Theodore's World

Guantanamo Detainees Offered Classes, Movies in Push to Stem Frustration
Friday, February 08, 2008
Fox News
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba
Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated detainees, the commander of Guantanamo’s prison camps has instituted language classes and a literacy program, plans humanities courses and wants to open communal areas for men now held in isolation 22 hours a day.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Army Col. Bruce Vargo said he hopes the changes will lead to fewer attacks on guards by the 275 prisoners suspected of links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

“Make no bones about it, these are very dangerous men,” Vargo said, citing incidents in which detainees splashed guards with bodily fluids, and head-butted, kicked and bit them. “But at the same time, you have to provide them with some type of out.”

The makeover represents a policy reversal on the isolated base, where facilities were hardened to maximum-security and communal living areas were eliminated in 2006 after a guard-detainee clash and the suicides of three detainees.
Attorneys for detainees say the assaults are triggered partly by frustration among men who, more often than not, were captured far from any battlefield and have been locked up for as much as six years with no real chance to confront accusations that they are enemy combatants.
David Remes of Washington, who represents 16 Guantanamo detainees, said the military must improve its treatment of detainees and not simply justify minor changes by saying they are aimed at reducing assaults. He said most detainees are in virtual solitary confinement, reportedly leading to mental problems.
Vargo, who commands the military’s Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, says it is important to give the detainees more to look forward to each day.
Some of the best-behaved detainees now get TV night, with DVDs of movies and TV shows shown on a high-definition Sony TV. A classroom in Camp 4, designated for the most compliant detainees, has metal desks and plastic chairs, although detainees remain shackled by the leg to the floor in class.
Language courses have begun in English, Arabic and Pashto, Vargo said in the interview last week. He intends to soon offer classes on subjects as diverse as oceanography.

“If we can get them to focus on humanities programs, if we can get them to focus on recreation, then their sole focus is not going to be on the guard force,” Vargo said. “It is my thought that if they are focused on those things, then the level of assaults and things of that nature will go down.”

Soldiers escorted AP journalists inside the coils of barbed wire at Camp 4, where five detainees in loose-fitting white shirts and pants sat at tables, sharing a rice dish outside their communal living area. On the other side of a chain-link fence, a bored guard watched the men from the shade of a plastic tarp. White and tan prison uniforms, freshly washed by the detainees, hung along the fence, drying in the winter sun. Guantanamo rules prohibit journalists from talking to detainees.

“I have instituted a very strict vetting program to get into Camp 4,” Vargo said. “If you abide by the rules and you get through the vetting program then we move you in there.”

Living conditions in Camps 5 and 6 are far stricter. Detainees are isolated up to 22 hours a day in individual cells.
Vargo said he wants to make Camp 6 more like Camp 4, and has mock-ups of modifications that will allow detainees to use indoor communal areas. He wants to keep guards separate from the detainees but still enable them to check on each prisoner every three minutes to prevent suicides.

“We’re doing something that is probably different in that this is a high-security detention facility with the amenities of a lower security facility,” Vargo said. “That’s what I’m trying to achieve.”

Zachary Katznelson, an attorney representing detainees, said he welcomes planned changes.

“Right now the men in Camp 6 sit in steel boxes without windows for at least 22 hours a day,” he said. “They have no mental stimulation, nothing to do.

“But the real issue remains the fact that the men are being held without charge or trial. English lessons do not equal a return to American values like due process. It’s just putting lipstick on a pig.”

Lawyer Sabin Willett said the military should completely shut down camps 5 and 6.

“Putting people in the central bomb silo of those tombs so that they can talk to each other is marginally better, but still insane,” he said.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Keep them entertained so they won’t get angry???? How about cracking the skulls of those who assault guards?
So now the leftie lawyers are running our military. This is insane!
Gitmo Resorts in collaboration with the US military is proud to offer this once in a lifetime opportunity. If you are or have been a member in good standing with either the Taliban or Al Qaeda then you could be the lucky recipient of a luxurious vacation in beautiful Guantanamo Bay Cuba .
To see if you qualify, simply visit one of the US Marine detachments located conveniently near your cave. If you are selected then you will be whisked away in one of our finest, state of the art, transport planes. Upon arrival at the Gitmo Resort you will be pampered beyond your wildest dreams.

