Iraq Surrender Policy Doesn't Go Down Well With People Fighting

Get all the posts here, but you've got to love this sailor who calls out the Congress for what they area: Defeatists. I like the part about calling on the Iraqi government to stand up when the Congress isn't even willing to do that.

As a sailor in Kuwait (it sounds weird to me too), I just want to tell you that those cowardly, greedy, short-sighted, spineless pieces of you know what that voted for this abortion of bill, should all be forced to come here for tour, just for a reality check. How can they complain about the Iraqi government not STEPPING UP, when the Congress is all but falling down! Talk about factions and greed! I can't believe the pork in that bill. If such an arbitrary date is not harmful, and we are leaving regardless of conditions, WHY NOT cut off funding for the Iraq campaign, and have us home tomorrow? Oh, right, they would look bad. The election news wouldn't hide it. Oh, yeah, election........ They believe that THEY will be in charge in November.....God forbid that there are any messy international problems, especially ones that they VOTED FOR AND AUTHORIZED

!

Just Another Day With Portland's Professional Protesters *Flag Defecation; Video of Burning Soldier in Effigy

Where's Portland's Apology to the Troops? Where's Portland's Apology to the Nation? Where's Portland's Apology to Schumachers? Contact Mayor Tom Potter here.
Turns out what they were doing last weekend WAS ILLEGAL.
Portland ordinance:
20.12.030 Unlawful Urination or Defecation.

No person shall urinate or defecate in any park except in a convenience station designed for that purpose; or blow, spread, or place any nasal or other bodily discharge; or spit, urinate, or defecate on the floors, walls, partitions, furniture, fittings, or on any portion of any public convenience station or in any place in such station, excepting directly into the particular fixture provided for that purpose; or place any bottle, can, cloth, rag, or metal, wood, or stone substance in any of the plumbing fixtures in any such station.

(This photo has been removed due to copyright considerations)

Right Couple, Wrong Sperm

The wife is from the Dominican Republic but surprise surprise! Their baby is black because of a problem at the old invitro clinic!
Get the story here.

Fruit Bats Gone Mad*UPDATE

In addition to the other protester pictures from Portland from over the weekend (see a few blog entries down here) there's THIS photo from San Francisco (above).

ADDITION FRIDAY 7:15 AM:
I've noticed that you've mentioned the editorial in the Oregonian separating this Portland anarchist bunch from the so called "peace" crowd. Sorry, no sale. The Orwellian named Portland Peaceful Response Coalition, the folks who have been leading pro Palestinian, anti United States, no war protests for years are EXACTLY among the people who were burning the soldier in effigy and declared F*** the Troops in their signs.

The PPRC, once upon a time, used to have their member groups listed on their website. They changed their website to members only and then eventually removed their list of members, but not until after I outed them on the air on my Saturday show on KPAM several years ago. Apparently pointing out their members on the air made them nervous. And why wouldn't they be? Their membership included what we now know are terror groups! Among their members are: EARTH FIRST, ELF and ALF (in addition to the usual communist and socialist party folks. Here's their current list of causes with which they associate. While there are the assorted far left groups with which they associate, this is a SIGNIFICANTLY SANITIZED LIST.

And let's duly note this: according to the folks who have been keeping track of the usual crazies out in front of Schumachers, two of the "regular" protesters from Schumachers WERE ARRESTED over the weekend at the "peace" protest. What are the chances that it's the first time these professional protesters have ever broken the law during a protest? Slim to none I'd say. So, Portland police, why aren't you more closely watching the Schumacher protesters...from the FRONT...not the back!
Read Debra Saunders piece on the Bush Lied trope here. Nut graphs here:

I decided to re-read the NIE excerpts that the administration released. What does the report say? "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." The NIE also reported that Iraq had "expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production," that Baghdad had renewed production of mustard and sarin gases, and that Iraqi missiles could threaten the "U.S. homeland."

Yes, the NIE key judgments reported that some officials in the State Department did not believe Saddam Hussein was pursuing a "comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons." But the report also noted that, "Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that (U.N. weapons) inspectors departed -- December 1998."

