Helen Thomas said what???

Veteran White House "reporter" Helen Thomas, famous for her appearance in the front row of the White House press room since the dawn of man, has said the following:

"The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself." She later said "All we need is one more liar."

But of course, the Media isn't biased. And even if they were, they wouldn't let their strong emotions get in the way of solid reporting. bla, bla, bla. Tell that to Dan Rather, CNN's Eason Jordon, Newsweek, and a whole host of others.

Don't care much for CAIR

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Inc., filed a defamation lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead, of Anti-CAIR (or ACAIR), a grass-roots project which is trying to expose one of the largest and most vocal Islamic organizations in North America.

Frontpage Mag has a great rundown of the story with their analysis.

For those of you who remember, CAIR is the same group that got all over National Review and convinced them to withdraw ads relating to two books on Islam.

Interestingly, the local radio host in D.C., Michael Graham, has CAIR on his heels for what he has said concerning the group.

Air America, stealing from poor inner city kids? How unliberal!

Apparently, the liberal radio station, Air America is being investigated for diverting hundreds of thousands of funds meant for inner-city kids and seniors into the station's coffers.

Michelle Malkin is all over the story.

Romney Watch '08'

Mitt Romney made alot of noise saturday, when he vetoed a bill the would expand access of the after morning pill to hospitals. Romney explained his decision to veto the bill in a Boston Globe opinion piece today (subscription only):

For all the conflicting views on this issue, it speaks well of our country that we recognize abortion as a problem. The law may call it a right, but no one ever called it a good, and, in the quiet of conscience people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America. You can't be a prolife governor in a prochoice state without understanding that there are heartfelt and thoughtful arguments on both sides of the question. Many women considering abortions face terrible pressures, hurts, and fears; we should come to their aid with all the resourcefulness and empathy we can offer. At the same time, the starting point should be the innocence and vulnerability of the child waiting to be born.

Here's another interesting Boston Globe article entitled "Are We Ready for a Mormon President?"

''Catholics like to talk about anti-Catholicism and Jews like to complain about anti-Semitism. But a hundred years ago, Mormonism was the most hated religion in America. Since then the religion has changed dramatically. It's almost like a new business taking off -- it's a quintessential American success story."

Wolfe thinks that if Romney's ambitions take him to the 2008 Republican primaries, he's likely to be slimed by political operatives of the Karl Rove mold. ''I think there will be rumors spread about how Mitt Romney has six wives, all of them 14 years of age, stashed in a house in Utah. These rumors will be denied, but they will stick in people's minds. There is some subterranean sentiment about curious practices in Mormonism."

It will be interesting to see how mormonism fairs in 08. Of course, no Democrats will make an issue of Romney's faith:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, brought up Romney's Mormon faith with the Atlantic interviewer. "The question you didn't ask," Kennedy said, "was about Mormonism, whether it would hurt him in a national campaign."
"The answer is no," Kennedy answered. "We've moved on. That died with my brother Jack."

Wow, JFK was Mormon?

Here is a MUST READ article on Romney.

John Roberts, a side you haven't seen.

A columnist for the New York Sun has unnearthed a few internal memos John Roberts wrote during the 80's as he worked under Presiden Reagan. They demonstrate Robert's youthful zeal, and are quite cutting, often mocking members of the Suprem Court. Here's a few examples:

In one he takes on the idea that Supreme Court justices just work so very, very hard: "Whiel some of the tales of woe emanating from the court are enough to bring tears to one's eyes, it is true that only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren are expected to and do take the entire summer off."

Another whitty quip: "The generally accepted notion that the court can only hear roughly 150 cases each term gives the same sense of reassurance asthe adjournment of the court in July, when we know the Constitution is safe for the summer."

Howard's Response

After seeing references to Australian PM John Howard's response to a press conference journalist, I finally got around to reading it. For a non-scripted (but obviously well-thought-out) remark, Howard really gets it right.
From The Corner.
It makes me feel good to know that America has allies with both minds and backbones.

VDH Friday

Victor Davis Hanson, in my opinion, is the best editorial writer around. I look forward to his friday column in national review every week, and this week he has not dissapointed. In his column this week, entitled "And Then They Came After Us," he points out why most of the world has fundamentally misunderstood islamic fundamentalism. You must read the whole thing. Here are few key quotes:

First the terrorists of the Middle East went after the Israelis. From 1967 we witnessed 40 years of bombers, child murdering, airline hijacking, suicide murdering, and gratuitous shooting. We in the West usually cried crocodile tears, and then came up with all sorts of reasons to allow such Middle Eastern killers a pass. ...

