Right Wing Nut House

The Carnival of the Clueless will take a break this holiday week but will be back with all of its usual insanity next week, January 2, 2006. Deadline for entry will be Sunday, January 1 at 12:00 midnight.

Last week’s Carnival was the best yet with 34 entries from both the right and left side of the political spectrum hammering those individuals and groups among us who are truly clueless.

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs (55) and defensive tackle Kelly Gregg (97) go Favre hunting in Baltimore’s 48-3 shellacking of the Packers last Monday night.

I know you shouldn’t kick someone when they’re down but, after all, it is Christmas and they are the Green Bay Packers.

I get so little joy out of life these days. But watching last Monday night’s game as the Ravens kicked the beejeebees out of the Packers 48-3, it warmed the cockles of my heart and gave me that warm and fuzzy Christmassy feeling that had been so sorely lacking this year. I found myself urging the Ravens to pile it on - to really it give it to those guys in the puke green and diarrhea yellow. I wanted them destroyed and humiliated. I wanted them trampled, mangled, bloodied and broken.

I cheered every sack. I went into paroxysms of joy after every Ravens touchdown. I nearly swooned in the fourth quarter when Adalius Thomas of the Ravens returned a fumble 35 yards for a touchdown with less than 30 seconds to go in the game. Pounding the table so hard that Sue began to contemplate whether or not our health insurance would cover my stay at the local mental institution, I was screaming at the top of my lungs “YES! YES! YES!” as Thomas hit paydirt.

I may have been the only one in the entire United States of America who was watching the game at that point. For the once mighty Packers - the swaggering, insolent, insufferable Green Bay Packers - had hit absolute rock bottom. Hanging their heads like little schoolboys who had misbehaved on the playground, the Packers walked off the field that night looking for all the world like soldiers retreating from a battle in which the enemy had taken away their will to fight.

For the Bears, this was the absolute worst thing that could happen. The Ravens not only beat the Packers, they challenged their manhood. And one thing about rock bottom - there’s no place to go but up.

Today will be the Packer’s Super Bowl. They will come out breathing fire, taking names, and doling out punishment on a scale not seen in this rivalry since the 1980’s when Mike Ditka and Forest Gregg, who hated each other with a passion, patrolled the sidelines of their respective teams.

The Bears must weather an expected first quarter onslaught by the Pack. If not, things could get out of hand very quickly. Brett Favre will be looking for redemption following his subpar performance on Monday night. And make no mistake, with the Pack’s outstanding rookie running back Samko Gado out with a knee injury, the Packer’s offense will be Favre tossing left, Favre tossing right, Favre down the middle and Favre throwing six more ways till next Sunday. Gado’s replacement Tony Fischer is a serviceable pro but has been slowed in recent years by a plethora of injuries. The Bear’s defense should have little trouble shutting him down.

Favre, of course, is a different story. As it now appears likely that Favre will in fact return next year, we can now safely root for a massive blind side hit by Peanut Tillman like the one he delivered a few weeks ago during the Bear’s hard fought 19-7 victory. That blow knocked ole Brett for quite a loop and may have contributed to a subsequent interception return of a Favre pass by Nathan Vashar. In the end, Favre must be punished for 4 quarters if the Bears are going to win. The Pack’s O-Line has been something of a makeshift affair for most of the year and Chicago’s ravenous defensive ends Adewale Ogunleye and Alex Brown must be licking their chops in anticipation of spending the day frolicking in the Green Bay backfield.

The fact is, Alex Brown may be one of the best rushing ends in football. At 6′3″ and 325 pounds with a wingspan like a 747, Brown may have the quickest first step around. When he gets leverage on the outside shoulder of an opposing tackle, it’s like watching a freight train approaching an unsuspecting cow on the tracks - you know the collision is coming but you feel for the cow. Three weeks ago, Brown fell on top of Panther QB Jake Delhomme with predictable results. A groggy Delhomme had to be asked what day it was and what city he was in. The gentleman’s replies were not recorded for posterity.

The real challenge for the Bear’s defense will of course be in the defensive backfield where Mike Brown’s return is most welcome. Brown has a nose for the ball and hits like a ton of bricks - which could be bad news for the Pack’s depleted wide receiver corps. Favre likes to throw late over the middle which for any other quarterback in NFL history would be a disaster waiting to happen. But because of the superior arm strength of Favre, he can get away with it on a regular basis. However, receivers hate it because opposing safeties have a nasty habit of lying in the weeds, waiting for the unfortunate receiver to catch the ball, and then delivering a blow that makes the wide out’s head go one way and his body another. But that’s why wide receivers make the big bucks - and Favre frequently makes them earn every cent they make.