So let us review the Bush-lied argument that Anderson and other war critics espouse. They say Bush lied about WMD, when, in fact, America's best intelligence presented no doubt about Iraq having chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. And according to the NIE, most intelligence agencies also believed Iraq had been working on nukes for four years.

Here's another point that the Bush-lied misinformation campaign has forgotten. While war critics point to Bush's inclusion of this sentence -- "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" -- in his 2003 State of the Union Address as proof that Bush misled the country into war, Bush uttered those words three months after Congress voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

Bush Lied is the Big Lie. It takes the controversy over one aspect of U.S. intelligence on Iraq's WMD -- the nuclear program question -- to argue that the whole WMD argument was bogus. That is, the president's accusers are guilty of the very sort of dishonest selectivity that they accuse Bush of using.

Now the Bush-lied lie is boomeranging on those Democratic presidential hopefuls -- Sens. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd and former Sen. John Edwards -- who voted in favor of the Iraq war resolution.

By going along with the Bush-lied spin, by refusing to acknowledge that the intelligence community presented strong reasons to vote for war, these Democrats have boxed themselves into a corner. They now have only one rationale for their vote that they can use -- they were duped by the nincompoop Bush -- or one rationale that they cannot use -- they sent U.S. troops to Iraq against their better judgment but out of naked ambition.

Don't Forget Your TransFats Offsets at www.transfatfootprint.blogspot.com

Wife's Cancer Returns; Edwards Returns to Campaign

It's a family decision, but I'm mystified by John and Elizabeth Edwards' decision to stay in the Presidential race (story here). If I'm John Edwards--a man who's already lost a child--I think I'd want to spend as much time with my family as a whole while caring for my wife, Elizabeth, whose cancer has returned and has spread to the bone and possibly her lung.

It's not like he needs a paycheck.
Does he think the country can't live without him or something?
If it were a choice between my husband campaigning for a promotion or sticking around and spending as much time with me and the kids while I battled cancer, he'd choose me.

Equality is nice but SB 2 is Orwellian and UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

Reeducation:

(1) A program of public education calculated to eliminate attitudes upon which practices of discrimination because of race, { + color, + } religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, + } marital status { + , + } { - or national origin - } { + age or disability + } are based.

Perceived Protection:
How do you know if you're discriminating against a protected person?
You don't. Why? Because it also covers people who PERCEIVE themselves
to be a gender that they weren't born with.

{ +  (6) 'Sexual orientation' means an individual's actual
 or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality
 or gender identity, regardless of whether the individual's
gender identity, appearance, expression or behavior
differs from that traditionally associated with the individual's
sex at birth. + }


So if you're hiring for a hostess and your purple haired, tattooed,
drag queen applicant does not project the kind of image you
want as the hostess of your restaurant and you don't hire him/her??
 Screwed. That's what you are.

State must determine bona fide church status:
The Bill says if you operate a "Bona fide" church with you don't have to hire
one of these protected person so long as the state determines you're bona fide
AND it's an important job. So, for instance, if you operate a church you might
have to hire a flaming drag queen as the janitor under this law. Or the Sunday
School bus driver might be a flamboyant gay man, who may be the nicest
guy in the world, but ain't the kind image your want your Sunday
School kids to emulate. Who decides what's "bona fide"? The state of course.

{ +  (3) + } { + Nothing in this chapter prohibits + } a bona fide church
or sectarian religiousinstitution, including but not limited to
a school, hospital or church camp, from preferring an employee or applicant for
employment of one religious sect or persuasion over another when: 
(a) That religious sect or persuasion to which the employee or
applicant belongs is the same as that of { + the + } church or institution;
(b) In the opinion of { +  the church or institution + },
such a preference will best serve the purposes of { + the + } church
or institution; and  (c) The employment involved is closely connected
with or related to the primary purposes of the church or institution and
is not connected with a commercial or business activity { + that + }
has no necessary relationship to the church or institution, or to its
primary purposes.

Joe Sixpack can be sued. Who knew?
The poor schmuck who works with the protected class of people could be sued.

