Iowahawk Speaks Truth to Power

They may be criminals, but they care.

Sphere: Related Content

Who Says Barack Obama is a Miserable Failure?

That would be an awful thing to say. So why are people trying to say that Barack Obama is a miserable failure? It isn't right. It isn't fair.

OK, so maybe it's fair.

Sphere: Related Content

Stupid, Treasonous Puns

In Captain Ed's Redefining Hard Intelligence post, he points to a WaPo article in which an Afghan tribal chief is convinced to help our side when a CIA officer gives him Viagra.

Great, WaPo. Now every tribal leader with whom we meet will be the butt of Viagra jokes, followed soon after by Al Qaeda trafficking in pallets of the stuff, probably on trucks emblazend with a Red Crescent banner. Humanitarian medical aid, it is.

And for a CIA officer to give up this tool of the trade? What a treasonous, or at the very least unethical, moron. While it may be immoral, I don't suppose it's unethical for a CIA man to give Viagra to a tired old polygamist. But it's certainly unethical for him to divulge tactics to a reporter.

Sphere: Related Content

And They Say Liberals Are Humorless Curmudgeons

There is an ongoing series of posts at Talking Points Memo about which State is the leader in the important Government Corruption category.

Illinois, New Jersey, Nevada -- all of these are nicely corrupt little places, it's true. But one State towers over the others as a jackal stands among mere rats:

Look, if you want, the New Orleans bloggers can put together a comprehensive file for you. But you need to know it will be thick.

In the many categories that people argue for (cash involved, historical entrenchment, recent scandal, profile, fed/state/local), each of your wannabe states points out that the category they happen to be strongest in really matters the most. And that's why they're wannabes...they need special consideration.

Louisiana will let any state in the union pick the turf and the time. You want state level corruption? Local? Bring it. Historical tradition? Game on. Recent scandal? Easy money. You name the category, any category, and we'll have a big dog in that fight. And that is why Louisiana is the all time champ.

Speaking for the citizens of Illinois: we are not worthy.

Sphere: Related Content

Texas Prosecutor and Judge Seem Not To Be In Complete Harmony

The Texas judge assigned the corruption case against Vice President Dick Cheney signalled that he may wish to try the case before agreeing with District Attorney Juan Guerra on the Vice President's guilt. The judge's position follows State of Texas tradition that no one, not even those in power outside of the State's jurisdiction, should be presumed guilty before their case is argued.

The judge actually went so far as to entertain motions from the defense, a decision about which Guerra hinted a certain lack of enthusiasm. Guerra also appeared to dissent over being removed as prosecutor from the indictments in the case for which he is also a victim, even though Texas allows pro se legal represention:

And now all of a sudden, there is urgency. 18 months we kept this indictment, past my election. And I asked this court [to say if it would be] dismissed on a technicality. You already decided! You refused.

Sphere: Related Content

Murtha Attorney: Congressman Above The Law

Legal counsel for aged Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) claimed in open court that his client is immune from laws which limit ordinary citizens.

Murtha is being sued for saying that Marines involved in an incident at Haditha, Iraq, were "murderers" guilty of "war crimes".

From the via Malkin:

Assistant U.S Attorney Darrell Valdez, who represents Murtha, argued that a member of Congress is “absolutely immune” from a defamation suit because there’s no circumstance in which speaking to the media is not within the scope of a lawmaker’s employment.

That is, a lawyer representing the United States Government asserted that his client is above the law.

It's not clear from the claims if the Congressman claims immunity for all defamation, or only that against members of the Armed Services in time of war. In particular, the question of whether members of Congress are free to say that government lawyers are guilty of malpractice will have to go unanswered.

Clearly, according to the United States Government lawyer, Murtha would be free to allege that the lawyer in question were guilty of murder and crimes against humanity, but alleging malpractice and incompetence may be a line even a Congressman must not cross.

Sphere: Related Content

The GOP governors spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.

The GOP governors spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.

Tremendous catch, Treacher.

Let's parse this carefully.

The GOP governors

Which governors (plural)? And would the treatment have been different for Democrats?

The GOP governors spoke to CNN

Why were governors of States speaking to CNN about one of their colleagues? The condition of the Republican party boggles the mind.

The GOP governors spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.

