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Obama Teabagged

Kenyans awoke on November 3rd  and disbelieved their eyes. The party of  Barack Obama, has suffered a huge defeat in  the 2011 "mid term" elections. The Democrats that Obama heads have been be humiliated by Republicans. Incumbents have been thrown out like trash by angry voters.  Obama's presidency, begun so brightly and with so much hope just two years ago  has been checked f not wrecked.


One thing won't change - the woeful job of most  Kenya media  in explaining this to their readers and listeners. Many will echo  the  politically disastrous theme of the  Democrats .  The 'Party Line' goes like this.

“The American electorate are ignorant, reactionary, angry and fearful, unable to appreciate the wonders of Obama and his Washington elite and are deeply tinged with racism and bigotry.”

This was the Democratic message since 2009 and the local media have dutifully acted the parrot.  That "message" has infuriated American voters and made them vote Republican even when they are not members of the party.

Consider racism: the Democrats 2010 had  26  black Congressmen and25 stand in black majority districts where their re-election against whites is guaranteed. The Republicans have just 6 black candidates. Yet all are stood against whites in white-majority districts.  Just who is  the “race vote” here is not obvious.

Or Florida  senatorial candidate Marco Rubio, a Republican Hispanic, trouncing white incumbent Charlie Christ.  And if Obama was elected by whites a in 2008, just how did the non-racists then become racists now? Using racism as a template to describe Obama's debacle is delusionary.

How about ignorance? The day won't pass without some Karaja or Onyango in USA penning a letter to the media or blogging  on  how ignorant, narrow minded and so on Americans really are. If only they were clever and worldly wise like Obama and his  cabinet, or like Europeans, they would elect the Democrats forever!

Naturally, these lectures   have gone down as well as  someone conducting an election campaign in rural Kenya areas and telling  wanainchi that they were too stupid to act like Germans or Japanese.

Perhaps it's ingratitude? Americans are too blind  to realize the excellence of Obama's healthcare act and  his huge deficit spending to increase the size of government, so it is said.  Yet, traditionally since 1776, Americans have, unlike Europeans and Africans, not wanted their government to  grow too big, powerful and expensive.

They now feel the national debt and spending are wrecking their future. Voters elected Obama to change that, not to add to 'Big Government' and high taxes -and  they feel betrayed.

Kenyans  are  often wrapped up in ethnic politics that are  driven solely by personalities and tribal loyalties ( as serious a problem as racism). We should note  that in the USA, people are judging Obama on the failed economy. 

Democratic policies  of  huge spending and increasing the size of government have stuck the deepest nerve in a freedom-loving people who value self-reliance and capitalist hard work.

There was a "Tea Party" in Boston in 1773 to kick-start  the Revolutionary War against British colonialism. The issue then was the same as the Tea Party Movement that has helped doom the Democrats in 2010. Americans  like to cut government  down to size every now and then. Obama and his party are firmly in their sights.  

911 and The Koran

From The Koran, selected passages:

1- The infidels are your sworn enemies Sura 4:101
2- Make war on The infidels who dwell around you Sura 9:123
3- When you meet The Infidels in the battlefield, strike off their heads Sura 47:4
4- Mohamed is Allah's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to The infidels Sura 48:29
5- Prophet, make war on The infidels Sura 66: 9
6- Never be a helper to The disbelievers Sura 28:86
7- Kill The disbelievers wherever we find them (Sura 2:191)
8- 9:29 [And] fight against those (Al-La-Zina) who - despite having been vouchsafed revelation [aforetime] -do not [truly] believe either in God or the Last Day, and do not consider forbidden that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth [which God has enjoined upon them] till they [agree to] pay the exemption tax with a willing hand, after having been humbled [in war].
9- 47:4 Therefore, when you meet The infidels (unbelievers), smite their necks until you overcome them fully, and then tighten their bonds; but thereafter [set them free,] either by an act of grace or against ransom
Quran 2:89 The curse of Allah is on disbelievers.
Quran 2:92-2:96 Jews are the greediest of all humankind.
Quran 2:98 Allah is the enemy of disbelievers.
Quran 2:99 Only miscreants will disbelieve.
Quran 2:193 Fight them until religion is for Allah.
Quran 3:28 Don't have unbelieving friends unless it is to deceive them. Remember the final goal is to Allah.
Quran 3:118 Don't be friends with Non-Muslims because they hate you and want to ruin you.