(b) The operator or manager of the place of public accommodation,
the employee or person acting on behalf of the place,
and any aider or abettor shall be jointly and severally
liable for all damages awarded in the action;

Could some attorney tell me if this section is boilerplate? It seems
awfully strange to me. SECTION 17 of SB 2. Find the whole bil here. 

Indoctrinate U

UPDATE: Men in Skirts, Drag Queens, Bush Haters Unite! (Good Guys at End of Post)

In San Francisco (above) in Portland (below)

I thought I'd seen all the signs on Indy media but Lew draws my attention to these located at Little Green Footballs from Portland's anti SOLDIER protest over the weekend. Sorry about the language but I thought you needed to see these low lifes in action. See you at 10:30 at the Capitol (Tuesday) for HJM 9 vote. Burning a soldier in effigy. Unbelievable. Bastards.


This photo removed by blog administrator



Tell your legislator to vote NO on HJM 9 tomorrow/Tuesday 10:30, House Floor, Salem
Did anyone see the person who DEFECATED on the American flag during yesterday's protest? This is a story I have heard from the Portland Police Bureau. And here's another factoid: two of the protesters arrested yesterday were regulars at the Schumacher weekly protests, according to the Schumacher spokesman. What are the chances that the only time they ever broke the law was yesterday? I'm sure they NEVER broke the law in front of Schumachers (read with sarcasm).
Listener Matthew took this picture yesterday.







A few of them have plans for today as well, the actual date on which the US went into Iraq. Check out today's activities. I love the anarchist meeting scheduled for tonight. Rage against the machine, yo! Come to think of it, the strategy on how to avoid paying taxes looks pretty interesting, too.

Meanwhile in Washington D.C the thousands of Eagles who came out to support A Gathering of Eagles OUTNUMBERED the anti war protesters! That doesn't usually happen because usually the silent majority stays home and does its work.
See video here for updates. Here's a great picture at the counter protest however. One of the few mean spirited ones on our side.

Polar Bears: Victims of Global Warming. Uh, Sure...

Thanks to Rushlimbaugh.com for the photo.

Walter Reed Blog. Another Reason to Have Gov't OUT of Health Care

New Blog added to the Victoria Taft Show Blog Stars:
http://walterreed.blogspot.com/

Khalid Sheik Mohammed: I Was Responsible

The Weekly Standard's terrorism researcher, Tom Joscelyn, is on the show to connect the dots. Got questions? Get 'em ready. Call this afternoon.

Note that KSM acknowledges responsibility for the first World Trade Center bombing in '93. Ramzi Yousef is his nephew. The bomb maker was from Iraq or claimed to be anyway.
Wake up Khalid the Americans would like to speak to you!

Here's a list of his confessions (thanks to Powerline Blog):


Rosie O'Donnell on The View about the confession document and KSM. She makes a fool of herself. See the video here.
"without reporters present" Don't make me laugh.

ROSIE O’DONNELL, “THE VIEW” HOST: “But I just think, this man for whatever he did or didn’t do, he is not the be all, end all of terrorism in America. And our government has not found the answer in this one way [unintelligible].”

Here's Hot Air's take on her bloviating:

KSM planned 9-11 from stem to stern, had a hand in Jose Padilla’s planned dirty bomb attack, planned Operation Bojinka and more than two dozen other attacks worldwide. The man has buckets of innocent blood on his hands, and if he hadn’t been caught he would have pulled some off and kept planning more. Just what does it take to be the “be all, end all of terrorism,” Rosie?

Oregon Democrats: Bought and Paid for by the Teachers Unions

If you're a teacher who just wants to teach, get paid a decent salary, keep your head down and change lives, I'm afraid your union doesn't have the same idea. It doesn't just want fair pay, your union WANTS ALL OF IT.

There's bill to kill local control and roll all teachers pensions/insurance into one plan that only serves to strengthen the union---not the classroom. House Minority leader, Wayne Scott has an opinion on it here.

Here's another bill to kill the Charter School efforts by thousands of Oregonians. But it kills one school in particular: the Connections Academy. It's an online school. Oregon's certified smart education guys say, 'You know this distance learning thing...not real big here. Not a good thing here.' Or words to that effect. I'm sure they're right. This distance learning thing would never be effective at Harvard or University of Washington or Stanford or ...

