Europe faces up to double rejection of treaty

Interesting report from across the pond: The Frogs and the Dutch seem poised to vote NON! on the proposed Eurocratic Constitution. Oooops. There goes the push for a fully integrated United States of Europe, or whatever it would have been called.

Pesky democracy! Those sheeple just don’t vote the way their leaders say they should!

Promises Action in Spite of RINOs in Gang of 14

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) warned Democrats yesterday that he will not hesitate to trigger the so-called “nuclear option” to enforce an eleventh-hour deal that a centrist coalition of 14 lawmakers struck Monday on President Bush’s stalled judicial nominees.

At least some in the Senate continue to fly the Republican flag instead of the white flag of the RINO caucus. Meanwhile, two of the RINOs are developing their waffling skills to a previously unheard of level:

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (RINO-SC)and Mike DeWine (R-O) (RINO-O), two of the seven Republican signatories to the memorandum of understanding on the judges, backed up Frist, threatening to vote for the option should Democrats attempt to block nominees in circumstances that the two lawmakers would not consider “extraordinary.”

So what’s THAT all about? Feeling some heat from back home? Or what?

Anyway, the CHief hopes that Frist and the remaining real GOP senators go ahead and PUSH the agenda to the max, & let the chips fall where they may. At least that way the wafflers on both sides wpuld be exposed for once and for all for what they really are, or are not. THAT would seriously clear the air!

Sen. John Thune, (R-SD)issued the following comment on yesterdays RINO-Donk “Compromise” deal:

“I’m happy to see that three of the President’s judicial nominees will receive an up or down vote. However, I still believe that all judicial nominees with majority support deserve the fairness of an up or down vote on the Senate floor.”

Nothing there the Chief would disagree with. We did well to get Thune elected instead of that weasel Daschle!

More detailed MSM spiel on this here in the Argus.

Gang of Twelve Wreaks its Will on the Senate

Well, the RINO (Republican-in-name-only) Caucus in the Senate waffled again, as one might have expected, and threw two of the President’s nominees to the wolves, with the prospect of more to follow. Demonstrably there are not enough Republicans left in the Senate, that remember that THEY are the majority party now, to manage to exercise the hard won electoral advantage that was handed to them by the voters.

When there is the sight of John “Manchurian Candidate” McCain lined up next to Robert KKK Byrd, the mind boggles, and the hope that the GOP can be an effective vehicle for conservative/libertarian change in D.C. It has been said that politics is the art of the possible. What is such a crying shame here is that IT WAS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED VOTE ON ALL THESE NOMINATIONS. All it would have taken was enough backbone in the RINO caucus to back up the President as well as the Senate majority that would have voted to confirm these nominees. In short, as far as the Chief is concerned, these waffle-heads have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as Sen. Warner (RINO-VA), stood there in the announcement presser holding up “the deal” papers, reminding one of Chamberlain after Munich returning to England promising “Peace in our time.”

UPDATE:
After sleeping on it all and based on more thought on the status of the REST of the appointments NOT included in the deal, and the level of dissing to Sen. Frist AND the president, the Chief has revised his read on the relative advantage/disadvantage of this sell-out deal. The REAL GOP got seriously burned!

The following coverage was in The Hill on-line:

Deal heads off nuclear option
By Geoff Earle

A group of 14 Republicans and Democrats have reached a deal that will avert the use of the so-called “nuclear option” to end the judicial filibuster – at least for a time.

The deal would “pull this institution back from the precipice,” according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who helped broker the deal.

Yeah, right – but it just pushed Republican Party integrity over the edge.
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Meanwhile, Holocaust II Promoted in London

There are reports out of the mid-east that one of the most disreputable, slanderous, and evil pieces of anti-Jewish propaganda that came from a non-Nazi source has been published on the OFFICIAL Palestinian Authority website – BUT ONLY IN THE ARABIC version. It would seem that even the Palestinian Islamofascists have enough common sense not to publish it it English, to keep it’s outside exposure down.

An official Palestinian Authority information website directly affiliated with President Mahmoud Abbas has published on its Arabic language section a copy of the ”Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a classic anti-Semitic forgery…

Al-Nakba.com, the official Internet website of the Palestinian State Information Service, SIS, published an Arabic translation to the ”Protocols,” a notorious forgery authorized by the anti-Semetic Czarist police in early 20th-Century Russia…

These are the same folks that the moonbats say we need to sympathetically understand, and that we should FORCE Israel to make whatever concessions are needed to achieve “peace”.

