30
Nov
Lashkar-e-Taiba sells itself as “The Army of the Good”. Using that moniker, they advocate fundamentalist Islam rule. Azam Amir Kasab is apparently a member of “The Army of the Good”. Now, this is how the “The Army of the Good” spreads its word for the “Religion of Peace”:
It’s kinda blurry, but that’s a rifle he’s carrying. He’s walking around a hotel in Mumbai, India, randomly shooting tourists. Now, I’m not sure about you, but I just don’t buy the “army of the good” rhetoric. Or for that matter, the “religion of peace” one either. Innocent people are being killed all over the planet in the name of “the religion of peace” while all the other members of “the religion of peace sit idly by and let them prepare. Often times, assisting them. This is not a situation of a hand full of rogue religious zealots going full throttle crazy, it’s systematic, it’s world wide, it’s organized. Many times, it’s supported by the host country’s government. Mankind can not advance under these circumstances. If they had their way, we’d be living in the Dark Ages, again.
Now, where this becomes an issue in the United States is two-fold. First of all, we’ve dealt with the likes of “The Army of the Good”. It was ugly. We let our guard down and we’re still paying for the price for that. We will for a while.
Second, President-elect Barack Obama soothed his primary critics during the election cycle by stating flat-out that he would go into Pakistan to find Osama Bin Laden. What this presents is a problem. First of all, Pakistan is our ally. One of the very few fundamentalist Islam nations to do so. Our primary supporter in Pakistan is no longer in office. So, to say the relationship is probably tenuous is pushing it. They like our money a lot. But, I’m guessing at this point that’s about it. US troops have gone accross the border into Pakistan trying to quell problems in Iraq. This has not been received too well. To get to the root of the problem, we’d have to go WAY into Pakistan. At that point, I can pretty well assume our alliance will be no more. Is Obama willing to do that? Are the people that supported Obama primarily under the promise of getting us out of war, in Iraq, willing to support him starting another war in Pakistan when they haven’t attacked the US? The politics of starting a conflict with Pakistan are exactly the same as they were starting the conflict with Iraq. Only, I would assume, Pakistan is a much more dangerous situation than Iraq was in 2003. Pakistan has a very fractured military whereas Iraq was ruled with an iron thumb. When Hussein was driven from power, the Iraqi army disintegrated. I don’t see that happening in Pakistan. Even if it does, the many very heavily armed and isolated terrorist cells will be a small war for each and every one of them. Given all that, the promise of getting Bin Laden by simply invading Pakistan is flawed. When the troops do begin conflict with Pakistan, he will be long gone again.
So, the Obama reason for entering Pakistan doesn’t hold water. Would we do it to support India? I would hope so. But, it would have to be at India’s request and lead. This war on “radical” Muslim terrorist groups is not something one single country can deal with. They’re all over the planet, heavily armed, and in some cases represent the government of the country they’re in. This would have to be a concerted effort by many governments ready to deal with the consequences for a long time.
And quite frankly, given the fact how many people have forgotten, or just don’t care, about 9/11 any more in the US, I’m not sure we’ve got what it takes to deal with the consequences for more than a couple of years. If Obama does initialize a conflict with Pakistan, will Keith Olbermann demand he be impeached? Is Obama willing to put up with his most ardent supporters attacking him?
My gut instinct right now is we’ve done all we can do in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to focus on the instability inside Pakistan. It’s too big of an issue to be ignored under the auspices of being our “ally”. They’ve got an unstable government, huge terrorist cells, and the nuclear bomb. It’s more than evident that the Pakistani government can not control their own country. It’s questionable whether they can control their own government. Iran has been rushing to be the first fundamentalist country to posses the bomb. I’d argue Pakistan beat them to the punch. Whether politically, militarily, or financially, Pakistan needs to be dealt with in a very stern way. The carnage in Mumbai may be Obama’s first test. I can expect the Indian government will demand retribution against Pakistan. How Obama reacts to this could very well determine his future for the next four years as 9/11 did for Bush, whether he likes it or not. There is no pretty option here. There is no way he can sweet talk this away. It will be hard choices probably forcing the US to ally with either India or Pakistan. Walking the fence is probably not an option any more.