An International Ignoramus Opines

As President Obama's approval rating  among US voters slip to George W. Bush levels, and as his Democrat prty braces for a humiliating trouncing in the November  elections, Kenyans will be no wiser as to why  if the go by Prof Ian Buruma's piece, "The Great American (populist) Tea Party" ( Daily Nation  Sept 6th) and available here in the Lebanon Daily News version.

Buruma is an elite  European intellectual  from the commentariat of  the international left.  Such usually show abysmal misunderstanding of the USA coupled with sneering condescention and Buruma certainly does not disappoint. Buruma is ignorant of even the simplest facts, such as the Democrats of the USA many years ago surpassed the Republicans as the party of wealth and class and are able to outspend their opponents handily.

It can't be that  Democrats have plunged the US into double the  debt that Bush left. It's zero to do with Obama's debt rising higher every year until it will overwhelm the US economy. It has, for Prof Buruma, nothing to do with ramming "free" heathcare down US throats - despite every poll showing the clear majority of all voters did not want it.

The Lord help Kenyans if any believe that American traditional opposition to "big government" has the slightest to do with Obama's fall from grace. His Democrats rushed to expand every possible government payroll and create huge new burdens of bureaucracy - a bit like Kenyan MPs. Those dumb ,uneducated  ,prejudiced  "overwhelmingly white" Americans just don't understand how wonderful Obamanomics really is. Even those who still have a job

Lastly, despite the Democrats putting every single US citizen  $44,000 into debt in unpaid government borrowing, the economy is stagnant, the stimulus has failed and unemployment is going up, not down. America's foreign policy is a mess and many of the US staunchest allies are  perplexed.  Neither does Prof Bururma educate us at all that the Tea Party movement against "big government" had it's roots before Obama took office, in the George Bush stimulus and bank-bailout of 2008.

For the "progressives"  l none of these issues are real.  Obama got elected with two "elite" degrees, a Muslim middle name and a black Kenyan father. Prof Buruma tells us those are hindrances to him, oddly enough. It seems they were pluses just two years ago, but Buruma is incapable of explaining this paradox. The fault lies not with Obama's policies since election, but in his dumb low class opponents. 

If Buruma was a  visiting a psychiatrist instead of writing fatuous articles, he would be diagnosed as being in deep denial coupled with fantasies and projection.

Obama's  opponents are thus simply racists, bigots, uneducated and populist.. Kenyans relying on this narrative will be bewildered as US events unfold, and the good professor will not have taught them a thing.

60 Years of Socialist Health yet Britain Worse Off - BBC

It's remarkable that after nationalised medicine was introduced into Britain  after World War Two, we could now be in a position where the gap in healthcare is actually worse than in the dark days of the Depression. Or so say the BBC in a story found here.

The health inequality gap in Britain is greater than it was during the post-World War I slump and the Great Depression, a study suggests.........Researchers from Sheffield and Bristol looked at early death rates since 1921.

They found the current gap was greater than it was in the 1920s and 1930s, the British Medical Journal reports."

 The only reason Obama has pushed socialist medicine in the USA down the unwilling population's throat is that it greatly expands the role and power of governing elites - not that it will have any good effect on American health statistics

You Can Make This Stuff Up

Every heard of a "listserv"?  It's a form of  secret  e-mail exchange club.. You have to be invited and get a password to participate.  It was known a listerserv  existed called "Journolist", of some 300 to 400  top journalists from Time, The Guardian, CNN, The New Republic,  other papers and TV stations, Human Rights Watch , influential blogs, professors and NGOs.

An enterprising blog, the Daily Caller, managed to crack the Journolist codes and get access to archives of thousands of backdated emails. The results are  explosive, but do not expect to be seeing them on your big media or TV screen very soon since so far they show:

•  Hundreds of the top names on journalism with some academics and NGO types collaborated to  act  cheerleaders for the Obama election  2008, spinning  positive stories about Obama and negative ones about his opponents.

