POLITICS

While speaking at the YearlyKos convention, Markos "Screw 'Em" Moulitsas Zúniga said of his fellow nutroots activists, "We are the center.”

HAT TIP: Don Surber.

The Culture of Death insanity does what is expected:

New York, Aug. 3, 2007 (C-fam.org/CWNews.com) - Members of a UN committee have told Honduran officials that their country's law against abortion is a "crime," the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) reports.

In C-Fam's Friday Fax, Samantha Singson reports that at the latest round of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) committee meetings in New York, committee member Heisoo Shin told the Honduran delegation that it was necessary for their government to "create a momentum, a social force that stops the crime that allows a woman to die, to risk unsafe abortion and not have self-determination."

When the Honduran delegation responded that government efforts were aimed at prevention of early and unwanted pregnancies, committee member Silvia Pimentel-- a faculty member at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo-- fired back that the government had been as comprehensive as possible on prevention and that "there are situations where prevention is not enough." She continued, "Women have their reasons to seek an abortion, which should be respected." Pimentel admitted that those reasons did not always include a threat to the mother's life, but that she could not understand the abortion ban in Honduras where "the interests of the fetus outweigh those of the mother."

In response to the statements, a Honduran representative reminded the CEDAW committee that under article 67 of the country�s constitution, unborn children have the same rights as born children. The head of the Honduran delegation acknowledged that recommendations had been submitted to her government by other UN human-rights commissions regarding the termination of pregnancy and that these were being considered as possible reform issues.

Driving home the committee�s stance during Hungary�s review, Silvia Pimentel criticized the content of Hungary's planning materials. The Brazilian expressed concern over brochures entitled "Life is a Miracle," saying that conservatives often construed such material as reason for not having an abortion. Other CEDAW committee members pressed Belize, Brazil, Kenya, and Liechtenstein on their abortion laws, calling on them to institute legal reform to formally permit abortions.

Elective abortion is murder. Period. So, if you are going to be in favor of the barbaric practice, you have to twist yourself into some rather stunning mental knots - including a knot which has it that banning abortion is a crime. In other words, if you don't allow the murder of unborn children, you are committing a crime. Had Orwell put this concept in 1984, it would have been rejected as too absurd.

Having once been pro-choice, I can understand the immediate pull of the position - who, after all, can be opposed to a human being freely making a choice? But it only took a little thought on the subject to turn me to the pro-life position - primarily the understanding of a bit of basic biology. My guess is that the pro-abortion people failed to do any thinking about it - and the more they ceased thinking and kept shouting about how "choice" is the be all and end all of existence, the harder it has become for them to climb down (people fear looking like a fool pretty much more than anything else)...and now they are just turning morality on its head and calling what is immoral, moral and vice versa.

It must be a strange way to live, the pro-abortion position - and I hope the people who have been suckered into it eventually start to think about it.

Democrats love democracy - but only so long as the votes come out there way: From NRO's The Corner:

Click here (or here) to watch (and listen carefully to) Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) strong-arm the nonpartisan House Parliamentarian in order to overturn the people�s will and provide welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, angrily saying: �We control this � not the parliamentarian.� The encounter occurred Thursday night as the Democrats violated the rules and precedents of the House in overturning the outcome of a vote that the minority legitimately won.

And then we have this story from Politico:

A busted computer system hamstrung the House for at least 45 minutes Friday on one of the tensest legislative days of the year.

The House electronic voting system malfunctioned at approximately 2 p.m. as lawmakers began a vote on a procedural motion sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.). Projectors that usually display how each member voted and show a tally of votes were not working, although votes were still being recorded on computers at various locations in the House chamber.

Computer glitch? Yeah - and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya.

Gotta remember, the Democrats so-called House majority is based upon at least 16 solidly GOP seats the Democrats picked up with stealth candidates in an anti-GOP year. Those Democrats provide Pelosi with her Speaker's chair, but they also dare not toe a liberal line on matters like immigration - failure to be strong on border security and national defense would be political suicide for these Democrats. And so, when GOP proposals on things like border security and national defense come up, the real majority in the House swings back to the GOP...unless there's a glitch.

