Theodore's World

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

Schumer said there were four lessons to be learned from Alito and Roberts: Confirmation hearings are meaningless, a nominee’s record should be weighed more heavily than rhetoric, “ideology matters” and “take the president at his word.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
The GOP has never made ideology is an issue. The liberals did with Bork, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. When will the GOP wake up? The Democrats want different rules when they are in power.
I have to wonder if it will come to the point where the citizens will have to demand a change….just like they did a 230 years ago.
Schumer is vicious, dishonest partisan scum. It was perfectly clear who Roberts and Alito are – the President nominates people he respects highly and the Senate confirms them.
The deliberate, cynical character assassination of Robert Bork was a threshhold moment, for me, when the Left began openely to wage unlimited warfare on conservatives and traditional America, using every low and dishonest technique to get their way, not just in politics but EVERYwhere.
Now they are dropping any pretense of following the constitution…if the presidents sends up a nomination, he gets an automatic rejection.

You can click on image to enlarge it for
easier read

Taliban in first heat-seeking missile attack
telegraph.co.uk
Taliban militants have used a heat-seeking surface-to-air missile to attack a Western aircraft over Afghanistan for the first time.
The attack with a weapon believed to have been smuggled across the border with Iran represents a worrying increase in the capability of the militants which Western commanders had long feared.
The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the Taliban attempted to bring down an American C-130 Hercules aircraft flying over the south-western province of Nimroz on July 22. The crew reported that a missile system locked on to their aircraft and that a missile was fired.
It closed in on the large C-130 aircraft, pursuing it as the pilots launched a series of violent evasive manoeuvres and jettisoned flares to confuse the heat sensors in the nose of the missile. Crew members said that they saw what they believe was a missile passing very close to the aircraft. The C-130 was not damaged in the attack.

“If there was such an incident of the type you describe in Nimroz it is classified,” said a Nato spokesman. “I can’t release it, if in fact it did occur.”

However, a surface-to-air missile alert was put out for Western aircraft travelling in the south-west of Afghanistan in the last week, which affected both civilian and military aircraft.
It was confirmed by civilian air operators in Helmand province. It remains in place. Western military commanders have been aware of concerted efforts by the Taliban to obtain shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, so-called Manpads (man portable air defence system).
The recent attack was probably with an SA7 shoulder-launched missile, an elderly model of Soviet or Chinese origin. Though relatively primitive they are still a potent weapon, particularly against low-flying helicopters, such as the workhorse Chinook transporters used by British forces in the southern Helmand province.
The C-130 attacked in Nimroz was flying at 11,000ft at the time of the attack, which is within the 2.5-5 km range of a shoulder-launched missile system such as the SA7.
Though the West supplied hundreds of sophisticated Stinger heat-seeking missiles to the Afghan Mujaheddin in the 1980s, they are not thought to be still usable because of the deterioration of their sophisticated electronics and battery systems.
As a contingency in 2002, the United States government offered an amnesty on Stingers and successfully bought back many of the missiles still in the arsenals of Afghan warlords for $40,000 a missile.
To date, the Taliban has shot down a number of Western helicopters, but only through the use of unguided rocket-propelled grenades, which have a range of only 500 yards.
In April members of the Special Boat Service operating in Nimroz province intercepted several truck loads of weapons coming across the Iranian border, including a working SA7 missile. It was one of a number of recent weapon caches that Western officials claim have been seized on the border with Iran, fuelling allegations by Britain and America that Iran, or elements within the Iranian government, have begun supplying arms to the Taliban.
Hundreds of SA7 missiles disappeared into the black market in Iraq in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, where they have since been used to shoot down dozens of helicopters and aircraft, reportedly including a British C-130 in 2005.
Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman said that the group would allow more time for an envoy from Seoul to travel to join talks for the release of 22 South Korean hostages. But the spokesman repeated the threat that militants would kill the 22 Christian missionaries.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Screw ROE! Most of these damn ‘rules’ are thought up by military lawyers officers in the Judge Advocate Generals’ corps.
Let’s win these damn wars , using the sharp end of the stick without any hands tied behind the back

