None dare call it treason ...

W. House rebuffs independent probe of Guantanamo

The White House on Tuesday rebuffed Democratic calls for creation of an independent commission to investigate treatment of foreign terror suspects at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

...

On the other side of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Democrats in the House of Representatives said an independent commission to investigate treatment of detainees was needed because of questions about the integrity of the Pentagon's probes and to prove to the Muslim world the United States had nothing to hide.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan countered that "the Department of Defense has taken these issues head-on and addressed them."

"They continue to look into allegations of abuse. People are being held to account, and we think that's the way to go about this," McClellan said when asked whether the White House would support creation of an independent commission.

...

Bush on Monday defended the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and challenged reporters to go and see for themselves.

Pelosi announced legislation on Tuesday that would create an independent commission to investigate. Advocates said the commission could be modeled after the one created to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Democrats said they had 170 sponsors for the legislation, all House Democrats. Pelosi said she believed enough House Republicans would cross the aisle to pass the measure if the Republican leadership allowed a vote.

"Our national interest demands a thorough independent review of the detention system," said Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat. "We need answers to basic questions. What happened? Who is responsible? And how do we move forward?"

"The Pentagon's internal investigations certainly do not meet this standard," Waxman said. "The resulting reports have contained conflicting conclusions and some have been little more than whitewashes."

McClellan said the detainees were "treated humanely" at Guantanamo. He called them "dangerous enemy combatants," sent to Guantanamo because "they are individuals who seek to do harm to the American people."



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We have been known to half-jokingly refer to the other side as the "loyal opposition". Right about now, we are ready to dispense with the sarcasm and call their behaviour by its rightful name: sedition.

From this ridiculous call for an "independent" commission to investigate Club Gitmo, to the Jihadist-inspiring remarks of Turban Durbin, Nancy Pelosi and Boy Clinton, we can come to no other conclusion other than that a major political party sees the only potential for future electoral gains in American defeat in the war against Jihadistan.

There are certainly quibbles to be had with the Administration -- why no troops threatening Syria, why the coddling of the man-beasts at Gitmo? But they are arguments for bolder action, not timidity.

It seems the Democrat Party has run out of ideas. The Welfare State and the treatment of terrorism as a law enforcement issue have been discredited and rejected by Red State "idiots". All that remains is obstructionism -- of judges who dare to adhere to the original intent of the Constitution's authors, of a pro-America nominee to the top post at a corrupt and dysfunctional UN and of Social Security reform that would enable more of us to retire fat and happy, like Ted Kennedy. Ok, "fat", not "corpulent".

The Dems' mouthpiece, Howard Dean, is one step ahead of the men with the butterfly nets. Its elder statesmen slander the troops that form a bulwark between Civilization and Barbarism. Its front runner for 2008 is an unrepentant Marxist who tolerated serial adultery as a means to power.

We understand their desperation -- 1964 wasn't so long ago. But never has the conservative movement in America actively fomented -- and it's hard to say this -- anti-Americanism, which is exactly what the Dems are doing today. Does that sound outlandish? Check al Jazeera regularly.

We'd like to remind our "friends" that the Jihadists do not differentiate between us and them. They wish the same fate for gay bathhouse patrons as they do for venture capitalists: conversion, dhimmitude or death. Ya think "white Christians" are unreasonable? All's we do is shake our heads in disapproval and vote.

So, here's the deal: the free money will keep flowing to the shiftless and un-industrious; porn will continue to course through the 10 Base-T at the library; and the "right" to eviscerate your unborn child will survive. The economy's bound to hit a cyclical downtown by 2008. You'll get your chance.

Do us a favor -- sit out the rest of this conflict. You won Vietnam (though the blood of millions is on your hands). Fire up the bong and hearken back to those "good old days". Or pretend it's the days after 9/11, when you actually behaved like you love America.

Take a cue from the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm.

In other words, shut the f--k up.

New Feature: Now Playing ... (ok, not really new)

Bruce Dickinson's new release, Tyranny of Souls.

Not quite on par with Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding, but what is?

Bruce continues to outshine Iron Maiden. We only wish Adrian had contributed to this album as he and Roy have fantastic chemistry.

A solid 8.5/10 that beats the shit outta the latest Coldplay or Evanescence.


(Love that "26% off"!)

Gracious [sic] mockery

"Local bar fined for selling pure grain alcohol."

"Ruth Buzzi attacked by fan."

