January 20, 2005

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2005®

Tomorrow, the President will tell us:
"The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

Meantime, while we decide how best to implement our high ideals and goals, it's nice to know that we Bushies (especially those from the Lone Star State) can make time to "smell the flowers" and enjoy the moment;
apparently, the Texas Black Tie and Boots Ball was THE place to be tonight--of course!
Everyone who's anyone was there from Rudy Guiliani to Van Cliburn to Lyle Lovett!
(Why, oh why, didn't I go to the Inauguration to savor these precious moments in person?)

January 19, 2005

Rehnquist closes book on atheist's inaugural attempt

An atheist lost his bid Wednesday to have the Supreme Court bar the saying of a prayer at President Bush's inauguration.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist denied Michael Newdow's claim that a prayer at Thursday's ceremony would violate the Constitution by forcing him to accept unwanted religious beliefs.

In so doing, Rehnquist also rejected Newdow's request to recuse himself from the case because he is scheduled to swear in Bush.
[Really asked for the sky, didn't he, as well as being so appealing to the court?
As this Newdow schmuck will find out in the next life, people in Hell want ice water, but they never get it!--Jen]
Newdow had argued that Rehnquist had become a willing fixture in a government ceremony "infused with sectarian Christian religion" and thus had a conflict of interest.

What a maroon!
(How does Newdow get to the Supreme Court so easily and so often?...oh wait! I forgot that virtually every Liberal Dimocrat is a trial lawyer!)

I was dismayed to read last week that Justice Rehnquist was seen in public and was strikingly frail and sick, but this week, it seems he's a little better!
I'm sure that shutting down an anti-American creep like Newdow plus the excitement of President Bush's second inauguration tomorrow are helping to bring the blood to his cheeks!
Lord love him!
Do add the Chief Justice to your prayer list, along with Army Chaptain Shackleford and his soldiers and the Iraqi election (See post below this one.).
He's a good man who's given a long life of faithful service to our country and its Law and he's having a very bad time from thyroid cancer and its treament.
His committment to swear in President Bush no matter his personal physical condition shows his love and dedication to what and who is good and true and just for our country--we can require no more of our Chief Justice.

Here's BlackFive--who's been hitting on all cylinders--on an email prayer request from one of our Army chaplains in Iraq:
BLACKFIVE: Chaplain Requests Help With Spiritual Warfare

Received the email below via Seamus. Chaplain (Captain) Lyle Shackleford asks for prayers for the transportation unit delivering voting machines and ballots throughout Iraq.  Obviously, the transporters are high value targets to the insurgents...

As a transportation battalion, my unit will be delivering the voting machines and the ballots to villages and cities throughout Iraq during the upcoming elections. (January 30/31) Our convoys are prime targets for the insurgents because they do not want the equipment to arrive at the polling stations nor do they want the local Iraqi citizens to have the chance to vote; timely delivery must occur so that the elections occur.
[...]
My soldiers are at the nerve center of the logistic operation to deliver the voting machines and election ballots. They will be driving to anand entering the arena of the enemy. This is not a game for them it is a historical mission that is extremely dangerous. No voting machines or ballots. No elections. Your prayer support and God's intervention are needed to give democracy a chance in this war torn country.

I remember our troops in my prayers, but I'll be sending up extra ones for Capt./Chaplain Shackleford and his soldiers who are truly doing the Lord's work in more ways than one!
May God give them divine protection and may He bless and protect these fine men and women who are serving God and Country and the Liberty-loving people of Iraq who want to vote in this election!

January 18, 2005

First Rent-a-Yentator Barbara Boxer cried real tears when the vote for President Bush was officially certified as the lone senator who moved to oppose his official confirmation.
Then, today we had the spectacle of Miz Boxer trying to remind Dr. Rice not to "forget her place" in Rice's SecState confirmation hearings:
Rice Defends Her Integrity in Clash Over Iraq

Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday defended her integrity and honesty as she clashed with senators about Iraq and vowed to press diplomacy to repair ties strained by the war.