• This included trying to bury the Rev Wright and his  Obama connection and instead fabricate Republican racism. In the words of one famous journalist  they should  pick a top Republican, "any will do"(!), and accuse him of racism to divert attention from Wright.
  

• Top journalists discussed how to get the government to simply ban or refuse to renew the licences of conservative news outlets like Fox whilst making very ironic noises and complaints about "fascism".
  

•  Journos were stymied as to how they could smear Sarah Palin's lack of experience without showing  up that Obama clearly had no more experience than her. So instead.....
  

• Discussed ways the media could destroy her image as an appealing, dynamic woman who might attract feminists.

And we are only on Day 3 of the Daily Caller revelations. Journalists are entitled to their opinions. Still, this proof of a big  leftist push to co-ordinate huge sections of the US media  is surely very similar to the tactics of Goebbels. It shows why anyone who still  uses only mainstream media as his or her information source really is  a dupe...or a dope.

Conservatives have claimed for years there exists a bias in the big media and Journolist could not have handed them a smokier  gun.

Bok Bumbling

As predicted here, tweaking the Springboks produced hardly any positives as they went down again to the All Blacks 31-17 in Auckland. The game would have been closer but for  skewed reffing by Alain Rolland, but even had he blown evenly, the Boks would not have won.

For the next Test against Australia in Brisbane where the Springboks have not won in 30 years, they needed radical surgery. The following should have gone to the bench as impact players: Spies,Habana,Smit, Januarie and Olivier.

These should have been promoted to starting XV: de Jongh, Hougaard, Ralepelle,  Kankowski and Aplon. When the  test XV was announced, Smit, Spies and Habana are still all there and weirdly, Kankowski has been called to play at flank, which is not his position.

The Bok coaches still resist the radical surgery, or prolonged rest (n you take your pick) that certain players who are "regulars" need to have.  The Tri Nations was lost the minute de Villiers and his staff made no effort to seriously trim the team after the shocker of a first  game at Eden Park.

This guaranteed they would lose the 2nd round, and probably does the same for this game against Australia on the 24th.  It is cause for consternation when de Villiers announces, in his cryptic fashion, that he has studied the videos of the Eden Park test and is "mystified" why we lost as we played "very well."

Springboks Leap Downwards

It's wonderful when you get to watch the elite or world rugby play frequently here in the Southern Hemi. Yet not so much fun when your side gets a whumping, as happened to the Springboks last weekend. I can't remember when I saw a side improve so comprehensibly as the All Blacks at Eden Park. Every one of the Boks  considerable strengths were nullified. Even  Matfield, the peerless no 5, was for the first time I have witnessed it, out jumped and worse ( he is a clever rugby man), outsmarted.

The All Blacks were all over the collision phase, wrapped round each other and driving like a black  bulldozer - yes, it seemed like a single unit it was that tight.  They slipped few tackles while the Boks shed runners like an old dog drops fleas.

They managed to not only contain the Boks driving maul, but split it legally. The backs were penetrative and Carter commanded the game. Only in the scrum did the Boks have some sort of parity. It was not a thrashing, despite the 32-12 scoreline but it was a real beating. Consider that the Springboks took the All Blacks 3 out of 3 last year.


Will anything change in Wellington for the second Test this Saturday? I doubt it. The Bok brass persist in choosing  fat,slow Riki January at scrum-half, it must be a race quota thing. Super centre Jean de Villiers is stuck on the wing, where he looks uncomfortable. Newbie flanker Francois Louw  was a mouse in Auckland and despite the snappier , faster Potgeiter being available, Luow is again starting.

Clunker CJ  Linde comes in at prop, a ponderous, ageing yellow-card factory  who is out of puff in 25 minutes. Jon Smit looks like  he should retire. There are at least 4 hookers ahead of him on SA - Liebenburg, Strauss, du Plessis and Botha. So the Bok brass in their wisdom back him with Ralepelle who does not even start Super 14 games - another case of affirmative dreaming. Yet, better players of colour like De Jongh and Basson are not in the team.