In any case, anti-Semitism, oil, fear of terrorism — all that and more fooled us into believing that Israel’s problems were confined to Israel. So we ended up with a utopian Europe favoring a pre-modern, terrorist-run, Palestinian thugocracy over the liberal democracy in Israel. The Jews, it was thought, stirred up a hornet’s nest, and so let them get stung on their own.

We in the United States preened that we were the “honest broker.” After the Camp David accords we tried to be an intermediary to both sides, ignoring that one party had created a liberal and democratic society, while the other remained under the thrall of a tribal gang. ...

Then the Islamists declared war on the United States. A quarter century of mass murdering of Americans followed in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, East Africa, the first effort to topple the World Trade Center, and the attack on the USS Cole.

We gave billions to Jordan, the Palestinians, and the Egyptians. Afghanistan was saved from the Soviets through U.S. aid. Kuwait was restored after Saddam’s annexation, and the holocaust of Bosnians and Kosovars halted by the American Air Force. Americans welcomed thousands of Arabs to our shores and allowed hundreds of madrassas and mosques to preach zealotry, anti-Semitism, and jihad without much scrutiny.

Then came September 11 and the almost instant canonization of bin Laden.
Suddenly, the prior cheap shots at Israel under siege weren’t so cheap....

But Europe was supposedly different. Unlike the United States, it was correct on the Middle East, and disarmed after the Cold War. Indeed, the European Union was pacifistic, socialist, and guilt-ridden about former colonialism.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were left alone in unassimilated European ghettoes and allowed to preach or promulgate any particular hatred of the day they wished....

After Holland, Madrid, and London, European operatives go to Israel not to harangue Jews about the West Bank, but to receive tips about preventing suicide bombings. And the cowboy Patriot Act to now-panicked European parliaments perhaps seems not so illiberal after all....

Perhaps the jihadist killing was not over the West Bank or U.S. hegemony after all, but rather symptoms of a global pathology of young male Islamic radicals blaming all others for their own self-inflicted miseries, convinced that attacks on the infidel would win political concessions, restore pride, and prove to Israelis, Europeans, Americans — and about everybody else on the globe — that Middle Eastern warriors were full of confidence and pride after all. Meanwhile an odd thing happened.

It turns out that the jihadists were cowards and bullies, and thus selective in their targets of hatred. A billion Chinese were left alone by radical Islam — even though the Chinese were secularists and mostly godless, as well as ruthless to their own Uighur Muslim minorities. Had bin Laden issued a fatwa against Beijing and slammed an airliner into a skyscraper in Shanghai, there is no telling what a nuclear China might have done.India too got mostly a pass, other than the occasional murdering by Pakistani zealots. Yet India makes no effort to apologize to Muslims....

Islamicists are selective in their attacks and hatred. So far global jihad avoids two billion Indians and Chinese, despite the fact that their countries are far tougher on Muslims than is the United States or Europe. In other words, the Islamicists target those whom they think they can intimidate and blackmail.Unfettered immigration, billions in cash grants to Arab autocracies, alliances of convenience with dictatorships, triangulation with Middle Eastern patrons of terror, blaming the Jews — civilization has tried all that.

Powerful stuff. VDH's last weeks column, also rivetting can be found here.

"Oh, Canada?"

Talk about PC overkill. Yesterday, Toronto officials forced Miss Universe, who is Canada's own Natalie Glebova to take off her sash in order to comly with an anti-sexual stereotyping law. Miss Universe was to open a festival in Toronto wearing her full Miss Universe regalia when the PC police showed up:

[C]ity employees invoked a regulation against activities which degrade men and women through sexual stereotypes or exploit their bodies to attract attention.
Bowing to the local law, the 23 year old blue-eyed brunette was made to remove her Miss Universe sash, though not without complaint.

This report shows it was even worse:

City officials told the Tastes of Thailand festival organizers that 23-year-old Natalie Glebova could only appear if she was not introduced as Miss Universe and if she did not wear her tiara and sash.