Testifying at her U.S. Senate confirmation hearing, Rice was questioned about the number of U.S. troops sent to Iraq, the adequacy of Iraqi forces being trained to replace them and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction that were the Bush administration's central justification for the war.
[And this has what, exactly to do with her role as the future Secretary of State?--Jen]
[...]
In a heated exchange in an otherwise generally cordial hearing, California Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer argued the Bush administration had shifted its justification for the war because it had failed to find stocks of biological and chemical weapons it had asserted were there.

"You sent them in there because of weapons of mass destruction. Later the mission changed when there were none," Boxer told Rice. "Let's not rewrite history, it's too soon to do that."

"It wasn't just weapons of mass destruction," Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein supported terrorism, attacked Kuwait and Israel and needed to be removed given the new U.S. threat perception after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

"We can have this discussion in any way that you would like, but I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity," Rice told Boxer. "I really hope that you will not imply that I take the truth lightly."
[That's telling 'em, Condi!
It's not Dr. Rice who's forgotten her place, but Boxer.]
[...]
"We went in to rescue Iraq from Saddam Hussein, now I think we have to rescue our policy from ourselves," added Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who failed to unseat Bush.
[Heheh! He's still chanting the Vietnam slogans.
It must suck to be him.]
"I don't take any joy in this
[Don't let him fool you--Kerry lives to carp at the "evil neocons" like Condi in the Bush Administration, It's really all he has now.
Sore Loserman lives!]
but it's ... the reality we've got to deal with. We've got kids dying over there."
[...]
Rice was national security adviser during Bush's tumultuous first term, which was marked by the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner attacks, the resulting U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and arguably, the worst rift with Europe since World War II.
[Ah, who is like unto Al-Reuters, except Al-Jazeera?
Note they don't mention that we brought democracy and elections to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
As for that "rift with Europe?" "Europe" means France, followed by its poodles Germany and Belgium.--Jen]

A Soviet specialist, Rice said preserving Russia's democracy was vital to U.S.-Russian relations amid worries the Kremlin is turning increasingly authoritarian, and she promised to work "personally" to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Bush has chosen the 50-year-old former Stanford provost to replace Colin Powell, widely admired and often seen as the Cabinet's lonesome dove stressing diplomacy to solve crises.

Can you believe it?
Reuters isn't above inserting a "clever" reference to novelist Larry McMurtry into one of their "news" stories!

The Senate Dims are seemingly more than happy to let Barbara (Would somebody please put her in a...) Box-er be their front woman.
And they wonder why they lose elections!
Speaking of losers, Kerry's now saying he "may not" vote to confirm Dr. Rice.
Maybe this is Kerry-speak for "I voted against her before I voted for her?"
For myself, I hope this shameful, condescending and bullying treatment of Dr. Rice at the hands of the Dims will get some African-Americans off the Dimocrat plantation for good.
It's so clear that Dr. Condi is highly professional, qualified and capable--in addition to being a woman of color who has worked hard to achieve much-- that this pathetic effort to beat her for the "sins" of the Bush Administration under the pretense of examining her qualifications for the job, just because they can, is unforgivable.
And Californians, why in the world do you keep sending this Boxer shrew to the Senate?

Virginia Man Pleads Guilty in Oil-for-Food Inquiry

Attorney General John Ashcroft today announced the first criminal conviction related to the oil-for-food program run by the United Nations for Iraq, as an Iraqi-born businessman pleaded guilty to tax fraud and other charges.

Mr. Ashcroft said the man, Samir A. Vincent, was cooperating in an ongoing investigation.

Mr. Ashcroft called Mr. Vincent one of Saddam Hussein's "accomplices in corrupting" an international program meant to provide food and medicine for the people of Iraq that ended up generating "hundreds of millions of dollars" in kickbacks to Mr. Hussein's government.

