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2007.08.22 Politics and National Defense Roundup
John "72ndTCS" Werntz emails: Hi, Bill,
The attachment is a press release just issued by this "FreedomsWatch.org" outfit. If Pete Hegseth links up to Freedoms Watch, that's good enough for me. Lt. Hegseth is a doer, not just a talker. He has organized groups of OIF vets to confront wobbly members of Congress, and Bush has seen fit to invite him to the White House. That's a whole lot more than GOE has ever accomplished by assembling to boo moonbats.
This FreedomsWatch outfit is talking $15 million in TV and radio ads. That may not quite be in Soros territory, but it surely does sound serious. They can't be getting that kind of dough from Ari Fleischer or a gaggle of ex-ambassadors. Must be John Templeton? ... 
Powerful New Pro-Mission Ads
For the past few months, Vets for Freedom has been on the front lines of the Iraq war debate in America, with only a few allies. But this morning, in a very real sense, the cavalry appeared on the horizon in the form of a new organization called Freedom's Watch.
Freedom's Watch has launched a multi-state advertising campaign featuring powerful stories from veterans and families that every household in America should hear.
It's time that the rest of America heard the words of soldiers who have served (and been wounded) in Iraq and the stories of families who have lost loved ones there.
The new commercials can be watched here.
If these videos speak to you - and we believe they will - call your Member of Congress at 1-877-222-8001 to tell them that defeat is not an option.
Thank you for joining us at this ever critical time.
Regards,
Pete Hegseth
Iraq War Veteran 2005-2006
Executive Director, Vets for Freedom
Click here for more information on Vets for Freedom.
*** Video: Absolute moral authority, pro-[war victory] edition
Allahpundit
Brand new from a brand new outfit called Freedom’s Watch comprised, per their press release, of Ari Fleischer, several former U.S. ambassadors, and some very, very, very big money. These clips are part of a $15 million ad buy meant to turn up the pressure on Democrats, who are scrambling to “re-frame” the progress in Anbar ahead of Petraeus’s report by conceding the fact of military gains and emphasizing that it doesn’t mean squat politically thanks to the overweening ineffectiveness of the Maliki government. ...
FBI Seeks Identity of Two Men
Seen Aboard Washington State Ferries
The FBI released photographs of two men Monday who have been seen on Washington state ferries "exhibiting unusual behavior" and asked the public for help identifying them.
The agency's Seattle field office, along with the Washington Joint Analytical Center, was still seeking the men's identities and whereabouts Wednesday as ferry service was temporarily shutdown when a suspicious package was found in a ferry bathroom and taken away by authorities.
"We had various independent reports from passengers and ferry employees that these two guys were engaging in what they described as unusual activities on the ferries," Special Agent Robbie Burroughs, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington state, told FOXNews.com. ...
See also:
Below the fold:
- NJ Orders Police, Prosecutors To Alert Feds When Illegal Immigrants Are Arrested
- Drunk driver’s immigration status not “irrelevant” to grieving mother
- Conservative Cavemen--and Women
- Breaking: (F)lying imams finally dismiss John Does from lawsuit
- The second time as farce / More FISA Fear-Mongering
- AFP Takes Lessons from TNR
- ...
NJ Changes Policy On Illegal Immigrants
NJ Orders Police, Prosecutors To Alert Feds When Illegal Immigrants Are Arrested
(AP) After a review driven by three brutal slayings, the state attorney general on Wednesday ordered New Jersey law enforcers to notify federal immigration officials whenever someone arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving is found to be an illegal immigrant. ...
Drunk driver’s immigration status not “irrelevant” to grieving mother
Michelle Malkin
You won’t see Geraldo Rivera reporting on this terrible tragedy. Via the Houston Chronicle: Felinda Williams couldn’t make herself go to court on a recent morning, couldn’t bring herself to look at the man accused of driving drunk and killing her daughter, her son-in-law and her 2-year-old grandson.
She knows few details of the Aug. 11 crash in Houston that killed the newlyweds and the little boy nicknamed “Peanut Butter.” She does know that her daughter didn’t die on impact. The young woman, according to reports, felt the flames and begged helpless bystanders to pull her free.
The grieving woman knows two things about Juan Felix Salinas, the man charged in connection with their deaths: She knows his name, and she knows he was in the U.S. illegally, out on bail after an earlier arrest. ...
Related:
Conservative Cavemen--and Women
Baldilocks
Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers (yes, old GIs, that Pat Schroeder), comments on a poll which seemed to indicate that Liberals read more books than do Conservatives or Moderates. The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes…
It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page.
(Psst! Ms. Schroeder! Karl Rove retired. You can get off of his jock now.) ...
See also:
Breaking: (F)lying imams finally dismiss John Does from lawsuit
Michelle Malkin
I just received notice from The Becket Fund: Michelle,
We wanted to let you know that the imams just dismissed their case against the John Doe passengers.
More info to come.
A bit more detail: ...
Allahpundit has thoughts here.
The second time as farce
Scott Johnson
In a terrific column for NRO Andrew McCarthy takes apart last weekend's New York Times story by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau on the FISA-reform bill passed by Congress before its summer recess. Risen and Lichtblau are the reporters who blew the NSA's terrorist surveillance program in December 2005. McCarthy provides the background: ...
*** More FISA Fear-Mongering
The New York Times strikes again.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
So, have you heard the latest? Your business records can now be taken away by Big Brother without a warrant, thanks to that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-reform bill Darth Bush — an unstoppable force of nature with 30-percent approval ratings — just slammed through the notorious wallflower also known as the Democratic Congress. Yup, all the government has to do is pretend it needs your records — or your phone calls, or even your person — for a national-security investigation of someone overseas and — Presto! — your privacy rights are shredded.
It must be true. After all, it’s in the New York Times. ...
AFP Takes Lessons from TNR
Jack Kelly
A great moment in journalism it wasn't. At 6:58 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, Aug. 14, Agence France Presse distributed a photograph by Wissam al-Okaili, an AFP stringer, of an elderly Iraqi woman holding two cartridges in one hand. The caption that accompanied the photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she said hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City."
I used the word "cartridges." The caption writer used the word "bullets." Let me explain the difference for the benefit of the photo editors at AFP. A cartridge consists of three elements: the bullet (the pointy thing at one end); the propellant that forces the bullet through the barrel of the gun when the trigger is pulled; and the casing, in which the bullet and the propellant are held together until the cartridge is fired. But once the cartridge is fired, the bullet and the casing go their separate ways ...
Quick hits:
- CIA Report Slams Tenet
Ed Morrissey: The long-awaited CIA Inspector General's report on the failues that led to 9/11 has been released, or at least its redacted executive summary was published this afternoon. The report puts the blame for the agency's lack of preparation squarely on George Tenet, arguing that although he defined the danger facing the US from al-Qaeda, he failed to organize the CIA to effectively fight it:
- Such a fixer
Scott Johnson: The current issue of Columbia Magazine carries a profile by Tim Warner of New Republic editor Franklin Foer celebrating him as "the fixer" who is resuscitating the magazine. (The profile is not available online at present. Thanks to reader Robert Avery for sending me a copy today.) If not the most poorly timed article in the history of journalism, it is nevertheless laughable in light of the ordeal inflicted on the magazine by its Baghdad fabulist and will to believe him on the part of "the editors."
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