Retired Gen. Jack Keane, a top Pentagon envoy, left, Lt. Col. Morris Goins, commander of the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, center, and Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, talk while visiting the U.S. troops in the field in Buhriz, north of Baghdad, Iraq

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A MUST SEE ~ Armed Services Committee Hearing
I URGE you all to watch this hearing on cspan-2. Lawerence Korb, the ever weak and wobbly former Reagan’s DOD official (I don’t know how he could be the same then as he is now and measure up to Reagan’s strength of character), AND Gen. Jack Keane (ret.) in hearing.
Keane was magnificent!! Gen. Keane is hitting it out of the park .. Korb said we pulled troops out of Viet Nam to preserve the military, and Keane was unabashed in his contempt for those remarks and that opinion.
Keane is praising the courage, command structure, morale and re-enlistment (in huge numbers) of this military, and God bless him! He said it’s horrible to say this war is lost, as if the troops over there don’t know the opinions here.
Duncan Hunter has been marvelous as well!
Senate Democrats do not want to fund the Military, damn I destest the left! Democrats are still grabbing at straws not to fund the Military, the buck stops here, our Military has to be financed and they are winning on the ground, too bad Democrats.

CLICK HERE to go tro C-Span ……..and if you go to where it says the words I have put below next just click on the words at C-Span. It is well worth it.
Video/Audio
RECENT PROGRAMS >>
House Armed Services Cmte.
Meeting & Markup on Iraq War
bills (7/27/2007)

BIO of : General Jack Keane served 37 years in the Army, rising to the rank of four-star General. General Keane was a career paratrooper who commanded at every level to include the 18th Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, NC; the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and Fort Campbell, KY; and the Joint Readiness Training Center. He also served as the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the United States Atlantic Command prior to becoming the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, and was featured in Tom Clancy’s book, AIRBORNE.
General Keane is a combat veteran having served as a platoon leader and company commander in Viet Nam. His units deployed to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Frank Primus, a student at Stanford University in 2000, prayed at the Islamic Society room at the Old Union Building on the Stanford Campus in Palo Alto, Calif. The Muslim Students’ Association has formed a task force to push for foot baths and prayer rooms at universities and colleges nationwide.

Some say schools giving Muslims special treatment
USA Today
Some public schools and universities are granting Muslim requests for prayer times, prayer rooms and ritual foot baths, prompting a debate on whether Islam is being given preferential treatment over other religions.
The University of Michigan at Dearborn is planning to build foot baths for Muslim students who wash their feet before prayer. An elementary school in San Diego created an extra recess period for Muslim pupils to pray.
At George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Muslim students using a “meditation space” laid out Muslim prayer rugs and separated men and women in accordance with their Islamic beliefs.
At the forefront of the movement is the Muslim Students’ Association, which has formed a Muslim Accommodations Task Force to push for foot baths and prayer rooms. At least 17 universities have foot baths built or under construction, including Boston University, George Washington University and Temple University, and at least nine universities have prayer rooms for “Muslim students only,” including Stanford, Emory and the University of Virginia, according to the MSA’s website. The association did not return calls seeking comment.

Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank, sees the requests as part of a movement to force the public to acquiesce to Islamic law.
“The goal of Islamists is the application of Islamic law,” Pipes says.

In the San Diego case, a substitute teacher at Carver Elementary School alleged that teachers were indoctrinating students into Islam. The San Diego Unified School District determined that a teacher’s aide was wrong to lead Muslim students in prayer. Carver still has a special recess to allow 100 Muslim students to pray.
The ACLU, which has often sued schools for permitting prayer, says it is waiting to see what kind of policy the school settles on before deciding whether to sue. It says promoting prayers is unconstitutional.

