MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell Grills Young Palin Supporter

Not shown by MSNBC is more of the grilling with 17 year-old Jackie Seal;

O'DONNELL: What is it that you most like about her? What policy?

SEAL: She upholds the Constitution, the document that made this country so great, and that's what we need to go back to. We've gone so far from the Constitution that we're reaping the consequences of that right now.

O'DONNELL: Specifically?

SEAL: Big government. The Constitution was written so that government would be limited and so that it didn't become out-of-control and was in the hands of the people.

Note, Ms. O’Donnell is holding notes to grill Sarah Palin supporters with, the 17 year-old isn’t

Also, O’Donnell states that the 17 year-old voted in last years election. Jackie would have been 16 years old at the time and not eligible to vote.

O’Donnell tried to defend her actions, which is posted at NewsBusters.com.

Ms. Seals blogged about the encounter here

Kudo’s to 17 year-old Jackie Seals.

Climatologist Tim Ball: "This Isn't Just a Bomb Shell; It's a Nuclear Bomb Shell"

"I've always said all along that once this comes out I'll say, "I told you so," but there is no pleasure in that whatsoever. None whatsoever. This is a tragedy of global proportions because when you think about what these people have done by creating the IPCC by creating the Kyoto and threatening people with carbon footprints and Al Gore calling people like me a flat earther and all the people's reputations ruined and not to mention the billions of dollars wasted and possibly are still going to be wasted.

I think this is big enough to bring down the Hadley Center Unit, to bring down the IPCC and to stop Kyoto and Copenhagen absolutely in its tracks."

Dr. Tim Ball, Global Warming "Denier" on the Victoria Taft Show 11-20-09 7:15pm 

 "I feel vindicated."

George Taylor, FORMER Oregon Climatologist on the Victoria Taft Show 11-20-09 7:40pm

Wall Street Journal blog here.
Global Warming's Blue Dress Moment. Here.
Global Warming's Pentagon Papers. Here.

SHOULD JESSE JACKSON BE CALLED "THE REVEREND," OR THE RACIST?

Jackson threatens pulling your black credentials if you don't favor government health care takeover and you're black.

Jesse Jackson, who wept almost as many tears when Barack Hussein Obama was elected president as Jackson did when he was not, has now once more exposed himself with his public charge that any black member of House or Senate who votes against the governmental takeover of one-sixth of the economy through the nationalization of health care as proposed by Pelosi in the House or Reid in the Senate, cannot "call yourself a black man." Presumably, Jesse meant to include Black Women, too, but gender blended.

Jesse Jackson made this racist statement while continuing to hold himself out as a "Reverend" and a spokesperson for African Americans.

Therefore, I have to ask:  If Jesse Jackson can publicly state that "you can't vote against health care and call yourself a black man," then who does the epithet racist fit? White men? 

If Jesse Jackson can utter the manifestly racist statement he did (imagine if George Bush had said something of that nature only used "white man" instead), without being repudiated by the African American community for whom he purports to speak, then who are the racists? White people?

Further, why is it that all media and almost all white people in this and in other situations, call Jackson "The Reverend"?  

Jackson never graduated from a seminary (he dropped out of the only one he briefly attended). He holds no divinity or theological degree from any institution. He's never been ordained by any recognized denomination.  He's never pastored a church. 

The closest thing he has to anything resembling eduction in theology or divinity is an  "Honorary" degree (of about the same value and integrity as the kind you can buy from the Universal Church or  buy off the internet) which was conferred for political and cosmetic reasons long after Jackson walked around  proclaiming himself to be "the Reverend." 

In short, Jackson can produce  nothing whatsoever to meet the standards otherwise required for a person to be recognized as religious clergy, i.e., a "Reverend." What church does this "Reverend" pastor now? What church has he ever pastored? 

So, is it by way of some "black skin privilege" that Jackson calls himself "The Reverend" and the media goes along with Jackson's demand that he be called "The Reverend"?

Forgive me if I  decline to address or identify the self-promoting race hustler Jesse Jackson as "The Reverend," the title which should be earned by any person purporting to be a  clergyman, a "man of the cloth," a man dedicating his life as a religious, not political, leader. 

Any white man who called himself, and demanded to be called, "The Reverend" the media, any  white man who  dropped out of seminary, held no earned degree, and never pastored a church and then demanded to be addressed as "The Reverend" by the media,  would be scorned, scoffed at, and disregarded by the media, or mocked  for making  the demand..

Why is the same standard  not applied for  Jesse Jackson? 

Jackson can call himself whatever he wants, including "the Reverend."

But the media commits a disservice when it deceives the public into believing Jesse Jackson is a member of the clergy by calling him "The Reverend."

