STOPPING TEHRAN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

According to the WASHPOST/AP: Iran is smuggling in nuclear materials for a bomb. The smuggling operation includes people involved with the Pakistani AQ KHAN network.

If the current talks stall, then the Free World must act - DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO "de-fang" the tyrants of Tehran before it's too late.

We should demand that the MULLAHS/IAEA/UNSC GUARANTEE that Iran is "weapons program free." If they cannot, then Congress should authorize a massive pre-emptive missile strike against all known AND SUSPECTED, PEACEFUL AND MILITARY - AND DUAL USE - nuclear sites ANYWHERE inside of Iran.

That ought to get their attention.

CONGRESS MAY FINALLY TIGHTEN SCREWS ON CORRUPT U.N.

FOX/AP:

A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago. The "United Nations Reform Act of 2005" targets a panoply of issues that have troubled critics of the United Nations, particularly Republicans, for years. Among other things, it would seek to cut funding for programs seen as useless and bar human rights violators from serving on U.N. human rights bodies. The 80-page bill, from Illinois Republican Henry Hyde's House International Relations Committee, is still in an early form and has only recently been distributed to Democrats, who are likely to oppose several elements. It was sent to a few U.N. officials Thursday night, when a copy was obtained by The Associated Press. One of the bill's most controversial proposals will be linking dues to the changes it spells out. The document stipulates that if the reforms are not carried out, Congress will withhold 50 percent of U.S. dues to the U.N. general budget, taking the money from programs it deems inefficient and wasteful.

Readers of this blog know that I called for this MONTHS AGO, in a post HERE - "TIME FOR HELMS -BIDEN REDUX."

ALSO THERE'S THIS ITEM: Trump weighs in on the UN's $1.2 BILLION renovation - which the USA is supposed to pay for. FROM POWERLINE/The Weekly Standard:

... on April 6, 2005, Senator Jeff Sessions recounted his conversation with Trump:

Let me share this story with you, which is pretty shocking to me. The $1.2 billion loan the United Nations wants is to renovate a building. Some member of the United Nations, a delegate, apparently, from Europe, had read in the newspaper in New York that Mr. Donald Trump . . . had just completed the Trump World Tower--not a 30-story building like the United Nations, but a 90-story building, for a mere $350 million, less than one-third of that cost. So the European United Nations delegate was curious about the $1.2 billion they were spending on the United Nations. He knew he didn't know what the real estate costs are in New York. So, he called Mr. Trump and they discussed it. Mr. Trump told him that building he built for $350 million was the top of the line. It has the highest quality of anything you would need in it. They discussed the matter, and an arrangement was made for Mr. Trump to meet Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, to discuss the concerns. . . . So according to Mr. Trump, who I talked to personally this morning, they go meet with Mr. Annan, who had asked some staff member to be there . . . When the European asked how these numbers could happen, Mr. Trump said the only way would be because of incompetence, or fraud. That is how strongly he felt about this price tag because he pointed out to me that renovation costs much less than building an entirely new building. So he has a meeting with Mr. Annan, and they have some discussion. And Mr. Trump says these figures can't be acceptable. He told me in my conversation this morning, he said: You can quote me. You can say what I am saying. He said they don't know. The person who had been working on this project for 4 years couldn't answer basic questions about what was involved in renovating a major building. He was not capable nor competent to do the job. He went and worked on it, and talked about it, and eventually made an offer. He said he would manage the refurbishment, the renovation, of the United Nations Building, and he would not charge personally for his fee in managing it. He would bring it in at $500 [million], less than half of what they were expecting to spend, and it would be better. . . . Yet he never received a response from the United Nations.

It appears there are serious questions about the U.N.'s renovation project. Depending on which assumptions one accepts about cost and square footage, anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in expense is unaccounted for. Given the U.N.'s history, is there any reason to doubt that the costs projected by that organization include substantial sums representing, as Trump put it, incompetence or fraud? Given what we know about the oil-for-food program, is there any reason to trust the U.N.'s business or accounting practices?

NOPE! The UN is a CESSPOOL of Leftism and corruption, and it's BEYOND RENOVATION. IT'S A TEAR-DOWN! Instead of RENOVATING it - or its building - we should TEAR IT DOWN -- LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY -- AND START FROM SCRATCH: A NEW ORGANIZATON AND A NEW BUILDING AT A NEW LOCATION!

