Ethics, morals and truth are just about extinct on the left. Its not like they had a lot to start with in recent years. Where it all started I have no idea but it reached a depth yet unplumbed in the Clinton era. I about died when Senator Bob Kerry stated that Bill Clinton was an exceptionally good liar. It was enough to make your head spin and as Glenn beck says, blood squirt out of your eyes. It was not a bad thing to Bob and the rest of the left let it slide on by. If it had been a conservative that said it the propaganda arm would have been in full outrage mode. Probably like the Muslim world over naming a teddy bear Muhammed. Yet Clinton is but the tip of the iceberg. The moral rot runs deep in the Democratic party. It was a real joke when Nancy Pelosi spoke of the most ethical congress. It’s a wonder the words didn’t burn her lips. There is Seattle’s Baghdad Jim McDermott as perhaps one of the most unethical congress critters you will run across. He wouldn’t know what truth was if it bit a plug out of his butt. Not knowing what truth is he called the President of the United States a liar. To top it off he went to Baghdad to do it. After getting heat from both party’s Jim had to do the old crawfish crawl. McDermott said in a weasel worded pathetic excuse for an apology that he may have "overstated my case." Then of course you have the now infamous case of the intercepted cell phone call. The unbelievable story of radio shack equipment being able to intercept a scrambled cell phone call aside. That had to be the NSA or CIA work with sophisticated equipment. Jim went on to leak the transcript of the illegally intercepted phone call to the press. The couple pleaded guilty to unlawfully intercepting the call, and each was fined $500. At the time McDermott was the ranking member of the House Ethics Committee. McDermott later resigned his seat on the Ethics Committee. It’s a wonder that someone with no ethics whatsoever even got on the ethics committee in the first place. McDermott never was charged with a criminal offense, but Boehner filed a lawsuit in 1998 accusing him of violating state and federal wiretapping laws. A federal judge ruled that McDermott’s actions were protected by the First Amendment, but the Supreme Court overturned that finding and returned the case to the lower courts for further consideration. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan held that McDermott’s “willful and knowing misconduct rises to the level of malice.” Judge Hogan determined that it was illegal for McDermott to accept the tape and that, as a result, releasing the tape to reporters was not protected by the First Amendment. Baghdad Jim later had the gall to complain about the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program. Under his ethics it was not only ok to run surveillance on Republicans but also to release the contents of it to the press. Finally there is a small measure of justice as the Supreme Court declined to hear Baghdad Jim’s appeal. Instead of $10,000 to charity and an apology Jim is stuck with some $600,000 in penalties.  

If being ethically and morally challenged weren’t bad enough, you have to add into the mix intellectually challenged. How else can you explain Harry “land baron” Reid’s pious pronouncement that the surge is a failure. Even pond scum Jack Murtha grudgingly admits it is even though we still need a political solution! American losses in November were 36 dead, the lowest of any November of the war. Once violent places like Fallujah and Ramadi are now quiet. Whatever is happening in Iraq, all agree that the violence is abating at an astonishing rate. Reasonable people can differ over the prognosis for the outcome. Of course there is a lack of reasonable people on the left also. The Sunni insurgency is not just tired, but tired of losing to the American military and being exploited by al-Qaeda in the bargain. Since bad news alone is news from Iraq, there is now very little about the war on our front pages or the evening network lead-ins. The left is too heavily invested in defeat to allow any thing positive to be put out by the propaganda arm. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D., S.C.) warned last July, such good news could present a “problem” for antiwar Democrats. And now it has. They invested in the failure of the surge, having successfully tapped into widespread public unhappiness over the absence of prior clear-cut victory. Some change in their position is now on the horizon and it won’t be the first time Democrats have had to adjust en masse. Most in the party voted in October 2002 to authorize George Bush to remove Saddam Hussein. Why exactly did the present group of antiwar Democrats line up for the war? Was it just legitimate fears of weapons of mass destruction? Perhaps but maybe they were also still giddy over the unexpected seven-week defeat of the Taliban, and the inspired efforts to fashion an Interim Transitional Administration, with the suave Hamid Karzai as its president. Since we had already defeated Saddam in 1991, and since pundits had proclaimed that a secular Iraq would be more malleable to reconstruction than a primordial Afghanistan of warlords, Democrats signed on for another war that might prove even easier to wage and quicker to win. Support for an easy victory in Iraq would confirm their reputation of being tough on national security in a post-9/11 world. When they warned that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was connected to al-Qaeda, they were only reiterating the standard Bill Clinton line throughout much of the 1990s. After all Slick Willie made the defeat and removal of Saddam our national policy via executive order. Indeed, most Democrats saw George Bush’s post-9/11 focus on the dangers of Baathist Iraq as simply the natural escalation from Clinton’s own policy of occasional bombings, embargos, and no-fly zones. After the post-Saddam elections lined up 2004, 2006, 2008 and the reconstruction of Iraq proved bloodier than anticipated, the politics changed. They saw an opportunity to turn the war against the hated Bush and seized it. The Democrats became the antiwar party. Prominent pro-war pundits flipped and cursed the effort. Journalistic exposés were published in serial fashion. Michael Moore reigned supreme. And disillusioned former administration officials and generals wrote supposedly brilliant op-eds about how the war was lost, and how and why Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz,  fill in the blanks, had not listened to their own inspired advice about reconstruction. It was time to pile on. The Democrats became the party of surrender now. They became so heavily invested that they are know for the party of defeat. Now they are searching for a way to dismount from the tiger without being eaten. How can they do so? Maybe it is mostly ignore the past. The old ‘that was then, this is now’ trick. Or perhaps claim they were misled by the intelligence. Or at least remove that albatross by insisting that they never really expected a reckless George Bush to take them up on their sober and judicious authorization for war.  

