Harry Potter And The Muggle Commando...

Funny! Reminds me of an old Cheech the Wizard cartoon..

How Obama Got Elected...

And how Sarah Palin got demonized...

From the Zogby Poll..

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (and remember just guessing gives you a 50-50 chance of getting this one right)

81.8% didn't know Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism

82.6% didn't know that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% didn't know that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket

56.1% had no clue that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.

The vast majority had never heard of Bill Ayers.

But...

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

The Auto Bailout..AKA There's A Sucker Born Every Minute, Part II

Tell me, members of Joshua's Army....would you loan 'invest' $25 in something that was only worth $7?

Well, would you?

Add the word 'billion' to the above values and that's exactly what the Democrats in Congress are proposing to do with your money.

The entire value of the combined stock of the Big Three Automakers totals around $7 billion, yet the bailout proposition for the industry would loan them over three times the stock value of their companies combined.

And I certainly don't want some motard commenting on how these companies have assets and inventory worth more than $7 billion, thank you. When you own the stock, you own and control these assets.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't favor simply letting these companies go under.The effect on the US economy as a whole, where a big part of the game is confidence would be disastrous,not to mention the cost of the unemployment and business failures not only to the Big Three but to their suppliers down the line.

And there are also national security issues in abrogating yet another part of our manufacturing base.

GM, Ford and Chrysler have the ability to make superb cars here in America. So do companies like Honda, BMW, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Mazda and a number of other companies who have the image of being 'foreign cars' but are in fact mostly manufactured in places like South Carolina, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee.

The first group of 'American' manufacturers actually farm out large pieces of their manufacturing overseas and to maquilladora factories situated in Northern Mexico just over the US border and take advantage of NAFTA's provision to utilize the low cost labor there, yet they're supposedly going bust.

The 'foreign' companies, known in the industry as transplants have the majority of their manufacturing here, yet they remain relatively healthy even at a time when the economy is down and car sales are slipping badly.

So, what's the difference? Two things...management and the UAW.

The Big Three have been saddled by poor management for decades. I still recall the poor quality fuel inefficient vehicles they used to produce until fairly recently and the high, noncompetitive prices they charged. Things have changed now,but there's been significant damage to the Big Three's brand names.

The United Auto Workers are another part of the problem.I am not the kind of person who demonizes unions, but there's no question that the UAW has played its part in the decline of the Big Three, not just in pay and benefits but in the huge entitlements and pensions it won for its workers. While some of the transplants own unionized plants, the majority of their production is non-Union.

What the Democrats are trying to do is not designed to help the Big Three but to preserve the UAW on the backs of the taxpayers. Ultimately, that's merely postponing the inevitable. And that's just as stupid as allowing these companies to go bankrupt.

Instead of throwing another $25 billion down the rat hole, it would be far better for the US taxpayers to simply spend the $7 billion and control these companies outright, then reorganize them totally with brand new management, and some sharply revised union contracts as part of the deal. They could then be reprivatized by selling the stock back to private investors at a profit.

Both management and the UAW would have to take some serious bites out of this crap sandwich, rather than have the American taxpayer swallow the whole meal. And the companies would be preserved, as well as the jobs...if at a somewhat lower pay scale than people on both sides of labor and management are accustomed to earning.

While I normally don't favor government control of industries, the above solution makes a lot more sense than letting the Big Three go bankrupt or tossing them a huge windfall at the taxpayer's expense. Especially if it's designed as a temporary situation, with reprivatization built into it.

The Democrats in Congress, of course, wouldn't hear of this kind of solution. They could care less about Other People's Money,and their primary object is to preserve the union..er, the UAW, that is.

Hillary Clinton To Accept Secretary of State Position

Interesting, to say the least.

Senator Clinton obviously figures that a role in Obama's cabinet trumps being the junior senator from New York. She'll take her orders from President Obama, who is supposedly farther Left than she is.

And she's pretty much written off any chance of running for president in 2012 or any other time.

As for Obama, this is obviously a move on his part for party unity and a broad coalition.

The Wunnerful Wizard Of "O"....

If they only had a brain...

GOP Senator : Freeze The Bail Out!

There's a sucker born every minute, and some of them are twins - WC Fields.