Wild Thing’s comment………
I don’t think most people really understand we are at war, not just away from our homeland but right here on our own soil. Weird I know and they are stupid, but how else can it be explained for this kind of giving in to go on. Next Shira law?!
If they are not going to assimilate, they have no business being in America.

WASHINGTON (AP)
A leading House Iraq war critic said Wednesday he’ll soon push legislation that would order U.S. troop withdrawals to begin in two months and predicted Republicans will swing behind it this time.
A vote on Rep. John Murrtha’s proposal likely will come in September, when Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus delivers a long-anticipated assessment on the war and members of Congress weigh some $600 billion in defense spending requested by President Bush.
Under his plan, Murtha, a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said that he envisions troop withdrawals to start in November and take about a year to complete.
The House has passed similar proposals in the past, including one that Bush vetoed. But Murtha said he predicts this vote will be different because of mounting voter frustration with the war and a lack of progress in Iraq.

“This is big time,” Murtha, D-Pa., told reporters of the upcoming war debate in September. “When you get to September, this is history. This is when we’re going to have a real confrontation with the president trying to work things out.”

In response to Murtha’s proposal, House Republican Leader John Boehner said Democrats were ignoring progress in Iraq.

“If they are not listening to reports from our generals today, how does anyone believe they will make an honest and objective decision in September?” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “Our national security is not a political football, and Republicans aren’t going to treat it as such.”

Murtha counters that he thinks Bush and GOP members will have no choice. To maintain current troop levels through 2008, Murtha predicted that combat tours would have to be extended from 15 months to 18 months — a politically unsavory position to take on an already deeply unpopular war.
The Defense Department has said that extending combat tours of troops would be a last resort.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Hmmmmmm I wonder what happened to Murtha’s strategic re-deployment to Okinawa?
“This is when we’re going to have a real confrontation with the president trying to work things out.”
Seems that all they live for these days is confrontation. The only folks they don’t want to confront is the enemy. God help me but I wish this traitorous SOB was six feet under.
The Surge will never be allowed to appear successful despite facts on the ground. The Democratic MSM has already discounted military success repeating the mantra there can’t be a military solution alone. They’ve also repeatedly blamed Iraqi politicians with the “going on vacation” sound byte as if they all went off sailboarding with John F’n Kerry.
But we all know the surge IS working! And I am so proud of our troops!

Democrats Say GOP Complaint of Spending ‘Shutdown’ Strategy Doesn’t Add Up
cq today
Republicans are uttering a word that for 12 years has been utterly unspeakable.
Shutdown.
It’s a word that can send shudders through those who saw the last one — actually, two — play out after Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. The Newt Gingrich-Bill Clinton standoff was so traumatic that since then, neither party has ventured anywhere in that direction.
This year’s appropriations tug-of-war between a new majority in Congress and a president of the opposing party does not appear to be headed for a government shutdown, but a rhetorical taboo was lifted when the word became part of the partisan message of the moment.

“The obvious plan of the Democrats is to not do appropriations bills but put everything together in a giant omnibus appropriations bill in a kind of legislative blackmail with all of the policy and increased spending, to in effect threaten the president to either sign the bill or be accused of shutting down the government,” Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chairman of the Republican Conference, said Wednesday.

President Bush has threatened to veto seven appropriations bills because together they would exceed his discretionary spending limit by more than $20 billion.
Congressional veterans are certain the two sides are headed for a whopper of a fight over a catchall, omnibus appropriations bill.

Former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he believed that a settlement was possible to avert a government shutdown at a time of war.

“It’s too early to predict a shutdown like 1995,” Hastert said. “Democrats know the president can’t shut down the government in the middle of a war. They shouldn’t be pushing him to the wall.”

The House expects to complete all of its fiscal 2008 appropriations bills before the August recess. But the Senate aims to complete only two of its spending bills by then: Homeland Security (HR 2638) and Military Construction-VA (HR 2642).