Nicolas Sarkozy offers French troops to join Canadians in fighting the Taleban in Kandahar
TimesOnline.co.uk
President Sarkozy rode to the rescue of beleaguered Nato forces in southern Afghanistan yesterday when he offered to deploy French troops alongside Canadians in Kandahar.
The French leader has been the most forthcoming of Nato leaders in answering the urgent call to help the troops fighting Taleban insurgents.
After Canada’s repeated warnings that it would pull its 2,500 troops out of Kandahar if no other alliance member came to support them, France has been the only country to hint at sending reinforcements.
French and Canadian officials are discussing the logistics of operating a combined force. A delegation was sent to Paris from Ottawa yesterday.
The move by the French was being seen as further evidence of President Sarkozy’s willingness to draw closer to the alliance, with the possibility of France rejoining Nato’s integrated military stucture, from which President de Gaulle withdrew in 1967.
Canada wants 1,000 extra soldiers to fight in Kandahar, but the indications so far are that Paris has a smaller-sized force in mind. A French diplomatic source said that decisions would not be made public until the Nato summit in Bucharest in April.
If France meets only a proportion of the required 1,000 extra troops, another Nato country will have to make an offer to ensure that Canada keeps its 2,500 soldiers in Kandahar. Canada has asked Poland to deploy troops but at the Nato defence ministers’ informal meeting in Vilnius yesterday, Bogdan Klich, the Polish minister, said there were no plans to send its 1,200 soldiers, based in eastern Afghanistan, to the south because of the increased risks. “This province doesn’t meet our baseline criteria, which hinge on reducing the risks to our contingent,” he told a Polish newspaper. However, Poland confirmed it would raise its troop numbers in Afghanistan to 1,600 later this year. Norway said it planned to send another 200 troops to add to its present 500.
British diplomatic sources said there were no obvious candidates yet for the appointment of UN special envoy to Afghanistan, after President Karzai’s rejection of Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I prefer to see them fighting the jihadist rather than surrendering to them. What a difference in this President then the last one France had.

Huckabee Vows To Press On
The Hill
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s campaign said Thursday the former governor will continue his campaign for the Republican nomination even now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has left the race.
A spokeswoman for Huckabee said the campaign plans to “press forward.”
“We know it’s an uphill climb, but we knew that a year ago when we announced,” said Kirsten Fedewa, a Huckabee spokeswoman.
With Romney out of the race, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is considered by most to be the presumptive frontrunner.
That said, Huckabee strung together an impressive slew of Southern victories on Super Tuesday, winning contests in his home state as well as West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
So, he’s going to force McCain to choose him for VP.
Great.LOL McCain isn’t going to be forced to pick Huckabee, and he isn’t going to be forced to sincerely reach out to conservatives. Huckabee won West Virginia, but only because McCain gave it to him. Yes, Huck vows to press on.
Anybody with half a brain knows this charlatan has no chance of winning the nomination. He’s gathering bargaining chips for his self-aggrandizement and a position in the McCain presidential campaign.

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This is something I want to share with you. I have been taking notes about this, getting links and putting it together for awhile. There is a lot of information below and some of you might have known about it already. There may be some things here that are new or more detailed so please feel free to get the word out and if you like add it to your information about the candidate known as John McCain. – Wild Thing