Making peace with that attitude on the other side would be tantamount to lining up to march peacefully back into Auschwitz – for a new holocaust in the middle east is evidently the goal of the Palestinian and other Islamofascists.

Where’s the MSM crying about THIS hate speech? MIA once again.

At the same time, The Jerusalem Post described a Eurabian rally against Israel’s existance in London’s Trafalgar square. The participation and comments made are instructive as to the nature of the Islamofascists and their useful idiot and crypto (or maybe not so crypto in some cases) anti-semite supporters:

A central London rally organized by the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday heard Respect Party MP George Galloway advocate a general boycott of Israel, as well as other speeches calling for Israel’s destruction.

Remember Galloway? Last week before a Congressional Committee due to documentary evidence that he received proceeds from illegal use of Iraqi oil-for-food money in exchange for supporting Sod-em Hussein.
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Call for Accountability led by Tancredo:
Nicely job performance doesn’t live up to his name!?

This is definitely a step in the right direction! At least there are a few House members who seem to take their Constitutional responsibilities seriously.

Eight members of the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and chairman of the House Immigration Reform Committee, are calling for the resignation of a Border Patrol official in Arizona who is alleged to have told his agents to stand down following the Minuteman Project vigil in April so that an increase in apprehensions of illegal aliens would not give the citizen group bragging rights.

The focus of attention is Michael Nicely, agent-in-charge of the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol. He is accused by a dozen of his agents of ordering them to be less than aggressive in arrests beginning in early May.

One can only hope that this has some effect out in the field. This total nonsense of border officials (NOT the field officers, but their hack “superiors”) refusing to enforce the laws of the nation has been a festering sore on the body of the American republic. If we don;t have a border, then we don’t have a country!

Rapid City Journal: BRAC panel schedules area visit

The BRAC commission is holding a series of 16 hearings nationwide, for comments, etc. pertaining to the base closure proposal.

One of these hearings is scheduled for Rapid City, which gives an effective chance for Ellsworth supporters to make their case to keep the base open. This can only help, and who knows – it may actually make a difference.

This from SkyNews needs to be passed on! H/T to Alan at Barking Moonbat Early Warning System.

A self-styled art terrorist has caused embarrassment at the British Museum in London by installing his own ‘primative’ painting of a caveman pushing a supermarket trolley. The artwork appeared in the Roman Britain gallery.

The bizarre exhibit, labelled Early Man Goes to Market, was a hoax put there by Banksy, the most famous art terrorist in the country.

’nuff said.

H/T to Sir George posting over at the Emperor’s Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, for pointing out an absolutely masterful essay by Bill Whittle here (part 1) and here (part 2).

This is NOT a fly-by-night bumper-sticker/t-shirt type of contribution. When (NOTE: I say WHEN and not IF – hint hint!) you read this, be willing to use your reason, and spend some time to get through it. Just a brief taste:

Civilizations fall because they become so successful that their citizens become, over many generations of increasing security and prosperity, further and further away from the reality of the human condition. The quest for “better” becomes so successful that after a few generations of hard work and ingenuity we have nothing left but the quest for “perfect.” More and more effort produces fewer and smaller results, because the quest for perfection is asymptotic. Perfection is unattainable.

But when things are this good – and relative to human history, life in 21st Century America is far, far better than it has ever been, anywhere or at anytime – then merely being very good is, well, kind of disappointing to some people. There was a time when the voices of dissent came from the poorest and most downtrodden. Not any more. America has gotten so rich and successful that our poor and downtrodden live like kings relative to most of the rest of the world. The standard of living for the poorest American states are de facto better than those in Scandinavia, to say nothing of Egypt or Somalia or Haiti. No, today the loudest criticisms of the West come not from the bottom, but from the top: millionaire filmmakers and Harvard University professors and columnists who live in luxury skyscrapers. These people have never met real savagery, but they’ve seen it on Hogan’s Heroes! Anyone who can compare the US Marine Corps with the German SS has obviously never had to deal with either. There are millions of photos of people protesting President Bush. There is not a single photo of people in the street protesting Hitler. This tells me something. This should tell the Bush=Hitler crowd something, too. But it doesn’t.

Reality has left their building.

This is as eloquent and clear as anything I have ever seen anywhere. So rather than trying to rehash it – go read it!

GO THERE AND READ THIS! REALLY! DO IT!