Governors of States actively concealing their identities, like so many furtive little rodents scurrying about, wagging their tongues as their eyes dart this way and that. Eleven score and twelve years ago 13 States united together to bring forth upon this continent a great nation. The governors of these States now are reduced to the low act of currying favor with a network correspondent while effectively besmirching one of their own.

spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.

Finally, to CNN: if your work is not falsifiable, it is unfounded rumor, not journalism. Name names, or I say your story is indistinguishable from fiction.

Sphere: Related Content

Media: Twelve Steps On The Road To Healing

1. We admitted we were powerless over our biases —that our politics had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Obama as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to Obama, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Obama remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Obama as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Obamatrons, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Sphere: Related Content

It's Going to be Barry and the Pelosicrats

The Hill is reporting that Congressional Democrats are backing off leadership challenges. The Congress will be able to deliver Pelosi-Reid leadership we've come to expect.

God help the nation, but for bloggers it's going to be a target-rich environment.

Sphere: Related Content

Carl Cameron Dresses up as Female Superhero

That's what I heard, anyway. The Fox News reporter who "broke" the story about the disloyalty of the McCain campaign staff may be a cross-dresser and female impersonator.

There is no hard evidence to this story, but without denials from those close to Cameron it is impossible to rule it as false.

Sphere: Related Content

Lepers

No one in the McCain campaign who does not publicly denounce each and every vile charge against Sarah Palin should ever work for a Republican again. See the thread at Redstate, and the petition:

Sphere: Related Content

Vita Blight, Speed bumps, and a Metaphor Stew.

There are some losers in the former McCain campaign who are seeking, by sniping through a willing media at Sarah Palin, to spin the 2008 McCain loss as due to her presence on the ticket.

If the goal of the McCain campaign was to win independent voters, then the selection of Sarah Palin ran counter to that. Talking to independent voters, it's clear that for most of them it wasn't Sarah Palin herself that turned them off to her. She is an attractive politician with a compelling story. It was cynicism over the choice of her by McCain, the identity politics of it all. They thought she was picked off the vine before ripe to have some nice fruit on the table, when the guests were hungry for real food.

I disagree with that view of Palin. I thought she was ready to be Vice President. In fact, I would rather have had her on the top of the ticket, and judging from the crowds at her events, there was a lot of enthusiasm for her among the Republican base. In August, the McCain campaign was struggling. Her selection caused intense interest in the Republican convention, and her performance there gave McCain a huge post-convention bump. She continued to draw huge crowds all during September and October. Far from being a "drag on the ticket", she is the reason there was even a contest.

But now the McCain staffers are leaking complaints about her wardrobe, need for coaching, and other similar issues that reveal their own lack of professional prudence and ethics. Every politician needs dressing up, and there are too many details for anyone in a national campaign not to have people turning research into talking points and turning talking points into polished answers. Like hiding the inner workings of a restaurant from the happy customers, these are matters that a professional political hack knows to keep private.

Being part of a high-profile losing campaign can be a bit of a career road bump. Them high road provides an easy detour around that bump this year, and that is to say to future employers that you were a loyal Party man or woman, and the campaign was simply beaten by the Obama phenomenon. There is no shame in that.

But by sniping from the gutter, the McCain staffers have turned a smudge into a blight, a warning bell into a blaring klaxon signaling the presence of toxic waste. It would not be so bad if it only affected the snivelers, but until all the petty little weasels are uncovered and made into infamous roadkill, anyone on the former McCain campaign will have to explain themselves -- and voice support for Sarah Palin.

I support Sarah Palin, and look forward to seeing her on the national stage for years to come.

Sphere: Related Content

LA Times Blog Reveals True Journalistic Integrity

Still under pressure to release the Obama-Ayers-Khalidi tape, the LA Times blog can't imagine that two of the 57 staff at Slate would fail to announce their intention to vote for Obama. I'd like to think they were being ironic, but I can't see it:

2 dumb Slate staffers split with wiser colleagues on Obama vote

One writer has broken ranks with Slate's slate of writers and intends to vote for John McCain! The Republican senator from Arizona.

w/t Protein Wisdom

Sphere: Related Content

LA Times Suppresses Obama-Ayers-Khaliki Tape - Cites Journalistic integrity, and all of that.

It has been known since April that the LA Times had a videotape (or recording) of Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn at a party for Jew-hater Rashid Khalidi. The Times story said

At Khalidi’s going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances,” Khalidi said.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

First the Times refused to release the tape because they said they didn't want to unduly influence the election.