The Reform Institute, founded in 2001 after Sen. McCain’s failed presidential bid. The chairman of the board of the Reform Institute is … John McCain. If you go to look at the press releases at reforminstitute.org, you will see that virtually every release mentions Sen. McCain in the first sentence. Not paragraph, sentence. Who runs the Reform Institute? Who is Richard Davis? He was John McCain’s 2000 campaign manager. The counsel to the Reform Institute is Trevor Potter, whose law firm is paid more than $50,000 a year for the work. Who is Trevor Potter? Why, he was legal counsel to McCain 2000! The finance director of the Reform Institute is a woman named Carla Eudy. She was finance director for McCain 2000. The communications director is Crystal Benton; she was McCain’s press secretary.
Recently the Reform Institute, which bills itself as “a thoughtful, moderate voice for reform in the campaign finance and election administration debates,” launched what it calls the Natural Resources Stewardship Project. And what does natural resources stewardship have to do with “campaign finance and election administration”? As near as I can tell, its only connection to campaign finance and election administration is, as the institute’s site tells us, that “Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have introduced the Climate Stewardship Act” in Congress. And, of course, John McCain is planning to run for president again, and his signature issue, other than campaign finance regulation, is global warming. To run the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, the institute hired John Raidt, who, you guessed it, served 15 years working on “environmental initiatives” for Sen. McCain.
And how is the Reform Institute funded? With contributions, in six figures or more, from individuals and corporations, including the cable company Cablevision. Cable companies are constantly before the Senate Commerce Committee, which Sen. McCain chaired at the time of Cablevision’s contribution. In fact, Cablevision gave $200,000 to the Reform Institute around the same time its officials were testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee. Appearance of corruption, anyone?
McCain’s Reform Institute for Campaign and Election Issues has long served as a nerve center for the so-called “campaign finance reform”. It is a Virginia-based nonprofit group that McCain helped start to promote many of his trademark reform efforts, including increasing the transparency of lobbying and campaign financing.
Now let’s look at Rick Davis.
One of the jobs that Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager does is to get funds. Now that we are getting down to the nitty gritty in this election let’s look at something interesting.
Why does Rick Davis just about exclusively seek out for the major funding from these I will llist below some of them that support McCain, a supposedly conservative Republican? The list of donors published on the Reform Institute’s Web site reads like a veritable Who’s Who of radical, leftwing foundations.
Donations above $50,000 Or click HERE and go to ABOUT then to Donors.

Mr. William Bloomfield
Carnegie Corporation of New York
CSC Holdings, Inc.
Echosphere
The Educational Foundation of America
The JEHT Foundation
Mr. Jerome Kohlberg, Jr. Revocable Trust
McMullen Family Foundation
OSI Constitution & Legal Policy Program
Proteus Fund
Mr. Charles H. Spaulding
Stuart Family Foundation
Tides Foundation
American International Group Inc

~ The Tides Foundation, which heavily promotes “reproductive justice”, giving over $500,000 to pro-abortion efforts. They also actively oppose the death penalty.
~ Educational Foundation Of America, which also supports abortion. EFA also opposes drilling in ANWR. EFA appears to contribute to just about every left-wing cause imaginable, as well as a number of noncontriversial charities and outreach efforts.
~ The Proteus Fund, this group spent $935K on supporting gay marriage initiatives. They have also spent over $800,000 funding nuclear-disarmament and antiwar causes in each of the last two years. Their Security Policy Working Group contains nothing but left-of-center groups like Project on Defense Alternatives, which calls the Iraqi elections “faulty”.
~ OSI (Open Society Institute), founded and funded by George Soros. His name is all over it, including the link. is http://www.soros.org/. Among a litany of left-wing causes supported by OSI are People For The American Way, to support their Supreme Court Project.
And at the same site iyou can click on Leadership as well in the right side column to see the names you might be familar with, these are only a few names:

Arianna Huffington
U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE)
Lindsey Graham…U.S. Senator
former U.S. Senators David Boren (D-OK)
Charles Bass, former congressman (R-NH)

Arianna Huffington serves on the Reform Institute’s Advisory Board. Huffington has long acted as a front for George Soros’ “campaign finance reform” efforts. In 2000, she organized the so-called Shadow Conventions which provided John McCain with a bully pulpit to stump for his now-infamous McCain-Feingold Act.
McCain is another political chameleon. AND he certainly is no conservative. He will be anywhere, say anything, or do anything to gain power. Add to this McCain was on the committee with JOHN KERRY – where they accepted the NV accounting of our missing in action. And .. of course Kerry was not going to force his friends to account for our men.
Maybe McCain didn’t pull the trigger – but he sentenced those men to die in some stinking prison somewhere.
All the way back to 2005, radio talk show host Mark Levin also reported on McCain’s connection to Soros, Carnegie Foundation and other far left groups. I took some notes while he spoke about all of this. Then looked it up again this last week.
Soros has hedged his bets on both sides.
And we kept hearing over and over from Huck and McCain and the media, as they kept putting Mitt Romney down constantly for putting his own funds into his campaign! I find it nice that Romney cared enough about his cause to put his money where his mouth is kind of thing. I remember when Mitt was asked about it he said. He didn;’t want anyone to donate more then he did, that way he was not obligated to anyone for favors when he hopefully became President!