In the same Kranz column noted in the previous post is this little item:

Ron Volesky has written to the White House seeking the top Bureau of Indian Affairs position. “I am very well-qualified for that job,” he said.

The Chief has met and conversed with Ron several times. He is an impressive person in many ways. We disagree on some fundamental issues, but I strongly agree with him on some others: for example he is STRONGLY pro-life.

He would probably do a fairly good job with the B.I.A., which can be a tough row to hoe as was stated by “Famous Dave” Anderson when he resigned after a year with that job.

Fails to Support Agency That’s Potential SD lab operator

The details of this one are reported by no less than Dave Kranz in the Argus this AM.

One hope for recharging the shaky West River South Dakota economy is having the National Science Foundation choose the old Homestake Gold Mine as the site for a national underground laboratory.

A bipartisan letter signed by 167 U.S. House members has been sent to a subcommittee in support of an increase in President Bush’s budget for the NSF in Fiscal Year 2006.

Although the letter does not directly affect Homestake, given the foundation’s possible relationship with the state, it is surprising Rep. Stephanie Herseth did not sign the letter, which was initiated to support the NSF’s budget request. Signing the letter for the sake of appearance would have looked better than not signing it.

As far as the Chief is concerned, Herseth shows a real capability for true membership in the Moonbat Caucus by her detachment from a seriously important issue to the state; is it Beltway fever causing disconnectt from SD concerns, setting in already?

Or is it that it’s the wrong part of the state? The Homestake lab is West River, not noted for being Donk country. In either case, it isn’t a good move of her part – and could very possibly come back to bite her in ’06.

Johnson, Herseth, others get on Board

Sen. John Thune, (R-SD) has proposed a bill that at least slows down the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closing) process.

Admittedly, the primary incentive is the proposed elimination of South Dakots’s Ellsworth A.F.B. near Rapid City. Aside from that there is some real reason to doing this in terms of our overll defense stance.

Pending right now is what is known as the Quadrennial Defense Review (known acronymically of course as the QDR. This is a comprehensive review of the status of the US defense establishment. This includes examining basing, training, weapons systems, procurement needs, personnel requirements, etc.

Among the planned changes to our military alignment, is a considerable withdrawel of US forces from overseas basing, especially in western Europe. This will of course necessitate location of these units in US domestic bases. Also the QDR is supposed to examine the probable future threat status – which is not a priority to the BRAC Commission, but needs to be more seriously considered.

Can THIS explain the problem of the MSM? It fits the data!

NEWSWEEK LIED – PEOPLE DIED

Sen. Dingy Harry Reid is facing an ethics complaint that he improperly made available confidential “raw” FBI reports concerning a judicial nominee, according to recent remarks this PM by Hannity on the Radio.

Heh heh heh. What goes around, comes around.

Apparently our boy Sen. Tim is involved in handling this with the Ethics Committee.

This is truly breathtaking! This clown is mad because the company he records for (EMI) has lowered their profit forcast due to his band’s tardiness in completing a planned album. His conclusion: profits and the shareholders are Evil!

He should just escape the system, and go out and do his music for free!

The NYT offers this article, on what is no doubt to them another exposure of evil Pentagon machinations in our imperialistic drive for world control. The Chief finds the report to be rather heartening – to think that part of DoD is actually proactively planning ahead!

This is something that is a vital and absolute necessity. If we do NOT do this, the ChiComs will – they are already going in this direction. You don’t even want to think about the world if they held the ultimate “high ground” of space, and we had no effective counter.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.

…and the point is? They won’t like us anyway, so we might as well do ourselves some good while they’re not liking us.

A presidential directive is expected within weeks, said the senior administration official, who is involved with space policy and insisted that he not be identified because the directive is still under final review and the White House has not disclosed its details.

If this is done, it will prove to be every bit as significant as Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Remember that? It ended up being the virtual straw that broke the camel’s back of the Soviet Union, when they realized they couldn’t match either our technology, and our capacity to actually afford to build it. Hmmmm. Maybe, just maybe….the ChiComs? What a thought!
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After months of squirming and kvetching, the Senate GOP will be confronted with reality – and it’ll be clear to one and all whether or not in fact they partake of that notable evolutionary advance: the spine.

One can only hope that this is the case. If not, perhaps the time is near to stick a fork in the GOP – it’ll be done!

Conservative Paper Increases Circulation

Interesting. A newspaper that reports news as news, and opEd as opinion shows that circulation decline is NOT an inevitability, even in this new media age.