In the old days, after 32-12 most of the Bok team would have been scrapped. Here, they are retained. 2011 for the Boks may well turn into will be shades of 2007, where England seemed determined to play everyone who had won in Australia in 2003 - bandages, metal hinges in their joints and false teeth  as well.

Islamist Cowardice

Al-Shabaab managed to do what its parent Al AQaeda could not and  murder 76 soccer fans in Kampala, Uganda during last night's World Cup final. The bombing  dead include many nationalities and numerous Westerners. This act will send a chill down the spine of all East Africans, since we have large Somali diaspora communities in  the region. Minnesota and Canada seem to be entranced with these skinny sons of the desert. Perhaps  an airlift can be arranged? Kenyans would contribute in droves to provide tickets for the half million of so Somalis that have inundated us.

Dutch Courage?

More signs of the  steady demise of coherent English came during the recent soccer World Cup. How many times did commentators use the words "dutch courage"? I lost count, but not one of them seems to have noted that the  phrase is actually an insult meaning someone incapable of bravery unless fortified by drink! Then again looking at the beserker mood the Dutch played in during the final, perhaps I am missing something.

Arizona Madness

Today Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, announced the Federal government was suing Arizona over it's controversial illegal immigrant law. Arizona's law demands all aliens carry identification papers - exactly the same as Federal law - only Holder won't enforce it.

Holder thinks Arizona's law would "divert resources away from fighting terrorism"- like in bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to trial in New York and repeatedly testifying to Congress that Islam had nothing to do with our 3 terrorists attacks in a year? The same Holder who allowed Mexico to join a lawsuit against Arizona - a foreign state suing an American state, in America.

When this case gets aired the public learns that Arizona law has scrupulously followed Federal law and is even midler! This administration is a dreadful farce, "illegal-centric", "enemy-centric" and "socialism-centric".

It's About Costs, Read Their Lips.

kenmal says in todays Financial Times: "I just cannot understand why the US, supposedly the most civilzed nation in the world, cannot seem to get its head around the need for healthcare for all, regardless of means" but Obamacare is indeed regardless of means, the means to pay for it and the American people know it.

Rather than question their "morality", kenmal should have acknowledged their basic good sense.

Republicans and businessmen have offered many incremental cost solutions, including malpractise tort reform ( perhaps saving 15% of cost), opening up insurance to nationwide competition (currently restricted), consumer access to cost/result information for medical conditions (almost as unobtainable as kryptonite, yet every consumer knows 100 costs and benefits when buying a car or a TV set) and immediate help ( not years away as in Obamacare) for the truly indigent and unable to afford insurance.

kenmal should understand that the American people reject Obamacare as they see it for what it is: an attempt to grow Big Government and entitled Dmnocratic majorities. This is why Obama has zero interest in adopting any truly cost-cutting ideas.

Are Europeans more moral when for example in Britain horror stories from the NHS pile up daily? It's not about morality, it's the cost. Read the people's lips

A Suicide Pact?

Doug on February 9, 2010 at 8:17 PM writes: Regarding those who say "Constitutional rights are not automatically granted to anyone who attempts to enter our nation,"..... A person who would make a statement like that obviously knows nothing about the Constitution.... The document plainly in clear and simple words that human rights apply to everyone, not just citizens.

Yes and no Doug. The US Constitution recognises, as does US settled law going back to 1776 (until the insane Boumedienne decision of 2008) only two forms of US justice. Full rights under civilian trial or lesser rights under military justice in times of war or great public distress.

US law never gave enemy combatants, let alone terrorist combatants who are prima facie planning or committing war crimes ( deliberate attacks on US civilians) full constituional rights - but it does give them to peaceful Jose who jumps the border from Mexico, or even criminal Franco who illegally comes from Italy and commits civilian murders in the USA.

The Constitution and the law make a distinction Doug and many others fail to make. War is war and peace is peace. Obama says we are at war with ALQ and the Underwear bomber was sent by ALQ to commit war crimes on US territory.