If the Bears can withstand the expected 1st quarter Packer surge by staying within 10 points, they have a chance. If not, it may be a long day for my beloveds.

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River.

This post originally appeared December 25, 2004.

It is perhaps the most parodied image in American history.

In countless advertisements, cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and plays, the image of George Washington (or some comical replacement) standing heroically by the bow of a boat as it navigates the frozen ice floes of the Delaware River has etched itself permanently into the American psyche. More often than not, the image has been used to show a haughtiness on the part of the individual substituting for Washington or to poke fun in an iconic way at America itself.

What the painting and its imitators doesn’t show is how near a thing it was that American independence died that night and how the iron will and gambling nature of one man changed the course of history and virtually assured freedom for the colonies.

Just three days prior to the attack on the Hessian outpost at Trenton, Tom Paine published the first of his “Crisis” articles whose ringing words still tug at the heartstrings of patriots everywhere:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

At the time of the crossing, things couldn’t have been worse for the patriot cause. Washington had seen his army continuously thrown back since the previous summer’s ill-advised campaign to meet the British army in New York. Every battle became a humiliating defeat. Every retreat saw his army shrink. From a high of 20,000 at the battle of Brooklyn Heights to its now paltry 4500 ill fed, ill clothed, scarecrows, the Continental army had become something of a joke to their enemies.

New York was lost. New Jersey was mostly occupied with more and more patriots giving an oath of allegiance to King George so that they could buy food for their families. The Congress in Philadelphia had fled to Baltimore where they hoped somehow to carry on a war that seemed all but lost. In effect, George Washington was not only in charge of the military for the young country, he was head of the government as well, acting as something of a military dictator but always careful to inform the Congress of exactly what he was doing.

But George Washington desperately wanted to go on the offensive. Seeing an opportunity with the way the British had spread out their garrisons throughout the New York and New Jersey countryside, Washington decided to take the biggest gamble of his career. An inveterate card player, (Wist was his game of choice) as well as being offensive minded by nature, he knew that his little army was about ready to disintegrate what with enlistments up after the first of the year. In his own mind, he felt he had no other choice but to attack. And attack not just one but two of the more isolated British outposts. He had it in mind to threaten the huge British supply depot at Brunsiwck, New Jersey thus causing General Howe in New York to shorten his lines and relieve the pressure on New Jersey patriots.

The choice of Trenton was based on both geography and necessity. But the attack on Princeton was a strategically brilliant concept. By taking both Trenton and Princeton, Washington would cut off the British Army in New York from their main base of supply in New Brunswick. And such a move would free most of New Jersey from British occupation and rally patriots in that beleaguered state to the cause.

None of this would matter unless Washington could get across the Delaware and attack the overconfident Hessians at Trenton. Using an extraordinarily sophisticated intelligence operation, Washington was able gather enough information about the Hessian defenses at Trenton to make the enormous gamble worth taking. Throughout the war, Washington acted as his own spymaster, developing networks of patriots in and around New York city. The British couldn’t sneeze without Washington knowing about it.

Beginning the crossing at 2:00 pm on Christmas day, Washington’s plan called for three separate columns to descend on Trenton at the same time. But due to an ice storm that came up early that evening, the other two columns never made it to the battlefield. Only the tirelessness of General John Glover’s “Marblehead Regiment” who courageously battled the ice and cold by manning the oars that took Washington’s boats containing 2,500 men, horses, and two precious cannon across the river made the victory possible.

The march from the New Jersey side of the river to Trenton was a nightmare. It was said one could see the progress of the army’s march by following the bloody footprints in the snow; many of the 2,500 men did not have any shoes. Two men died of the cold on the march. And instead of reaching the Hessian encampment while it was still dark, Washington’s threadbare little army didn’t reach Trenton until well after dawn.

Nothing, however, deterred Washington from attacking. After overcoming the sleepy outposts, Washington’s troops entered the town and before the Hessians could get organized, surrounded the enemy, killed Colonel Rall the Hessian commander, and forced the garrisons’s surrender. By noon of the 26th, Washington was back across the Delaware with almost 1000 prisoners and a huge cache of supplies.

A few days later, Washington scored perhaps his most audacious victory at Princeton. Crossing the River again, he confronted General Cornwallis whose 1500 troops had occupied a position between Washington and Trenton. With darkness falling, Washington left 400 men to tend campfires, giving Conrwallis the impression he was staying put while taking the bulk of his army clear around Cornwallis to attack a garrison headquartered at Princeton.

