Political Digest February 11, 2010

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.

Party of 'No'...and Proud
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/party_of_noand_proud.html
Excerpt: Liberal commentators continually blame Republicans for obstructing legislation or opposing the president's ideas. The Democratic National Committee sponsors a website with its homepage displaying prominent Republicans under a label reading "The Party of NO." The president even reflected this sentiment in his SOTU speech recently: "Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership." What the president and the majority of Democrats refuse to believe is that relinquishing core values is not good leadership either. It's time for conservatives to embrace their refusal to bend on basic beliefs. And it's time for liberals to understand that a refusal to accommodate is not simply to impede ideologically, but rather to stand firm fundamentally. Here are the "no" answers conservatives need to continue upholding: 9as I’ve pointed out before, the Democrats are also the “Party of No.” No to tort reform. No to interstate competition in health insurance. No to military tribunals and treating enemy POWs according to the Geneva convention, no to Victory over jihadism, no to even recognizing that it’s a problem, no to drilling for more oil here, no to developing nuclear power, no to doing away with the death tax, no to capital gains tax cuts to stimulate job growth, not to deficit reduction, no to reducing the size of government, no to secret ballots in union elections….and no, no, no to many other things.)

In poll, Republicans gaining political ground on Obama
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021000010.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats on who is trusted to deal with the country's problems and have sharply reduced several of President Obama's main political advantages, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

A practicing psychiatrist analyzes Barack Hussein Obama
http://lornakismet.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/a-practicing-psychiatrist-analyzes-barack-hussein-obama/
Having worked for psychologists in an earlier career position, I don’t think much of “analyzing” someone without in-depth personal sessions. But some interesting comments. Excerpt: First be advised that I’m a psychiatrist with more than 30 years of experience. I practice in Beverly Hills. I grew up on the south side of Chicago in a neighborhood that later became Obama’s venue. I went to college at Northwestern at the inception of the affirmative action, equal opportunity adventure. Obama’s educational experience parallels that of many of my classmates. While we, the majority sweated through organic chemistry, physiology, graduate-level courses in literature, advanced composition, and tutorial reading with the late Prof. Bergen Evans, African-American classmates showed up at their leisure, sent for tests if they cared to, read none of the 15 novels in 10 weeks, submitted no papers whatever, and passed with flying colors. They were never tested, criticized, graded or, heaven forbid, flunked. They were all literate as per the first definition in the dictionary – they could read and write. Most were illiterate by the second definition in the dictionary – they were not well read, knowledgeable, or people of letters. All of this describes and defines Obama. He is functionally literate, not a man of letters or knowledge, of only average intellect, not insightful or curious, and without ever having been challenged. The narcissism and grandiosity engendered by his life experience is of monumental proportion. Flavor this with Chicago politics. Few people wonder why Chicago politicians rarely succeed on the national level. Does the name Rostenkowski ring a bell? During my childhood our aldermen was an amiable lush named Nicholas Bohling. He never put the arm on anybody. But if you needed the winter’s potholes in front of your house filled you dropped off a fifth of rye at his office. If you had a traffic ticket that you could not afford to fix on the scene (which means you did not have enough money in your wallet or pocket at the time to give to the police officer to “take to the court for you”) you dropped off two bottles of rye and a sealed envelope. Things were as efficient as Mussolini’s trains. There was of course an underside to all of this. When a classmate’s father was late on some payments a couple of times (this with respect to his business which was not in Ald. Bohling’s territory, but was downtown, a restaurant with a back room gaming establishment) he went missing. His remains were found a few weeks later in a sewer. It is a mystery to this day how the police new precisely which one of the several hundreds of thousands of sewers in Chicagoland to explore, but their expert sleuthing allowed the family to have a funeral.

