and with the approval of the federal government, to a sort of tribal reserve on the Washita in what's Oklahoma now, I believe, or possibly Kansas. After the Civil War, Custer attacked and massacred Black Kettle's tribe there. This was because certain young men in the tribe refused to give up their tribal ways in the same way Black Kettle did, and they'd ride out periodically and burn down homesteads and murder settlers.
I'm not particularly taking the side of the indians. They gave back as good as they got. But don't you see, nobody wins? The story is just sad all the way around.
Destruction is not a very positive goal for anyone. Volunteering for martyrdom is not really a good or a very productive ideal.
Ever see "Bridge on the River Kwai"? Probably one of the best movies ever made. Toward the end, after William Holden has lead Jack Hawkins and a team of commandos into the jungle to blow up the bridge, Holden loses all patience with Hawkins' "death before dishonor" thing. Holden says something like: "All you talk about is how to die like a man, how to die with honor, how to die like a soldier. When the only thing that's really important is how to live like a human being."
So, anyway, you crazy islamo-terrorists, just keep on attacking. The more of you we kill, the fewer will be running at us tomorrow. This is not a war anyone wants, and believe me, we will wear you down. Because you see, we believe that we do have something to lose -- a positive reason for fighting -- even if you don't. That's a reason to live, not a reason to die.
Or, as Patton said, "The objective is not to die for your country, but to get the enemy to die for his."
In a perfect world, I'd be a pacifist. But a perfect world does not exist.
So apparently Osama bin Ladin now has attained a cult status similar to Batman or Spiderman. And he's inspiring ignorant and purposeless children to kill themselves and believe they're doing something fine and noble. Well, let's take a look at that.
Have you ever really lost your temper at some time and done something really stupid? Like, you're sitting in traffic, way back from the jam or the accident or whatever's holding everyone up. Out of frustration, you ram your car into the rear end of the guy in front of you, throw it into reverse, and charge full-bore into the car behind you. You keep ramming forward and reverse, forward and reverse, until one of the other drivers comes over and drags you out of your car and pounds the crap out of you. And your car is so messed up it's probably not worth repairing. Your insurance won't pay for it.
Now exactly what have you accomplished? You made a gigantic ass out of yourself, wrecked your own and other peoples' property, and will be paying the damages for a long time to come. And on the plus side? [Anyone? Anyone?]
Now exactly what has al-qaeda accomplished? I certainly wouldn't want the US Army coming after me with drones and night-flying helicopters equipped with heat-seeking missiles. And on the plus side?
The venerable Helen Thomas, White House reporter, asked Robert Gibbs, WH press secretary, why the islamo-terrorists are targeting the USA. Apparently Gibbs didn't have an answer. Much later, a commentator on Fox wondered where Helen has been for the last eight years.
But this whole thing kinda reminds me of cowboys and indians. There are few things sadder in the world than cultural wars. For example: a small caravan of pioneers are moving across the plains in the 1840s to resettle somewhere in the West. They're passing through land that is, at this moment, controlled by the Sioux -- although the Sioux only took it over by running out the Black Feet, and the Sioux's control is constantly being challenged by the Cheyenne and the Pawnee. But the hapless pioneers don't know anything about this tribal business at all.
So, the pioneers left Missouri with about four head of cattle. One of their cows takes sick, and rather than hold up the whole caravan for however long it will take for the cow to recover, they leave the cow behind. They do their 10 or 12 miles for the day and set up camp on the Platte, near water, etc., where they can rest for a couple days. They send a 12-year-old kid back for the cow.
The kid goes back and can't find the cow. However, he does run into a Sioux indian, who says, "Oh, was that your cow? We thought you didn't want it, so we took it and slaughtered it and ate it for dinner last night. Maybe we could give you a pony or something to make up for it?"
Well... no. The kid's family wouldn't accept any apologies or retribution. As far as the pioneer was concerned, the Sioux were vicious and trying to kill all white people. The pioneer got up some kind of posse and tried to burn down the indian village, and the indians, of course, retaliated to the best of their ability -- which was considerable.
And this actually happened. And it set off a bloody slaughter and hostilities that continued for decades.
Then poor Black Kettle, who was a Cheyenne chieftain, I believe. He actually went to Washington with one delegation or another and was quite impressed by the permanent-looking civilization on the eastern side of the Mississippi. Heretofore, most indians regarded the pioneers as something like scouts for another tribe. I suppose in a way they were.
