Sic Semper Tyrannis, Eh!

Speaking of free speech, (see comments section here), Mark Steyn has a bit of a victory to celebrate over at The Corner at National Review Online:

Moonstruck [Mark Steyn]

On Friday I had the honor of addressing the Federalist Society in Washington on the matter of my free-speech travails up north. And, in response to a question on whether the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission were surprised that I'd pushed back against them, I quoted that great line from the Kevin Bacon film Tremors when the giant mutated killer worms attack Michael Gross and Reba McEntire's well-armed basement and wind up blasted to smithereens: "Looks like they picked the wrong rec room to break into."

The giant killer worms of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission picked the wrong rec room to break into. Ezra Levant and I and a few others went nuclear on the Dominion's thought police and gave them the worst year of publicity in their three-decade existence. The result is that, earlier this month, over 99 per cent of delegates to the Conservative Party convention voted to abolish Section 13 (the "hate speech" provision) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and a brave principled Liberal, Keith Martin, renewed his private member's motion in the House of Commons to do the same.

This morning, the CHRC issued the so-called Moon Report on free-speech issues. Most of us expected it to be a whitewash. Instead, Professor Moon says:

1. The first recommendation is that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) would no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.

This is a great tribute to what Ezra calls his campaign of "denormalization" of Canada's Orwellian "human rights" racket. They're not yet ready to throw in the towel completely, but it's fluttering limply on the edge of the ring. Canada may be preparing to rejoin the ranks of free nations.

I'm especially grateful to the support I've received from Stanley Kurtz and other NR colleagues, and from many readers, who recognize that America's chances of remaining a beacon of liberty are greatly diminished if the lights go out over the rest of the western world.
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It's a Sign of the Times

Short and sweet.

Our friends at the United American Committee are taking the direct approach in getting their message out, hiring a billboard to raise awareness about the dangers of Sharia law. The billboard is on southbound I-75, between Monroe and the Ohio line.

The message is undeniable, and people can't be reminded enough. Thanks, you guys, for getting this done. We hope it keeps people talking.

Or maybe you don't think the message is undeniable. If you think Sharia is a good thing for America, we'd be interested in hearing your reasons.

Cheeks of Clay

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick won't reveal if she voted to oust fellow Congressman John Dingell from a key leadership post,despite claims she did so as payback for him calling on her son to resign as mayor.

Her offices were flooded Friday by upset callers accusing Kilpatrick of contributing to Dingell's removal as House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman. Detroit radio shows -- one of which called her "Delilah" --urged listeners to call the congresswoman's offices in protest. Dingell lost control over the committee that sets automobile policy by a secret 137-122 vote Thursday.

“Only the congresswoman knows how she voted,” said Keirana Barrett, a Kilpatrick aide. “We wanted people to understand the process. This is a secret process.” (“Cheeks Kilpatrick mum on Dingell vote”).

At least the Democrats have found some use for the secret ballot--they can use it to hide their vindictive political votes--even if they aim to deny secret ballots to American workers having union membership shoved down their throats. For more on this hypocrisy check this out.

Kilpatrick, by refusing to disclose whether she did or didn’t vote against her congressional colleague from Michigan, has given common-sense Michiganians like us all the reasons we need to believe she really did. (And Dingell even backed her in her recent re-election). Not only that, she voted against the interests of her own state and community. Whatever problems we’ve had with Dingell here, he at least looks out for the auto industry, and, given a choice between him and Waxman, there’s simply no way that Waxman is a better choice for Kilpatrick’s poorly served constituents than Dingell would have been.

The most her statement defending her secret vote would give away is that “As the only appropriator from the State of Michigan, I am committed to advocating for health care and environmental justice for all Americans.”

Inspiring, no? "Environmental justice," is meant to signal she voted for Waxman’s extremist, anti-auto industry approach. Why not just say so? Could political blather get any more cynical than that?

It's an understatement to say that Rep. Kilpatrick is not a class act. She made an embarrassing spectacle of herself during her son’s re-election, (“Don’t let nobody talk about y’all’s boy!”), playing the role of an outraged ghetto queen, trying to sell the image of her son as a racial champion entitled by racial justice to office By Any Means Necessary. Later, she vowed to appeal the whistleblower verdicts against Kwame "no matter how much it costs the city." And now, she's voted against the economic interests of her own city and state just to even the score with a supporter who dared to question her son's divine right to rule, and then hidden behind the secrecy of the "process" to hide her shameful action.