"Miss Me Yet" billboard mystery solved
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/breaking_news/story/1006935.html
Excerpt: Minnesota Public Radio news blog, News Cut by Bob Collins, is reporting that a group of "small business owners who feel Washington is against them" is responsible for erecting a giant billboard featuring a picture of George W. Bush and the question: "Miss Me Yet?" over I-35 in Wyoming, Minn. At first, internet chatter labeled it as no more than an urban myth or Photoshop fake, but apparently Collins at Minnesota Public Radio has seen it with his own eyes. Just who paid to put this billboard remained a mystery up until this afternoon when Collins posted the following on his site:

More tolerance for gay troops as end of 'don't ask, don't tell' is debated
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020903505.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Days before a deployment to Iraq last year, the 26-year-old soldier's sergeant told his troops that they would get to know one another pretty well over the next few months. "I'm in trouble," the specialist remembered thinking. He feared comrades would find out he is gay. Worse, he said, they could figure out that he has been dating another soldier in the combat arms battalion for more than five years. Their careers were on the line. The reaction during the soldier's year-long deployment -- nobody asked about it -- offers new insight into how today's military might adapt to a repeal of the ban on openly gay service members sought by President Obama and top Pentagon officials. The specialist didn't exactly tell, but at the end of the tour, his sexual orientation had become a poorly kept secret -- and his career was undamaged. "I don't know if I won any hearts and minds among the Iraqis," said the specialist, who returned home from Iraq recently. "But I did among my brothers in arms because I did my job well and went above and beyond. I was respected."

Climate-change legislation buried under record snowfall in capital
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/80485-climate-bill-buried-under-record-snowfall
Record snowfall has buried Washington — and along with it, buried the chances of passing global warming legislation this year.

The Great Unraveling
http://www.investors.com/newsandanalysis/Article.aspx?id=520378
Excerpt: Professional global warming alarmists better think about looking for new jobs. It looks like they're in for a long, cold winter — and a frigid spring and summer as well. Those who've been spreading global-warming fears must be waking up each morning and asking themselves: What's going to happen today? A new revelation about the corruption of climate science has become almost a daily event.

Congressional Democrats point finger of blame at Rahm Emanuel on healthcare
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/80315-congressional-dems-point-finger-at-rahm
Will he be the next Obama Scapegoat to go under the bus? Excerpt: Democrats in Congress are holding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel accountable for his part in the collapse of healthcare reform. The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority. The share of the blame comes as cracks are beginning to show in Emanuel’s once-impregnable political armor. Last week he had to apologize after a report surfaced that he called liberal groups “retarded” in a private meeting. While Emanuel has quelled that controversy by meeting with advocates for people with disabilities, on Capitol Hill he’s under fire for poor execution of the president’s healthcare agenda in the Senate.

The ObamaCare Tragedy
http://online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html
Excerpt: The fate of ObamaCare is starting to have something of the feel of a Greek tragedy. We are not superstitious, but Murtha's death as the result of medical error at a government-run hospital is certainly an eerie coincidence.

The Fix: Why the Murtha special election is no sure thing for Republicans
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/house/pennsylvania-special-election.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: At first glance, the special election to replace the late Rep. John Murtha (D) in Pennsylvania is a golden opportunity for House Republicans looking to build momentum heading into what is widely expected to be a very good midterm election for the party.
Murtha's 12th district, located in western Pennsylvania, was the only seat in the country that went for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004 and switched to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008 -- this in spite of the fact that Kerry won the state by three points while Obama carried it by 10. Add that demographic trend line to the fact that the national political environment is tilted away from Democrats -- as evidenced by Sen. Scott Brown's special election victory in Massachusetts last month -- and it would seem as though Republicans enter the race as clear favorites to score a takeover. But, as (almost) always in politics, there's far more to the story…. Money matters: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee continues to hold a wide fundraising edge over its Republican counterpart. At the end of 2009, the DCCC had $16.7 million in the bank as compared to $2.7 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee. That massive financial gap means that the DCCC can drastically outspend the NRCC in the district, providing substantial air and ground cover for their eventual candidate. ((In New York's 23rd, the DCCC spent roughly $200,000 more than the NRCC on independent expenditures.) Another complicating financial factor for House Republicans is the pending special election in Hawaii's 1st district. The GOP believes they have a chance to win that one and must make sure they have enough money to make good on the opportunity.