Toronto Mayor David Miller has since apologized for the whole incident.

hat-tip Chrenkoff

The Neoconservative Convergence

Here's a great article on neoconservativism. I especially liked the description/interpretation of Kerry's anti-war justifications; from 'world-opinion' dominated liberal-internationalist, to a more realist 'wrong war' one.

Iraq Stories

There is good news coming from Iraq. Michael Yon is reporting from Iraq and has really amazing stories. It's like Arthur Chrenkoff, but on a more personal scale. Check them out, I'll try and post updates.
The most recent is the find of a huge munitions cache in Mosul. A photo is above.

Why the smirk?

The day after president Bush made his announcement that he had nominated John Roberts for the Supreme Court, a number of people at work were making their usual comments of how they couldn't stand Bush and one mentioned the fact that Bush kept smirking during his speech. I did't watch it, so I didn't really have much to say, but the moonbat relms of the blogosphere seemed to have noticed it as well.

Well, it turns out the reason Bush was smirking was because Roberts son was doing his version of the electric bugaloo about four feet away from the podium. Fortunately, most of the networks were doing close ups during the speech, but there are plenty of stills, showing this kid's best moves.

A video of the routine can be seen here. (hat tip Michelle Malkin)

ed. Here's a taste of how some lefties think. It can't be healthy to hate so much.
--bear

Fortunate Soldier

This video has been circulating for a little bit and is really remarkable. It was actually filmed by Iraqi insurgents who were hiding in a minivan. They were armed with a sniper rifle and were trying to pick off soldiers. Unfortunately for this band of terrorists, they picked the wrong guy. After getting hit square in the chest and knocked backward from the bullet, Pfc Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, sprang to his feet. He was able to able identify the sniper team and U.S. forces then hunted them down. On top of it all, Tshiderer, administered first aid to the very insurgents who tried to kill him. The best part of the video is to hear the terrorists' voices and suprise when they see our guy spring back to his feet.

You can read the official story here.

CIA outed Plame?

Andrew McCArthy writes a great piece for National Review. He goes and reads the amicus brief the mainstream media filed with the court on the whole Plame issue and finds a few interesting tidbits.

You heard that this was the crime of the century. A sort of Robert-Hanssen-meets-Watergate in which Rove is already cooked and we're all just waiting for the other shoe — or shoes — to drop on the den of corruption we know as the Bush administration. That, after all, is the inescapable impression from all the media coverage. So who is saying different?
The organized media, that's who. How come you haven't heard? Because they've decided not to tell you. Because they say one thing — one dark, transparently partisan thing — when they're talking to you in their news coverage, but they say something completely different when they think you're not listening.

You see, if you really want to know what the media think of the Plame case — if you want to discover what a comparative trifle they actually believe it to be — you need to close the paper and turn off the TV. You need, instead, to have a peek at what they write when they're talking to a court. It's a mind-bendingly different tale.

Just four months ago, 36 news organizations confederated to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. At the time, Bush-bashing was (no doubt reluctantly) confined to an unusual backseat. The press had no choice — it was time to close ranks around two of its own, namely, the Times's Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper, who were threatened with jail for defying grand jury subpoenas from the special prosecutor.
The media's brief, fairly short and extremely illuminating, is available here. . . .

The thrust of the brief was that reporters should not be held in contempt or forced to reveal their sources in the Plame investigation. Why? Because, the media organizations confidently asserted, no crime had been committed. Now, that is stunning enough given the baleful shroud the press has consciously cast over this story. Even more remarkable, though, were the key details these self-styled guardians of the public's right to know stressed as being of the utmost importance for the court to grasp — details those same guardians have assiduously suppressed from the coverage actually presented to the public.

Though you would not know it from watching the news, you learn from reading the news agencies' brief that the 1982 law prohibiting disclosure of undercover agents' identities explicitly sets forth a complete defense to this crime. It is contained in Section 422 (of Title 50, U.S. Code), and it provides that an accused leaker is in the clear if, sometime before the leak, "the United States ha[s] publicly acknowledged or revealed" the covert agent's "intelligence relationship to the United State s[.]"As it happens, the media organizations informed the court that long before the Novak revelation (which, as noted above, did not disclose Plame's classified relationship with the CIA), Plame's cover was blown not once but twice. The media based this contention on reporting by the indefatigable Bill Gertz — an old-school, "let's find out what really happened" kind of journalist. Gertz's relevant article, published a year ago in the Washington Times, can be found here. . . .