Fortuitously for the Democrats their cut and run strategy worked all too well. There was the growing antiwar mood in the country that after the pullback from Fallujah in April 2004 became a feeding frenzy. Democrats rashly fanned this national wildfire. By 2006 the conflagration had finally led to their return to power in Congress which was their goal all along. A return to power at any cost. Many Democrats saw the change-of-heart in the electorate as a blanket endorsement of their own alternate universe. But it wasn’t necessarily so. The voters were not necessarily interested in new ties with terrorist Syria, restoring diplomacy with Iran, gay marriage, abortion, minority identity politics, new spending programs, open borders, closing down Guantanamo, an end to wiretaps of suspected terrorists, or the repeal of the Patriot Act. The people were mad at the war neither because they felt it was amoral or unsound policy, nor because they hated George Bush. It was because they felt frustrated that we were not winning and the cost in blood and treasure wasn’t worth the effort. Unfortunately for the Democrats the Pattonesque national mood “America loves a winner, and will not tolerate a loser” is not quite entirely gone. With their situational ethics and moral relativism the left cannot fathom this. Somehow instead they saw their new popularity as connected to the appeal of their politics rather than their shared anger at the mismanagement of the war. In their heady surge of return to power, they welcomed in extremists and fringe groups. Believing as if the world-view of a Michael Moore, Moveon.org, or Daily Kos might further resonate with the American people. The result was a Harry Reid now declaring the war lost and Gen. Petraeus was disingenuous at best. Hillary Clinton all but suggested Gen. Petraeus, soon to be the most popular American general since Dwight D. Eisenhower, was untruthful. Her infamous  “suspension of belief” screech. Plus there were the Moveon.org ads alleging that Petraeus was a near traitor. Despite the self-destructive nature of such extremism, the frenzy at least kept up fixation on the war and off of the Democrats’ own political agenda. After all, this November voters were supposed to hear of Congressional timetables, forced withdrawals, and a cut-off of funds, and not presidential candidates backing away from just those erstwhile demands to ponder the insanity of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. As always happens in war, the pulse of the battlefield had changed again. By September 2007 things suddenly had become as good as they had suddenly gone bad in early 2006 with the destruction of the mosque in Samara. Yet, if the public once angry over the bad news from Iraq had forgiven the Democrats their initial flip-flops and forgotten those 2002 war speeches, they may not be so kind this third time around. Voters will not support those who bring defeat. On the eve of this war about twenty percent had strong feelings to begin the fighting, while twenty percent opposed it. The vast majority in between had no strong views other than a desire to be on the winning side. Although the Democrats grasped that truth about human nature, and thus all during the last four years adjusted their politics to mirror what they perceived 51 percent of the people believed, they forgot one central truth. While the people are expected to be fickle, they are uneasy when their own leaders prove even more so. A voter has no problem changing his position to reflect the apparent popular consensus. When the scent of victory is in the air, suddenly the citizen gives little leeway for a politician to be as opportunistic as themselves.  When the perception of Iraq changed unexpectedly from an unpopular quagmire to a brilliant recovery, replete with real heroes, the Democrats, like deer in the headlights, were caught frozen. After all, who wants to see next October attack-ad clips of an Iraqi politician praising the United States, or a quiet walk through smiling crowds in Ramadi juxtaposed with Senators declaring our defeat and bad mouthing the savior of Iraq? Suddenly there was no bad news from Iraq so the propaganda arm dropped it off the radar. There were no more ads alleging treason. No more John Murthas thundering about war criminals in our ranks. No more orations from Sen. Durbin about our troops being Nazi-like. No more quips from Sen. Kennedy that the torture rooms were open under new management.  

