Political Digest May 13, 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. It also doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with them. I have to say all this to give some of my critics the benefit of the doubt, assuming they are thick, rather than deliberately taking things the wrong way.

Don’t you hate it?
When Friday the 13th comes a day early.

The battle over climate bill begins
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/97271-senate-climate-change-bill-seeks-compromise-on-offshore-drilling
After a hard day hoeing potatoes and fending off marauders, our surviving grandchildren will sit around the campfire and laugh at the threat of Global Warming. Excerpt: Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will unveil a sweeping climate change and energy bill Wednesday that requires greenhouse gas reductions while offering major new incentives for nuclear power, coal, natural gas and offshore drilling. The bill — which faced several delays en route to Wednesday’s unveiling — faces highly uncertain prospects given the Senate calendar, senators’ election year jitters, the lack of a Republican co-sponsor and outrage over the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Extend the Bush Tax Cuts—For Now
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704370704575228123196462504.html
Another liberal Harvard professor. Excerpt: This is not the time for a tax increase. But unless Congress acts, under current law the existing income tax rates will rise sharply at the beginning of next year. Congress should vote now to extend all of the current tax rates for two years, including the tax rates on dividends, interest and capital gains. Limiting the resulting tax-rate cuts to two years would reduce the projected future fiscal deficits. The sooner Congress acts, the stronger our prospects for continued economic recovery. A tax increase next year could easily derail the current fragile expansion. The economic upturn since last summer has been nurtured by Federal Reserve credit like the mortgage purchase program and by the fiscal incentives such as the tax credits for car buyers and first-time home buyers that are now coming to an end. Eighty percent of the latest quarterly GDP increase consisted of a rise in consumer spending that was the result of an unrepeatable sharp drop in the saving rate. Without that decline in the saving rate, the first-quarter annual GDP growth rate would have been less than 1%. A 2011 tax increase that reduces economic incentives and household spending would raise the risk of a new economic downturn.

Trickle-Down Misery in L.A.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/237640
The collapse will likely start in California, America’s Greece, though Detroit remains a candidate. Excerpt: to get from downtown to the residence of the man who, in 2005, became the first Hispanic elected mayor since 1870, you drive through a sliver of Korea. With 125,000 people packed into 2.7 of the city's 469 square miles, Koreatown is typical of this polyglot city where more than 100 languages are spoken and nothing is typical except recentness: 46 percent of the residents are foreign-born. So when His Honor Antonio Villaraigosa was invited to appear at a recent rally protesting Arizona's law concerning illegal immigrants, he went. But he stipulated: "I want American flags." He knows that protesting immigrants should not carry the flags of Mexico and other nations where they have chosen not to live. The city is chin-deep in California's trickle-down misery, and last week Richard Riordan, who was L.A. mayor from 1993 to 2001, coauthored with Alexander Rubalcava—an investment adviser—a Wall Street Journal column declaring the city's fiscal crisis "terminal." They say Villaraigosa should "face the fact" that "between now and 2014 the city will likely declare bankruptcy." Villaraigosa says that will not happen. But look what has happened. For 15 years Villaraigosa was an organizer for the Service Employees International Union and the city's teachers' union. Now he is trying to cope with, and partially undo, largesse for unionized public employees: "I have to sign the checks on the front, not just the back." Riordan and Rubalcava say two numbers—8 percent and 5,000—define the city's crisis. L.A. has conveniently but unrealistically assumed 8 percent annual growth of the assets of the city's pension funds. The two main funds' actual growth over the last decade have been 3.5 percent and 2.8 percent. And Villaraigosa added 5,000 people to the city's payroll in his first term.

David Cameron is Britain's new prime minister
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/11/AR2010051102200.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Britain’s voters have created a nice recipe for stalemate. Bad at a time when Obama has discarded the “Special Relationship” with Britain, probably as payback for British rule in Kenya. Nothing the left does better than settle old scores. Excerpt: Conservative leader David Cameron walked into No. 10 Downing Street on Tuesday night as Britain's new prime minister, ending five days of political limbo and 13 years of Labor Party rule after forging a historic coalition that spans the country's political spectrum. The deal that brought Cameron to power in the wake of indecisive elections last week united the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in Britain's first coalition government since Winston Churchill's war cabinet in the 1940s. The unlikely marriage of the center-right and center-left parties, with divergent stances on such major issues as national security and immigration, led some analysts to question its durability. But after exchanging major concessions in the name of forming a "strong and stable government," the two parties were set for their first joint cabinet meeting Wednesday.

