Yeah that's a joke. But the point is this, and it's really a no-brainer: Why would one worry about the Patriot Act unless they had something to hide? We hear scary horror stories about:

authorization for roving wiretaps, which allow investigators to monitor multiple devices to keep a target from evading detection by switching phones or computers; and secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries.

So? As long as the government isn't posting my secret information for anyone to read online so that any freak could-- Oh, wait, that's right. I forgot: You can already find all that for a small fee of 50 dollars on a so-called "Peoplesearch" website or with a private detective. You can find, well, just about anything about someone with their name using the Internet these days. Liberals have no problem with that. Preventing that would be hindering "freedom of information."

But when the government looks at your private information, specifically when it involves strengthening the national security of the United States, there's a problem. That's violating one's civil rights.

So I think this is the question we should all ponder at this time: How has your life changed since the Patriot Act? Lemme help you out: Not at all. The only people whose lives has been impacted is terrorists whose plots to kill Americans have been foiled. Is it really that scary that the government might know which books you borrowed last month? The only way that would scare any reasonable person is if they got caught renting out an Al Franken book. 

Meanwhile, all anyone has to do is go here and type in someone's name to find out their age, their address, their state, and their phone number. From there, you can go elsewhere to the person's county auditor website and find arial photos of the person's home and their tax return records.

Anyone can do that!

But the evil government, in the interests of the evil, evil cause of preventing attacks on America, can read your library records and listen to your conversation with your spouse about which Christmas presents you should pick up for your toddler.

Oh, the horror...

Via CBS:

 

Under pressure from members of both parties, the White House agreed Thursday to accept the language of Sen. John McCain's amendment protecting anyone in U.S. custody from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment...

Bush is a moron.

Well once again, the Democrats are seaching for "proof" that BushCo "lied" us into the war in Iraq. The new argument is that he "cherry-picked" intelligence, most specifically, intelligence concerning an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection.

Before I go through the hassle of debunking this, let me remind you that past attempts at making it appear as though Bush intentionally misled us, have for the most part, utterly failed.

The first example was the so-called "16 words" speech that Bush gave during his State of the Union in 2003. In case you are one of about 2% of Americans who have not yet memorized the words by heart, they were as follows:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

To this day, the left robotically cites this as "evidence" that Bush "lied" (or, if you're talking to a really bright one, proof that he's a "lying liar.")

The reason why it was assumed that Bush had lied was because it had been indisputedly discovered that a number of forged documents about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger were sent to intelligence agencies by an Italian. Via Wikipedia:

[I]n March 2003, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released results of his analysis of the documents. Reportedly, it took IAEA officials only a matter of hours to determine that these documents were fake. Using little more than a Google search, IAEA experts discovered indications of a crude forgery, such as the use of incorrect names of Nigerian officials. As a result, the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents were "in fact not authentic."

 So, from then to even today, this has been cited as a lie and as a falsehood.

One problem: it is now, perhaps even more so than then, undeniably true that British intelligence believed this, and, furthermore, a British review on pre-war intellligence discovered that their report on Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium was not based on the forged documents.

Chances are you've never heard of the "Butler Review." It was an independent review of British intelligence pre-Iraq war. Remember: Bush cited British intelligence, so it matters what the British have found concerning the claims. The Butler Review says:

There has been significant controversy surrounding the reliability of Government statements about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa. We have therefore studied this issue in detail.

[,,,]

From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

So we know now that Bush was correct. Thus, it isn't a lie.

Now, however, liberals have found a brand-spanking new smoking gun...

Sen. Carl Levin (D) has recently stirred up controversy over a claim that President Bush made in his 2002 Cincinnati Speech, selling the war in Iraq. Bush claimed that  "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

Levin has since declassified a document put out by the DIA by the time this statement was made, that disputed this fact on the grounds that the source was not credible. The New York Times reported:

A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document. The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Why would Bush repeat a claim made by someone that the DIA claimed "was intentionally misleading debriefers"? Wouldn't that be a blatant distortion?  Why did Bush do this?

Answer? Because the head of intelligence at that time persisted in lending the disputed individual, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, and his claims, credibility.