They said they would not reveal their sources. Journalistic integrity, and all of that.

Then they told readers who inquired about the tape that they'd already written a whole story about it -- wasn't that enough? Journalistic integrity, and all of that.


But the story is changing.

Now the Times reports that it received the tape from a source on condition that it not be released. Journalistic integrity, and all of that.

If they release it, why, their sources for tapes of messiahs heaping praise on anti-semites would just dry right up.

Sphere: Related Content

Jury Duty is Patriotic

I sat on a jury once. I'd always been curious about what went on in the jury room, and so when called, I didn't take any of the several opportunities they give you to drop out. If you really don't want to serve on a jury, for whatever reason, just say "I heard about this case, and can't be objective."

But the people on my jury made me proud to be an American. Each one of us sat in the jury box, taking notes or simply watching, as the prosecution and defense walked us through the intricacies of forms and procedures used by the Illinois Department of Public Health. A local administrator was accused of fraud in allegedly cheating the State out of $10,000 or so (for the County's benefit).

The prosecution presented all kinds of evidence about how this lady put dubiously official meals on the county credit card, operated the soda machine petty cash fund in some way that was supposed to be inappropriate, and wasn't liked by the people in her office. They succeeded in making me, and I think the rest of the jury, dislike the defendant.

But, in the end, they had to show that she deliberately tried to claim money for the County that belonged to the State.

We poured over the records. It turned out that there was over $10,000 in mistaken charges, in various categories of mistakes (which we had to learn to recognize as if we were Medicaid auditors). But in every case, comparing the dates of when we were told she was informed of some class of errors to the records, that class of errors would virtually disappear.

We asked the judge if we could count the credit card junk and soda machine "slush fund" in with the Medicaid fund, and he said to read the charges: they were about Medicaid, not credit card abuse.

Having worked for State government, I know how ugly the paperwork is. I'd hate to be charged with fraud, lose my job, and be sent to jail just because I incorrectly filled out the paperwork.

Sphere: Related Content

Obama's ACORN Denial of Service Attack

Barack Obama knows ACORN from the inside. He trained them.


So now that ACORN is submitting fraudulent voter registration forms in over a dozen States, the reason his $800,000 campaign expense for front work went at least partially to ACORN is now clear.

The purpose of an Internet Denial of Service attack is usually not (just) to disable the particular computer or network under direct attack, but either to draw response resources (troubleshooters) to the attacked system, or to force secondary systems to be used. Sometimes the DOS attack is merely designed to create the appearance of poor performance, so that users of the system turn to competitors or in any case away from the service it provides.

And so it is with the ACORN attack.

Rather than merely registering new Democratic voters, ACORN so clogs the system with phony registrations that it becomes nearly non-functional.

This is a result of ACORN employing people of questionable character (e.g., felons) to strong-arm and wheedle ordinary citizens into registering -- whether or not they are already registered voters (in the same district or another). Further, ACORN assigns to these unvirtuous employees quotas, making it virtually certain that the employees will submit fake registrations, en masse.

So across the country in battleground States, voter registration has ground to a halt, or limps along with demoralized staff and tarnished public image. ACORN is doing direct damage to confidence in the sanctity of our electoral process, in an attempt to destroy its overall integrity. Rather than being content to register new voters, perhaps ACORN wants to make the registration process unnecessary. After all, if the system cannot be trusted, why use it?

And remember, Barack Obama trained them.

Sphere: Related Content

Fisking the Obama Rezko Response

I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform. I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future.

I’m saddened by today’s verdict.

Why? As Ace says, a jury of his peers has found him guilty. The Obama should be happy that a criminal is out of Illinois politics.

This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew,

Oh, no? Not the one whose office the Obama would drop by just as -- by sheer coincidence -- Middle Eastern money men would be visiting ol' Tony? The Obama helped Rezko rake in donor cash, for which the Obama's campaign was handsomely rewarded. And that help buying his house -- in the real world, people don't do that without some ulterior motive. This is exactly the same guy the Obama knew. Liar.

but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform.

"Reform" -- I don't think that word means what the Obama thinks it means. This spotlights the need to clean house in Illinois government, starting with the Cook County Board, proceeding through the State Senate and its corrupt President Emil Jones, and on through its U.S. Senators and Governor.

I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future.

The first step they could take is to impeach the malfeasant Blagojevich. The second step they could take is to refuse to give Tony Rezko's associates the Electoral College votes from Illinois.