In WW2 when Hitler sent Nazis to land by sub and commit sabotage on US soil, Roosevelt had them all before a summary Military Commission and  ( save two) executed. When the Supreme Court made noises they might object, Roosevelt sent word he would execute them anyway as CIC.

In the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus.

The Nuremburg Trial was a modified Military Comission from which there was no right of appeal, and limited but fair rights for the accused.

If you think your human rights are infinite, I suggest Doug you join the military and star abusing your CO in public. Get a few other to join you too. See how fast your infinite rights of free speech and freedom of assembly evaporate and don't ask for a civilian lawyer, either! You won't get one.

Doug, you perhaps do not know the difference between war and peace and between a jihadi on a war crime mission and the guy who just mugged granny in the park. But the US Consitution and all US courts, since 1776 have. The sad thing is that unremitting LAWFARE by the left and international anti-Americans have totally hamstrung us in this regard. Enemies of the US are now mainstreamed and given F. Lee Bailey, a civilian pulpit and we get info out of them by plea bargaining.

Here is a plea bargain coming your way soon: "OK, if we give you shorter time for the 763 Americans you just killed in the NYC subway, will you Mr. Abdul/Mohammed/Said (whatever) speak to your lawyer as you may escape a heavy sentence if you strike a deal and tell us where that suitcase nuke we know is in Boston has been placed."

Here is another: US forces capturing ALQ in Yemen or anywhere can't interrogate them, even if their own units might suffer further losses, until they are Mirandized and have a lawyer flown into base for them.

A Supreme Court justice once said the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But Doug and others, well meaning as they may be, are making it one.

Hard of Political Hearing

To Randall Smith, Kenya Daily Nation US correspondent:

"Your Nation piece "Obama Easy Target" (Feb 5th 2010) sounds like a Democrat trying to be neutral and explain the collapse of Obama the way Obama tried to explain those who bitterly clung to "guns and bibles" when he addressed the bewilderati of San Francisco's Nob Hill in 2008: a form of primitive being to be condescended towards.

You describe the protests that emerged over summer as "orchestrated by conservatives or special interests". The "Tea Party" movement and angry town halls were essentially spontaneous, not orchestrated. You "get" this process about as well as Obama "got" the Scott Brown phenom when he said "Anyone can buy a pick-up truck, right?".

Obama thought Brown must have bought his battered truck as a political gimmick, because to a professional politician like him, why else? Brown had owned it for years.

You did not tell your Kenya readers America is a centre-right country, not a centre-left one. In voting for Obama, Americans expected to get a new face who was a centrist who would clean up Washington - not someone who would throw legislation to leftists Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to draft and also show himself, as many think, naive and weak in foreign affairs.

Obama inherited a mess from the Bush administration - indeed the accumulative messes of many previous admins coming home to roost, but the American people perceive his as having recklessly plunged into unprecedented spending sprees.

The question will eternally echo. Why did Obama, on a wave of immense personal goodwill and prestige, so squander his first year by not initiating his own reforms, but leaving it to the hyenas in Congress - whose ratings among the US people are far less than Bush ever plumbed?

Why did Obama play "double or quits" on health care when it became obvious the majority of Americans did not support it?

For what reasons did Obama insist on trying Kahlid Sheik Mohammed in New York and attempt to transfer Guantanamo detainees to US soil when both of which would infuriate most Americans?

If George W. Bush left most Americans angry at a 256 billion $ deficit, what made Obama imagine they would swallow one that will run as high as 10 trillion by the end of his second term?

As climate change", an increasingly debased science, ranks just dead last amongst most Americans concerns, why did Obama try to initiate costly "cap and trade" legislation?

Americans have shown over and again in their history that the really do not trust or want "Big Government" in their lives, starting with 1776. The American system is corrupted and bankrupted by both parties indeed - so why would Obama want to unleash massive government take-overs of huge sections of the US economy?

