A couple of thoughts. First, since CBS is standing behind the violation of ethics clause, they cannot assert that if it’s not true without risking legal trouble. Secondly Batiste isn’t barking a lot about the firing.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Batiste or of any other retired General with an agenda critiquing the President during a time of war. So good riddance.

Saying that, what present on-air analyst doesn’t have an “agenda”? Yet there seems to be a little bit more to the story than what we know now, but then, the weekend has just begun!

An officer walks up to you and asks “Your neighbors are saying your husband barbeques babies on the weekend. Is that true?” There are three answers you could give. Yes, he does. No, he doesn’t. I don’t know. Being his wife one presumes that you know your husband well enough to know if he barbeques babies on the weekend, or at least whether he’s the kind of person that would, so that’s why it’s a yes or no answer to that question, with ‘I don’t know’ being a qualified ‘yes.’ To not know means you’re not willing to categorically deny his willingness to do such a heinous act to children.

Here’s another question. A truther walks up to presidential candidate John Edwards and asks clumsily whether he thinks the government murdered our own civilians on 9/11. There are two answers Edwards could give. No, it didn’t. Yes, it did. Any other answer is to say that you believe government employees, thousands of them, are morally capable of planning and executing the slaughter of Americans. That’s a grave charge, and a dark depiction of those who choose public service.

John Edwards is a popular Democrat vying for the most powerful position in the world. What answer would you expect him to give? “No sir, I won’t even let you finish that question…stop right there. I hate Republicans, and I hate George Bush, but I know my country’s heart is good and never, in my darkest nightmares, would I ever believe that Americans killed Americans that day. Get out, and never say my name in the same sentence with yours.” With that question before him he could show his decency. But that wasn’t his answer.

YouTube shows us the answer John Edwards chose to give: “No, I haven’t focused on it, but since you brought it up I will.” Then he continues, “All I can…I can’t tell you what I’d do right now, because I have to think about it. I’m willing to look at it, I don’t know what I’m willing to do. If you’ll do me a favor, before you go today,” and then pointing across the crowd, adds “that guy with the blue shirt on standing right next you, works for me, make sure we know how to reach you and, you have my word I’ll have an answer on that.”

Sounds like “I don’t know” to me, or something as sinister - John Edwards is willing appease even the most deluded and malicious 9/11 deniers to win their vote. They’re kooks, right?

Some now reading reach to remind me - the Rasmussen poll showed 61% of Democrats were willing to believe George Bush and our government colluded with Islamic terrorists to murder Americans on that September day in 2001. And your right, maybe that’s where the votes are found, maybe this abominable slander is mainstream. Maybe I’m the kook.

Maybe the world is out to get me, and I should take it personally, cursing the sidelong glances as Bush steals a peek at my library card. Maybe I should stew in my own juices until my clothes all turn as black as my heart, curdling my brain until I see heroes as dupes and dupes as dead. All 2,954 of them.

Truthers are sick, lonely people united by a festering vision of the world around them. To entertain any ideas about winning their vote is to grant them a credibility they haven’t earned and don’t deserve. It also unveils Edwards as a political animal so craven there is no line he won’t cross. Is there no decency left in the Democratic party? Is not even America’s heart worth defending?

He doesn’t know.

John Edwards for president?

There’s only one answer to that question.

Evrviglnt: Political Vindication

Christian influence in political debate in recent times has taught Christians that they cannot legislate morality. However, when a debate arises on a real issue, and Christians take a stance, the secular American republic assumes that Christians are trying to force their moral values down the country’s throat.

Rosie O’Donnell, in a now infamous episode of The View, compared Christianity to Islam, saying that Radical Christianity was as much of a threat as Radical Islam.

She is gay, and The Church’s stance on her sexual orientation, I am sure, provided a lot of fire behind her statement. But is she so naive to believe that Christianity, like Islam, would wish for her to be placed in jail for her independent sexual decisions?

Morality has its place in society, but it cannot be legislated. However, as much as those that are not Christian desire that Christianity not be imposed upon them, so do Christians believe that secularism should not be imposed upon them.

Let’s take Gay Marriage as an example. Though Christians feel that being gay places the individual outside of God’s teachings, a Christian, under the envelope of “Freedom and Liberty for all” and responsible common sense, will not impose any law, nor support any law outlawing homosexuality. There may be some fringe radicals that will call for it, but based on biblical teachings and American liberty, gays are rest assured that their orientation decision is protected. However, marriage is a Christian institution, and though it is used by the entire society as a means of creating a union between a man and a woman, its Christian roots is well known and respected. Gay Rights activists are currently trying to convince our governing body to force homosexuality upon a Christian practice. Civil unions through the government is one thing, but marriage has Christian ties and should not be compromised by gays. This is not legislating morality, this is protecting a Christian institution from secularization.