Now the Democrats are stuck with their heavy investment in defeat. They can’t exactly remain quiet over the sudden change of fortune in Iraq. There is rumbling about more Hollywierd stooges by far going to visit Hugo Chavez than there are visiting the troops in Afghanistan. If Iraq remains relatively quiet and stable the left will have to flip flop yet again. It would be a nightmare for them if the situation improves even more. How many children went uninsured while we wasted a trillion dollars doesn’t play well with victory in Iraq? They could try to spin it with our pressure got the necessary changes from the administration like Harry tried with his infamous Limbaugh letter that back fired so horribly. Ignoring or denying the good news is simply not a sustainable strategy. It gets worse for them, since the Democrats are not quite sure of the permanence of the upswing from Iraq. Why make that third flip just yet, and give up a Watergate or Iran-Contra-like gift, especially when a sudden spike in violence might start the entire anti war move all over again? If they abandon the idea that the war is lost, and that Iraq is the worst event in the history of the United States, then does the attention default back again to Democratic ideology and politics? If it does is that necessarily good news? They are a long way from a Sen. Joe Lieberman of liberal Connecticut who voted for the war, stuck through it, and is pleased that his country has finally stabilized the country. The Democrats sacrificed what ever principles they had to the daily polls and transient popularity. Thus they are now enslaved by them. The question is not if the Democrats will make the third flip flop in time for the election. The question is will it work a third time?  

We have here in Penn’s colony a shame full set of events in our joke of a criminal justice system. It is the case of Mumia Abu Jamal, the multi-convicted murderer of Philadelphia policeman Danny Faulkner.  What is totally mind boggling to me is that Mumia writes columns and broadcasts from his prison cell. How this is tolerated let alone allowed is incomprehensible to me. Mumia Abu Jamal was catapulted into the public limelight by an event that occurred shortly after 3:55 a.m. on 9 December 1981, when white police officer Daniel Faulkner made a traffic stop of William Cook, Mumia's brother, on a Philadelphia street. Falkner pulled behind Cook's car, radioed for police backup, approached Cook's vehicle, and ordered the driver to get out of his car. While Faulkner handcuffed Cook, Mumia Abu Jamal, who was behind the wheel of a taxi parked across the street, suddenly got out of his vehicle, ran toward Faulkner and shot him in the back. As the policeman fell, he drew his own gun and managed to shoot Abu Jamal in the chest, wounding but not killing him. The gun-wielding cabdriver then fired repeatedly at Faulkner, finally dispatching him from close range with a bullet in the brain. What the leftist supporters of Mumia contend is the bullet didn’t come from his gun. Further they cannot explain away the bullet wounds in the officer’s back. This in spite of Mumia’s own ballistic analyst testified under oath the bullet was not a .44 caliber as his supporters claim. Abu Jamal's presence near the scene of the roadside stop at that particular moment has led to serious speculation that William Cook intentionally led Faulkner into an ambush -- one that had all the earmarks of other Black Panther provocations in places like Newark and Oakland. The body of evidence placing Mumia Abu Jamal at the scene of Faulkner's killing was overwhelming. There were three eyewitnesses who testified that Abu Jamal was the killer. His brother William Cook has never testified that Abu Jamal was innocent. Abu Jamal himself never once claimed his innocence at his own trial. Two policemen and one hospital security guard testified to the court that while Abu Jamal was being brought into the hospital following the altercation with Faulkner, he shouted repeatedly, "I shot the mother f---er, and I hope the mother f---er dies." The bullet that the doctors removed from Abu Jamal chest came from Officer Faulkner's gun. The bullet in Faulkner's brain came from Abu Jamal's gun, which had five empty cartridges when investigators found it. All the relevant facts of the case are detailed on the website danielfaulkner.com. In June and July of 1982 a racially mixed jury, which Abu Jamal himself helped select, heard testimony during court proceedings that were frequently disrupted by outbursts from Abu Jamal and his MOVE supporters. After three hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict and later ordered the death penalty. After court reviews, the verdict was affirmed in 1998 by Pennsylvania's Supreme Court. After 26 years the case is now in the federal courts. The new evidence claimed is the supposed previously unseen crime scene photos from the 9 Dec 1981 murder. As to why the photos were unseen for 26 years the feeble excuse is they were offered to the prosecution in 1981 and at the 1995 appeal. Yet the alleged allies of the slain police officer quashed them some how. The supposed snapper of these photos said he never heard back from the prosecution so thought they were unimportant. The question arises is why didn’t he offer them to the defense since they so convincingly prove innocence. These photos purport to show no bullet pock marks in the concrete.  

