He said it, not me.

In the recent political battle around the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley there has been much confusion around the concept or slogan of "supporting the troops," but opposing the unjust wars of the Bush regime. Many who oppose the Bush regime wars also say they "support the troops." Let me say it straight out—I do not support the troops and neither should you. It is objectively impossible to support the troops of the imperialist military forces of the U.S. and at the same time oppose the wars in which they fight. (emphasis mine)

...

If you "support the troops" in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also objectively support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of "support the troops."

Kenneth J. Theisen is one of the organizers of the "World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!". This is the same far leftist group that sponsors many of the anti-war protests we've seen here in our country and around the world.

Think about it: If McCain turns out to be a one-term president, which many believe he will, who better to be VP and make a pseudo-incumbent run for the White House in 2012 than Mitt Romney?

Mitt Romney said in his first interview since departing the GOP race that he would accept the number two position on the ticket and that there is no lingering bitterness between him and John McCain.

"I think any Republican leader in this country would be honored to be asked to serve as the vice presidential nominee, myself included," Romney told FOX's Sean Hannity in a broadcast set to air tonight. "Of course this is a nation which needs strong leadership. And if the nominee of our party asked you to serve with him, anybody would be honored to receive that call ... and to accept it, of course."

McCain's national security credentials coupled with Mitt Romney's economic expertise and conservative street cred?

Could be a very strong GOP ticket come November.

Dick Morris, former adviser to the Bill Clinton administration, makes a compelling prediction about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign: it's over.

The real message of Tuesday’s primaries is not that Hillary won. It’s that she didn’t win by enough.

The race is over.

The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.

John McCain’s nomination guarantees that the superdelegates wouldn’t dare. A perfectly acceptable alternative for most Democrats, McCain would harvest so large a proportion of Obama’s votes if Hillary steals the nomination that he would probably win. Even putting Obama on the ticket would not allay the anger of his supporters; it would just make him complicit in the robbery.

From the Telegraph:

Last week, virtually unreported in Britain, the extraordinary winter weather of 2008 elsewhere in the world continued. In the USA, there were blizzards as far south as Texas and Arkansas, while in northern states and Canada what they are calling "the winter from hell" has continued to break records going back in some cases to 1873. Meanwhile in Asia more details emerged of the catastrophe caused by the northern hemisphere's greatest snow cover since 1966.

In Afghanistan, where they have lost 300,000 cattle, the human death toll has risen above 1,500. In China, the havoc created by what its media call "the Winter Snow Disaster" has continued, not least in Tibet, where six months of snow and record low temperatures have killed 500,000 animals, leaving 3 million people on the edge of starvation.

It might have seemed timely that in New York an array of leading climatologists and other experts should have gathered for the most high-powered international conference yet to question the "consensus" on global warming. After three days of what the chairman called "the kind of free-spirited debate that is virtually absent from the global warming alarmist camp", the 500 delegates issued the Manhattan Declaration, stating that attempts by governments to reduce CO2 emissions would "markedly diminish further prosperity" while having "no appreciable impact" on the Earth's warming.

This inevitably attracted the kind of hysterical abuse that has become so familiar from warmist fanatics, tellingly contrasting with the measured arguments put forward by the scientists present. One was Anthony Watts, the meteorologist who last year famously forced Nasa's Goddard Institute to correct a fundamental error in its data on US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s but the 1930s. (all emphasis mine)

From the Marine Corps Times:

A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest medal for valor.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.

After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.

Isn't it great that Hillary Clinton is so conscience of John McCain's lifetime of experience?



Of course to what Clinton is referring, is McCain's 20+ years of honorable and valiant military service to our country, and 25+ years as a public servant - two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's 1st congressional district, and service in the U.S. Senate (AZ) since 1986.

On the other side of reality, Hillary's "lifetime of experience" includes 12 years as First Lady of Arkansas, eight years as First Lady of the United States, and just over seven years as the junior senator from New York.

Hillary, of course, believes these records are comparable - a comparison that is bleak at best.

The media is trying to make a big deal out of a recent encounter John McCain had with a New York Times "reporter".

You be the judge.



Okay, I'll be the judge. If that's anger, I'm the Incredible Hulk.

This reminds me of the time the media tried to make something out of nothing when Mitt Romney put a so-called reporter who was asking a question stating an opinion in his place.

Remember this?



Aww, I miss Romney.

But I digress...

Is it any wonder 70% of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch?

Charles Johnson put it this way:

John McCain may have a temper, and the media may be trying their best to hurt him for it, but I actually like this about McCain. He’s a human being, and he’s willing and ready to fight back and show scorn to those who deserve it.

Like New York Times reporters.

Amen.

In the same manner as the New York Times labeled the domestic terrorists of the Earth Liberation Front earlier this week, Reuters today released the following photo (43 of 146) and associated caption.

Palestinian Hamas activists take part in an anti-Israel rally organized by the Hamas movement in Gaza March 7, 2008. Hamas Islamists claimed responsibility for a shooting attack at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem that killed eight people, a Hamas official said on Friday. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

There you have it folks; children soldiers under the direction of a terrorist organization are now "activists".

Disgusting.

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

Wait, he was still in?



Don't feel bad; I nodded off for a few minutes too.

Israel has a problem. I know it. You know it.

Israel is surrounded by, and is under constant attack from radical regimes that wish to not only harm the tiny sliver-of-a-country, but retract her right to exist all together.

Barack Obama also has a problem when it comes to Israel's problem. Apparently he doesn't know whether or not a country should engage in discussions with those who do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

On one hand, Obama doesn't believe you can negotiate with those who do not recognize the right of a country to exist.