Obama is also suffering rebound from the almost complete abrogation of journalistic duty by swathes of the US media . They resolutely refused to examine the background of both Presidential candidates and gave Obama an unprecedented media free-ride, leaving the American people to discover they had voted "American Idol"-like for an unknown and inexperienced junior Senator whose major ability seems to be to speak well.

Alexis de Tocqueville said around 1823 that "the American Republic will endure until Congress devises a way to bribe the electorate with their own money". True words but the American people may be wiser than their rulers - it's just that nearly all Democrats and many Republicans simply refuse to believe this. "

Obama Gets It Right, For Once

Credit to him, Obama's latest banking proposals to de-link commercial banks from investment banking is a step in the right direction and very much needed. The facts are that commercial banks are guaranteed with taxpayer's money - the FIDC deposit insurance being amongst the primary source of funds. But because banks have been allowed since the repeal of Glass-Steagall to take commercial deposits and speculate in investment banking, which they co-owned, they are effectivly paying themselves enormous bonuses on the taxpayer's dime.

Even the most ardent centre-right or libertrian thinker is aghast at the cluture of bonuses amongst bankers. Obama's porposals are a step in the right direction and should attract widespread bi-partisan support. lets hope Republicans do not oppose for oppositions sake.

Stocks have slid upon the news and we might end up with smaller banks if the reforms go through Congress, a big if, but they are absolutly needed in one form or another.

William Shakespere, Climate Denier

"The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists", as one UK article is headlined..

Even members of the UN's notorious IPCC are jumping ship in inceasing numbers. The politicized "science" of the Warmists is dying. Copenhagen was the watch. Of course governments are sticking to the party line - think of all those taxes and controls they will have to rescind.

Expect the Obamessiah to do the same, How will Denocrats set up a new vote delivering machine based around "Cap and Trade" patronage (Better known as Cap n' Tax) if their main warmist narrative vanishes?. Warmism was nothing if not a neo-Marxist powergrab that stimulated the all left's political erogenous zones.

For the moment the Warmist hoax is fading. The world citizenry, led by the Anglophone common law nations (USA, Britain, India, Canada, Australia etc) etc have forefronted their citizenry in rejecting the claims of cranks and frauds. The deep roots of individual liberty in common law countries have made them more deaf to the siren songs of the politicians.

Europeans, in contrast, with their historical acceptance of tyranny, have bought the warmism, but even their faith is fading.

The Warmists' computer models are incapable of predicting the weather a year from now, yet claim to predict it 100 years hence. The citizens have also seen off the reptilian polticians of the left who would seek to strait-jacket our lives into some weird asylum of "ethical green living" that gives them complete power over us.

Blow blow, thou winter wind. Thou were not so unkind as a poltician's powerlust.

Cheers for Chile

The good news for countries that enthusiatically embrace capitalism,free markets and globalization is that Chile today became the first South American country ever to move out of the developing world as the OECD has noted in granting it membership.

Not Cuba, or Venezuela nor the powerhouses of Brazil and Argentina but Chile, a country that was saved by the reviled General Pinochet in the 1980's from becoming a communist banana republic under the Marxist Salvador Allende. One shudders to think what Chile would look like economically today if he had been allowed to carry out the "revolution" he planned before it was stopped by force, which was the only argument Allende understood. Pinochet was a reluctant democrat and a flawed leader, but he did allow liberal capitalism to take root and once Allende and his communist thugs were swept aside, Chile rapidly began decades of expansion that has culminated in the historic move into the OECD.

Chile had a long democratic tradition which Allende tried to overthrow. Once this was restored after years of Pinochet's iron control, social democrats, rightists and leftists alike have rekindled this tradition and kept to the liberal market policies that Pinochet approved of.

These facts have not stopped Allende from being turned into a leftist hero-martyr and Pinochet into a fascist villain.The more successful Chile became, the more rabied the attacks on Pinochetl ending in his farcical arrest in Europe long after he retired. Tthe longer view of history may well reverse these positions.

The Bright Line That Blinds

Writing in the NYT Op-Ed section, guest contributor Michael Kinsley gives valuable insight into the garbled reasoning behind attempts to downgrade the War on Terror into a police action against criminls. Opines Kinsley:

We have nothing to be ashamed of, little to fear and much to be proud of in choosing to err on the side of treating captured foreign terrorists as we would treat any upstanding American who tried to blow up an airplane full of people.