Ten GOP Health Ideas for Obama
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704820904575055190217079952.html
These are some different from yesterday’s ten from the San Diego paper. Excerpt: 'If you have a better idea, show it to me." That was President Barack Obama's challenge two weeks ago to House Republicans regarding health-care reform. He has since called for a bipartisan forum, not to start over on health reform but to "move forward" on the "best ideas that are out there." The best ideas out there are not those that were passed by the House and Senate last year, which consist of more spending, more regulations and more bureaucracy. If the president is serious about building a system that delivers more quality choices at lower cost for every American, here's where he should start:

Bend It Like Obama
http://townhall.com/columnists/JacobSullum/2010/02/10/bend_it_like_obama
Excerpt: Can the government control health care inflation through subsidies? First President Obama said critics of his health care plan had no ideas worth considering. Then he said he never said that. Now he says he is eager to hear those previously unacknowledged ideas. Taking Obama at his word (always a risky thing to do), is there any realistic prospect that the meeting he plans with legislators from both parties later this month will, as he suggests, produce "some agreements" on how to proceed with health care reform? Not if he continues to ignore the conflict between his approach to expanding medical coverage and the other major goal he says must be addressed by any serious reform proposal: bringing health care spending under control.

Obama's Budget Seeks $2 Trillion More in Spending and Deficits Than Last Year
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2787.cfm
Excerpt: Last year, President Obama swept into office on a promise to confront tough choices--and then released a budget proposing the largest debt-and-spending spree in American history. With Washington having committed itself to more government than its taxpayers could realistically afford, basic fiscal responsibility suggests that the President scale back his expensive proposals. Instead, this year's budget is even more fiscally irresponsible.

Increasing Government Power Threatens Freedom
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/10/governments_increasing_power_threatens_freedom.html
Hayek’s book is great, but not light reading, requires focus. Excerpt: Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn't just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit. F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader's Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies. Hayek meant that governments can't plan economies without planning people's lives. After all, an economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. The scientific-sounding language of President Obama's economic planning hides the fact that people must shelve their own plans in favor of government's single plan. At the beginning of "The Road to Serfdom," Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that's at stake when the government controls our lives: "The most important change ... is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people."

Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for ‘Savvy’ Blankfein, Dimon
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-10/obama-doesn-t-begrudge-bonuses-for-savvy-blankfein-dimon.html
“Okay for some,” as they say cynically in Scotland. How come some bonuses are to be attacked, others defended? Maybe it’s who you know—or contribute to? President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay. The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.” “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”

GOP Rep. Paul Ryan tackles Obama's path to deficit disaster
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020902464.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: The new era of Democratic bipartisanship, like cut flowers in a vase, wilted in less than a week. During his question time at the House Republican retreat, President Obama elevated congressman and budget expert Paul Ryan as a "sincere guy" whose budget blueprint -- which, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eventually achieves a balanced budget -- has "some ideas in there that I would agree with." Days later, Democratic legislators held a conference call to lambaste Ryan's plan as a vicious, voucherizing, privatizing assault on Social Security, Medicare and every non-millionaire American. Progressive advocacy groups and liberal bloggers joined the jeering in practiced harmony. The attack "came out of the Democratic National Committee, and that is the White House," Ryan told me recently, sounding both disappointed and unsurprised. On the deficit, Obama's outreach to Republicans has been a ploy, which is to say, a deception. Once again, a president so impressed by his own idealism has become the nation's main manufacturer of public cynicism.

The Savaging of Paul Ryan
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/10/the-savaging-of-paul-ryan/
Excerpt: Bemoaning the legislative stalemate in Washington, President Obama last month publicly rebuked Republicans in a speech from New Hampshire: “You’ve been sitting on the sidelines criticizing what we’re proposing… You got a better idea bring it on.” The president has finally got his wish. It comes in the form of the most constructive legislative proposal to emerge from Congress in a long time. Called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” it is the brainchild of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan. The proposal is unusual by Washington’s standards: It actually offers real solutions to a pressing problem. Faced with moribund economy and weighted down with astronomical obligations it cannot make good on, our federal government is slouching toward fiscal disaster. This much is obvious to most observers and politicians alike. The problem is that politicians are loath to do anything about it, because the swamp of federal spending has always been a fertile ground for political fortunes. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap bucks this trend and seeks to reverse our disastrous course with a series of commonsense measures.