One would expect that more MSM would take note of this (and for that matter the success of Fox News) and act accordingly – but this is NOT what is happening. NYT, WaPo, etc. continue with their path of ideological committment to the policies of the left, in spite of their less than stellar commercial performances.

Another illustration of Michael Savage’s mantra/book title: Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.

Strategic Factors Not Gone with the USSR – Can you spell C-H-I-N-A?

The ostensible reason for the closure of the bases in the current BRAC process, is that the expense of maintianing our basing levels is not militarily cost-effective in the post-Cold War environment. The reasoning for EAFB no doubt ran, why should we have TWO bases for B-1’s, with double infrastructure, etc. One of the former reasons, after all, for basing dispersal was to not have “all our eggs in one basket” in the event of a nuclear exchange with teh USSR. No USSR, no more dispersed basing needed now. Right?

The Chief has been pondering the emotional and local-economic factors vs. the military considerations in this BRAC cycle, and for a longer-term strategic reason, I do NOT think closing EAFB is the right military decision to make in the current world environment.

The free-traders have such a dominance at present, that most of the policy-making branches of our government have become extremely myopic with regards to what is happening with the Chicoms. WIth the marketing of US technology to the ChiComs under the Bubba administration, there is an expansion of all manner of missile and aerospace technology and weapons systems on the part of China.

The question of why then presents itself? Is China REALLY worried about buiilding up a deterrent force because they feel threatened by the immanent prospects of a US or Russian thermonuclear strike? Like the Chief used to hear (if not say!) in the Navy: “They might, but I f—in’ doubt it!”

Although it is NOT reported in the MSM, internal publications and discussions in the above-mentioned “Peoples’s Republic” openly and unblinkingly faces the prospect of a major war with the United States, and they are building their forces accordingly.
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This has to be passed on. Shamelessly borrowed with a H/T to Michelle Malkin.

See also, from Michelle: NEWSWEEK LIED*: PEOPLE DIED. (A well-turned phrase, that! Definitely bumper sticker and/or mantra quality!)

UPDATE: Newsweek finally issued a terse retraction of the Crappergate reporting.
This is as reported by Hannity a few minutes ago.
At least they did better than Dan Rather did – he STILL hasn’t retracted HIS faux pas.

When former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark was running for President there wasn’t a whole lot of agreement that the Chief had with his stance on the issues.

This concept on the other hand, is one that makes a fair amount of sense, and, independent of the strictly utilitarian military analysis of the BRAC process, introduces what is arguably a very significant social utility to have a somewhat more dispersed force structure, albeit at some additional cost factor.

It may well be worth paying the cost difference in this case.

MSM Again Demonstrates Junk Journalism – Again!

Newsweek Apologizes for Quran Story Errors
Rather than believeing Newsweek’s self-coverage of their causation of widespread rioting in the Middle-east, check out this coverage.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement that the original story was “demonstrably false” and “irresponsible,” and “had significant consequences that reverberated throughout Muslim communities around the world.”

“Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources, which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny,” Whitman said. “Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations.”

After Newsweek published the story, demonstrations spread across Afghanistan and Muslims around the world decried the alleged desecration.

Fisking fun with Newsweek attempt at self-justification:
from Newsweek web site:

May 23 issue – Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan?

DUH! What was your first clue, Sherlock?

That’s what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur’an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects.

These paragons of reportorial skill apparently had to see what was being said elsewhere to figure this out!
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Islamofascist Radicals’ Effectively Worship a Modern Huitzilopochtli?

A few days ago the Chief commented here on an article that framed the Islamofascist attacks on the US in terms of typical 20th century socio-political ideological opposition to a perceived US neo-imperialism.

The Chief made the point that to the contrary, that the motivation of the terrs was an internal driver, based on their conception of their religion, independent of more conventional reasoning (indeed, of any true reasoning at all).

Hinderaker over at PowerLine makes this point more forcefully and colorfully, equating the Islamofascist mind-set to that of the Aztecs, whose worship of their war god Huitzilopochtli demanded ever more bloody offerings of beating human hearts:
“…the best historical precedents are the Aztecs, who turned mere human sacrifice into an art form by killing more and more and more people until they literally may have slaughtered an end to their own empire. Their intent was not to achieve some political goal; they already ruled. Rather, they developed the theological notion that the more people they butchered, the more pleased their bloody gods would be.