Deserving of excessively gratuitous mockery

"Bryce discovers the forbidden pleasures of man love."

Boy Clinton: 1969 Redux

Clinton Says Close or Clean Up Guantanamo

LONDON - Former President Clinton said the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay should close or improve its record on prisoner abuse, a British newspaper reported Monday.

Clinton told the Financial Times the camp should "be closed down or cleaned up."

"It is time that there are no more stories coming out of there about people being abused," Clinton told the newspaper.

Clinton spokesman Jim Kennedy said the quotes were accurate.

Former President Jimmy Carter, as well as human rights groups and attorneys, have also called for the camp to be closed down.

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Ah, Clinton and Carter -- neck and neck in the race for most disgraceful ex-presidents in history.

Apparently, for America's first teenaged president, mere "stories" of "people being abused" provide sufficient impetus to undercut -- in the foreign press -- the nation's anti-terror efforts. (Clinton, of course, famously led protests against his country on foreign soil back in 1969.)

One can easily envision Clinton's eyes tearing up, and that patented lip bite as he imagines a young Jihadist, so far from home and his best gals, forced to eat lukewarm rice pilaf.

Can an interview with al Jazeera be far off?

Best of Gratuitous Mockery

"Axl Blows"

Time follows Newsweek ...

... seditiously fires up the Forces of Hell with underwhelming Gitmo story ...

Time report fuels Guantanamo criticism

The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay is drawing fresh criticism following a Time magazine report on a logbook tracing the treatment of a detainee who officials believe was intended to take part in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Time's report on the treatment received by Mohammed al-Qahtani prompted a quick defense from the Pentagon along with outrage from several members of Congress.

Al-Qahtani was denied entry to the United States by an immigration officer in August 2001 and later captured in Afghanistan and sent to the detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay.

The 84-page logbook obtained by Time and authenticated by Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita is the "kind of document that was never meant to leave Gitmo," [The Ponderosa: Which is to say that it's distribution is illegal and Time's publication of it may be as well.] a senior Pentagon official told the magazine.

Citing the logbook, which covers al-Qahtani's interrogations from November 2002 to January 2003, Time reports that daily interviews began at 4 a.m. and sometimes continued until midnight.

The interrogation techniques included refusing al-Qahtani a bathroom break and forcing him to urinate in his pants.

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska was among those criticizing such metholds.

"It's not appropriate," Hagel said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "It's not at all within the standards of who we are as a civilized people, what our laws are.

"If in fact we are treating prisoners this way, it's not only wrong, it's dangerous and very dumb and very shortsighted," Hagel said.

"This is not how you win the people of the world over to our side, especially the Muslim world."

In an interview set to air Monday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," Vice President Dick Cheney said there was presently no plans to close Guantanamo Bay.

"The president says we review all of our options on a continuous basis," Cheney said. "The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people."

During the period covered by the logbook, Time reported, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved 16 additional interrogation techniques for use on certain detainees.

Afterward, interrogators began their sessions with al-Qahtani at midnight and awakened him with dripping water or Christina Aguilera music [The Ponderosa: Ok, that does skirt the limits of what is acceptable!] if he dozed off, the magazine article reported.

The magazine said the techniques approved by Rumsfeld included "standing for prolonged periods, isolation for as long as 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair" and hanging "pictures of scantily clad women around his neck."

Hagel said such treatment should offend the sensibilities of "any straight-thinking American, any straight-thinking citizen of the world." [The Ponderosa: Well, we never claimed to be citizens of the world. Perhaps if Mars actually does attack ... ]

...

Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, defended the Guantanamo facility and flatly rejected suggestions that prisoners are mistreated.

"I think that's accepting a falsehood and giving to the American people that somehow we don't treat prisoners right," said Hunter, a Republican from California.

Hunter cited a menu of food served to prisoners Sunday -- including oven-fried chicken, rice pilaf, fruit and pita bread -- as a sign that they are treated well. [The Ponderosa: SAY WHAT?!?]

"These are the people who tried to kill us," he said. "It includes the guy -- the 20th hijacker, that was Mr. Qahtani who was caught coming in -- who didn't make it to the planes that drove into New York," Hunter said following an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

Earlier on the program, Hunter said the "legend" of Guantanamo Bay is "different than the fact" [The Ponderosa: Similar to the many legends of the Patriot Act.]
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Not noted in this write up is how a female soldier straddled a prone Al-Qahtani for several minutes. Not sure how this can be considered torture as it seems we recall Atta and his gang paying big bucks for lap dances the night before they took up residence on prime real estate in Hell ...