Forgive me if I believe that it is racist for white people to hold black people to lesser standards of behavior, as that very act implies that black people are lesser people, so inferior that they cannot be held to the same standards as all other people.

--Rees Lloyd is a civil rights attorney, Veteran's activist, author and, when we can talk him into it, blogger at Victoria Taft blog where he helps paint the targets in the culture war.

Are These for Real? Is "Consensus" Really a "Conspiracy?" Hacked Emails Show "Fix" Put on Warming Data **With UPDATES

We couldn't go on last night without proper attribution, but you certainly need to know about it. H/T SCT last night. Here's the latest from Climate Depot. 
Look at the video (here H/T Steve Milloy GreenHellBlog ) of coal company official being "grilled" by reporter on global warming. And then watch as he owns her.
And remember what's at stake, controlling countries, wealth and liberty. Look at what the Heritage Foundation found when it amassed a list of what things have been blamed on global warming (here):

Global Warming Ate My Homework: 100 Things Blamed on Global Warming

Posted By Nick Loris On November 17, 2009 @ 5:40 pm In Energy and Environment | 34 Comments

Late for a party? Miss a meeting? Forget to pay your rent? Blame climate change; everyone else is doing it. From an increase in severe acne to all societal collapses since the beginning of time, just about everything gone wrong in the world today can be attributed to climate change. Here’s a list of 100 storylines blaming climate change as the problem.
1. The deaths of Aspen trees in the West ^[1]
2. Incredible shrinking sheep ^[2]
3. Caribbean coral deaths ^[3]
4. Eskimos forced to leave their village ^[4]
5. Disappearing lake in Chile ^[5]
6. Early heat wave in Vietnam ^[6]
7. Malaria and water-borne diseases in Africa ^[7]
8. Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean ^[8]
9. Break in the Arctic Ice Shelf ^[9]
10. Monsoons in India ^[10]
11. Birds laying their eggs early ^[11]
12. 160,000 deaths a year ^[12]
13. 315,000 deaths a year ^[13]
14. 300,000 deaths a year ^[14]
15. Decline in snowpack in the West ^[15]
16. Deaths of walruses in Alaska ^[16]
17. Hunger in Nepal ^[17]
18. The appearance of oxygen-starved dead zones in the oceans ^[18]
19. Surge in fatal shark attacks ^[19]
20. Increasing number of typhoid cases in the Philippines ^[20]
21. Boy Scout tornado deaths ^[21]
22. Rise in asthma and hayfever ^[22]
23. Duller fall foliage in 2007 ^[23]
24. Floods in Jakarta ^[24]
25. Radical ecological shift in the North Sea ^[25]
26. Snowfall in Baghdad ^[26]
27. Western tree deaths ^[27]
28. Diminishing desert resources ^[28]
29. Pine beetles ^[29]
30. Swedish beetles ^[30]
31. Severe acne ^[31]
32. Global conflict ^[32]
33. Crash of Air France 447 ^[33]
34. Black Hawk Down incident ^[34]
35. Amphibians breeding earlier ^[35]
36. Flesh-eating disease ^[36]
37. Global cooling ^[37]
38. Bird strikes on US Airways 1549 ^[38]
39. Beer tastes different ^[39]
40. Cougar attacks in Alberta ^[40]
41. Suicide of farmers in Australia ^[41]
42. Squirrels reproduce earlier ^[42]
43. Monkeys moving to Great Rift Valley in Kenya ^[43]
44. Confusion of migrating birds ^[44]
45. Bigger tuna fish ^[45]
46. Water shortages in Las Vegas ^[46]
47. Worldwide hunger ^[46]
48. Longer days ^[47]
49. Earth spinning faster ^[48]
50. Gender balance of crocodiles ^[49]
51. Skin cancer deaths in UK ^[50]
52. Increase in kidney stones in India ^[51]
53. Penguin chicks frozen by global warming ^[52]
54. Deaths of Minnesota moose ^[53]
55. Increased threat of HIV/AIDS in developing countries ^[54]
56. Increase of wasps in Alaska ^[55]
57. Killer stingrays off British coasts ^[56]
58. All societal collapses since the beginning of time ^[57]
59. Bigger spiders ^[58]
60. Increase in size of giant squid ^[59]
61. Increase of orchids in UK ^[60]
62. Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden ^[61]
63. Cow infertility ^[62]
64. Conflict in Darfur ^[63]
65. Bluetongue outbreak in UK cows ^[64]
66. Worldwide wars ^[65]
67. Insomnia of children worried about global warming ^[66]
68. Anxiety problems for people worried about climate change ^[67]
69. Migration of cockroaches ^[68]
70. Taller mountains due to melting glaciers ^[69]
71. Drowning of four polar bears ^[70]
72. UFO sightings in the UK ^[71]
73. Hurricane Katrina ^[72]
74. Greener mountains in Sweden ^[73]
75. Decreased maple in maple trees ^[74]
76. Cold wave in India ^[75]
77. Worse traffic in LA because immigrants moving north ^[76]
78. Increase in heart attacks and strokes ^[77]
79. Rise in insurance premiums ^[78]
80. Invasion of European species of earthworm in UK ^[79]
81. Cold spells in Australia ^[80]
82. Increase in crime ^[81]
83. Boiling oceans ^[82]
84. Grizzly deaths ^[83]
85. Dengue fever ^[84]
86. Lack of monsoons ^[85]
87. Caterpillars devouring 45 towns in Liberia ^[86]
88. Acid rain recovery ^[87]
89. Global wheat shortage; food price hikes ^[88]
90. Extinction of 13 species in Bangladesh ^[89]
91. Changes in swan migration patterns in Siberia ^[90]
92. The early arrival of Turkey’s endangered caretta carettas ^[91]
93. Radical North Sea shift ^[92]
94. Heroin addiction ^[93]
95. Plant species climbing up mountains ^[94]
96. Deadly fires in Australia ^[95]
97. Droughts in Australia ^[96]
98. The demise of California’s agriculture by the end of the century ^[97]
99. Tsunami in South East Asia ^[98]
100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe ^[99]
And the list goes on. The truth is climate change is causing some of these events, but the earth’s average temperature has been increasing and decreasing since ^[100]the beginning of time. Maybe the increase in UFO sightings can’t be pinpointed to climate change but certainly animals will adapt to new habitats as the climate changes. But climate change and adaptation to it is nothing new. There’s an underlying assumption that human activity is causing the climate to change in many of these stories, but the scientific consensus on what causes climate change is anything but a consensus. Temperatures have risen and fallen many times ^[101] before and the earth was cooling as recently as the period from the 1940s to the 1970s giving rise to fears ^[102]of a coming ice age:
“At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.”
The other implication of this list is that a reduction in Co2 with cap and trade policies like Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry will cure problems as disparate as hurricanes, wars, crime, hunger and…cow infertility. The problem is that no one can actually claim that a reduction of Co2 will prevent these occurrences; one can only speculate that they will be worse in a world that has more rather than less Co2. Given cap and trade’s massive economic consequences ^[103] and negligible effects on the earth’s temperature ^[104], this is a bold and potentially very costly speculation.
Katie Brown co-authored this post.