The Military Answered the Call and Oregon's Left Turned Tail and RAN AWAY?

When the call went out for the US military in Oregon and southwest Washington to show up this (Thursday) morning at 10:30 in Salem to watch the Oregon house call for DEFEAT IN IRAQ, the democrat leadership went into panic mode and have now:

CANCELLED THE VOTE


It's been rescheduled for Tuesday. Unless they lose their nerve.
Apparently it's a bit uncomfortable to vote for defeat when you're surrounded by uniformed military heroes. I don't think the prospect of that photo op--even in Oregon's lazy media--was something relished by the left. But I thought they supported the troops??? Oh, wait...

The Final Fool Opening Round

Mitt Romney's Oregon Team Announced Today...VERY Interesting

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Romney supporter, is on the show tonight.
Hot off the press...Here's Romney's committee in Oregon:

Stephen Babson – Co-Chair: Babson is a partner at Endeavour Capital, a private equity firm headquartered in Lake Oswego
Kevin Mannix – Co-Chair:Mannix is an attorney in the Salem area. In 2002, he narrowly lost to Ted Kulongoski in what was the closest Oregon gubernatorial election in 100 years. Mannix served as the Chairman of the Oregon Republican Party from 2003-2005.
Ron Saxton – Co-Chair: A native Oregonian, Saxton is an attorney at the Ater Wynne law firm in Portland . In 2006, he ran for Governor of Oregon against Ted Kulongoski.
Peter Stott – Co-Chair: Stott is the Vice Chairman and Principal of the Scanlan Kemper Bard Companies, a real estate merchant banking firm in Portland .
Charles J. "Butch" Swindells – Co-Chair: Swindells is the Vice Chairman of the US Trust Company and a former United States Ambassador to New Zealand .

Members Of Oregon Statewide Finance Committee:

· John Carter, CEO Schnitzer Steel Industries, Portland
· Jim Fitzhenry, SVP Flir Systems, Wilsonville
· Jim Gaffney, Moss Adams, Portland
· Fred Granum, Co-Operations, Portland
· Karen Hinsdale, The Cellar Door, Portland
· Roger Johnson, Coldstream Capital Management, Portland
· Shawn Lindsay, Attorney at Markowitz, Herbold, Glade & Mehlhaf, P.C., Portland
· Jim McCreight , Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum, Portland
· Brendan O'Scannlain, Attorney at Stoel Rives LLP, Portland
· Guy Pope, Columbia Management, Portland
· Chris Shepanek, Oil Can Henry's, Lake Oswego

NYT TELLS GORE TO COOL IT ON GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM. AND IN A TWO-FER: GLOBAL WARMING EXPEDITION CALLED OFF DUE TO FREEZING TEMPERATURES

The mainstream media have NEVER included a caution when describing Gore's global warming "work." Til now. Why is that? I thought this was "settled science"? I thought there was "concensus"? But the fact is there never has been and the NYT's favorites are looking pretty stupid right now because there IS NO settled science on global warming and the people who have been systematically calling them on their misinformation are, at long last, being HEARD! The voices of dissent such as George Taylor's--who by the way doesn't dispute warming just HOW it's caused--have always been out there but because of Gore's status as a rock star among the blue bloods those voices of caution and dissent have been HUSHED. You have my permission to blame the media.

Here's the NYT Monday:

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

REST OF THE STORY HERE.

MINNEAPOLIS - A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.

HERE'S THE REST OF THE STORY.

Global Warming Show on the Beebs: The Great Global Warming Swindle

What Government Run Health Care Has Wrought: Walter Reed Like Problems

Discuss.

More Libby. It's Even More Outrageous Than You Thought

From Bob Novak's column today (find it here):

The trial provided no information whatever about Valerie Plame's status at the CIA at the time I revealed her role in her husband's mission. No hard evidence was produced that Libby ever was told she was undercover. Fitzgerald had argued that whether or not she was covert was not material to this trial, and Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton had so ruled. Yet, in his closing arguments, Fitzgerald referred to Mrs. Wilson's secret status, and in answer to a reporter's question after the verdict, he said she was "classified."