And we could have them sell their building and real estate to Trump, and he could make it into a hotel/condo/marina-resort.

TYRANT FIDEL THUMBS NOSE AT E.U.

From the BBC:

Cuba has expelled two European Union politicians visiting Havana to address a rare pro-democracy conference. ... The pair were due to address a meeting of dissidents opposed to the Communist rule of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The EU, which has called for 61 jailed dissidents to be released, will decide next month whether to impose sanctions against Cuba for human rights abuses. ... Several other EU politicians have been arrested or barred from entering Cuba in recent years, accused of fostering links with dissidents. EU-Cuban relations have been strained since 75 were people were arrested during a crackdown on political opponents in March 2003. The EU imposed sanctions but lifted them when 14 were released last year. Sixty-one still remain in jail.

Totalitarians like Fidel - Mugabe, Chavez, Assad, Kim Jong Il - ARE ALL LEFTISTS and THEY ALL MUST GO!

KORANGATE: FRIEDMAN GETS ONE RIGHT - for a change!

This blog has been justifiably tough on NYTIMES columnist Tom Friedman, so it's only fitting and proper - and FAIR AND BALANCED - that we cite him when he's gets something right:

The Muslim world's silence about the real desecration of Iraqis, coupled with its outrage over the alleged desecration of a Koran, highlights what we are up against in trying to stabilize Iraq - as well as the only workable strategy going forward.

[...] If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, and if credible Sunnis were given their fair share in the Iraqi government, I am certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop, as happened with the Palestinians.

The Muslim world's lack of criticism of the Muslims who rioted because of the Newsweek article, and the fact that Muslims rarely criticize Iraq's suicide bombers reveals a HUGE problem within Islam.

Muslims must cease their xenophobic hysteria and their reflex to use violence. This would most likely begin to happen if their mainstream clerics would LOUDLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY criticize the neojihadist fanatics who riot or become suicide bombers; (right now, the only Islamic folks who are consistently crticizing the neojihadists are Islamic fringe critics like IRSHAD MANJI). WE'RE WAITING.

WHAT IF THERE WERE ONLY 35 DEMOCRAT SENATORS??

HARRY REID REFERS TO THE FILIBUSTER AS IF IT WAS THE ONLY THING WHICH STOOD BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM.

WELL, IF THERE WERE ONLY 35 DEMOCRAT SENATORS, WOULD THEY EXPECT THE GOP MAJORITY TO RAISE THE NUMBER OF VOTES IN ORDER TO INVOKE CLOTURE?

THAT'S ABSURD!

THERE'S NOTHING "MAGICAL" ABOUT THE NUMBER 40. IT USED TO BE 35; BEFORE THAT, IT WAS 30. THE DEMS CHANGED IT - TO INCREASE THEIR POWER AND DECREASE THE POWER OF THE GOP SENATORS.

THERE IS SOMETHING "MAGICAL" ABOUT MAJORITY RULE - IT'S CALLED DEMOCRACY.

IF THESE 5 NOMINEES WERE REALLY "BEYOND THE PALE" THEN THEY WOULD NOT PASS IN A STRAIGHT UP-OR-DOWN SENATE VOTE.

THINK ABOUT THIS: BUSH IS HAVING A PROBLEM WITH 5/270 NOMINEES. THAT'S 1/54th. HARDLY AN AMOUNT THAT WOULDS IRREVOCABLY HURT THE JUDICIARY. AND THERE ARE ABOUT 200 APPELLATE JUDGES ON SVERAL CIRCUITS. THESE FIVE NOMINEES CANNOT POSSIBLY CHANGE - IN ANY MAJOR WAY - THE CHARACTER OF THE APPELATE COURTS TO WHICH THEY ARE NOMINATED, IF THEY ARE CONFIRMED.

WHICH PRIOVES THAT THE WHOLE ISSUE IS NOTHING MORE THAN HYSTERICAL LEFT-WING BS! THE DEMS ARE HOLDING UP THE NOMINEES TO RAISE MONEY FROM THEIR LEFT-WING BASE, TO PROVE THEIR "WORTH." THE DEMS HAVE PROSTITUTED THEMSELVES TO THE ANTI-MAJORITARIAN, ANTI-MIDDLE-AMERICAN, LEFT-WING. THIS WILL GET THEM MONEY - IN THE SHORT RUN - AND AN EVER-DWINDLING RESULT AT THE BALLOT BOX IN THE COMING ELECTIONS.