The Lies of Tet
Wallstreet Journal
By ARTHUR HERMAN
February 6, 2008; Page A19
On January 30, 1968, more than a quarter million North Vietnamese soldiers and 100,000 Viet Cong irregulars launched a massive attack on South Vietnam. But the public didn’t hear about who had won this most decisive battle of the Vietnam War, the so-called Tet offensive, until much too late.
Media misreporting of Tet passed into our collective memory. That picture gave antiwar activism an unwarranted credibility that persists today in Congress, and in the media reaction to the war in Iraq. The Tet experience provides a narrative model for those who wish to see all U.S. military successes — such as the Petraeus surge — minimized and glossed over.
In truth, the war in Vietnam was lost on the propaganda front, in great measure due to the press’s pervasive misreporting of the clear U.S. victory at Tet as a defeat. Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight.
The Tet offensive came at the end of a long string of communist setbacks. By 1967 their insurgent army in the South, the Viet Cong, had proved increasingly ineffective, both as a military and political force. Once American combat troops began arriving in the summer of 1965, the communists were mauled in one battle after another, despite massive Hanoi support for the southern insurgency with soldiers and arms. By 1967 the VC had lost control over areas like the Mekong Delta — ironically, the very place where reporters David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan had first diagnosed a Vietnam “quagmire” that never existed.
The Tet offensive was Hanoi’s desperate throw of the dice to seize South Vietnam’s northern provinces using conventional armies, while simultaneously triggering a popular uprising in support of the Viet Cong. Both failed. Americans and South Vietnamese soon put down the attacks, which began under cover of a cease-fire to celebrate the Tet lunar new year. By March 2, when U.S. Marines crushed the last North Vietnamese pockets of resistance in the northern city of Hue, the VC had lost 80,000-100,000 killed or wounded without capturing a single province.
Tet was a particularly crushing defeat for the VC. It had not only failed to trigger any uprising but also cost them “our best people,” as former Viet Cong doctor Duong Quyunh Hoa later admitted to reporter Stanley Karnow. Yet the very fact of the U.S. military victory — “The North Vietnamese,” noted National Security official William Bundy at the time, “fought to the last Viet Cong” — was spun otherwise by most of the U.S. press.
As the Washington Post’s Saigon bureau chief Peter Braestrup documented in his 1977 book, “The Big Story,” the desperate fury of the communist attacks including on Saigon, where most reporters lived and worked, caught the press by surprise. (Not the military: It had been expecting an attack and had been on full alert since Jan. 24.) It also put many reporters in physical danger for the first time. Braestrup, a former Marine, calculated that only 40 of 354 print and TV journalists covering the war at the time had seen any real fighting. Their own panic deeply colored their reportage, suggesting that the communist assault had flung Vietnam into chaos.
Their editors at home, like CBS’s Walter Cronkite, seized on the distorted reporting to discredit the military’s version of events. The Viet Cong insurgency was in its death throes, just as U.S. military officials assured the American people at the time. Yet the press version painted a different picture.
To quote Braestrup, “the media tended to leave the shock and confusion of early February, as then perceived, fixed as the final impression of Tet” and of Vietnam generally. “Drama was perpetuated at the expense of information,” and “the negative trend” of media reporting “added to the distortion of the real situation on the ground in Vietnam.”
The North Vietnamese were delighted. On the heels of their devastating defeat, Hanoi increasingly shifted its propaganda efforts toward the media and the antiwar movement. Causing American (not South Vietnamese) casualties, even at heavy cost, became a battlefield objective in order to reinforce the American media’s narrative of a failing policy in Vietnam.
Yet thanks to the success of Tet, the numbers of Americans dying in Vietnam steadily declined — from almost 15,000 in 1968 to 9,414 in 1969 and 4,221 in 1970 — by which time the Viet Cong had ceased to exist as a viable fighting force. One Vietnamese province after another witnessed new peace and stability. By the end of 1969 over 70% of South Vietnam’s population was under government control, compared to 42% at the beginning of 1968. In 1970 and 1971, American ambassador Ellsworth Bunker estimated that 90% of Vietnamese lived in zones under government control.
However, all this went unnoticed because misreporting about Tet had left the image of Vietnam as a botched counterinsurgency — an image nearly half a decade out of date. The failure of the North’s next massive invasion over Easter 1972, which cost the North Vietnamese army another 100,000 men and half their tanks and artillery, finally forced it to sign the peace accords in Paris and formally to recognize the Republic of South Vietnam. By August 1972 there were no U.S. combat forces left in Vietnam, precisely because, contrary to the overwhelming mass of press reports, American policy there had been a success.
To Congress and the public, however, the war had been nothing but a debacle. And by withdrawing American troops, President Nixon gave up any U.S. political or military leverage on Vietnam’s future. With U.S. military might out of the equation, the North quickly cheated on the Paris accords. When its re-equipped army launched a massive attack in 1975, Congress refused to redeem Nixon’s pledges of military support for the South. Instead, President Gerald Ford bowed to what the media had convinced the American public was inevitable: the fall of Vietnam.
The collapse of South Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia, soon followed. Southeast Asia entered the era of the “killing fields,” exterminating in a brief few years an estimated two million people — 30% of the Cambodian population. American military policy has borne the scars of Vietnam ever since.
It had all been preventable — but for the lies of Tet.
Mr. Herman is the author of “Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age,” to be published by Bantam Dell in April.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I will never forgive Chronkite and others for their LIES about Tet. He most certainly sold out our troops and our country with his lies. Chief Cheer Leader in the media for the anti-American crowd was Walter Cronkite.