Mr. Vincent, a naturalized American citizen and a resident of Annandale, Va., pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan today to four counts. Along with tax fraud, he admitted to failing to register as an agent of a foreign government and violating a federal ban on doing business with Iraq. Mr. Vincent faces a maximum of 28 years in prison.Mr. Ashcroft said that Mr. Vincent traveled to Baghdad in 1996 and was told by Iraqi officials that he and others "were guaranteed millions of dollars" if they were able to convince United States officials to drop sanctions imposed against Iraq, and for their work pushing for the creation of the oil-for-food program. People lobbying for foreign governments are required to register with the federal government.
[Pardon my Clinton hate, but Slick Willie acted as if he'd invented the wheel when he announced the "creation" of the OFF program.--Jen]

In the years the program was in effect, between 1996 and 2003, the Iraqi government allocated nine million of barrels of oil to Mr. Vincent to sell, an allocation he then sold for millions of dollars, Mr. Ashcroft said.

David N. Kelly, the United States attorney in Manhattan, put Mr. Vincent's profits at between $3 million and $5 million.

A series of reports in recent months has portrayed the oil-for-food program as riddled with corruption. It was designed to ease the economic impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions that were put in place after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Under the program, Iraq was allowed to sell a limited amount of oil, and the proceeds were supposed to go toward food and medical care.

Mr. Ashcroft said today that Iraq had skimmed off "at least several hundred million dollars" by handing out the right to sell oil to individuals and companies, many of which had little or no experience in the oil business, and demanding kickbacks. "Many millions of barrels and millions of dollars were involved," in the scheme, he said.

Today's guilty plea, Mr. Ashcroft said, sends a message that "the integrity of a program that's designed to protect innocent people from suffering at the hands of brutal regimes is a serious matter."

In addition to the federal investigation, a Senate panel and a special United Nations committee led by Paul Volker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, are looking into the allegations.

Mr. Volker's committee recently issued a series of audits that found widespread waste and mismanagement in the program.
[I don't look for Volcker's committee report to be much more of a mea culpa or relevatory of a genuine scandal than was Thornburgh's and Boccardi's for CBS News.

A report prepared by Mr. Volker concluded that the Mr. Vincent's company, the Phoenix Group, handled oil sales worth $162 million.

Mr. Vincent was one of three individuals cited in an October report on the program prepared by the chief arms inspector for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The other two were Oscar S. Wyatt of Houston, a well-known oil investor and former head of the Coastal Corporation,
[For all you trivia buffs, it was Oscar Wyatt's stepson, Steve, who had an affair with Fergie, Duchess of York.
Small world when you're very rich, I guess.]
which was a major importer of Iraqi oil before the invasion of Kuwait, and Shakir al-Khafaji of West Bloomfield, Mich. The C.I.A. report said that Mr. Khafaji had financed a film about Iraq made by Scott Ritter, the former arms inspector who opposed the American invasion in 2003.

Ah, yes! Scott Ritter's name comes up on the wrong side of the score board as aiding and abetting the bad guys.
Whatta surprise--not.
Let's hope that as part of his plea bargain, Mr. Vincent agreed to give our Justice Dept. lots of names, evidence and bank account numbers!
I have the Korbel champagne chilling for the Bush Inauguration II, but after we've celebrated that, we'll all have to make lots of popcorn for this scandal--it will be deliciously and deservedly nasty!

(I hate to link this, but...)THE COMING WARS*

What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
Ooh! Hersh is pulling the covers over his head, not because he's worried about the Iranian mullahs using the Muslim Bomb against us, but because SecDef Donald Rumsfeld is fully in control of the military arm of the war.
This piece (dare one call it a "fairy tale?") of Seymour's, which sets out an effective use of Special Forces teams in Iraq to prevent a nuke showdown, is merely an elaboration of his Salvadoran "death squads" theory.
Mr. Hersh bemoans the fact that Rummy acts at the behest of the President in wartime and is not subject to "Congressional oversight" more than he fears what will happen if these black ops fail and what the mullahs wil do if they get the bomb.
Sy Hersh is an idiot.
Quite rightly, both the incomparable Roger L. Simon and Stratfor.com think he's being "played" by the Bush Administration and being used in the war as the consummate Useful Idiot for psy ops.
If the Iranians are lead to believe that the U.S. is being led by slightly crazy, blood-thirsty, warmongering cowboys and that we're watching them very closely, more's the better!