I don’t begrudge any mother sticking like glue to her offspring, no matter how bad he is, even after he’s been thrown out of office and gone to jail. But Cheeks Kilpatrick has always behaved as if everyone in Michigan owes this bum loyalty. I suppose teaching him that he deserved that when he was growing up helped make him who he is today. After it was evident Kwame wasn't going to survive in office, Dingell made a prudent request that he step down. And now, because Dingell talked about y'all's boy, Kilpatrick is now using her office to settle the score, and to hell with her voters and Michigan.

Why Intellectuals Went for Obama

While the Obama honeymoon continues, I expect the liberal commentators, especially the snarkier of them in the Washington-New York axis, to continue their self-congratulating essays on how, after eight years of troglodyte rule, healthy intellectualism is once again welcomed in the land.

That's because, as we never get to the end of hearing, liberals love learning, deep thinking, philosophy, nuance, while conservatives only use books as fuel for warming their hunting lodges, and don't believe in science. Most of all, liberals pride themselves on being well informed.

The video below I ran across on the Ms.Underestimated blog.

It's a bit lengthy, but worth following through. I was especially dismayed by the willingness of these folks to hate Sarah Palin, (to say nothing of their universal inability to distinguish her from Tina Fey), and their lists of who they turn to for information. There is one young lady who is refreshingly frank after realizing how uninformed she was, but that didn't affect her commitment to Obama in the least.

By the way, you'll be glad to know that the 52% of Americans who voted for Obama apparently believe that Republicans are running Congress.

Jack Bauer, Now More Than Ever

At least we can watch conservative values resurging in one place in America.

The Counter-Terrorism Unit’s most-fired employee, Jack Bauer, is returning this Sunday for a two-hour episode of 24. (“Jack's back: '24' returns with a two-hour, action-packed movie”).

As described by Detroit News reviewer, Mekeisha Madden Toby, Jack can’t be left in peace for all the well-intentioned idiots who keep dragging him back into a life of nonstop violence and use of his trademark counterterrorism skills.

His first battle is with bureaucrat Frank Trammell (Gil Bellows, "Ally McBeal"), who travels to the fictional African country of Sengala to tell Jack that he must return to the United States to answer for the inhumane torture techniques he used on terrorism suspects.

Disinterested in playing by rules he doesn't believe in, Jack has been running from people like Tramell for a year, we learn, but discovers he can't run forever. Despite such a revelation, Jack wastes no time physically and verbally attacking Tramell. In another scene, Jack does much of the same to a weak United Nations representative.

Ms. Toby’s snapshot is meant to capture the essential, violent Jack Bauer we all know and love. But it’s not just how Bauer pounds people that makes us love him, it’s who he pounds and why: A bureaucrat sent to hassle him because he tortured terrorists? (Pound him). One of Ally McBeal’s boytoy love interests? (Pound all of them ). A UN representative? (Pound, baby, pound!).

As show creator Joel Turnow said about Bauer’s appeal (and even prominent liberals admit loving this show),

in a world where there's so much noise about what we've done wrong, why we're such bad people, there's so little support for just the real common sense idea,which is: they're bad, we're good, we're going to get them. Jack Bauer represents that.

And he represents it, I might add, without ever having uttered a patriotic speech, nor asked one of his doomed girlfriends any rhetorical questions starting with, “You know what I love about this country. . . ?”

We know Jack loves his country, because he fights for it, and kills the guys who want to hurt his family and countrymen, even if those guys come dressed as bureaucrats or UN representatives.

Even liberals get that. And they know they need someone like that, even if they won't allow themselves to believe they can have it in the real world.

An Open Letter to Osama's Number 2 (With Apologies to Toilet-Training Toddlers Everywhere)

Look here, Mr. Zawahiri, a lot of us were able to overlook that whole 9/11 thing. That was probably understandable, what with us helping Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from being overrun by Saddam Hussein, and what with us being infidels and little Eichmans, not to mention all the rest of your group’s very valid criticisms of our nation.

But calling our new president a “house negro”? (“Al-Qaida's No. 2 insults Obama”). Saying our Messiah isn’t as cool as Malik al-Shabazz (Malcolm X)?

This is 2008 America, pal, and those are fighting words.

From here out there’ll be no more ineffective unilateral cowboy diplomacy. Now you're going to have a mess of groups mad at you, instead of only Dick Cheney and George Bush. To start with, Rev. Al Sharpton, who happens to have a worldwide copyright on the term “house negro”©, (along with such equally valuable expressions as “No Justice”© and “No Peace”©).



The intellectual property litigation alone is going to make your boss wished he's stayed in Saudi Arabia building 10-car garages .

My point is, if you thought Obama’s campaign threats to hunt you and Osama down were scary, just wait until the ACLU gets the case.

Trust me. If there’s anyone who can zero in on people with strong religious views and drop a bomb on them--no matter how well hidden you are--it’s those cats.

