Blogs For Victory

And this will upset the normal run of MSMers and leftists:

Israel is waging a covert (special forces) campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.

Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging (special forces actions) across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

Had to correct some of the MSM-ese, there. While MSMers have no problem with being stupid, I have a problem with having their stupidity front and center on Blogs for Victory.

Now, please note the “how horrible” tone in the reporting – the sort of tone which is distinctly missing whenever the MSM reports on the cold blooded murder of Israeli citizens. This is the way of the world: Israel using legitimate force against armed enemies is held to be a bad thing – terrorist actions against Israelis are considered understandable, given how “cruel” Israelis are.

Its a strange world we live in – and its just terrible that we live in such an Age of Lies. Here is Israel, a heroic State fighting the good fight against inhuman enemies…and our MSM can’t even clearly describe the situation. Israel should be lauded for taking out terrorists around the world – it saves the lives of innocents, on both sides, when Israeli commandos are able to carefully target selected terrorist leaders. But such is not to be – hatred of Israel (rapidly devolving in to outright anti-Semitism) is just too ingrained.

Its good that, at least, Israel knows that they still do have good friends in the United States and that we hope to return to power, and thus return to being Israel’s true friend in the world.

Vice President Cheney will be on ABC’s This Week – normally, I wouldn’t inflict MSM television upon my worst enemies, but its worth plowing through the sludge to see Cheney. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to – gotta work on Sunday.

From Michael Yon via Instapundit:

…Chaplain Gary Lewis said a prayer, then 1st Platoon left the Gate heading to “Brick 1″

The soldiers checked weapons yet again and adjusted gear, and we walked out the gate, keeping intervals so that a single bomb couldn’t get many of us at once. Sometimes enemies “daisy chain” bombs together like a trotline, killing or wounding many soldiers simultaneously.

The morning was cool, bright and dry, and so the fine dust left perfect boot prints. This was to be the final mission for 1st Platoon in the area before the 82nd Airborne would take over responsibilities at around midnight…

Read it and don’t forget that Yon is reader-supported, so give what you can.

How low can a person go? This will tell you.

Las Vegas really wants to send out a big “thank you” to Barry over this news.

Want to know what is both a relief and a bit of a shock? When you finally start realizing what, “go forth, and sin no more” means. Its not just a command, its a blessing.

Zuckerman for Senate?

Collapse of the Euro “inevitable”?

Saint Valentine’s Day: its not just an excuse for Hallmark to rake in a few bucks.

Israel correctly tells the UN and its anti-Semitic agenda to get stuffed.

As an aside, since I discovered I am half-Jewish, can I be part of the International Zionist Conspiracy? Is there a secret handshake?

How badly does political corruption harm a community? This badly.

Looks more and more like it:

More reports are confirming the Obama administration is preparing for a potential Supreme Court vacancy in the next few months. Reports surfaced weeks ago that pro-abortion Justice John Paul Stevens was considering retiring and today, CNN said more recent reports indicate that as well.

CNN indicates the White house has begun “quiet preparations” for a high court vacant but cautions that top Obama officials have not named any names of potential Supreme Court retirements.

It won’t change the make-up of the court because Obama will just replace one ultra-liberal judicial activist with another, but it will be a great opportunity for we conservatives to clarify issues heading in to November.

What is at stake this November is the vision of American government – a super-State or a democratic republic? Stevens has been legislating liberalism from the bench for decades and we can point out the baleful effects of the decisions he’s authored or concurred in – and then point out the dangers of Obama’s nominee, who will be a carbon-copy of Stevens.

Change we can believe in?

The economy stunk. Corporations slashed jobs. And some firms, once juggernauts of American industry, simply ceased to exist.

But for federal lobbyists, 2009 proved to be a year of riches unlike any other, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.

In all, federal lobbyists’ clients spent more than $3.47 billion last year, often driven to Washington, D.C.’s power centers and halls of influence by political issues central to the age: health care reform, financial reform, energy policy.

That figure represents a more than 5 percent increase over $3.3 billion worth of federal lobbying recorded in 2008, the previous all-time annual high for lobbying expenditures. And it comes in a year when a recession persisted, the dollar’s value against major foreign currencies declined and joblessness rates increased.

We have the best government money can buy.