You know, we GOPers ditched the extreme right back in the 1960's - the kook rightists who thought that flouride was a commie plot, among other screwball notions. If the Democrats would ditch the kook left - with their idea that President Bush is a terrrorist, among other screwball notions - then there is a chance that, if they also apply honesty as the best policy, that they could secure a Congressional majority based on genuine popular support - then they would not have to do this dance.

And you want to know what is really sad about this? The Democrats are dishonoring themselves each day they stay in power via dishonest means...it doesn't profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul...but Democrats have sold theirs for something as contemptible as a committee chairmanship.

On Monday, August 6th at 11:15 am ET Mark will be appearing on The Dennis Show to discuss our book, Caucus of Corruption. The show is nationally syndicated, so check here to find out what station to tune into to listen in.

Have you got your copy yet? If not, you can buy Caucus of Corruption at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and the Conservative Book Club.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have perverted the democratic process...

A federal appeals courts ruled today that "the FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation."

The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case.

Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business.

Apparently, this court is arguing that criminal lawmakers would be the ones dictating what is and what isn't involved with "legislative business"

The ruling, as ridiculous as it was, is not a total loss.

The court did not rule whether, because portions of the search were illegal, prosecutors should be barred from using any of the records in their case against Jefferson. That will be decided by the federal judge in Virginia who is presiding over the criminal case.

"Today's opinion underscores the fact that the Department of Justice is required to follow the law, and that it is bound to abide by the Constitution," defense attorney Robert Trout, said, promising more legal challenges to "overreaching by the government in this case."

The Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the decision. Officials have said they took extraordinary steps, including using an FBI "filter team" not involved in the case to review the congressional documents. Government attorneys said the Constitution was not intended to shield lawmakers from prosecution for political corruption.

The court was not convinced. It said the Constitution insists that lawmakers must be free from any intrusion into their congressional duties. Such intrusion, even by a filter team, "may therefore chill the exchange of views with respect to legislative activity," the court held.

The case has cut across political party lines. Former House Speakers Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and Thomas Foley, a Democrat, filed legal documents opposing the raid, along with former House Minority Leader Bob Michel, a Republican.

In other words, Team Jefferson is still committed to challenging the constitutionality of the entire raid. Today's ruling, arguably a mixed bag, leaves me with less confidence that the entire raid will be cleared by the courts at the end of the process. So, if that happens, an lawmaker's office cannot be searched in an investigation, what would stop members of Congress who are knowingly breaking the law (such as Jefferson) from using their offices as save havens for records of their wrongdoing?

Unbelievable.

The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

I'm starting to get concerned that William Jefferson, like so many other Democrats, will get away with his corruption.

UPDATE: Further thoughts here.

Jesus Christ.... who's running this country... a bunch of children????

Democrats don't like losing a vote so they push for Mulligan and erase the entire record of the vote... and instead of arguing the issue like the adults they are supposed to be, Republicans storm out of session. 

Here's the video....

Grow up people.

Lisa

Pakistan slams 'ignorant' Obama attack warning

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of "sheer ignorance" for threatening to launch US military strikes against Al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil.

""Such statements are being made out of sheer ignorance," Pakistan's Minister of State for Information, Tariq Azeem, told AFP. "They are not fully apprised about the ground realities and not aware of the efforts by Pakistan.""

link to full article

some historical perspective:
Report from The United States Institute of Peace, "US-Pakistan Engagement: The War on Terrorism and Beyond"

President Bush calls the Democrat-controlled congress out on their spending gone wild.

Congress' "budget calls for nearly $22 billion more in discretionary spending next year alone. � Yesterday one called this increase � and I quote � 'a very small difference' from what I proposed. Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference. And that difference will keep getting bigger. Over the next five years it will total nearly $205 billion in additional discretionary spending. That $205 billion averages out to about $112 million per day, $4.7 million per hour, $78,000 per minute. Put another way, that's about $1,300 in higher spending every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year for the next five years."

Can't blame this on the Republicans... So, what does the far left have to say about this, especially after their self-righteous attacks on spending last year?

Via Drudge:

Obama said in grilling with AP reporter Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons 'in any circumstance'... 'I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,' Obama said, with a pause, 'involving civilians' Then he quickly added, 'Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table'...

This has not been a good time for Obama, much of his recent gaffes most certainly will be attributed to his lack of experience.