May Allah have mercy on you, 'cause I wouldn't give a potful of number 2 for your chances now.

'The Audacity of Victory'

Now that the war in Iraq is won, (though sensitivity for world feelings forbids us from ever declaring it), I wonder how long it will take before the media transmogrifies the universally-hated “Bush’s war” into “Obama’s victorious strategy in Iraq”?

Steve Schippert at The Tank at National Review Online (archived on November 14) has this to say about “The Audacity of Victory: How To End a War”:

Let's get right to the heart of the matter. Barack Obama said famously, "I am the only major candidate who has opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it." What he really meant was "I will disengage U.S. forces from it." An enemy not yet defeated will have decidedly chosen not to "end it," and therefore likely claimed an abandoned victory for their own.

In 2004, President Bush was the only major candidate who supported the war. And as president, he won it. He might get a footnote in the immediate contemporary history to be written in the coming months and years, while Obama will be awarded full credit for withdrawing U.S. forces — now that, as Michael Yon describes to Glenn Reynolds via phone from Iraq, in "the 10th Mountain Division . . . about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months."

Please read the rest of it here.

Michigan Governor Keeps 'Blown Away' Promise 2 Years Ahead of Schedule

Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's governor, an Obama economic adviser, and the longest-serving chief executive to never once have an unflattering photograph published in the Detroit News or Free Press, expects to exceed by at least two years her 2006 promise to “blow away” Michigan citizens with a transformed economy in five years:

Following a University of Michigan economic forecast that shows the state will continue to bleed jobs over the next two years, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced Friday she will make state budget cuts within two weeks.

Economists predicted the reeling economy will cost the state 124,000 jobs in 2009, another 49,000 in 2010 and $500 million in anticipated tax receipts over the two years. The forecast for those job losses in Michigan into 2010 illustrates that the state is in for several more tough economic years. (“Gov to slash budget over forecast”)

You Michigan folks may remember the budget crisis of 2007, driven almost purely by a refusal by the governor and the Democrats in Lansing seriously to consider cutting government spending to make up for a projected budget shortfall.

Only now, with the state economy in free-fall and no choices available, does she take the bold step she needed to take last year--and before.

That's leadership. I guess.

The Bushes and Their Unworthy Church

United Methodist layman and writer at American Thinker, Matthew May, has written a very powerful piece on the unworthy attacks by the leadership of the United Methodist Church against their most well-known member, George W. Bush. ("The United Methodist Church vs. George W. Bush"). It's a lengthy piece, but I welcome it.

Here is a sample where May illustrates the strong contrast between President Bush's true heart for God and the posturing, empty clanging of his numberless enemies:

United Methodists in positions of leadership often accuse President Bush of acting outside the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Methodist Discipline, the governing rules of the church. Yet has there ever been a president of the United States or any other American political figure who has more faithfully obeyed the teaching of Jesus Christ's teaching to turning the other cheek toward his political enemies than George W. Bush? Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls him "a total failure"; Sen. Dick Durbin attempted to link him with Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler during a speech on the floor of the Senate. Rep. Pete Stark accused President Bush and cronies laughing themselves silly at the American war dead in Iraq. There is literally not enough room to fully itemize the insults, lies, and slander thrown against President Bush these past eight years.

As often as allows, President Bush has met with families of those who have given the last full measure of devotion to their nation. These meetings are always private; never have any media been allowed to intrude. More often than not, such meetings would totally escape any media attention at all but for the desire of many of the families to publically express their gratitude for the president's concern, compassion, and sensitivity. Of course, not everyone involved in these meetings pays deference to the Commander-in-Chief - often he has been told to his face that his policies and his actions led directly to the death of a son or daughter. Rather than argue the point, President Bush has listened patiently and with kindness, sharing tears and expressing his own grief.

The responsibility of presiding as leader of the free world in this tumultuous period of history weighs heavily on George W. Bush. To suggest that it is easy - or amusing - for him to absorb the deaths and injuries of the military he commands is beyond crass. It is sinful and worthy of repentance by those who so often suggest such things.

To the dismay of many allies and supporters, the president has never responded in kind personally. Never. On the contrary there are seemingly endless examples of the president's kindness to his political foes, their families and associates, a kindness that comes congenitally and is an outgrowth of the numerous pledges of bipartisanship made by then-Governor Bush during the 2000 campaign. President Bush signed legislation to honor the late Robert F. Kennedy, naming the Justice Department building in Washington after him. Recall the kind, affectionate words of respect and fraternity delivered when President Bush dedicated the official White House portraits of Bill and Hillary Clinton. These gracious statements and sentiments of good feeling by George W. Bush go beyond the banal courtesies extended by presidents. This is the way the 43rd president operates at all times. It is indisputably unimaginable to consider the left's "Man of God," Jimmy Carter, ever being so publicly gracious to George W. Bush.

