Political Digest June 19, 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.

Americans Keep Out
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/06/americans-keep-out.html
Of parts of America.

How Illinois is that?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0617-20100617,0,7953921.column
Excerpt: What could be tastier than two Democrats — President Barack Obama and former Gov. Rod Blagojevich — hanging out with the treasurer of the Republican National Committee at a Wilmette fundraiser hosted by a political fixer who would soon be in federal prison? According to testimony by businessman Joseph Aramanda (who later wrote a $10,000 campaign check to Obama), it happened in 2003 as Obama was mounting a campaign for the U.S. Senate. Obama was there. So was Gov. Dead Meat. And their buddy, the political fixer they had in common, Tony Rezko, was there, too, because it was Tony's house

Alert Issued for 17 Afghan Military Members AWOL
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/17/afghan-military-deserters-missing-air-force-base/
My first thought was drunk in a strip club—but some have been gone a long time. Doing what? Excerpt: A nationwide alert has been issued for 17 members of the Afghan military who have gone AWOL from an Air Force base in Texas where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English, FoxNews.com has learned. The Afghan officers and enlisted men have security badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations, according to the lookout bulletin, "Afghan Military Deserters in CONUS [Continental U.S.]," issued on June 11 by Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Dallas, and obtained by FoxNews.com. The Afghans were attending the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The DLI program teaches English to military pilot candidates and other air force prospects from foreign countries allied with the U.S. "I can confirm that 17 have gone missing from the Defense Language Institute," said Gary Emery, Chief of Public Affairs, 37th Training Wing, at Lackland AFB. "They disappeared over the course of the last two years, and none in the last three months." The most recent Afghan to disappear from Lackland was First Lt. Javed Aryan, who went AWOL in January 2010, Emery told FoxNews.com. The others listed in the NCIS report disappeared at various times last year.

A Mind-Changing Page by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/06/17/a_mind-changing_page
Excerpt: What is on that one page in "Out of Work" that could change people's minds? Just a simple table, giving unemployment rates for every month during the entire decade of the 1930s. Those who think that the stock market crash in October 1929 is what caused the huge unemployment rates of the 1930s will have a hard time reconciling that belief with the data in that table. Although the big stock market crash occurred in October 1929, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the next 12 months after that crash. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent, two months after the stock market crashed-- and then began drifting generally downward over the next six months, falling to 6.3 percent by June 1930. This was what happened in the market, before the federal government decided to "do something." What the government decided to do in June 1930-- against the advice of literally a thousand economists, who took out newspaper ads warning against it-- was impose higher tariffs, in order to save American jobs by reducing imported goods. This was the first massive federal intervention to rescue the economy, under President Herbert Hoover, who took pride in being the first President of the United States to intervene to try to get the economy out of an economic downturn. Within six months after this government intervention, unemployment shot up into double digits-- and stayed in double digits in every month throughout the entire remainder of the decade of the 1930s, as the Roosevelt administration expanded federal intervention far beyond what Hoover had started.

Slippery Start: U.S. Response to Spill Falters
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703627704575298851812383216.html
Excerpt: A Wall Street Journal examination of the government response, based on federal documents and interviews with White House, Coast Guard, state and local officials, reveals that confusion over what to do delayed some decision-making. There were disagreements among federal agencies and between national, state and local officials. BP said it was suspending dividend payments for much of this year and created a $20 billion fund to pay injured parties. Alan Murray and Joe White discuss. Also, Steven Gillon, a presidential historian discusses Barack Obama's leadership style in the context of other presidents who have faced serious crises. Federal officials changed their minds on key moves, sometimes more than once. Chemical dispersants to break up the oil were approved, then judged too toxic, then re-approved. The administration criticized, debated and then partially approved a proposal by Louisiana politicians to build up eroded barrier islands to keep the oil at bay.

The trillion-dollar Afghan battlefield
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_trillion_dollar_afghan_battlefield_QDmmh2KMwAV52bVvjhKgjN
Excerpt: Afghanistan just got its worst news since the Soviet invasion three decades ago: American geologists have charted as much as a trillion dollars' worth of mineral deposits in that tormented landscape. Up to now, Afghanistan's internal factions and neighbors have been fighting over worthless dirt, Allah and opium. Assigning the battlefield a trillion-dollar value is not a prescription for reconciliation. Expect "The Beverly Hillbillies" scripted by Satan. Even were Afghanistan at peace, its endemic corruption would generate a grabocracy -- a Nigeria, not a Norway. Throw in inherited hatreds and the appetites of its neighbors, and Afghanistan may end up more like eastern Congo, a playground for state-sanctioned murderers and looters. Beyond reportedly vast deposits of rare minerals (lithium, etc.) essential to popular technologies, there's copper, cobalt, iron and gold in them thar hills. Afghanistan never before offered so much to fight over. Instead of making life easier for our troops, the finds will make it harder to disengage. Washington will succumb to arguments that we need to preserve access to these strategic resources, even though it's far cheaper to buy them than to prolong a military protectorate. (US firms won't get the good contracts, anyway.)