U.S., U.K. alliance questioned following British election
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/AR2010051201387.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: In his telephone call to new British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday night, President Obama underscored his commitment to the "special relationship" between the two countries. That was a diplomatic necessity given the long alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom, but the reality might be that the concept has outlived its usefulness. The notion of a special relationship is both fact and fiction. The term dates to Winston Churchill, in the aftermath of World War II. Ever since, British leaders have long believed there is no more important relationship than that between the United States and the United Kingdom. U.S. presidents, too, have developed close personal relationships with their British counterparts. But on this side of the Atlantic in particular, there is a growing belief that with Cameron as prime minister Britain must find its own way in the world -- not exactly apart from the United States, but not always joined at the hip in what many complained became a junior partnership during the past decade.

PM David Cameron
“Sons of the hounds come here and get flesh.” War cry of Clan Cameron.

Budget office estimates health-care law could cost more than $1 trillion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/11/AR2010051104714.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Anyone surprised by this shouldn’t be allowed out without a minder, for their own safety. I’m sure this number is still far too low, as now the lobbyists and unions will pile on. Excerpt: President Obama's new health-care law could potentially add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending over the next 10 years, if Congress approves all the additional spending called for in the legislation, congressional budget referees said Tuesday. That would push the 10-year cost of the overhaul above $1 trillion -- an unofficial limit the Obama administration set early on. The Congressional Budget Office said the added spending includes $10 billion to $20 billion in administrative costs to federal agencies carrying out the law, as well as $34 billion for community health centers and $39 billion for Native American health care. The costs were not in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: The additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion about whether to provide the funds in follow-on legislation.

Alan Mollohan loses primary fight
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/house/alan-mollohan-loses-primary-fi.html?wprss=thefix
Anti-incumbent fever takes out another Democrat, probably hurts GOP chances for the seat. Excerpt: West Virginia Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan lost his bid for a 15th term tonight at the hands of state Sen. Mike Oliverio, a defeat that further affirms the anti-incumbent sentiment coursing through the country. Mollohan hadn't faced a serious primary fight in more than a decade and was seen in some circles as unbeatable given that the 1st district seat had been in his family since 1968. (His father held it from 1968-1982 before handing it off to the son.) But, Oliverio, who served a single term in the state House of Delegates before being elected to the state Senate in 1994, ran hard against Mollohan's entrenched incumbent status and the lingering whiff of ethics problems that had dogged the Congressman for years. The race has gotten very nasty over its final weeks with Oliverio referring to Mollohan as "one of the most corrupt members of Congress" and the incumbent retorting that his opponent is "lying" and "spreading right-wing smears". Mollohan, despite regular warning from state and national Democratic strategists, never seemed to understand the threat posed by Oliverio and, according to several sources, ran a campaign suited to the early 1990s rather than 2010 in terms of its sophistication. On the Republican side, former state Del. David McKinley won his party's nomination. Republicans, however, had made clear they preferred to run against Mollohan and must now re-orient their strategy….. Oliverio actually ran to the incumbent's ideological right -- castigating him for his vote in favor of President Obama's health care bill.

Opinion: NASA's Future Gets Murkier
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-nasas-future-gets-murkier/19471226
Excerpt: Late last week, NASA tested a key component of its Constellation program, launching an abort rocket a mile or so into the air at White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico and landing the Orion capsule by parachute a few thousand feet away from the pad. The apparently successful test was the first in a series meant to show how Orion could let astronauts safely escape at all stages of flight of the Orion. What it really showed was the clouded picture at NASA in the weeks following President Barack Obama's high-profile speech outlining the future of American space travel. While the Obama administration originally planned to cancel the entire Constellation program, including Orion, in its Feb. 1 budget submitted to Congress, Orion was restored last month, in a speech the president made at Kennedy Space Center.

