Dems Frozen On Climate Change

Another grand Dem juggernaut -- their big promise to do something about the horrific threat of global warming -- couldn't even attract the support of half the Senate to come up for a vote.

Hallelujah!

The massive bag of foul air known as Lieberman-Warner fell 12 votes short of filibuster-stopping and 19 votes short of veto-busting, so Harry "Hand-Wringer" Reid now must decide whether to expend more of what little legislative credibility the Dems have to keep it alive, or to put it on the shelf until next year.

Cost and fuel prices drove the Senate debate. Costs? Big Lizards did a heck of a cost analysis:

For the innumerate, a trillion is a thousand billion; so $6.7 trillion is the same as $6,700 billion. Divided by 41 years (2009 through 2050) gives us an annual collection of "allowances" (that is, a tax on businesses and on energy sales) of $163.4 billion per year... and even that assumes that the Democrats didn't lowball their own estimate; if it's business as usual, their own internal figures probably show twice that big a tax -- $326.8 billion per year -- which will also certainly be written in such a way that it grows much faster than inflation (every tax seems to do that).

By way of contrast, the estimated expenses of Medicare Part D -- the Medicare prescription-drug benefit enacted in 2003 -- which has elicited screams of anguish not only from conservatives but even many moderates of both parties -- is a mere $36 billion per year. This brand new, carbon-rationing bureaucracy will be more than 4.5 times as large as Medicare Part D, even by the Democrats' own tendentious estimate. Under the more realistic speculation, it will be nine times as big.

Global warming is nothing if not an excuse for larger government and larger government budgets. America happily continues its record (somewhat bruised, but still a record) of standing up to hype and hyperbole and rejecting phony, costly global warming "solutions."

But not Obama. No, he's still wrangling for those big, big programs, as was clear in his primary victory speech this week:

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Forget the fact that an awful lot of people have healed and found jobs without the messianic Barack-touch; his victory crow was a clear sign that to his mind the near-dead Senate bill did not go far enough. He's got his staff in hand, he's looking at the sea, but so far God's not answering his pandering patter.

Mother's Day Sunday Scan

Hi, Mom!

Inside the Beltway, my mom's going about her mother's day, no doubt anticipating a call from us later today. Despite our differences on politics and religion, which are enough to shatter any normal relationship, we are very close and I would not be who I am today without her -- and I mean that in the best way possible.

She took mothering seriously. She wasn't just raising kids (although she made sure there was a big dose of that in the program -- people who know my mom might have trouble visualizing her as a Cub Scout mom, for example), she was raising two grown-up men. She wanted to make sure that when my older brother and I grew up, we would have a solid foundation in the old liberal arts tradition.

So thanks! And thanks also for the deep friendship you've made with the mother of my children. Having the two moms in my life so close is one of my great joys!

To my readers: Thanks for indulging me. In return, please feel free to pirate the tacky Mother's Day greeting image above.

Muslims Cop Killers?

My brother-in-law, a Special Forces vet and police officer, is on the board of a group that watches out for the widows and orphans of police officers who are killed in the line of duty. He forwarded me this alert:

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski
Philadelphia Police Department
Pennsylvania

End of Watch: Saturday, May 3, 2008

Biographical Info
Age: 40
Tour of Duty: 12 years
Badge Number: 486

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Weapon Used: Rifle; AK-47
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski was shot and killed while responding to a bank robbery call at approximately 11:30 am.

Two men dressed in female Muslim garb had robbed a Bank of America on Aramingo Avenue. Sergeant Liczbinski encountered the suspects on East Schiller Street and stopped their car. As he exited his patrol car, a suspect opened fire with an AK-47, striking Sergeant Liczbinski several times. Several citizens who witnessed the incident rushed to assist Sergeant Liczbinski, wrapping his wounds in an effort to stop the bleeding. Sergeant Liczbinski told them "Tell my wife I love her", before he fell into unconsciousness. Another officer and a citizen carried Sergeant Liczbinski into a patrol car and he was transported to a local hospital, where he died from his wounds.

The suspects continued to flee, but crashed their vehicle. One suspect fled and the second suspect stole another vehicle, but was shot and killed by responding K-9 officers. A second suspect was arrested the following day and an arrest warrant was issued for a third suspect.

Sergeant Liczbinski had served with the Philadelphia Police Department for 12 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

There is no evidence the perps -- Howard Cain, 33, who was shot and killed by police, Levon Warner, 38, who was arrested, and Eric DeShawn Floyd, 33, who is subject to a massive manhunt -- are Muslims. The local news coverage is lauding a lot of praise on Liczbinski, but is drawing no conclusions about Islam and the crime.