Gunmen take aim at migrants; body discovered nearby
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2010/06/15/news/doc4c179ac816ad2516632119.txt
Going to get uglier. Excerpt: Sheriff’s deputies are investigating the shooting of an undocumented immigrant near Rio Rico, as well as the discovery of human remains in the same area. On Friday morning, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from a “concerned citizen” who had encountered a group of undocumented migrants at the intersection of West Frontage Road and Peck Canyon Drive in Rio Rico, according to dispatch records. The men initially said they had been shot at and robbed, then told deputies they had also come across two dead bodies at the southern end of Peck Canyon Drive, which is approximately 10 miles from the U.S.- Mexico border. Sheriff Antonio Estrada said that according to his department’s incident report, five undocumented migrants had crossed into the United States and were walking through a canyon around 5 a.m. on Friday when two unidentified males wearing camouflage clothing shot at them with a high-powered rifle. “The victims claimed no demands were made. They were just walking and fired upon,” said Estrada, who added that the group had not been robbed. Estrada said that when the group ran, one of the men, Manuel Esquer Gomez, 45, from Nogales, Sonora sustained a gunshot wound to the left forearm. As the group continued, the men stumbled upon skeletal remains of what they thought were two people.

Clarence Thomas in 2012: Time for Another 'Silent Cal' in the White House?
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/16/clarence-thomas-in-2012-time-for-another-silent-cal-in-the-wh/
No chance. Black conservatives like GOP women get savaged by the left for not participating in the expected groupthink. Excerpt: Two bright law bloggers with evidently way too much time on their hands suggested in The Washington Post recently that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas resign his lifetime seat on the bench to run for president as a Republican in 2012. Although I first thought the piece was a spoof on Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," I now concede it may not be such a bad idea after all. Maybe the country needs a president who has the strength to relentlessly press his own mute button.

Joe Barton, Honesty, and Shakedowns
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/06/17/joe-barton-honesty-and-shakedowns/
Politics is about perception, not honesty, Erick. Excerpt: Let’s be honest. The White House meeting with British Petroleum was a shakedown. The White House threatened criminal prosecution of BP, the President gave a miserably received speech, then he hauled BP into the White House and put the Attorney General in the room with the CEO to stare at him, then the President demanded $20 billion. It was a shakedown. Had British Petroleum affiliated with Al Qaeda and tried to blow up an airplane, it would have gotten due process rights, a court appointed lawyer, and miranda warning while avoiding Henry Waxman. But let’s continue our honesty: Who the heck cares besides Joe Barton? What planet has the man been living on? Has he not seen what BP has done and not done? He thinks we owe BP an apology? I don’t think so. [Note: Yeah, I do care that this is probably unconstitutional, but BP is a willing collaborator with Obama. They're made for each other. Barton should be apologizing to the American public, not BP — this administration continues to operate as a thugocracy.] And keeping with the honesty, let’s also admit the Congressional hearing was a show trial. The only thing separating it from a Soviet show trial is Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum walked out without any lead in him. The result, however, will be the same as a Soviet show trial: not a single thing will happen. Nothing. Why? Because while Joe Barton is mourning the shakedown on BP, Barack Obama is still the largest donor (he means recipient) of BP money in Washington. Rahm Emanuel gets a bedroom provided by BP’s pollster Stan Greenburg, who also happens to poll for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is married to a member of Congress.

Republican's oil spill gaffe hands advantage back to administration
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/103915-republicans-oil-spill-gaffe-hands-advantage-back-to-the-administration
Excerpt: A senior Republican gift-wrapped a gaffe about the oil spill and handed it to President Barack Obama on Thursday, ceding the GOP’s advantage on a disaster that has plagued the administration for weeks and called its competence into question. Democrats, who have been reeling for weeks over the unstinting disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, seized on Barton’s remarks to BP chief executive Tony Hayward and swiftly turned the news cycle into one about Republicans being buddies with Big Oil. Republican leaders, caught flat-footed, immediately distanced themselves from Barton, who told a congressional hearing that he was “ashamed” of the Obama administration’s treatment of BP.