At any rate, Black Kettle just decided that indians could not win against the whites. He counseled his tribe to simply give up and go along. His tribe was attacked and massacred at Sand Creek, east of Denver, in the early days of the Civil War. Again, due to some kind of cattle disappearance or something like that, combined with the frustrated bravado of a butthead self-appointed militia colonel who wanted to be defending the Union somehow.
Black Kettle moved, at the behest and with the approval of the federal government, to a sort of tribal reserve on the Washita in what's Oklahoma now, I believe, or possibly Kansas. After the Civil War, Custer attacked and massacred Black Kettle's tribe there. This was because certain young men in the tribe refused to give up their tribal ways in the same way Black Kettle did, and they'd ride out periodically and burn down homesteads and murder settlers.
I'm not particularly taking the side of the indians. They gave back as good as they got. But don't you see, nobody wins? The story is just sad all the way around.
Destruction is not a very positive goal for anyone. Volunteering for martyrdom is not really a good or a very productive ideal.
Ever see "Bridge on the River Kwai"? Probably one of the best movies ever made. Toward the end, after William Holden has lead Jack Hawkins and a team of commandos into the jungle to blow up the bridge, Holden loses all patience with Hawkins' "death before dishonor" thing. Holden says something like: "All you talk about is how to die like a man, how to die with honor, how to die like a soldier. When the only thing that's really important is how to live like a human being."
So, anyway, you crazy islamo-terrorists, just keep on attacking. The more of you we kill, the fewer will be running at us tomorrow. This is not a war anyone wants, and believe me, we will wear you down. Because you see, we believe that we do have something to lose -- a positive reason for fighting -- even if you don't. That's a reason to live, not a reason to die.
Or, as Patton said, "The objective is not to die for your country, but to get the enemy to die for his."
In a perfect world, I'd be a pacifist. But a perfect world does not exist.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Suicide ain't painless
Anyone else find it interesting that, although the democrat party (no longer capitalized, please note), with majorities in both houses and a democrat president, is folding its little tent and quietly stealing away?
Interesting news today -- Chris Dodd, Dorgan, and Ritter, three big dem cheeses, all are retiring after this term. That just about guarantees that the dems lose the senate majority, unless voters do something stupid, like elect another dem to take one of their places.
What amazes me, however, is that these guys are members of probably the most powerful political cabal in the most powerful nation in the world, and they're quitting. One of two things:
1.) They're men of honor and can't stand to see the dem leadership destroy the nation;
2.) They understand there's no way they'll be re-elected, so retirement looks better and is much less humiliating than what they'll surely face at the polls in November.
Dodd, I'm quite sure, is a total corrupt jerk, so #2 undoubtedly applies. The other two I don't know very well at all, so they could be honorable. I mean, it could happen.....
Anyway, just wanted to crow a little bit about this. I didn't think the democrats could survive the Clinton administration, but I guess it takes a complete and total disaster -- like a communist president and dem majorities in both houses, and they threatening the existence of the USA as the USA -- to stamp out 324 years of tradition. Oh well, the dems are pretty much done for now; better late than never. And to think this was Jefferson's party. Maybe he's coming to all of these guys in their dreams and reminding them of their oath to "protect and defend."
This is a great day for the nation!
Interesting news today -- Chris Dodd, Dorgan, and Ritter, three big dem cheeses, all are retiring after this term. That just about guarantees that the dems lose the senate majority, unless voters do something stupid, like elect another dem to take one of their places.
What amazes me, however, is that these guys are members of probably the most powerful political cabal in the most powerful nation in the world, and they're quitting. One of two things:
1.) They're men of honor and can't stand to see the dem leadership destroy the nation;
2.) They understand there's no way they'll be re-elected, so retirement looks better and is much less humiliating than what they'll surely face at the polls in November.
Dodd, I'm quite sure, is a total corrupt jerk, so #2 undoubtedly applies. The other two I don't know very well at all, so they could be honorable. I mean, it could happen.....
Anyway, just wanted to crow a little bit about this. I didn't think the democrats could survive the Clinton administration, but I guess it takes a complete and total disaster -- like a communist president and dem majorities in both houses, and they threatening the existence of the USA as the USA -- to stamp out 324 years of tradition. Oh well, the dems are pretty much done for now; better late than never. And to think this was Jefferson's party. Maybe he's coming to all of these guys in their dreams and reminding them of their oath to "protect and defend."
This is a great day for the nation!