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday backed the Bush administration’s policy of shunning contact with the Islamic militants of Hamas in its Middle East peace diplomacy.

...

"You can’t negotiate with somebody who does not recognize the right of a country to exist so I understand why Israel doesn’t meet with Hamas," Obama told reporters during a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas

However, when it comes to Iran - another regime that does not recognize Israel's right to exist - Obama sings a different tune.

Sen. Barack Obama said Friday that as president he would personally negotiate with Iran, offering economic incentives and a chance for peaceful relations if Iranian leaders would forego pursuit of nuclear weapons and support of terrorists.

Texas Rainmaker has dubbed this The Duplicity of Hope.

Seems like an appropriate label.

I dig this recent post from Texas Rainmaker.

This is why Democrats aren’t credible when it comes to dealing with the military. Here’s yet another example of how the Democrats tried to use military service in wartime as a litmus test for the Presidency in 2004 and are now disclaiming military service in wartime as "overrated" and unimportant.

In 2004, Democrats claimed that John Kerry was more qualified than Bush because Kerry had seen the battlefield in wartime. Wes Clark tried to paint the Presidential election in terms of one who had served in war versus one who allegedly hadn’t and declared Kerry more fit for the Presidency because of it.

"War. War. I’ve been there. So has John Kerry. I’ve heard the thump of enemy mortars. I’ve seen the tracers fly. Bled on the battlefield. Recovered in hospitals. Received and obeyed orders. Sent men and women into battle. Awarded medals, comforted families, attended funerals."

...

John Kerry has heard the thump of enemy mortars.

He’s seen the flash of the tracers. He’s lived the values of service and sacrifice. In the Navy, as a prosecutor, as a senator, he proved his physical courage under fire. And he’s proved his moral courage too."

...

John Kerry will lead America with strength and wisdom. He has the will to fight. He has the moral courage born in battle to pursue and secure a strong peace."

But in 2008, apparently military service in a time of war - not to mention one’s status as a prisoner of war for five and a half years (in the very same war Democrats politicized in the 2004 cycle) - isn’t all that important.

"Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot — and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam — that doesn’t prepare you to be commander-in-chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn’t give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.

If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as the First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, her representing the U.S. abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she’s the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing am abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security."

I guess being married to a draft-dodging, military-loathing President now trumps actual service in the military as the Democrats’ litmus test.

That said, I pray Republicans don't resort to this same sort of tactic we've seen from Democrats.

Conservatives must not use Obama's (or Clinton's) lack of military experience as a weapon against them. Despite the GOP's long history of electing men with military experience to the Oval Office (Bush 43, Reagan, Bush 41, Nixon, Ford, Eisenhower etc.), we must not cross over and assert that a lack of military service makes any candidate less appropriate for the presidency.

We can certainly admire the military service of men like John McCain, but to use an opponent's lack of service in the US Armed Forces as a weapon against their candidacy is absolutely inappropriate.

It's about policy and vision for this country.

Every so often I find myself utterly disappointed with my fellow Republicans. Upon reading a story like this, surely this is one of those times.

Republicans like Sen. Barack Obama nearly as much as they like their own likely presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, according to a new Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll.

That so many Republicans seem to be allowing a few legislative disagreements with Senator McCain cloud their judgment to such a wide extent, is disheartening to say the least.

The differences between John McCain and Barack Obama are so vast, for the Republicans polled to put these two men on virtually the same playing field shows exactly how some Republicans are allowing emotion to blind them from logic.

More nutter environmentalism from the Pacific Northwest.

For people who are anti-sprawl activists — or have baser motives — a new-built house sitting empty in a previously rural area evidently makes a ripe target for an attack by fire.

It happened again today north of Seattle, where three of six model homes on a so-called Street of Dreams burned to the ground and a fourth was damaged. Fire officials said the blazes were deliberately set, and that a sign was found at the scene claiming responsibility and signed E.L.F., which stands for a shadowy group or movement called the Earth Liberation Front.

The model homes were said by their builders to contain environmentally friendly or "green" elements. But the size and location of the houses appeared to irritate whoever left the sign and presumably set the fires: "Built Green? Nope black." The sign said that "McMansions" in rural areas are "not green."

Fire officials in suburban Seattle said the blazes could not have been accidental. "We’re certain that these homes were arson," Fire Chief Rick Eastman said in a televised interview.

The E.L.F., or people using the initials, has claimed responsibility for other fires around the country, including attacks at three location in Suffolk County, Long Island, in early 2001. Three nearly-completed houses were burned by people claiming to represent E.L.F., who spray-painted messages on other houses nearby: "Stop Urban Sprawl"; "If you build it we will burn it"; and finally, "Burn the rich."

Can we stop with the politically correct nonsense? Apparently not if you're the New York Times.

Calling these nutjobs "anti-sprawl activists" is like referring to the 9/11 hijackers as simply "anti-American activists". These people are nothing short of domestic terrorists. Arsonists, if you like.

"Anti-sprawl activists".

Please.

More from Zombie here.

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

Guns Save Lives by John Stossel.

It's all too predictable. A day after a gunman killed six people and wounded 18 others at Northern Illinois University, The New York Times criticized the U.S. Interior Department for preparing to rethink its ban on guns in national parks.

The editorial board wants "the 51 senators who like the thought of guns in the parks -- and everywhere else, it seems -- to realize that the innocence of Americans is better protected by carefully controlling guns than it is by arming everyone to the teeth."

...

While they search for -- excuse me -- their magic bullet, innocent people are dying defenseless.

That's because laws that make it difficult or impossible to carry a concealed handgun do deter one group of people: law-abiding citizens who might have used a gun to stop crime. Gun laws are laws against self-defense.