At first, the battle went badly for the Continentals. As the British surged forward and threatened to rout Washington’s army, he spurred his horse forward, rallied his men, and with bullets flying all around him, led the troops to a decisive victory. Then, before Cornwallis could cut off his retreat, he led his force to Morristown where he went into winter quarters.

General Howe in New York was beside himself. He realized that Washington, from his secure position on the heights above Morristown, could swoop down and attack any of his isolated garrisons at will. Accordingly, he pulled back his forces to the immediate vicinity of New York. In the space of 10 days, Washington had defeated two separate British forces, captured tons of desperately needed supplies, rallied the patriots, and levered the British out of New Jersey. No matter what defeats lay in Washington’s future, his reputation and position in American history was secured by his victories at Trenton and Princeton.

Two recent treatments of Trenton are worth mentioning. David Hackett Fisher’s “Washington’s Crossing” a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award and 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner for History is eminently readable and is a treasure trove of tidbits on Washington and the continental army. The book also has some excellent background on Washington’s unconventional but very effective intelligence network.

And then there’s the made-for-cable production called “The Crossing” which stars Jeff Daniels as George Washington. Daniels, who gave an excellent portrayal of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in Ted Turner’s “Gettysburg” falls a little flat trying to play Washington. While the movie is very watchable, I don’t think there’s an actor living or dead who could do justice to the part of Washington. The iconic image of Washington as father, savior, and ultimately civic saint makes the portrayal of such a gigantic historical figure problematic.

UPDATE 12/27

Betsy Newmark has some additional links as well as mentioning the Fisher book. She also links to another favorite Fisher book of mine Paul Revere’s Ride that gave me the idea for this post I called “Founding Brother” which I posted during last April’s anniversery.

I briefly mentioned in the post above that Washington was his own spymaster. To say that Washington’s intelligence gathering efforts were unconventional is an understatement. Washington used people who volunteered to spy and, incredibly, used British loyalists as well - unbeknownst to them, of course. I would not be an exaggeration to say that Washington knew more of what was going on in the British army than he knew about what was going on in Congress.

I’m having a very difficult time this morning maintaining my composure. Well, let me put it this way - a harder time than normal. The reason is this latest kerfluffle over pointing scientific instruments at the homes and businesses of Muslim Americans in order to see if someone may be harboring nuclear material that could or could not be a nuclear weapon. The joint task force made up of FBI and Department of Energy “NEST” teams conducted the monitoring without first getting a warrant:

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree.

I will take a back seat to no one in my support for the Bill of Rights - ALL TEN OF THEM. Liberals usually like to stop at about #8. After all, the 9th and 10th Amendments limit the power of the federal government vis a vis the states and the people which is a total anathema to your average lefty. Come to think of it, liberals aren’t very supportive of the 2nd amendment and even several parts of the 1st - like freedom OF religion. In fact, looking at a liberal’s translation of the Constitution, it would probably appear very similar to one of those documents requested of the CIA under the FOIA; so much of it would be blacked out that about all you’d be able to read is the page number.

That said, what has me breathing fire this morning is the idea that, in order to prevent the greatest of catastrophes - a nuclear weapon being exploded on American soil - people actually want the government to get a warrant to aim a Geiger counter at someone’s house. This is nuts. This is lunacy. This is as close to suicidal as one can get without actually putting the gun to your head.

I guess we’re really in trouble now. The Constitutional absolutists (I’m beginning to include some of the more pompous libertarians out there who are starting to annoy me more and more every day) are acting as if this is some kind of gigantic abstract game we’re playing. I can assure you that al Qaeda is not playing games. And the people who are currently responsible for seeing that the last thing you see isn’t a bright flash in the sky followed by the sighting of a mushroom shaped cloud are, thank the Lord, not playing games either.

What is not serious is this spate of revelations regarding what the government is doing to prevent the destruction of the United States. What is not serious is this internet-wide hand wringing over what appears more and more as a sensible, rational, response to a threat posed by an enemy that has sworn to destroy us - or perhaps many of you have forgotten that salient fact.

And the next person that quotes Ben Franklin’s warning about security and liberty is going to get a pie in the face - or my boot up their ass. Ben Franklin didn’t have to worry about a goddamn nuclear weapon going off in Philadelphia while he was romping between the sheets with some harlot. He could afford to be smug. We can’t.

It is legitimate to question the legality of programs that actually snoop on people - physically read their email or listen to their phone conversations. But if your telephone number is caught up in some kind of digital dragnet being carried out by the NSA only to be sloughed off and forgotten within minutes after it becomes clear that you’re not a terrorist, what’s the big deal? Jesus Christ! Telephone solicitors keep your number longer than the NSA for God’s sake!