*Does the fact that the forces of the Left are using The New Yorker for their tin-foil hat cr*p mean that their love affair with the NYSlimes is over or has the Times decided it can't lose anymore circulation over another Left Wing troublemaker like Hersh?

CHRISTIANS & MUSLIMS BRAWL

An emotional holy war broke out yesterday on the streets of Jersey City, where Muslims and Christians clashed and lobbed insults at the funeral for a devout family of Egyptian immigrants who may have been slain for their religious beliefs.

While mourners inside the St. George & St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church prayed for peace in the wake of a murder that escalated religious tensions at home and abroad, fights erupted amid the crowd that spilled outside the church, where angry Coptic Christians pointed accusing fingers at their Muslim counterparts.

Hossam Armanious, 37, his wife, Amal Garas, 37, and their two daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were found dead in their Oakland Avenue home early Friday after relatives told police nobody had heard from them in days.

Investigators said each victim was bound, gagged and stabbed in the neck, and the early focus was on anti-Muslim remarks Armanious made in a popular religious chat room after a relative said Armanious was threatened online for expressing his Christian beliefs.

Officials said the religious persecution theory is still under investigation, but said some evidence points to robbery as a motive.
[Even though the police have said that nothing was taken from the premises.--Jen]

Members of the city's Coptic community — many of whom left Egypt like Armanious to escape religious threats* — believe there is a connection between their faith and the murders.
[Mubarak's government isn't all that tolerant of or kind to non-Muslim Egyptians, especially Christians--not to mention Jews-- even though the Egyptian Coptic Church goes all the way to the birth of Christ himself.--J.T.]

That sentiment was expressed loudly by one parishioner inside who began yelling at Muslims, including a sheik, who attended the service.

"Muslim is the killer," he said over and over before he was dragged from the church by five police officers who hustled him into an unmarked police car and quickly drove away.

Tensions were high even before the first copper-colored casket arrived, when, during a procession to the church from Journal Square, family members asked mourners to put away anti-Muslim protest signs.

But emotions really boiled over in the moments after the wistful service when a skirmish broke out as the four black hearses adorned with the victims' pictures were being loaded.

Punches were thrown, people were shoved and police rushed in to break up the brawl that had moved up Bergen Avenue to a nearby parking garage.
[...]
Those too sad to be angry had kind words for the deeply religious family, especially young Sylvia, who died a day before her Sweet 16 party.
[Police said that her stabbing and murder was the most vicious of all, based on the stab wounds and her cut throat, and theorize it is because that her defense of her Christian faith vs. Islam was the most impassioned of the family.]

Jersey City Councilman Steve Lipski recalled her unselfish work to help the destitute during Thanksgiving during a program sponsored by the church.
[...]
"It doesn't appear to be random," said Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Guy Gregory. "It appears to be a specific act. Someone was able to gain access without forcing entry."

Investigators learned that a relative of the victims had helped prosecutors in their case against Lynne Stewart, the lawyer charged with passing messages to followers of her client, blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a convicted terrorist ringleader.
[Of course, he's the "spiritual leader" behind the first WTC bombing in '93 and is also Egyptian. Lynne Stewart, the IslamoNazis favorite defense lawyer, has been blogged about here a few weeks ago. She is on trial for aiding and abetting terrorists and will probably get convicted. Hoo-ray!]

But sources close to the case said there is no connection between the relative and the murders.

No connection except jihadi murder!
This is how the radical Muslims deal with "infidels."
But we're supposed to have Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech in this country!
In a land where we Christians have been censured for saying Merry Christmas, are we going to let murder for jihad stand within our borders?
Note this is also the second instance of murder that was supposedly instigated by what someone said in an internet chat room, the other being the woman whose baby was carved out of her before Christmas.
Perhaps we should all watch we say online and to whom we say it, but words do have power and we know that.
We are at war with IslamoFascism and these vicious murders may show that the battlefront of the war moved a lot closer to home.
Be watchful, New Jersey!
You seem to still have enemies amongst you.
I hope the Jersey City police are all over this and catch the perpetrators quickly and decisively!
The butchers who did this must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law or New Jersey may be the first U.S. state on its way to experience the imposition of shari'a, vigilante Muslim "justice."