Notes on the congressional hog wallow
Haven't been writing a lot because it's just the same old thing -- incompetence and corruption.
Just want to note that Pazzo Pelosi and Give-'em-pork Harry Reid apparently are agreeing to keep secret the "conference" (ha-ha) that will combine the house and senate socialized medicine bills. Normally, a "conference" to reconcile the two bills is publicized. So Pelosi and Reid seem to be concluding to take another tactic -- a house committee meeting in secret will make a change and "ping-pong" that to a secret senate committee to do whatever it wants to do with that.
The idea behind all the secrecy is, of course, that the American public has gagged on "the process" as it has revealed itself thus far, so the democrats are apprehensive about feeding us any more rotten pork. Not that they'll stop; rather, they'll do it behind closed doors. In either case, they're poisoning the system.
See, Pazzo still doesn't understand that the way things look is not half as important as the way things really are -- and that most Americans really do understand the difference between illusion and reality -- even if she herself is not capable of such subtle discernment. Like all of the people who have voted for and with her, she's probably a borderline sociopath who should be institutionalized to protect the public.
This is really making me sick. I think about Jefferson and Madison and those guys, and the structure they created, the ideals they believed in. Then look at what these horses' asses are doing to it. It's more than disgusting. It's a crime against humanity. These idiots need to be charged with bribery, among other things, and prosecuted publicly.
Of course, the big question that really is no question at all is: Will the Comrade sign this piece of crap legislation? What do you think?
Isn't the Comrade, then, as foul and corrupt as those who put it together?
Do I need to ask?
We need to get rid of every reeking democrat who will be running for office in November. That still won't give the senate a non-democrat majority, but it will help.
This piece of crap socialized medicine abomination needs to be repealed. The least citizens can do -- even before and without an election -- is to ignore it.
If you're asked on your IRS form whether or not you have health insurance, I suggest jotting down "N/A" or "none of your Goddamn business" and moving on. If you choose to file your taxes this year. If you want to continue to support and participate in this nauseating and worthless exercise of illegitimate dominion.
All of this crap will continue only for as long as we, the public, allow it to. We do have the final say. For one thing, we w-a-a-a-a-y outnumber the jerks in congress. There are only 535 of them. There are 300 million of us. This government exists only for as long as we support it.
And these jerks don't like to be called "nazis"? Well, if it walks like a nazi, and talks like a nazi, and conducts government business like a nazi.... what else shall we call them?
They exist only to serve us. Not the other way around. Don't ever forget that.
Just want to note that Pazzo Pelosi and Give-'em-pork Harry Reid apparently are agreeing to keep secret the "conference" (ha-ha) that will combine the house and senate socialized medicine bills. Normally, a "conference" to reconcile the two bills is publicized. So Pelosi and Reid seem to be concluding to take another tactic -- a house committee meeting in secret will make a change and "ping-pong" that to a secret senate committee to do whatever it wants to do with that.
The idea behind all the secrecy is, of course, that the American public has gagged on "the process" as it has revealed itself thus far, so the democrats are apprehensive about feeding us any more rotten pork. Not that they'll stop; rather, they'll do it behind closed doors. In either case, they're poisoning the system.
See, Pazzo still doesn't understand that the way things look is not half as important as the way things really are -- and that most Americans really do understand the difference between illusion and reality -- even if she herself is not capable of such subtle discernment. Like all of the people who have voted for and with her, she's probably a borderline sociopath who should be institutionalized to protect the public.
This is really making me sick. I think about Jefferson and Madison and those guys, and the structure they created, the ideals they believed in. Then look at what these horses' asses are doing to it. It's more than disgusting. It's a crime against humanity. These idiots need to be charged with bribery, among other things, and prosecuted publicly.
Of course, the big question that really is no question at all is: Will the Comrade sign this piece of crap legislation? What do you think?
Isn't the Comrade, then, as foul and corrupt as those who put it together?
Do I need to ask?
We need to get rid of every reeking democrat who will be running for office in November. That still won't give the senate a non-democrat majority, but it will help.
This piece of crap socialized medicine abomination needs to be repealed. The least citizens can do -- even before and without an election -- is to ignore it.
If you're asked on your IRS form whether or not you have health insurance, I suggest jotting down "N/A" or "none of your Goddamn business" and moving on. If you choose to file your taxes this year. If you want to continue to support and participate in this nauseating and worthless exercise of illegitimate dominion.
