Media threat to war on terror and the democrats are butching up.
Topic: General News.

From the AP:

The Bush administration says a federal shield law for reporters “would create serious impediments to the (Justice) Department’s ability to effectively enforce the law and fight terrorism. “ Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified to the senate judiciary committee that the bill under discussion “would bar the government obtaining information about media sources---even in the most urgent of circumstances affecting the publics health or safety or national security.” What about the people’s right to know? Screw that! Apparently there’s no rush by the DOJ to find out who outed a CIA agent’s name, so forget the national security argument.

What Comey seems to be saying, I guess, is that the feds foresee a situation where a reporter is sitting on information about an imminent nuclear attack and won’t tell agents where its going to be. Look for this scenario next season on 24! William Safire, of all people, testified that the law was necessary to “prevent law enforcement from turning reporters into its agents. ‘Journalists are not the fingers at the end of the long arm of the law.’” Good for you Bill, nice to have you on our side. Commie bastard!

Barbara Boxer let the side down by arguing that Karl Rove’s outing of Valerie Plame is undermining the CIA’s efforts to hire more women. What? Boxer said, “Karl Rove and this administration sought to destroy Wilson’s wife. Now is that the way we treat women who risk their lives for their country?” (And again, I say, what?)

Positive news about suicide among the troops.
AP

A not so new, but upbeat, report released by the pentagon finds 54% of US troops in Iraq suffer from low morale, but that’s down from 72% a year earlier. This is a positive sign? The report was dated Jan. 25 2005, but was released on July 20, according to the AP. 13% of troops screened positive for a mental health problem, compared with 18% a year earlier. “17% of soldiers said they had experienced moderate or severe stress or problems with alcohol, emotions or their families,” compared with 23% last year.

That’s great but; 13% with mental health problems is pretty high for a survey group of 138,000 isn’t it? I’m no statistician but I wouldn’t call this a positive sign---an improvement yes---and what happens to these people when they come back home? The army turns them over to the VA, which doesn’t even know how much money to ask congress for? ‘Did we say we needed $100 million? We meant $31.31 billion, sorry about that. There are a few extra hundred thousand troops we didn’t plan for. Our bad!’

The NRA blows up Columbus Ohio’s party plans!

AP reports the NRA won’t be holding its 2007 convention in Columbus Ohio because the City Council voted to pass a ban on assault weapons. ‘The party is canceled because last week your City Council unanimously voted to revoke the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens in Columbus banning perfectly legal firearms,’ NRA executive vice president Wayne Lapierre said.”

Oh no, the party is canceled! And I just had my bazooka polished! City councilman Michael Mentel theorized the NRA knew the city was considering the ban and is just taking advantage of the publicity this will generate, not to mention the money. I can just see the emails now…”Columbus bans AK-47s: criminals run wild, elk moving to area to escape legitimate and legal gun possession and safe hunting! Tuck in love gift immediately!!!!” Why would the NRA want to go to a town that hadn’t recently had a machine gun massacre anyway? Looks like having a seat in the White House isn’t all its cracked up to be after all.

How stupid are the democrats and do I see a Bill Frist presidency in the future?

Wow, Columbus is the place to be. The democrats are having a party too, too. Steven Thomas of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s national staff writes that Democrats are “stung by criticism that their party offers no policy options for moderate voters,” so they are having a two day pow-wow of “centrist Democrats” who are proposing a “broad agenda on national security, family values, health care, tax reform, and managing the federal government.” What are these proposals and what do they have to do with the party? Good question. The Democratic Leadership Council, whatever that is, is stressing security and social issues. Whatever!

This is just my initial impression based on very little information, but if these are the proposals: “growing the military by 100,000 troops, allowing military recruiters unrestricted access to college campuses, and banning the marketing of violent material to children, ” I would say these “centrist” Democrats will help Bill Frist get into office in 2008.

Dems getting tough:

Al From and his buddy Bruce Reed, two jackasses I’ve never heard of and who would never want to hear from me, say of the proposals for national security, “It’s a toughness issue. We have to prove we’re willing to pull the trigger.” Pull the trigger? Did Mr. From miss the news about the NRA convention? (Sounds pretty tough, though.)

