Political Digest October 5, 2009

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.

What's with these friends of a rapist?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1002rapeoct02,0,1600577.story
Excerpt: If you're Roman Polanski, world-famous director, a lot of famous and gifted people think the answer is yes. Polanski, who drugged and anally raped a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor and fled to Europe before sentencing….Bernard-Henri Levy, who has taken a leading role in rounding up support, has said that Polanski "perhaps had committed a youthful error " (he was 43). …Whoopi Goldberg explained on "The View" that his crime wasn't " 'rape rape,' just, you know, rape."… Fact: What happened was not some gray, vague he said/she said Katie-Roiphe-style "bad sex." A 43-year-old man got a 13-year-old girl alone, got her drunk, gave her a quaalude, and, after checking the date of her period, anally raped her, twice, while she protested; she submitted, she told the grand jury, "because I was afraid." Those facts are not in dispute -- except by Polanski, who has pooh-poohed the whole business many times. He was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, like many accused rapists, to spare the victim the trauma of a trial and media hoopla. But that doesn't mean we should all pretend that what happened was some free-spirited Bohemian mix-up. The victim took years to recover….The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. They may make great movies, write great books and design beautiful things. And they may have lots of noble humanitarian ideas and care, in the abstract, about all the right principles: equality under the law, for example. But in this case, they're just the white culture-class counterpart of hip-hop fans who stood by R. Kelly and Chris Brown and of sports fans who automatically support their favorite athletes when they're accused of beating their wives and raping hotel workers. No wonder Middle America hates them. (If the victim had been a 13-year-old black girl, and the rapist a prominent Republican politician, one wonders what Whoopi would have said. But “hates” is the wrong word. “Loathes” is closer.)

The Destruction of ACORN, the Strategy of Breitbart & Why We Must All Remain Vigilant
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2496
Important video about the Leftstream Media’s credibility and their suppression of news that doesn’t fit their narrative.

One Scared Elderly Man is About to Make the Country Safer
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/02/one-scared-elderly-man-is-about-to-make-the-country-safer/
Excerpt: In Chicago, Otis McDonald and three other local residents commenced their action against the city, in a case now known as McDonald v. Chicago, because of their fear of rising crime in their neighborhood. McDonald, a retired maintenance engineer, had been routinely threatened by drug dealers outside his home and was looking to protect himself.

Ex-Muslim receives death threats after publishing article critical of Islam -- in Tulsa
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/ex-muslim-receives-death-threats-after-publishing-article-critical-of-islam----in-tulsa.html
Excerpt: One caller, whom Husibi would not identify, said that if he spoke at the meeting and said anything against Shariah (Islamic law), he would be killed. Another caller offered Husibi's young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria, he said. "Someone from Tulsa called my 76-year-old mother in Syria and said, 'You're not going to see your son anymore,' " he said. His critics' chief objection, he said, was to his statement that the Quran was written by men, not God, and has been changed over the years. They also objected to his comment that al-Qaida is respected by many Muslims.

Somewhere Over the Border
http://townhall.com/columnists/NicoleKurokawa/2009/10/02/somewhere_over_the_border
Excerpt: Christina Woodkey, featured in the LA Times story, was one of the patients who shared her story. Crippled with pain, she endured years of doctors visits before finally being diagnosed with a spinal condition that required surgery. She was told to “take more pills,” and received an estimated time frame for surgery: one and a half years. Another Canadian we met, Cheryl Baxter, faced a similar wait time for hip surgery. Lin Gilbert, a 27-year-old mother of two, faced debilitating pain due to a congenital spine condition. She was told by specialists that she was too young and “hadn’t suffered long enough.” Forced to wait three years for her surgery, Gilbert lost her job because of constant, unbearable pain. Unfortunately, the other thing she lost in the process was her dignity. Gilbert was reduced to a walker and diapers – needed because of a loss of bowel function. The government, in its infinite kindness, “allowed” her to stay on welfare past the allotted time frame due to her special circumstances, and picked up the tab for her incontinence products. They also paid for her morphine – to which she became addicted.

Common Sense Not Sex Discrimination
http://townhall.com/columnists/LindaChavez/2009/10/02/common_sense_not_sex_discrimination
Excerpt: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts hardly seems a likely setting for rampant sex discrimination in state hiring, but apparently the Obama administration doesn't agree. The Justice Department this week filed suit against the state and its Department of Corrections, alleging they have engaged in a "pattern or practice of discrimination against female applicants for entry-level correctional officer positions." So what exactly constitutes this discrimination? Apparently, female prison guard applicants have a more difficult time passing a required physical abilities test (PAT) than their male counterparts, which is unacceptable to the Obama Justice Department. "Bringing an end to practices that have a discriminatory impact on the basis of sex," says the press release touting the suit, "is a major priority of the Justice Department and Civil Rights Division."