We still don’t know many details of the NSA intercept program. Apparently, they had the cooperation of Telecom companies who allowed the technospooks access to these “switches” where national and international calls can be intercepted:

Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.

This so-called “pattern analysis” on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

With pattern analysis, there is no reason to physically listen in on or read your email unless there are some pretty good indications that you’re buddy-buddy with a terrorist. How can this be considered unreasonable? Only a muddle headed absolutist would insist on getting a warrant to analyze traffic patterns or have your telephone number briefly in some gigantic computer or aim radiation detection equipment at a home.

Can we afford the Constitutional absolutist position on these things?

Maybe it comes down to something much simpler - whether you really believe we are at war or not. If we are not at war or even if the threat to the US has been overblown for political purposes (either case being demonstrably untrue if you take the time to read what our enemies are saying) then by all means, impeach Bush. In quieter times - even during the cold war - I would have had a difficult time stomaching much of what has been revealed about our domestic spying over the past week.

But these are not quiet times. And if the government is forced to abandon these vital monitoring programs or more likely, thanks to their being revealed, al Qaeda counters them, and if we are hit with a massive attack, those who are currently clucking their tongues like a bunch of old women at a quilting bee better not open their yaps criticizing the efforts government made to prevent the catastrophe. Your high falutin sense of the Constitution will be meaningless in the face of tens of thousands of dead and the country in shambles.

It’s time to grow up and get real. After all…there’s a war on, remember?

It used to be the quickest way to notoriety in this country was to strip down to your birthday suit and run in front of cameras covering some nationally televised event like the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl

My how times have changed.

In the last few years we’ve seen that the quickest way to get your name in the paper and your face plastered all over TV is to be the victim of a “hate crime” carried out by wicked conservatives or, better yet, attest to some action by the Bush Administration that smacks of dictatorship.

Recently, we’ve witnessed the edifying spectacle of people caterwauling about “oppression” only to find out later (after the camera lights have been turned off) that these “victims” are lying through their teeth:

* A gay student claiming harassment and vandalism was found to be perpetrating the incidents herself.

* A black student’s apartment door is vandalized with racist comments. Guess who it turns out wrote them?

* A Muslim store is burned down. CAIR screams racism. Cops arrest Muslim store owner for arson.

* A college professor vandalizes her own car with anti-homosexual slogans. Gets a year in the slammer for filing a false police report.

* Numerous racial incidents called hate crimes that turn out to be bogus.

Hate crimes are one thing. Real crimes carried out against blacks, gays, and ethnics are diminished as a result of few liberals who want to stick it to whites, or conservatives, or just America in general while basking in the glow of their victimhood. Besides, we all know that somewhere, sometime, these incidents could have happened in America. Who really cares if liberals create some guerrilla theater to highlight the “injustice” of the system?

The latest hoax perpetrated by liberals involves a case that smelled to high heaven from the get go. A UMass-Dartmouth student claimed that she was visited by FBI agents after checking out Mao Tse Tung’s tiresome Little Red Book from the library:

NEW BEDFORD — A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.”

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a “watch list,” and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

First, the myth that the Patriot Act allows the government to keep track of library loans is now so well established that it will be impossible to debunk. To those who still believe such nonsense, I suggest you get a life or, failing that, READ THE DAMN THING AND CONFIRM IT FOR YOURSELF!

Secondly, while this news story says that “DHS agents” visited the student (and that the student was male) other stories have the FBI calling on the poor kid and that the “victim” was a female.

I guess when you get right down to it for a liberal, the facts don’t matter much - it’s the thought that counts.

But man, did this story bring out the heavy rhetorical artillery on the left:

And all this seems strikingly similar to the sad and vile days of Joseph McCarthy’s communism witch hunts, where those who dared speak out found themselves under suspicion and fear ruled the day.

Illegal surveillance is one thing. An agenda to destroy generations of American Freedoms is something else.

U. S. Fascism on the March

Bubble Boy’s Uber-Monarchy just gets curiouser and curiouser.

There is only one problem with this story; it is almost certainly a hoax:

Complicating matters has been the student, who so far has refused to talk. Boston FBI spokeswoman Gail A. Marcinkiewicz said she has been unable to find evidence that FBI agents visited the student.

“We don’t have interest in what people read,” she added.

UMass-Dartmouth is investigating and has interviewed the student but denied in a statement having any contact with federal agents. The book was requested from UMass-Amherst

While probably not carried out by the kid in question, the hoax appears to be the work of some professors who seem more than eager to push the idea of academic freedom under assault in the age of Bush.