It seems to me that liberals think that conservatives would like to be able to legislate morality. They misunderstand abortion to be one such issue, when in reality conservatives see it as a genocide issue just as much as an issue of morality. And what is morality. Let’s really think about this. Morality, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, is: a personal or social set of standards for good or bad behaviour and character, or the quality of being right, honest or acceptable. So in a sense, being a law abiding citizen is being moral. So really, the argument by the secular progressive liberal left is not about legislating morality. It is about legislating their morality over Christian or Conservative morality.

Jenn from ScrewLiberals dot com says that she is a huge fan of responsible decision making. I concur.

Now, let’s take this a step further. Liberal America wishes to crush Christianity, or at least numb the effects of The Church on society, yet they also demand that we make certain concessions to our Muslim citizens - even if it means allowing them to impose their moral system on us.

Fact is, Islam is spreading through Europe, and gaining strength here in the United States as we sit and quibble over the Democrat’s “getting their point across” with wasteful legislation that is doomed to be vetoed. The heart of the matter is that no nation is legitimate in the eyes of Islam without obeying the main teachings of the Sharia. No religion is more worldly than Islam. No religion keeps its keeps its eyes more fixed on the way the world is run. Politics is combined with religion in Islam. Islam is a complete way of life, and they are willing to impose their ideology on the West by force.

The Islam religion is the main frame of reference for the constitution and laws of predominantly Muslim countries because they believe that it is God, not man, that rules. God is the source of all authority, including political authority. Virtue, not freedom, is the highest value.

Islam provides no distinction, as Christian religions do, between what should be rendered unto Caesar and what is rendered unto God.

In Islam, everything is rendered unto Allah.

The Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran says that Islam rejects the idea of a nation based on the approval of laws in accordance with the opinion of the majority. Islamic states are autocracies under the Sharia, and pressure for any other political arrangement is punishable by death. The Sharia is sufficient in itself for the governing of society, according to Islamic leaders. The Sharia’s ability to govern extends to the totality of “religious, political, social, domestic, and private life.”

An Islamic Superstate is the goal, with state power and religious power fused, centering on a caliph as the leader chosen by Allah for his people. Such a caliphate has been no more since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, but fanatical Muslims like Obama bin Laden calls for its restoration.

An Islamic State ruled by the Sharia leaves little room for representative government. There is no separation of church and state in Islam. Islam is a complete way of life. Muslims advocating the separation of religion from politics are considered to be unbelievers, and Muslims are ordered to kill these apostates.

This is one of the major reasons we must remain in Iraq. The people that have welcomed Democracy and support the American presence are apostates in the eyes of the leaders of Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and so forth. We are not only there to control terrorism, take away Iraq as a safe haven for terrorism, and protect America from its enemies, but we are also present in that region to protect the citizens of Iraq from their neighbors. A pull-out from Iraq would open the nation up for a blood bath, embolden our enemies, and strenghen the Islamic cancer growing in Western Society. The values at the heart of American law and society is changing as the Muslims seek a majority. In Europe, increasing Muslim populations may herald substantial change in these societies.

In the United States Christian moral value helped forge our supreme values and are embodied in the Constitution and the law of our land. The Muslim world has its own set of values, and it is their goal to replace our Western values with theirs.

Muslim populations are expanding in Europe and the call for Islamic values will be carried westward with them. Christians look down upon homosexuality and request that gay marriage not become the law. Islam looks down upon homosexuality as a sin punisible by death, and homosexuals are stoned to death for their sexual orientation. And trust me, if able here in America, Islam would have no problem legislating morality.

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Tune in to Political Pistachio Radio tomorrow at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern for more on my commentary regarding this, and many other, issues that now face our society.

I just had the most delightful conversation with Judith Weiss of Kesher Talk, straight from Savadotty’s Soup Salon in Tel Aviv.

Today’s soup was gazpacho.

As it turns out, Savadotty’s oldest cousin’s granddaughter works at Blog Talk Radio, and her niece has a new Blog Talk Radio show starting next Tuesday, Call Your Nana, at 4PM EDT. We’ll have to listen!