James Inhofe ( R-OK), one of our sharper Senators has verbalized what a lot of folks are finally realizing - when it comes to the so-called bail out, we've been had, Bubba:

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Saturday that Congress was not told the truth about the bailout of the nation's financial system and should take back what is left of the $700 billion "blank check'' it gave the Bush administration.

"It is just outrageous that the American people don't know that Congress doesn't know how much money he (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) has given away to anyone,'' the Oklahoma Republican told the Tulsa World.

"It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don't know. There is no way of knowing.''

Inhofe's comments, unusually pointed even for a senator known for being blunt, come on the heels of Paulson's shift in how he thinks the bailout funds should be spent.

Last week the Treasury secretary announced he was abandoning his plan to free up the nation's credit system by buying up toxic assets from troubled financial institutions. Instead, Paulson wants to take a more direct action on the consumer credit front.

"He was able to get this authority from Congress predicated on what he was going to do, and then he didn't do it,'' Inhofe said.

As you know, I figured this out awhile ago...and as I pointed out, if a credit freeze was the problem, it didn't take a trillion of our dollars to free it up.

What this was always about was funneling money to the Wall Street cronies of Congress, and making good on the paper sold to the Bush family's Arab clients that they bought through the Carlyle Group, where a substantial chunk of the Bush family's money is and where Bush Senior is Chairman Emeritus.

According to one of my notorious little birdies whose definitely in a position to know what he's talking about, the Arabs were reportedly livid at getting stuck with this garbage and threatened to pull all their funds out of Carlyle and dump the 10% stake they bought a few months ago for whatever they could get for it, which would have cost the Bush family millions...so now you know why the president was so anxious to get this legislation passed and signed.

The promised 'safeguards' and 'watchdog provisions' were never put on the funds, and in fact, instead of lending the money out a fair amount of it has gone to make acquisitions as the lucky and well-connected winners gobble up the less well connected losers. PNC's acquisition of National city was only one of the deals that was financed by our tax dollars.

Inhofe is going to try to use the lame duck session of Congress to try to get legislation passed to freeze the bail out in its tracks and recover at least part of the money,but it's uncertain how successful that's going to be, given the vested interest much of Congress has in continuing the giveaways as supplicants like the Big Three automakers and the City of Detroit line up with their hands out.

Inhofe at least deserves credit for trying to stop this legalized burglary. Compared to Paulson and the bail out shills in Congress, the guys who pulled off the Brinks Job were a bunch of sloppy amateurs.

Britain Threatening To Start Economic War Against Israel

There's gall and then there's unmitigated gall.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is essentially threatening to launch an economic war against Israel unless it retreats from the so-called 'occupied territories' in Judea and Samaria, including East Jerusalem.

And he had the nerve to bring it up while badgering Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni about the situation in Gaza, even as Hamas is raining rockets down on Israel:

Kadima leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on the international community on Sunday night to explain to Hamas that it alone was responsible for the fate of the residents of the Gaza Strip.

At the start of her meeting with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Livni said that "as we speak, Israeli citizens are being attacked by Hamas. Israel cannot sit idly by while its citizens are being attacked. When [Israel] is attacked, it must respond."

Miliband, who is in the region for a two-day visit, has expressed strong opposition to Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and officials are speaking of an economic offensive to try to force them to be taken down.

Miliband is pressing European partners for tighter control of imports to the European Union from the Jewish settlements, some of which are admitted at European ports as the produce of Israel and therefore enjoy tariff benefits under an Israel-EU treaty, the officials said. {..}

European diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity as a fresh economic offensive on the West Bank settlements has not been officially approved, said Miliband had been trying to muster support in Brussels for tougher implementation of existing customs regulations in the hope that settlements could be placed under a siege that could help hasten their dismantlement.

Elsewhere in the article, it mentions that Miliband is not unmindful in Israel's security concerns

"We've been engaging with the Syrian government for some time impressing upon them the responsibilities they have to curb the flow of rockets to Hezbollah to curb the flow of fighters into Iraq; to contribute positively to stability in the Middle East ultimately through normalization of their relations with Israel," he said in remarks broadcast Sunday by Israel Radio.

Talking to them for some time, have you? Somehow, that didn't stop Iran and Syria from re-arming Hezbollah did it? Especially since Britain and the rest of the UN didn't do a damn thing to implement UN Resolution 1701 except impede the IDF from trying to interdict arms shipments from the air.