The Amicus brief points out that Plame's identity was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990's. On another occassion, the media points out that CIA itself inadvertently compromised Plame's idendity by revealing in Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba.

Thus, the same media now stampeding on Rove has told a federal court that, to the contrary, they believe the CIA itself blew Plame's cover before Rove or anyone else in the Bush administration ever spoke to Novak about her. Of course, they don't contend the CIA did it on purpose or with malice. But neither did Rove — who, unlike the CIA, appears neither to have known about nor disclosed Plame's classified status. Yet, although the Times and its cohort have a bull's eye on Rove's back, they are breathtakingly silent about an apparent CIA embarrassment — one that seems to be just the type of juicy story they routinely covet.

If Plame's cover was blown, as Gertz reports, how much did Plame know about that? . . . Assuming she knew, did her husband, Wilson, also know? At the time he was ludicrously comparing the Novak article to the Ames and Philby debacles, did he actually have reason to believe his wife had been compromised years earlier?

And could the possibility that Plame's cover has long been blown explain why the CIA was unconcerned about assigning a one-time covert agent to a job that had her walking in and out of CIA headquarters every day? Could it explain why the Wilsons were sufficiently indiscrete to pose in Vanity Fair, and, indeed, to permit Joseph Wilson to pen a highly public op-ed regarding a sensitive mission to which his wife — the covert agent — energetically advocated his assignment? Did they fail to take commonsense precautions because they knew there really was nothing left to protect?

We'd probably know the answers to these and other questions by now if the media had given a tenth of the effort spent manufacturing a scandal to reporting professionally on the underlying facts. And if they deigned to share with their readers and viewers all the news that's fit to print ... in a brief to a federal court.

Osama's worst nightmare

Here's an interesting read.

The Plame Game

The democratic feeding frenzy on Karl Rove has actually turned quite comical over the past few days. The left's pure disdain and hatred for Rove is driving them further into the depths of moonbattery.

To date, all the evidence shows that Rove has not violated any laws, nor did he actively seek to leak Plame's identity. All the evidence shows that Rove was informed of Plame's identity through a reporter.

I get the feeling that the Left is putting all their hopes and dreams into this Rove/Plame "scandal" and will ultimately end up dissapointed.

Simply put, here are the reasons why Rove will not be charged with a crime, nor Fired by Bush:

1) There is no evidence Rove intentionally revealed Plame as a covert agent. In fact, all the evidence shows that the when Novak and Cooper talked with Rove, they pulled the old bait and switch, initially talking about one topic, and then switching to the whole Wilson allegations later. All Rove did was say hey, you shouldn't put too much stock in what this Wilson guy is saying, which turned out to be true (see 3). In addition, it was a reporter that leaked to Rove, not the other way around. On top of it, what greater evidence is there that Rove didn't break a law, when Dems are currently in the act of passing a NEW law to catch him.

2) There is serious doubt as to whether Plame was a covert agent. This is because many reporters have stated that they knew she worked at the agency, a former supervisor has stated that she wasn't covert, and under the statutory definition, she had not been on a foreign mission during the past five years. Even Wilson himself has admitted she wasn't covert. Of course, how covert can one really be when their spouse is a diplomat, and they drive to Langley everday to sit at a desk at CIA headquarters. Taking a photo shoot in Vanity Fair sure doesn't help either.

3) Wilson has zero credibility. He has been wrong about nearly everything. He first claimed that Chenney sent him to Niger. This was dead wrong, the 911 commission found that it was the Agency, following the proddings of his wife who sent him to niger, despite his repeated denials that his wife had no involement and that no nepotism was involved. He also claimed that the top administration officials had seen his report and ignored it in order to make the case for war. The fact, however, is that no one of significance even saw his report until months after Bush made is yellow-cake Niger comments. Wilson's report was shoddy and based on "thin" evidence, despite his claims that it was exhaustive. Wilson's own report supports the conclusion that Niger was involved with yellow-cake, despite his claims that his report proved there was no connection.

In short, Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger. He lied about the significance and thoroughness of his report. When he returned, he lied about the very contents of the report.

Apparently, for the dems, we shouldn't let little inconvenient things like facts get in the way.

The real mystery is who was Judith Miller's leak. Is she staunchly protecting Karl Rove, despite the fact he has signed waivers and is already implicated? I doubt it. There is speculation that in fact, she is protecting 1) herself, assuming she was the one that discover Plame's identity and leaked it to other reporters, 2) Wilson, who was so desparately trying to trump himself up and make himself look credible it could have been easy to say, "Ya, the administration has read my report, my wife is in the Agency and had verified that they got it."