Bush assured a conflict with Iraq when he was a candidate for office. Two years laters people claimed they had been “lied” to. No one was lied to. They simply didn’t listen. Obama pretty much promised a war with Pakistan. Were people listening?
I expect that even though Obama has a loaded domestic agenda, his agenda is going to be interrupted by an expensive and politically challenging conflict in Pakistan. I hope I’m wrong.
Nuff said!
Realizing that her very public message that Democrats never had anything to do with the finance meltdown regardless of the fact their legislation and policies OBVIOUSLY caused it to the point even Bill Clinton personally accepted some blame, Nancy’s got a new gig:
In the past I would have defined bipartisan for her, again. However, it’s pianfully obvious she has no clue, and doesn’t care. She can say anything, no matter how stupid, and get a free pass from most of the media. If Bush had said this up until this fall, it would have been all over all media, SNL, and Letterman. Now, that hat has been passed to Sarah Palin. Nothing Palin has said is nearly as stupid as most of what Pelosi does say. Where are the gags on SNL? Why isn’t Keith Oblermann calling her the worst, Congressman, ever? Why aren’t these side-splitting gags repeated on Letterman? I mean, come on, Dave, this is easy stuff here.
Oh well, it’s not gonna happen any time soon. There’s an election to get out of the way first. Maybe if Nancy does have a more bipartisan Congress with very few members of the opposing party to deal with, she’ll no longer be in charge of the most unpopular Congress in the history of Earth.
28
Aug
I have never really figured Dick Morris out. I like that. I like that a lot. A lot of people have been scratching their heads over Obama’s campaign so far. To the average guy who doesn’t get caught up in hysteria or hype, it’s been very puzzling. It’s not to me. And, apparently it’s not to Dick Morris either:
……This pattern of shooting at the decoy, not the duck, gives McCain a bold strategic opportunity. He can nullify the impact of the entire Democratic convention simply by distancing himself from Bush.
Now, Dick goes on to list a LONG list of MAJOR differences between McCain and Bush. That’s not even the whole list. You can’t get much different within the same party as Bush and McCain right now. That’s where the deception is occurring. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary, and now Obama have based their current political position on trashing Bush mercilessly.
As I’ve noted here before, what are they going to do next? Bush is not running for anything. The more they trash Bush, the easier the ride is for McCain. The logic is simple: Republicans know the difference between Bush and McCain. Nothing Obama or Biden says will mean anyhing to about half the people that will vote. Now, the real shocker will come when they realize that a good majority of Obama’s core already know this as well. They were cheering McCcain when he trashed Bush in 2000. They were cheering McCain when he bucked Bush very visibly on several key issues. They cheered McCain when he teamed up with Russ Feingold to clean up campaign finance in DC. Now, they are being hammered to death that the man they cheered for being so different from Bush over the last eight years, is, in their candidates’ minds, the same thing as Bush. And, the man more likely to agree with and priase Bush on many key issues, Joe Biden, is the “change” they’ve been promised.
Go figure that one.
Better yet, go try to sell it.
Best advice for Obama, attack McCain, not the windmill.
Best advice for whoever might read this, read the rest of Dick Morris’s piece, it’s spot-on.
A friend of mine sent me a petition on facebook. I get them all the time. I almost never “sign” them. Signing them means you get inundated with stuff I don’t want. However, if it’s really that important, I might. Probably won’t, but might. So, imagine my response when I saw this:
Petition: Contraception is NOT Abortion!
Well, that seems obvious enough to me. So, I had to check it out. What I got was this:
20,000 people have joined this group in just 2 days! Please invite your friends!
* * * * *
It seems unbelievable, but the Bush Administration is quietly trying to redefine “abortion” to include birth control. The Houston Chronicle says this could wipe out dozens of state laws that protect women’s reproductive freedom and protect rape victims. This “rule change” doesn’t need congressional approval.Can you join over 250,000 others in signing this emergency message to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, whose department is considering this rule change right now?
Click here to sign:
http://pol.moveon.org/contraception/?rc=fb.cnotaMoveOn and Planned Parenthood will deliver the petition to Secretary Leavitt this coming week.
Petition Text:
“Contraception is NOT abortion. The Bush Administration’s proposal to change the definition of abortion and reduce women’s access to birth control must be stopped.”
If you haven’t caught it yet, if you click on that link, you go straight to moveon.org.
