Political Digest April 22, 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.

I’m Tired
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2009/02/robert.html
After 14 months, it’s still going around the Internet and is approaching 500 comments! I wonder if anyone is reading them. Here’s one of the most recent and interesting: “I'm 32, gay, a registered Democrat, and Latina ... and I agree with the majority of what you've written. My father is a proud Vietnam vet, my dear friend is overseas in the Marines, and I'm grateful everyday for their sacrifices. Thanks for posting!”

President Obama’s Change Brings Debt and Doubts
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/04/president-obamas-change-brings-debt-and.html
Good column from an old friend.

New tribe rising?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36599
Excerpt: Obama in the campaign of 2008 recognized that "out there" in Middle America existed another country, far from the one he grew up in, far from the privileged Ivy League community to which he belonged. "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and ... the jobs have been gone now for 25 years. ... So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Palin and Tea Partiers now repeat Obama's disparaging line about their clinging to Bibles and guns -- with defiant pride. As others have done in our multicultural and multiethnic nation, this people is beginning to assert its identity, unapologetically…. Why are the Tea Partiers not intimidated the way Republicans often are? Why is the charge of racism not working? First, they do not feel the guilt of country-club Republicans. Second, they know it to be untrue. While Tea Partiers are anti-Obama, they are also anti-Pelosi, anti-Martha Coakley and anti-Charlie Christ. The coming conflict is not so much racial as it is cultural, political and tribal.

Arizona Sheriff Says Cops Are Being Killed by Illegal Aliens; Joins Call for U.S. Troops at Border
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64385
Excerpt: Law enforcement officials from the Arizona counties hardest hit by illegal immigration say they want U.S. troops to help secure the border, to prevent the deaths of more officers at the hands of criminals who enter the country illegally. “We’ve had numerous officers that have been killed by illegal immigrants in Arizona,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said Monday at a Capitol Hill news conference. “And that shouldn’t happen one time.” Babeu said the violence in Arizona has reached “epidemic proportions” and must be stopped. “In just one patrol area, we’ve had 64 pursuits -- failure to yield for an officer -- in one month,” Babeu said. “That’s out of control.”

Arizona Legislature Sends Tough New Immigration Bill to Governor
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64394
Excerpt: Arizona lawmakers approved a sweeping immigration bill Monday intended to ramp up law enforcement efforts even as critics complained it could lead to racial profiling and other abuse. The state Senate voted 17-11 nearly along party lines to send the bill to Gov. Jan Brewer, who has not taken a position on the measure championed by fellow Republicans. The House approved the bill April 13. "This bill goes a long way to bringing law and order to the state," said Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, who cited costly services provided to illegal immigrants and the recent slaying of a southeastern Arizona rancher near the U.S.-Mexico border as reasons for the move. The new measure would be the latest crackdown in Arizona, which has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants and is the nation's busiest border crossing point.

Southern Poverty Law Center Publishes Patriot Hit List
http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin583.htm
Excerpt: The SPLC, no doubt, sees each person on the above list as being a leader of the "radical right," a "conspiracist," and "antigovernment." But understand, the SPLC makes its living off of big-government, leftist ideology. To say it is a shill for Big Government Liberalism is an understatement. The SPLC is so radical it makes the ACLU look conservative! Again, this SPLC report would not even merit a mention (much less an entire column) except for the fact that the SPLC has become a source of information fuelling anti-freedom hysteria for countless bureaucrats at the DHS. Add this to the previously exposed MIAC and DHS reports, and the Army major's report blaming "millennialist" Christians for much of the ills of the world, and a disturbing trend is quickly developing: so-called right-wing ANYTHING is being targeted and demonized as a "public menace." (Of the people on the dreaded SPLC enemies list, I wonder how many have every murdered a black or Hispanic kid? Gang bangers murder dozens in our cities daily, but that’s okay, because the gang bangers are mostly minorities. If it was white folks killing minorities, it would be wrong. I’m sure the distinction is important to the dead.)

Both national party committees spend big chunks on fancy meals, hotels, travel
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/20/AR2010042005183.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Whom the gods would destroy, they first give a sense of entitlement—my update of an old quote. Excerpt: Both the national Democratic and Republican party committees spend about two-thirds of the money they take in on the care and comfort of committee staffs and on efforts to raise more funds, with lavish spending on limousines, expensive hotels, meals and tips, an analysis of the latest financial disclosure data shows.