I've thought for a long time that President Bush would convert to Catholicism after he left office. (I believe he wouldn't do so while still in office from a desire not to cast either group into a negative light). As a Catholic, I'd be proud to welcome him. The truth of it is there are just as many Catholics who love giving him crap as Methodists, if not more, since there are so many more of us than there are Methodists. A majority of us, to my disgust, just voted for the most pro-abortion candidate who has ever run for high office. (Not ME). But Bush has a good relationship with both Pope Benedict and had a good relationship with Pope John Paul II, in spite of what you may have heard. What the editors of America and Commonweal think about him really doesn't matter.

On the subjects of just war, John Wesley's real feelings about war and peace, academic freedom, and the wisdom of our invasion of Iraq, and the exceptional character of this much-maligned President, you should read this article.

Good Thing The Issue Is Closed

The sun so hot,
I froze to death
Susanna, don't you cry
--Stephen Foster, Oh Susannah

Such was Foster's experience in 1847. Now climate history is repeating itself. From the UK Telegraph:

The world has never seen such freezing heat

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". [The picture at left shows snow in London this October. T.R.] In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

I don't see why this is a big deal. Leaders are only using this global warming "science" to dictate the world economy. Read the rest here.

The Best and the Brightest?

From Townhall.com:

‘Intellectuals’
Ignorance has consequences.

By Thomas Sowell

Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending “the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life.”

He cited Adlai Stevenson, the suave and debonair governor of Illinois, who twice ran for president against Eisenhower in the 1950s, as an example of an intellectual in politics.

Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are “interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity,” people who “read the classics.”

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture.

Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson “could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book.” But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance.

What is more telling, form was enough to impress the intellectuals, not only then but even now, years after the facts have been revealed, though apparently not to Mr. Kristof.

That is one of many reasons why intellectuals are not taken as seriously by others as they take themselves.

As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.

Yet intellectuals tended to think of the unpretentious and plain-spoken Truman as little more than a country bumpkin.

Similarly, no one ever thought of President Calvin Coolidge as an intellectual. Yet Coolidge also read the classics in the White House. He read both Latin and Greek, and read Dante in the original Italian, since he spoke several languages. It was said that the taciturn Coolidge could be silent in five different languages.

The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.

During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model — all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear — that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.

After British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reported from the Ukraine on the massive deaths from starvation there, he was ostracized after returning to England and unable to find a job.

More than half a century later, when the archives of the Soviet Union were finally opened up under Mikhail Gorbachev, it turned out that about six million people had died in that famine — about the same number as the people killed in Hitler’s Holocaust.

In the 1930s, it was the intellectuals who pooh-poohed the dangers from the rise of Hitler and urged Western disarmament.

It would be no feat to fill a big book with all the things on which intellectuals were grossly mistaken, just in the 20th century — far more so than ordinary people.

History fully vindicates the late William F. Buckley’s view that he would rather be ruled by people represented by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable — or even expert — within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.

© 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Prominent Dearborn Imam Treated As Bad as You Are

This is only a test.

Some of us paranoid types believe that much of the Muslim-related brouhaha that happens on airliners (e.g., the six imams, “Flying While Still Remembering 9/11,” or the Muslim passengers testing how easy it is to sneak simulated bomb parts on board “'I'd Like an Aisle Seat. And Could You Hold the Cheese?'”), are not chance events that are taken up as causes by offended religious leaders, but orchestrated incidents intended to draw negative publicity to government antiterror measures. The object is to pressure officials or weak-minded politicians to loosen security standards.

Last week Detroit News Islamic Affairs Correspondent, Gregg Krupa ran a piece about Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, and how he had his laptop examined by border officials when he was returning to the US from Iran. (“Airport laptop seizures anger Muslims”).

Elahi is the founder of Dearborn Heights’ Islamic House of Wisdom, and a familiar, nay, ubiquitous sight in and around Dearborn. He also has a regular column in the Detroit News’s op-ed page, where he regularly attacks Israel, American anti-terrorism policy, and sings the praises of Palestinians, Hezbollah, and the Iranian-Syrian interference in Lebanon.

According to Krupa’s article, Elahi:

was not prepared for what happened to him on Oct. 22 as he returned to Detroit Metropolitan Airport from an extended trip to his native Iran. After searching his luggage, customs personnel wanted to see more.

"They said, 'Well, we need to check your computer,' " Elahi recalled. "They said they had to go to an office and check it. They came back and said, 'Well, do the password.' ... He took it back, and it took another 20 minutes. And then he came back and said, 'Well, you know, unfortunately, the computer died as I was looking at it.'