Taliban impairs supply route
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/01/taliban-impairs-supply-route/
Excerpt: Growing Taliban influence in northern Afghanistan is threatening a new military supply line painstakingly negotiated by the U.S. as rising violence takes hold on the one-time Silk Road route. The north has deteriorated over just a few months, showing how quickly Taliban influence is spreading in a once peaceful area. Local officials say the Taliban are establishing a shadow government along the dilapidated road that ultimately could prevent vital supplies carried in hundreds of trucks every week from reaching the military. It also raises the danger that the supplies could end up in militant hands as fodder for suicide attacks.

Another Scandal-Scarred Czar Is Born
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/another-scurrilous-czar-is-born-fire-kevin-jennings-now/
Excerpt: Jennings today issued a statement saying, “Twenty-one years later I can see how I should have handled the situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted legal or medical authorities. Teachers back then had little training and guidance about this kind of thing. All teachers should have a basic level of preparedness. I would like to see the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools play a bigger role in helping to prepare teachers.” The “situation,” or “this kind of thing” as he calls it, refers to Jennings’ days as a private school teacher in the spring of 1988 when a 15-year-old student confessed to him that he had engaged in homosexual acts with an adult stranger he had met at a city bus station. Jennings “listened, sympathized, and offered advice” to the youth, but that was it. Let’s put this in context. In the late 1980s AIDS diagnoses were skyrocketing, with roughly 40,000 cases reported in the U.S. in 1988 alone and 25,000 deaths. In his 1994 book One Teacher in Ten, Jennings acknowledged telling this teen that his own “best friend” had just died of AIDS. Jennings also said the teen had indicated he had not worn a condom. There’s no doubt that Jennings understood the risk of infection. But he let the kid walk. Now Kevin Jennings, our “safe schools czar,” wants us to believe that a lack of training “back then” prevented him from acting to protect the health and safety of the youth who had been the victim of statutory rape.

Parade of stars, Chicago's clout cut no ice with Olympic committee
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/telander/1804013,CST-NWS-rick03.article
Excerpt: The video of Fenger High student Derrion Albert being savagely beaten to death the other day went viral on the Internet, and -- guess what, folks -- they have computers in Europe! Why, they even speak English! They bathe! They travel! They get it! And they know about us and our Chi-Town fiefdom. People at the rally were mumbling about how Rio has so much more crime than we do. And my thought was, wow, that's a defense? A former Third World country might be more violent than us? Haven't we risen up, Chicago? I'll bet Rio has more cockroaches than us. Lizards, too. But we have more pigs. The Daley regime works like this: Hizzoner makes decrees, aldermen pretend to analyze the merits of said decrees, aldermen vote for decrees. Vote no, you don't get re-elected. The clout machine works in Chicago, but it works inefficiently, like a busted thresher. It leaks, and it hurts people nearby. On its engine is the city's motto: "Get to the trough."

Gen. McChrystal's Speech on Afghanistan
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/01/gen_mcchrystals_address_on_afghanistan_98537.html
Excerpt: I arrived in Afghanistan in May 2002 and I have spent a part of every year since then involved in the effort. I have learned a tremendous amount about it and, every day, I realize how little about Afghanistan I actually understand. I discount immediately anyone who simplifies the problem or offers a solution, because they have absolutely no idea of the complexity of what we are dealing with. In Afghanistan, things are rarely as they seem, and the outcomes of actions we take, however well-'intended, are often different from what we expect. If you pull the lever, the outcome is not what you have been programmed to think. For example, digging a well sounds quite simple. How could you do anything wrong by digging a well to give people clean water? Where you build that well, who controls that water, and what water it taps into all have tremendous implications and create great passion. If you build a well in the wrong place in a village, you may have shifted the basis of power in that village. If you tap into underground water, you give power to the owner of that well that they did not have before, because the traditional irrigation system was community-owned. If you dig a well and contract it to one person or group over another, you make a decision that, perhaps in your ignorance, tips the balance of power, or perception thereof, in that village. Therefore, with a completely altruistic aim of building a well, you can create divisiveness or give the impression that you, from the outside, do not understand what is going on or that you have sided with one element or another, yet all you tried to do is provide water.