Drug war violence appears in Mexico's northeast, near Texas border
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/20/AR2010042004961.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Republicans call them murderous criminals. Democrats call them “Undocumented Population Control Specialists.” Or maybe “Very late term abortionists.” Excerpt: Javier Martinez Gonzalez may have thought himself a lucky man as he arrived in pressed khakis for his first day of work as a police officer in this little country town. Half an hour later, masked men dragged him from the station. His body was later found in a patch of weeds alongside those of two fellow officers. Their killings early this month marked a dangerous new front in Mexico's battle against drug gangs in the borderlands south of Texas. More than 22,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón unleashed his war on traffickers in December 2006, according to a confidential government report circulated last week, a toll that far exceeds previous media estimates. The northeastern states along the Gulf of Mexico had been mostly quiet as drug cartels and the Mexican military fought farther west. But powerful and warring crime syndicates have now launched a campaign of terror here, abducting journalists, beheading police officers and assaulting military garrisons.

Republican campaign chief sets bar at recapturing the House in November
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/93365-gop-campaign-chief-sets-bar-at-retaking-the-house
Excerpt: The top Republican House campaign official says anything less than retaking the House will represent a failure. National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said Tuesday that he pledged when he became chairman to win enough seats to deliver a House majority. “Anything less, and I do not fulfill my mission statement,” Sessions said in a meeting with reporters. Sessions also said the GOP would likely debut a Contract with America-like document after Labor Day. He said candidates would not be required to sign the document but that it would lay out broad goals rather than specific bills to be passed by target dates.

Democrats maintain solid cash edge heading into 2010 midterms
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-dccc-coh-26.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: The three Democratic campaign committees ended March with approximately $22 million more in the bank than their Republican counterparts, a financial edge that party strategists hope will insulate them from considerable losses in the coming midterm elections. For the month of March, the Democratic National Committee ($13.5 million raised), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($6 million) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($9.8 million) collected just north of $29 million. By contrast, the Republican National Committee ($11.6 million), National Republican Senatorial Committee ($5 million) and the National Republican Congressional Committee ($8) million brought in roughly $24 million for the month. The widest cash on hand differential between committees was in the House where the DCCC ended March with $26 million in the bank as compared to just $10 million for the NRCC. The closest margin was in the Senate where the DSCC's $17 million on hand outpaced the NRSC's cash total by just $2 million. As always, the release of the numbers were quickly followed by spin on what they meant for the midterms.

CNN Poll: Will Obama name a liberal to Supreme Court?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/20/cnn-poll-will-obama-name-a-liberal-to-supreme-court/?fbid=5uEG-kEU-Ak
If the public wants moderate or conservative judges, they have to elect moderate or conservative presidents. Duh. Excerpt: A majority of Americans expect President Obama to appoint a liberal to the Supreme Court, but only one in four want that to happen, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that 61 percent of the public expect the president to nominate a liberal to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, 21 percent said the president will name a moderate and 16 percent predicted that Obama will nominate a conservative. But only a quarter of those questioned said the president should nominate a liberal, with 37 percent saying they want Obama to name a moderate and 36 percent pulling for a conservative candidate.

America’s disastrous debt is Obama’s biggest test
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c6b7f5a-4be6-11df-a217-00144feab49a.html
Like saying that religious tolerance was Hitler’s biggest test. Excerpt: The global financial system is again transfixed by sovereign debt risks. This evokes bad memories of defaults and near-defaults among emerging nations such as Argentina, Russia and Mexico. But the real issue is not whether Greece or another small country might fail. Instead, it is whether the credit standing and currency stability of the world’s biggest borrower, the US, will be jeopardised by its disastrous outlook on deficits and debt. America’s fiscal picture is even worse than it looks. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just projected that over 10 years, cumulative deficits will reach $9,700bn and federal debt 90 per cent of gross domestic product – nearly equal to Italy’s. Global capital markets are unlikely to accept that credit erosion. If they revolt, as in 1979, ugly changes in fiscal and monetary policy will be imposed on Washington. More than Afghanistan or unemployment, this is President Barack Obama’s greatest vulnerability. How bad is the outlook? The size of the federal debt will increase by nearly 250 per cent over 10 years, from $7,500bn to $20,000bn. Other than during the second world war, such a rise in indebtedness has not occurred since recordkeeping began in 1792. It is so rapid that, by 2020, the Treasury may borrow about $5,000bn per year to refinance maturing debt and raise new money; annual interest payments on those borrowings will exceed all domestic discretionary spending and rival the defence budget. Unfortunately, the healthcare bill has little positive budget impact in this period. Why is this outlook dangerous? Because dollar interest rates would be so high as to choke private investment and global growth. (The collapse is coming. Have I mentioned that?)