Nah...it's way easier to lean on the Jews.

Here's the real kicker, and proof that Jewish anti-Semites abound. Miliband's mother Marion Kozak escaped the Nazis in Poland, but is now a member of the anti-Israeli Leftist group Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Meanwhile, her son isn't ashamed to threaten economic warfare against the descendants of the survivors and push to turn 500,000 of them into homeless refugees by making yet another piece of the Middle East off limits to Jews. And he's willing to do this on behalf of people who would cut his throat without a qualm if he were suddenly thrust into Jenin or Ramallah on his own.

Frankly, If I were the Israelis, I'd tell Miliband to get bent.Here's a man representing a country that was complicit in the death toll at the hands of the Nazis by cutting off Jewish immigration to Palestine on the eve of the Holocaust, and then did their very best to aid and abet an Arab massacre in 1948 of the survivors by arming and officering the jihadis less than three years after Auschwitz was liberated.

Drool, Britannia. And be ashamed of yourselves if you still have the capacity.

Apologies to the cousins that are as repulsed by this as I am...

Iraq's Cabinet Approves Security Agreement With US

Iraq's cabinet approved to so-called status of forces agreement today, after Iraqi PM al-Maliki and Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, the Ayatollah Sistani, signed on to it. This gives the new pact a pretty good chance of passing the Iraqi parliament.

The main difference in the new draft text was a written-in-stone date for a complete pull out of US forces by January of 2011. Unlike the previous draft, it would not allow Iraq to request an extension of the stay of US forces in the country.Nor would it allow the Iraqis the power to subject US troops to Iraqi law, something they wanted.

Keep in mind that Barack Obama has promised to pull all US troops out of Iraq by July of 2010, 16 months after he's inaugurated...and that this agreement would not affect his ability to do that in the least.

Since the Iraqis are adamant about not allowing US bases in their country or allowing US forces in Iraq to act against Iran, I suppose sooner is better than later.

We've essentially set up a Shiite dominated Islamic republic in Iraq with sharia as its basis that enthusiastically participates in an anti-Israel boycott that's against US law and that
persecutes Christians, homosexuals, and other 'undesirables'...although the internecine warfare between Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis seems to be calmed down for now. That stability may last for some time, thanks to the US -equipped and trained Shiite army we put together for Iraq.

President Bush's self-professed goals for Iraq was for a country that was stable, democratic and an ally in what the president still likes to call 'the war on terror.'
It looks like it's mission accomplished (to borrow that turgid phrase) on the first goal, while the other two were always destined to fall by the wayside, given the way we mismanaged things. All this was readily apparent to me some time ago.

On the other hand, there's the plus side of the ledger - courtesy of our warriors and Generals Petraeus and Ordiano, we have a major defeat of al-Qaeda and a heck of a lot of dead jihadis to our credit.And hopefully a few lessons learned.

Some Interesting Election Post Mortems..

Senator Jim DeMint says flatly that McCain betrayed conservative principles. He also alludes to Bush's responsibility for the loss.

Definitely true..as is the fact that McCain shot himself in the foot by supporting the raid on the US treasury , AKA the Bail Out. Money quote: " Americans want a traditional conservative government. They just didn't trust the Republicans to give them one."

Meanwhile, Patterico engages in some I-told-you-so gloating over his older posts about McCain's not being the most electable candidate. I certainly agreed with him there.

And Ed Morrissey fisks ex-GOP Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman's assessment that the Republican Party has been hijacked by "social fundamentalists", and says that social conservatism had very little to do with this election. When you consider that (a)the GOP ran a 'moderate' this year and got badly defeated and (b) both California and Florida went for Obama this year (in Florida's case, by only a tiny margin) yet both passed socially conservative ballot propositions by a comfortable margin, it's hard to disagree with Morrisey. And that, of course, circles back around to Senator DeMint's money quote, doesn't it?

And last but not least, Cinnamon Stillwell, like yours truly, voted for Mccain but is actually happy in a way that he lost, becausae it will lead to:

"..a forthcoming Obama term in which Democrats control the White House, Congress, and possibly the Senate, and therefore have no one to blame but themselves."