In fact, her being classified -- that is, that her work was a government secret -- did not in itself meet the standard required for prosecution of the leaker (former Deputy Secretary of State Armitage) under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. That statute limits prosecution to exposers of covert intelligence activities overseas, whose revelation would undermine U.S. intelligence. That is why Fitzgerald did not move against Armitage.

Some questions asked me in television and radio interviews after the verdict implied that I revealed Armitage's name to Fitzgerald. Actually, in my first interview with Fitzgerald after he had been named special prosecutor, he indicated he knew Armitage was my leaker. I assumed that was the product of detective work by the FBI. In fact, Armitage had turned himself in to the Justice Department three months before Fitzgerald entered the case, without notifying the White House or releasing me from my requirement of confidentiality.

On Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" Tuesday night, super-lawyer David Boies said Fitzgerald never should have prosecuted Libby because there was no underlying criminal violation. Boies scoffed at Fitzgerald's contention that Libby had obstructed him from exposing criminal activity. Boies, who represented Al Gore in the 2000 election dispute, is hardly a Bush sympathizer. But neither is he a Democratic partisan trying to milk this obscure scandal.

Read Bill Gertz's 2004 piece about Plame's identity leaked BY THE CIA years before here:

Mrs. Plame's identity first was revealed publicly by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak in a July 14, 2003, column about Mr. Wilson's trip to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore for a nuclear-arms program.
The Justice Department then began an investigation of the disclosure under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime to knowingly disclose the name of a covert agent.
However, officials said the disclosure that Mrs. Plame's cover was blown before the news column undermines the prosecution of the government official who might have revealed the name, officials said.
"The law says that to be covered by the act the intelligence community has to take steps to affirmatively protect someone's cover," one official said. "In this case, the CIA failed to do that."
A second official, however, said the compromises before the news column were not publicized and thus should not affect the investigation of the Plame matter.

Jonah Goldberg on the "wounded" Wilsons who are shopping a movie:

The Wilsons' civil lawsuit against Dick Cheney, Rove et al — filed, they assure us, "with heavy hearts" — claims that the White House's revelation of her identity put her life and the lives of her children in danger. (Never mind that it wasn't the White House who outed her but Richard Armitage over at the State Department.) Even after baring all for Vanity Fair, the golden couple clearly take every effort to maintain their privacy. While heading for a vacation getaway, Wilson couldn't resist giving one last interview at the Houston airport. One of his sons blurted out for everyone to hear, "My daddy is famous, my mommy is a secret spy." Clearly the pressures of the Wilson family code of silence had gotten to the lad.

Just last month, the golden couple was spied lunching with Morgan Fairchild at the Four Seasons in Washington. The trio supped on soup and salad and shared a lovely mushroom risotto, which probably won't be on the menu wherever they send Libby. You'd think the golden couple would rate higher than the faded star of "Falcon Crest." But there's a buzz that she might play Valerie in the movie Warner Bros. has just green-lighted about Valerie's life. Other boldface names under consideration include Sharon Stone and Gwyneth Paltrow, so it was really a kindness for the Wilsons to even take the meeting.

I Knew There Was Something Familiar...

VOTE FOR LIBBY PARDON NOW. Scooter Libby is Guilty of...Lying to Reporters and Not Remembering?

VOTE HERE.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Scooter Libby Trial is to law what Seinfeld was to TV-- a trial about nothing. Bob Novack who was told by State's Bush hata Richard Armitage concurs here.

Rich Lowry of National Review has the spot on analysis, "this is a classic case of criminalizing politics."

Libby's attorneys say they will file a motion for a new trial.
**Addition on Thursday with a thanks to Andy. Read this article from Bill Gertz from 2004 about Valerie Plame's identity. It means very little now but is instructive to the clowns who persist in the fiction that Plame was "classified" (as Fitzgerald put it--which means nothing by the way) or "covert" (the correct term).


Here's some of the info from the trial:
WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters.
He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.