….. Thank you Cuchieddie for sending this to me.

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First it is important to note something that Corzine has been up to lately……………………..

Corzine to Propose Huge Financial Move for N.J.
TRENTON

Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Tuesday proposed the biggest financial gambit in New Jersey’s history, arguing that almost quadrupling highway tolls over the next 15 years could help generate about $38 billion to help the state pay off half of its debt and pay for transportation improvements.
He said that his plan to turn over operation of the toll roads to a Public Benefit Corporation, tied with a freeze in state spending and toll increases of 50 percent every four years from 2010 to 2022, is the best of all possible options to reduce the state’s $32 billion debt.
Drivers would face a maximum 50 percent increase in tolls on the state’s three toll roads — the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway — every four years, beginning in 2010, and subject to inflation, under Mr. Corzine’s proposal. A portion of a fourth highway — Route 440, which runs from Woodbridge to the Outerbridge Crossing — would become a toll road, as well.
The proposal to use the state’s toll roads to raise money is part of a four-point plan Mr. Corzine outlined to dig New Jersey out of its financial morass. He also said he wanted to freeze spending in the budget that is now being drafted, to limit future increases in spending to increases in recurring revenue and to amend the state constitution to require that voter approval be obtained before the state borrows money.
“It’s not something I want to do,” Mr. Corzine said of the financial plan. “This proposal is a solution, a solution to restore the state’s financial integrity, health and capacity.”
In responding to the myriad of calls to cut, not freeze, state spending, Corzine referenced the costumed member of the Flying Pigs Club – dressed, as one would guess, like a pig with wings – who was there to protest Corzine’s assertion in his State of the State address that “pigs will fly” over Trenton before any new taxes or spending cuts would realistically be approved.