Academic freedom is all well and good. But making up a story about anyone in the domestic intelligence apparatus being interested in a student who checks out a discredited tome by a long dead Marxist loon just doesn’t pass the smell test.

Here’s a DHS spokesperson:

Kirk Whitworth, a spokesman for the DHS—the U.S. cabinet department that oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the Secret Service, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, among others—said in the December 21 Standard-Times that the story seemed unlikely. “We’re aware of the claims,” he said. “However, the scenario sounds unlikely because investigations are based on violation of law, not on the books and individual[s who] might check [them] out from the library.”

And Goldstein nails it:

Of course, when lying liars lie about what they are lying about, the only thing that suffers is TRUTH! And whether the facts of this particular story turn out to be true or not, one thing is certain: somewhere, right now, DISSENT IS BEING CHILLED.

Fake but accurate, you know. So please—take the denial with a grain of salt.

Liberals just are not happy unless they are under attack for their beliefs. It is a pathological manifestation of a gigantic need for attention that causes them to mount the battlements, waving the bloody shirt screaming at the top of their lungs “LOOK AT ME! I AM SUFFERING FOR MY BELIEFS”

The Christ complex these loons have is insulting to them, I know. So instead, let’s substitute the actions of 12 year old little girls who constantly play the martyr over the trials and tribulations in their lives.

Liberals are teenage drama queens in disguise. The difference being they aren’t half as cute.

UPDATE - WITH A GREAT BIG BULLET

My apologies to the professors for accusing them of carrying out a hoax. As it turns out, it was in fact the student who made the whole thing up:

The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for “The Little Red Book” by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story.

The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.

Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.
But on Thursday, when the student told his tale in the office of UMass Dartmouth professor Dr. Robert Pontbriand to Dr. Williams, Dr. Pontbriand, university spokesman John Hoey and The Standard-Times, the student added new details.

The agents had returned, the student said, just last night. The two agents, the student, his parents and the student’s uncle all signed confidentiality agreements, he claimed, to put an end to the matter.
But when Dr. Williams went to the student’s home yesterday and relayed that part of the story to his parents, it was the first time they had heard it. The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried.

(HT: Michelle Malkin)

Now watch the left criticize Bush for making the kid cry.

As we all know by now, it is illegal and an impeachable offense for a President to authorize listening in to Americans who are in conversation with al Qaeda terrorists overseas without a warrant if that American citizen (or illegal alien who resides here) happens to be located on US soil when that conversation takes place.

This means, of course, that we would only be able to listen to one side of the conversation - the side that originates overseas. I wonder what kind of information we’d get under this kind of intelligence gathering program invented by the Democrats?

TERRORIST: Peace be upon you, Ali. Is everything in readiness?

ALI: (Unable to record. Subject is on American soil. Agent must get FISA warrant)

TERRORIST: That is wonderful news! When will be the glorious day?

ALI: (Unable to record. Subject is on American soil. Agent must get FISA warrant)

TERRORIST: Excellent! The infidel dogs will die by the thousands! What route will you take to the spot where you will martyr yourself for Allah?

ALI: (Unable to record. Subject is on American soil. Agent must get FISA warrant)

TERRORIST: God willing, your plan will be successful. Farewell, Ali. God is great!

Yes, yes I know. Retroactive warrants are possible under FISA. And a conversation like this could never take place in a million years, right? Right?

Sure hope so. By the way, it may interest you to know that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has told us that all al Qaeda communications are assumed to be monitoried and therefore don’t last longer than 15-30 seconds.

Not very much time to decide whether or not to eavesdrop on innocent Americans exchanging pleasantries with al Qadea thugs.

Just a thought…

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category was “America’s Kids and Two Days of Infamy” from the Education Wonks. Finishing second was New World Man for “George W.”

In the non-Council category, the winner was Silent Running for “An Open Letter.”

If you’d like to particpate in the Watchers Council weekly contests, please go here and follow instructions.

Sheesh…I hate shopping for Christmas gifts.

Actually, I hate shopping period. But for some reason, Christmas shopping seems to bring out the worst in me. For instance, there is nothing more depressing than having some bored, gum chewing, green haired teenager mouthing “Merry Christmas” while doing their best to make you feel like they are doing you a huge favor by placing your purchase in a bag. Have I missed something or has the value of shopping bags been linked to the price of gold recently? It’s all Sue can do to keep me from screaming some kind of very un-Christmasy retort when the clueless kid fails to bag up the $150 in clothes we just bought and then gives us one of those insolent “What else do you want” stares.

I don’t really dislike teenagers. It’s just that I believe that some of them should be put in hibernation at about age 11 and woken up when they’re about 30.