So, a shred of human debris, intent on the slaughter of thousands of us peed his pants and had to endure really bad music. Big fricking whoop.

We're not sure of Time's motivation in publishing this non-story. At best they were attempting to smear the Administration; at worst, they hoped to stir up the Jihadists. If you've any doubt as to how the enemy press would play this story, witness this headline from al Jazeera:

More Gitmo torture practices revealed - Report

Thank you, Time Magazine.

A couple weeks ago, Newsweek published unverified tales of Koran flushing by evil US servicemen -- you know, the dudes protecting our pansy asses. According to a report from Brigadier General Jay Hood -- commissioned by the US military -- most, if not all, incidents of "mistreatement" of the Koran by US personnel were inadvertent.

Indeed, the main desecrators (including flushing) of the Koran were PRISONERS! Our guys are made to handle the Koran with gloves (because we're dirty) and made to observe strict rules while examing the books for contraband! THIS is the real scandal in all of this.

We give these bastards "religiously correct" meals, prayer mats, Korans in several languages ... Imagine in WWII giving German POWs copies of "Mein Kampf"? And we're worried about the mistreatment of the book that empowers them to slaughter, not only us, but "infidels" in mosques in Afghanistan -- where presumably hundreds of Korans are present. This is insanity!

Finally, we have the recent borderline traitorous remarks by
batty Illinois Senator Dick Durbin:

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ..... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Uh, Senator, if you read this and asked us who was reading it to us, we'd reply "someone from Shamnesty International?"

Nazis? Soviets? Where is the media outrage over this? Oh, right, Durbin is a protected minority -- a Senate Democrat.

DICK has taken the "loyal opposition's" Bush-hatred to the extreme: calmunying the men and women who shield raving moonbats from the likes of Mohammed al-Qahtani. Rest assured, the aggrieved victim and his pals harbor no soft spot for gays, pornographers and abortionists. Ya think "white Christians" are a nuisance? All we do is disapprove. These dudes would do to your bathhouses what they did to that mosque in Afghanistan. We're ALL infidels -- get it?

This is the state of the Left in America, 2005. Such is their hatred for the president that they are actually interceding on the behalf of vermin. Half the nation seems to have the stomach to fight the Terror War. The other half either doesn't recognize the threat or truly believes we deserve to lose.

"Loyal opposition" our shiny metal asses!

Laffering all the way

(link requires subscription)

Real Tax Cuts Have Curves

As legend has it the famous Laffer Curve was first drawn by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974 on a cocktail napkin during a small dinner meeting at the Washington Hotel attended by the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and such high-powered policy makers as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The Laffer Curve helped launch the Reaganomics Revolution here at home and a frenzy of tax rate cutting around the globe that continues to this day.

The theory is really one of the simplest concepts in economics. Yet its logic continues to elude the class-warfare lobby whose disbelief is unburdened by the multiple real-life examples which validate its conclusions. The idea is that lowering the tax rate on production, work, investment, and risk-taking will spur more of these activities and thereby will often lead to more tax revenue collections for the government rather than less.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan chopped the highest personal income tax rate from the confiscatory 70% rate that he inherited when he entered office to 28% when he left office and the resulting economic burst caused federal tax receipts to almost precisely double: from $517 billion to $1,032 billion.


Now we have overpowering confirming evidence from the Bush tax cuts of May 2003. The jewel of the Bush economic plan was the reduction in tax rates on dividends from 39.6% to 15% and on capital gains from 20% to 15%. These sharp cuts in the double tax on capital investment were intended to reverse the 2000-01 stock market crash, which had liquidated some $6 trillion in American household wealth, and to inspire a revival in business capital investment, which had also collapsed during the recession. The tax cuts were narrowly enacted despite the usual indignant primal screams from the greed and envy lobby about "tax cuts for the super rich."

Last week the Congressional Budget Office released its latest report on tax revenue collections. The numbers are an eye-popping vindication of the Laffer Curve and the Bush tax cut's real economic value. Federal tax revenues have surged in the first eight months of this fiscal year by $187 billion. This represents a 15.4% rise in federal tax receipts over 2004. Individual and corporate income tax receipts have exploded like a cap let off a geyser, up 30% in the two years since the tax cut. Once again, tax rate cuts have created a virtuous chain reaction of higher economic growth, more jobs, higher corporate profits, and finally more tax receipts.