There we have it. The foreign terrorists in wartime is the same as an American citizen terrorist who is oddly "upstanding" unless, like Timothy McVeigh, he is thankfully strapped to a lethal gurney.

Showing an ability to mush issues into a kind of bland ideological porridge, Kinsey confusingly declares

...why not draw the line to put an Abdulmutallab or a Shaikh Mohammed on the “war” side and treat him as an enemy combatant?....... recognize that the national border is a “bright line,” and if people captured within the United States are going to be treated as if they were somewhere else — provided that they are certified terrorists — things are going to get complicated quickly.

They certainly are complicated, Michael. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in Pakistan, not the USA. the only reason he is crossing the "bright line" into the USA is that Eric Holder and Obama have decided that Khalid is legally no different to say, John Gotti.

According to Kinsley's reasoning, the German saboteurs landed by submarine and caught on US soil in World War Two should have been lawyered up and given cit zens rights because they were caught on our side of the "bright line". Instead Rooseveldt ordered military tribunals that led to swift executions.

Kinsley perhaps has never read the US Constitution, despite having a law degree. Otherwise he could not fail to note it makes crystal clear that in times of war and even great public danger, military justice and tribunals that dispense with many protections afforded to US citizens are acceptable options. Indeed the Constitution only recognises two forms of justice in the USA. That of full rights for citizens and limited rights in military tribunals. It is Democrats who wish to triangulate this crystal clear position with a new layer of civilian-cum-wartime-semi-Mirandized-almost combatant-but-also-a-felon legal gibberish.

Damming arguments from a riposte to Kinsley in the National Review point out that combatants are launched by enemies of the state who also have external networks or even foreign powers either overtly or otherwise working with them, something that almost never occurs in simple criminality and which confounds normal law enforecement techniques.

We have a great deal to fear from the likes of Michael Kinsey and nothing to be proud of in the leftists' unremitting lawfare to overturn more than 200 years of US wartime justice. They are twisting what the Constitution intended, and until the ridiculous Boumedianne decision of 2009 and the vicious legal attacks on Bush's tribunal policies, had followed.

Still, this same confusion can be seen in the leftist approach to criminal justice in the USA itself. Usually, they blur the victim and the accused. Often the victim becomes the accused, an the perpetrator, like poor stressed Maj. Hasan at Ft. Hood, held up for examination as an object of pity and sympathy.

The ideas of the Robert Kinsey types, compared to the word of our Founding Fathers, make me worried.

Another Brick in The Warm

The problem with debating Warmers, those who believe in climate change caused by human industrial activity, is that for many it's a matter of faith and not of reason.

Indeed, getting them to agree to examine contrary evidence is like trying to discuss vegetables with a hyena.

So here is scant hope any will bother with the very interesting news that world CO2 atmospheric levels may have not risen at all in 100 years according to University of Bristol research summarized in Science Daily.

Only faith can explain why so many sensational untruths are clung to ( polar bears are decreasing, sea levels are quickly rising, the world is getting hotter every decade, the UN's laughable 'hockey stick' climate graph is true and so on).

A religious type of belief can acxcount for why so many otherwise intelligent, and often well-intentioned people fail to grasp that there is an inherent difference between alleged global warming and pullution or envirnnmental issues. It is possible to bve dedicated to the latter issues without embracing the former.

To point out that polar bears are healthily increasing, that there has been no overall global temperature rise for a decade, that the sea rise of about 3mm a year is in line with historical levels and that the 'hockey stick' was devastatingly demolished by experts in statistics years ago, brings to their faces a moment of puzzlement.

However this quizzical glance is the look of people who are questioning why you are an obvious nut case - not the expression of those hoping to chew over new facts.

Climategate, the emerging fact that the notorious UN Intergovernmental report was censored and doctored between the scientifically agreed draft and the final published document or evn the delightful debacle of Copenhagen 2009 will do nothing to dent the faith of the Warmers.