This is the best news I’ve heard all week:
President Bush’s immigration bill suffered a crushing defeat Thursday in the Senate, when members voted against advancing the controversial legislation.
The tally was 46 to 53, 14 votes shy of the 60 needed to end debate.
However, the war against amnesty still isn’t over. I’ve personally been in a foul mood concerning how out of step the Bush Administration has been on immigration reform. Until the borders are secured and current laws are enforced, true immigration reform will never take place. How anybody is unable to grasp those simple facts is a mystery to me.
…A candidate who isn’t afraid of saying what people don’t want to hear.
(link via Jim Rose)
From the man who brought you “Airplane!”, “The Naked Gun”, and “Scary Movie 4″, the painful (yet funny) truth:
Also, beware of pooch-packing grannies at the airport:
Oh, by the way, enjoy YouTube while you can.
Update: GooTube: Champions of Free Expression!
Did anybody wake up to this item a few hours ago?
British authorities said Thursday they had thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the U.S. using explosives smuggled in carry-on luggage. Britain’s Home Secretary John Reid said 21 people had been arrested in London, its suburbs and in Birmingham, including the alleged “main players” in the plot.
Huge crowds formed at security barriers at London’s Heathrow airport as officials searching for explosives barred nearly every form of liquid outside of baby formula.
Officials raised security to its highest level in Britain and banned hand-carried luggage on all trans-Atlantic flights.
The extreme measures at a major international aviation hub sent ripple effects throughout the world. Heathrow airport was closed to most flights from Europe.
The U.S. government responded by raising its threat alert to its highest level for commercial flights from Britain to the United States amid fears the plot had not been completely crushed. The alert for all flights coming or going from the United States was also raised slightly.
Wake up, folks. Now isn’t the time for complacency.
Related: Malkin, Allah, LGF, and Boortz are on top of it.
It’s not often that I agree with Ed Brown (alias DarkStar) on the issues. However, on the subject in question, I agree with him 100%.
In summary, I support legal immigration. Play by the rules. Learn the common language. Assimilate into society. Be a productive citizen.
Those ideals are followed by naturalized residents of every nation that has immigration laws on their books — except for America, where illegal immigration is out of control, and those who are here illegally (as well as their enablers) thumb their noses at our country’s sovereignty.
Either America is a nation of laws or a land of anarchy. Given the weak-kneed willingness of our government to actually enforce current immigration laws — let alone propose new ones that are sugar-coated for political correctness, we are rapidly headed toward the latter.
And before anybody starts hatin’ on me and calling me a racist, I’ll repeat the sentence again:
I support legal immigration.
Update: CNN’s Lou Dobbs nails it.
Oh, by the way (from Frank J.) …
In your face terrorist ‘tards! You thought you could beat us by going for the minds of the cowardly and the morally bereft in America, but that’s too small a minority in America to make the difference.You like getting shot, Islamists. You like getting blown up from far above? You like cowering in caves? Well, you got four more years of it, bitches!
And Satan, fair warning, make some more room in hell!
To everyone who hated the first four years of Bush - and no one hated it more than the terrorists - these next four years are going to be even worse now that Bush doesn’t have to worry about reelection! Boo-yeah!
The following people want to kill us this summer (click on each photo for more information):
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Be safe. Be vigilant. Be on the look out.
(graphic and HTML code courtesy of Brain Shavings)
For all of Richard Clarke’s efforts to slander the Bush Administration in his efforts to maximize his book sales, the center of blame rests with Clarke’s former boss — whether the Democrats like it or not.
From Neal Boortz:
CLINTON STOPPED CIA FROM KILLING BIN LADENThis has been out there for awhile, but the 9-11 commission is finally confirming it as fact. This should tell you everything you need to know about the Clinton administration and their policy of terrorist appeasement for 8 years.
Announcing some of its preliminary findings yesterday, the commission confirmed that President Clinton ordered the CIA to take Osama Bin Laden alive or not at all. The following statement read at yesterday’s session says it all: “CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President Clinton as instructing them to try and capture Bin Laden.” A former CIA station chief said “We always talked about how much easier it would have been to try to kill him.” A former CIA official told NBC News last week that White House orders to spare Bin Laden’s life cut the chances of getting him in half. Once again, they viewed terrorism as a law enforcement problem, worrying about Bin Laden’s rights instead of just unleashing the CIA to exterminate him.
If this commission wants to lay blame for policy failures that led to 9/11, then they need to do it where it belongs, with the Clinton administration and Richard Clarke.
Related: According to this transcript from 2002, Clarke’s story was a far cry from his current accusations that Bush did little to nothing in terms of pre-9/11 counterterrorism.
