More Troops to Afghanistan

The news story:

.. The new troop deployment is expected to include 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as well as 4,000 additional Army troops from Fort Lewis, Washington.

“This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said in a written statement…

… Another 5,000 troops will be deployed at a later date to support combat troops, bringing the total to 17,000 the Defense Department said. A senior administration official confirmed the total.

The Obama administration has been conducting several reviews of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, including a review by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in the region. The president and the Pentagon have been considering a request from the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, to send as many as 30,000 additional troops.

It is to be hoped that this is being done right – the commanders seem to have asked for 30,000 troops, we’re sending 12,000 now, with 5,000 to go later, and maybe the rest of the 30,000 at some future point. Now, commanders do often ask for more than they need, because its always better to end up with too much than too little, so this reduction in numbers might just be the result of a more hard-nosed look at the mission requirements…or, it might be a sign of a vacillating President who can’t make up his mind to either 100% support or entirely over rule his military commanders. The prayer of all patriots is that we’re sending enough to win, not merely enough to lose slowly.

Censoring Blogs

Seems like some people over in Democrat-land have hankering not just to hush Rush, but to block blogs:

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. “It’s all about diversity in media,” says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. “Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them.”

I guess this means that if I put up a comment negative to Obama, I’d have to link to a pro-Obama comment? What if it turns out that my particular bit of negativity about Obama is not matched by positive comment on the same subject, elsewhere? Do I have to make up a pro-Obama comment to make certain that I’m being “fair”? And who gets to decide what is fair, anyways?

This is the fascist element in the left rising to the surface – this desire not to be bothered by dissenting opinion based upon a presumption that the left has it right and those who disagree are either stupid or destructive. Nothing gets under the skin of a lefty faster than saying “you’re wrong” to him – you can call a lefty’s mother a whore and not have as negative a reaction. The entire world view of a lefty is based upon a presumption of superior intellect over conservatives, and thus when a conservative refuses to acknowledge this, it is the ultimate insult.

They will try to do this – censor talk radio, censor conservative blogs…they will do everything they can to block, slow down, intimidate and otherwise harass conservative voices. And keep in mind that when they do it, they’ll be convinced they are doing the right thing. So, eternal vigilance will be the price of our liberty until we can get people into office who actually understand what freedom is.

HAT TIP: Sister Toldjah

Dodd Can be Beaten in 2010

Getting Dodd out of the Senate, in and of itself, would be the shining triumph of 2010:

Is Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) really in trouble?

At first glance, it’s hard to believe. Since his first election to the House in 1974, he’s won every campaign by double digits. He crushed his last two Senate opponents by landslide 2-to-1 ratios.

But reports about an alleged special mortgage deal from Countrywide Financial and criticism of his tenure as chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee appear to have dented his popularity, as reflected in a new Quinnipiac poll that suggests the five-term Democrat is highly vulnerable heading into his reelection next year.

A 51 percent majority of Connecticut voters said they “definitely” or “probably” won’t be voting for him, with only 42 percent saying they’d likely support him.

Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Delaware – four enormously safe Democrat seats which now have to be defended in 2010, the first mid-term of a Democrat Presidency. Yeah, Dodd is in trouble – though, of course, the GOP will have to come up with a good candidate. Can’t beat even a creep like Dodd without someone who appeals to the people of Connecticut.

There is a Dump Chris Dodd website, for anyone interested in getting him out of the Senate.

Democrats Urge Laws be Broken, Indebtedness Increase

One does begin to wonder if Democrats, on the whole, know what law is, and why we must be a nation of laws, not men:

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is demanding the Kansas Legislature join with her in violating state law to use the budget crisis to score political points, top House Republicans told Kansas Liberty Monday.

“The Legislature doesn’t have the luxury of operating outside the law,” said House Speaker Mike O’Neal. “Kansas for years has had on the books procedures a governor can follow in times like these, but she’s refused to exercise those options, to the detriment of the state. She’s better than that. It just seems she’s going out of her way to make people upset with the Legislature.”