Ditto for some liberals. Since many of them act as if they are 11 years old anyway, I suggest a national program to place them in stasis until they grow out of their callow and immature beliefs. Of course, that won’t work because, like Peter Pan, they absolutely refuse to grow up which would make any government mandated stasis program problematic.

That said, I couldn’t let the spirit of the season pass by without giving gifts to the loons, goons, poltroons, and galoots that make writing this blog so much fun. I often ask myself where would I be today if we didn’t have Cindy Sheehan to kick around? Or Paul Krugman to fisk? Or the maintsream press to laugh at?

Nowhere, my friends, that’s where I’d be. These pages instead would be full of recipes, and cat pictures, and baseball news not to mention pedantic observations on such arcane subjects as “Game Strategies for Stratego Lovers” and “Winning At Monopoly.”

So, in gratitude, here is my Christmas gift list for 2005. (Note: It would be much too easy for me to play “Wizard of Oz” and give any of these characters a brain, a heart, or some courage even though most of them could use all three).

* Nancy Pelosi - A unified Democratic Party position on Iraq. Or at least one that doesn’t include the words “timetable” or “redeployment.”

* Harry Reid - New shoes. He’s put his foot in his mouth so many times this past year his old ones are all chewed up.

* Ted Kennedy - Coherence.

* John Kerry - A dead cat to stand next to during his speeches. It’s the only way he can come off more interesting by comparison.

* Hillary Clinton - Mass amnesia by the American people so that everyone can forget what she’s really like.

* Bill Clinton - A sense of honor, decency, morality, and fidelity. Or Playboy’s “Cyber Girl of the Year.” Which do you think he’d rather get? (Link NSFW)

* John Conyers - A brand new, state of the art, spit shined tin foil hat.

* George Galloway - A damn fine lawyer. Or a “Get out of jail Free!” card.

* Mary Mapes A reacquainting with reality.

* Dan Rather - Humility, perspicacity, and a sense of humor. Failing that, Katy Couric’s smile.

* Maureen Dowd - Guilt free sex…with a man.

* Arlen Specter - A dictionary so that you can look up the word “loyalty.”

* Pat Robertson - A face to face meeting with God here on earth. You have a lot of explaining to do.

* Kansas Board of Education - A calendar so that they can confirm that we have in fact entered the 21st century.

* Democratic Underground - One ton of bituminous coal, enough for everyone. And make it the kind that burns real, real dirty.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has a few other lists up, most of them done in a more serious vein than this one. I would exclude the AP list of Top Ten News Stories for 2005 if only because anything done by the Associated Press is not to be taken seriously.

This is shaping up to be quite a Christmas for our thuggish friends in al Qaeda. Thanks to an anonymous donor who told tales out of school to the New York Times while kissing the old whore under the mistletoe, visions of sugar plums (not to mention the bloody, mangled bodies of thousands of infidel dogs) are dancing in their heads. For unless something is done to stop it, every loving detail of how the United States government has been listening in to their conversations with their cells and supporters here in America are about to be plastered all over every front page and top every satellite newscast on the planet.

Don’t believe me? The ACLU has already bought the wrapping paper and is about to send a Christmas card with some FOIA requests:

The requests submitted today seek all records about “the policies, procedures and/or practices of the National Security Agency for gathering information through warrantless electronic surveillance and/or warrantless physical searches in the United States …”…. Information received by the organization will be made public on its Web site.

Words fail me at this point. The generosity of the ACLU to the deadly enemies of the United States is beyond belief. The only possible explanation for wanting to expose “all records about the policies, procedures and/or practices of the National Security Agency” with regards to the NSA intercept program is that the ACLU wishes to make it harder for the government to thwart a terrorist attack.

The reason I say this is because this FOIA request is not necessary if one wishes to take an absolutist position in defense of our Fourth Amendment rights. It’s only purpose would be to sabotage the program. For once al Qaeda knows the details of how we keep track of them, it becomes much easier to develop communications strategies to thwart our attempts to monitor their activities.

If the ACLU is against warrantless searches, it is their duty to protest it in a responsible manner, one that would not harm national security so grievously. And please note there is nothing in the FOIA request that would seek to uncover who the government listened in on with the program. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd? Rather than ask for the names of specific Americans who have been targeted, they instead seek to shut the program down by revealing its operational secrets.

The more I read about the technical aspects of the program - both hints revealed by participants and intelligent speculation by SIGINT veterans - it is becoming apparent that there is much more to this intercept program than meets the eye. Here’s some general information about the procedures NSA employees went through before they could carry out a “warrantless search:”

At a news conference at the White House on Monday, General Hayden also emphasized that the program’s operations had “intense oversight” by the agency’s general counsel and inspector general as well as the Justice Department. He said decisions on targets were made by agency employees and required two people, including a shift supervisor, to sign off on them, recording “what created the operational imperative.”