CHECKS AND BALANCES AND SENATE FILIBUSTERS

The Dems in the Senate are CHARGING that the proposed rule change will destroy "checks and balances" and will turn our republic into a tryanny. But "checks and balances" is a term which has to do with the three co-equal branches (the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary), and NOT minority powers within one body (the Senate) of one branch.

When the Dems CHARGE that MERELY reducing the votes required to invoke cloture on judicial nominees is an "attack on checks and balances" they are hyping to the point of pure unadulterated demagogic LYING!

The reason that Bush should get most if not ALL of his nominees conformed is because we live in a DEMOCRACY, and a majority of Americans have VOTED IN the GOP into a MAJORITY in the Congress - BOTH in the House and in the Senate - and into the White House. That's DEMOCRACY - the WILL OF THE PEOPLE - and NOT a "power grab." Rather, it is the DEM MINORITY that's trying to GRAB power - literally use ARCHAIC SENATE RULES to exert more power than they are Consitutionally entitled to, and more power than they can win IN ELECTIONS. And in DEMOCRACIES, elections are SUPPOSED to be how things get decided.

UPDATE: 12:54PM - Chuckie Schumer is accusing the GOP of abusing power and threatening "CHECK AND BALANCES" - and... GET THIS: he accused the GOP of throwing a "TEMPER TANTRUM." The Freudian concept of "projection" never had a more perfect, more salient example.

IS BUSH TRYING TO "PACK THE COURT"

I'm watching the Senate rule change debate on C-SPAN.

Leahy has just charged that Bush is trying to "pack the court." BS!

Leahy then went on to say that the Senate has already confirmed about 270 Bush nominees, and are only holding up 5.

WELL: HOW COULD 5 NOMINEES AMOUNT TO PACKING THE COURT?! It's pure demagoguery. These five nominees cannot possibly change the character of ANY court to which they are appointed.

Then Leahy charged that the GOP is hyping the crisis and dangerously employing the "nuclear option." But the GOP is merely changing Senate cloture rules which the Dems changed 5 times - three times when Byrd himself was leader. The number of votes required to invoke cloture has been reduced before. It is NOT "nuclear." Charging that it is "nuclear" is HYPERBOLE AND DEMOGOGIC!

And then Leahy called the GOP contemptible McCarthyites. Which is yet another example of OUTRAGEOUS DEMOGOGUERY.

It's the Dems and demagogic jerks like Leahy who've fomented this crisis and who are HYPERBOLIZING the crisis.

Now that HOMUNCULUS Durbin is admonishing Frist and the GOP for using hyperbole. WHAT HYPOCRISY!

UPDATE: The INVALUABLE MALKIN is NUCLEAR OPTION central - CHECK HER OUT! And WELCOME Malkin readers; please check out a few other FRESH posts while they're still wamr!

MORE PROOF THE LEFT LIKES NEOJIHADISM MORE THAN NEOCONSERVATISM

From VIKINGPUNDIT (hat tip AZ CENTRAL):

DNC CHAIR Howard Dean on a NEOJIHADIST GENOCIDAL MURDERER:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," [Howard] Dean said during the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."

About Tom Delay - who has been neither indicted or convicted of ANYTHING - (and who has been "charged in the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION" ONLY with doing what 150 Democrat Congrressman have done: travel at someone else's expense):

"I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence."

This OUTBURST reveals that the Left fears neoconservatism - and Bush and Delay - more than they do neojihadism. Which is warped. And it's why - as long as there's a war on - the Dems will NEVER be trusted with the White House or control of the Congress.

I guess this is to be expected from the party that still advocates socialism - like nationalized health - even though it has failed (or is failing) everytime it has ever been tried everywhere in the world.

And it's more proof that the Left is not anti-war; they're on the other side.

WARS WORK!

From WINDS OF CHANGE:

[The 20th Century was] a century that saw far more people murdered by governments than killed in wartime 169M to 36M, by one estimate...

SO: when we FAIL to intervene against socialist tyrannies, we err on the side of GENOCIDE. It SAVED LIVES to defeat Hitler. If we had marched on to Moscow in 1945 - it would have SAVED LIVES. If we had intervened MILITARILY in Rwanda, it would have SAVED LIVES.

And I believe that making war against tyrants like Mugabe and Fidel and Chavez and Kim and the mullahs would not only end their TYRANNY but SAVE LIVES, and lift the people up to lives of liberty and prosperity.

