re: "Ogabe Administration Makes it Official: Terror and Islam are Non-Related"

Emperor Misha at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") has no tolerance for those who would use political correctness as a weapon to disarm us.

Money quote(s):

"(I)t’s henceforth not permissible to use the words “muslim” and “islam” in anti-terror training (h/t Protein Wisdom)"

This sort of thing is going to lead to a seriously messed-up "The-Emperor-Has-No-Clothes" moment. Pres. Bush's "religion of peace" pronouncement has been renewed and expanded under his successor administration to the point where it's impermissible to even consider that perhaps, in just this one little thing, Pres. Bush may have been wrong.

(Pres. Bush may have even known he was wrong, but in CAA's opinion #43 was attempting to head off the Huntington-esque "clash of civilizations" that UBL so desperately wanted to spark.)*

"What “muslim groups” are offended that a “religion” closely tied to 99.99999999999% of terrorism attacks might be mentioned in materials used to train law enforcement to combat terrorism attacks? "

Can you guess?

"The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial."

CAIR. What a surprise. Which reminds me. I need to make sure the Holy Land Foundation documents are linked in my sidebar.

10/21

* It occurs to CAA that #43's understandable reluctance to make this an us-versus-them fight in the near-term with the entirety of the Islamic world, but at the risk of handicapping our efforts in the longer-term, somewhat parallels #41's decision, after 100 hours of combat in Gulf War I, to accept Saddam's ceasefire rather than take Baghdad and inherit the mess that was/is Iraq.

In other words, an understandable and justifiable decision in the short- and near-term timeframes which ends up costing the nation even more dearly over the long run.

re: "The "centrist" National Journal has a question"

Jeff G at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news") unleashed some snark in support of the War Powers Act.

8/23

re: "Congress won’t pass the DREAM Act?"

Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news.") took on the pet peeve of a lot of people: denying the illegality of illegal aliens.

Money quote(s):

"“many illegal immigrants who don’t have criminal records” is itself a surreal formulation, given that “illegal” presupposes breaking the law — criminality — and that, for them to be identified as “illegal” for the purposes of granting them backdoor amnesty, they are therefore recorded as having been law breakers.

Language matters. It does. And because it does, we know that “illegal immigrants” are by their very nature criminals, though one’s idea of the degree of that criminality is fluid." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Most of us who aren't lawyers get our notions of crime and law from dimly remembered civics classes (called "social studies" when CAA was in grade school) and from watching Law & Order reruns.

So there's some understanding that there are more than one kind of law and more than one kind of criminal. That there is criminal law, civil law, felony crimes, and misdemeanor crimes. So it's sometimes hard for to wrap ones brain around the notion of someone who breaks the law not being a criminal.

8/19

re: "Harbinger"

Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news.") examined the London rioters.

Money quote(s):

"Products of the long march.

Europe wants to walk it back, and the riots are in part a product of that desperation. Too many in the US, alternately, seems to think this way lies Utopia — and our government is more than happy to join them in their fantasies by continually kicking the can down the road, pretending that necessary reforms can always be put off indefinitely.

Worse still? The people in the US haven’t had their guns taken way just yet…"

The looming impeachment of AG Holder may delay that last part a bit more.

8/10

re: "Fareed Zakaria knows the problem with the United States"

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom ("Because not just anybody can summarize the news.") is clearly losing patience with Mr. Zakaria.

Money quote(s):

"It’s the Constitution. Which is old and hasn’t been usefully updated for the 21st century — something we should be doing through social media, starting with archaic and useless institutions like the electoral college, or Senate representation (because clearly it’s unfair that California have 2 senators and Wisconsin have 2 senators when California is bigger).

When Ezra Klein floated this idea a month or so back I suggested that the left was working on its messaging for just such a push to destroy the republic and replace it with a pure democracy, where the mob, which the left will run through large urban centers, will vote themselves your money and the Democrats their power. Less populated states will have to bend to the will of more populated states — and politicians could save themselves time and effort by having to pander only to the large urban centers, ignoring in some cases entire areas of the country."

This would require a Constitutional amendment; and the amendment process is rigged, deliberately so, to make this development unlikely at best.

Not impossible, mind you, just unlikely. The less populated states, and their representative, would have to vote themselves into irrelevence.

"The founders and framers saw what would happen. The only direct elections they advocated were for those in the House. They did this to protect against populism and, ultimately, majority tyranny — while keeping power vested in the separate states."

re: "Birtherism rising"

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news") has something that surprised me.

Money quote(s):

"Major General Paul Vallely makes extraordinary claim that every former CIA agent he’s had look at the Obama long-form birth certificate has declared it a forgery."

MG Vallely is a big name from back when. It's quite surprising to see this sort of thing from someone so prominent.

"Releasing a forgery easily identified as such would indicate the President has nothing but enormous contempt for the country and it’s people, and would illustrate an arrogance unheard of in a US President."

(Okay, so Jeff likes the snark.)

re: "Let’s see. What else can the GOP surrender on…? "

Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news") has a good handle on the nature of the problem.

Money quote(s):

"I understand that we can’t deport the more than 12 million illegals already in this country; but we shouldn’t reward them with a “path to citizenship” either. Secure the border. Then let the illegals decide what they want to do once we make it clear that we will not be granting any amnesty to lawbreakers. Period.

If these people are living scared in the shadows, there’s a reason for that: they are here illegally. And with real unemployment and underemployment already at close to 20% in this country, the last thing we need to do is flood the labor market with millions of legal, unskilled laborers.

You want to talk to me about increasing guest worker programs? Fine. But in the meantime, we need to be cracking down on employers who take advantage of illegal labor — in conjunction with releasing these same employers from growth-choking taxation and the kinds of ridiculous and redundant regulatory burdens that drive up the cost of doing business to begin with."

Nothing dramatic. Simply enforce the laws that are already on the books.

re: "Is the GOP going extinct? And if so, is conservatism to blame?"

Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news") remarks upon an entire paragraph of wrong.

Money quote(s):

"(T)hat single paragraph is so densely packed with wrong — from the idea that Bush was a “conservative” to the notion that waterboarding, to conservatives, is a thrill rather than a necessary evil — I won’t bother deconstructing it."

"(I)t reinforces a manufactured narrative that the progressives are hoping to push as consensus opinion; it enables the Big Lie about “what Americans want” (gay marriage? according to what polls? higher taxes? terrorists treated as criminal defendants in a courtroom?); and — and here’s where it’s supposed to really work, as a piece of propaganda — it serves notice to the leadership in the GOP that, should they not move the party more toward what leftists are out to portray as “centrist,” the party is doomed to fail."

&

"Bush’s presidency was a success in that it kept Americans safe and beat back a dangerous enemy — not because he was a “conservative” or classical liberal."

re: "State Department to Jasim, Iraqi Translator… [Darleen Click]"

Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom ("because not just anybody can summarize the news") calls attention to the denial of a special immigrant visa to an Iraqi military translator.