Busting the Internet 'ideological bubble' myth
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-brooks_21edi.State.Edition1.28b5006.html
Excerpt: According to the study, a person who visited only Fox News would have more overlap with conservatives than 99 percent of Internet news users. A person who only went to The Times' site would have more liberal overlap than 95 percent of users. But the core finding is that most Internet users do not stay within their communities. Most people spend a lot of time on a few giant sites with politically integrated audiences, like Yahoo News. Even when they leave these integrated sites, they often go into areas where most visitors are not like themselves. People who spend a lot of time on Glenn Beck's Web site are more likely to visit The New York Times' site than average Internet users. People who spend time on the most liberal sites are more likely to go to foxnews.com than average Internet users. And they're not even following links most of the time; they have their own traveling patterns. Gentzkow and Shapiro found that the Internet is actually more ideologically integrated than old-fashioned forms of face-to-face association – like meeting people at work, at church or through community groups. You're more likely to overlap with political opponents online than in your own neighborhood.

Vacationing a human right, EU chief says
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/news/Vacationing+human+right+chief+says/2924330/story.html
You laugh, but the Founders would never have thought that having someone else pay for your healthcare was a “Right.” How long until the Obots in the US discover they can buy votes by making the productive pay for vacations for the unproductive, and discover the Constitution requires the government to give everyone two weeks holiday in some nice swing state location? Excerpt: The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips. Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports. "Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life," Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15. Mr. Tajani was appointed to his post by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Celebrate Earth’s Best Friend
http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/article/27511/Celebrate_Earths_Best_Friend.html
Excerpt: How stark is the difference in environmental quality between nations that encourage the market and those that stifle it? A study published in the January issue of the science journal Nature documents that so much pollution from Asia is crossing the Pacific Ocean that U.S. ozone levels are rising even though U.S. ozone precursor emissions are declining. States in the Western United States are having difficulty meeting federal ozone standards because pollution from relatively poor nations in East Asia is offsetting declines in U.S. emissions. For nations such as China, India, Bangladesh, Laos, and Vietnam—each languishing in the bottom third of The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings—imposing expensive environmental mandates on citizens who cannot afford food, clothing, and shelter is not an option. Western-style environmental protections first require Western-style wealth. And Western-style wealth was made possible, and will remain possible, only through free markets and economic liberty.

The Amazing Disappearance of Winter due to Global Warming
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/the_amazing_disappearance_of_w.html
Excerpt: In an urgent call to the media by the Union of Concerned Scientists (composed primarily of "citizen scientists", i.e., political activists dedicated to promoting the Obama agenda on energy and nuclear disarmament) it was breathlessly announced that spring has arrived ten days earlier this year due to global warming. This was a stunning revelation to me, as I thought the seasons were caused by the Earth's tilt toward the Sun. I was intrigued by the premise that this group of obviously qualified authorities might believe that global warming has caused the Earth's axis to shift to the point that spring comes ten days early. But alas, that wasn't the case. In an April 20 Reuters article on this proclamation, it was revealed that the winter season is apparently shrinking due to "spring creep". Oddly, there was no mention of a corresponding "summer creep", which logically should occur if the world is getting warmer. However, these are activist scientists, not logisticians. (I live in Chicago. I’m for Spring starting January 1, and will do anything to help it. If it drowns the Democrat cities on the coasts, that just proves there is a God. Note to the trolls. This is a JOKE. Look it up.)