That makes me a libertarian hawk. And a HUMANITARIAN who wants to SAVE LIVES.

BOTTOM-LINE: WAR WORKS. I think this is further proof that the DOVES OF THE LEFT (since Vietnam days and all the way to the anti-Iraq War folks) have been "anti-war" because they're on the other side, and not because they want to save lives.

NEW LEFTIST MANTRA: "FAKE BUT ACCURATE!"

"FAKE BUT ACCURATE." It makes perfect sense. To the Leftist mind. They do NIT even see the INANITY of it. "FAKE BUT ACCURATE." Rathergate was FAKE BUT ACCURATE. Newsweek's KORANGATE was "FAKE BUT ACCURATE."

To the Left, "fake but accurate" means that a lie or a fiction might get at a higher truth than the facts.

You know what the REALLY scary thing is? Leftists really REALLY believe this.

Real truth - the LITERAL TRUTH - is not as important to the Left as stuff that FEELS truthful, as the FIGURATIVE TRUTH. That's why they come up with stuff like: BusHitler/AshKKKroft/Blood4Oil/Bush-lied; people died.

And it's why they so often argue analogically ("Zionsim is racism/Sanctions were infanticide", and use metaphors (like "Nuclear Option"), and coin coded synonyms, like: Neocon is code for Likudnik which is code for Zionist which is code for International Jewish Banking Conspiracy/CFR-Bilderberger, blah blah blah.

Unfortunately for the Left - and fortunately for the rest of us - figurative thinking, analogies, and code-words are NO SUBSTITUTE for good-thinking, logic and the truth.

Which is why the Democrats are in REAL TROUBLE: they have more affinity for the Loony "FAKE BUT ACCURATE" Left than they do for Middle America.

Welcome BASIL'S BLOG readers! And if you're not one, you should be EVERYDAY!

More on "FAKE BUT ACCURATE" here and here and here and here and here.

NEWSWEEK SOURCE IDENTIFIED!

It was Joe Wilson. I mean Dick Clarke. I mean Dan Rather. I mean Mary Mapes. I mean Chuck Graner. I mean Sy Hersh. I mean Howard Zinn. I mean Sandy Berger. I mean Alger Hiss. I mean John Kerry. I mean Ramsey Clark. I mean Noam Chomsky. I mean Jimmy Carter. I mean Benedict Arnold.

Well... I can GUARANTEE THIS: it was a Left-wing anti-American who believes that the USA needs to be punished. (What for you ask!? For being: Western; middle class; vulgar and unsophisticated compared to zuh French; universalist; the ONLY superpower; capitalist; free; and traditional.)

(BY THE WAY: SHOULDN'T THERE BE SOME KIND OF "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT" IN RELATION TO THE MSM (WHEN THEY GET IT SO SO SO SO VERY VERY WRONG!? SHOULDN'T WE IN THE DEFRAUDED PUBLIC HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUE THE MSM TO FIND OUT WHO THEIR SOURCE WAS?! IT MIGHT DISCOURAGE THIS DESPICABLE ACTIVTITY.)

MUSLIM REACTION TO NEWSWEEK LIE UNACCEPTABLE - so is the MSM's!

At NRO's THE CORNER, John Podhoretz spotted this comment from last night's anti-American/anti-Bush NIGHTLINE show (which I saw):

"It would certainly be convenient to say that all this is Newsweek's fault," said Nightline's John Donvan. "The problem is, America also has a credibility problem in the Muslim world."

Blaming America for the misperceptions that many Arabs and many Muslims have about America is like blaming the beaten and abused wife for the abuse she receives at the hands of her wife-beating husband (who says in his own defense: "It's HER fault; she doesn't effing listen!")

Except of course that UNLIKE the wife-beater, the Arabs and the Muslims have the MSM and al Jazeera to thank for CRANKING-UP and reinforcing their WARPED view of what the USA is all about. The MSM - and al Jazeera - are essentially like the mean-spirited friends of the wife-beater who egg him on by LYING about the wife.

They have no shame.

NOT NEWS: MSM LIES, AND MUSLIMS RESPOND WITH CRUEL XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE

This time it's Newsweek who rushed to press with a phony anti-War/anti-Bush/anti-American story. HOW SHOCKING!? (Sarcasm off.)

And Muslims around the world CHOOSE to display their PIETY by killing and rioting.