Captured Somali pirates 'dead' - Russia
http://www.news.com.au/world/captured-somali-pirates-dead-russia/story-e6frfkyi-1225865292229
Who says there’s no good news. Excerpt: A GROUP of Somali pirates captured by the Russian navy in the Gulf of Aden and then set free in a boat are most probably dead after failing to reach the shore, a Russian defence source said. The 10 pirates were captured last week after seizing a Russian oil tanker but were then unexpectedly released, with Russian officials saying there was insufficient legal basis to keep them in detention. "According to the latest information, the pirates who seized the Moscow University oil tanker failed to reach the shore. Evidently, they have all died," the high-ranking source was quoted as saying by all Russia's official news agencies. The source said that radio signals from the boat stopped just one hour after it had been set free by the Russian navy. No details were given over the manner in which they could have lost their lives. (Hmm... seems somebody remembers how to deal with pirates. But then, the Russians don't have 2 pages of ROE, or a press frantic to slam their military, or leaders who worry excessively about the opinion of 3rd world idiots or Western college professors. --Del)

President’s cancer panel reveals activist media are the real cancer
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/12/presidents-cancer-panel-reveals-activist-media-are-the-real-cancer/#ixzz0njEDi0c2
Excerpt: The report (which should not be confused with a scientific study), entitled “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now,” calls for tough regulations on things the two authors claim cause cancer. However, some of their underlying assumptions are highly exaggerated and fly in the face of what the scientific community has established as the known causes of cancer. Even the American Cancer Society (ACS), one of the most well-respected cancer organizations in the country, has already stated it believes the report’s views are skewed. According to Dr. Michael Thun, head of Epidemiology and Surveillance Research at ACS, “the report is most provocative when it restates hypotheses as if they were established facts. For example, its conclusion that ‘the true burden of environmentally (pollution) induced cancer has been grossly underestimated’ does not represent scientific consensus.”

“For It”: MSA Student Confesses She Wants a Second Holocaust
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/11/for-it-msa-student-confesses-she-wants-a-second-holocaust/
Excerpt: Horowitz: If you don’t condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed. I have had this experience at UC Santa Barbara, where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk I kept asking them, will you condemn Hizbollah and Hamas. And none of them would. And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask a question. And I said, ‘Before you start, will you condemn Hizbollah?’ And he said, ‘Well, that question is too complicated for a yes or no answer.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll put it to you this way. I am a Jew. The head of Hizbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For or Against it? MSA member: For it.

Greek Debt Crisis Will Worsen: The Center Won't Hold
http://townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2010/05/12/greek_debt_crisis_will_worsen_the_center_wont_hold
Excerpt: When the European Union voted to put up a $1 trillion fund to bail out indebted countries in the Eurozone, it implicitly rejected the alternative, which was to purchase the Greek debt outright, making it an obligation of the EU as a whole and no longer just a Greek affair. By opting for the bailout, the European Union has taken a middle course between full debt assumption and abandonment that won't work. The markets will keep pressing until the EU throws in the towel and buys up all the outstanding Greek debt. Shortly thereafter, it will have to do the same thing for Portugal and perhaps for Italy and Spain. Greece owes $400 billion. Portugal owes $175 billion. And, over the horizon lies Italy, which owes $2 trillion, and Spain is on the hook for $819 billion. Against these numbers, a $1 trillion fund doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. …Obama has left us vulnerable to these concerns with his huge and unnecessary budget deficit. With our debt now exceeding 80 percent of our GDP (it was 60 percent when Obama took office), we are hostage to speculators and nervous investors. In 2011, we may well experience the same kind of international jitters that now bedevil Greece and find our hand forced by an international consensus, just as Athens' has been.

Wall Street and Our Banking System Nearing Collapse
http://townhall.com/columnists/ArmstrongWilliams/2010/05/11/wall_street_and_our_banking_system_nearing_collapse
Excerpt: The book was aptly titled. As many insiders know, "Showdown at Gucci Gulch" references the marbled floors just outside the committee hearing rooms for the House and Senate tax writing panels. Nearly every day in 1986 (and even now), you could hear the "tap, tap" of those fine Italian loafers donned by slick lobbyists, sauntering up and down the halls, looking for lawmakers they could pigeonhole for an extra line of code that meant millions for his respective industry. Despite those powerful interests, Mr. Birnbaum and Mr. Murray write of the triumph of policy in enacting a tax reform bill that defied the odds and closed massive loopholes. None of those reforms would have been possible without the direct, near-daily involvement of President Reagan. And while he didn't get everything he wanted, Reagan was able to leave his indelible mark on the entire process, bending the wills of his adversaries and ensuring the lobbyists didn't hijack the process. I tell that story because there are loose similarities between what occurred in 1986 with tax reform to today's developments surrounding financial regulatory reform Perhaps the most obvious link is the rampant prevalence of Gucci Gulch figures - Armani-wearing Wall Street lobbyists hustling Democratic leaders for their slice of clemency. Ahh, ol' Rosty would be proud! But let's not forget what factors contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008. Here again, the comparisons are noticeable. With respect to the housing market, the federal government simply put its thumb on the scale, attempting to foist one sector of society, whether it had the means to pay or not, into the home buying market. Just as the growth and expansion of the tax code swelled throughout the late 60s and 70s, picking winners and losers along the way, the seeds of the housing bubble that would soon burst were planted when the federal government instructed banks and local financial institutions to loan money to purchase homes individuals couldn't afford. And lo, so began the meteoric rise of no document loans.

