Political Digest June 12, 2010

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

Dennis Miller Radio Show
They’ve asked me to call in on Tuesday, June 15, at about 11:30 am CDT, to talk about “I’m Tired.” My agent is considering….

Blog Down—Incoming Marine
Having some computer problems (blue screen of death), but more importantly, a Marine buddy, the Count, is coming to town. We became friends in late 1964 or, more likely, January, 1965, when I was drawn to his folk singing and guitar playing in the squad bay. Yes, there are conservative folk singers. He used to have a paining of a Peace Symbol on his guitar, turned sideways and embellished to look like a B-52 on an Arc Light mission.

We are in frequent touch, but I haven’t seen him in about 20 years. We went through electronics school in San Diego in 1965, and were together on my last trip that year to Tijuana. I spent that night as a guest of the Navy Shore Patrol in San Diego, my one night in jail (so far)—not that I recall much of it, as alcohol may have been involved. I was 19. Count avoided capture. My CO restricted me to base for two weeks and from the Republic of Mexico permanently, but didn’t put a gig in my record book.

When President Johnson committed ground troops to Vietnam in the Spring of 1965, the Count and I went to our OIC and asked to transfer from electronics school to the infantry and be shipped to the war. He thanked us for our gung ho attitude, told us the Marines needed us to learn about radios and sent us back to our duties, thus doubtless saving us from our own naiveté, though we both eventually served in country.

Count is now retired and frequently feeds me blog items (already formatted in my blog’s style!) and some commentary you’ve seen signed “Ron P.” We will be consuming adult beverages and telling lies, but are a tad old and married to chase wild women anymore, especially with me hauling an oxygen tank behind me these days. I will begin posting again when the Shore Patrol brings me home, probably about next Wednesday.

Flag Day
Monday, June 14, 2010. That would be to honor the American Flag, except for some California High Schools where it’s considered offensive.

Important: Losing Turkey
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/11/losing-turkey/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=57da059151-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Excerpt: The most significant outcome of the Mavi Marmara incident is that there can no longer be any doubt that Turkey has joined the anti-Western bloc that includes Hamas, Iran and Syria. The Muslim country was once devotedly secular, an ally of Israel, and remains a member of NATO, but under the direction of Prime Minister Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (often referred to as the AKP), Turkey has gone in the completely opposite direction with enormous strategic consequences. “Unfortunately, the AKP government of Mr. Erdogan and the oil-rich regime of Qatar joined the regional bloc opposing the more traditional governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco,” Dr. Walid Phares told FrontPage. Erdogan’s turn to the other side is not the result of a single incident such as Operation Cast Lead or the Israeli raid on the flotilla, but is the culmination of an agenda long held by Erdogan and the AKP. “In fact, it is not secular Turkey that we see moving against the U.S., West, Israel and Arab moderates. It is the AKP Islamist cabinet which is uncovering its long-term ideological agenda. The West should have projected this since 2002,” Dr. Phares said, referring to the year in which Erdogan’s party won a majority in the Turkish parliament. Erdogan was imprisoned in 1998 for his involvement with the banned Welfare Party, which the Turkish government considered Islamist. Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy describes the Welfare Party as the “motherboard of Turkish Islamists since the 1980s,” saying it was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan was specifically punished for reading a poem at one speech with the lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.”

The Double Dip Recession
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/11/the-double-dip-recession/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=57da059151-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Excerpt: The drop in the stock market (now about 1,000 points on the Dow) is a graphic indication of the stark fact that we are entering the infamous double dip of the recession, long feared and predicted. The economy is not in a V after all (down and then up) but in a W (down, up, down again and then, finally, up). And the cause of the second dip is not the recession itself, but the cure administered to it by President Obama and the Democratic Congress. Consider the indications (data provided by New America Foundation, analysis by Sherle R. Schwanninger and Samuel Sherraden):

Israel’s Right to Blockade
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/11/israels-right-to-blockade/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=57da059151-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Excerpt: Does Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and its enforcement of the blockade comply with international law? The evidence suggests that the answer is an overwhelming yes: The 1909 Declaration Concerning the Laws of Naval War (the London Declaration), the first international instrument to acknowledge the legality of blockades, specifically recognized the right of nations to blockade their enemy. So does the San Remo Manual, which is a compilation by international law experts of agreed upon international law on blockades and related subjects. The blockade must be declared against a belligerent, and notified to all belligerents and neutral states (Article 93). The declaration must specify the commencement, duration, location, and extent of the blockade and the period within which vessels of neutral States may leave the blockaded coastline (Article 94). The blockade may be enforced and maintained by a combination of legitimate methods and means of warfare provided this combination does not result in acts inconsistent with the rules set out in the San Remo Manual (Article 97).