J-Pod is right when he calls this the "hey, big woop" story of the year.

But None Ever Cried For Me

From Israel national news, Isaac Kohn eloquently points out the hypocrisy of condemning all terrorist acts, but not those done against Israel.

Mr. Putin said was correct. What he urged was appropriate. The cities he named have suffered greatly at the hands of Muhammad's followers. These cities and others have seen the gory results of Islam's fanaticism. I waited for the Russian weasel to bring his lips to acknowledge those cities and many others in Israel as the epicenters of Islam's global assault on decency. I waited and expected his outrage at the despicable murder in London and New York and Moscow to continue a minute or two further so that I may know that, finally, perhaps, the world will be prompted to avenge my child's blood, too. I waited for Mr. Putin to "unconditionally condemn" the barbaric acts committed against my parents, my loved ones. I waited... and waited. And then he was gone.

I cried for the children in England and for the children in Russia. And I cried along with those in Spain. I cried for them all.

But none ever cried for me.

Powerline Fiskes the NYT, and makes it look oh so easy

This is a must read post from powerline on the whole Rove/Plame issue. (there's nothing I love more than giving the NYT editorials a thorough fisking). It's too good to post certain portions, so just read the whole thing.

"A small price to pay. . ."

Talk about standing up for something you believe in, a European Pizza owner was recently sent to jail for his staunch support for the Iraq war.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - A Danish pizzeria owner was jailed Tuesday for refusing to serve French and German tourists in protesting their countries' opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

A Danish court found Aage Bjerre guilty of discrimination and fined him $900. Bjerre refused to pay, and will now serve an eight-day sentence.

"I'm doing it to show my sympathy with the United States. It shows how seriously I mean it," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "But one should also remember that eight days is a small price to pay when American soldiers go to Iraq and risk their limbs and lives."

In February 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Bjerre posted two signs barring Germans and French from his pizzeria on Denmark's western island of Fanoe. His refusal to serve them drew criticism in this Scandinavian country, where the government supported the war while its citizens were split.

The 46-year-old received hundreds of fan letters from the United States, but had to sell the pizzeria after repeated vandalism and a large drop in sales. He is bringing a photograph of President Bush and Laura Bush, as well as an American flag, to decorate the walls of his prison cell: "I think that will brighten up the room," he said.

Aage has a website here and a Cafe Press store here. (hat tip Michelle Malkin)

BBC, playing PC with terrorism

Well, leave it up to the BBC to go completely out of their way to not offend the terrorists. It turns out, that those that purpetrated the 7/7 attacks in London weren't "terrorists," only "bombers." Feel better?

The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as “terrorists”, it was disclosed yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC’s website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as “bombers”.

No wonder that the British Royal Navy preferred not show the BBC reports to their crews during the Iraq invasion.

Picture of Terrorism

The Sun has a map displaying most of the acts of Islamic terrorism since 1993.

They write "More than 4,000 people have died as Islamic terrorism has spread across the world over the last decade. Here we highlight some of the worst atrocities."

Powerline notes that liberals are still convinced these attacks must be because of the British involvement in Iraq. "No word yet on the others."

7/7 Round-Up

Here's a few interesting articles related to the London bombings.

Michelle Malkin notes that London has become somewhat of a terrorist safe-haven over the past few years because of a lack of extradition treaties. From the UK Mirror:

"For many years prior to September 11, politicians maintained that Britain must not be allowed to become a haven for international terrorists. But it has and, arguably, still is. More than half a dozen governments have filed diplomatic protests with the Foreign Office about the presence of such groups. "

The Wall Street Journal reports that "British police have asked their European counterparts for information on a Moroccan man, Mohamed Guerbouzi, in relation to the terrorist attacks in London yesterday, a Brussels-based European police official said. Mr. Guerbouzi has been under investigation in Britain in connection with two previous attacks, a 2003 suicide bombing in Morocco and last year's attack in Madrid. He has been living in Britain for about a decade, the police official said. "

Malkin points to another UK Mirror article that reveals that Guerbouzi has been living a comfortable life in London "despite being accused of playing a key role in the Madrid atrocity, as well as a dozen suicide bombings in Casablanca last May which left 33 dead."