An intelligence official who was authorized to speak only on the condition of anonymity said, “It’s probably the most scrutinized program at the agency.” The official emphasized that people whose communications were intercepted under the special program had to have a link to Al Qaeda or a related group, even if indirectly. The official also said that only their international communications could be intercepted. Other officials have said, however, that some purely domestic communications have been captured because of the technical difficulties of determining where a phone call or e-mail message originated.

While the left continues to go bonkers over this and compare the NSA program with what Nixon did a couple of salient facts should be pointed out:

* There is not one scintilla of evidence that any political opponents, anti-war groups, media people, or John Conyers Aunt Sue was caught up in this digital dragnet.

* There is not a shred of proof that the NSA deliberately targeted domestic-only calls.

* There is no evidence that Bush was trying to set up a dictatorship (I know…I know. But I had to put that in there because so many loons on the left actually believe that is what the program is about)

* It is more than probable and in fact likely that one or more terrorist attacks on American soil was thwarted as a result of this program. I have as much proof for saying that as critics have that this is the most egregious case of domestic spying in history. Which is to say, I have zero proof but at the same time have a better chance of being right than the lickspittles who are blowing smoke out of their ass about the criminality of the program.

In the meantime, al Qaeda sits, waits, and watches knowing that they’ve been good little terrorists and that Santa won’t forget them as long as they have the ACLU doing their dirty work for them.

Merry Christmas to all - and to all the self-important, arrogant sons of bitches at the ACLU - a goodnight.

UPDATE

Blogbud Jay at Stop the ACLU has THE question of the day - one that reveals the total hypocrisy of a once admired civil rights organization whose leadership has led it down a partisan political path that is destroying it:

Isn’t it ironic that the ACLU wants our government’s secrets released so the enemy can see, yet they tell our enemies they have the right to keep their secrets from our interrigations?

And the hell of it is, the idiots will never be able to enjoy the irony that question implies. They are that clueless.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

At what point does a citizen’s right to an expectation of privacy end and the compelling interest of government to protect us from disaster begin?

To those who pretend the question is an easy one - right or left - a pox on you. This issue is much too serious to have liberals using the New York Times as a weapon in their hysterical war on sanity. Nor do my friends on the right cover themselves in glory by being so dismissive of what, at the very least, is a troubling shift in policy regarding how far the government can sidle up to the line of wrongdoing without going over.

The issue is one of transcendent importance for the future of liberty in America. The potential for mischief making by the government as well as private citizens and companies is so great that if the revelations surrounding the NSA intercept program prove anything at all, it is that the law has failed to keep ahead of the rapid, almost magical improvements in the technology available to invade the sacred space that all free citizens should be able to rightly call their own.

How important is the right to be “let alone?” Here’s Justice Brandies in a famous dissent (Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 478) declaring in 1928 that the writers of the US Constitution conferred…:

…the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The key word in that statement is”unjustifiable.” When does the government have the right to violate a citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights?” After all, for a document that can at times be frustratingly vague, the Constitution gets very specific when talking about a citizen’s right to be “let alone:”

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

What the Constitution has guaranteed is a private space - or a wall if you will - that the government is prevented from trespassing against except in “justifiable” circumstances. And even in those circumstances, the Constitution is extraordinarily specific about what the government can and can’t do. If the First Amendment was designed to be a sweeping guarantee of American liberty then certainly the Fourth Amendment serves a similar purpose as a guarantee of our privacy.

Clearly the framers of the Constitution didn’t believe you could have liberty without privacy. Which brings us to the present and the capabilities of government to violate our privacy in ways that the framers or Justice Brandies could never have imagined in their worst nightmares.

The American Thinker Editor Thomas Lifson dealt with one aspect of this explosion in the government’s technological capabilities for potentially violating our privacy in an article yesterday on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. This tracking technology is becoming more obtrusive as both businesses and government find new and novel ways to use it. Lifson asks the right questions:

Despite the technology’s apparent cost and control benefits for businesses and government, the use of RFID technology raises a plethora of important legal, ethical and privacy questions that as of today remain largely unanswered. For example, what legal rights do individual U.S. citizens have if they believe their privacy has been violated by an overzealous business or government agency? How will an already overburdened court system react to the almost certain influx of RFID-related cases?