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We've never quite understood the controversy over The Laffer Curve. Even as high school freshmen we grasped its simple logic, logic that somehow escaped learned economists and erudite politicians.

At a 0% marginal tax rate, you realize $0 in revenue. Same for a 100% marginal rate. Why? Because incentives matter. Only an idiot would continue to work or invest at a 100% tax rate.

This is human nature, which seems to escape leftists when contemplating all manner of public policy. They see Man as they wish he was: tainted, not by his fallen nature, but by nefarious economic, cultural and environmental forces, and therefore perfectible by those with pure hearts and clean hands. Why, in their worldview, the chap in the 100% bracket should keep at it, if only to create more wealth to be lavished on others by his betters.

And they call the president a moron!

Mock it

"Worst looking band since Motorhead"

ACT-UP defiles church, injures priest

Priest hurt in mock gay marriage

A PRIEST was slightly hurt at Paris's famed Notre-Dame Cathedral when clashes broke out between church security personnel and gay rights activists who performed a mock marriage of two lesbians.

About 20 members of the group Act Up entered the cathedral and proceeded to perform the mock marriage in front of baffled tourists and worshippers, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.
One activist - dressed as a priest - pronounded the two women married, while other Act Up members chanted: "Pope Benedict XVI, homophobe, AIDS accomplice."

With security officials in pursit, they then fled the cathedral, but clashes broke out outside the Paris landmark, during which Monsignor Patrick Jacquin suffered a minor neck injury. He was treated at the scene.

Advertisement:
The demonstration marked the first anniversary of France's first gay wedding, performed last year in the Bordeaux suburb of Begles.

The union of two men has since been declared null and void by the French courts.

Monsignor Jacquin said: "They are savages. I was pushed to the ground and trampled, kicked in the neck.

"It's a scandal for these people to lash out at me and the Pope."

He said he was considering filing charges against what he called "barbaric, odious and scandalous acts".

...

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Again, tolerance needs be extended only to those on the fringes of society. A 2,000 year old Church can be mocked and blasphemed for the greater good of those who would destroy it. The sensitivities of the faithful can be trod upon with impunity.

Remind us: who are the "extremists"?

The Best of Gratuitous Mockery

"Jimmy contemplates surgically replacing spindly legs with hearty fish."

Hillary Dean

<SHRILLHARRIDANSCREECH >
Seeking re-election, Sen. Clinton pans Bush agenda

...

"There has never been an administration, I don't think in our history, more intent on consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," said Clinton.

...

"It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It's very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

...


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</SHRILLHARRIDANSCREECH >

So she was paying attention during her "husband's" administration!

Mock this hard

"Meteor strikes Earth, hurls fat man several inches off the ground."

Re Raich

A snippet of Justice Thomas' dissent that sums up the slow death of limited government since FDR packed the Court with legal fantasists 70 years ago:

...

If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

...

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Where was Scalia on this? Clearly, Thomas now stands alone as the only reliable "strict constructionist" on the Court.

We do admit to a certain glee listening to Leftists kvetch about a decision that was buttressed by the very same creative misinterpretation of the Commerce Clause that they have used as a cudgel against economic actors for seven decades.

UN: WMD stuff missing from Iraq

U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

...

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So, Iraq was allowed by the UN to retain "material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles"?

In attempting to smear the Bush Administration, the UN has unwittingly made the case for Saddam's removal.

A&E has run out of "Biography" subjects

Pamela Anderson?

Who's next? Molly Ringwald?

The gift that keeps on giving, Part XXV

Mentally unstable DNC head addresses Moonbats
(All emphasis ours)
Dean: GOP has 'dark, difficult and dishonest' vision

WASHINGTON — Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean advised party activists Thursday to reach out to evangelicals and voters in all 50 states, but then risked alienating potential GOP converts by suggesting many Republicans don't work for "an honest living."

DNC Howard Dean made some strong statement about the GOP at a Campaign for America's Future gathering.
By Kevin Wolf, AP

Dean's comment came as he recalled conditions at crowded Ohio polling stations last fall. He wondered who could expect voters to work all day and then stand in line for eight hours to vote. "Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives," [emphasis ours] he said, drawing some surprised "oohs" from his audience.