Elahi was confronted with what many local Muslims and residents of Arab descent say are increased searches and seizures of laptops at airports and border crossings without warrant or warning.

Which would be shocking, shocking, if the practice were not completely normal, legal, and a longstanding and recognized practice of border security. As is to be expected from these Krupa exposés, there’s not a shred of evidence that these types of searches are increasing, that they target Muslims, nor that they’re unlawful. But that’s not the point.

The point is to use a compliant media to spread lies about how these things work.

Krupa's article is the kind of misreporting of facts that so clouded and weakened American efforts to monitor electronic communications between terrorists, which the Left falsely painted as both “illegal,” (it’s not), and “domestic spying” (it’s not).

In this case, Krupa and the civil right poseurs are framing the issue to imply that it’s normal for border agents to only search laptops after first getting a search warrant, thus implying that Elahi is being singled out for special abuse. Since that would be yet one more example of rampant Islamophobic civil rights abuse, the only solution would be anti-profiling laws that make it illegal to search passengers dressed in distinctively Muslim gear. Or, to forbid searching laptops without first obtaining a court order.

Read Krupa's article, and you see there isn't any there, there. If anything, the news is that TSA actually rousted a guy with a turban, instead of following protocol and letting him skate. So what’s behind this?

I think what brought this on are two recent things that brought laptop searches to public attention. In July the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that very same Left-coast bastion of jurisimprudence, got something right and recognized the broad authority of customs officials to search laptops of international travelers. In fact, they said that “reasonable suspicion is not needed to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border.”

Then in August the Washington Post reported that:

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. . . .

DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies -- which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens -- are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism. Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter. ("Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border").

True to form, Krupa reports how, in part because of similar stories to Imam Elahi’s, "U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., introduced bills last month that would allow searches and seizures with a warrant.”

400 million passengers entering the country every year, and Feingold wants TSA officers to go to court to get a warrant before taking a closer look at someone’s laptop.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece in July that

"as a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary [for a more thorough examination] when there is some level of suspicion. Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers' often split-second assessments are second-guessed."

And another DHS official, Jayson P. Ahern, said to Feingold on the subject in a hearing in June:
that the executive branch has long had "plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border without probable cause or a warrant" to prevent drugs and other contraband from entering the country.”

ACLU's highly-paid lawyers know this. (Okay, maybe they aren't highly paid, except in reefers and all the Ché t-shirts they can use.) But that doesn't keep Krupa from quoting them saying things like this:

"The Bush Administration has sought to undo 20 years of legal protections by searching personal electronics without probable cause," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Except we've seen this is not a new Bush policy. In fact, the search and seizure policy is as old as the United States. The only difference, if I had to guess, is that the Ninth Circuit’s decision in July deflated the hopes of the Muslim/ACLU axis to ease restrictions on bad guys transporting trouble electronically into the country.

So I'm surmising Elahi decided to use his recent visit with the Ayatollah as an opportunity to make a scene over his laptop.

'33 Minutes'

Timely video from Heritage:

This Is What We're Up Against

Last Sunday a Lansing church was disrupted by a gang of homosexual anarchists, pulling fire alarms, yelling at parishioners that "Jesus was gay!", and shouting prfanities and blasphemies. According to the journalist from the Lansing City Pulse who was recruited by the gang to document the event, no arrests were made though Eaton County Sheriff's deputies did eventually arrive. (Gay anarchist action hits church).

According to Nick De Leeuw at RightMichigan, (Michigan liberals attack Lansing congregation in the middle of Sunday worship):

Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.

Their other props? I'll let them tell you in their own words... from another of their liberal blogs:

"(A) video camera, a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric...yeh."

WorldNet Daily reports that

In a statement posted on the Internet, Bash Back confirmed its "operatives" were in the service, "stood up, declared themselves fags, and began screaming loudly. … Another group threw over a thousand fliers to the entire … congregation. The fire alarm was pulled. Queers began making out in front of the pastor. And within a matter of minutes, everyone had evaded the guards and made their escapes."

The statement continued, "Let is be known: So long as bigots kill us in the streets, this pack of wolves will continue to BASH BACK!" ("Lesbians, condoms go wild in attack on Christian church").

This ugly business follows up an incident in Southern California last week in which a lone old lady protesting gay marriage was shouted down and her cross taken away from her and stomped by violent pro-tolerance demonstrators. The video is available here.

The story of the attack on the Lansing church received almost zero national coverage. The Detroit Free Press mentioned it briefly, ("Pro-gay protest disrupts Lansing-area church's servicesPro-gay protest disrupts Lansing-area church's services"), characterizing the demonstration as "raucous."