The Fallacy of "Fairness": Part II by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/02/10/the_fallacy_of_fairness_part_ii
Excerpt: Surely no one, not even in Berkeley, seriously believes that you will "bring everybody up" by eliminating science teachers. This is a proposal to redistribute money from science to social work, by providing every student with advisors on note-taking, time management and other learning skills. The point is to close educational gaps among groups, or at least go on record as trying. As with most equalization crusades, whether in education or in the economy, it is about equalizing downward, by lowering those at the top. "Fairness" strikes again!... This verbal sleight of hand is not confined to education. A study of incomes of various groups in Toronto concluded that Canadians of Japanese ancestry were the most "privileged" group in that city. That is, people of Japanese ancestry there had higher incomes than members of other minorities and higher than that of the white majority in Toronto. What makes the "privileged" label a particularly bad joke in this case is a history of blatant discrimination against the Japanese in Canada in years past, including a longer internment during World War II than that of Japanese Americans. But, to some on the left, the very concept of achievement must be banished by all means necessary, regardless of the facts. Achievement by overcoming obstacles is a special threat to the left's vision of the world, and so must be magically transformed into privilege through rhetoric.

Black Opportunity Destruction
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2010/02/10/black_opportunity_destruction
Excerpt: Today, high standards and expectations, at some schools, would mean trouble for a teacher. Teachers, as pointed out in one teaching program, are encouraged to "Recognize and understand the cultural differences among students from diverse backgrounds, and treat such differences with respect. Intervene immediately, should a fellow student disparage a Black student's culture or language." That means if a black student says, "I be wiff him" or "He axed me a question," teachers shouldn't bother to correct the student's language. What's more, should anyone disparage or laugh at the way the student speaks, the teacher should intervene in his defense. Correcting the student's speech might be deemed as insensitive to diversity at best and racism at worst, leading possibly to a teacher's reprimand, termination and possibly assault. A teacher's job is to teach and failure to correct a student's speech, just as failure to correct a math error, is a dereliction of duty. You might say, "Williams, Ebonics or black English is part of the cultural roots of black people and to disparage it is racism." That's utter nonsense. During the 1940s and 1950s, I lived in North Philadelphia's Richard Allen housing project, along with its most famous resident, Bill Cosby. We all were poor or low middle class but no one spoke black English. My wife was the youngest of 10 children. Listening to her brothers and sisters speak, compared to many of her nieces and nephews, you wouldn't believe they were in the same family. The difference has nothing to do with cultural roots of black people. The difference is that parents, teachers and others in authority over youngsters have become less judgmental, politically correct and lazy; therefore, speaking poorly is accepted. (But liberals need to keep black folks poor, dependent on government and voting Democrat.)

Dooming Minority Girls
http://townhall.com/columnists/RebeccaHagelin/2010/02/10/dooming_minority_girls
Excerpt: The worst consequence of the president's actions is that for those groups of teens where pregnancy is highest - blacks and Hispanics - Obama has pretty much obliterated any chance of these young girls ever receiving the education they need to avoid pregnancy, contracting STD's and all the other complications that go with young girls having sex. Given that the vast majority of black and Hispanic teens attend public schools, striking funding for abstinence education programs and instead funding only programs with an inferior record certainly ensures that their teen pregnancy and sexual activity rates will stay the worst. Of course, that does ensure that they will continue to line up at the abortion mills and thus line the pockets of Planned Parenthood and others who thrive off of keeping them in dire circumstances. It sort of reminds me of the stupidity and racism shown by liberal groups when they work to quash school choice programs in order to keep these kids captive in failing inner city public schools. The puzzling part is that there is still no public outcry at the injustice of sentencing these minority groups to lives of poverty, teen pregnancy and using abortion as a means of birth control. Is the president so tied to special interest groups who profit from government programs that he would doom young minority girls in such a blatant manner for political expediency? He is. So much for hope and change. (Not hard to understand. Unmarried girls having children promote poverty, thus dependence on the government, thus political support for Democrats.)