Savadotty herself and their newcomer friend Noam joined Judith and I. We talked about politics, current events and life in Israel. One of the most interesting points we discussed is how Israel’s security situation puts a different perspective on innovation, entrepeneurship, and risk-taking.

Savadotty, blogger a former Princeton resident, is a most warm lady and when I get to Israel I’ll have to drop by for some soup.

Listen to the archived podcast; I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did making it.

While you’re at it, don’t miss yesterday’s podcast on Tony Blair.

Where would liberal pundits like those at Salon be without the ‘Evil Genius’ of Karl Rove. In this article Garrett Epps, sounds like he spent a weekend with Arianna Huffington gathering up every liberal fantasy of so-called Republican voter wrangling and then vomited.

“I think of that dinner whenever I read about the widening scandal of the U.S. attorneys and the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzo is probably the most endangered man since William Tell’s son Walter. The pattern behind the scandal, however, transcends Gonzales’ fate or that of his underlings.

At least part of the U.S. attorneys plot seems to derive from the “election fraud” hoax that Republicans are trying to perpetrate in order to gain control of the country’s voter lists. So nailing this inept crew of thugs won’t be good enough. We need laws protecting the right to vote from the kind of phony, partisan prosecutors that Gonzales, Rove and Co. were trying to put in place, and from the punitive, restrictive voter-ID laws that are a prominent part of the far-right political agenda.

Republicans do cherish their little practical jokes — the leaflets in African-American neighborhoods warning that voters must pay outstanding traffic tickets before voting; the calls in Virginia in 2006 from the mythical “Virginia Election Commission” warning voters they would be arrested if they showed up at the polls. The best way to steal an election is the old-fashioned way: control who shows up. It’s widely known that Republicans do better when the turnout is lighter, whiter, older and richer; minorities, young people and the poor are easy game for hoaxes and intimidation.”

Notice that liberals bug out and call “Show me an ID and prove you have the right to vote” as “intimidation”. For instance, Virginia has long been the practicing ground for illegal - yes illegal - voting by felons. Telling them that they will be arrested if they show up is well, pretty damn nice if you ask me.

Nevertheless, the gist of this diatribe attempts to tell us that Rove and Republicans perpetrated a hoax on Democratic voter fraud to gain control of the electorate. Yet Epps, like other liberals suffer from denial of facts. Powerline in 2004 citing a study on democrat voter fraud in 2004, we see the evidence for Democrat voter fraud is alive and well.

“[A] careful review of the facts shows that in 2004, paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression efforts than their Republican counterparts. Examples include:

* Paid Democrat operatives charged with slashing tires of 25 Republican get-out-the-vote vans in Milwaukee on the morning of Election Day.

* Misleading telephone calls made by Democrat operatives targeting Republican voters in Ohio with the wrong date for the election and faulty polling place information.

* Intimidating and deceiving mailings and telephone calls paid for by the DNC threatening Republican volunteers in Florida with legal action.

* Union-coordinated intimidation and violence campaign targeting Republican campaign offices and volunteers resulting in a broken arm for a GOP volunteer in Florida.

Vote fraud and voter registration fraud were significant problems in at least a dozen states around the county. Vote fraud is a reality in America that occurred not only in large battleground states like Wisconsin but in places like Alabama and Kentucky. The record indicates that in 2004, voter registration fraud was mainly the work of so-called “nonpartisan” groups such as Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and NAACP National Voter Fund. Examples include:

* Joint task force in Wisconsin found “clear evidence of fraud in the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee,” including more than 200 felon voters, more than 100 double voters and thousands more ballots cast than voters recorded as having voted in the city.

* NAACP National Voter Fund worker in Ohio paid crack cocaine in exchange for a large number of fraudulent voter registration cards in names of Dick Tracy, Mary Poppins and other fictional characters.

* Former ACORN worker said there was “a lot of fraud committed” by group in Florida, as ACORN workers submitted thousands of fraudulent registrations in a dozen states across the country, resulting in a statewide investigation of the group in Florida and multiple indictments and convictions of ACORN/Project Vote workers for voter registration fraud in several states.

There were also a case of clear fraud Capt Ed noted back in 2005 that occured in Wisconsin. The fact is that voter fraud was prevailant in 2004, especially in New Mexico where fired AG Iglesias worked, where I might add evidence exists that he didn’t persue it due to pressure from state Democrats concerned that it would anger the hispanic populations.

Not that any facts will convince the likes Epps or others who see that the attempt to unseat the AG to avoid coming prosecutions has failed.