All of this crap will continue only for as long as we, the public, allow it to. We do have the final say. For one thing, we w-a-a-a-a-y outnumber the jerks in congress. There are only 535 of them. There are 300 million of us. This government exists only for as long as we support it.
And these jerks don't like to be called "nazis"? Well, if it walks like a nazi, and talks like a nazi, and conducts government business like a nazi.... what else shall we call them?
They exist only to serve us. Not the other way around. Don't ever forget that.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
"Enemy combatants" or "vandals"?
Don't know about anyone else in the USA, but I'd welcome a little global warming just about now. When those buttheads in Copenhagen said 2009 was the hottest year on record, were they just ignoring stats from the northern hemisphere or what? Apparently they did "forget" about the numbers from Russia.
Saw only part of a speech from the Comrade today. Maybe it was today. Coulda been yesterday. Time is just a blur....
Anyway, did the Comrade himself refer to the Nigerian Bomber as a "terrorist," or was that someone from Homeland Security or the State Department or someplace else? Don't tell me even the Comrade is coming to view these "man-made disasters" as something more than low-level criminal activity. 'Course, that would undo all he's done regarding the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Here's an interesting situation. During the US Civil War, the US couldn't recognize the "rebels" as the Confederate States of America, a separate nation, without acknowledging that the CSA actually was a separate nation. See the problem? Like, after the South bombed Fort Sumter -- the first official violence in the war -- Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "insurrection." If Lincoln or anyone else officially referred to the CSA as the CSA, that would be diplomatic recognition that the CSA was in fact another country apart from the USA, and that, in fact, the CSA had successfully separated itself from the USA. That separaton was never conceded during the war. To this day, the USA regards the Civil War as "The War of Rebellion."
Anyway, it was a bizarre issue.
So the USA had to fight these "insurrectionists" as an internal problem rather than as a foreign enemy, and for crimes that were a little more serious than vandalism. This got rather sticky, because if the rebs were US citizens, then they truly and really did have a claim to all the rights and protections of the US Constitution. And "rules of warfare" did exist at the time. Not written in stone and agreed to, like the Geneva Convention, but a book of rules did exist -- primarily for fighting a foreign enemy.
So how do you lock people up who try to blow up a critical railroad bridge? You can't claim they're foreign invaders, not in a civil war. Yet they're more than teenagers trashing a high school. What do you do about spies, when US citizens ordinarly have the right to visit friends and relatives in jail, and can even carry weapons and such in their hoop skirts? I mean, the Civil War was a real, bloody war, not just an exercise in semantics. How do you get the law to support you?
Look up what's called "The Prize Cases" in the US Supreme Court. This decision involved the USA's confiscation of certain ships and cargo that were actually owned by the British, primarily. They were shipping weapons and other materiel to the CSA. The USA had blockades put up around virtually every major southern port and seized these ships. Can the USA just arbitrarily seize a foreign ship going into a domestic port (from the perspective of the USA, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans were still "domestic" ports.)
Anyway, so it was the Prize Cases that provided an official legal go-around, or framework maybe, for prosecuting "enemy combatants" whether or not they were citizens of the USA. They were people who were regarded as trying to destroy the USA, no matter where they came from or how they got here.
The Comrade might want to look at those cases. Eric Holder and the ACLU might also check it out. The Prize Cases set a precedent. We've been through all this before, you see.
Interesting, too, that -- and this gets complicated -- is the POW question during the Civil War. After trying to follow the rules of a complicated cartel to exchange and return POWs, Lincoln finally ordered the exchanges be stopped when the North began recruiting black soldiers. Many were runaway slaves and "contrabands" from the South and after the Emancipation Proclamation, were allowed to join the US military. (See the movie, "Glory." It's really pretty good.)
Jeff Davis, CSA president, threatened to sell into slavery any black US soldiers who were captured, and initially said he'd hang their white commanders for "inciting domestic insurrection." He backed down on the white commanders thing for fear of retaliation from the North, but black soldiers fighting for the Union remained targets for special abuse and cruelty at the hands of the CSA.
Despite Lincoln's directive, he did leave the final decision about POWs up to the field commanders... At Gettysburg, and at Lincoln's bidding, General Meade refused an exchange of prisoners suggested by General Robert E. Lee once the cannons had quieted down. But on the same day on the Mississippi River, General U.S. Grant released some 30,000 Confederate POWs when Vicksburg finally fell. Grant didn't want to feed them and guard them. The Vicksburg POWs were supposed to lay down their arms and go home and not fight again (until the CSA released 30,000 US POWs to even things out -- gets complicated.)