Yemen refuses to let U.S. try cleric
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/12/yemen-refuses-to-let-us-try-cleric/
Excerpt: Yemen's government has announced it will not extradite Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born jihadist cleric who is credited with inspiring the recent wave of anti-American terrorist plots by al Qaeda recruits. Over the weekend, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al Qirbi said Mr. al-Awlaki would be tried in the Arabian Peninsula state once he is captured. "The man the U.S. wants to be extradited will stand trial in Yemen under the national law," Mr. al Qirbi was quoted as saying in the Yemen state news agency, al Saba. Earlier in the weekend, Mr. al Qirbi told the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Dar that "because of his recent terrorist activity, al-Awlaki is now wanted by the Yemeni government. Hence, he must be tried … in his homeland, but never by other governments."

This is Sweden: Muslims shout "Allahu akbar" as Lars Vilks is attacked
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/05/this-is-sweden-muslims-shout-allahu-akbar-as-lars-vilks-attacked.html
Didn’t get the memo.

Afghanistan: Gas attack targets third girls' school
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.1.376249283
Excerpt: At least 30 schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, the third such attack on a girls' school in the city in less than a month, officials said. It is unclear who was behind the attacks. "A masked man, dressed in black, came into the classroom and threw a small box at us. When we saw the box, we tried to run away, but I passed out. When I regained consciousness, I was in hospital," said 13-year-old Nafeesa, quoted by Pajhwork Afghan News. The girls who fell ill on Tuesday were taken to a local hospital. Some of them were unconscious and in a critical condition, head of the city hospital, Homayoon Khamosh, told Pajhwok. (I’ll make a wild guess here that the perps were not on the SPLC’s list of hate groups.)

Thinking about early retirement?
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/early-retirees/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-10545
Excerpt: There are 78 million baby boomers and a very large number of them have retirement on their minds. If the past is a guide, more than 80% of them will retire before they become eligible for Medicare (at age 65). Although about one-third of U.S. workers have a promise of post-retirement health care from an employer, almost none of these promises are funded and, as is the case of the automobile companies, are likely to be broken in whole or in part. As a result, millions of retirees will find themselves buying their own insurance in the individual market. There they will face some unpleasant realities, which for many of them may come as a shock:

Why Northrop chose Virginia
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Why-Northrop-chose-Virginia-93437894.html
Excerpt: Northrop Chief Executive Officer Wes Bush cited "facility considerations, proximity to our customers and overall economics" to explain why Virginia was successful in wooing the company despite the fact District officials offered a $25 million tax break and Maryland a $22 million sweetener. Virginia's puny-by-comparison economic incentive package was valued at a mere $14 million. The crucial difference is that Virginia is a better place to do business. Forbes magazine rates the state as the most business-friendly in the nation. With a 6 percent corporate tax rate, it costs less to run a business in Virginia than either the District (9 percent) or Maryland (8.25 percent).Virginia's superior business rating is no fluke. It results from official policies that over the years have sent strong welcome signals to companies like Northrop and that contrast mightily with years of anti-business policies across the Potomac. For example, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell backed up his 2009 campaign promise to protect taxpayers by trimming $2 billion from his state budget without a corresponding tax increase. In contrast, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's "millionaire's tax" convinced thousands of wealthy taxpayers to flee. And while state officials tout their comparatively low unemployment rate, the reality is that most of Maryland's new jobs are revenue-consuming government positions, not revenue-producing jobs in the private sector.