Ad hoc assemblies of idiots like these do not make me fear for the safety of my home and kin. What I find disturbing in all this is the dangerous mixture of tantrum-throwing hatred by one segment of society with the supine response of the media in refusing to notice it on the other. It's become so tiresome for me to hear posed and reposed the endless forms of the question, "what if this had been done by conservative Christians in a gay church, etc.," that I almost never pose the issue that way myself.

But it's true just the same. The double standard is glaring. And as we know, it isn't only queers who are being protected.

As the political tables have turned, and as America embarks on this historic presidency, (historic not because Obama is black, but because he is the first president popularly elected to be a world messiah), the need for outlets for free speech is only going to be greater. The Left senses that its side is stronger today, and incidents like these are evidence of their new-found sense of security that they can act like this without public (i.e., media-enhanced) outcry.

As Nick Leeuw remarks in his post, this is what we're up against.

McCain

“And though we fell short–the failure is mine, not yours.”

-- John McCain on election night.

Senator McCain finally makes a statement with which I can agree without reservation or condition.

Southfield Grade School Lesson: 'Obama, Obama, Obama'

From the “This Isn’t Creepy At All Department”:

SOUTHFIELD -- Autumn Gresham cannot yet grasp the global impact of the nation's choice for president. She's only 8 years old.

But she paid homage to President-elect Barack Obama on Friday by painstakingly drawing dozens of red and blue hearts on a white poster surrounding his name.

“This is so exciting because he’s our first black president,” she said, smiling broadly while seated on the floor of the Brace-Lederle Elementary School gym during an assembly for Obama Day. Autumn was asked what his presidency means to the nation. “It means love,” she replied.

(“Political lesson: Schools find ways to integrate election into curriculum”).

Obama Day? I remember when the principal at Precious Blood School announced Kennedy’s assassination over the PA. He was the first Catholic president, and we were a private, non-government school, but we never had a Kennedy Day.

Then again, when did America ever look at the Kennedy years as historical?

But an Obama presidency, now that, if you'll pardon the pun (or if you don't) is a horse of a different color.

They could barely sit still as they squealed and compared posters while waiting for the program to begin. The First Family -- students dressed as Obama; his wife, Michelle; and their daughters, Sasha and Malia -- all dressed up in clothes fit for an inauguration, sat in front-row seats on the stage.

Steven Alexander II, 13, dressed in a tailored black suit and red silk necktie, said it was an honor to portray Obama.

“One of my teachers recommended me for this, and it is a wonderful opportunity to be in Barack Obama's shoes,” he said.

Steven reflected on the world impact: “Our world will move past racism, the economy will get better, and we won't have as many problems as we had when George Bush was in office.” Steven's father, Steven Alexander, 41, of Southfield, said he had tears in his eyes while watching his son address his classmates from the stage. As the younger Steven waved to them after his address, the students rose up holding their posters high and chanted, “Obama, Obama, Obama.”

“Yes, I did think it was possible that an African-American would one day become president,” said Steven's father. “I think God brought this man here to take care of things in the years ahead.”

I know I've always associated the Constitutional office of President with chanting. That’s just what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Yes, and I’m sure God sent Obama to take care of things. This is His way of solving the problem of all those survivor babies after botched abortions.

What's Left To Say?

I’ve been absent a few days.

Just what is there left to say about Election Day?

OK, here’s a thought--

Now America's got two days that will live in infamy.

A song keeps running through my head when I try to put myself in the place of the 52% of healthy, prosperous, free, and unblown-up Americans who voted for Barack Obama:

I don't care what's right or wrong,
I don't try to understand.
Let the devil take tomorrow.
Lord, tonight I need a friend.
--Help Me Make It Through the Night

It's a 70s thing, like really bad sideburns. God help us.

Seriously. God, SEND HELP.

'Do You Take This Mouse, To Have and to Hold'

In Tokyo last week, over a thousand people signed a new petition asking the Japanese government to permit marriages between human beings and cartoon characters. “I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” explained Taichi Takashita. “Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?”

Get back to me on that Tuesday night. We’ll know by then whether an entire constitutional republic has decided to contract marriage with a two-dimensional character and to attempt to take up residence in the two-dimensional world.

-- Mark Steyn (“Obama in 2-D”)

An Open Letter to the Undecided Michigan Voter

When it comes to balancing the budget, lowering taxes and achieving American independence from foreign oil, Michigan voters have a healthy skepticism whether Barack Obama would fulfill his campaign promises in his first term.