He wasn't accused of leaking Valerie Plame's identity because that was no crime. He was convicted of telling one story to the FBI and Grand Jury that differed from the stories told by reporters. Very strange. Consistently the reporters called in this case couldn't remember details of their meetings with LIbby and others but Libby wasn't allowed the same dispensation by the jury. In fact the jury in this case at one point asked the judge if it was against the law to lie to a journalist. This is the point on which Judge Andrew Napolitano says Libby's attorney could appeal because it appears the jurors were confused.

Senator Harry Reid says the verdict proves the White House manipulated intelligence on the war. That wasn't at issue here and of course Reid makes a political leap to make that point, a point which has been thoroughly debunked. In fact it's clear that the person who made the allegation about the veracity of the intelligence, Joe Wilson, the man who really outed his wife, Valerie Plame, was the person who had lied about the yellow cake. See previous posts here and here and here and here and here


Victoria Toensing, the former prosecutor and author of the law under which Libby was found guilty, says the jury's decision was not consistent vis a vis differing stories Libby told to FBI and Grand Jury.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says (and these are practically direct quotes) the truth is what drives the judicial system and if someone knowingly tells a lie under oath then it's a serious matter. The nature of any person telling a lie to a grand jury and to have an important figure do that on a matter of national security makes it unacceptable. He says he does not expect to file any further charges.

Interestingly political that answer is. An issue of national security? The status of Valerie Plame was never brought up in trial because she wasn't "outed" as a CIA agent and so there was no national security concern. From the git go Fitzgerald knew the leaker was Bush hata Richard Armitage who was part of the calcified apparatus at foggy bottom. No charges against him were brought because leaking Valerie Plame's identity wasn't a crime. Joe Wilson had also been outed as a liar on the yellow cake issue.

Libby was convicted of "misremembering" discussions with reporters to the FBI and the Grand Jury. It was a case of dueling memories on an issue of an inconsequential nature.

Late ad: Fitzgerald says Plame's status was "classified" and about that there is no dispute. Why didn't he bring this as part of the case, then? Because the only thing that matters was if she was COVERT (under cover) and of course she wasn't. THAT'S the real national security issue, isn't it?

The Jury member said "there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby but we kept asking ourselves 'where's Rove?' We felt Libby was a fall guy. We never saw any evidence that [Vice President] Cheney told him what to say.
"We thought hey we might see President Bush here!"
On the issue of Libby not testifying the juror said, "We had eight hours of grand jury testimony from Libby it was good."
It's been noted that this juror, Denis Collins is a journalist and the author of a book called Spying: The Secret History of History. How did he get on the jury again? A JOURNALIST when journalists are part and parcel of the story? An author of a SPY BOOK when part of the trial was about a purported SPY?

From the AP: Libby's defense team said he learned about plame from Cheney, forgot about it, then learned it against a month later from NBC newsman Tim Russert. Anything he told reporters about Plame, Libby said, was just chatter and rumors, not official government information.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that was a lie. But Libby's defense team had argued that it would be unfair to convict Libby in a case where so many witnesses changed their stories or had memory problems.

What was the crime again?

Check out Mark Levin's reaction here. Hear Mark Levin on KPAM AM 860 3-5pm right before my show. Here's a nugget: This morning the jury didn't understand two of the counts. Yesterday it didn't understand what was meant by reasonable doubt. Let me suggest that in the end it still didn't understand the two counts or reasonable doubt.
There has been considerable damage done to traditional Justice Department procedures, the free press, and the political system by this nothing-burger of a case.

And of course Mark's right. There's been a serious blow dealt to journalists. Who will ever want to be a source for anything ever again?

What happens if you lie to a grand jury? David Frum has some real life examples here.

Vancouver Teacher's Union Taken to Woodshed by Victoria Taft and Editorial Writers

As well they should.

The stink is over teacher Susan Wiggs' religious objection to the union using her money for their political choices which are nearly exclusively at odds with hers. So she wished to divert her dues to local charity Shared Hope International which rescues girls and young women from the bondage of sex slavery throughout the world. The union didn't like this choice because, they said officially that it wasn't locally. The union's executive director told my producer that their complaint lay in the fact that Shared Hope "cooked its books" and was a group that saw "Christians feeding off Christians." Yeah, we don't know what that means, either. Ask the executive director at VEA here.