Homeland Security Blog, is claiming to have a scoop that one of the suspected bombers is in fact a recently released Guantanamo detainee:

7 July 2005; 12:54 ET: Preliminary reports from a source inside the Pentagon indicate that one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo.

UPDATED 10:35 PM ET: A clarification was made by the source providing this information, noting that "one of the bombers who is believed to be involved in this attack was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo, Cuba." The source did not elaborate about how the suspect was reportedly identified so early, although suggested he was onboard bus 30 that exploded outside of the British Medical Association at 9:47 local time. We are continuing our investigation.

If this does turn out to be true, I wonder how the whole "shut down gitmo" crowd will respond.

Protests Warriors Hacked

I read a disturbing message in my inbox this morning from the Protest Warriors. Apparently, some left wing "hacktivist" broke into their site in an effort to steal credit card and other sensitive info. They were planning on charging the cards to left-wing causes and eventually shutting down the site. Fortunately, the protest warriors caught them in the act and worked with the FBI and Secret Service to uncover the whole operation. Read the whole thing, it's pretty interesting.

Pelosi wins a Pelosi!!!!

Just when you thought the Democratic leadership couldn't go any lower, Nancy Pelosi reveals just what an intellectual light-weight she really is. For her performance this week, I am forced to award yet another Pelosi Award. In this small exchange, Nancy shows why I chose to name the award after in the first place.

It all occurred at her weekly press conference. For those of you who don't know, the Supreme Court in Kelo, basically held that legislative bodies can exercise eminent domain to seize private land and transfer it to other private ownership, as long as it considers the transfer beneficial to the public good. It does, however, specifically leave those decisions to the legislature. All the court said was "hey, the legislature's actions in seizing the land doesn't violate the takings clause." Republican Senator Jon Cornyn, in order to prevent state and local legislatures from doing this, will introduce legislation that will restrict the use of federal funds for projects such as those involved in the Kelo case that simply trade one private owner for another.

One reporter decided to ask Pelosi what her thoughts on the proposed legislation was, as well as her thoughts on the Kelo case. In this short exchange, Pelosi revealed that she knew absolutely nothing about the decision, the proposed legislation, and the function of the federal government.

Q: Later this morning, many Members of the House Republican leadership, along with John Cornyn from the Senate, are holding a news conference on eminent domain, the decision of the Supreme Court the other day, and they are going to offer legislation that would restrict it, prohibiting federal funds from being used in such a manner.

Two questions: What was your reaction to the Supreme Court decision on this topic, and what do you think about legislation to, in the minds of opponents at least, remedy or changing it?

Ms. Pelosi: As a Member of Congress, and actually all of us and anyone who holds a public office in our country, we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Very central to that in that Constitution is the separation of powers. I believe that whatever you think about a particular decision of the Supreme Court, and I certainly have been in disagreement with them on many occasions, it is not appropriate for the Congress to say we're going to withhold funds for the Court because we don't like a decision. (withhold funds from the court? What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what the legislation is-ed.)

Q: Not on the Court, withhold funds from the eminent domain purchases that wouldn't involve public use. I apologize if I framed the question poorly. It wouldn't be withholding federal funds from the Court, but withhold Federal funds from eminent domain type purchases that are not just involved in public good.

Ms. Pelosi: Again, without focusing on the actual decision, just to say that when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court. This is in violation of the respect for separation of church -- powers in our Constitution, church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that as well. But forgive my digression. (What??!! How does the separation of church and state have ANYTHING to do with this? On top of this, withholding funds has nothing do to with enforcing any decision-ed.)

So the answer to your question is, I would oppose any legislation that says we would withhold funds for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court no matter how opposed I am to that decision. And I'm not saying that I'm opposed to this decision, I'm just saying in general.

Q: Could you talk about this decision? What you think of it?

Ms. Pelosi: It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It's an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision. (Constitutional Amendment? No Nancy, the court didn't say the legislatures had a constitutional right to seize this land, only that the constitution didn't prevent them. At what's all this talk about deity? Weren't you just knocking the republicans a few seconds ago for failing to separate church and state?-ed.)

Q: Do you think it is appropriate for municipalities to be able to use eminent domain to take land for economic development?

Ms. Pelosi: The Supreme Court has decided, knowing the particulars of this case, that that was appropriate, and so I would support that.