Iran and the 'Freedom Recession'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296502638266526.html?mod=djemITP_h
Excerpt: Three decades ago, before his final flight to exile, the Shah of Iran had drawn a line: He would not fire on his people. He was a king, he said, and not a dictator. The army had not yet cracked; there were loyalists keen to make a stand against the revolutionary upheaval. But the man at the center of the storm had boarded a plane, with his immediate family, in search of a country that would have him. It's impossible to fathom such a principled retreat by today's "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his vast apparatus of repression and terror. If anything, a year after the fraudulent election last June 12, the theocracy is entrenched and the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, the regime's murderous paramilitaries, man a political order bereft of mercy and restraint. Iran was not fated to have its "velvet revolution." The Green movement that challenged the ruling apparatus has not been able to carry the day.

Senators: Kagan memos 'troubling'
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/102531-kyl-sessions-call-kagan-memos-troubling
Excerpt: Kyl and Sessions pointed to six categories of cases in which Kagan used phrases like “I think” and “I believe,” as well as cases in which she recommended against a case being accepted by the Supreme Court despite facts that were still in dispute. “The problem with these bench memos is that they reveal, time and time again, an effort to reach a certain result in the case,” Kyl said. “The point here is that if you’re using your position on the United States Supreme Court to advance a result rather than to decide a case between Party A and Party B, it seems to me it gives some indication as to what you would do as a Supreme Court justice.”

Prune and Grow
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11brooks.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1276264809-ZKXm96S/auVuR6vVFhcLXw
Excerpt: The president’s economists ran the numbers through their model and predicted that the stimulus package would create or save at least three million jobs. John F. Cogan and John B. Taylor of Stanford and Tobias Cwik and Volker Wieland of the Goethe-University of Frankfurt argue that the White House methodology is archaic. Their model suggests the stimulus will create about a half-million jobs. Edward L. Glaeser of Harvard compared the change in employment in each state to the amount of stimulus money it has received. He found a slight relationship between stimulus dollars and job creation, but none at all if you set aside three states: Alaska and the Dakotas. Over all, most economists seem to think the stimulus was a good idea, but there’s a general acknowledgment that we know relatively little about the relationship between fiscal policy and job creation. We are left, as Glaeser put it on The Times’s Economix blog, “wading in ignorance.”

'We Are Totally Unprepared' --Nine years after 9/11, a chilling complacency about WMD attacks.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575299082391565318.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
Excerpt: The most important overlooked story of the past few weeks was overlooked because it was not surprising. Also because no one really wants to notice it. The weight of 9/11 and all its implications is so much on our minds that it's never on our mind. I speak of the report from the Inspector General of the Justice Department, issued in late May, saying the department is not prepared to ensure public safety in the days or weeks after a terrorist attack in which nuclear, biological or chemical weapons are used. The Department of Homeland Security is designated as first federal responder, in a way, in the event of a WMD attack, but every agency in government has a formal, assigned role, and the crucial job of Justice is to manage and coordinate law enforcement and step in if state and local authorities are overwhelmed. (Indeed. For my take, see: The Next Terrorist attack on America http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2009/09/essay-next-terrorist-attack-on-america.html Includes my 1998 column predicting 9/11)

Prize Money
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/26/prize_money
Just one more way the world lives off “The Great Satan,” and will suffer after the collapse. Excerpt: A recent study by three Greek researchers examined Nobel Prize-winning research in medicine, physics, and chemistry from 2000 to 2008 and found that the United States -- via the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, among other government bodies -- funds a large amount of the highest-quality scientific work, much more than all other countries combined. U.S. NGOs, such as the American Cancer Society, underwrote much of the research as well. Meanwhile, though industries fund more than half of U.S. biomedical research, their projects accounted for only about 1 percent of Nobel winners' work over the period studied. In fact, even when non-U.S. researchers won Nobels, they were often funded by U.S. sources -- suggesting the United States' grip on groundbreaking research is not loosening as fast as some might suggest.

Keep the Faith: Christian Health-Sharing Plans
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1992385,00.html
Excerpt: But James, the sole breadwinner for his Peoria, Ill., family, didn't lose sleep over the cost of his wife's procedure and hospital stay. The Lansberrys belong to what is called a health-sharing ministry, an organization whose Christian members pay one another's medical costs. Within a few weeks of Theresa's appendectomy, the family received checks (and get-well cards) from more than 100 people in 21 states, covering the medical costs and offering prayers for her recovery. "We didn't worry about the bills," says James. "God took care of us." (This is un-American—they are supposed to let the government take care of them.)