And this:
But like serial and spree killers, like those who commit human sacrifice, the motivation is found not in the external world but in his own internal hell, in the voice that only he can hear, from his bloody, eldrich gods, who demand blood and souls, blood and souls in the name of Moloch, or Arioch, or Cthulhu, or Huitzilopochtli, who demand mass sacrifices in the Grand Pyramid (or the Great Mosque — and it is significant that one of the favorite targets for the killers are mosques full of worshippers, as if they saw their red-dripping thunderclap as an explosive “amen” to the service).

This is a pretty goood comparison. Go check it out.

Here they go again: Donks & Argus’ schadenfreude turned lose!
BRAC List With Underlying Political Considerations?

The Argus-Loser is having fun tsk-tsking about the problems that the possible loss of EAFB will possibly cause Sen. John Thune.
“Being a loyal Republican apparently didn’t help Sen. John Thune of South Dakota as much as he’d hoped it would.”

It goes on in this coverage with this little bit:
During the campaign, Thune maintained that Daschle’s role as leader of President Bush’s opposition would be a liability in the base closure process. Daschle also used the issue in the heated campaign, claiming to have kept Ellsworth off the list during the last round of closures when Bill Clinton was president. “This is something I have tried to avoid for many years and something I was involved in stopping 10 years ago,” Daschle said in a telephone interview Friday.

Of the election that ended his 18-year Senate career, Daschle said, “South Dakota made its decision and I am at peace with it, but we now have to deal with the circumstances before us.”

The clear inference here is that if Daschle had been left in the Senate the BRAC hit on EAFB wouldn’t have happened this way. This interpretation, as pleasing as it is to Todd Epp and others of his ilk among the moonbat Donks, doesn’t hold much water given some often unstated (in the MSM: Argus et. al) facts in this whole process.

Firstly, Daschle, Johnson, and other Donks were enthusiastic cheerleaders and movers behing the initiation of the current round of BRAC. Daschle REPEATEDLY pushed for and voted for getting this process going. Once it was moving along smartly, the election started looming on the horizon, and he finally woke up and smelled the political coffee. He THEN made a couple of votes to try to stop the already moving BRAC juggernaut. Too little, too late, for anything except for providing some political cover.

The BRAC list was drafted and in the chute by last December. As in December 2004. Hmmmm. The Chief seems to recall something about John Thune becoming a Senator in January 2005 – a bit too late to try to head ’em off at the pass on listing EAFB.

The other 500 lb. gorilla in the parlor that is assiduously ignored by the Argus-Loser and the Donks, is the clear case that all of Sen. Tom’s much touted “clout” wouldn’t be worth a bucket of cold spit in getting the administration to reconsider anything concerning Ellsworth. I mean, really! Give me a break! Daschle schoozing Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld, and getting a favorable hearing? The thought staggers the imagination!

While the future of EAFB is certainly not anything to feel great optimism about at this point, if there is any chance to influence the administration attitude towards Ellsworth, it is by Sen. Thune more than anyone else.

Whether this will be enough to matter, time will tell. SD has some heavy negative inertia in this case. Politically, the current BRAC has 69% of the personnel losses impacting four under-populated states: South Dakota, Maine, Alaska, and North Dakota. Reason? Officially, military efficiency. Politically? Dare one be cynical enough to suggest that there are fewer votes there to worry about? The Chief would HOPE not, but he wouldn’t make any bets against it either.

Even more cynically, one COULD even note that the B-1 force moved out of Ellsworth would find its new digs at Dyess AFB – in Texas – the home turf of the Pres. himself. NAH – say it ain’t so! That would be a move worthy of Robert KKK Byrd, or that other old Texas pol, LBJ hisself – but surely NOT Dubya!? Why is it so hard for the Chief to stop thinking about this possibility?

A good digest of BRAC coverage here.

Security Committee Leaders Identified as Mexican Nationals!

This story is just about too much to believe, although, given the Through the Looking-glass quality of recent events (such as border agents being ordered not police the border), maybe it’s just part of a continuum of the psychoses caused by “Potomac fever”.

“A woman whose brother was killed in the September 11 attacks yesterday surprised top members of the House Homeland Security Committee with counterfeit Mexican matricula consular cards bearing the members’ identities and showcasing how easy it is to get valid identification to board an airplane.”