She also forsees more optimism in the country itself, and more accountability from the media who "won't have those nasty Republicans to kick around anymore and will instead have to report not only the Democrats' successes, but also their failings."

Unfortunately,I think she's wrong on both counts. Grievance is a way of life for these people, and the media, which has fallen in love with what it thinks is Camelot will cover for Obama with a vengeance, brandishing the race card at any critics.

Brigitte Gabriel...What Happened To Lebanon's Christians

A must-see video for Joshua's Army.

Expatriate Lebanese Christian Brigitte Gabriel how a progressive , democratic republic and the only majority Christian nation in the Middle East became a repressive conquest of the Islamists and a place where Christians have dwindled to only 20% of the population - and falling fast.

Note particularly as she explains how the Islamists and their Leftist allies used Lebanon's laws and policies to undermine the country and make it ripe for a jihad against the country's Christian population...and realize that what happened in Lebanon could happen elsewhere.

Obama To Push Israel To Split Jerusalem, Retreat to Pre-'67 Borders

According to the London Times Online,Barack Obama already has a clear plan for Israel - the Saudi Peace plan:

Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.

Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.

The proposal gives Israel an effective veto on the return of Arab refugees expelled in 1948 while requiring it to restore the Golan Heights to Syria and allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.

On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser.

It appears that Abbas was telling the truth.

And the usual suspects are behind it:

A bipartisan group of senior foreign policy advisers urged Obama to give the Arab plan top priority immediately after his election victory. They included Lee Hamilton, the former co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat former national security adviser. Brzezinski will give an address tomorrow at Chatham House, the international relations think tank, in London.

Brent Scowcroft, a Republican former national security adviser, joined in the appeal. He said last week that the Middle East was the most troublesome area in the world and that an early start to the Palestinian peace process was “a way to psychologically change the mood of the region”. {...}

The advisers have told Obama he should lose no time in pursuing the policy in the first six to 12 months in office while he enjoys maximum goodwill.

All of Israel's old enemies apparently have the ear of the president-elect. And if Obama is willing to pressure Israel in this regard, it ought to tell you everything you want to know about him.

Both Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert are stupid enough to embrace something that trades highly strategic territory for mere `recognition' and brings Israel's genocidal enemies even closer to its population centers by retreating to what Israel's former UN ambassador Abba Eban aptly called 'the Auschwitz lines'. They may even attempt to do it before the elections in February.

Aside from that, the Saudi plan creates almost half a million Jewish refugees, takes the spiritual heart out of the country by making Israel's holy sites in Jerusalem,Judea and Samaria including the Western Wall Jew-free, and will negate the deterrent factor of the security fence and open Israel's cities up to homicide bombers again - and worse.

It will allow Syria to refortify the Golan and place missile bases there, overlooking the entire country.

And it will not guarantee 'peace'...far from it. Do you think Hamas, al-Aksa and Hezbollah are going to be bound by this? Instead, Israel's enemies will be even more emboldened to redouble their efforts to achieve what their goal has been all along -the destruction of Israel and the final ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East.And when that happens, America will have lost one of its most valuable allies.



You only need to look at how well Israel's past retreats have worked out...in Lebanon and in Gaza, both of which have become heavily armed Iranian bases.And yet this time is supposed to work? Insanity and delusion, squared.

If things go down this way, I'd like to give a sarcastic shout out to the Israeli quislings like Olmert, Peres and Livni who've decide to destroy the Jewish State, and especially to the 70% + of American Jews who voted for Obama and look to be in for a very rude awakening. You won't realize how you've once again chosen the Golden Calf until it's too late.

As for the Israelis, they had better wake up quickly to the kind of monsters they have in charge of their country, and to the cold wind that looks to be emanating from the White House. They are being led like lambs to the slaughter.

Couric's Advice to Governor Palin: Read a Book and Learn about Governing!

And no, I'm not kidding...she was serious!

That's exactly what Couric had to say to the New York Post's Richard Johnson:

"I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing. But I'm not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything."

Gee Katie, reading and studying....is that how you got your job as a brainless talking head?

She is right about one thing - she's not someone to give advice to anyone.Not that it's going to stop those collagen stuffed lips of hers from flapping...

Hillary As Secretary Of State??