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Lemme see if I got this straight: the chairman of the party that caters to welfare slackers, public employees, tenured academic hacks and Hollywood airheads, whose luminaries include gigolos (John Kerry) and trust fund millionaires (Rockefeller, Kennedy et al) and wants to give FELONS (to say nothing of the dead) the right to vote -- the party that wants the US to emulate the shiftless French -- is mocking the work ethic of the entrepreneurial class ... ?

Noooooo mental problems here.

Keep ranting Howie.

Boy Clinton to UN?

Bill Clinton Takes Spot On Global Stage

In 2001, in the opening months of his ex-presidency,
Bill Clinton confided to an aide that he had decided on his dream job for the next chapter of his life: secretary general of the United Nations.

The goal may not be realistic, he acknowledged, but he then went on to analyze all the factors in minute detail, as though he were preparing for a political campaign: whether a U.S. president would ever see fit to back him, for one, and what it would take to persuade other nations to bend the long-standing tradition that the top job does not go to someone from a country with permanent status on the U.N. Security Council.

His ambition, as the aide described it, was both breathtaking and entirely logical for a natural-born politician who had reached the top of the American political ladder: "president of the world."

Four years later, say several associates who have spoken with him in recent months, Clinton regards his dream of leading the United Nations as something more than a flight of fancy and something less than a serious prospect. Already, however, he has succeeded to a surprising degree in fashioning his ex-presidency to make himself a dominant player on the world stage.

...

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He has? We suppose he satisfies the top job requirement: He is rabidly anti-American.

But if John Bolton is unfit to be U.S. Ambassador to the UN, based on his proclivity to demand, in strong terms, excellence of his underlings, how can Clinton, noted for his "purple rages" to say nothing of serial sexual harassment, be fit to lead the UN?

Then again, the UN doesn't frown on sexual improprieties anyway.

SS Poll

New Cato Poll Shows Majority Support Personal Accounts
Poll details

Washington -- A majority of likely voters (52-40%) favor proposals to allow younger workers the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Cato Institute. Younger voters support the chance to invest by an enormous majority (66-23% among voters under 30).

The poll also found that Americans believe that opponents of President Bush's Social Security reform proposals have an obligation to put forward an alternative plan to solve the financial crisis that is about to engulf the current system. By an overwhelming 70-22% margin, voters said that Democrats should come up with proposals of their own. Even 55% of Democrats believe this.

Americans are highly skeptical that the current Social Security system will be able to cope in the near future. By a 62-30% margin, voters do not believe that Social Security will be able to pay all promised future benefits. Unsurprisingly, skepticism is particularly strong among younger voters with over 70% believing that Social Security will be unable to pay the benefits promised by the federal government.

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Hmmmm ... I guess it depends how you ask the questions ... Though it is alarming that 40% are either too misinformed (the older folk, who have been frightened into believing they will lose benefits) or too infantile (the younger pollees, who don't trust themselves to organize their own affairs) to support PSA's.

Brutal mockery welcome here

Fib and his chins jam with rest home resident.

Father Kerry?

John Kerry Bashes GOP At Head Start Event

...

"I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people," Kerry said.

...
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Liberals can't even do religion properly.

So much wrong here ... First, if Kerry knows of anyone taking money from the poor, he should call a cop. Of course, ever bereft of logic, Kerry is implying that allowing the evil "rich" to keep more of what is theirs equates to fleecing the poor. Kerry has never had to work for a living, so perhaps he doesn't understand that just the opposite occurs when wealth is redistributed: the "rich" (not all of whom inherited or married their money) are fleeced so that wealthy trust fund liberals can shower the poor with other peoples' earnings, thus salving their guilty consciences before jetting off to Cannes.

Further, if opportunity is being denied "the poor", it is by their champions on the Left, who continually stand in the way of parental choice in education, sentencing them to educational malpractice at the hands of the NEA.

Jesus never preached coercive wealth distribtuion. He did speak of rendering "unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's", but never of rendering unto Bryce the things which are Mr. Buzzcut's.

Playing Kerry's silly game, Jesus never preached the evisceration and waste basket disposal of perfectly healthy humans.

Finally, we wonder, did Kerry REALLY spend a whole day reading the New Testament just so he could erect this lame Straw Man?

This is what passes for "smart" in Blue "America".

Mock this hard, mock this often

"OK, but only if you promise not to tell my wife."

We await the outrage ...

Afghan Mosque Blast Kills 20, Wounds 42

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber walked into a mosque during the funeral of a Muslim cleric and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 20 people, including Kabul's police chief, and wounding 42 others.

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Paging Imran Khan ...!