Reid scoffed at Republicans who say they are worried about the pace of appropriations work in the Senate.
“Maybe they should have thought of that before my filing 45 cloture petitions, where they’ve rejected everything we’ve done,” Reid said. “We’re going to work through these appropriations bills as fast as we can.”

And while Democrats rebuff Republicans and their accusations of shutdown politics, the majority is throwing some brickbats of its own.

“They’ve been stalling,’’ said John W. Olver, D-Mass., chairman of the House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee. “They are nihilists. They are jihadists.”

Wild Thing’s comment………
Here is a very clear example pointing to a democrat who has no clue about the jihad, global jihad; war on terror, and the global war on terror:

Al Sharpton: Black Voters Should Punish GOP
NM
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton said Thursday black voters should punish Republicans who fail to show for presidential candidates’ forums hosted by the National Urban League and the NAACP.

“We can only assume you weren’t courting us,” Sharpton said. “Republicans have to lay out their policies and court the African-American vote. We need to have our interests debated in the market place.”

Sharpton noted there won’t be another NAACP or Urban League conference before the presidential primaries.

“When I was in high school, I may not have gone to the prom with the girl I wanted, but with the girl I could get,” he said, suggesting Republicans leave black voters little choice but to vote for a Democrat.

Sharpton was among a panel of black leaders, political strategists from both major parties and journalists who discussed the black vote in the 2008 presidential election at the Urban League’s national conference here.
Five presidential candidates – four Democrats and one Republican – are scheduled to address the conference Friday. Among them are top-tier Democrats Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and John Edwards. The lone Republican is Rep. Duncan Hunter of California.
Earlier this month, all eight Democratic candidates participated in a forum at the NAACP meeting in Detroit. The only Republican was Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a long-shot candidate.
Shannon Reeves, director of state and local development for the Republican National Committee, said his role in the RNC was to get them to understand the black community.
“There are some in our party who don’t want to associate with our community,” he said to groans from the crowd. He added that “black folks had to kick the door open. The Democratic Party didn’t open it wide and say come on in.”
Urban League president Marc Morial said black voters deserve more than “drive-by politics and last-minute appeals to churches.” But, he admitted, “sometimes we aren’t good about getting out to vote.” He said no candidate has talked about black economic development, which is the civil rights organization’s major thrust.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
So when are the Democrats going to apologize and offer reparations for basically opposing every attempt to free the slaves, for implementing Jim Crow laws, and opposing civil rights, hmmm?
Sharpton is so stupid, not ALL black voters support the likes of Al. I listen to a lot of talk shows and there are a lot of blacks that call in and are embarrased by the likes of Sharpton. Yes most vote Demorat but Sharpton wants to keep race baiting them and for many it works. Only liberals would use the fact of sex and race to make an issue.

In case some of you have not seen this, it is excellent.

House rejects permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq
The House approved legislation Wednesday preventing the Pentagon from establishing any permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.
The legislation would bar the federal government from controlling any of that country’s oil resources.
Democratic leaders scheduled a vote on the measure, which was introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) , as part of a concession to some of their liberal members who have been clamoring to de-fund the war.

“It makes a clear statement of policy that the U.S. does not intend to maintain an open ended military presence in Iraq and that we won’t exercise control over Iraqi oil,” Lee said in a statement afterward. “The perception that the United States plans to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq strengthens the insurgency, and it fuels the violence against our troops.”

House members passed the measure, 399-24.
Roll Call Vote HERE

John Edwards Wants to Raise Minimum Wage to $9.50
wltx.com
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says the 70 cents per hour increase in the minimum wage is not enough.
The former North Carolina senator told reporters in McClellanville Wednesday he wants other presidential candidates to join him in calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2012.
Tuesday’s increase boosted the minimum wage to $5.85 per hour.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
“Sir, Can I offer you $3.00 fries to go along with your $6.00 Big Mac?”
This would of course drive the unemployment rate through the roof. But Edwards and his fellow travelers on the left don’t really care about the consequences of their economic foolishness. All they care about is pandering to the ignorant.