Make Four Phone Calls Today: Two to Your Senators & Two More to These Guys

From the GOP:

** URGENT CALL TO ACTION **

After months working in secret behind closed doors, Harry Reid this week finally unveiled his 2,074-page government-run health care plan. His plan would increase health care premiums, increase taxes on families and small businesses by half a trillion dollars, cut Medicare by another half trillion dollars, and allow federal funds to be used for abortions. Click here for 10 things you should know about the bill.

Harry Reid has scheduled a critical vote this Saturday night that will allow the Senate to take-up his bill. If that vote succeeds, Harry Reid will be dangerously close to finally imposing President Obama's government-run health care scheme on America.

Two Democrat Senators - Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) - are critically important to defeating Saturday's vote. The RNC urges every concerned citizen to call Sens. Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln TODAY and tell them to vote against Harry Reid's liberal bill when it comes up for a vote on Saturday.

This is the best opportunity there will be to stop President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi from imposing their government-run health care plan on America. Again, please call Sens. Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln TODAY and tell them to vote against Harry Reid's health care bill when it comes up for a vote on Saturday.

Oprah Announces TV Exit

Oprah Winfrey announced she will end her long-time TV show in 2011, after 25 years of broadcast.

Source

Winfrey told the audience that she loved "The Oprah Winfrey Show," that it had been her life and that she knew when it was time to say goodbye. "Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and feels right in my spirit," she said.

Not said by Ms. Winfrey, estimated to have a net worth of some $2.7 Billion, is that her audience ratings began to plummet when she came out for the first time and vocally supported a political candidate for the presidency.

Much like Barack Obama, that candidate, her ratings have been steadily dropping as the public begins looking at just what they bought into, both the in candidate and the TV host.

Obama's ratings continue to fall, in the double digit range, while Oprah's ratings are said to have slipped some 7% in the last year.

Tri Met "Fans:" Read This

Dear Portland-Vancouver area traveler,

We noticed you haven't yet completed the Portland Metro Travel Study, so
we decided to keep the survey open longer.