At this point, there's really just one point to be made from the story: It is perfectly sensible and valid for us to put restrictions on Muslim dress in the US for security reasons. It's not racial profiling to poke, prod and scan every single Muslim man and woman in traditional clothing.

Time For A New Perfume?

I have no explanation whatsoever for this:

A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

The bird, which died in Thursday's collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker's face as she bathed near the city of St Petersburg.

The city fire chief said he had never heard of a diving pelican hit a person.

Pelicans grow to up to 30lb (13kg) and can dive from heights of 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres).

Ms Shoemaker, 50, returned home on Friday, the Associated Press reports.

Being Harry

Harry Reid has said a lot of truly stupid things in his day, but this is toppers, what he said about Hillary Clinton's recent racial analysis of her prospects vs. Howdy Obama's, i.e., that she can be counted on for the scruffy but hard-working white vote while Obama can be assured of the snotty white vote and the lazy black vote.

Here's Harry:

“I am confident that she meant nothing."

Well done, Harry! I see why they made you Speaker, since you speak just so darn well.

Leaves Of The Other Guy's Grass

In the scheme of Global Things, this is perhaps the most troubling squib I've read lately:

This week, Saudi Arabia announced plans to invest in overseas fisheries, livestock and food production, and is reportedly trying to partner with Thai rice farms to lock in future supplies. Libya is in talks with Ukraine about growing wheat there, and as China tries to feed its expanding middle class, it's looking to buy up farmland in Africa and South America. Commodities analyst Richard Feltes, with MF Global, says for decades these countries relied on cheap and abundant world surpluses to meet their food needs. (source)

Let's follow the line on this one. No, not the line where everything turns out all right. What fun is that?

Instead let's follow the line where global food supplies run short and Chinese Army troops are needed to keep hungry locals away from the fields they bought with the interest they earned from US Treasuries. Then the People's Army escorts the crops past the really hungry people to the docks, where underfed stevedores stare at the Chinese with their Type 56 AK-47 knockoffs, thinking, "If I pocket a handful of this wheat, will they shoot me?"

Yeah, that line. Anyone selling their country's land to the Saudis or the Chinese should see that this is the endgame that's in play, the endgame that everyone's anticipating. Yet they sell.

One very, very strange and troubling world.

Bush Wields A Necessary Veto

As President Bush vetoes legislation that would ban waterboarding and other "harsh" interrogation techniques -- a veto Congress will have trouble overturning, news reports reveal that the usual suspects are lined up against him:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush often warns against ignoring the advice of U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq. Yet the president has rejected the Army Field Manual, which recognizes that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information, said Reid, D-Nev.

"Democrats will continue working to reverse the damage President Bush has caused to our standing in the world," Reid said.

Just like al-Qaida is working to damage our standing in the world?

And we can always count on Human Rights Watch for a lucid view of world events and foreign affairs:

Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch [oxymoron, anyone?], said Bush "will go down in history as the torture president" for defying Congress and allowing the CIA to use interrogation techniques "that any reasonable observer would call torture." [There they go, calling me unreasonable again!]

"The Bush administration continues to insist that CIA and other nonmilitary interrogators are not bound by the military rules and has reportedly given CIA interrogators the green light to use a range of so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, and exposure to extreme cold," Daskal said. [The horror of it all!] "Although waterboarding is not currently approved for use by the CIA, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to take it off the table for the future."

The Dems and Soros-funded Human Rights Watch would restrict all interrogations to those allowed in the Army Field Manual -- but what does that mean?

It’s easy to find what interrogation techniques are banned by in the new Army Field Manual. Obviously, it bans all the stuff we all used to think of as torture: anything that could cause death or physical injury. Think Jack Bauer.

Then, “based on lessons learned since the United States began taking prisoners in the war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, (AP, via NPR), the manual banned a bunch of other stuff: forced nakedness, hooding, sexual humiliation, threatening them with dogs, mock executions. Think Abu Ghraib.

Also included in this bunch of banned stuff attributed to the war on terror, according to the AP report: being beaten, shocking prisoners with electricity, burning them, causing other pain, and waterboarding. With the exception of waterboarding – which reportedly has been very limited in its use and very successful in its results – I know of no reports of American forces using any of the other techniques during the war on terror. AP didn't bother to attribute its charge -- so did they just make it up?

Who knows?

So what are the 16 interrogation techniques the Army Field Manual allows? That, my friends, is much harder to find out by reading the general media. My browser has been whirring, and it appears the MSM are much more interested in what's not allowed instead of what is allowed.

Three techniques were added “in response to the war on terror,” and are not unlike what you might experience if you were being interrogated by your local cops:

• Playing good cop/bad cop
• The American interrogator not identifying himself as such
• Separating those being interrogated, so they can’t collaborate on stories. POWs can’t be separated, but enemy combatants can be.