Barack Obama furious at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6259582/Barack-Obama-furious-at-General-Stanley-McChrystal-speech-on-Afghanistan.html
Not everyone liked the speech! Excerpt: In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda. He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan". When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No." He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support." The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

A Sensible Gun Registration Plan
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=vermonts_right_not_to_bear_arms
Vermont State Rep. Fred Maslack has read the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as Vermont 's own Constitution very carefully, and his strict interpretation of these documents is popping some eyeballs in New England and elsewhere. Maslack recently proposed a bill to register non-gun-owners and require them to pay a $500 fee to the state. Thus Vermont would become the first state to require a permit for the luxury of going about unarmed and assess a fee of $500 for the privilege of not owning a gun. Maslack read the "militia" phrase of the Second Amendment as not only affirming the right of the individual citizen to bear arms, but as a clear mandate to do so. He believes that universal gun ownership was advocated by the Framers of the Constitution as an antidote to a "monopoly of force" by the government as well as criminals.

Israel names Russians helping Iran build nuclear bomb
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6860161.ece#
Excerpt: Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has handed the Kremlin a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead. He is said to have delivered the list during a mysterious visit to Moscow.

America as the Last Man Standing
http://www.cicentre.com/articles/gw_america_last_man_standing.html
This is over a year old, been around, but with the speaker on trial in Holland for speaking out, worth reading again..

Health care in Massachusetts: a warning for America
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0930/p09s01-coop.html
Excerpt: Despite raising state taxes, the Massachusetts plan is kept afloat only by hundreds of millions of dollars of financial waivers and assistance from the federal government – i.e., by the taxpayers of the other 49 states. If the Massachusetts plan were adopted at the national level, it's unlikely that China or Russia would bail out the United States. Mr. Obama's plan is based on the faulty premise that the government should guarantee a "right" to healthcare. But healthcare is not a "right." Rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by another. There is no such thing as a right to a car – or a tonsillectomy. Individuals do have the right to seek healthcare and health insurance in the free market from any willing providers. The president's plan would violate this right, for example by forbidding individuals from purchasing low-cost "catastrophic" insurance that only covered unlikely-but-expensive accidents and illnesses.

Democrat senator won’t read the bill
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=3444
Here is video of Democrat Sen. Tom Carper [DE.] calmly explaining that he will not read the actual Health Care Bill because it is too “arcane,” and “among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.” Carper said the legislative language is virtually “beyond comprehension.”

EDITORIAL: Fighting terrorists with pond scum and choo-choos
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/02/fighting-terrorists-with-pond-scum-and-choo-choos/?source=newsletter_opinion_headlines
Excerpt: When speaking before a veterans group last month, President Obama's words sounded simple and direct. "If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork, I will veto it," he promised. The Democratic Congress is betting the president had his fingers crossed. Both the House and the Senate are cooking up bills filled with $2.7 billion in pork, and not just the usual defense-related pork. A couple Democrats from Michigan have hijacked the bill to launch a second round of the auto-industry bailout, and still others are using it to fight global warming with, among others things, algae-based jet fuel. Sen. Carl Levin and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, both Michigan Democrats, are taking a fortune away from U.S. troops for "battery development," a "lithium iron phosphate battery system," "hydraulic hybrid vehicles for the tactical wheeled fleet," a "smart plug-in hybrid electric vehicle program," and a "vehicle fuel cell and hydrogen logistics program." Total cost: $26.5 million.

Enter the White Queen
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/10/04/enter_the_white_queen
Excerpt: On Thursday, the president’s "engagement" with Iran began. On Wednesday, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will enter its ninth year. And U.S. foreign policy is entering a White Queen phase. In Through the Looking Glass, Alice says she is unable to believe the White Queen’s claim to be 101. The Queen responds, "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice: "There’s no use trying, one can’t believe impossible things." Queen: "Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Regarding Afghanistan, the president might believe he can effect a Houdinilike escape, uninjured, from the box his words have built. Regarding Iran, he seems to believe its leaders can be talked or coerced (by economic sanctions) out of their costly pursuit of nuclear weapons by convincing them that such weapons do not serve Iran’s "security." On March 27, the president announced "a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He said his "clear and focused goal" was to prevent the Taliban from toppling Afghanistan’s government, and to prevent al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan or Pakistan. U.S. forces "will take the fight to the Taliban" in Afghanistan’s "south" and "east," but "at the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan security forces." On Aug. 17, the president reiterated his belief that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is "not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity." This was two months after he replaced the U.S. commander there with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, directing him to assess the resources required for the strategy. The general has done that. But the president does not yet want to discuss troop numbers. Why not? The president’s national security adviser, Jim Jones, a former four-star Marine general, told The Washington Post that before deciding on troop levels, the focus must be on strategy: "The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources." So, is the president reassessing his March 27 strategy? If so, why?