Now, don’t get be wrong – we Republicans have been slack about this, too. But, dear Democrats, we are not in charge now and thus this record level of expenditure has been mostly used to buy your party in DC. How’s it feel to be such suckers?

We need a root and branch reform of our government. Of course, the best way to whack a lobbyists is to get the federal government out of our lives. Because the government taxes and regulates so much, we have an army of lobbyists to ensure that the favored don’t feel the pain.

But on top of getting government out, we have to carefully investigate all that has gone on – and send to jail all of those who sold their position, as well as all those who sought to buy someone’s position. Only the harshest measures will allow us to clean up our government.

You watching? Feel free to talk about it.

Very good news:

A flying Boeing 747 jumbo jet equipped with a massive laser gun shot down a Scud-like missile over the Pacific late Thursday night, marking what analysts said was a major milestone in the development of the nation’s missile defense system.

The test shoot-down at 8:44 p.m. over a military test range near Point Mugu is expected to renew debate over spending billions of dollars for a system that seemed so far behind schedule that the Pentagon decided to significantly curtail its budget last year. The test, which the Pentagon described as a success, could be a major boon to Southern California, where much of the high-tech system has been developed and tested.

“Proving this technology is game-changing,” said Loren Thompson, a military policy analyst for the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. “The program’s funding has been hanging on by a thread. A successful shoot-down of a ballistic missile will demonstrate to Capitol Hill that the airborne laser has potential.”

To translate from the MSM-ese: Obama and his liberals are gleefully gutting SDI because they are just plain and simple ignorant about it. They think in terms of the leftist slanders of “Ronald RayGun” from the 1980’s rather than in reality. Meanwhile, we desperately need this program in an increasingly dangerous world and smart people at Defense know this.

So, we get this successful test in an election year and the hope is that some Democrats – desperate to save their political hides – will vote for funding of SDI and that Obama will just sign it because its easier than opposing it. The United States gets defended by happy accident of Democrats wanting to get re-elected. Its a sad way to conduct affairs, but as long as Democrats are in charge, we’ll have to use such tricks to get anything worthwhile done.

Michael Yon brings to our attention this case:

TUSR has followed this case since its inception, and, based on available facts, we have openly advocated for redress for the captain. Bjork will face trial on murder charges. Bjork’s sister Erica sums the situation up: “[C]arl was sent back to the States and was told that he was under investigation for a double murder that occurred during his 2006-2007 deployment in Hit, Al Anbar Province, Iraq. His accusers, who are the only witnesses/evidence in this alleged crime, are four disgraced former Iraqi police who are imprisoned for the murder of two Iraqi civilians – believed to be Iraqi al queda.[sic]”

According to Erica, the captain was not present at the alleged murder—“He simply trained the Iraqi police as part of his duty.”

Not much is really known, apart from that. We do know those who grew up with or fought with Bjork hold him in the highest regard. A Facebook group formed to support Bjork has grown to 7, 983 members.

It is absurd the lengths the military lawyers will go to in their quest to seem so ultra-fair to the enemy. Its a war – in war, bad things happen. To take the word of a couple non-US personnel and use it to gin up a murder charge against a US soldier who was risking his life in a combat zone is just insanity. Our troops are not war criminals no matter how much the American and global left wants to pretend otherwise – massive benefit of the doubt should always be given to our men and women of the armed forces and only with the most clear and compelling evidence of wrongdoing should an investigation be launched.

As the linked article goes on to note, this case seems to revolve around an Iraqi officer who once did good things but then strayed off the path and got himself in trouble with the Iraqi government over corruption and other charges – and seems to be trying to lay blame on Bjork for some of his misdeeds. A confused situation coming out of confused military situation – not the place for cut and dried things such as murder charges, even if Bjork had been present at the murders, which appears not to be the case.

Anways, there is a defense fund set up and I hope that everyone will kick in a bit – and it is high time we started treating our soldiers as the heroes they are, and stopped giving official weight to every stupid accusation leveled against them.

ConservativeGal explains:

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases. For FY 2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009

And, if you didn’t know this already, Obama was still a member of the Senate when Congress passed those spending bills… and ultimately signed the omnibus bill after taking office.

The truth hurts sometimes, and the truth is, Obama voted for and signed into law the current deficit, which he continuous to expand to this very day.