The latest buzz coming out of the Obama camp is a secret meeting between Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton, followed by a 'leak' that Senator Clinton is being offered the position of Secretary of State in the new Obama Administration.

I put leak in quote marks for the simple reason that this was a private meeting between Obama and Clinton and that any so-called leak was likely a deliberate one from the Obama team, considering how tightly they're controlled.

So, what are we to make of this?

If it's true,Hillary is obviously getting a reward for her campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania and Ohio...and Obama is once again opting for triage among his supporters with politics in mind.

The other two contenders for the job are reportedly Bill Richardson and John Kerry.
Kerry is really the candidate of the Kennedy wing of the party, who all came out early for Obama on orders from George Soros. But with RFK Jr. and Caroline both rumored to be in line for jobs in the administration, Obama may have felt that to be sufficient.

Richarson is another matter. Aside from his late inning back stab of Mrs. Clinton, he's also being touted by the Hispanic lobby, who had a meeting with Obama the other day in which they demanded no less than three cabinet posts as a reward for their support for Obama in the general election.

You might remember that I let you know that in my opinion, a characteristic of the new Obama administration would be that it would be in constant campaign mode, ala' the Clinton White House.

A high position in the administration for Mrs. Clinton would be an effort to reach out to the Clintonistas and PUMAs and heal that breach in the party as a run-up to 2012. It would also symbolize, at least to me, that Obama has realized that the success of his presidency is going to be based on whether he governs more towards the center (at least, for a Democrat)and another example of the fact that Obama realizes that, now that the election is over he is going to have to disappoint some of his followers..and is exercising his choice as to which ones.

Watcher's Council Results, 11/14/08

The Council has spoken! A complete rundown of the voting tallies is here.


Among the Council members, the winner this week was Bookworm Room with Reaching new demographics her exploration of strategies the Republican party could use to reach out to blacks and Hispanics.


Coming in second was The Glittering Eye for A Prospective Obama Administration (Updated) , a humorous post that examined the probable course of the Obama administration based on some classic movies.


Also getting votes were Rhymes With Right - Something That Must Be Said , Hillbilly White Trash - The Great GOP Civil War , Joshuapundit - From The Beginning , and Mere Rhetoric - Noted Democratic Shill Begs Nutroots Not To Viciously Attack Emanuel For Being Too Jewish .



Among the non-Council entries, we had a tie , and per our bylaws, the Watcher picked the winner, Big Lizards for The Great Leap Forward: How the Heck Can We Win Anyway?


In second place was Seraphic Secret Israel: The One Bomb State , for which I voted.
My nominee in this category ,Dr. Robert Zubrin/Pajamas Media's We Can Solve the Financial Crisis by Destroying OPEC came in well down in the pack, but involved a useful strategy to be used in the War on Jihad, and I commend it to the attention of Joshua's Army members.

As usual, congratulations not only to the winners, but to all the participants.

Female Egyptian Lawyer Calls For Israeli Women to Be Raped

Note that this foul harridan is calling for the use of systemic rape against Israeli women as a tactic to drive all Jews out of the Middle East..and that the al-Arabiya announcer's chief concern is whether the rapists would be 'questioned' (i.e arrested and punished).

You might also notice that this woman is broadcasting from Egypt, a country nominally at peace with Israel, and doing so on al-Arabiya, a station that is headquartered in Dubai and subsidized by the Saudis. All three of these countries are supposedly US allies....

To the vast majority of Arabs, Jews are not human beings and never have been, even before Israel was established. After all, that's exactly what it says in the Qu'ran.

The idea of Jewish women ( and infidel women in general) as rape targets and sex slaves isn't new either. The original practicioner was Mohammed, the Muslim paradigm, who took a Jewish female captive to his tent, raped her minutes after she had seen her husband and father beheaded and kept her as a sex slave thereafter.

The real problem with peace in the Middle East has never changed - the inability of the majority of Muslims to live next to Jews in peace and equality. Solve that little problem, and where the borders are won't matter.

McCain Greases Out From Under

I was hoping not to have to write this one,McCain being an American hero and all that..but one thing I don't do here is lie to the members of Joshua's Army.

John McCain just behaved in a cowardly and untoward manner, simple as that.

