"The danger to America is not Barack Obama..."

A friend e-mailed this to me today, and it was tagged "Author Unknown":

The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.

If you know who wrote it, please leave something in the comments.

About those Tea Party "racists"...

Ever since the Tea Party thing launched about a year ago, Democrats and their loyal media have attempted to paint the entire movement as a pack of racists. The theme has become so pervasive that casual observers have come to believe it, upholding Vladimir Lenin's theory that "a lie told often enough becomes truth".

Last Sunday during the health care debate on Capitol Hill and the attendant Tea Party demonstration there, a number of black Congressional leaders claimed to have been jeered with racial slurs, and one even claimed to having been spit upon. Not to be left out, Rep. Barney Frank claimed to have been targeted with homophobic epithets. Naturally, the media took every unsubstantiated claim, packaged them up nicely, and reported them as undisputed fact.

Now supposedly, these acts occurred repeatedly as the accusers were walking to the Capitol building from a nearby Congressional office building on the Capitol grounds. Since the underground tunnels connecting the buildings is the preferred route, their presence on the grounds was unusual enough that there were dozens of members of the media and their cameras covering their walk. And yet not one video tape of any of these alleged incidents has surfaced. Not one.

Someone given to conspiracy theories might even think that their very choice of an outdoor route among the Tea Partiers was premeditated just so that they could make such accusations.

But not me.

File under: "Told ya so"

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a post here in which I speculated on a "take no prisoners" policy forced upon us by the Left's (and the Democrats', but I repeat myself) position on Guantanamo Bay. Well, kiss my ass and call me Nostra-fucking-damus.

Without a location outside the United States for sending prisoners, the administration must resort to turning the suspects over to foreign governments, bringing them to the U.S. or even killing them.

In one case last year, U.S. special operations forces killed an Al Qaeda-linked suspect named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter attack in southern Somalia rather than trying to capture him, a U.S. official said. Officials had debated trying to take him alive but decided against doing so in part because of uncertainty over where to hold him, the official added.

It's not that I'm going to shed any tears over these guys, but it'd be nice to squeeze a little intel out of them.

Barack Obama campaigned on this issue, and one of his very first acts after taking office was to issue an executive order to close Gitmo. I can't believe 53% of American voters wanted this walking disaster as President.

Pelosi: Do it for the Bohemians

If you ever thought that the health care reform debate was simply about health care, this little bit from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow should put that to rest:

So, you can‘t—everybody has so much to gain from this, small businesses, as I said, seniors, young people, women, our economy. Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition—is job locking.

That's right, folks. Your Democratic betters in Congress think ObamaCare simply must pass so that artists can quit their day jobs. Left unsaid, of course, is who shoulders their fair share of the cost burden.

Pelosi's little slip of the tongue reveals that this is more about creating permanent wards of the state.

File under: "What if Bush did it?"

Yet another entry in the WIBDI file, this one coming from Wired.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told [America's Most Wanted host John] Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

Note that this is upon arrest, not upon conviction. Setting aside for a moment the question of civil liberties, this would be a hideously expensive proposition. As noted over at Ace's place, there are around 38,000 arrests per day nationwide not counting traffic violations, so this would require massive infrastructure.

Is he or isn't he?

Yesterday afternoon Twitter was buzzing with news that the tubby American traitor Adam Gadahn, aka Abu Al-Babee Fhat (OK, not really, but I like the name) among other aliases, had been captured in Karachi, Pakistan. Then came the buzz-killing news that maybe it wasn't Gadahn who'd been captured, after all.

This morning, ABC is carrying an article that seems to claim conclusively that the captured terrorist isn't Gadahn. Well, sort of.

A Taliban leader who goes by the name Abu Yahya, just like American-turned-al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, was picked up in Karachi in recent days, but that person is not Gadahn, a senior Pakistani government official told ABC News.

But there are conflicting reports about whether it is notorious Adam Gadahn.

Reports of the capture of an American-born al-Qaeda member by Pakistani authorities gave rise to speculation over whether it was Gadahn, the 31-year-old California-born Muslim convert who has been wanted since 2004.

The official told ABC News the leader who was arrested was possibly Abu Yahya Mujahdeen al-Adam, said to be another American member of al Qaeda, but the Pakistanis have yet to make that identification positive, the official said.

Dawn, an English-language newspaper, reports that Abu Yahya Mujahdeen al-Adam is an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen from Pennsylvania who helps command foreign militants fighting in Afghanistan and coordinates activities from Dubai.

I dunno...seems fishy. Granted, these guys claim more names than they do wives so there's sure to be some overlap. But to have two upper-echelon guys so similarly named? Possible, I guess.

Still, this is exactly the way I'd play it if I were the US intel guy on the spot and the captured figure was Adam Gadahn, given that Gadahn is a US citizen with a federal treason indictment.

He was captured by the Pakistanis and is in their custody subject to their interrogation, and Pakistani intelligence can squeeze the guy in ways we can't. So the US and Pakistan can play the yes-he-is, no-he-isn't game for a while and let Pakistani authorities get whatever intel they can, and then turn him over to US officials. At that point, as a wanted US citizen, he'd rightfully be turned over to the federal criminal justice system and have the right to shut up and get a lawyer.

Well, here's to hoping, anyway.