And all the old allowed techniques? Hard to find in the MSM, so let's turn to the Army Manual's section FM2.22.2, Human Intelligence Collection Operations, 384 pages of detailed, comprehensive instructions. The US Army is the best, longest-writing Army in the world!

The section on the human intelligence collection process begins with six pages on screening potential HUMINT sources, then goes into 14 pages on planning and preparing for an interrogation. There then are multiple-page sections on approaching the HUMINT and building rapport -- which does not include the MCs "softening them up," which is not allowed.

While Saddam's guys were innovating with electric chords and raping wives in front of husbands and kids, our guys are reading on "incentive approach" and even "emotional love" approach:

Love in its many forms (friendship, comradeship, patriotism, love of family) is a dominant emotion for most people. The HUMINT collector focuses on the anxiety felt by the source about the circumstances in which he finds himself, his isolation from those he loves, and his feelings of helplessness. The HUMINT collector directs the love the source feels toward the appropriate object: family, homeland, or comrades. If the HUMINT collector can show the source what the source himself can do to alter or improve his situation or the situation of the object of his emotion, the approach has a chance of success.

Attila the Hun this ain't ... although there are sections on emotional fear and emotional hate. Before Human Rights Watch gets all a-tizzy, let's repeat: emotional fear, emotional hate. In short, all of the 16 techniques detailed in the Army Field Manual are verbal techniques, and we all know that sticks and stone can break bones, but words will never hurt us.

Can we conceive of no situation where the nature of the detainee and the timeframe we're working in would require something far short of Jack Bauer but more than Maybury PD?

For our safety's sake, for the sake of the reputation of our country, and out of respect for the intelligence personnel tasked with working with foreign agents, we need more than the law Bush is vetoing. We need clear instructions for the use of limited, enhanced techniques -- and the Dems should be as interested in defining them and their use as anyone else.

Harry Reid image: Hidden Dragon Politics

Baghdad Harry, NYT Mouthpiece

Unable to sleep, I've been reading the Watcher's Council entries for this week and had to share this hilarious picture of Baghdad Harry with you.

It's from Wolf Howling's post, Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target (Whoa! Long enough title, Wolfie?). At first, the piece appeared to be a rather routine NYT editorial board fisking – and what’s the challenge in that? – but it turned into a thoroughly researched milestone by milestone history of the NYT editorial board’s tilted (careening?), re-shaping, denying approach to Iraq.

I'm not tipping my hat on the entries this week quite yet -- I've read several other outstanding ones -- I'm just sharing a photo, OK?

The Audacious "Charity" Of Harry

Don Surber has a very nice post today on why everyone hates the media, based on an ABC story on the Harry Reid/Rush Limbaugh letter affair. But if there's a "why everyone hates someone" story to be told here, I think it's more about politicians than the media.

I'm a late-comer to this story because a very busy work week was keeping me from the news. Early in the week, Incredible Daughter #1 sent me a link to a story about some letter Rush Limbaugh was auctioning, but I didn't have time to even click the link. I heard a squib or two during the week, and finally last night learned that the letter appeared likely to sell for over $2 million and Rush would match it for a $4-million-plus contribution to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation.

Being me, I immediately went onto Harry Reid's web site to see what he had to say about it. Nothing. But little did I know that the little man from Searchlight was talking on the Senate floor, about what his ignominy had spurred. Of course, he wasn't exactly positioning himself that way:

When I spoke to [Limbaugh's syndicator] Mark May[s], he and I thought this probably wouldn't make much money, a letter, written by Democrat Senators, complaining about something. This morning, the bid is more than two million for this. We've watched it during the week. It keeps going up, and up, and up. There's only a little bit of time left on it, but it certainly is going to be more than two million. ...

I don't know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education.

"We?!" The only "we" Harry belongs to is the "we" that includes Hillary Clinton that backed a heavy-handed attempt by people elected to protect Constitutional freedoms to strip those freedoms from someone who's free speech they happen to disagree with.

It shouldn't surprise us that the leader of the Senate would try to claim some credit as a spawner of this drive, since politicians are super-glue for credit and Teflon for criticism. If Harry truly felt there is nothing more important to do than to help the kids of fallen police and military personnel, then he might have gone to his 41 co-signers of the letter, most of them rich, and put together another match, that would have raised the tally to over $6 million.

But politicians are quicker with their words than they are with their money, and there is consequently no third leg to this stool. Why should Harry and his buds pay a penny when they can steal credit and keep the cash? The next thing you know, he'll be talking about how he raised $4 million for the Foundation ... hoping that we're all as stupid as he thinks we are.

Also utterly damning of politicians is the fact that Harry was able to get 42 of the Senate's 51 Dem Sens to sign the letter, signing on to heavy-handed government pressure on free speech. I wonder about the other nine -- are they hanging desperately on to some scruples, or were they just not available?