But then a few months later, Grant saw these same units on the front lines at the Battle of Chattanooga, and from thence onward, though a few exchanges were made -- mostly of officers, spies, and other civilian partisans -- the USA refused to return soldiers to the South because these guys would pick up arms and head for the front lines. The South was running out of men; Grant saw that as yet another way to bring an end to the war.
The POWs held by both the North and the South were imprisoned through the conclusion of the war. That's why the prison camps got so crowded. If the North wasn't going to return any POWs, the CSA surely wasn't going to either.
Interesting, too, that the people who assassinated Lincoln -- after the war, mind you -- were tried by a military tribunal, not by a civilian court. Henry Wirtz, CSA commander of the POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia, also was tried by a military tribunal -- after the war had come to an end.
Rose Greenhow, a society belle in Washington, DC, when the war broke out, was a southern sympathizer and apparently passed information she collected from Yankee officers to friends of hers in the Confederate Army. She was kept under house arrest, imprisoned for a time, and finally left the USA.
Spies and other similar were tried by military tribunals -- and these spies were, for the most part, still US citizens in the eyes of the North. And they were tried as "enemy combatants" by military tribunals. The CSA had its own military tribunals, too, but in one way it was an easier process for the South, because they regarded the Yankees as "foreign invaders."
So tell me about the legal status of the jerks who blew up the World Trade Center? Why do they rate being mirandized and a civilian trial? Perhaps Attorney General Holder and the Comrade will apply the RICO statutes and treat them like organized crime? Who knows? The prisoners at Guantanamo regard themselves as "enemy combatants" and POWs. Perhaps we all should just drop the very precious political correctness and treat them that way, instead of exhibiting to the world a Kangaroo Court, US-style -- and that's what that civilian trial will be.
I suspect it will be conducted something like Tim McVeigh's trial, which was an absolute travesty of justice -- and I have no doubt at all that McVeigh was guilty of blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The idea of using a prosecutor in a wheel chair -- obvious and even insulting appeal for sympathy -- and calling as "witnesses" the family members of people killed at the Murrah Building -- what a disgrace! The family members properly might have been part of a sentencing trial, but what on earth did they know beforehand about the incident that would help convict Tim McVeigh?
Anyway, I'm cold and tired. And I'm just sick of this administration's complete ignorance of and disregard for US history and traditions. But even the Comrade seems to understand that these islamo-terrorists are dangerous animals. Maybe that's finally beginning to sink in.
Saw only part of a speech from the Comrade today. Maybe it was today. Coulda been yesterday. Time is just a blur....
Anyway, did the Comrade himself refer to the Nigerian Bomber as a "terrorist," or was that someone from Homeland Security or the State Department or someplace else? Don't tell me even the Comrade is coming to view these "man-made disasters" as something more than low-level criminal activity. 'Course, that would undo all he's done regarding the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Here's an interesting situation. During the US Civil War, the US couldn't recognize the "rebels" as the Confederate States of America, a separate nation, without acknowledging that the CSA actually was a separate nation. See the problem? Like, after the South bombed Fort Sumter -- the first official violence in the war -- Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "insurrection." If Lincoln or anyone else officially referred to the CSA as the CSA, that would be diplomatic recognition that the CSA was in fact another country apart from the USA, and that, in fact, the CSA had successfully separated itself from the USA. That separaton was never conceded during the war. To this day, the USA regards the Civil War as "The War of Rebellion."
Anyway, it was a bizarre issue.
So the USA had to fight these "insurrectionists" as an internal problem rather than as a foreign enemy, and for crimes that were a little more serious than vandalism. This got rather sticky, because if the rebs were US citizens, then they truly and really did have a claim to all the rights and protections of the US Constitution. And "rules of warfare" did exist at the time. Not written in stone and agreed to, like the Geneva Convention, but a book of rules did exist -- primarily for fighting a foreign enemy.
So how do you lock people up who try to blow up a critical railroad bridge? You can't claim they're foreign invaders, not in a civil war. Yet they're more than teenagers trashing a high school. What do you do about spies, when US citizens ordinarly have the right to visit friends and relatives in jail, and can even carry weapons and such in their hoop skirts? I mean, the Civil War was a real, bloody war, not just an exercise in semantics. How do you get the law to support you?