The latest budget drama began Monday when Sebelius called a meeting of the State Finance Council to seek authority for a $225 million certificate of indebtedness to cover a cash flow crisis.

That meeting ultimately was postponed, Republican legislative leaders said, when they made clear to Sebelius that the Legislature couldn’t authorize additional debt.

O’Neal and House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, in conversations with Kansas Liberty, cited an analysis by Legislative Research Director Alan Conroy that concludes such an action would be illegal because the state wouldn’t be able to cover the certificate by the end of the current fiscal year, on June 30, as required by state statute KSA 75-3725(a).

However, the Sebelius administration contended Monday that approval of an additional certificate of indebtedness would not be contrary to state law.

“Legally we are ready to go,” said State Budget Director Duane Goossen at a hastily called press conference late Monday.

Goossen had created a spreadsheet that he said described how the certificate of indebtedness could be used to borrow money, and that all that was needed was authorization by the State Finance Council. He was less clear on how the money would be repaid, a legal requirement. The certificate would raise internal borrowing to record levels.

The relevant statute is here, and it does appear to agree with the Majority Leader’s assertion about the illegality of Governor Sebelius’ proposal.

Be that as it may, here is what we’ve got – a budget crunch in Kansas will require some cuts in spending which the Democrat governor does not wish to make; the governor cooks up a plan to illegally used debt to cover the shortfall so that she doesn’t have to cut her pet projects; naturally, such a plan would not pass muster with a GOP-controlled legislature, so the governor announces that the people of Kansas won’t get their tax refunds and State employees won’t get paid and then relies on the MSM to use her narrative of events, thus putting the onus on the GOP, which merely wants to obey the law. Its clever politics, but entirely dishonest and in direct contravention of the long-term interests of the people of Kansas…but such considerations aren’t important for Democrats, only power and the spending which creates power matter.

We can now see why governor Sebelius has found herself de-facto excommunicated from the Catholic Church – the dishonesty which propelled her to making immoral moves on the issue of life is the same dishonesty which is now instructing her to break the laws of Kansas. I urge the governor of Kansas to re-think her life’s work…to come to an understanding that politics is not the highest expression of human life and that some times we have to bend to the harsh realities of our times. In the end, remember, its really just a matter of not spending as much as she’d like as soon as she’d like – it profits a man (or woman) nothing to gain the whole world, but lose his soul…governor Sebelius seems to be willing to lose hers over a bit of welfare spending, plus or minus.

Sarah Palin on the Obama Spendulus

A video clip from On the Record. Shows you what we missed having in our Executive branch, and makes you long for 2012…

The Entirely Unsurprising Case of Alfie Patten

Judith Woods in the Telegraph gives an excellent run down of the Patten scandal and when anyone with moral sense reads it, the reasons for the affair jump right out:

..Alfie’s dad, Dennis – father of nine, or possibly 10 children by various mothers – wearing a bizarre devil mask…

…Neighbours of “the couple” in Eastbourne report that children barely into their teens routinely have sex behind the hedges in gardens…

…Chantelle and Alfie shared a room, with her parents’ blessing, when he stayed at her house…

…Chantelle, one of five children, whose parents are both unemployed, says she was on the pill, but had forgotten to take it…

…Britain has the highest underage pregnancy rate in western Europe, despite channelling substantial resources into sex education for children as young as five…

Sex education for five year old children; parents unemployed but able to wallow indefinitely on the public dime; unmarried dad who has managed to convince many women to have sex with him; different sex children able to sleep in the same room together…this is what happens when you have this sort of situation. All that Master Alfie did was what we told him to do – he’s not at fault, and anyone who complains about his role in this affair is directing ire in entirely the wrong direction.

And this is liberalism – no judgments of a moral character, valueless education, welfare dependency. And this is just what stodgy, boring old Christians said would happen if we allowed morality to fade, failed to impart morals into children and created a welfare State. There is another bit in the article which must be noted:

While nobody would wish to return to the days when gymslip mothers were stigmatised…

Oh, yes we bloody well do – or, at least, we’d better wish to return to such days, and this time also do a much better job of stigmatising the boys who father such children out of wedlock, too (though don’t buy revisionist history which holds that such boys got off scott free). We can’t police every action people do – and this means that, ultimately, only public shaming will keep such gross immorality under control. People get what they want – what we wanted was a disgusting, nauseating society which has 13 year old boys having sex, and that is what we got. If we want to have a society which doesn’t have situations like this – and I’m talking the whole situation, not just the 13 year old father – then we have to ask for it.