Metro is conducting an important travel study with the goal of better
understanding travelers' experiences using different types of transit
and different types of transit stops in Portland. Metro invites you to
share your thoughts and opinions about travel around Portland. All
transit and auto travelers are invited to take the 10 minute survey.
Your opinion counts!

To participate in this study, please go to the following link:
http://www.surveycafe.com/portland/resptype.asp?sname=w2095en

To ensure complete confidentiality, RSG, an independent market research
company, is conducting the survey for Metro. Your responses will remain
confidential and will never be linked back to you.

Please complete the survey by Wednesday, November 25, 2009. Copy the URL
and paste it into your web browser to take the survey. Further
instructions are located on the first page of the survey.

Thank you for your participation.

XXX Book Store Owner Sues Randy Leonard for Commissioner's Capricious Use of Law to Get Rid of Businesses He Doesn't Like

A couple of weeks ago I saw this sign (nearby) excoriating Randy Leonard for his "HIT" squad. Randy's HIT squad is made up of inspectors from three different Portland city bureaus (Police, Fire and Development Services) and personally directed by Randy ("I'll tear it down with my bare hands") Leonard himself. I'm a native Portlander, but even I couldn't remember what stood in the vacant lot now bearing the I hate Randy sign. So I did a little digging and found out it used to be Cindy's XXX Book Store. See the pictures of what the site used to look like nearby.
Previous stories by the Portland Tribune (which has done several stories about "Cindy's") and now recent ones by Willamette Week ( Here and here) follow the story of Leonard's heavy handed and, I believe, capricious use of city resources to shut down businesses he doesn't like. Now, I'm not a fan of porno shops, but unless Randy rewrites Oregon law to allow for legally zoning out flesh shops, theoretically he can do little about them. Unless, however, he gets his HIT squad in there to write ticket after ticket after ticket for code violations. So that's what he did. The Trib reported here:

The task force uses “very aggressive actions” including building and fire inspections, to shut down trouble spots that, Leonard said, are clearly “egregious” in their violations and linked to criminal activity. The tactics are “cutting edge,” and represent actions that “other cities shy away from,” Leonard said.

Doug Jones, supervising inspector at the Bureau of Fire, Rescue & Emergency Services, admits it looks a little strange that a 2005 inspection found only two code violations, while one earlier this year found 30.

 Randy also admits that his choice of targets is a bit subjective, telling Willamette Week,

“It’s like Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography,” Leonard says. “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” 

Randy admits using heavy handed tactics, telling the Tribune:

“I make [the HIT team] call me, and I go through the building,” he says.
The combination of enforcement authority from three bureaus with different enforcement mechanisms gives the HIT team a potent arsenal.
“When you combine all three, you could find just about anything,” Leonard concedes.

Bureau employees say Cindy's is owned by four people, one of whom is a bad dude (who was prosecuted in connection with a murder and has served his sentence) and was the scene of a lot of illegal activity. They claim that these kinds of stores attract bad actors and increase the crime rate. Here's how the Trib reported it last year:

Cindy’s has long been a subject of police attention and neighbor complaints. But in the spring it came to the attention of a task force headed by city Commissioner Randy Leonard, one that has been conducting inspections of substandard downtown residential hotels to help clear out drug dealers and prostitutes. “Cindy’s has historically been a magnet for criminal activity,” says Portland Police Sgt. Matt Engen, who has worked Old Town for 12 years.

I'm sure Cindy's attracted a lot of bad folks doing bad things. I don't doubt that for a minute. But I wondered now that it's been bulldozed has the crime rate gone down? I wondered and consulted the city's website. I'll get comps on soon from 2006 or so but, seriously, how much worse can it get than this? Check out the crime rate NOW. Hint: where you see red is where really, really bad stuff happens. I'm no genius but there doesn't seem to be much of an improvement after Cindy's was bulldozed.
Randy is trying to clean up bad businesses. I appreciate that. The problem is picking and choosing the businesses you don't like for targeted enforcement is a prescription for abuse. This appears to have been what has happened. Well, at least that's what is alleged in the owners' $1 million dollar lawsuit against Randy and the city (story here). Randy admits he doesn't know exactly what qualifies a business as a target for a HIT squad action, but he knows it when he sees it. 
The Trib reported:

So far, Leonard says, the team has targeted eight or nine properties. Three were squalid single-occupancy hotels in Old Town. The city bought out the owner of the largest of the three, the Grove Hotel. Then the team went after Cindy’s Adult Bookstore, also in Old Town. The city shut it down and it was razed. Next came the Greek Cusina, forced into foreclosure by HIT team liens, and a single east-side target, an after-hours club called the Mansion, which has since been demolished.