Biden: Kagan was right to discriminate against the military at Harvard
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/biden-kagan-was-right-to-discriminate-against-the-military-at-harvard-93452829.html
Excerpt: Asked if Elena Kagan was “right or wrong” in discriminating against U.S. military recruiters at Harvard Law School, Joe Biden said this morning on ABC: “She was right.” The vice president added: “All during that period, she has reached out to veterans in the law school, she has been at promotions ceremonies, she’s recognized veterans coming to the law school. So this is not a single bit of anti-military bias. She does think, and I agree with her, that the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy is a very bad policy.” As the boss has been pointing out, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a policy based on congressional legislation. In 1993, Biden ultimately voted for the Defense authorization act that included the statute on gays in the military (after he voted to give the president authority to set policy on gays in the military). So, notwithstanding his stated opposition to DADT, shouldn’t Joe Biden have been barred from appearing on Harvard’s campus as well? (And the Executive Order on DADT was issues by the CIC, Bill Clinton in 1993. Shouldn’t he have been barred from speaking at Harvard? Should the military have refused his order?)

Kagan: Speech is free if government decides it has more value than ’societal costs’
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=14280
So the government can silence anyone if it thinks the “Social Costs” are too high of allowing them to speak? Scary. On this quote, I’d vote not to confirm. Excerpt: Freedom of speech, religion and other First Amendment issues are likely to be among the most visible during the coming Senate confirmation hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court. As an illustration why, consider this quote dug up by the First Amendment Center’s David L. Hudson, who found it in a government brief signed by Kagan in United States v Stevens: “Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.”

Kagan Argued for Government 'Redistribution of Speech'
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=65720
A very slippery slope. If you are not for free speech for people and ideas you loath, you are not for free speech. Excerpt: In her article, Kagan said that examination of the motives of government is the proper approach for the Supreme Court when looking at whether a law violates the First Amendment. While not denying that other concerns, such as the impact of a law, can be taken into account, Kagan argued that governmental motive is “the most important” factor. In doing so, Kagan constructed a complex framework that can be used by the Court to determine whether or not Congress has restricted First Amendment freedoms with improper intent. She defined improper intent as prohibiting or restricting speech merely because Congress or a public majority dislikes either the message or the messenger, or because the message or messenger may be harmful to elected officials or their political priorities.

Petition to stop Kagan
http://patriotupdate.com/stories/read/3626/Sign-Petition-to-Stop-Elena-Kagans-Nomination-Protect-Free-Speech-
Probably hopeless.

New York Times to Greece: End socialized medicine to save money
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/new-york-times-to-greece-end-socialized-medicine-to-save-money-93292549.html
Excerpt: Over at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw makes a great catch. The Times, which couldn’t get enough of Obamacare, has an unusual prescription for Greece’s economic predicament:
Another reform high on the list is removing the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors like health care, transportation and energy and allowing private investment. Economists say that the liberalization of trucking routes — where a trucking license can cost up to $90,000 — and the health care industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe. Getting the government out of health care saves money? Why didn’t the Times tell us before!

Israel says N. Korea shipping WMDs to Syria
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j0VdOLZrETbxI3lxHgXUCVQz4nKg
Funny how the Commies and the Jihadists can cooperate if it makes trouble for the free peoples. Excerpt: Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday accused nuclear power North Korea of supplying Syria with weapons of mass destruction. Lieberman's office quoted him as telling Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at a meeting in Tokyo that such activity threatened to destabilise east Asia as well as the Middle East. "The cooperation between Syria and North Korea is not focused on economic development and growth but rather on weapons of mass destruction" Lieberman said. In evidence he cited the December 2009 seizure at Bangkok airport of an illicit North Korean arms shipment which US intelligence said was bound for an unnamed Middle East country. Lieberman said Syria intended to pass the weapons on to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and to the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules Gaza and has its political headquarters in Damascus.

Iran, Syria, North Korea Form New 'Axis of Evil,' Says Israel’s Foreign Minister
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/65737
Excerpt: Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday declared North Korea, Syria and Iran the new "axis of evil," claiming that North Korean weapons seized in Bangkok in December were bound for Middle Eastern militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said during a visit to Japan that the three countries are cooperating and pose the biggest threat to world security because they are building and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

CNBC’s Rick Santelli Rips Key Democrat For Ignoring Fannie/Freddie Reform
http://gopleader.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=184989
Excerpt: Democrats still don’t get it, and they refuse to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government mortgage companies that sparked the meltdown by giving high-risk loans to people who couldn’t afford it. Standing up for American taxpayers, CNBC’s on-air editor, Rick Santelli teed off on Rep. Paul Kanjorski’s (D-PA) claim that Democrats’ couldn’t reform Fannie & Freddie in their financial regulation bill because it was “too complicated,” asking: “It’s too complicated? You think taxpayers that go to work to pay the money you are subsidizing, it will end up a half a trillion, do you think they think complicated is an excuse?”