Everybody knows FDR was a real panty waiste when it came to war. He actually put his three sons on the line to serve in combat, whereas I doubt Mr. From and Reed will be urging congressional Democrats to offer up their elite offspring for “the duties of freedom.”

Dems want your children!

(What is the “centrist” policy on unrestricted recruiting in low-income high schools in rural and urban areas, by the way? They’re probably for it.) From’s theory is, “More than helping recruitment, the move could help the party shed its image as anti-military.” So the real point of all this saber rattling is to make the party look more macho?

The “anti-military” image has more to do with republican propaganda than Democratic pacifism but it appears From and Reed are really just trying to compare penis sizes with Karl Rove. Besides, anyone who can avoid military service will, just look at the example of Bill Clinton. They know this, which is why this is not a serious proposal.

What about the protecting children from the marketing of violent products proposal? Why are they still listening to Lieberman? He lost! Remember, “Sore loser man?” And why shouldn’t we be exposing children to violence early on, if we expect them to sign up for military service and help out with the Reed/From plan for the 100,000 more troops goal? Especially since “Iraq isn’t the last war we’re going to have to fight.” (Strong words there, from the guys who won’t have to fight.)

Dems want republicans, not panty waist dems.

What these proposals are more likely to do is drive away the very people the Democrats desperately need to reinvigorate the party. I still maintain, if the party hadn’t pulled the rug out from under Howard Dean after the “yell” he still could have won. Attaching their star to John Kerry was the kiss of death. Love him or hate him, Howard Dean was the candidate who could’ve beat Bush.

Showing the “yell” over and over again on the late night shows was free advertising! My God, what is wrong with the people who run this party? And Howard Dean is about a million times smarter than Kerry or Bush. Karl Rove isn’t a genius as much as the powers-that-be making the decisions in the party, are morons!

More pointless proposals:

Other proposals include cutting oil imports by 25% by 2025. I won’t even dignify that with a response.
To cut the federal budget these interlopers propose “cutting congressional and non-defense government staff by 10%, reducing the number of consultants used by government by 150,000, and cutting “pork barrel” highway projects by 50%.” Nothing about repealing Bush’s tax cuts or ending corporate welfare? None of this is going to happen in a million years, and even if it did it wouldn’t help to alleviate the budget deficit or the current account deficit.

What about fee trade? CAFTA man, that’s the ticket for “centrist” Democrats.These people are idiots! What we really need is a massive public works project to rebuild our infrastructure because the race is on, between Russia and us, to see whose infrastructure falls apart first. But who cares? The Democrats are doing their best to prove they have no business in power. The party needs a major enema and I can think of no one better to begin with than Alan From and Bruce (What kind of macho name is that?) Reed!

Odds and ends:

The remaining Sunni members of the constitutional council have returned to work after the Shiites agreed to give them the same amount of bodyguards the rest of them have. That would be 15 per member.

Tony Blair says the British government is “desperately sorry” for the killing of an innocent man. But it was entirely the terrorist’s fault. Muslims are a little concerned that the UK police are taking lessons from the Israeli police and perhaps feel this whole thing is a bit of overkill. Not exactly the way to reach out to the disaffected Muslim youth, by aping the Israelis. Speaking of which, the police shot Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, eight times, not five as had been previously reported.

The Egyptians are seeking nine Pakistanis in connection with the Sharm El Sheik bombings. Pervez Musharaf is having difficulties explaining why all these Pakistanis keep popping up all over the place in terrorist investigations around the world. One the one hand he doesn’t like the extremist groups in his country who are out to get him, but he does want to look the other way when certain groups in Indian controlled Kashmir blow things up.

Unfortunately, these groups are all interconnected and they all hate the Americans and the Israelis. The harder he cracks down the more they are all going to identify him as a friend of the Americans and the more precarious his position becomes. If he doesn’t crack down, the Americans will begin to see him as something less than a friend, and you can already feel another “shift” toward India coming up, so he’s in a tight spot.

Too bad he wiped out his moderate political opposition after the coup. He could probably really use the help of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif right about now. He’s got no one else to deal with now, except the nuts.