To clarify, let us remember that it was not until recently that there was a Director of National Intelligence who was independent from the CIA. To quote, "Before April 21, 2005, the DCIA was not only the head of the CIA but also the leader of the entire U.S. Intelligence Community in the position of Director of Central Intelligence." At this time, therefore, George Tenet was the head of U.S. intelligence. He was the principal intelligence advisor to the President. He met with the President frequently in intelligence issues and informed him on what he needed to know.

George Tenet was not telling Bush that the claims that Iraq was training Qaeda members in using weapons was based on an unreliable source. In fact, four months after Bush's Cincinnati speech, on February 11, 2003, Tenet was still selling this claim:

Iraq has, in the past, provided training in document forgery and bomb making to al Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaeda associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.

This was even after Colin Powell made the case for the Iraq war to the U.N. of Feb. 5, 2003. Can this really be considered "cherry-picking": trusting your head of intelligence? Shouldn't Tenet be held more liable, for failing to take into account the DIA report when he went around selling Ibn's story?

Carl Levin can't even confirm for sure whether or not the Bush administration its self ever saw the document, according to the Washington Post:

He said that he could not be certain that White House officials read the DIA report, but his "presumption" was that someone at the National Security Council saw it because it was sent there.

Carl Levin also claims that he gained access to a January 2003 CIA brief that claimed that the source of the info being spread "was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." This one was classified. The aforementioned New York Times article says that "At the time of Mr. Powell's speech, an unclassified statement by the C.I.A. described the reporting, now known to have been from Mr. Libi, as 'credible.' " but that "Levin said he had learned that a classified C.I.A. assessment at the time went on to state that 'the source was not in a position to know if any training had taken place.' "

But there's a problem with that. If it is the case that the CIA, in a classified document, discredited Ibn, then why did Sen. Levin give his approval for Phase I of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Report on pre-war intelligence? In it, the committee studied the part of Powell's presentation where he discussed terrorism, and, in its conclusions, said this:

Conclusion 103. The information provided by the Central Intelligence Agency for the terrorism portion of Secretary Powell's speech was carefully vetted by both terrorism and regional analysts.

Conclusion 104. None of the portrayals of the intelligence reporting included in Secretary Powell's speech differed in any significant way from earlier assessments published by the Central Intelligence Agency.

If this CIA report did in fact exist, as Levin claims, then he certainly should not have approved such language.

So this is the conclusion:

George Tenet, the director of the entire intelligence community at the time, persisted in advancing the theory that Ibn was a credible source, by continually citing his information now known to have been purposely misleading. He, the director of all intelligence activities, obviously did not put a lot of stock in the DIA report discrediting his name. And, if a classified CIA document in January did imply again that Ibn was not credible then a. Tenet should have taken note of his own Agency's findings and not continued to refer to Ibn's stories during his February 11, 2003 testimony before the Senate; and b. Mr. Levin should not have endorsed language implying that Powell's statements before the U.N. did not differ from any assessments from the CIA.

***Update: The thing about Levin approving that language can be discarded--Levin got access to the declassified CIA report later. Nevertheless, it doesn't take away from the fact that the leader of the CIA, who was the president's top advisor on intelligence issues, was still promoting the idea. Apparently, Mr. Tenet did not put much stock in the reports. As such, why should Bush be held responsible for not putting more stock in a small intelligence briefing than his own top intelligence director and advisor?

---

If anyone at all finds any mistakes that I made in this post, please tell me by commenting and pointing it out. I may be wrong here but I researched this pretty thoroughly, and as you see I've offered links to all my statements. But of course I'm human and I'm not a professional researcher, so if I have screwed up, please, tell me.

Recently, the big Democratic talking point against the Iraq war has been that the majority of Americans are now against the war.

Well if polls should dictate a party's postitions so much, maybe Democrats should check out this one from the AP:

Most Americans and a majority of people in Britain, France and South Korea say torturing terrorism suspects is justified at least on rare occasions, according to a poll conducted in the United States and eight U.S.-allied countries.
 