Health-care overhaul is up against long campaign across U.S.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/11/AR2010051104719.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: Efforts to block a key provision of the new health-care overhaul law are underway in 33 states, as a growing roster of mostly Republican officials have mounted legal and legislative challenges to an eventual requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty tax. This Friday, seven more states will formally join a lawsuit originally filed by Florida and 12 other states in late March. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Florida, contends that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to mandate an individual's participation in an insurance plan, and that it has infringed on states' rights by requiring them to extend coverage to more low-income residents without fully funding the additional cost. Many constitutional scholars have said the suit has slim chances. But activists say they view the lawsuit as the first of what they hope will be a slew of challenges mounted by state governments, legislatures and individuals, ultimately narrowing the law's scope and possibly unraveling it altogether. "This is going to be a long, protracted war of attrition and we haven't even seen the first wave of regulations yet," said Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Goldwater Institute -- an Arizona-based group that is advising state officials.

Sensenbrenner: Judicial Action Necessary to Repeal New Health Care Law
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/65713
Excerpt: “Judicial action is the only way to stop Obamacare, at least until January 2013, and the reason for that is that political action will be impossible, even if Republicans win both houses of Congress in the November election, because any major change to Obamacare, which is an entitlement program, and in most cases not subject to annual appropriations by the Congress, will be vetoed by President Obama,” said Sensenbrenner, former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Senators: Better Terror Screening Needed
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/65746
Ya think? Excerpt: Top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee called Tuesday for "new defenses" in the wake of the Times Square bombing attempt that would tighten the screening and tracking of travelers and money flowing between the U.S. and Pakistan. "We are facing a new kind of attacker," one which is "already here, hiding in plain sight," Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said. Feinstein and other members of the panel were briefed in private Tuesday by intelligence and law enforcement officials on the investigation into Times Square car bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and how similar cases could be prevented in the future.

National Dem Party funding Specter's ads
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/dscc_funding_specters_ads.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
The payoff. Excerpt: In a sign of just how heavily invested the Dem establishment in Washington is in protecting Arlen Specter from Dem primary challenger Joe Sestak, the national Democratic Party is pouring cash into funding Specter's TV ad campaign starring President Obama, I'm told. The ads are being funded by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, meaning national party money is being spent to prop up an incumbent who was a Republican for most of his career -- and to help him defeat a longtime Democrat. The Specter campaign has not gone out of its way to reveal this fact. The Youtube version of the Obama ad sent out yesterday to reporters featured a disclaimer at the end indicating that the ad was being funded by the Specter campaign. But a version of the ad that's actually running on at least two Pennsylvania stations -- sent my way by a Pennsylvania Democrat -- features this disclaimer: "Paid for by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee."

Why Obama Wanted Times Square Bomber to be a Lone Nut
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/65733
Excerpt: Why did the media and the Obama administration decide that this man was Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, as opposed to the radical Muslim he so clearly was? Because the media buys into President Obama’s worldview—a worldview which suggests that all crime springs from social circumstance. In order for President Obama to foist his socialist vision on the world, he must suggest that redistributionism solves social ills such as crime and terrorism. And indeed, that is exactly what Obama suggests in the introduction to his Bill Ayers-ghostwritten autobiography, “Dreams From My Father." In Obama’s mind, Islamic terrorism isn’t fundamentally Islamic—it’s fundamentally Marxist. It’s all about class struggle.

Army to Test ‘Game Changing’ Gun in Combat
http://www.military.com/news/article/army-to-test-game-changing-gun-in-combat.html
Excerpt: The Army is set to send its high-tech "counter defilade" weapon to the war zone in the next few months, the first real-world deployment for the much-anticipated XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon. Officials announced May 5 that a group of Army Special Forces Soldiers will take the weapon with them to Afghanistan sometime this summer. During live-fire demo here, Soldiers shot the Heckler & Koch-made XM-25's high-explosive rounds through the window of a simulated building, showering "enemy" mannequins inside with lethal metal fragments.

Quote
"Never forget: the same media which castigated the Bush administration for a 5% unemployment rate is now saying an increase in unemployment rate from 9.7% to 9.9% is good news, because it means more people are looking for jobs. Perhaps if the unemployment rate tops 10%, they'll be ecstatic." --columnist Arnold Ahlert. The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/