The owners of the property claim the city is after their property because it's along their beloved 'couplet' and close to the Pearl. The site where Cindy's once stood is for sale, but in this economy no one is buying. And considering that slice of Burnside frontage real estate is on the city's radar no one would be willing to buy it at this point. The question is whether Randy is using city resources to bully Cindy's out of business so the city has more say in how the land is used by planners? Government is generally no good at picking winners and losers--even losers like porno shops. But nobody wins when property rights are trampled. Nobody.

Thank You, Congressman Kevin Brady for Saying it Out Loud

Here.

Dept Of Homeland Security Investigating Rev Manning

Hon. James David Manning, PhD, pastor of the ATLAH Church in Harlem and outspoken critic of Barack Hussein Obama has announced being visited and questioned by CIA agents claiming to be part of the Homeland Security about his criticism of Obama.

He expects imminent arrest.

Source & Video

Eco Trust Uses Company Email to Send Out "Drown Out Global Warming Deniers" at ManBearPig Event. Blame Us for Vandalism. Sure.

 
Dear ------,
Momentum is building and we need your help TODAY to keep it going. Join the conservation community and Yes for Oregon at ______________. tonight to drown out the global-warming-deniers.
The global-warming naysayers made the news today with their graffiti at Keller Auditorium, where Al Gore is speaking tonight. And the word is out about the Tea Party this evening outside the Gore event.
Many groups are organizing right now to outnumber the naysayers.------------- for details about where to go and when.
Your voice matters! Make it heard!

Patchouli * Smelling, Plastic Shoe Wearing, Al Gore Worshiping Protesters Rallying Troops to Counter Tea Party Protesters

*Thanks to 5th Listener who corrected my spelling
Daily Kos--the orb or, mecca, for the liberatti--is rallying the troops. They'll be gathering at Pioneer Square and marching up. As I understand it, the tickets for Gore's Shame-Spiral-It's-All-America's-Fault-for-Polar-Bear-Deaths Speaking Tour aren't even sold out.

I guess for their bunch it's cheaper to rally the Portland Professional Protesters than to buy them a ticket to get inside for the worship service.

Meantime, some of Portland Professional Protesters came early to vandalize the Keller. I heard about this on the news this morning and ran over to take some quick pix with my phone cam:

Meantime over at Bill Bradbury's (Al Gore acolyte) website (here) he's announcing that there are only 50 tickets left to the expensive affair for Bradbury's gubernatorial run.
Anybody got a thousand they can loan me?

Pricing

Students/Teachers:

$15

General Admission:

$25 (advance) / $40 (at the door)

Reserved Seating:

$500

Reserved Seating (Front Row):

$1,000
Reception with Al Gore prior to event:

A QUOTE TO "MAKE MY DAY" -- AND, HOPEFULLY YOURS

It's just...everybody's so screwed up. It seems like our country's in kind of a morbid mood, because of the recession or whatever....We're becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War IIand that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits."

[Clint Eastwood, at 79 in 2009; from an interview in the current CQ Magazine." ]

By Rees Lloyd

Plain words from Clint Eastwood. Plainly true  about the WWII vets. So, here's a salute to all those WWII veterans from "the Greatest Generation," for your service to America in war and in peace. Indeed, we need you, and your WWII values, more than ever. 

For instance, the intolerant totalitarians of  the contemporary ACLU are today serving as legal counsel to the admitted Muslim terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and cohorts in trials in civilian courts in New York ordered by Barack Hussein Obama. At the same time, the ACLU, the Taliban of American liberal secularism, is suing to destroy our veterans memorials at the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial, and the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial because the ACLU, and its lawyers, like Barack Hussein Obama, and its mascot plaintiffs, are "offended" at the sight of a Cross honoring veterans at memorials. Does that define totalitarian "twitism"? Provide legal representation to an admitted Muslim terrorist "master-mind"? And sue memorials honoring American veterans because a Cross is included? 

For further instance of why  we need you WWII vets more than ever, is the fact that the Commander-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, is jetting around the world (Global Warming and Climate Change notwithstanding) on a mission in which he is "apologizing" for America and quite literally "bowing" -- as no President has done -- to such as the Wahabist Muslim dictator of Saudi Arabia, and the present Emperor of Japan, son of the Emperor who ruled then-fascist Japan in WWII, when Japan attacked America at Pearl Harbor and joined the fascist Axis (Japan, Germany, Italy) to conquer and rule the world -- until stopped by the 16-million Americans who served in WWII and allied forces from democracies. 

That victory in WWII, which could not have been achieved without the service and sacrifice of American veterans, saved the world from domination by the fascism of Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and the Emperor's Japan. It  should never be the subject of an "apology." And no American, least of all the President and Commander-in-Chief should "bow" in submission to any foreign power, let alone those who tried to, or are trying to, destroy American freedom.