But it hasn't cost him their support. . . .Significant numbers of voters say Obama has won them over with his judgment and how he makes them feel about America's future.
--November 2, 2008 Detroit Free Press

If you don't see how that lead makes no sense, then you’re the one I want to talk to.

If you have a “healthy skepticism” about Obama but still intend to vote for him because he makes you feel better, ask yourself how long you’d give a marriage where the teenage bride-to-be said this to her frantic parents:

“I know he gets fired from every job, took my car without asking and wrecked it, and had some trouble with the law, but Rooster makes me feel good and I LOVE HIM!”

The point I’m trying to make, if I may switch metaphors, is this.

They don’t make a morning-after pill for this. If you wake up groggy on inauguration day, or a week out, or 6 months later, it’s not just going to be as simple as feeling around for your panties, calling your roommate for a ride home, and getting on with Plan B. There is no Plan B for this.

Nine months into this mistake, you won’t even be through your first trimester.

The thing is, there are some mistakes it’s better not to make at all, because it's too late to fix them later.

If Obama’s plans for the economy lead to getting it wrong, so that taxes soar, businesses and jobs flee, trade slows, regulations increase, and the energy and oil industry are so hounded and crippled you’ll be dreaming of $4 gas—if the Saudis and Chavez only let us have it that cheap--it will be impossible to undo.

If he gets the Supreme Court wrong, it won’t just be a matter of waiting until 2012 to fix it. It will be 2032. At least.

If he gets national security wrong, the least of it is that more Americans are going to die. I know Obama says we’re less safe than we were on 9/11, but that’s ridiculous, even if you don’t like George Bush. On 9/11 we were so unsafe that terrorists hit us on our own ground and 3,000 Americans died. Since then, no terrorists have struck us at home, and it’s not for lack of trying. That 3,000 to 0 score means we’ve been safer. And what is there about that success in the war on terror that Obama plans to change? Do you really know? And will those changes make you safer?

It’s true what the national security experts say. The terrorists only have to get it right once to kill us. We have to get it right 100% to stop them. Do you think Obama is going to meet that 100% standard?

Even Obama can’t just “hope” and “change” us back to 9/10. Have you ever once heard Obama admit that terrorists are a threat anywhere but in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan? What about the Iranians, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the PLO, all those radical clerics in all those mosques from Copenhagen to Marseilles to Dearborn?

I know what you mean by your weariness of “the last eight years.” You want to wake up and have it be 9/10, or at least the Clinton administration, when everybody loved us, (or that's how it's remembered now).

But as far as the war on terror goes, that’s like wanting to go back to the moment just before the smoke alarm went off, when the house was already full of carbon monoxide, and your housecat had already suffocated.

Yes, it’s tempting. Obama’s offering hope. You have things you’re hoping for. I'm only saying it makes sense to ask, is he hoping for the same thing you are?

He says he’s all about change. There are changes we’d all like to see. But are Obama’s changes the same changes you want? Because he knows exactly what he wants to change, and he’s not going to ask you about it once he’s in office.

Obama keeps telling you that he intends to change this country in a fundamental way. The last time someone changed this country in a fundamental way, we went from being an English colony to an independent Republic. Is that really the level of change you want? Because Obama isn’t kidding.

Okay, we’d all like things to be better, fairer, safer, cheaper. All elections are about changing something. But we aren’t demanding perfect, we don’t believe elections are about bringing heaven on Earth. We want a better America, but we want it to still be America. We aren’t trying to knock it down and start over.

Don't you wonder why so many of Obama’s friends (and you know darn well they’re his friends) do want to knock America down and start over?

Can you think of any American cultural, economic, religious, or political institution that Obama wants to preserve, or that he hasn’t criticized, on some fundamental level? Marriage? Religion? The Family? Capitalism? Freedom of speech? Wealth Distribution?

So if you can put your mood aside for a moment, and just concentrate on some of these certainties:

Obama might answer your hopes. He will raise your taxes.

He might work to improve America’s popularity in the world, but he will signal to our enemies that he is reluctant to resort to the use of force. Meanwhile, no matter who gets elected in November, the use of force will remain the bedrock of our enemies’ strategies.

We’ve already seen some changes in that area because of Obama's pronouncements. Leaders in Iran, Libya, Gaza, the West Bank, and Al Qaeda are all in favor of an Obama presidency. Do you think that’s because they want you to have a better life? Why are Iraq and Israel scared to death Obama’s going to win?

Obama might “change” the health care system so that it’s someone’s idea of “fairer.” But when you think of fair, do you think of giving up your current health plan and putting your family on the equivalent of Medicare?

So much for what Obama might do. What Obama can’t do, in spite of the promises, is save the Planet. He will not make the ocean levels drop. He cannot make our enemies love us; he can only take steps either to make them respect and fear us, or persuade them we’re ripe for attack again.