Big Nature and Tiny Us
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/big_nature_and_tiny_us.html
Excerpt: Nineteen years ago, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines coughed up twenty million tons of sulfur dioxide. In Mexico, nine years earlier, the Chichón eruption perceptibly cooled the planet. Recent human history has other examples of globally cooling volcanoes. Mount St. Helens, erupting in 1980, threw gases and particles in the sky which were clearly visible for hundreds of miles. The Icelandic Laki eruption in 1783 was believed by Ben Franklin to have cooled the planet, and thirty-two years later, the Tambora volcano in Indonesia produced the "year without a summer," in which distant New England experienced snowfalls in July. Krakatau, exactly one year after Laki, was twenty times more powerful than Mount St. Helens and cooled the planetary temperature perceptibly. These volcanoes are dramatic evidence of a mundane truth: We exercise very little power over our environment.

Healthcare tax hikes: What we know so far
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/87913-tax-increases-in-health-bill-causing-a-stir
But remember, if Barack Obama is elected president, people making less than $250,000 won’t pay a dime more in taxes.

The Crony Capitalist Threat to Our Economic Freedom
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/21/morning-bell-the-crony-capitalist-threat-to-our-economic-freedom/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Excerpt: The Obama administration’s game plan for passing their financial regulatory reform plan is clear: ignore the details of their bill, demonize Wall Street, and cast conservatives as the pawns of big bankers. But as Politico reports today, there’s a complication in their battle plan: “The Democratic Party is closer to corporate America — and to Wall Street in particular — than many Democrats would care to admit.” Politico should be commended for acknowledging the left’s cozy ties with corporate America, but then they go on to write: “Some Democrats acknowledge that the legislation — and the harsh anti-Wall Street rhetoric — could cost them campaign contributions from the financial services sector in what is already shaping up to be a tough election year.” This is just flat wrong. As evidence and logic clearly demonstrate, the left’s harsh anti-business rhetoric and glee for expansive regulation is a boon to their campaign coffers. As USA Today reports, Goldman Sachs alone has given nearly $900,000 since January 2009 to congressional candidates, and according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, 69% of the firm’s contributions went to Democrats while 31% went to Republicans. In fact, Goldman is not opposed to Obama’s Wall Street Bailout Bill at all. As a Goldman official told Politico Monday: “We’re not against regulation. We’re for regulation. We partner with regulators.” This echoes reporting done by The Huffington Post on loopholes in the banking bill. HuffPo was told by a financial services lobbyist: “Obtaining a carve-out isn’t rocket science. Just give Chairman Dodd (D-CT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) a ****load of money.”

Republican party seeks SEC records on Goldman Sachs
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36097.html
Excerpt: Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight committee, is demanding a slew of documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission, asserting that the timing of civil charges against Goldman Sachs raises “serious questions about the commission’s independence and impartiality.” Issa’s letter, addressed to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro and signed by eight other House Republicans, asks whether the commission had any contact about the case, prior to its public release, with White House aides, Democratic Party committee officials, or members of Congress or their staff. “[W]e are concerned that politics have unduly influenced the decision and timing of the commission’s controversial enforcement action against Goldman,” Issa writes. Issa implied that the timing was a bit too convenient, saying President Barack Obama’s push on Wall Street reform “neatly coincided with the commission’s announcement of the suit.”

Goldman Sachs: Is this God’s dirty work?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article7100846.ece
Excerpt: In the corner of a hotel bar, however, two men had turned their eyes from the slopes. One was an emissary of John Paulson, a wealthy New York hedge fund manager, the other an adviser from a Wall Street investment firm called ACA. They had been brought together by Fabrice Tourre, a 28-year-old banker at Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. He wanted the two firms to do a deal he thought would make a lot of money. It was January 2007 and cracks were appearing in America’s housing and credit markets. Bad debts were about to force HSBC into a profit warning at Household, its American arm that specialised in “subprime” loans — those made to people with poor credit ratings. The bursting of the credit bubble wasn’t bad news for everyone. Tourre planned to capitalise on the crisis by creating a deal that would make a $1 billion (£650m) profit for Paulson, one of Goldman’s top clients. Thanks to the international merry-go-round of high finance, it would be Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), now owned by UK taxpayers, that suffered almost all of the $1 billion losses. ACA, the SEC claims, was an unwitting stooge in the affair….. The booming financial markets had allowed thousands of people to own their own home for the first time. Banks were lending to people who did not even have a job or a reliable source of income. The banks grew comfortable with the risks because they could parcel these mortgages into bonds and sell them in the financial markets. Billions of dollars worth of these sub-prime loans were issued across America. In early 2007, though, the music was about to stop. It was becoming apparent some sub-prime borrowers had lied on mortgage applications. Repossessions and evictions were becoming commonplace and the investors who had bought the bonds were starting to take fright, sending prices for the bonds into a downward spiral. As the American mortgage securities started to unravel, they created losses that infected some of the biggest banks in the world, sowing the seeds of the global financial meltdown. (Quote: "President Obama is nothing if not a clever operator. He accepts $994,795 in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs -- then turns around when it's convenient and uses them as a model for why we need to heavily regulate the financial sector." --columnist Ben Shapiro)