Swat Stats: Police Transparency
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19451&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Excerpt: On average, there were 4.5 SWAT raids per day in Maryland in the last six months of 2009, including about one per day in Prince George's County, where Calvo lives. According to an analysis in the Baltimore Sun, 94 percent of the state's SWAT deployments were related to search or arrest warrants, leaving just 6 percent for barricades, bank robberies, hostage takings and the other sorts of emergencies for which SWAT teams were originally intended. In Prince George's County, where officials still refuse to admit any mistakes in the Calvo raid, more than half the SWAT deployments were for misdemeanors and what the FBI calls "nonserious felonies," generally meaning minor drug crimes.

Senate outlook improves (slightly) for Democrats
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/the-line/senate-outlook-improves-slight.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: A series of developments over the last month (or so) have brightened Democrats' hopes in a handful of Senate races -- although the overall national landscape suggests the party is still headed toward losses in the fall. Recent Republican primaries have been good to Democrats. Victories by tea party backed candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky mean those seats, once considered off the radar, are now back in play. In the Pennsylvania primary, Democrats won by losing. Sen. Arlen Specter (D) was a terrible profile for Democrats to try to hold the seat in the fall -- a long serving politician who had openly admitted to switching parties to preserve his chances at re-election. Rep. Joe Sestak, who ousted Specter on May 18, has a considerably better profile as a short timer in Congress -- he was first elected in 2006 -- with a deep military resume and strong outsider credentials. Then there's Illinois, where Rep. Mark Kirk (R) continues to struggle to explain inconsistencies between his military resume and his military accomplishments. Prior to Kirk's resume problems, the race had been dominated (and not in a good way) by state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (D) and his family's failed bank. Now, Kirk has provided Democrats with plenty of ammunition to muddy the ethics waters.

Ambushed Palmetto Bay Man Tells Survival Story
http://cbs4.com/local/Palmetto.Bay.shooting.2.1729133.html
Excerpt: "They told me 'give it up,' but they didn't give me a chance. They just shot," Lee said as he lay sedated in his Ryder Trauma Center bed with bandages covering his abdomen, left arm and left hand. Lee was set upon as he got out of his car at the Royal Coast apartment complex where he lives shortly after midnight Tuesday morning. Lee said the bandits gave him no opportunity to comply with their demands before two of them started shooting. "The first bullet caught me in the hand and spun me around," Lee said. "I reached for it. I started firing my gun. I must have gotten hit a couple more times, but I didn't feel it at the time. I just started firing back, and the guys ran off." Lee said he was concerned for his wounded arm and hand, unaware that two slugs had hit him in the gut. "I looked down at my shirt and I saw blood spewing everywhere. I took off my shirt and that's when I knew I was hit." Lee, a father of four and a supervisor at Sam's Club where he has worked for ten years, got a permit to carry a concealed weapon several years ago. "It's rough out there. You never know. So I decided to get my concealed weapon permit, hoping I'd never have to use it." Lee says he drew his gun, a Glock semi-automatic pistol, only after the robbers started shooting. He's convinced the attackers, who made no attempt to conceal their faces, would have killed him had he not been armed.

Worth Reading: The Secret of America
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/the_secret_of_america.html
Excerpt: America is not a plot of land. It is not a culture. It is not a nationality. It is not a set of traditions or customs. It is not a government. It is not a people. It is not a book of laws. And it certainly isn't a race. America is an idea. That's why anyone can become an American. Embrace the idea (and fill out a few forms) and you're an American. You're one of us. Most other nations are nationalities. Their heritage depends on blood and territory. America is portable. We carry it around in our hearts and minds. If you bomb our cities, you can't destroy America. If you ruin our economy, you can't destroy America. If most of the continent falls into the ocean, you can't destroy America. Even if you kill most of us, you can't destroy America. Because wherever two or more of us are gathered in her name...America is there. Here is the secret: We don't live in America. America lives in us. America is an idea.