Senator McCain appeared on the Tonite Show with Jay Leno last night, and that would have been a perfect time for him to distance himself from the anonymous creeps associated with his campaign who have been trying to excuse their own failures by sliming Sarah Palin.

He didn't.

After copping a few lame bits with Leno, he was asked directly about the trashing of Governor Palin..and here's what he had to say:

Jay Leno: Now, these aides that were criticizing her — and I think everyone agrees there were Republican aides who were criticizing her. I know you wouldn’t go for that. I know you’re an old soul. You don’t let people talk — but why?

Senator John McCain: One — these things happen in campaigns too. I think I have at least a thousand, quote, top advisors. “A top advisor said” — people I’ve never even heard of, much less a, quote, top advisor or a high-ranking Republican official. It’s — these things go on in campaigns, and you just –

Jay Leno: Why don’t we just move on.

Senator John McCain: I’m just very proud to have had Sarah Palin and her family, a wonderful family.

These things happen in campaigns, Senator? Even after they're over? Puh-leeze.

I would have expected John McCain to man up and say, unequivocally that the rumors were garbage, not to be credited and bore no relation to reality. Instead, he chose to just gloss over it and make some innocuous feel-good remarks.

McCain put Sarah Palin on the ticket for one reason...he had to. The GOP base remembers all too well McCain-Feingold, the Amnesty, the constant fire directed at them from Maverick. Without her, he would have been lucky to get 40% of the vote nationally.

Interestingly enough, a story broke today that Bobby Jindall refused to be vetted as the vice presidential nominee because he feared he might “be caught up in what they believed to be a less-than-stellar campaign that could pin a loss on Jindal without much ability to change or control the direction of the contest”.....in other words, exactly what happened to Sarah Palin.

What McCain is doing is allowing her to take the flak for him, and that's disgraceful.

As for Sarah Palin, she'll be fine. People like her always rise above this type of crap.

McCain, on the other hand, has chosen to live in it.

Watcher's Council Nominations, 11/12/08

The Watcher's Council is a group of some of the most incisive blogs in the`sphere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one of their own and one from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.

A full list of entries, including some excellent non-Council ones can be found here.

COUNCIL NEWS: This week, the Watcher's Council welcomes two new members, Mere Rhetoric and The Provocateur. Please take a moment to visit their sites.

So, let's see what we have this week:


Joshuapundit - From The Beginning - You could say that my piece this week deals with hope and change - the real stuff, not the amorphous pink clouds peddled to the masses from the teleprompter of our president-elect. We are talking renewal here, a return to what I consider to be the founding principles of this country and a reverence for what the Founding Fathers envisioned for America, the things that have made it such a special place. The way I see it, that has very little to do with the Republican Party or conservatism as such ( although it likely will, ultimately) and everything to returning these principles, which cross party lines…or so they should.

The first of two parts...the second part will go into detail in how I see this getting done.


The Colossus of Rhodey - That ‘ol “kindred spirit” argument - In the last election, Colorado became the only state in the Union to vote down a bill outlawing race based preferences, albeit by a 50-49 margin. Hube analyzes some of the tactics that were used to defeat it, namely the fact that the KKK supported the bill and that fact was emphasized in the high profile ads that were used by bill's opponents.


The Glittering Eye - A Prospective Obama Administration (Updated) - Dave Schuler has an amusing piece this week, in which he tries to read the tea leaves to characterize what the incoming administration will be like by comparing it to classic films. Me, I'm leaning towards GoodFellas...or maybe Rashomon.

Bookworm Room - Reaching new demographics - This week, Ms. Bookworm focuses on the challenge for conservatives to reach out blacks and Hispanic constituencies. Frankly, I think it depends on which conservative principles we're talking about, and which blacks and Hispanics. For example, like their white and Asian counterparts, few blacks and Hispanics who work in government as public employees are going to endorse conservative economic principles, although they might endorse conservative views on foreign policy and social issues, like Propositiuon 8 in California as Ms. Bookworm mentions.


Mere Rhetoric - Noted Democratic Shill Begs Nutroots Not To Viciously Attack Emanuel For Being Too Jewish - In his debut piece for the council, Omri focuses on the spectacle of a Leftist self-hating Jew begging his fellow Leftists not to give vent to their normal anti-Semitic tendencies where Rahm Emanuel is concerned. These are the sort of folks to whom 'neocon' is just code for 'dirty Jew', and they are unfortunately alive, well and an important constituency of the Democratic Party.