This won't surprise anyone, but I thought that I'd point it out. On December 5th, 2005, the 9/11 Commission released an annual report card, recording progress that the United States has made in working to achieve the goals given by the Commission to prevent another terrorist attack. The Left went into overdrive complaining that we weren't safe enough. They ignored the fact that, though there were far too many F's and D's in the report card, A's, B's and C's outweighed the F's and D's, with the number of F's and D's (counting so-called "F/'s" as F's, and counting I's since I couldn't quite find out what "I" meant [if you know please tell]) coming in at 19 and the number of A-B-C's counting in at 22. Understandably, the low grades made more news, but it seemed some were even entirely ignoring the fact that good grades out-numbered bad.

So the left went into overtime. One DailyKos blogger said, sarcastically, "9/11 Commission Report Card - Shocking, just shocking, not..." The individual whined and complained as most liberals do, that Bush just wasn't doing enough: "[T]hese continuing real national security problems remain unsolved, haunting our nation until that next horrible day of unexpected disaster," he eerily and depressingly said. Well at least its better than during the Clinton years. We didn't have a lot of time to reflect on the haunting nature of waiting for a terrorist attack then-- there wasn't enough time before another one would occur.

But then, hilariously, only two days later when a U.S. Air Marshall shot dead a passenger he said claimed  to have a bomb on a plane, the left pulled its classic switcharoo: This Administration is doing too little, but is also doing too much.

A DailyKos poster said:

"CNN posts a Quick poll in which close to 75% of the respondents said having armed air marshals on planes makes them feel safer.

Welcome to America, post 9/11 hysteria style."

He then made a big deal about how some passengers said they never heard anything about a bomb. I'll get to that in a sec, but, isn't this kind of telling? That one second liberals are saying that we aren't doing enough, then. something happens, and its a violation of civil rights?  CounterPunch.com, a leftist news publication. even asks "[W]hy was he shot 4-6 times?... Why was it not possible to disable the man without killing him?" Why can't we seem to find some kind of mythical "middle ground" where we can prevent terrorism without being tough at all and never killing or hurting anyone? Why can't America never make a mistake?

And about those passengers claiming that he never said "bomb," be a little cautious. There's been some conflicting messages. As proof of this, let's take the claim that he was acting aggressively before he entered the plane. AP reports:

"The airline passenger shot to death by federal marshals who said he made a bomb threat was agitated even before boarding and later appeared to be desperate to get off the plane, some fellow travelers said."

The AP also went on to discuss passengers claiming they never heard the word "bomb." One of them was a man named John McAlhany. But here's the problem: While some witnesses, as the AP reported, claimed that the man was acting aggressive before even boarding the plane, McAlhany claimed he was acting just fine. From Time:

McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane. He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says.

So, apparently, these witnesses are giving all kinds of different stories. Should we really trust everything they say without a deeper investigation?

More inconsistency is found in the witness's claims about whether or not his wife said he had bipolar disease-- in other words, they cannot collaborate on what someone on the plane said. From the Time report above:

Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife close behind him. "She was running behind him saying, 'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder," McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just wanted to get off the plane." 

Hmmmm.... if we cannot determine exactly what the wife did and did not say on the plane from the witness's stories, what causes us to believe that we can determine what the man did and did not say on the plane by witness's stories?

Only an abundant and seething hatred of President Bush, his administration, and his policies, including his air marshal policies.

Well, today the workers for the Christian humanitarian organization in Iraq who were captured a number of days ago, are scheduled to be executed. From CNN:

A group calling itself the Swords of Justice Brigades threatened to execute the men on Thursday unless all Iraqi prisoners were released. The group later extended its deadline to Saturday.A group calling itself the Swords of Justice Brigades threatened to execute the men on Thursday unless all Iraqi prisoners were released. The group later extended its deadline to Saturday.

Despite the fact that the hostages motives for being in Iraq weren't exactly honorable ("The four men have been gathering evidence about people being treated poorly while 'detained by occupation forces'... "), it is neverthless a tragedy that the terrorist vermin are killing yet again. This should kind of tell the peace crowd something: The terrorists really don't care if you do or don't support this war. They care about spilling your blood. And until the U.S. can secure Iraq so that the goverenment can take care of its self, we must continue to fight these human peices of feces.