I'd like to know one thing. Since VEA (affiliated with the NEA) thinks it can dictate that the charity's work be local only, then can teachers demand the same of the way in which their union dues is used?

Ah...didn't think so.

In fact here are the numbers. $62.58 per month is taken out of the VEA teachers' checks over a ten month period of time.

Of that the NATIONAL Education Association receives 19.5%

the WASHINGTON Education Association receives 43%

the VANCOUVER Education Association receives 37.5%

Sounds like there's a heck of a lot of money that goes out of the area. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Why doesn't all that money stay local?

The VEA is fighting for the objectors' monies to go to two charities:

The YWCA battered women's shelter.

The VANCOUVER EDUCATION FOUNDATION (gee, I wonder who administers this charity?)

I want to thank the nice man, Keith Drake, the President of the union for spending time with me on the phone today to go over the numbers.

Here are some sweet nut graphs coming from the Vancouver Daily Columbian (with which I've disagreed in the past but in this case agree with whole heartedly).

...It is ridiculous that the union won't give up control over a small slice of money that doesn't belong to them in the first place. You'd think this incident might make local, state and national teachers' unions realize how hypocritical they are. They support causes with which some teachers disagree -- using teachers' mandatory union dues -- but when one teacher wants to send her money to a cause the union isn't jazzed about for whatever reason, it takes away this educator's individual freedoms yet again.

An end to mandatory unionism in Washington state would solve this problem. An end to spending teachers' dollars on candidates and ideological issues outside of collective bargaining interests would help. But our legislators continue to ignore the situation and the teachers unions clearly have no incentive to make changes that would dilute the money grab.

See full editorial here. My previous post is here.
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is helping out Wiggs. Here's their website.

We Don't Need to Go Low...the Democrats Will Go There Alllllll By Themselves

The "Breck Girl" at work:


Both together:

Presidential Straw Poll at Dorchester: Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

And the winner is:

1) Rudy - 60

2) Newt - 34

3) Mitt - 23

Coyote at NW Republican has a few thoughts on the vote here.

Here were the candidates:

Bayh, Evan (Sen. IL)
Biden, Joe (Sen. DE)
Bush, Jeb (Gov. FL)
Clinton, Hillary Rodham (Sen. NY)
Dean, Howard (Chair Dem. Party)
Edwards, John (Fmr. Senator NC)
Feingold, Russ (Sen. WI)
Gingrich, Newt (Fmr. Speaker)
Giuliani, Rudy (Fmr. Mayor NY)
Gore, Al (Fmr VP)
Huckabee, Mike (Gov. AR)
Kerry, John (Sen. MA)
Kucinich, Dennis (Rep. OH)
McCain, John (Sen. AZ)
Obama, Barack (Sen. IL)
Rice, Condoleeza (Sec. of State)
Richardson, Bill (Gov. NM)
Romney, Mitt (Gov. MA)
_________________ Write in

My friends at Oregon Catalyst have the wrap up of Dorchester '07.
And everyone (including me) was asking: Where's Ron Saxton? He was a good candidate and he needed to be here if for no other reason than to receive a bunch of atta boys.

OPEN THREAD FRIDAY

Last night on the show we talked about new bills under consideration in Salem such as:
HOOKER TEACHERS!
PUTTING PREGNANCY CRISIS CENTERS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR NOT PROVIDING ABORTIONS!

HOW ABOUT THE CASE OF THE VANCOUVER ATHLETIC CLUB BEING PUT OUT OF BUSINESS BY THE GOVERNMENT'S ATHLETIC CLUB?

THE WOMAN WHO LET THE 12 YEAR OLD DRIVE WHO THEN CRASHED THE VEHICLE AND HE DIED. THE MOTHER OF THE CHILD IS CALLING FOR THIS WOMAN'S HEAD!

WE'LL BE AT DORCHESTER THIS WEEKEND WHERE POLITICS IS FUN!