Top Obama Contributors
http://images.opensecrets.org/obama_top_contribs.htm?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
Interesting list of the powerful elites, big corporations and Wall Street. If you can’t take their money, drink their whisky and still use them as political scapegoats to get votes, you don’t belong in the White House, I guess. Meanwhile, Democrats are accusing Republicans of, “Shaking down Wall Street.”

Quotes from The Patriot Post. www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/
"While President Obama assails the culture of greed and recklessness practiced by the men of Goldman Sachs, his administration is infested with them. The White House can no more disown Government Sachs than Da Boss-in-chief can disown Chicago politics." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"[L]iberals who like [Justice] Stevens' rulings insist he understands the plight of the downtrodden, despite the fact that the nearly 90-year-old justice was born rich and has served on the court for almost 35 years, becoming more liberal as he has become more distant from life as lived by the little guys. Meanwhile, Clarence Thomas was born dirt poor and black in rural Georgia and spends his vacations exploring America in an RV. But those same liberals insist he doesn't understand poverty and race the way Stevens does. How do they know? Because they don't like his rulings." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

Is Goldman Obama's Enron? No, it's worse
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html
Excerpt: Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org. President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton. In 2002, the New York Times wrote: "President Bush is seeking to play down his relationship with Enron's embattled chairman, Kenneth L. Lay. But their ties are broad and deep and go back many years, and the relationship has been beneficial to both." (h/t Lachlan Markey) But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up to Obama's $1,007,370.85 (inflation adjusted) from Goldman-affiliated executives and employees. That's also not taking into account how much Goldman contributed to Obama cabinet member Hillary Clinton ($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.

Pelosi staff member becomes lobbyist (What a shock)
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/potm/2010-04-21/
Excerpt: Arshi Siddiqui joined Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP as a partner in the policy practice in Washington, D.C. Senior policy advisor and counsel to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi since 2003, Siddiqui has provided counsel on numerous legislative initiatives, including the historic comprehensive health insurance reform legislation, the economic recovery package and the financial recovery and stimulus bills. She has advised the speaker and Democratic members of the House on tax, trade, economic, pension and certain health care matters. Siddiqui’s duties also have included working with the administration, relevant Committees in both chambers and Senate leadership on legislative strategy in these areas. Before joining the office of Rep. Pelosi, Siddiqui was in private practice in Washington, representing corporate clients before Congress and the executive branch. She began her career on Capitol Hill, first as a policy aide to Rep. Eva Clayton and subsequently as Ways and Means counsel to Rep. Xavier Becerra.

A warning on Iran
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/warning_on_iran_GqJxyLxJv09d2D6oP02u8N
Excerpt: Robert Gates isn't just our secretary of defense -- he's our national damage-control officer. The closest thing this love-your-enemies administration has to an indispensable man, Gates is fighting the good fight in the worst of times. Ever since signing on as President George W. Bush's SecDef in early 2005, Gates has fought to reform the Air Force, improve the Pentagon's dysfunctional acquisition system, give our troops in the field what they really need and cut through the red tape that's paid for in red blood. The greatest sacrifice any top-echelon public figure has made in decades was Gates' agreement to stay at his post and serve the new administration. He wanted to go back to Texas. Instead, he stood up in the line of fire. That new administration's rapidly getting old, but Gates continues to serve, struggling to limit the damage done to our national defense. Recently, he fought to keep our new nuclear-giveaway treaty with Russia within tolerable bounds. That treaty's bad -- but without Gates it would have been worse. Now we know that he was also pushing on Iran.

