The Right State

The noise from the right has been loud, long, and sustained. Their combined voices have told Nancy Pelosi to say ‘no’ to Alcee Hastings for chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. And it looks like we have been heard.

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi has told Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings that he will not be the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the two Democrats announced Tuesday.

“I have been informed by the speaker-elect that I will not serve as the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 110th Congress. I am obviously disappointed with this decision. As we learn in Ecclesiastes, however, for everything there is a season,” he said in a press statement.

“Congressman Alcee Hastings and I have had extensive consultations, and today I advised him that I would select someone else as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Alcee Hastings has always placed national security as his highest priority. He has served our country well, and I have full confidence that he will continue to do so,” Pelosi said in a separate release.

For some odd reason, Pelosi thought that we would just accept a man who has previously accepted bribes to be chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Her ‘trust me’ is not good enough. Anyone who would accept bribes may also sell secrets. And that is one thing we can not allow to happen.

I have no delusions that Pelosi has decided to do what is right. She has already faced defeat when her candidate for the House Majority Leader, the corrupt John Murtha, was rejected overwhelmingly by the Democrats. The writing is on the wall and it says more defeat will follow if she selects an impeached judge for the chairmanship of the super-important House Intelligence Committee. Only this time the defeat will not come from the Democratic Party, but from the American people who see that Pelosi can not be trusted with selecting good leaders with impeccable integrity.

Further signs that Pelosi does not know what she is doing can be demonstrated by her lack of understanding of the situation in Iraq.

House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters on Wednesday that she feels it is “sad” that President Bush continues to blame Iraqi insurgent violence on al Qaeda.

“My thoughts on the president’s representations are well-known,” Pelosi said. “The 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again.”

Pelosi’s idiotic statements come on the heels of a press conference by General Caldwell in which he outlines what al Qaeda has been doing in Iraq.

Pelosi’s statement also followed a press briefing in Baghdad earlier today, where a US military spokesman was unable to state clearly what role al Qaeda plays in Iraq violence.

Displaying a series of slides and charts, the spokesman for the multinational forces in Iraq claimed that “since October of 2004, we have now killed or captured over 7,000 al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists.”

According to Major General William Caldwell, because Iraq still has a “government moving forward” with “institutions in place,” and because al Qaeda in Iraq seeks “anarchy” instead of power, the current situation should not be considered a “civil war.”

Let’s put all of this into perspective. The military has captured over 7,000 al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq, including some of Osama bin Laden’s lieutenants. And our troops have captured documents which show that communications between bin Laden and his followers in Iraq have tried to foment sectarian violence. These two points are well-known and documented. So for Nancy Pelosi to say that al-Qaeda is not in Iraq is plain wrong. She is either being deceptive and partisan in her speech or she is totally ignorant of the situation in Iraq. Neither of these two qualities make a good leader.

Considering her bad choices for leadership posts and her lack of knowledge about Iraq, Pelosi is obviously well over her head as the new Speaker of the House.

Tags: Democrats, Iraq, War by Chuck
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I have stated previously that it is not the troops who have lost touch with society, but the left who have lost touch with our troops.  BlackFive has a post where he shows the same thing.  This is not purely a US phenomenon, England is also having it’s share of lefty moonbats who see their soldiers as instigators in this war on terror.

Two Royal Marines were refused entry to a bar just hours after a colleague’s funeral because they were in uniform.

The two servicemen went for a drink at the Walkabout bar in Liverpool city centre following the funeral of Corporal Ben Nowak at the city’s Anglican cathedral.

Then comes this jewel of a quote from bar owners:

A spokesman for Walkabout said: “As a responsible bar operator, we have a strict policy of refusing entry to anyone believed to be aggressive. (snip)

The spokesman offered his condolences to Cpl Nowak’s friends, comrades and family and offered the group who were turned away a complimentary lunch. He stressed the soldiers must not be in uniform. (emphasis added by TRS)

Apparently the soldiers appeared to be aggressive because they were in ‘uniform.’  It makes me wonder if the bouncers would deny entry by a Muslim wearing a traditional Islamic attire.  Probably not.  All is not lost, many patrons in the bar were outraged by the bar’s actions.  And according to the bar owners, sales have plummeted since this news came to light.

It is amazing to see what the left thinks of our brave men and women risking their lives to serve their country both in the United States and in England.  Whether it is John Murtha who says our troops are murderers, Newsweek who publishes fake stories about flushing the Koran, Lawrence O’Donnell saying that our troops are not in touch with the rest of society, Charlie Rangel who blatantly states that our troops are not patriotic but just have no other options other than the military, or a bar in Liverpool England who denies entry for their heroes; the left has not only lost touch with our soldiers, they are abandoning them in mass.  They would trust AK-47 carrying Islamo-fascists before they would our heroes.  And that is truly sad.

Hat tip: In Training through BlackFive

Tags: Terrorism, Heroes, Moonbats by Chuck
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For years, the New York Times has claimed its First Amendment right under the Constitution to print whatever it wanted.  They leaked secret military planning for Afghanistan, selective leaking of the NIE, and the leaking of the financial data mining  of terrorists.  All of these were highly classified secrets the New York Times felt the world had a right to know.  The defense the Times has been using may be starting to come unraveled as the courts see a ‘compelling interest’ on the part of federal prosecutors to know who leaked a planned raid on two Muslim charities.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to shield the New York Times and two of its reporters from a prosecutor’s probe into who leaked word of planned raids on two Muslim charities five years ago.

The decision clears the way for federal prosecutors to review the phone records of the two reporters for several weeks in the fall of 2001. The prosecutor, U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Chicago, says the records will help point to the source of the leak.

The New York Times maintains it has a 1st Amendment right to protect the confidentiality of its sources. Floyd Abrams, the newspaper’s lawyer, said, “There has been no claim of wrongdoing against the Times reporters. The only thing at issue here is a leak investigation in which the government seeks to obtain information on who spoke to the journalists.”

Two years ago, lawyers for the newspaper went before a federal judge in New York and won an order that barred the prosecutor from examining the phone records.

But in August, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that order in a 2-1 decision. The prosecutor has a “compelling interest” in learning who tipped off the reporters to the planned raids, thereby “endangering federal agents” and permitting the “targets to spirit away incriminating information,” said Judge Ralph K. Winter in the appeals court opinion.

“We see no danger to the free press in so holding,” he added. “Learning of imminent law enforcement asset freezes or searches and informing targets of them is not an activity essential … to journalism.”

The Supreme Court has never squarely ruled that the news media has a 1st Amendment right to protect its confidential sources. On Monday, the justices turned down an emergency plea from the Times in a one-line order.

The question is, do the investigations stop here?  The Times have been involved in so many leaks which have harmed America’s war on terror. These leaks were not done because of the people’s right to know or the First Amendment rights, but they were leaked to harm a sitting president they did not like.

Now, its time to pay the piper.   Hopefully, the indictment of Judith Miller will be but the first of many who have knowingly printed classified documents. This should be the first of many salvos across the bow of the MSM who feel it is their duty to determine what needs to be classified and what does not, who is an enemy and who is not, who is a terrorist and who is not.

And while I am involved in wishful thinking, it would be nice if the media were on the side of America and her troops, at least every once in a while.  Unfortunately this may never take place.  This is going to be a long war against people who want to kill us and our way of life.  The New York Times seems to have chosen sides and now they are paying for it.

Tags: Terrorism, Bias, War by Chuck
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