YAWN. What else is new?

There was an OLD joke about Nixon: "How do you know when he's lying? "He's moving his lips." DITTO the MSM - "How do you know they're going out of their way to bash Bush?" "They're 'reporting.'"

And it's LONG PAST TIME that the "moderate" Muslims - moderates who led the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and who granted women the right to vote in Kuwait - condemned ALL XENOPHOBIC MUSLIM VIOLENCE OF ANY AND ALL SORTS.

If the MSM became UN-BIASED, AND MODERATE MUSLIMS SPOKE OUT AGAINST VIOLENCE... NOW THAT WOULD BE NEWS!

THE LEFT, THE USSR, NYC CRIME AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

I remember when the Left was anti-Reagan and pro-UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT. The Left argued that nukes were bad - and that the USSR was benign, internationaly - and that Reagan was taking unnecessary and destabilizing steps when he increased defense-spending and ESPECIALLY when he deployed the Pershing nuke missiles in Western Europe, and kept deploying even after HUGE (Left-wing sponsored) protests all over the world!

The Left favored other policies in our relations with the USSR, (whom they did NOT SEE AS AN EVIL EMPIRE - in fact, they thought Reagan was a dangerous simpleton when he said that then, just as they thought that Bush was when he called North Korea and Iran the "AXIS OF EVIL". The Left favored unilateral disarmament and peace-talks, and other lovey-DOVEY/non-confrontational approaches.

The Left was wrong: Reagan's arms build-up and Pershing II deployment were two HUGELY IMPORTANT factors in bringing down the USSR (along with the threat of an arms build-up on another front - in SPACE - with SDI, or "STAR WARS).

I also remember that the Left was very VERY anti-Giuliani when he ran against Dinkins; Rudy ran once and lost, and then ran again - AND WON. To the Left, Rudy was a belligerant blow-hard who threatened a USELESS WAR ON CRIME that would use increased police actions and POINTLESS (to the Left) arrests at EVERY level - from turnstile jumpers to "squeegee-men" to purse-snappers, on up to muggers and rapists and murderers. The Left said this was NO WAY to fight crime, that we needed to "GET TO THE ROOT CAUSES of crime: poverty" - as if poor people (who make up 10-15% of the population were somehow more criminal and immoral than rich people, which in my mind is a terrible slander aginst the poor.)

The Left was WRONG AGAIN. Rudy's get-tough ZERO-TOLERANCE apporach WORKED: Rudy got crime lower and lower and lower until it fell beneath the TIPPING POINT and all but disappeared as a social factor in the City.

Now.... The Left is complaining about "VIGILANTISM" on our border with Mexico - (as if when normal citizens try to get law-enforcement-officials to enforce the law it is sonmehow "dangerous.")

One Lefty "human rights-watchy" Leftist appeared on C-SPAN - JENNIFER ALLEN of BORDER ACTION NETWORK - and she said she and other Left-wing (let's not enforce our laws" groups have SEVERAL LAWSUITS against the federal government and AD HOC citizens groups (like the Minutemen) -- lawsuits which highlight THOUSANDS OF ABUSES OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE ALLEGED BORDER-BUSTING/BORER-IGNORING Mexicans.

And of course - like a GOOD LEFTIST, Ms. Allen said that the laws are no good and that VIGILANTISM would NEVER WORKS ANYHOW.

Where I have I heard this "let's go-soft" - NAY: LET'S APPEASE AND CAPITULATE - policy before???? LET ME SEE.... OH YES, IT'S STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE FOR THE LEFT: "let's surrender to our enemies."

I say: the Left's policy of appeasement and capitulation failed with the USSR - and with Reagan's leadership we became HAWKISH; it WORKED; WE WON! I say the Left's policies failed in regard to CRIME IN NYC - and that under Rudy's leadership the city instituted more HAWKISH policies; it WORKED AND WE WON!

And, I say that The Minutemen have PROVEN that ENFORCING our border and our ANTI-ILLEGAL immigrtation laws works, too. Illegal immigration has HALTED in areas they patroled.

BOTTOM-LINE: not only are Leftist policies IMMORAL (because they advocate appeasement to evil forces, and/or because the Left denies that evil forces even exist), but THEIR POLICIES DO NOT WORK.

Getting tough with our adversaries - and enforcing laws (which are passed in a DEMOCRATIC MANNER IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!) is not only right - AND MORAL - IT WORKS!