With absolute power, Team Obama grows stupid
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/With-absolute-power_-Team-Obama-grows-stupid-83945567.html
Excerpt: How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration. The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics

Once thought extinct, New England Republicans re-emerge
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Once-thought-extinct_-New-England-Republicans-re-emerge-83960072.html
When a poll made the startling claim that Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., "may be facing his most difficult re-election campaign in 16 years," the news came as a shock to residents in the Ocean State, where Kennedy has been easily re-elected since taking office in 1995. The poll, conducted by WPRI-12, found that 31 percent of those interviewed would "consider another candidate" and 28 percent would "vote to replace" Kennedy. Only 35 percent said they would vote to give Kennedy a ninth term. Political experts say they doubt Kennedy is in serious danger, pointing out that the poll did not pit Kennedy against a hypothetical opponent. But the voter discontent exposed by the survey, coupled with Republican Scott Brown's shock election to replace Kennedy's father, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, it has given Republicans a glimmer of hope that they can successfully challenge incumbents even in Democratic strongholds such as New England.

Cleared: Father who chopped off intruder's ear with samurai sword after he threatened to rape and kill his family
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249958/Cleared-Builder-chopped-thugs-ear-Samurai-sword-threatened-rape-kill-family.html
When swords are outlawed, only outlaws will have swords. Excerpt: A father who defended his family from drug-crazed thugs by wounding one with a samurai sword has been cleared by a jury of criminal behaviour. David Fullard, 47, was prosecuted for attacking the strangers who forced their way into his home and threatened to rape his partner and kill his two teenage children. The builder insisted he was a desperate man acting legally in self-defence and struck out once with the ornamental sword because it was the only weapon to hand.

Obama Espoused Radical Views in College
http://newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/obama-college-marxism-occidental/2010/02/08/id/349329
Excerpt: During Christmas break, Drew says he was at Grauman-Boss’ home in Palo Alto when Obama came over with Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, his roommate from Pakistan. “Barack and Hasan showed up at the house in a BMW, and then we went to a restaurant together,” Drew says. “We had a nice meal, and then we came back to the house and smoked cigarettes and drank and argued politics.” For the next several hours, they discussed Marxism. “He was arguing a straightforward Marxist-Leninist class-struggle point of view, which anticipated that there would be a revolution of the working class, led by revolutionaries, who would overthrow the capitalist system and institute a new socialist government that would redistribute the wealth,” says Drew, who says he himself was then a Marxist. “The idea was basically that wealthy people were exploiting others,” Drew says. “That this was the secret of their wealth, that they weren’t paying others enough for their work, and they were using and taking advantage of other people. He was convinced that a revolution would take place, and it would be a good thing.” Drew concluded that Obama thought of himself as “part of an intelligent, radical vanguard that was leading the way towards this revolution and towards this new society.”

Palin’s Primary Math
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/first-look-at-palins-primary-math.html
Interesting. Guy is a leftie, but usually get’s the numbers right.

Scary analysis of Iran
One of my correspondents is a Marine Veteran who forwards provocative articles. This was in his latest missive, and I thought it worth reading. He said he was sure Chet wouldn’t mind my including it:

Some off-line chatting with Navy vet Chet Nagle on the subject of the Middle East might be worth passing along here. Chet, a former U.S. intelligence agent, was involved (years ago) in Oman's war with the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. The PDRY lost and Chet was awarded The Order of Oman. Chet is also the author of a fact-based novel The Iran Covenant. Relative to the situation in Iran, Chet has the following comments: 1. There will be no gasoline embargo. The Chinese will not agree and the Russians are dragging their feet. The call for any meaningful sanctions will be largely ineffective…. 2. You cannot mine the Strait. I spent years in the region and I know. However, Iran can SAY they mined the Strait, which amounts to the same thing since Lloyds will cancel insurance for any ship transiting and thus stop traffic. We would then go back to the 1985 "Tanker War" scenario with USN ships escorting those tankers anxious to make a buck by challenging the phantom mines. If shore-based missiles got involved, I suspect the USN would be operating under ROE enabling a violent reaction and the navy and USAF would destroy the batteries and a chunk of the infrastructure, including Iran's air force….. 3. Israel cannot realistically launch a conventional air strike against Iran. The range is too far, defenses are too deep, and too many casualties would result. They could nuke them, of course, but that is a very, very last resort…. 4. Obama will NOT authorize a U.S. conventional strike. He is setting the stage for acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran (which would be of no immediate threat to us) and his positioning of anti-ballistic missiles to reassure the Arab locals and Israel shows that policy decision to be real. Israel, however, will not be reassured and has no choice but to defend herself against a crazy man with nukes who swears to wipe them off the map. Netanyahu's recent speech shows that to be true. Discussions about Obama playing the "war card" and making a conventional attack on Iran to bolster his sinking political poll numbers are speculative at best, and wishful thinking at worst. Americans do tend to rally behind a war president, but in this case the president and his handlers/advisors have shown no inclination to do anything nasty to any part of Islam, or anything helpful to Israel…. 5. It is obvious that if we attack Iran the "Arab Street" will be whipped up by Islamic leaders and we will face terroristic reprisals at home and around the world. But it is also obvious that if Israel attacks Iran alone we will be blamed too -- and still suffer reprisals. Damned if we do and damned if we don't….. So what happens? I believe Israel will launch a nuclear missile to explode 400km above Tehran. Maybe two missiles. There will be no blast or radiation damage from such explosions and people on the ground will not even know they were detonated if the shots were at noon on a sunny day -- except the EMP pulse will knock out all power and their lights and fridges and cars and generators and the uranium enrichment centrifuges. Yes, even the centrifuges in caverns. We observed the EMP effect in the ‘Starfish Prime’ test shot at Johnson Island in 1962 that knocked out various electrical systems in Hawaii, over 900 miles away. And, if Israel couples EMP strikes with a cyber attack, Iran will be completely helpless; Israeli special forces could even wade ashore and take out selected targets. (A side benefit would be that the "Green" opposition movement would have a free hand to topple the ayatollahs.) …. It is coming to a head soon -- I would guess within 90 days. Oil and gold prices will spike. The U.S. administration will wring its hands and probably castigate Israel. There will be collateral action, like missile attacks from Hezbollah in Syria, and other attacks on Israel and us, around the globe. If the Iranians miscalculate and manage to somehow wound us badly (or if the Israelis make it look as if they were responsible) we would get into the act seriously, and lots of major things will happen….. The ancient Chinese curse is operative: We live in interesting times.”

Is USA Today Serving the Goals of Al-Qaeda?
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/10/morning-bell-is-usa-today-serving-the-goals-of-al-qaeda/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Democrats used to complain about Republicans saying they were unpatriotic for criticizing Bush on the war on Terror. Look who’s doing it now! Excerpt: Yesterday, USA Today ran an editorial on the Obama administration’s handling of terrorism, writing: “Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour.” Graciously given the space to respond to this charge, Obama administration Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan replied: “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.” Got that? The Obama administration considers any criticism of its national security policies, even from as benign a source as USA Today, as serving “the goals of al-Qaeda.” And the problems with Brennan’s letter don’t end there:

The Iranian Revolution Devours Its Young
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/02/05/the-iranian-revolution-devours-its-young/
Guess President Wobbly’s soft approach and meeting with them without preconditions—the Chamberlin Strategy—isn’t working out so well. Who would have guessed? Excerpt: It looks like February 11th will be the most violent confrontation to date. The regime is taking unusual measures to put down the promised demonstrations. In many ways it resembles the “Chinese solution.” First, an unprecedented mobilization: 120 trains and something like a thousand buses have been deployed from as far away as 250 kilometers from the capital. They will be used by the Revolutionary Guards and Basij to bring tens of thousands of paid “volunteers” to Tehran. These will consist of entire families (dependent on the regime) to counter the Green Wave. Each family gets $80 for the day, plus free food. The regime is aiming at 300,000 thugs in the streets. The Greens don’t think the numbers will be that high, and in any event they expect ten times that number of protesters, upwards of three million increasingly angry people, demanding freedom and justice. Their resolve has undoubtedly been hardened by the very tough interview released earlier this week by Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. As before, Mousavi put himself on the line, defying the regime to move against him as the mullahs have moved against his friends, allies, and family members. It’s quite a challenge: “Today, the prison cells are occupied with the most sincere and devoted sons of this nation: students, professors and others. [Security forces] are trying to prosecute them with espionage or charges related to financial or sexual misconduct – charges based on expired formulas – while the real criminals and thieves who steal public money are free. Instead of looking for the real spies, they accuse decent religious people. I should take this opportunity to express my regret that all of my advisors, who are decent, honest and educated individuals, have been arrested; that I am not with them. These days, there is not a [single] night that I do not think of Imam [Khomeini], martyr Beheshti and others. I whisper to them that what was achieved is far from what they sought…”