Similar questions were asked a decade ago when, without much fanfare, the FBI increased their ability to wiretap citizen’s communications substantially. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) on its face, would seem to be a dangerous leap in the capability of government to spy on our private communications. CALEA mandated that the telephone companies aid wiretapping by installing remote wiretap ports onto their digital switches so that the switch traffic would be available for snooping by law enforcement. After CALEA passed, the FBI no longer had to go on-site with wiretapping equipment in order to tap a line—they could monitor and digitally process voice communications from the comfort of the home office.

But this is nothing compared to the truly frightening capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA) to capture, monitor, and even listen to the most private and personal of communications initiated by American citizens. Relying on technology that is almost magical in its ability to gather massive amounts of electronic communications and sift through them for relevant intelligence, it would seem inevitable that, even though the NSA is precluded from using this technology to spy on American soil, communications involving completely innocent American citizens would be caught up in this digital dragnet.

Although the actual workings of the technology is a closely guarded secret, the program authorized by President Bush probably uses some kind of voice recognition technology as well as something even more revolutionary; a new way to organize the data collected so that networks can be identified and uncovered. To do this kind of work, a system capable of collecting and analyzing trillions (terabytes) of pieces of information at once would be necessary. The system would flag hundreds of electronic communications at a time which may be a practical reason why the Administration wished to finesse the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Even though warrants could have been issued retroactively, the massive number of intercepts may have made that a practical impossibility.

The above is speculation, of course, because no one really knows and, unless the we’ve all completely lost our senses, no one should know. For if our enemies ever learned how the system actually worked, they could take steps to neutralize it. Even the pitifully small amount of information that has come to light could have damaged our ability to track and thwart the designs of our enemies. And herein lies the great conundrum involving our liberty and our survival.

What good comes of insuring our survival at the expense of losing some of our liberty?

If one of our cities was destroyed by a nuclear weapon smuggled into the country by al Qaeda, I daresay the relatives of the dead would answer that question much differently than the arm chair civil libertarians who so blithely condemn the Administration’s actions in the aftermath of 9/11. There are even those who say that there is no choice to make, that our survival as a nation is not at stake at all therefore any argument that includes a loss of privacy rights as a way to head off an al Qaeda attack is setting up a straw man to justify oppression.

I don’t have much sympathy for that argument but I am troubled that our government has skirted so close to the line involving spying on innocent American citizens and may have in fact crossed it. Ultimately, it must come down to a question of responsibility. You and I are not responsible for the safety and security of the United States. The Constitution has vested that awesome responsibility in the office of the President. In the end, where you come down on this controversy depends on how much you trust the occupant of that office not to abuse his authority nor misuse the frightening power our technological prowess has bestowed upon his government to invade our most private and personal spaces.

For if in fact we are in a war for the survival of our republic - and our enemies themselves have made it abundantly clear that this is what the War on Terror is all about - we are in grave danger if we give in to the temptation to turn the issue of liberty versus security into a political club in order to beat one’s political opponent for acting dictatorially or just as bad, unpatriotically. The issue is too important for the kind of lazy generalities being tossed about regarding an absolutist position on civil liberties or aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war. In the end, we must trust each other or perish.

This compact of trust between government and its citizens has been mangled almost beyond repair both by the actions of overzealous intelligence agencies as well as a cynicism born of nearly 4 decades of Presidential misconduct. It is one thing to have a healthy skepticism involving those in power. It is quite another to automatically assume that the occupant of the White House is an evil, power mad Big Brother who would use the capabilities of government snooping for nefarious purposes. Even President Nixon’s criminal spying on political opponents was justified in his own mind as a response to what he saw as a domestic insurrection. The fact that there were tens of thousands of Americans in the streets waving the flag of an enemy that was killing thousands of American soldiers in Southeast Asia while calling for the violent overthrow of the government justified in the Nixon inner circle’s own thoughts, almost any wrongdoing that the President and his aides could imagine.

There have been no accusations against this President that the NSA wiretapping program has targeted political opponents. Instead, there have been serious questions raised about innocent Americans being insecure in their communications with each other. In short, the protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment have been frayed around the edges by this intelligence gathering program not trampled willy nilly by an Administration hell bent on gathering unto itself dictatorial powers in order to quash dissent or secure political advantage.

And until evidence emerges to the contrary, is there any reason not to take the President of the United States at his word that the program targets foreign terrorists and not innocent Americans? At bottom, the trust we placed in Mr. Bush by re-electing him must have at its core a belief that he is doing his best to protect us while not violating our cherished rights. This is essentially what living in a democracy means. Anything else, and we might as well crown a king or anoint a dictator to protect us. That way, we would simply do as we’re told and not have to worry about trusting anyone.