On Saddam's (D, Hades) payroll

Remember in late 2002, when Congressmen Jim McDermott (D, WA), David Bonior (D, MI) and Mike Thompson (D, CA) went to Iraq to get photo ops with Iraqi children and denounce the Bush administration? At the time, they sounded as though they were on Saddam's payroll, as they impugned President Bush's integrity and voiced strong skepticism against the approaching campaign. As it turns out, they were indeed on Saddam's payroll, as the AP reports. A story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/ap_on_re_us/iraq_junket
shows that a non-profit organization in Michigan financed the trip with money it had laundered from Saddam himself. McDermott's spokesmen are claiming that they knew nothing about Saddam's involvement, but the situation begs several questions.
If they didn't know the source, where did they think the money came from? Did they think a lobbyist would pay for them to go to Iraq? McDermott admits that his entire purpose was to showcase the children who would be hurt by the invasion. He is not stupid - he had to know at the very least that Saddam could not have designed a better propaganda tool than three American Congressmen denouncing their own government on Iraqi soil surrounded by children. It doesn't matter whether McDermott knew Saddam had actually paid money - he fought part of Saddam's propaganda war for him. The argument amounts to, "I have no self-interest in this matter; we American useful idiots do the bidding of mass-murdering dictators free of charge."
What did Bonior know? Bonior was the Michigan native; he would be most likely to know something about the organization giving them money. I anticipate updates on this story.

Obama Denounces His Own Pastor

I am sure Barack Obama is the only presidential candidate in history to denounce the messages of his own pastor and simultaneously deny having heard the sermons in question. In 20 years of membership at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he has never heard Jeremiah Wright say that the U.S. developed AIDS to create genocide in Africa, that there are more black men in jail than in college, that the U.S. government carried out the 9/11 attacks, etc.? Even Wright's defenders all affirm that "social justice" is one of his main topics. "Social Justice" is usually synonymous with "black nationalism." If his claims of naivete are correct, Obama has certainly slept through a lot of sermons. This is Al Gore's Ice Tea Defense all over again. As of yesterday, Obama must have been one of the only people in America who had missed the publicity of Wright saying, "God damn America."
This situation resembles that of a work associate of my Dad a few years ago who faced discipline for visiting a pornographic website on a company computer. The man claimed that he left the site immediately upon realizing that it was pornographic, but his claims were hard to believe because he stayed at the site for 45 minutes before leaving. Twenty years is a little longer than 45 minutes. Some would call Obama's 20-year membership, his marriage ceremony at that church and his decision to have his daughters baptized there as something of an endorsement of the church.
Here is the heart of the matter: Jeremiah Wright is Obama's pastor of 20 years, his personal spiritual adviser, and he has just left his pulpit to work full time for the Obama Campaign. If Barack Obama will throw THIS man under the bus, who is next? Is he going to divorce Michelle for saying that she only just started being a proud American? This junior senator from Illinois is a very power-hungry young man.

It's "1984" in Canada

In true Orwellian fashion, the group currently in charge of censoring all potentially offensive speech, press and website material is the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). Currently, author and columnist Mark Steyn is facing a suit resulting from his book America Alone. He quotes an Imam verbatim and some Canadian Muslims have taken offense. The Imam says that the Muslims will take over Europe through the miracle of being fruitful and multiplying, which supports Steyn's thesis and is true. In simple point of fact, Europe is today a continent of yuppies who have at most one child and rely on Muslim immigrants for much of their population growth. Steyn's latest column on the CHRC and its attacks on free press is here: http://www.steynonline.com/content/blogcategory/15/100/
In the column, he observes that one single man, Richard Warman, has brought a significant number of lawsuits that the CHRC has prosecuted at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Warman scours the internet to find racist or possibly racist groups that might possibly offend someone and he sues on behalf of the someones. At the CHRC's own website, there are three suits chronicled that Warman brought against websites for the crime of violating others' "human rights" by expressing sentiments that he judges hateful. In Canada, people do not have the rights of free speech and free press because Mr. Warman is combing through every website he can lay eyes on to curb said rights.
Obviously, if those hateful groups commit any DEEDs that violate laws, they should face prosecution. the same people who keep telling Christians "you can't legislate morality" are censoring speech. If the groups practice discrimination in hiring, libelous defamation of specific parties, or some other civil offenses, the offended parties should be allowed to bring suit. Warman is not an offended party - he is a busy-body agent of the CHRC who is determined to bankrupt those who disagree with him.
In America, we have free speech and free press. No government agency sued or shut down the publishers of two books that discussed assassinating President Bush. The government made no complaint when some left-wingers made a movie titled "Death of a President" that actually shows President Bush getting shot through the advances of digital technology. No government entity of any kind took any action against the Dixie Chicks when they criticized President Bush. Rather, their fans stopped buying their music and now they imagine that they were stifled.
Maybe it is because we fought a Revolution and the Canadians did not that we preserve rights that they are selling cheeply.

A Bomb on Armed Forces Recruiters in NY

Terrorists set off a bomb at the Armed Forces Recruiting Site at Times Square this morning at 3:45 AM. Obviously, it is a domestic job from the anti-war faction of the Democrat Party, feeling a little upstaged by the display ELF made earlier in the week. The Homeland Security Department has already declared that the bombers pose no imminent threat to the United States. By blowing up an empty building, these ingrates sent an anti-military message, but salved their own consciences by not shedding any blood. Foreign or Islamist terrorists would have blown up the place while it was occupied.
Count me as one veteran who wishes they had set off the bomb by accident.