Nor should Barack Hussein Obama or any  juvenile (i.e., adult adolescent) "twit" around him (Vance Jones, ACORNites, Mrs.Dunn of "I-Love-Obama" fame)  apologize in the name of Americans for the service and sacrifice by American veterans in the Korean War, then the Cold War, then the hot war in Vietnam, which held off communism until it collapsed of its own contradictions in the Soviet Union, and transfigured itself in Mao's Red China, silencing internationally the  communist call for "Workers of the World-Unite!" to establish worldwide "proletarian dictatorship." 

That once universal slogan of international communism is no longer credible because American veterans fought it. The slogan, in fact,  is no longer heard publicly in world capitols -- except in Washington, D.C., in Barack Hussein Obama's transformed America, in which "Workers of the World--Unite!" is the revived slogan and professed "way of doing business"  of SEIU social-worker cum union boss of mainly government workers, Andy Stern, confidant of Barack Hussein Obama, and Obama's most frequent guest at the White House. Is that a confidence builder? 

How about Stern's oft-expressed policy: "We will use the power of persuasion. But, if that doesn't work, we will use the persuasion of power." Does that explain why SEIU thugs under Stern were videoed beating up a citizen (a black man) at a Townhall Meeting--but more than three months later there are no prosecutions?

Finally, it should be said, that there should be no "apology" by the American Commander-in-Chief for the service and sacrifice of all those veterans who have served in "Operation Desert Storm," and in the War Against Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, including those serving there today.

There should be no "apologies" for fighting Muslim terrorists, nor any "bowing" before before those heads of governments which aid and abet them by providing funds or safe havens for them. Nor should there a refusal to identify with plain language Muslim jihadist terrorism as precisely that, whether overseas, at Ft. Hood, or anywhere it exists.

Manifestly, there cannot be indecision by a President and Commander-in-Chief Voting "present" is not an option any longer. It is not possible for a Commander-in-Chief to avoid responsibility, or political consequences of his "base," by refusing to make decision on the request for more troops by the commander-in-the-field that Obama appointed states that they are needed. Voting "present" is not an option for one who seeks to be the "Commander-in-Chief."

As stated by Bing West, former U.S. Marine infantryman in Vietnam and an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Reagan administration, in the conclusion of his important analysis entitled "The View From Man Bear Pig: On the ground in Afghanistan, it's still a question of power, not politics[,]" in the current National Review (11/23/09): 

"America's dithering has made us look weak and has encouraged our enemies. Let us hope the president decides to send in the troops -- and then stays out of the play-calling."

[Rees Lloyd is a longtime civil rights attorney and an activist in veterans affairs.]

City of Portland Pays People to Christmas Shop

We know all about paying poor people to live here through subsidies and enticing illegal aliens to come and stay in Portland via a variety of services offered such as an illegal jobs center, but I think the crowd at City Hall and their buddies have sunk to a new low: using more taxpayer funds to pay people to shop.
I'm all for private industry doing whatever is legal to get the peeps to buy their stuff, but a CITY using TAXPAYER FUNDS to pay people to shop downtown??
God bless KATU (story here) for splashing this story out there last night. H/T Alert 5th Listener who tipped me off during the show. The folks at the city sanctioned downtown business group are offering free parking and a $50 dollar gift card for people who have spent another 50 bucks downtown. And they're paying for it from parking meter money. Parking meter money is city money. In fact, the city recently has seen fit to extend the time people have to pay for parking! Using this money means that at some point there will be less money to spend on whatever it is the parking meter money is usually used for and the taxpayers will have to back fill that.
The City officials who read this blog post today (hey guys!) will dismiss this as a Victoria rant against the City of Portland. You guys need to take a chill pill, look in the mirror and read on.
Consider the following items that, in addition to the recession, have kept shoppers away from downtown:

• 1. The City Council failing, FAILING, to Stand Up for What's Right and demanding Sam Adams resign for having sex with a teenager. Hint: normal people find it ookity that a 40 something man grooms a 17 year old for sex, goes to his 18th "He's Legal!" birthday party, beds him three days later and then lies about it to keep voters in the dark. Obviously Sam thought this was wrong, that's why he LIED about it. The Council should be ashamed. THIS BEHAVIOR IS REPUGNANT AND REPELS PEOPLE WHO COME TO DOWNTOWN TO SHOP.
  