Also, Larry Elder comments:
Gleeful over Clarke’s current slam against the Bush administration, the president’s critics overlook key Clarke admissions. First, despite feeling “intimidated” by the perceived presidential wish to find a connection between Iraq and 9/11, Clarke said the president never asked him to “make it up.” And Clarke admits that, he, too, thought Saddam possessed WMD. “Everybody did,” said Clarke.So where does this leave us?
The 9/11 commission intends to issue their final report this July. Expect a finding of enough blame to go around. This we know: The Clinton administration had eight years to go after terrorists, and the Bush administration had eight months. We also know that the planning for 9/11 began under Clinton’s watch.
After the successful toppling of the Afghanistan and Iraq governments, a fearful Moammar Kadafi of Libya admitted and then renounced his WMD. This led to the unraveling of the nuclear network between Libya, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. North Korea, after balking, now appears willing to engage in non-proliferation talks with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. The movement toward democracy in Iraq emboldens dissidents in Syria and Iran. An ABC News poll found that while 39 percent of Iraqis oppose the invasion, 48 percent approve! And 71 percent of Iraqis expect their lives to improve within a year’s time.
If only Americans felt that optimistic.
From yesterday’s Review-Journal:
The FBI used the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial information about key figures in its ongoing political corruption probe centered on strip club magnate Michael Galardi, federal authorities confirmed Monday.Investigators “used a section of the Patriot Act to get subpoenas for financial documents,” said Special Agent Jim Stern, a spokesman for the Las Vegas field office of the FBI. “It was used appropriately by the FBI and was clearly within the legal parameters of the statute.”
While it is true that the al-Qaedans did frequent a strip club in town while planning the 9/11 terror strike, I highly doubt that Michael Galardi was involved with any of the meetings, as he was too busy trying to buy off politicians and get some ordinances to favor his franchise of titty bars.
Patriot Act critics are rightfully concerned. And they should be.
(also posted to The Liberty Dogs)
Related: Senators join forces to roll back parts of Patriot Act
Art Buchwald writes about the hometown:
It’s hard to believe, but Las Vegas has just won the title of “Best Homeland Security Town in America.” I went there to find out why.The first thing I learned is that Vegas has its own satellite in the sky, looking down on the roofs of all the casinos. On the roof of each casino are men staring at TV monitors that show everything going on in the casinos. They are particularly watching the floor bosses. The floor bosses are watching the pit bosses, who are watching the dealers, who are watching the crapshooters. The customers are watching the dealers in hopes of hitting blackjack.
Security men at all the doors are watching everyone come in and out of the casino. Single men are watching chorus girls and single women are watching chorus guys.
The youngsters are watching the animals in the cages and the animals are watching the children.
And the IRS is watching EVERYBODY 24 hours a day.
While the beefed-up security and the IRS monitoring (which happens to be going on nationwide, methinks) is quite factual, I was surprised to learn that Las Vegas has its own satellite watching over the tourists.
Watching the casinos are justified, though I think the satellite system goes way beyond a tip of the hat to Orwelll. What would really be haunting is the potential that satellite surveyance might go beyond the tourism sector and over to the residential areas of Southern Nevada in the name of homeland security.
(link via Connie du Toit @ Liberty Dogs)
From Stephen Green:
Fearful people often make bad decisions. And the government is happy to oblige them.That’s not to say that we’re stupid or the government is evil. It’s simply human nature to require some minimal amount of personal safety, and it’s the nature of democratic government to give the people what they want. If we can’t feel safe in a free society, then maybe we won’t have one much longer.
A very wise man once said that if we throw away our freedom, if we renounce our heritage, there can never be another America. Never again on this planet will the political, geographical, and philosophical stars align they way they did in 1776. There are no new continents to find, explore, settle, and to which to escape all the bloody history of the Old World. This is it – humanity’s one shot at a new creation.
But we might just blow it if Washington can’t protect it.
Be afraid of George W. Bush if you must. But your real fear should be your neighbors, if Bush fails us in this Terror War. We’re just one more attack away from trading a lot of freedom for a little security – and getting the neither that we deserve.
Rather than give armed pilots a chance to stave off potential terrorist hijackings, our government would rather blow hijacked aircraft out of the sky, killing more civillians that a stray bullet from a handgun could ever do:
“The concept of arming pilots with firearms to prevent or stop a hijacking is viewed by some as an extreme and intrusive measure, but we think they’ve got it exactly backwards… The policy of sacrificing a civilian airliner with innocent Americans on board to keep terrorists from using it as a weapon – while at the same time refusing to allow the pilots an opportunity to offer a last resort, final line of defense – is the extremist view that should be ridiculed and dismissed.”
Admittedly, I’d feel much safer on a flight with pilots like these.
I’d also kick it up a notch and arm and train flight attendants — so the pilots can focus on flying the plane, and act as the last line of onboard defense.
Or hope that El Al will begin domestic service to major airports…
(Audio link via Blogatelle)