And then there is this……………….
Menendez and Corzine tout each other as VP candidates
It was a Jon Corzine/Bob Menendez love fest today as each exclaimed the others’ qualifications to be second in command under a President Hillary Clinton.
Although Corzine has all but ruled out any possibility of working in Washington next year if Clinton wins the presidential election, Menendez thinks he’d be a splendid choice for Vice President.
How about clearing a few things up first Mr. Menendez? You are always implying that you and your family came to America to escape Castro’s regime.
If you did, than you were not born a U.S. citizen. Your birthday is January 1, 1954. Castro assumed power in Cuba 1959.
Then there is this…………….
Mayor aided murderer
Menendez glad to help an ‘innocent man’
Hudson Dispatch
Wednesday, October 7, 1987
By Douglas Lavin
UNION CITY
Mayor Robert Menendez has contributed funds for a convicted Cuban-American terrorist and murderer wo was the kingpin of Omega 7.
Menendez, the city’s first Cuban-American mayor, said he supports the use of violence and breaking the rule of law in the fight for a free Cuba, but also said his contribution made at a Friday fund-raiser was intended only to supply Eduardo Arocena with legal counsel.
“I endorse the fact that there are times when what one looks at as a law at a given time has to be broken,” Menendez said, adding that the fight should be carried out “wherever the enemy may be.”
Bernard F. Kenny, Menendez’s Democratic running mate in the Assembly race to represent North Hudson’s 33rd District, also was at the dinner, but said yesterday he did not know the event was a fundraiser or was linked to terrorists.
Kenny said public officials have an obligation to uphold the law.
“I think any public official has to take a strong stance on that,” he said.
Jose O. Arango, the Cuban-born Republican assemblyman who is opposing Menendez and Kenny, said he would contribute to Arocena’s legal defense if asked. Arango said he did not endorse illegal activity in the United State, but said he would contribute money to help ensure “an innocent man is not convicted.”
Menendez took a similar stance and said Arocena needed a new trial because he did not have proper legal counsel during his trial.
Micahel L. Tabak, the asssitant U.S. attorney who was in charge of the prosecution, siad Arocena rejected a free, court appointed attorney from own of Manhattan’s best law firms and instead chose two of his own attorneys, who represented him during the trial.

“The record is clear that Arocena was represented by counsel,” Tabak said.

Arocena, a former New Jersey longshoreman, was convicted in 1984 of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy bombings and perjury.
In December 1985, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan denied an appeal, calling the government’s case, which included 85 witnesses and “copius” physical evidence, “overwhelming and impressive.”
The court also called Arocena the “kingpin” of Omega 7 and said the group financed its crimes of bombings and murder through drug trade and extortion.
Since 1973, Omega 7 has claimed responsibility for more that 30 terror bombings in New York, New Jersey and Miami.

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Wild Thing’s comment……….
I have a cousin and his wife that live in N.J. and he works in New York City. So this toll thing will effect him too.
As always, the Democratic solution to anything…raise taxes. like those NYC commuters driving from Toms River on the NJ Parkway can be paying upwards of $6.65 +$8 + $8 per day just to get into the city. The NJ Transit trains are already over capacity during rush hour now, this will only make it worse. No doubt a NJ Transit fare increase will follow soon enough.
Like Rush Limbaugh has always said: “To liberals, socialism never failed….it just was not tried by the right people.”
And interesting how these two Corzine and Menendez would like to be Hillary’s VP.

….Thank you Les for this article about the tolls.

Well I am watching CPAC and Laura Ingraham introduced Mitt Romney. Mitt gave an AWESOME speech and then he pulled out of the race. I am crying, yep I am. Sorry but this is so horrible. Mitt was coming further and further more and more conservative. And now what do we have left is a traitor to our POW’s, to our security with his Amnesty obsession and a whiner jerk Huckabee. God help us. I will NOT be voting for a President for the first time in my life. I WILL like I said vote to get conservatives in the congressional races. DAMN just Damn!

To all the so called conservatives that want McCain enjoy the monster you are working so hard to elect. I doubt the POW’s left behind will thank you though.