London's Islamic Radicals Speak Out
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/February/How-London-Became-a-Terrorist-Hotbed/
Gee, they have a LOT of folks who didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Better send Barack to educate them. That’ll stop this nonsense! Excerpt: RSSPodcastsGreat Britain recently raised its terror alert to "severe" following reports that al Qaeda was plotting new attacks. But Britain may be facing an even greater threat from within -- one the British government helped to create. CBN News recently traveled to London to interview a number of leading Islamic radicals who have settled there with the full knowledge of the British government. Just one year before attempting to blow up an airliner over Detroit, Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab studied engineering at University College London. During his stay there, he networked with known Islamic radicals. Security sources believe he may have linked up with al Qaeda. Abdulmutallab is just one of many Islamic terrorists with ties to London. Some live there with help from the state. One example is Yasser al-Sirri, who faces a death sentence in Egypt. Then there is Anjem Choudary. To date, he has not been charged with terrorism, but his pro-jihad views have led some to call him Great Britain's most hated man. "Many people love the idea of jihad, you know?" Choudary told CBN News. "And they want to engage in it." A radical Islamist can find a little bit of everything in London. Ex-jihadists, current jihadists, "wannabe" jihadists: they're all there. So how did this happen? During the 1980s and 1990s, British authorities granted asylum to a number of Islamic terrorists wanted in their home countries

Palestinian TV promotes suicide attacks
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/palestinian-tv-promotes-suicide-attacks.html
Didn’t get the memo.

Scottish 'terrorist' Mohammed Atif Siddique freed as verdict quashed
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7020326.ece
Quick, send him the memo!

Army warned about jihadist threat in '08
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/09/army-warned-about-jihadist-threat-in-08//print/
Death by Political Correctness. Excerpt: Almost two years before the deadly Fort Hood shooting by a radicalized Muslim officer, the U.S. Army was explicitly warned that jihadism — Islamic holy war — was a serious problem and threat to personnel in the U.S., according to participants at a major Army-sponsored conference. The annual Army anti-terrorism conference in Florida in February 2008 included presentations on the threat by counterterrorism specialists Patrick Poole, Army Lt. Col. Joseph Myers and Terri Wonder. The meeting was organized by the Army's provost marshal general and included more than 350 force protection and anti-terrorism professionals who came from major Army installations and commands from around the world, according to participants.

Operation Moshtarak Tests Obama's Afghan War Plan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100209/us_time/08599196212600
Excerpt: U.S. and allied commanders in Afghanistan are preparing for the biggest battle of the eight-year war, knowing that its outcome will reveal the chances of success for President Obama's revamped Afghan strategy. About 20,000 U.S., British and Afghan troops will soon storm Marja, the Taliban's final redoubt in the southern province of Helmand. A town of 80,000, Marja has for years been a den of narcotics traffickers and insurgents, serving as a launching pad for roadside bombs and suicide attacks. If the U.S. and its allies succeed in driving out the Taliban - and, perhaps more importantly, bring a measure of security to Marja - U.S. officials believe it will mark a turning point in the war.

Great cartoons
http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/
If you don’t follow this site.

Ohio strip club hosts 'Lap dances for Haiti'
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5if50pif8D_EkywYEanECPeIC-bmQD9DO76901
Give ‘til it hurts. Excerpt: A strip club in Ohio has raised $1,000 for Haitian earthquake relief during what was billed as "Lap dances for Haiti." Marilyn's on Monroe in Toledo donated the $10 cover charges collected Saturday to ISOH (I-S-O-H)/IMPACT, an organization based in suburban Perrysburg that provides food and clothing for Haiti.

Quotes—sent to me, not verified
"[T]here is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back." --General Robert E. Lee.

"The president dismisses his lack of success by claiming he has not communicated his message enough. Really? I don't care how many news conferences you have, how many speeches you give, or how much money you spend on public relations, if the dog food is bad, the dogs won't eat it." --former Oklahoma Congressman J. C. Watts. The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/

"Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership." -- Senator Barack Obama, in 2006.