And how about Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fizgerald? Are there any steps he could take "to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future", such as prosecuting those who benefited from Rezko's crimes?

But then, convicting more criminals would make the Obama sad. Especially if it were the Obama himself frog-marching off to Joliet.

Sphere: Related Content

Rezco Guilty.

CBS:

A federal jury has found a prominent political fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich guilty of 16 of 24 counts in his Illinois corruption trial.

Illinois Republicans say:

Now that the trial has come to an end, it's time Rod Blagojevich came clean with the people of Illinois and answered the numerous questions surrounding his involvement with Tony Rezko.

[Update: ABC 7 Chicago has the breakdown:

• Guilty on 6 of 6 counts wire fraud
• Guilty on 6 of 9 counts mail/wire fraud
• Not Guilty on 1 count attempted extortion
• Guilty on 2 of 6 counts corrupt solicitation
• Guilty on 2 counts money laundering

The media are already spinning this as not related to Obama, pointing out that neither Obama (D-Chicago) nor Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Chicago) "have been accused of wrongdoing". Officially accused of a crime by the police or prosecutors, that is. But their close association with Rezko make the chances pretty good they were involved in crooked stuff, too.]

Sphere: Related Content

Brother's Keeper, Loser's Weeper

It is often said, now almost tritely, that "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." Yet extending this maxim to a general rule for recognizing the boundary between individuals on other matters is more difficult.

For instance, just as you have a right to an unbroken nose, you have a right to unblackened lungs. So clearly I must not blacken them by sticking the exhaust pipe of my car down your windpipe. And holding my exhaust pipe an inch from your face is hardly better.

But just as clearly, you would be hard pressed to show a difference in the blackness of your lungs if I drive my car in the next town against if I don't, or even if I drive it in the next town or your own. Somewhere between these extremes is a point at which my injury to you is too great to allow my production of pollution in your proximity.

But not only in distance or difficulty of detection of the injury caused is there a boundary point on one side of which my behavior would be acceptable and on the other not, but you also have a similar boundary. Our boundaries may not be the same, but for each of us one exists.

There arises thereby a bargain, by which you and I agree to allow each other activity which is mutually injurious on some level, but from which we derive some benefit. It may be that you directly derive some benefit from my activity and vice versa, but in the least we accept one another's activity so as to obtain permission to engage in it ourselves.

A similar situation exists for the wearing of perfume or cologne, noise polution, use of foul language, the use of offensive speech, and so on. In each case, there is a range of activity from innocuity to assault, and the line separating the two is difficult to place. We allow each other some leeway so that we will have leeway in turn.

In each of these instances there is the use by the individual of some common resource. Clearly we are each entitled to use common resources to some extent, or we could not breathe the common air or make any noise if we wandered off our own patch of dirt. But we also must not make the common resource unusable.

But differing opinions on usability are possible, just as individuals differ in their tolerance for injury. Some may prefer to allow more use of common resources than others, either so that they in turn may have more use, or because they don't want to use the common resource at all. Some, of course, do not consider the rightness or proprietary of their use of the commons, they simply use what they want, or what they can get. Similarly, so wish to keep the commons pristine.

We are passed by tradition or custom the expectation that we are permitted certain activities and denied others that were innocuous or harmful, respectively, but with the crowds of modernity have become less restricted or more so.

It is reasonable to suggest that there are some actions I could take which would not be injurious, or be minimally injurious, to another individual, but would be of greater harm to some group of individuals taken together, or to society as a whole. If I overuse or ruin some common resource, my overuse or ruination may not affect the next person to use it or the next fifty, but eventually my share or corruption will be felt.

So where does the interest of society in our behavior enter?

That, and any satisfying conclusion to the foregoing, will have to wait for another day.

Sphere: Related Content

Torture, again? Yawn.

The Washington Post is aghast that the President should assert the power, in time of war, not to allow the use of torture to defend us against foreign enemies. They point to a declassied memo, the text of which they may or may not have in full, justifying such methods as do not "shock the conscience".

There's a problem with that, of course, in that consciences differ.

But neither was the author of the memo writing a tutorial.

No sane person likes torture. No patriot wants to see his country defeated. So if we can avoid techniques which "shock the conscience", as the memo insists we must, we can avoid both torture and defeat.

And that is everyone's goal.

Sphere: Related Content