Look up what's called "The Prize Cases" in the US Supreme Court. This decision involved the USA's confiscation of certain ships and cargo that were actually owned by the British, primarily. They were shipping weapons and other materiel to the CSA. The USA had blockades put up around virtually every major southern port and seized these ships. Can the USA just arbitrarily seize a foreign ship going into a domestic port (from the perspective of the USA, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans were still "domestic" ports.)
Anyway, so it was the Prize Cases that provided an official legal go-around, or framework maybe, for prosecuting "enemy combatants" whether or not they were citizens of the USA. They were people who were regarded as trying to destroy the USA, no matter where they came from or how they got here.
The Comrade might want to look at those cases. Eric Holder and the ACLU might also check it out. The Prize Cases set a precedent. We've been through all this before, you see.
Interesting, too, that -- and this gets complicated -- is the POW question during the Civil War. After trying to follow the rules of a complicated cartel to exchange and return POWs, Lincoln finally ordered the exchanges be stopped when the North began recruiting black soldiers. Many were runaway slaves and "contrabands" from the South and after the Emancipation Proclamation, were allowed to join the US military. (See the movie, "Glory." It's really pretty good.)
Jeff Davis, CSA president, threatened to sell into slavery any black US soldiers who were captured, and initially said he'd hang their white commanders for "inciting domestic insurrection." He backed down on the white commanders thing for fear of retaliation from the North, but black soldiers fighting for the Union remained targets for special abuse and cruelty at the hands of the CSA.
Despite Lincoln's directive, he did leave the final decision about POWs up to the field commanders... At Gettysburg, and at Lincoln's bidding, General Meade refused an exchange of prisoners suggested by General Robert E. Lee once the cannons had quieted down. But on the same day on the Mississippi River, General U.S. Grant released some 30,000 Confederate POWs when Vicksburg finally fell. Grant didn't want to feed them and guard them. The Vicksburg POWs were supposed to lay down their arms and go home and not fight again (until the CSA released 30,000 US POWs to even things out -- gets complicated.)
But then a few months later, Grant saw these same units on the front lines at the Battle of Chattanooga, and from thence onward, though a few exchanges were made -- mostly of officers, spies, and other civilian partisans -- the USA refused to return soldiers to the South because these guys would pick up arms and head for the front lines. The South was running out of men; Grant saw that as yet another way to bring an end to the war.
The POWs held by both the North and the South were imprisoned through the conclusion of the war. That's why the prison camps got so crowded. If the North wasn't going to return any POWs, the CSA surely wasn't going to either.
Interesting, too, that the people who assassinated Lincoln -- after the war, mind you -- were tried by a military tribunal, not by a civilian court. Henry Wirtz, CSA commander of the POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia, also was tried by a military tribunal -- after the war had come to an end.
Rose Greenhow, a society belle in Washington, DC, when the war broke out, was a southern sympathizer and apparently passed information she collected from Yankee officers to friends of hers in the Confederate Army. She was kept under house arrest, imprisoned for a time, and finally left the USA.
Spies and other similar were tried by military tribunals -- and these spies were, for the most part, still US citizens in the eyes of the North. And they were tried as "enemy combatants" by military tribunals. The CSA had its own military tribunals, too, but in one way it was an easier process for the South, because they regarded the Yankees as "foreign invaders."
So tell me about the legal status of the jerks who blew up the World Trade Center? Why do they rate being mirandized and a civilian trial? Perhaps Attorney General Holder and the Comrade will apply the RICO statutes and treat them like organized crime? Who knows? The prisoners at Guantanamo regard themselves as "enemy combatants" and POWs. Perhaps we all should just drop the very precious political correctness and treat them that way, instead of exhibiting to the world a Kangaroo Court, US-style -- and that's what that civilian trial will be.
I suspect it will be conducted something like Tim McVeigh's trial, which was an absolute travesty of justice -- and I have no doubt at all that McVeigh was guilty of blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The idea of using a prosecutor in a wheel chair -- obvious and even insulting appeal for sympathy -- and calling as "witnesses" the family members of people killed at the Murrah Building -- what a disgrace! The family members properly might have been part of a sentencing trial, but what on earth did they know beforehand about the incident that would help convict Tim McVeigh?
Anyway, I'm cold and tired. And I'm just sick of this administration's complete ignorance of and disregard for US history and traditions. But even the Comrade seems to understand that these islamo-terrorists are dangerous animals. Maybe that's finally beginning to sink in.
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