Hillbilly White Trash - The Great GOP Civil War - Lemuel writes about what he sees as a struggle for control of the Republican party between those he dubs as conservatives and those he refers to as RINOs and moderates.


Soccer Dad - Overcoming idiocy - Soccer Dad fisks a piece by Slate columnist Timothy Noah that postulates that we still have a serious problem with white racism because the Chosen One didn't get the majority of the white vote. As Soccer Dad muses, I wonder what Noah would classify the monolithic black vote for Obama?

Unfortunately SD, you can't overcome something that's inherent in some people...



Cheat-Seeking Missiles - Valor and Patience - Laer shares a personal reminiscence, in honor of Veteran's Day.


The Razor - Return to First Principles - Scott examines the various parts of what he calls the Republican coalition and what principles they might join together around.


The Provocateur - Fraud, Corruption, and Power: What Our Bailout Tax Dollars Are Really Going To - In his debut Council post Mike Volpe gives us one example of the same point I've made on this site...that the bail out represents an unparalleled looting of the Treasury and a rape of the taxpayers for the benefit of Congress' favorite Wall Street cronies.


Rhymes With Right - Something That Must Be Said - Greg's piece this week deals with the First Amendment and efforts to shut down some aspects of it as so-called 'hate speech' by the Left. As an example, he cites supposed death threats directed at Obama that were shouted out at Palin rallies. Aside from the fact that it never happened ( per the Secret Service personnel who were actually at the rallies) the point he raises - if I follow him correctly - is that no one man's life, regrettably, is worth curtailing our freedom of speech.

I agree with him to a point, but I would also point out that as I wrote in a different context, the SCOTUS has been quite clear that speech deliberately designed to incite violence is NOT covered by the First Amendment, and that threatening the life of the President or any other officer of government has long been a felony ( TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 115, § 2385) even though it's a felony that's rarely prosecuted.

Bush Angry At Obama's Leaks From Yesterday's Meeting...

I simply can't imagine why Bush would be angry at this.

For all my dislike of the things he's done during his tenure in the White House, I've never thought of the President as stupid.

Didn't Bush realize what sort of person he was dealing with? Hasn't he been paying attention?

Hamas Says They Met Obama Advisers In Gaza

Well, that's certainly no surprise to me:

Ahmad Yousuf, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's political advisor, said that during the recent US presidential race a secret meeting between senior Islamist group figures and advisors to President-elect Barack Obama was held in Gaza.

"We were in contact with a number of Obama's aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as they may have a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain (to attack Obama)," Yousuf said in an interview with London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat, published Tuesday

Yousuf said Hamas's contact with Obama's advisors was ongoing, adding that he was still on good terms with some of the aides he had befriended while residing in the US.

Nice, hmmm?

This confirms something that I reported on during the election that the Obama campaign denied at the time.

No wonder Hamas endorsed Obama and had its minions cold calling the US to drum up support for him during the campaign....

The Afghanistan Blues

Team Obama is already talking about their new approach to Afghanistan.

Obama got a great deal of campaign mileage out of his belief that the US 'took its eye off the ball' by fighting in Iraq instead of the `real war' in Afghanistan, even though bin-Laden himself declared Iraq was al-Qaeda's central front on their war against us. A glance at a map, showing the relative geographic and strategic importance of Iraq as opposed to Afghanistan explains why al-Qaeda was so anxious to fight there and why they were willing to suffer such tremendous losses in manpower and resources to try to keep it.

That war in Iraq is largely won, no thanks to Obama and his party, who did their very best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory while our troops were in the field. So President Obama will likely get his chance to conduct that 'real war' an dsee what he makes of it.

The new president-elect and his foreign policy team like the idea of what they call a more regional strategy in Afghanistan,including talks with Iran and pushing negotiations between the Afghan government and what Obama's national security advisers call the "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban.

Additionally, the new Commander-in Chief wants a 16 month deadline for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq, a transfer of three combat brigades to Afghanistan, and a new focus on our supposed real enemies, bin-Laden and al-Qaeda.

Team Obama is also emphasizing how popular the new president-elect is in Europe, and expects that to translate into increased troops commitments from our balky NATO allies.