I hate moveon.org.
They are everything that is wrong with politics today.
They put the “swift boat” in swift boating. They just got beat at in 2004.
They circumvent everything McCain-Feingold intended.
They are ruining the United States of America in every conceivable way.
Have I made myself clear how I feel about them?
So, I knew when I saw that link there would be something bad wrong. This is actually the point of contention they are complaining about:
Specifically in regards to situations where:
…the new requirement is needed to ensure that federal money does not “support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.” The administration said Congress had passed a number of laws to ensure that doctors, hospitals and health plans would not be forced to perform abortions.
Now read that first part again. You don’t even have to read it carefully. But it seems to me totally contradictory from one part to the next. In simple terms, one can not terminate something that never happened. They are not redefining contraception. They are including the morning-after pill as an abortion process in assumption. However, according to morningafterpill.org, their assertion is that morning after pills are an emergency contraception only. It does cause an abortion, it just doubly assures that if you forgot your pill or condom or whatever, you can make doubly sure you don’t get pregnant. Under that assumption, this wouldn’t apply to the rules “change” moveon.org is so wild about. What will happen if this rule change is accepted as proposed is that hospitals accepting HHS monies will have to provide ALL options to someone who is considering abortions. That, as far as I know of, from nurses in the field, is what happens now for the most part. Since they don’t know the circumstances, they just provide all the options available and go with what the patient requests. However, since abortions are not performed here, they are given a list of where to go if they choose that route.
In our case, absolutely nothing would change.
Now, I am not so naive to think there are not medical facilities with vested political agendas, so I’ll assume in this case that some of them try to push their patients in one direction or another. For instance, I seriously doubt a hospital funded by Catholic Charities will be giving patients the option of an abortion. If that hospital is receiving HHS monies, under this change, they will be forced to make the patient aware that abortion is an option and where they could get one.
Not exactly the angle MoveOn.org is giving you is it?
Additionally, since I interpret this as addressing the morning after pill almost singly, and their argument is that it is a contraceptive and not an abortion process, I expect a lawsuit will result that will get very, very, very interesting. Specifically, someone, in order to enforce this rule, will have to prove whether conception has occurred in every single case of someone receiving HHS money and wanting the morning after pill.
Mankind has been debating that issue for decades.
The net result as I predict it will be:
- the government, at this time, does not have the ability to prove when conception actually occurs and therefore can not determine what is technically prevention or abortion. So, that part will be nixed.
- The rest of the rule change, when a lawsuit compels Catholic Charities to offer abortions as an option, will be nixed as well.
- Lastly, not one single person who has signed or does sign that petition at MoveOn.org has even read the rule. If they did, they wouldn’t have signed the petition.
That’s the teaser on CNN. Here’s some of the meat:
Now, Kent Conrad, as noted, is on the Senate Budget Committee. Legislation is controlled by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, two DEMOCRATS. The budgets come from committees, ALL CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRATS.
In simpler terms, if they don’t like the budget, they can change it. They can balance this budget right now if they so choose.
What are the chances Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are going to do anything about this fiscal irresponsibility other than blame the budgets they pass on someone else?
Zero.
When Nancy Pelosi took over the House, she promised to end this fiscal irresponsibility.
It’s only gotten much, much, worse.
However, if Harry and Nancy do dick around with the budget, which they say they’re trying to do, I imagine the economic downturn that coincides with their taking over the House and Senate will only get much, much, worse.
So, they’re kinda screwed. However, if CNN keeps ignoring them and instead focusing on people that recite the party line, Harry and Nancy will keep getting passes while things continue to get much, much, worse.
And if Obama does win, given his same rhetoric of fiscal irresponsibility, he will be so, so, screwed when he tries to stop Harry and Nancy from making things much, much, worse.
You heard it first folks. That’s really a shame too.
That’s the headline on CNN. The headline NOT on CNN is:
And, the reason they decided to give up?
Director Don Burgin said the London-Laurel County “Y” struggled with $6,000 monthly utility bills and its budget was further stretched by an increase in the minimum wage.
And of course, who do some people blame for the failure of a non-profit due to an unfunded mandate?
Nancy Pelosi just LOVES ignorant voters.
Barack Obama’s having a rough week.