Iran and the 'Freedom Recession'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296502638266526.html?mod=djemITP_h
Excerpt: Three decades ago, before his final flight to exile, the Shah of Iran had drawn a line: He would not fire on his people. He was a king, he said, and not a dictator. The army had not yet cracked; there were loyalists keen to make a stand against the revolutionary upheaval. But the man at the center of the storm had boarded a plane, with his immediate family, in search of a country that would have him. It's impossible to fathom such a principled retreat by today's "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his vast apparatus of repression and terror. If anything, a year after the fraudulent election last June 12, the theocracy is entrenched and the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, the regime's murderous paramilitaries, man a political order bereft of mercy and restraint. Iran was not fated to have its "velvet revolution." The Green movement that challenged the ruling apparatus has not been able to carry the day. Those expecting a quick deliverance for the people of Iran never fully took in the power of the regime and its instruments of repression. This wasn't Leipzig and Budapest and Warsaw and Berlin in 1989 when the Communist despotisms gave way; this was China after Tiananmen Square. In retrospect, it could be said that the first Islamic Republic (1979-2009) had fallen, and that a second republic, more cruel and unapologetic in its exercise of power, had risen. It wasn't pretty that first republic, but it had pretensions to a measure of pluralism and it gave some sustenance to those in Europe and in American liberal circles who believed that the Iranian revolution was making its way to an accommodation with the international order of states.

New Yorker in London gets prison for al-Qaida help
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TERRORISM_EXTRADITION?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Didn’t get the memo. Thinks terrorist he helped are noble. Excerpt: Before sentencing, a tearful Hashmi apologized to his family in a rambling statement rife with references to Allah and Islam. He said his faith had compelled him to help fellow Muslims like the operative, who later cooperated with the government. The cooperator, Mohammed Junaid Babar, of Queens, admitted in 2004 that he had traveled to the province of Waziristan to supply cash and military equipment to the terror network. "Yes, I was wrong in helping my brothers in the noble mujahideen, but they will remain in my heart," he said in a courtroom packed with supporters.

Saudi convicts young man for kissing woman in mall
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQfLd3A7n_BRCoHCMNbysB6GjVPwD9G8DUG00
Could be worse. In brutal Arizona, they would have asked him for his driver’s license, the fiends! Excerpt: A Saudi court has convicted a man and sentenced him to four months in prison and 90 lashes for kissing a woman in a mall.

Rumors of a Coup
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/rumors_of_a_coup.htm
Excerpt: We've been hearing a lot of comments recently about a national coup d'etat scheduled for sometime in late summer or early fall and designed to circumvent the coming Democrat debacle in the 2010 elections. This is an example of political gothic of a type that I tend to overlook. But my interest was piqued by the fact that it has been mentioned several dozen times in the comment threads of essays of mine in recent weeks. I've had a little difficulty grasping exactly how such a thing would work, so I've spent the last few days puzzling it out. The contention is that at some point before the upcoming November elections, an "incident" of some violent but unknown nature will occur that will provide Obama with the opportunity to declare "martial law" across the country, which will involve the "cancellation" or "postponement" of the elections. This will enable the Obama dictatorship to take off its humanist mask and put its true agenda into play, part of which involves sending JRD up to Prudhoe Bay to feed moss to the caribou for the next ten years.

Nice blog comment
TartanMarine: You always to manage to find the stories I WANT to read...amazing. (hate to see your coffee bill from staying up to GET these stories...LOL) Anyway, keep on doing what you doing...it IS appreciated by many. Have yourself a great weekend. Carry On.

After primary wins, Left focuses on Palin’s breasts
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/after-primary-wins-left-focuses-on-palins-breasts-96064664.html
Sexist scum. Of course, in 2008, leftist blogs were hoping Palin would be raped. Excerpt: One day after formidable conservative women candidates backed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin won their primaries, the “feminists” at Wonkette were … ogling her breasts: “Did Sarah Palin Buy Herself a Couple of Luxury Items?” Wonkette asked. The implication that the mother of five got breast implants was based on three photos of Palin, one in which she was wearing a T-shirt and two in which she was wearing a jacket. Based on the photos, “at least two people with experience in having breasts say that Sarah Palin sure looks like she was trotting out some new work at the horse races on Sunday.”

ACORN employees tell FBI of deliberate election fraud, according to new documents
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=15396
Only surprise is it coming out. Excerpt: The radical activist group ACORN “works” for the Democratic Party and deliberately promotes election fraud, ACORN employees told FBI investigators, according to an FBI document dump Wednesday. The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, are FBI investigators’ reports related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Mo., workers from ACORN’s Project Vote affiliate for violation of election laws. All eight employees involved in the scandal later pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.

In South Carolina, Greene is mystery man despite winning Democratic Senate nod
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061002499.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
I think the Democrats are picking on this guy because he’s black, the racist bums! Okay, I don’t really think that, but that’s they kind of thing Democrats say whenever a Republican raises questions about a minority person. This is one weird story. The Democrats suggest Republicans put him in. If they did, really stupid, because it will come out. But even if they did, how did they get 60% of the Democrats to vote for him, with no one spending any money on his campaign. Maybe he just filed on a lark, and lightening struck. Seems doubtful, but so do other possibilities.