Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings

For our Democrat Friends & Family:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious,socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.

Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

For our Republican Friends & Family:

Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and a Happy New Year!

Former Clinton Associate AG Refutes NYT

From my hometown newspaper the Chicago Tribune:

President had legal authority to OK taps
By John Schmidt

Published December 21, 2005

"President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents."

This can't help the left at all :-)

Still waiting for the Wilson party to pick up the white courtesy phone...

Ring, ring, ring!

Calling Joe Wilson and his supporters!

Please contact your nearest white courtesy phone. There has been a major leak about a NSA spy program that you need to speak out against.

Oh wait. It makes Bush look bad.

Never mind.

Update:

Max Boot at the LA Times had this to say:

"IT SEEMS like only yesterday that every high-minded politician, pundit and professional activist was in high dudgeon about the threat posed to national security by the revelation that Valerie Plame was a spook. For daring to reveal a CIA operative's name — in wartime, no less! — they wanted someone frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs, preferably headed for the gallows..."

The rest of the article is a worthwhile read.

Mary Mapes -- Lying for the Left

Former 60 Minutes 2 producer, Mary Mapes, continues her lies against President Bush.

Powerline reports that the documents she is so fond of saying are authentic, are loaded with errors that prove they are not. One case in point:

"...Colonel William Campenni (ret.) served with then-Lieutenant Bush in the same unit of the Texas Air National Guard. He wrote some key columns debunking Mary Mapes's fraudulent 60 Minutes story on President Bush's service."

"... I was running out of paper in tearing apart her own arguments and exposing glaring errors. One example: Twice in the 6 fakes one finds Bush's service number. Problem here for Mary is that these memos are in 1972 and 73. The Air Force stopped using service numbers on July 1, 1969, and switched over to social security numbers, 3 and 4 years prior. All of Bush's released records had the SSNo blacked out as required by law. But old service numbers from Bush's earlier documents were not redacted..."

Read more at PowerLine:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012610.php

NYT and Treason

Perhaps it is time to resurrect the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

We submit the following evidence that the New York Times is once again guilty of willfully doing America great harm:

EXERCISE OF CERTAIN AUTHORITY RESPECTING ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
EO 12139
23 May 1979

By the authority vested in me as President by Sections 102 and 104 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802 and 1804), in order to provide as set forth in that Act for the authorization of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.

1-102. Pursuant to Section 102(b) of the Foreign Intelligence Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(b)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve applications to the court having jurisdiction under Section 103 of that Act to obtain orders for electronic surveillance for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information.

1-103. Pursuant to Section 104(a)(7) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1804(a)(7)), the following officials, each of whom is employed in the area of national security or defense, is designated to make the certifications required by Section 104(a)(7) of the Act in support of applications to conduct electronic surveillance:
(a) Secretary of State.
(b) Secretary of Defense.
(c) Director of Central Intelligence.
(d) Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(e) Deputy Secretary of State.(f) Deputy Secretary of Defense.
(g) Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.

None of the above officials, nor anyone officially acting in that capacity, may exercise the authority to make the above certifications, unless that official has been appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

1-104. [Deleted]
1-105. [Deleted]

None of the above officials, nor anyone officially acting in that capacity, may exercise the authority to make the above certifications, unless that official has been appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

1-104. Section 2-202 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at the end of that section: ''Any electronic surveillance, as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, shall be conducted in accordance with that Act as well as this Order.''.

1-105. Section 2-203 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at the end of that section: ''Any monitoring which constitutes electronic surveillance as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be conducted in accordance with that Act as well as this Order.''.

Jimmy Carter
1978

Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12139.htm

It's now being reported that President Bush summoned the editors of the NYT to his office and demanded that the story not be run. The NYT, seeking to cause as much harm to our president as possible and reduce the likelihood of the reauthorization of the patriot Act, decided to release it anyway. We won't even mention the fact that one of the story's authors, James Risen, has a book on the subject coming out in a few weeks.

Conclusion: The NYT puts the T in Treason every day.

Update:

The WSJ Opinion Journal has a fine piece today on the subject:

"...The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed. "

-- Though I think they fell short in questioning the NYTreason's decision to publish the story:

"Which brings us to this national security leak, which Mr. Bush yesterday called "a shameful act." We won't second-guess the New York Times decision to publish. But everyone should note the irony that both the Times and Washington Post claimed to be outraged by, and demanded a special counsel to investigate, the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, which did zero national security damage. "

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007703

Katrina Victims...

Well, well.

For all the rhetoric during the last three months since Katrina made land fall and caused so much damage, you'd have thought thousands had died and most of them were, how shall we say, of a certain heritage.

The hearings on the matter were, to say the least, more of the same. Some even compared it to the Holocaust. Of course, there is no comparison but the veiled reference to the popular leftist refrain that Bush is a fascist or Hitler comes through load and clear.

The facts are coming through and, as usual, they are crushing the rhetoric:

Of the 562 victims identified -- out of 883 -- 48 percent were Americans of African descent and 41 percent were Caucasian. 13 percent were Hispanic and 8 percent were unknown.

Here's the link to the data from the State of Louisiana:

http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/offices/publications/pubs-145/DECEASED%20Victims%20released_11-14-2005_publication.pdf