Massa to face investigation from House ethics panel
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/93569-massa-to-face-investigation-from-ethics-panel
When Republicans did this stuff, Pelosi called it a “culture of corruption. Excerpt: The House ethics committee has launched a formal investigation of sexual harassment allegations against Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.). Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who chairs the ethics panel, and Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), its ranking member, announced an ongoing investigation into Massa’s activities Wednesday afternoon.

The War on Seniors
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/war-on-seniors/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-10184
Great. I’ll be 65 next April. Why I resigned from AARP, but can’t get off their e-mail list. Excerpt: Senior citizens are by far the biggest losers in health reform. Consider that: More than half the cost of health reform will be paid for by $523 billion of cuts in Medicare spending over the next ten years. Although there are some new benefits for seniors (mainly new drug coverage), the costs exceed the benefits by a factor of more than ten to one. As many as 8.5 million of the 11 million seniors in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans may lose their coverage, according to Medicare's Chief Actuary. Those lucky enough to retain their MA coverage will face steep cuts in benefits or hefty increases in premiums or both. In addition to these direct costs there are indirect costs, including new taxes on drugs and medical devices. Although these taxes don't single out senior citizens, who do you think are the heaviest users of wheelchairs, crutches, artificial joints, pacemakers, etc.? To make matters worse, severe rationing problems lie ahead, as 32 million newly insured people try to double their consumption of medical care under a reform bill that produces not one new doctor or nurse or other paramedical personnel. Because many of the newly insured will be in private plans paying market rates, they will be more attractive to doctors than Medicare enrollees paying about 20% to 30% less. So how did this happen? Aren't senior citizens supposed to be the most powerful voting bloc? Aren't they supposed to be represented by the all-powerful AARP? Unfortunately for seniors (and indeed all Medicare enrollees), AARP sold out its own members. Just as the AMA sold out the doctors and the labor unions sold out their own members, AARP signed on to legislation that helps AARP but hurts the millions of people who AARP claims to represent.

Bad banker for Senate
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Bad-banker-for-Senate-91644884.html
On the basis of his experience as the former vice president and senior loan officer of Broadway Bank, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias wants to fill Barack Obama's old Senate seat. The Democratic nominee recently told reporters he would even like to serve on the Senate Banking Committee if elected. That's a lofty goal for someone whose family bank is likely to collapse within days, and in no small part because of a risky lending strategy that he admits he helped create. Federal regulators will soon seize Chicago's Broadway Bank unless its owners -- the Giannoulias family -- raise $75 million in the next few days. (Since being elected treasurer, Alexi is a non-voting shareholder with 3.6 percent ownership in the bank.) The story behind the bank's downfall is best told by two numbers in the records Broadway filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp

Where in the world is Tony Rezko?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/where-in-the-world-is-tony-rezko-91619594.html
Why is Antoin “Tony” Rezko under lock and key at an undisclosed location, like some sort of CIA-renditioned al Qaeda operative? And why hasn’t he been sentenced yet?
As the June 3 corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for allegedly trying to sell Obama’s former Illinois Senate seat approaches, the whereabouts of the former Blago and Obama fundraiser is literally a state secret. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Rezko was moved from Chicago’s downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center on December 16th, even though it’s right across the street from the federal courthouse where Blago will be tried. Rezko’s not listed on the federal Bureau of Prisons’ inmate locator, either. “Nobody knows where he is,” a source in Chicago told The Examiner. The other big question: Why hasn’t Rezko been sentenced yet? It’s been almost two years since the Chicago restaurant and real estate developer was convicted on bribery, fraud and money laundering charges.

The Violent Left Accuses the Nonviolent Tea Party Of Violence
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/20/the-violent-left-accuses-the-nonviolent-tea-party-of-violence/

Sarkozy to submit bill banning Islamic face veils
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100421/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_muslim_veils
Remember when we thought France was weak? “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” –Franklin. We will learn, but it will take more dead American children. Excerpt: French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday ordered legislation that would ban women from wearing Islamic veils that hide the face in the street and other public places.