He will not bring the nation together. His campaign has been one of the bitterest in memory. Blame that on McCain’s supporters if you must, but this race is tied. That’s half your countrymen. Or do you think Obama signing the Freedom of Choice Act will cause Pro-Lifers (60% of Americans) to flock to his support? Do you think Obama instituting the Fairness Doctrine will cause listeners to talk radio to embrace him as “The One”? Do you think Obama’s commitment to wealth redistribution will lead to businesses creating jobs, or else to their hiding their capital offshore away from the taxman? Do you really believe America abandoning Iraq will result in peace in the Middle East? Do you really think terrorists will disarm after we’re gone? We’re they disarmed and pacific before we went over there?

No one is claiming McCain is perfect. Perfection isn’t the standard, and if it were, would Obama meet it, except to his most deluded worshippers? This is the Presidency we’re talking about. If you’ve got a score to settle with George W. Bush, would you consider settling it someplace else outside the voting booth?

Can't Just Let Barack Be Barack

What’s no surprise to any of us are the continuing stray reports coming along about Barack Obama’s highly questionable associations--reports that never attract the slightest attention in the larger media.

For instance, Diana West has just written about how Obama’s campaign was meeting with some Islamic bad guys in “hotly contest Virginia”:

Earlier this month, several news organizations reported that Minha Husaini, the Obama campaign director of Muslim outreach, participated in a non-advertised September meeting in hotly contested Virginia with about 30 Muslim leaders. Among them were Nihad Awad of CAIR and Mahdi Bray of MAS -- both leaders of groups the government has designated as unindicted co-conspirators and Muslim Brotherhood affiliates. Also present was Johari Abdul Malik, the imam of Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque, aka "the 9/11 mosque" because two of the 9/11 hijackers worshipped there. (So did Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, an Al Qaeda member now serving a 30-year sentence for plotting to assassinate President Bush, and also Hamas chieftain and UASR founder Mousa abu Marzook.)

Another person attending the meeting was Mazen Asbahi, the former Obama director of Muslim outreach who quickly resigned in early August after news broke about his ties to unindicted co-conspirators. This was not his first post-resignation campaign-related event. At a luncheon during the Democratic National Convention, Investor's Business Daily reported Asbahi as saying that his resignation was a "strategic decision," and "that he was participating in campaign conference calls on Muslim outreach."

The Obama campaign has pleaded ignorance concerning the September meeting, with campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt telling NBC News producer Jim Popkin that campaign staffers, including Husaini, wouldn't have "attended if they were aware of the complete list of attendees." The campaign had no comment on Asbahi's presence, and, oddly, wouldn't allow reporters speak with Muslim outreach director Husaini.

What are voters to make of this? Did Obama campaign staffers abandon the event on learning who was there? The meeting went on as scheduled. Did the campaign later denounce these controversial, to say the least, groups in media statements? Apparently not. One unidentified meeting participant told Popkin that "some in the Obama group knew ahead of time that top CAIR officials would be in attendance," adding: "There was some hope it wouldn't get out" into the media. (“Look Who's Endorsing O Now”).

There’s been a lot of that, hasn’t there, from the Obama campaign? I mean, a lot of Obama and his folks hoping things won’t get out into the media. Considering the cooperative spirit of the media when it comes to Obama, I’m sure that’s a hope we can believe in.

We mentioned last month how Obama likes to keep his meetings with Muslim leaders on the QT as much as possible. (“Bridge to Muslims, or Bridge Club Meeting?”):

Obama sent a couple of his staffers to Southfield, to meet with Arab Americans “to shore up support from a pivotal community in a key swing state.”

But he didn’t show up himself. Never does. Obama so far hasn’t shown up to meet with a group of Michigan’s Arabs yet in person. Last year, he sent only an adviser to a conference in Dearborn of the Arab American Institute. ("The Arab American Institute's Hezbollah Shish Kebabs").

Then, when Obama addressed 20,000 supporters at Joe Louis this June, he pointedly failed to meet with local Muslims leaders. ("Obama addresses diverse Detroit crowd").

He did meet with Hezbollah-supporter Imam Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, but he did so secretly, miles outside of Dearborn, and well under the radar, which was easy because local media kept radar turned off anyway.

What I take from this is that Obama is running an extremely deceptive campaign. He doesn’t want the American electorate to know who his friends are, who his political cronies are, who his ideological associates are, or what the real kernel of his governing philosophy is going to be.

While on the Republican side of things lots of commentators have been crying out for McCain to let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin, or even that McCain be McCain, on the other side it’s taking an army of thousands to ensure that, whatever happens, Barack is never caught in the open just being Barack.