First, he did the very odd thing of stating very publicly he liked President Bush’s Faith Based Initiative so much he wanted to expand it. That drew the ire of the Reverend Jesse Jackson:
Now, I don’t think the reverend was terribly upset that Obama wanted to expand the opportunities for religious social programs to do good, I think it was because he did the unthinkable and supported a wildly conservative President’s idea. Luckily for Obama, people have focused more on his nuts and not on the fact that it was spoken by a wildly liberal, race baiting African American. This is the core of Obama’s support ( wildly liberal, not necessarily African American ).
Then to further antagonize the wildliy liberal Russ Feingold offered this piece of advice for Obama:
To which Obama’s immediate reaction to Feingold was:
| Akaka (D-HI), Nay Alexander (R-TN), Yea Allard (R-CO), Yea Barrasso (R-WY), Yea Baucus (D-MT), Yea Bayh (D-IN), Yea Bennett (R-UT), Yea Biden (D-DE), Nay Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Bond (R-MO), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Nay Brown (D-OH), Nay Brownback (R-KS), Yea Bunning (R-KY), Yea Burr (R-NC), Yea Byrd (D-WV), Nay Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Cardin (D-MD), Nay Carper (D-DE), Yea Casey (D-PA), Yea Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Clinton (D-NY), Nay Coburn (R-OK), Yea Cochran (R-MS), Yea Coleman (R-MN), Yea Collins (R-ME), Yea Conrad (D-ND), Yea Corker (R-TN), Yea Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Craig (R-ID), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Yea DeMint (R-SC), Yea Dodd (D-CT), Nay Dole (R-NC), Yea |
Domenici (R-NM), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Nay Durbin (D-IL), Nay Ensign (R-NV), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea Feingold (D-WI), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Graham (R-SC), Yea Grassley (R-IA), Yea Gregg (R-NH), Yea Hagel (R-NE), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea Johnson (D-SD), Yea Kennedy (D-MA), Not Voting Kerry (D-MA), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Nay Kohl (D-WI), Yea Kyl (R-AZ), Yea Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay Leahy (D-VT), Nay Levin (D-MI), Nay Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea Martinez (R-FL), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Not Voting McCaskill (D-MO), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Yea |
Menendez (D-NJ), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Murray (D-WA), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Yea Obama (D-IL), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea Reed (D-RI), Nay Reid (D-NV), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea Salazar (D-CO), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Nay Sessions (R-AL), Not Voting Shelby (R-AL), Yea Smith (R-OR), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea Specter (R-PA), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Nay Stevens (R-AK), Yea Sununu (R-NH), Yea Tester (D-MT), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Yea Voinovich (R-OH), Yea Warner (R-VA), Yea Webb (D-VA), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea Wicker (R-MS), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Nay |
Now, even the ACLU condemned this piece of legislation. So, we’ve got Rev. Jesse Jackson, ACLU, And Russ Feingold condemning Obama in about a week. That’s pretty tough for any candidate. Now, all of them have said they’re still hot for Obama. But, it seems a little more shallow now than it did last week to me. Even the wildly liberal DailyKos couldn’t find it in their soul to look for an upside to this. He did however, remarkably find a way to blame it on Republicans and media. ( Clue here Kos guys, Obama did the deed because he’s scared to death about an issue. How often will he capitulate on other conservative issues like, oh, let’s say, Faith Based Initiatives? )
Bottom line, this has been a rather disastrous week for Obama. Is he dead in the water? No way. He’s fresh, he’s enthusiastic, and he’s got Hollywood and main stream media completely in his pocket. However, the more he panders to the issues he’s staked his career by opposing to this point, the less enthusiastic his core will become. And, if he thinks by pandering to the conservatives will make them forget his previous history, he’ll learn a very powerful message in politics: Convservative voters never forget. Liberal voters generally tend to be a lot more flexible. However, it was Bush’s pandering to the “center” early in his presidency that cost him his unfettered support of his core. And, for the next eight years, he’s had only tepid support since. It was only the incredibly inept candidacy of John Kerry that kept him in office. The problem for Obama in my opinion, is John McCain is no John Kerry.