This was part of testimony by an intrepid Debra Burlingame before the House Homeland Security Committee just dramatized what has been a well known problem with the security of the Mexicano Matricula Consular ID’s, which are apparently acceptable for boarding aircraft, and for many other official and business purposes.

To the Chief, the state of border security is reminiscent of the situations in many large cities where there is the precedent of the “known crack house” – run by drug dealers as a sort of Motel 6 for junkies – and which everyone in the neighborhood (including the cops!) knows about, but somehow manages to be ignored by the authorities.

What will it take before people get fed up enough to REALLY hold the feet to the fire of those whom we have delegated the responsibility to properly navigate the ship of state. If we can’t get their attention, said ship unfortunately may well turn out to be a colossal political and governmental version of the Titanic.

The sort of buck-passing that makes this possible is further illustrated in this same story:
On its Web site the TSA says for a domestic flight, “passengers age 18 and over must present one form of photo identification issued by a local, state or federal government agency” and lists a passport, driver’s license or military ID as examples, or two nonphoto forms of identification.
But Amy Von Walter, a spokeswoman for TSA, said the agency is not actually responsible for checking IDs at most airports. She said the person looking at identification in the security checkpoint line is usually a worker under contract to the airline.
“It’s an airline policy that requires a photo ID,” she said. She said airlines usually require a photo ID issued by a government agency, but when someone doesn’t have an ID that meets that requirement airlines might accept consular ID cards instead.
“You need to check with the individual airlines to determine what they will accept as an alternative form of ID,” she said. “The policy does vary a bit from airline to airline.”

This all makes ME feel more secure about airline security. NOT!

Another case where our government representatives are more or less intentionally failing to exercise their delegated responsibilities.

Recommendation Against Court Martial for Pantano
Rowan Scarborough reporting in the Washington Times:

An investigating officer has recommended that the Marine Corps drop murder charges against 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, who shot to death two Iraqi insurgents a year ago during a raid on an insurgent hideout in the “Triangle of Death.”

This is the only rational outcome for this case. To try to second guess combat zone actions in terms of US domestic police criteria is nothing short of insane and militarily suicidal.

One can only hope that this recommendation is concurred to by the commanding general who makes the final decision.

The Chief went over to visit Blackfive to get a taste of the military flavor there, and found this posting by Grim that laid out simply and clearly why so-called working class/middle class voters are favoring the conservative side for this past little while, based on fundamental personal economics.

I won’t attempt to recap the whole point here – why should I – Grim at Blackfive did it already! So hey, go check it out & move along smartly, now!

Bad News from BRAC Report

The BRAC (Base Realignment and Closing) list is out this morning, and it’s NOT good news for Rapid City and the Ellsworth AFB, which has been recommended for closure.

This isn’t totally final – there are additional steps in the BRAC proceess, but it certainly isn’t a positive development. More to follow on this one for sure.

On a more positive note, the SD Air Guard base at Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls is slated for increased activity.

Privateers and Mercenaries

Most of this article by one Doug Casey from WND is a load of tripe, IMHO. I think the writer has a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s happening with Islamofascism (which he calls Islamism), and thinks apparently that if we weren’t over there meddling with their oil fields and exporting McDonald’s that they would leave us alone.

To this end, it is suggested that ALL US military presence should be withdrawn from EVERYWHERE, and that it would then be time for millenial peace, apparently. I guess, given the commentator’s background in international financial speculation, he has a tendency to interpret events in terms of geo-economic terms. Fair enough, everyone has a point of view, but from the Chief’s perspective he’s overlooking some fundamental historical trends.

If one examines the world map & highlights where wars are going on, far and away in most cases Islamofascism is involved. For example, the Phillipine Islamic guerilla insurrection, Islamic rebels in Thailand, Islamic Pakistan vs. (mostly) Hindu India, the old Bosnian – Serb argument, the Chechens & others mad at the Russians, even Islamists active in central Asiatic China, the slavery and genocide of animists and Christians in Sudan, and of course the terror war against the west playing out in the US, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, etc. T

Now I could be mistaken, but most of these conflicts have nothing to do with the USA – but ALL of them involve radical Islamists, or Islamofascists. Many of these conflicts have deep historical roots, for a reason – the perennial drive of Islam in history to extend its sway via conquest and military domination, using whatever vehicle was at hand. This picture gives an example, illustrating one reason why, historically, the Serbs might not exactly like the Bosnian Moslems. The main driver for the Islamofascists’ violence is an internal, religious one – NOT external events, which are used only as a smoke-screen.