In what has to be a disgusting display of leftist hysteria and hero worship of the worst kind of thugs and murderers a full-page advertisement in the New York Times was taken out. Some 112 writers, actors, politicians, and others declared: "There is strong reason to believe that as an outspoken critic of the Philadelphia police and the judicial and prison systems, Mumia Abu-Jamal has been sentenced to death because of his political beliefs." The signers included the likes of director Oliver Stone, actors Mike Farrell and Paul Newman, Professor Derrick Bell, and the same Norman Mailer who helped free killer-author Jack Henry Abbott, who killed again. Cornel West compares Jamal with Martin Luther King, Jr. Jesse Jackson compares him with Nelson Mandela (who has asked that Jamal be spared). And Jamal's book, Live from Death Row, has helped make him an international cause celebre, selling more than 50,000 copies. Mumia is an honorary citizen of Paris. The left moans that the execution of convicted killer Mumia would be the worst case of political execution since the Rosenbergs! The threatening behavior of his supporters toward the widow are nothing short of shocking. "I have been vilified, spit upon, cursed at, chased down the street, screamed at," Faulkner said. "They held their fingers like they were shooting me, like there was a gun." The current uproar of the supposed caring compassionate left is because of the widow Faulkner’s book, “Murdered by Mumia.” Her appearances have been marked by protests and even attacks by the leftist media. One wonders if the colors were reversed and Faulkner were black if this outcry would be there. I sincerely doubt as the race baiting poverty pimps would be parachuting in and leading the marches in her defense.  

Then we have the guaranteed 15 minutes of fame for some perverted loser who kills a bunch of people with a firearm. This is guaranteed to get the anti-self defense crowd out in force. What is never mentioned in the propaganda arm is the failed policy of the “gun free zone.” This was supposed to some how magically stop nut jobs, murderers and thugs from performing their evil deeds. The bottom line is someone with or with out a badge with a firearm stops these perverts. This little fact is lost on the feel good do nothing crowd. The latest in a long line occurred at the Westroads mall in Omaha NE. What is missing is yet another attack occurred in a gun-free zone. Surely, with all the reporters who appear at these crime scenes and seemingly interview virtually everyone there, why didn’t one simply mention the signs that ban guns from the premises? Because it doesn’t fit the agenda, it points out the fallacy behind the thinking that created gun free zones. Nebraska allows people to carry permitted concealed handguns, but it also allows property owners, to post signs banning permit holders from legally carrying guns on their property. The same was true for the attack at the Trolley Square Mall in Utah in February. But again the media coverage ignored this fact. Possibly the ban there was even more noteworthy because the off-duty police officer who stopped the attack fortunately violated the ban by taking his gun in with him when he went shopping. There are plenty of cases every year where permit holders stop what would have been multiple victim shootings every year, but they rarely receive any news coverage. Take a case this year in Memphis, where WBIR-TV reported a gunman started "firing a pistol beside a busy city street" and was stopped by two permit holders before anyone was harmed. That simply doesn’t fit the agenda of ban firearms so it won’t hit the news. You can ask when will part of the media coverage on these multiple-victim public shootings be whether guns were banned where the attack occurred? The answer is rather easy, when hell has a light coating of frost. The news stories carry detailed information on the weapon used (in this case, a rifle) and the number of ammunition clips (apparently, two). But if these aspects of the story are deemed important for understanding what happened, why isn’t it also important that the attack occurred where guns were banned? Isn’t it important to know why all the victims were disarmed and helpless? Multiple-victim public shootings keep occurring in places where guns already are banned. Forty states have broad right-to-carry laws, but even within these states it is the "gun-free zones," not other public places, where the attacks happen. When is the last time you heard of one of these attacks happening in a gun store or a shooting range? Most people know the list: Virginia Tech had 32 murdered earlier this year; the Columbine High School shooting left 13 murdered in 1999; Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, had 23 who were fatally shot by a deranged man in 1991; and a McDonald's in Southern California had 21 people shot dead by an unemployed security guard in 1984. They all had one thing in common, gun free zone! We have a new verb in our language thanks to the gun free zones, going Postal. The law-abiding and not the criminals, are obeying the rules. Disarming the victims simply means that the killers have much less to fear. Police are important, but they almost always arrive at the crime scene after the crime has occurred. The longer it takes for someone to arrive on the scene with a firearm, the more people who will be harmed by such an attack. If they worked then we would see a rash of "This Home Is a Gun-Free Zone” signs on front doors. Sadly they don’t and to continue this particular insanity simply causes more innocent dead.