Via See-Dubya at Michelle Malkin’s blog, with an assist from Gasbuddy:
Apparently Nancy is finally starting to feel the heat. So, she came up with the ultimate solution her feable mind could produce:
Now, I’m going to make this as simple as possible. Basically she’s stating that by releasing 30 million gallons, we could drop the price of oil by five dollars a gallon. Here is why this is screwed:
- In 1990, the price of crude was about $23.00 a barrel. Dropping the price $8 meant a about a 33% drop in the price of gas. The price of gas at the pump dropped from about $1.27 to about $1.01. That meant something.
- In 2000, the price of crude dropped from $30.94 to $20.38. That meant something. THe price at the pump peaked at about $1.65, then dropped to $1.38 by the end of the year. Although a 16% drop, it was quickly erased within six months of 2001.
- In 2005, the problem was not a market issue, but rather a one-time event that disrupted the US’s ability to refine crude. By releasing the strategic reserve, it simply kept the supply going until the rigs and refineries could be repaired.
Now, the point is, 30 million gallons in 1991 supplied about 2 days of US average consumption. In 2000, it supplied about one and a half days. I don’t count 2005 because that was a very proper reaction to an extinuating event the strategic reserve is actually designed for. In 2008, it still is about one and one half days. In 1991, it had an impact on price. In 2000 it basically did not. What would be the difference? See if this makes sense:
| 2000 | 4.797 | 19.701 | 52.167 | 76.665 |
| 2001 | 4.918 | 19.648 | 52.836 | 77.403 |
| 2002 | 5.162 | 19.762 | 53.116 | 78.040 |
| 2003 | 5.580 | 20.034 | 54.002 | 79.616 |
| 2004 | 6.438 | 20.732 | 55.158 | 82.327 |
| 2005 | 6.721 | 20.802 | 56.129 | 83.652 |
| 2006 | 7.201 | 20.687 | 56.816 | 84.705 |
| 2007 | 7.578 | 20.698 | 57.267 | 85.543 |
| 2008 | 8.017 | 20.296 | 58.087 | 86.400 |
| 2009 | 8.420 | 20.339 | 58.999 | 87.758 |
That is a chart showing world consumption. In 2000, the US consumed about 19.701 million barrels a day. Projected for 2009, the US is about 20.339. Now, that’s not much of an increase. In 1991, it was about 16 million. Bottom line, the US isn’t using much more than we did in 1991. Taking into consideration the economic growth since 1991, the US is actually profoundly more efficient than it was in 1991. Now, that first column of figures about doubles in the last ten years. That folks, is China. The fourth column is the rest of the world besides the US and China. Now, where the problem is, is that in 2000, OPEC was a surplus supplier. They were producing more than they were selling. Now, the reverse is true due exclusively to the fact that China and the rest of the world are demanding more. Not the US. Does it get any clearer than that?
Apparently not to Nancy.
She still refuses to encourage any production that would offset the supply that OPEC can not meet. The result of OPEC not being able to meet that demand is skyrocketing crude prices. Even simple math should tell her that $8, being a 33% drop in crude that resulted in a 25% drop in gas price didn’t get the full value of the crude discount. There’s an 8% discrepency. So, doing the math, if she gets $8 on $145, which is 5.5%, and loses the same 8% of that, that would be a 5% cut on price. That folks, would amount to 21 cents on $4.15. The price of gas rose faster than that last week alone. And, given the world demand that we are so reliant on, I doubt we’d get even that because OPEC will simply sell that 30 million barrels to someone else, China or India I’m sure would take it in a heartbeat. And, then, we’d have to re-supply teh SPR at a much higher price anyway or risk complete collapse economically if another Katrina does occur.
Simple fact here Nancy, there are no magic bullets. We have to re-think and re-tool our supply mechanism before this goes away. And, until this goes away, we will not be in a position to shake down OPEC like we could twenty years ago.
Do I think Nancy Pelosi is truly that stupid? Yes I do. However, I truly believe there are a lot of people in this country that will buy her hrhetoric simply because they love to hate our President.
At this point in time, McCain is trying to distance himself from Bush. That doesn’t surprise me too much. However, we have Obama running with Bush’s Faith Based Initiative while touting McCain as “four more years of Bush“.
What makes that situation even more fun is if you Google “Obama four more years of Bush”, you get “Obama FOR more years of Bush”. Even the internets can’t keep it straight apparently.