• 2. Discriminating against certain groups of taxpayers who use out of favor transportation modes. From using taxpayer money to cut off entire neighborhoods to cars in an alliance with an international car hating group, extending parking meter hours and days and then planting them in and around well used parks to discourage car use, declaring out loud that you want to improve bridge across the Columbia but don't want anyone to 'actually drive on it,' saying that 'we can't have this laissez faire-going-anywhere-you-want-when-you-want' attitude in Portland. Randy, they call that FREEDOM. Try it sometime.
  
• 3. People don't feel safe downtown. Hot and cold running panhandlers populate each street corner. Turf battles ensue if one spiked triceratopped death goth takes the hippy with the yoga mat's 'spot.' And don't even get me started on a the Greenpeace predators. Panhandlers have taken to dressing up in animal costumes to attract business! New York Times best selling author, Vince Flynn, in town on his book tour last month, told me he was "s'panged" no fewer than five times in a one block span. Oh, and your grandiose plans to use city taxpayer funds to "End Homelessness in Ten Years?" Yah, ain't gonna happen. You guys forget a lot of the professional homeless folks have the internet and can read all about it. Last winter a couple was interviewed by KGW outside the Union Gospel Mission and revealed they had come from Texas to Portland because THEY READ ABOUT THE TEN YEAR PLAN TO END HOMELESSNESS while surfing the internet IN THEIR APARTMENT and decided to come here TO GET A FREE HOME. You guys forget, the idea to pay people to shop in downtown Portland is the same idea behind attracting people by giving them, hey...wait a minute...free stuff! 
• 4. You have become the NW version of the New Orleans Levee Boards. You use our hard earned taxpayer $$ for everything else BUT what you're supposed to do. You buy street cars, bully land owners from their icky, but legal businesses, and let protesters bully out at least two businesses--probably more--from their, raise our taxes, tells us it's all in the name of 'green' because Al Gore says so, declare 'trees have rights' and expect us to think you're sane. Are ya kidding us?  When it hits the fan, we may not have decent maintained existing infrastructure, but, doggone it,  that tram looked good, didn't it?
  

If you'd bothered to treat businesses as helpful instead of as cash machines, reduced their taxes, paid respect to the sensibilities of the people paying the bills, and gave us a real say (not just your machine politics, preordained outcome neighbhood association shills) you might have built up good will among folks and attracted shoppers downtown the old fashioned way: by earning it.

Tom Joscelyn: The Al Qaeda Civil Liberties Union

  Here's the way Tom Joscelyn's piece in the Weekly Standard starts out:

"I'll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer."
That, according to former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, is what September 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) said when he was captured in March 2003.
But of course the Bush administration did not grant KSM his wish. Instead, the master terrorist was seen as a potentially vital source of intelligence on al Qaeda, which had caught America sleeping less than two years earlier. If U.S. intelligence officials could get him to talk, the Bush administration and the U.S. intelligence community reasoned, then they could learn many of al Qaeda's well-guarded secrets.

The rest is here. 

AL GORE'S (at least) 35 LIES TOLD IN HIS INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Remember when a British court held that Gore's movie about ManBearPig was a political viewpoint and contained many scientific errors and, as a result, was not to be shown to students unless the ERRORS were fixed? (see the list below). And remember when Lord Monckton found 35 ERRORS in Gore's production?  The errors included:
rising sea levels by 6m, Pacific islands going underwater, CO2 driving temperature, snows of Kilaminjaro "melting," Lake Chad "drying up," Hurricane Katrina "man made," polar bears "dying," hurricanes "getting stronger," and on and on and on it goes (Lord Monckton's Take Down of Al Gore's Lies ).





"...the judge ruled that the "apocalyptic vision" presented in the film was politically partisan and thus not an impartial scientific analysis of climate change.

It is, he ruled, a "political film".

The nine alleged errors in the film

1. Mr Gore claims that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". The judge said: "This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore's "wake-up call". He agreed that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia"."The Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus."

2. The film claims that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" but the judge ruled there was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.

3. The documentary speaks of global warming "shutting down the Ocean Conveyor" - the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe. Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the judge said that it was "very unlikely" that the Ocean Conveyor, also known as the Meridional Overturning Circulation, would shut down in the future, though it might slow down.

4. Mr Gore claims that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed "an exact fit". The judge said that, although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts".

5. Mr Gore says the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was directly attributable to global warming, but the judge ruled that it scientists have not established that the recession of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro is primarily attributable to human-induced climate change.

6. The film contends that the drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming but the judge said there was insufficient evidence, and that "it is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability."

7. Mr Gore blames Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans on global warming, but the judge ruled there was "insufficient evidence to show that".

8. Mr Gore cites a scientific study that shows, for the first time, that polar bears were being found after drowning from "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice" The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."That was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued - "but it plainly does not support Mr Gore's description".