And asking for it means starting to act like men and women and insisting upon decent behavior as the price for being permitted in society.

Burris Has To Go

Roland Burris, who was picked to fill Barack Obama’s barely used Senate seat, let the cat out of the bag this past week that Rod Blagojevich wanted him to raise $10,000 for his campaign in exchange for the Senate appointment. 

Should he stay or should he go? Obviously this news, which he did not reveal during testimony during the impeachment trial of Blagojovich, really puts a bigger stain on his record, but I for one don’t see him resigning, but I do see him having a number of primary challengers in 2010 and probably getting knocked out.

Thoughts?

What Obama's Foreign Policy Weakness Will Do

Victory Davis Hanson issues the prediction:

Will Obama and company, through inspired diplomacy, solve any lingering tension from the Bush administration over missile defense in Europe, the soon-to-be Iranian bomb and missiles, or the European so-so role in Afghanistan? Will they find a novel, kinder, and gentler way to thwart possible al-Qaeda Mumbai-copycat killers here at home, to defang North Korea, to talk sense to the Russians to stay in their confining borders, and to persuade Hamas to act more like Fatah?

I seriously doubt it. Instead, this serial apologizing, promising a new age of listening and togetherness, and trashing the Bush administration will have two consequences: Enemies will begin to think there is a tad less likelihood now that the U.S. will respond forcefully to a terrorist attack (since “Bush did it” in the past) without first consulting allies, trying to find a diplomatic solution, or going to the U.N.; and, second, friends will slacken a bit, knowing that our prime interest is in the means of multilateralism rather than any objective ends: one now “dialogues” over troops in Afghanistan, and “discusses” whether to follow through on missile defense, and “listens” to “all the parties” like Syria and Iran for “constructive” suggestions about Middle East peace. In short, a bad idea to trash the past when much of it was good, and point happily to the future when it may well be far worse.

We are setting ourselves up for a repeat of Jimmy Carter’s “Our kindness and intellect will save the world,” but this second time as farce.

It is just back to September 10th…back to the days of trying to do the impossible: convince wicked people that they should stop being wicked and trying to convince well-meaning cowards that bravery is preferable. The wicked, though, will view our willingness to “dialogue” as a sign of infirmity of purpose, while the cowards will be off the hook because we give them what appears to be an honorable exit from bravery. Such moral changes as Obama proposes as our foreign policy is not the province of hack politicians, but of religious saints…Obama’s foreign policy is actually the proper business of the Vatican, and the Vatican is already working on it and slowly having some success, but as it takes a change of heart – person by person – it is a long process, and won’t stop another major terrorist attack on the United States, nor Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, nor Russia from trying to rebuild its empire.

Rather than trash an American President and issue apologies for imaginary wrongs done by the United States, President Obama needs to realize that in a world of cowards and wicked men, the duty of the United States is to be the steely bulwark of liberty and human decency…and this means confronting the coward to cajole him into being brave, and sternly warning the wicked that evildoing will result in destruction, swift and sure. Right now, Obama is storing up a legacy of woe for the United States, and death for innocents who are counting on Obama to protect them.

Taxpayer Revolt Against Obama's Spendulus

Details over at Michelle Malkin. Just the beginning – wait until the economy is in the tank; we’ll have a Two Million Conservative march on DC…

Dolores Margaret Wilinski, August 18, 1930 – February 15, 2009

Wife, mother, grand-mother, great-grand-mother, Dolores Wilinski went home to be with the Lord on this Sunday, February 15th.

In a life of gentleness and good sense, Dolores was one of those rays of light which make life on this Earth bearable.

This man will always be thankful that Dolores took him in to her heart as a son and became for him a second mother.