This is troubling on several accounts.

First, while al-Qaeda is an important subcontractor in the jihad against the West, they're just that - a subcontractor. And aside from that, they're a widely diffused network of affiliated groups and wanna-be's, many of them in the west. If bin-Laden and Zawahiri died tomorrow, al-Qaeda and its offshoot like Jamayaah Islami and Abu Sayef would keep going without any problem. So would the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah, both of whom have organizations and cells here in America and are much better organized, funded and deadly than what's left of al-Qaeda and its adherents here in America.

The key to winning the War on Jihad lies in confronting - militarily or otherwise - the nation states that fund, support and provide havens for the Islamist terrorists and export jihad to our shores, as I've mentioned many times. No terrorist group in modern times has ever lasted long without that kind of secure base.

And that also brings me to the second problem with Obama's approach. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have a safe haven in Pakistan, and heavily leaning on the Pakistani government is pretty much a non starter. As a matter of fact, creating a hostile Pakistan is an almost certain way to doom our efforts to fight in Afghanistan, unless the Obama Administration is intending to invade the whole country with those three brigades, as Obama foolishly suggested.

Again, all you have to do is look at a map.

Afghanistan is landlocked, and 75% of the supplies for our troops come through Karachi and overland to Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing. If that route is blocked off by a hostile Pakistan angered at what they would perceive as attacks on their sovereign territory, the alternative is either a costly and inefficient airlift or shipping the stuff through the Black Sea into Georgia and Azerbaijan (assuming they let us) and then crossing the Caspian Sea and shipping the stuff through Turkmenistan and then over impassable, mountainous country into Afghanistan from the Northwest. I might add that the last time we attacked Waziristan with drones the Pakistanis cut off supplies to our troops for a couple of days.

Back when Musharraf was in power, the Pakistanis leaned a bit more towards looking the other way when we bombed the North West Frontier Provinces. But he's gone now, and the President-elect had a part in his demise. Hearing an American presidential candidate from a major party talking about invading part of Pakistan helped undermine Musharraf, who was seen by the people now in control of the country as a US stooge.

As for Obama charming the Europeans into stepping up their troop commitments, let's just say I have my doubts.

After all, that was supposed to be his job as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on European Affairs, the committee that has the direct responsibility of negotiating to increase the European's lack of combat troop support for NATO's mission in Afghanistan..a subcommittee Obama failed to convene even once.

The problem is that most of the NATO countries involved in Afghanistan are simply refusing to provide combat troops. The Canadians, the Dutch, the Danes, the Brits, our non-NATO allies the Australians and a few others are providing the boots on the ground with us, but most of NATO would like nothing better than to pull out, even if it means turning the country over to the Taliban.

And the British are wavering, as they did in Iraq. While the individual British soldier in the field has fought valiantly, their combat mission is hogtied by the refusal of the Brown government to provide them with the necessary equipment needed to fight this war like sufficient numbers of helicopters, armor and airborne drones. Their top commander has gone public in declaring the war 'lost'., and both the Canadians and the Dutch have already threatened to pull their troops out unless the other NATO nations start doing their fair share.

Now Obama and NATO might very well be planning to pressure the Karzhai government into negotiating some kind of half-assed `settlement' with the Taliban that would last just long enough for us to declare victory and leave. Both the Iranians and our European allies would be just fine with that, the Iranians because it would be one less area in the region with a US presence that Iran could project its power and influence into and the Europeans because it would get them out of a commitment they have little stomach for.

The only people who might be somewhat distressed at this situation would be the Afghan people left to the tender mercies of a bunch of 7th century barbarians..and us ultimately, when Afghanistan again becomes a terrorist training ground and launch point for the jihad against the West. Only this time, perhaps with nuclear weapons courtesy of Pakistan.

There is, of course, the alternative of actually winning in Afghanistan.If you take winning to mean establishing a reasonably stable nation state there,we have a fighting chance of success provided we also deal with the problem of Pakistan. But if we're talking, as Barack Obama and others are of merely "defeating al-Qaeda and capturing bin-Laden" we will be stuck in a never-ending war of attrition.

I hate to say it, but right now it looks like amateur hour at the White House.

I hope I'm wrong.