From the AP:

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- A Nigerian passenger jet crashed on landing at the airport in the southern city of Port Harcourt on Saturday, a civil aviation official said. At least 56 people were killed, reports said.

So far, the cause is "unclear," though I doubt it is terrorism, due to the fact that this just recently happened in Nigeria and the U.S. ruled our terrorism (for more info on that, click the link.)

I may post more on this as updates come in.

Today, governor-elect Jon Corzine appointed Rep. Robert Menendez to take his soon-to-be-empty Senate seat for the remaining year. Via AP:

Gov.-elect Jon Corzine on Friday appointed Democratic Rep. Robert Menendez to serve out the remaining year in Corzine's Senate term, giving New Jersey its first minority senator.

So the Democrats decided to replace a corrupt Democrat with a realy corrupt Democrat.

Here comes a long, long story. And it starts with allegations of an affair...

In 2004, Menendez called for the embattled then-Governor of N.J. Jim McGreevey to resign from his post.. In response, McGreevey supporters threatened to tell the public that Menendez was involved in an affair with a woman named Kay Elizabeth LiCausi.

LiCausi was a staffer for Menendez. In 2002, she left and started a business called K.L. Strategies. The company only consisted of two people. But K.L. Strategies quickly launched into success. Why?

Well, it may have had something to do with the large sums of money that Menendez began funnelling to her new business. Menendez's Political Action Committee, New Millenium PAC, paid K.L. Strategies $45,000 in media consulting fees between January and September, 2003.  The New York Times reported that over $200,000 was forked over from Menendez to LiCausi.

Why the sudden socket to success? Obviously, Menendez lended her a ton of cash. Did he really believe she was that great? Or was it because of an affair? Menendez, recently divorced at 51, refuses to comment. "That's strictly personal," he says.

Is an investigation in order? Surely, this would be considered cronyism: handing over cash to a lover's business from your Political Action Committee.

Only time will tell us more on this issue.

Adding to a long tradition of lobbying for terrorists who hate America, impeached former president Bill Clinton said today during a surprise speech to the Montreal meeting on climate change and global warming, to the wild applause of thousands of delegates from around the world, that holding a "precautionary" attitude towards terrorism just isn't as important as showing precaution to the more clear and present danger to America: global warming.

Via Free Internet Press

In a comment clearly directed at the Bush administration, he noted that the United States had adopted a precautionary approach to fighting terrorism. "There is no more important place in the world to apply the principal of precaution than the area of climate change," he said, generating waves of applause.

Since he made so sure to mention the U.S.'s "precautionary approach" to terrorism, apparently, "climate change" is the most important place for precaution, instead of that terrorism thing.

At least he's consistent in his support for terrorism. In 1999 during his presidency, Clinton pardoned 16 members of the FALN, a Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist organization. These terrorists had been convicted for their conspiracies to harm America and seditious behavior. The group of which they were members had killed American civilians in the past.

But Clinton went ahead and pardoned them. Subsequently, the Fraternal Order of Police condemnedthe pardons. The House of Representatives voted to condemnthe pardons by  311-41. The Senate voted to condemnthe pardons with only two radicals voting NAY. Only fellow insane Democratic terrorist allies seemed to fail to condemn the pardons.

One has to wonder if terrorism doesn't even come in second place when it comes to the many areas in which the government needs to take "precautionary" action...

From now on, periodically, I'll be posting little items pointing out lies I hear on the left's beloved radio network, Air America.

This one comes from the Queen of Mean, Randi Rhodes. I would call Rhodes the Ann Coulter of the right, but,  Rhodes makes Coulter look like a gentle little lamb.

Anyway, Rhodes made at least one false statement on her program on Dec. 6. All I really did was skip to a part in the soundbite and there it was. Rhodes said that we have a "President who declared the war is over when it wasn't over." Don't believe me? See for yourself (it'll be hard to find though): http://www.airamericaplace.com/upload/aarr120505.mp3

Anyway, the truth is that Bush never said the war was over, He declared an end to major combat operations, but in fact stated that the course would take some time. From his speech aboard an aircraft carrier on  May 1, 2003 when he said this:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes.

[...]

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

Funny that, from a radio network that almost daily refers to conservative talk radio hosts as "liars,"