Choosing Mugabe
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/21/choosing-mugabe/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=38083d6815-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
The left always prefers totalitarians. Excerpt: Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister recently died, amid little fanfare. Abel Muzorewa was a United Methodist bishop who replaced the Rhodesian white minority regime, only to be undermined by the Carter Administration and the Religious Left, who ultimately forced new elections that enthroned Robert Mugabe as dictator for three decades. Later, Mugabe would imprison Muzorewa, among his other crimes, about which most of the Religious Left was silent. Throughout the 1970’s, Bishop Muzorewa opposed the white minority government while advocating a peaceful transition to democratic, majority rule. At one point, he was exiled to Mozambique and then returned home to a welcome by 100,000 well wishers. In the late 1970’s, Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith negotiated with Muzorewa and other black moderates for an end to white control, while guaranteeing a minority of legislative and cabinet seats to whites. Muzorewa, a lifelong Methodist who was educated in the U.S., became prime minister in 1979 in the first election of his nation to offer full franchise to blacks. Of course, Mugabe’s Patriotic Front guerrillas continued their armed struggle in their quest for power.

Iraqi anti-al Qaeda chief's family slain by gunmen
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-47844720100420
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Excerpt: Gunmen stormed the house of an anti-al Qaeda tribal chief and killed his wife and children, hours after the Iraqi government announced that leaders of the militant group had been killed in a raid, police said Tuesday. The Sunni militia was not at home when the killings happened. The armed men cut the throats of his three young sons and shot his wife and a daughter in the head, police said. (These are the people we are fighting.)

Appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/20/appeasing-the-muslim-brotherhood/
Excerpt: The Obama administration has hired the first White House Muslim advisor, Dalia Mogahed, who helped with writing Obama’s speech. Mogahed is herself an Islamic ideologue who supports Islamic Sharia and denies any connection between radical Islam and terrorism. Mogahed, who was born in Egypt, has also been a firm defender of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Both of these US groups are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. As an American of Egyptian origin myself, I can tell who is a reformist and who is a radical Muslim sympathizer, and I do not think that Ms. Mogahed’s views are in any way supportive of a reformation in Islam or of its concept of jihad. To the contrary, she denies the existence of any problem with Islamic ideology and she acts in total harmony with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Her excuses are the same old excuses we Egyptians learned day in and day out in defense of Islamic jihad and in blaming others for misunderstanding of Islam. Her answers are always given with total confidence and conviction, as she tells her audience that any violent actions by Muslims have nothing to do with Islam. Never mind that Islamic mosques, education, art and songs all glorify jihad as a holy war for the sake of Allah.

SEAL of Honor, Lt. Michael Murphy
http://jewishworldreview.com/michael/smerconish.php3
Excerpt: Nearly three years ago, I wrote about U.S. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who published an enthralling nonfiction account of the events of June 28, 2005, the deadliest day in SEAL history. In painstaking detail, Luttrell recounted in "Lone Survivor" how three of his colleagues on SEAL Team 10 were killed in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan as they tracked a high-ranking Taliban officer with ties to Osama bin Laden. An MH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying reinforcements was shot down by Taliban forces, resulting in the deaths of eight more SEALs and eight Army Night Stalkers, an elite special-ops unit. At the center of the story was SEAL Team 10's encounter with three goat herders who unwittingly interrupted a dangerous covert operation in the deadliest place in the world. As Luttrell detailed in his book, he and his teammates — Lt. Michael Murphy and Petty Officers Matthew G. Axelson and Danny P. Dietz — were hiding in broad daylight in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border when the unarmed goat herders stumbled upon them. The SEALs were faced with an unenviable dilemma: Let the herders go — and risk that they would reveal the SEALs' location to the Taliban — or kill them. Luttrell described the ensuing deliberation and vote. He wrote that Axelson wanted to kill the herders and Dietz was noncommittal. Murphy voted to let them go, a call with which Luttrell ultimately agreed — and later came to regret. He wrote that his decision was "the stupidest, most Southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made in my life."

Obit: Pam Murphy, widow of actor Audie Murphy, was veterans’ friend and advocate
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/04/16/pam-murphy-widow-of-actor-audie-murphy-was-veterans-friend-and-advocate/