My POW page at my webstie

Just one last thing, a HUGE thank you to Team Theodore, gosh I love you all so much.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2005/04/12/VI2005041201139.html

ONCE JOHN WINS, HE’LL MAKE A LEFT
By CHARLES HURT
New York Post
February 6, 2008

RUNNING as a conserva tive, John McCain rolled up huge victories last night in New York, New Jersey and beyond.
But if history is any guide, the McCain we’ve seen of late on the campaign trail is the most conservative McCain we’ll ever see.
He has taken a commanding lead in the GOP primary by packaging himself as the “true conservative” committed to limited government, to slashed federal spending and to an avowedly conservative Supreme Court.
He claims the mantle of Ronald Reagan. He even claims the mantle of Barry Goldwater, conservatism’s crack version of Reagan. But as McCain clinches the GOP nomination, he will begin his usual leftward lurch.
He will return to his lifelong positions as soft on illegal immigration, skeptical of tax cuts and favoring strong federal control over things like campaign financing.
McCain’s appeal to independents and even the left is what makes him such a powerhouse in the general election.
It is also precisely what has so many in the Republican base so wildly fearful of handing him the keys to the kingdom.
If the Republican Party expands “because we have a candidate who’s going out trying to attract liberals by being like them, then the party’s going to be around but you won’t recognize it,” thundered radio king Rush Limbaugh.
The Republican Party will “be over as it exists now,” he warns.
To understand just how McCain has managed to limp to the front of the GOP field, look no further than the outcome of yesterday’s West Virginia Republican Convention.
At the outset, victory was in the air for Mitt Romney, the flip-flopping former Massachusetts governor.
He is universally loathed by all the other GOP candidates, who banded together to give all their votes to Mike Huckabee – simply to deny Romney a win.
The depressing GOP field that has paved a path to victory for McCain also gave surprising wins last night to Huckabee in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as in his home state of Arkansas.
Still, McCain has so radicalized key conservatives that some have vowed to turn themselves into suicide voters next November by pulling the lever for Hillary Rodham Clinton over him.
This last-minute blitz against McCain by Limbaugh and others, however, comes far too late.
But if those conservatives sit out the general election, they will help Democrats make history by electing either the first black president or the first female president next November.

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Wild Thing’s comment…….

“Still, McCain has so radicalized key conservatives that some have vowed to turn themselves into suicide voters next November by pulling the lever for Hillary Rodham Clinton over him.”
SUICIDE VOTERS ! LOL!
John Mc Cain is the modern day Benedict Arnold. McQueeg is not Reaganesque, he’s Nixonian and worse in his dirty tricks on Super Tuesday. And we all know how McCain has attacked conservatism. Voters have been dumbed down to the point that they follow whatever they are told to do. Most of them. Conservatives, however, do still think for themselves. That will be McCain’s downfall.
According to the votes, Romney is winning the conservative vote big time. That is GOOD news. Then there is the but…….But unfortunately McCain is winning the votes from the rino’s and dems in the Republican party. And who know there is also a chance that Dems that are not as left as Hillary and Obama will be voting for McCain as well. Just my guess because where does a ‘dem lite’ go but to McCain.
McCain is not a conservative and barely a Republican. Before this year is out, the letters GOP will come to mean, “Get Out of Politics.”
Conservatives/Republicans never voted for open borders, trashing the First Amendment, “constitutional rights” for terrorists, or sacrificing the integrity of the Constitution in order to “protect the supposed integrity of Senate chicanery. No doubt, to the media and in John McCain’s mind, this is how the results are to be interpreted.
Turn left???
The man IS a democrat. – In the mold of a Lieberman on defense.
Okay, lets give that thought a roll here and see what turns up:
1) Endorses participation in the ICC. – so does Hillary.
2) Voted against the Bush tax cuts. – so did Hillary. ( McCain (only 2GOP / with Lincoln Chafee)….stated due to “tax cuts for the rich” typical liberal class warfare.
3) Wants Gitmo closed. – so does Hillary.
4) Demands an end to waterboarding. – so does Hillary.
5) Wants terrorists to have access to trial in America. – so does Hillary.
6) Wants America to be bound to a “Global Warming” agenda. – so does Hillary.
McCain supports Gore’s radical Global Warming approach
7) Wants amnesty, and authored and voted for McCain/Kennedy – so did Hillary.
Juan Hernandez in his campaign
8) Does not exclude known criminals and felons from amnesty. – neither does Hillary.
9) Does not believe that immigrants of any type should learn English. – Neither does Hillary.
10) has zero record on appointing judges. Neither does Hillary but they both did great damage to the process recently, John with the gang of .. how many? and Hillary with her voting record. Voted for Ruth Bader Ginsberg…
then also formed Gang 14 to prevent Bush’s appointments
11) John has a history of ill controlled temper – so does Hillary.
12) John opposes drilling in ANWAR – so does Hillary.
13) McCain – Feingold : against free political speech hurt GOP
14) Against Reagan’s Freedom Fighters in Nicaragua / El Salvador