The Bizarre Silence of Child Advocates on ACORN’s Child Sex Trafficking Advice
http://townhall.com/columnists/DougGiles/2009/10/03/the_bizarre_silence_of_child_advocates_on_acorn%e2%80%99s_child_sex_trafficking_advice
Excerpt: For those who’d like to contribute to Hannah’s defense fund, go to defendhannah.com.
You know what’s weird? It’s weird that child advocacy groups (secular and religious) haven’t raised more hell regarding ACORN who, on tape, in multiple locations, and on our dime, were perfectly peachy with the potential sex trafficking of little 13-year-old El Salvadoran girls. That’s what’s weird. (No, not weird at all, Leftists always get a pass. Clinton and Letterman have sex with employees, Polanski rapes a 13 year old, Rangle and many others cheat on their taxes, and not a peep from the left. They are as quiet about that as they are about child marriages, the genital mutilation of young girls, wife beating and honor killings of women in the Muslim world. If it doesn’t advance the leftist/statist cause, it didn’t happen. Period.)

Human rights rally in Germany
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/spencer-at-human-rights-rally-in-germany.html
Excerpt: sponsored by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa (BPE), the most important German human rights organization, seeking to preserve European values, freedom and democracy. BPE is not tied to any political party, but has members that belong to all the German democratic parties. As an NGO, BPE also participates in conferences of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)'s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
Other speakers included Renè Stadtkewitz, a member of the Berlin Parliament for the Christian Democrats (Angela Merkel's party); and a former member of the Green Party who left his longtime political associates after trying to awaken his fellow Leftists to the perils of Islamic supremacism, to no avail. Leftists and their jihadist allies marched by twice in a counterdemonstration, shouting "Nazis raus" -- Nazis, get out. The people assembled for the BPE rally shouted the same thing right back at them. Of course, there were no Nazis among us, and we were standing against antisemitism and in favor of free speech, legal equality, and democratic government, but the facts never stop the Left from making the charge, as we have all learned recently from stateside libelbloggers. Many people at our rally had Israeli flags, and as you can see from the photo, I had one also. Not long after this picture was taken I got it mounted on a flagpole and waved it around at the beginning and end of my talk. The German police told the BPE organizers that we had to put the Israeli flags away when Leftists and Jihadis passed by.

Stop the Campus War Against Israel and the Jews
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/03/10401/
Excerpt: The radical Islamic state of Iran is leading a global movement calling for a second Holocaust — the elimination of Israel from the face of the earth. The Islamic terrorist organizations Hizbollah and Hamas are calling on Muslims to destroy the Jewish state and kill the Jews in those exact words. And on campuses across the United States, radical professors and student groups are lining up to support the genocide. The day Israeli troops left Gaza – a territory that has been used as a launching pad for three aggressive wars against the Jewish state – Hamas terrorists began a three-year campaign of rocket attacks on Israel that was only halted by an Israeli counter attack, which began in December 2008. As Israel was defending itself from these Hamas attacks, University of California Sociology professor William Robinson assembled pictures university administrators described as “lurid” of Nazis persecuting Jews and emailed them to all the students in his course on globalization along with a diatribe about how the Israeli soldiers fighting Hamas terrorists were no different from fascist troops in World War II destroying the city of Warsaw.

SNL busts Obama’s Chops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cfk2UKewTU&feature=player_embedded
This has to be a good trend.

Sen. Burris blames Bush for Olympic loss
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=3423
Didn’t you just know this was coming?

Danish News: Obama’s Arrogance Turned Off ICC
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/danish-news-obamas-arrogance-turned-off.html
Excerpt: “The fact that Barack Obama came, could not do it. I think he lacked emotion, it seemed too empty and business-like. When Tony Blair promoted London he was around three days to lobby and talk to people. You can not just come with the train one day and try to affect everything. People have felt that it was a lack of respect for the Olympics and sport in general. I think people felt it was too business-like to get into the way we have now seen it many times, and you would have feelings back.” Hans Bonde, professor of sport history at the University of Copenhagen, told the newspaper: “Here come the media favorite Obama just before the deadline and made showoff. He clearly won the battle in the media, but it turned out indeed to be indifferent. IOC members did not feel important, and they were indeed reduced to spectators and not players."

Do Not Blame Barack
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/do_not_blame_barack.html
Excerpt: Yet, to be blunt, Obama doesn't alarm me as much as the average American. To explain why, I'll present something Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero said 2000 years ago when lamenting Julius Caesar's rise to dictator: Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions . . . . Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.' Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man.

G.I. Joe & Lillie The Oak Ridge Boys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lQk27hPzZs
Something to move your heart.

AMERICA IS ME - Anthem for "We the People" by Mack Hayes - Tea Party salute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXAcHtdU3nY
Good video on tea parties.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6256173/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-revealed-to-have-Jewish-past.html
Too funny. Should he kill himself?

Drudge quote on the Olympic Decision:
The ego has landed.