I would be proud if any of my daughters decided to serve in the military or in law enforcement, but I would be deeply saddened if they decided to go into politics. What a sad state that is for the world's beacon of Democracy.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Fight, Fight, Fight!

What a non-surprise:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed on Wednesday to block former Solicitor General Theodore Olson from becoming attorney general if President George W. Bush nominates him to replace Alberto Gonzales.

Congressional and administration officials have described Olson as a leading contender for the job as the nation's chief U.S. law enforcement officer, but Reid declared: "Ted Olson will not be confirmed" by the Senate.

"He's a partisan, and the last thing we need as an attorney general is a partisan," Reid told Reuters in a brief hallway interview on Capitol Hill.

Since when was an attorney general not partisan? Janet Reno was more than a tad partisan in her four successful races for Florida atty gen, ya think? Bobby Kennedy had a streak of Jack-protecting partisanship running in his blue-blooded veins.

Olson is of course a partisan's partisan, forever ticking off Dems, first for running anti-Bill efforts in the 1990s, then representing Bush in Bush v. Gore.

And what a non-surprise that Bush nominated yet another difficult nominee.

Yes, of course Olson is eminently qualified for the job -- a penultimate lawyer, a good administrator -- but really, what's with Bush picking yet another unnecessary fight? The AG need not be a Weapon of Political Destruction,. There are plenty of guys and gals out there who are good party guys who know law and how to run a big operation.

I'm tired of these fights, these opportunities for the Dems to grandstand and tear down the GOP. Someone might want to advise Bush that it's a Dem Congress.

Illegals Are Just Undocumented Americans

Here's what Harry Reid says about immigration on his Web site:

While I am strongly opposed to illegal immigration and believe that our immigration laws should be strictly enforced, there is near-universal agreement that our system is broken and in need of reform.

He appears for the moment to acknowledge that there is such a thing as immigration that is illegal, and laws that prohibit such actions, right? Then what about this, posted on the Democratic Senate caucus Web page, at the bottom of a statement by the same Harry Reid:

This week, we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows, and keep our economy strong. In the days ahead, we will work to improve the bill to protect and strengthen family ties while improving the structure of the temporary-worker program.

Undocumented Americans. It's been up there since June 4, so Reid could have corrected it if he wanted to, but it's still there -- the latest Dem spin on immigration. They're not really illegals, they're just not quite yet Americans.

Amazing they can say that and still support late-term abortions. Let's try it in Reid-speak: They're not really humans, they're just not quite born yet. Hmm. Doesn't seem to work.

As Michelle Malkin (hat-tip) put this latest attempt to Mexicanize Dem voter registration,

The concept of American citizenship is dead. Sen. Harry Reid drove the final nail in the coffin with his floor statement yesterday, in which he referred to the 12 million illegal aliens currently in the U.S. as "12 million undocumented Americans." I've heard a lot of stupid euphemisms for illegal aliens, but that one takes the cake.

Image: Kingsport Times News

Harry's House Of Hypocrisy

Here's the noble, green, oh-so-concerned about future generations Harry Reid, from his Web site:

I believe that global warming constitutes one of the greatest challenges of our time. ... Our government must provide domestic and global leadership on this issue because we have a moral responsibility to leave future generations with a safe and habitable world. The President must build international support for global greenhouse gas reductions and work with Congress to increase U.S. efforts to do the same. I am hopeful that the Senate will again take up bipartisan legislation that will require mandatory reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions, and build upon the efforts of Fortune 500 companies and many state and local governments that have made significant reductions in their emissions. (emphasis added)

Wow! Harry must be really hot on this groovy little technology that generates electricity without the faintest wisp of greenhouse gas. You know, nuclear generating plants.

Nope. Prepare to enter Harry's House of Hypocrisy:

The Energy Department unveiled legislation Tuesday to spur construction of a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada and increase its capacity. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., immediately vowed to block the bill.

That could spell more problems for the troubled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, already years behind schedule. ...

The new bill is similar to legislation the Energy Department offered last year that didn't advance. The political environment is even tougher for the measure this year now that Reid, an ardent Yucca Mountain opponent, is in charge of the Senate.

"This is just the department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail," Reid said. "I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built." (AP)

Harry's just playing to his constituents ... every one of which will be 10,000 years in the grave as Yucca Mountain continues to just sit there. It's got hard, cold facts and strenuous analysis on its, while its opponents have fearmongering, hysterical hype and runaway emotions on theirs. Guess which side the Senate's leading Dem bellies up to?

Children, take note! If you want to grow up and serve America as a leader, use this man as a guidepost! Always remember to ask yourself, "What would Harry do?"

Then do the opposite.