9. Mr Gore said that coral reefs all over the world were being bleached because of global warming and other factors. Again citing the IPCC, the judge agreed that, if temperatures were to rise by 1-3 degrees centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and mortality, unless the coral could adapt. However, he ruled that separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution was difficult.

A Government spokesman said he would not make any further comment on the case today."

EPA Atty's Speak Out

If You Can't Withstand a Challenge to Your Ideas You Challenge a Fight?

Competitive Enterprise Institute Calls on Al Gore to Debate Global Warming With Lord Monckton

End the ACLU Assault on Veterans Memorials by Rees Lloyd

Rees recently wrote an op ed for a southern California newspaper (here) and invited me to post it. For those long time blog readers this is a story you've heard before, but for you newbies welcome to the terrordome.

On Veterans Day, many Americans visited veterans memorials as Americans have for years. Today, however, veterans memorials on public land are under threat from establishment of religion clause lawsuits.
These lawsuits are being filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on the behalf of individuals who complain that they are offended by the sight of a cross at a veterans memorial. Although generally unknown to most Americans, the ACLU seeks and receives millions in judge-ordered, taxpayer-paid attorneys' fees in these cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court will render its decision this term in one such case (Buono v. Salazar) regarding a World War II veterans memorial cross in the Mojave Desert National Preserve ("Supreme Court at crossroads over fate of Mojave cross," Oct. 8). A similar case involving a veterans memorial cross at Mount Soledad is before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (Trunk, et al. v. U.S.). It also appears certain to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
At stake in these court cases is whether 300 million Americans shall have the right to choose how they will honor their war dead and other veterans or whether a veto power over those decisions shall be held by the ACLU or a single individual who claims "offense" at the sight of a cross honoring veterans. Thus, the importance of these court cases cannot be overstated.
However, I respectfully suggest that such issues, which fundamentally affect and shape our national culture and character, should not be decided by the courts. It is time for Congress to act to protect our veterans memorials from abusive Establishment Clause lawsuits by the ACLU, which has become the Taliban of American liberal secularism, and other fanatical organizations.
Congress is empowered under the Constitution to determine the jurisdiction of the courts other than the U.S. Supreme Court. Congress should exercise its authority to remove claims against veterans memorials and cemeteries from the jurisdiction of the courts. Congress should provide instead a right of redress before forums in which the public may participate and be heard, not just lawyers.
By doing so, Congress would also end the ACLU's exploitation of the Civil Rights Attorney Fees Act of 1976. That is, by filing lawsuits against veterans memorials, the Boy Scouts, public seals, and public symbols of America's history, the ACLU earns enormous profits from judge-ordered, taxpayer-paid attorney fee awards. The ACLU has used the threat of imposition of such attorney fees to coerce elected bodies to surrender to its demands without a fight, as the city of Redlands and the county of Los Angeles reluctantly did when the ACLU threatened to sue if they did not remove the cross from their official seals.
Riverside County, home to Riverside National Cemetery, has a particular interest in this issue. It is the decision of a U.S. district judge sitting in Riverside who ordered the Mojave Desert cross destroyed at the request of ACLU which is before the Supreme Court.
It was Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, who achieved legislation transferring the Mojave memorial site to private hands in exchange for five acres of private land to solve any perceived problem. The ACLU objected. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide.
It was veterans in American Legion Riverside Post 79 and District 21, which represents 6,000 wartime veterans in 22 posts in Riverside County, who sponsored American Legion Resolution 326, "Preserve Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial." This resolution, which I authored, led to the Legion's nationwide crusade to fight the ACLU in Congress and in the courts aided by the Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Legal Institute, Thomas More Law Center and other organizations.
Furthermore, this effort was inspired by the late, legendary American Legionnaire and Riverside native Robert J. "Uncle Bobby" Castillo, a Purple Heart survivor of the D-Day landing, who said: "How can the ACLU sue our veterans memorials here in California at Mojave and at Mount Soledad? What about Arlington? Will they sue Arlington Cemetery next? Will they sue the American Cemetery in France at Normandy Beach? There are over 9,000 crosses and Stars of David there. We can't let the ACLU do this. We have to fight them. My buddies are buried there."
Congress, the courts, and all of us who are free because of veterans like Castillo, should hear, and heed, that good man's heartfelt words.
Rees Lloyd, of Banning, is a civil rights attorney and former ACLU of Southern California Foundation staff attorney. He is the co-founder and director of the Defense of Veterans Memorials Project of the American Legion Department of California.

Al Gore (ManBearPig) Coming to Keller Wednesday NIght. Why Don't You Go Greet Him?

The Sign in Front of a Vacant Lot on 4th & Burnside by Chinatown