Take out one or two fiscal issues and the man is closer to most dems than most dems are to each other!
There is still hope and there always will be. As long as conservatives never give up. I am talking about the Congress. This time around a number of senatorial seats, and House seats are coming up for election. If we can steer congress, we can get the judges we need.
The socialists think long term and will take half a loaf if they can get it, come back later and try to get a few more slices.
The SCOTUS will affect life for the next generation at least. Look for Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, maybe even Souter to retire after the elections, leaving the balance of the court subject to liberals.
Our job should be to get Representatives and Senators elected to stop that from happening. It’s taken them the better part of a century to fully envelop the democratic party. They now are making inroads into the Republican party. They are patient, determined and they want us on the run.
Bottom line, I am still hoping Romney can make it to November and I can vote for him. He has been moving to more conservative ideals and beliefs, and McCain well all he does is move further and further to the left. If not then I will concentrate on the other things I mentioned. There IS always hope this is America and we are a country of people that know the cost of our freedom and the lives lost and injured to make this the land of the FREE. IMO our POW’s from the Vietnam war and all the way back to WW11 are counting on us. Our burned, injured and handicapped Veterans from every war are counting on us. I will never turn my back on them.
God bless our country and thank God we live here where we can still speak out with our votes, and emails like we did with the TWO times Amnesty was attempted to be shoved upon us. I won’t and never will give up.

40 years ago yesterday the 6th of February, was the very day the Marines were in Hue retaking the city which the communists treacherously occupied during the Tet truce which they had signed. The Marines were vastly outnumbered, the weather was bad and no helicopter logistical support was available. All the bridges were blown and no land convoys could provide support.
The Marines were endowed us with a secret weapon, not often mentioned when Hue is talked about is the interesting fact that their regimental commander, Colonel Stanley Hughes, had earned a Navy Cross as an enlisted Marine on Guadalcanal. He earned another there in Hue. Our Marine officers and enlisted Marines of today just like Hughes and others know what a few Marines can do when things look grim.
Those in Berkley against our awesome Marines don’t have a clue the price paid by not only our Marines but every branch of our military. The pity is for their children that they will teach their sick and ungrateful thinking to. My hope is that as they grow up they learn the real truth and pass that respect for our troops on to future generations. ~ Wild Thing

” In September 1967, the squadron returned once again to MCAS El Toro and painted the Red Devil insignia on their new McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms. Re-designated as Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232, the squadron returned to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan, as a MIG-alert squadron and subsequently deployed to Da Nang, Vietnam, and Nam Phong, Thailand. Here they continued to fly air-to-ground sorties in addition to playing a key fighter role in Operation LINEBACKER missions over North Vietnam. The only “last” in VMFA-232’s history occurred on 1 September 1973, as the Red Devils became the last Marine squadron to leave Southeast Asia.” ~ VMFA 232 (Red Devils), Phantom Phixer (F4-J)

America’s Marines

The Silent Drill Platoon takes New York by storm.

Production of America’s Marines gets a warm reception at Independence Hall, and later at the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation dinner.

The Silent Drill Platoon visits the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, Virginia, and performs before a crowd in front of the museum.

Filming of America’s Marines kicked off September 11th at the Golden Gate bridge

McCain rips club for growth during a trip to New Hampshire
This is an illegal alien lay-up site, of which there are thousands along our southern frontier, because of policies by open-border Senator John McCain.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
What amazes me is McCain WON his own State of AZ. What the hell is wrong with residents of AZ.? By voting for McCain how can they make one complaint now about the illegals and their crimes, murder, rape, molesting children, drugs etc. Give me a break! They had a chance on Super Tuesday to vote big time for Romney a man that calls it like it is Amnesty and he said to right to McCain during the debates. They had a choice and I think they made the wrong one.