Celebrating Genocide
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/18/celebrating-genocide/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=0b399e79ed-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Excerpt: Many are puzzled by the widespread support in European democracies of Palestinian groups and Arab states that promote genocidal anti-Semitism. After all, Palestinian and broader Arab anti-Semitism draws heavily, in its anti-Jewish propaganda, on Nazi models, and Western Europe and the European Union are supposed to be opposed to everything touching on Nazism and its genocidal policies. Hamas’s charter quotes a Hadith in which Allah declares that the Day of Judgement will not come until the Jews are all killed and even the stones and trees will assist in murdering them. The charter adds that Hamas “aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take.” Hamas employs its media, mosques and schools to convey the same message. Its schools and children’s television programming teach their young audience the necessity of killing Jews. Nevertheless, in many quarters of the European mainstream, the Hamas rulers of Gaza are besieged heroes and Israel and “the Jews” are the villains. Despite recent statements to the contrary by Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, the Palestinian Authority hardly lags behind its Islamist rivals in peddling genocidal Jew-hatred. PA media depict Jews as a cancer that must be excised and, like Hamas, insist it is a religious duty to do so. PA indoctrination includes delineations of the nature of Jews that entail virtually every hoary anti-Semitic caricature. PA leaders use their vehicles of incitement to instill in Palestinians not only commitment to annihilating Israel but also dedication to extirpating the Jews. For example, a recent official Palestinian Authority Friday sermon, broadcast on PA TV and translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), had the preacher declaring: “The Jews are the enemies of Allah and His messenger… the enemies of humanity in general… Our mutual enmity with the Jews is a matter of faith more than an issue pertaining to occupation and land… The prophet Muhammad said: ‘You will fight the Jews, and you will kill them…’”

Islamic world confidence in Obama is slipping: poll
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65G3L720100617?type=politicsNews&feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
I blame Bush. Time to step up the bowing and anti-Israel rhetoric. Excerpt: A year after President Barack Obama sought a new beginning with the Islamic world in a speech from Cairo, confidence in the U.S. leader has dropped sharply in many Muslim countries, according to surveys released on Thursday.

Female genital mutilation widespread in Iraqi Kurdistan
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/female-genital-mutilation-widespread-in-iraqi-kurdistan.html
And the Kurds are the good guys in that area, speaking relatively. Excerpt: "Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)" -- 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3

Plastic bags to be put over Birmingham 'terror cameras'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/birmingham/10337961.stm
You’re entitled to a little privacy for your honour killing or suicide bombing in the UK. Excerpt: A surveillance operation in parts of Birmingham with large Muslim populations has been halted after it was revealed the move was linked to counter terrorism. Some out of 218 cameras, mainly in the Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook districts, will be covered with bags. They were part of the Project Champion scheme, paid for from a Home Office counter terrorism fund. But officials behind the project said it would have deterred various crimes.

Jailed Veteran Gets New VA Benefits, Wants Sentence Reduced
http://www.vawatchdog.org/10/nf10/nfjun10/nf061710-1.htm
I apologize to my readers. There is so much stupidity in the world, I’m having trouble keeping up. Excerpt: Randall Moneymaker was convicted of Stolen Valor and VA benefits theft. Now he has been awarded new VA benefits and he wants out of prison.

The Road to Price Controls
http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/the-road-to-price-controls
Excerpt: Last month, the Spanish government cut what it will pay for medicines by 7.5 percent. Greece’s government reduced what it pays for drugs by up to 25 percent, prompting some companies to pull their medicines from the Greek market entirely. Even the leaders in the new British government said they might have to move away from Britain’s free pricing system for prescription medicines in favor of a scheme that pays for drugs based on how that government measures a particular medicine’s “value.” This is what happens when governments get into budget troubles and are hard-pressed to fund bloated healthcare commitments. Medical products make easy targets, since more powerful unions protect hospitals and healthcare providers. It’s inevitable here in the United States also, owing not only to our mounting budget woes, but also the shortsighted political dealings by drug makers themselves. Conventional wisdom says that U.S. pharmaceutical companies made out well under the Obama health plan by bargaining with the White House. In reality, all they did was invite the same kinds of price regulation taking root in Europe. The deal undermines the competitive pricing that supports real innovation. It will inevitably increase drug costs inside Medicare, inviting the kind of politically driven price controls that discourage investment. For good measure, the Obama health plan is full of new tools that will enable Medicare to set rules not only on prices, but the clinical criteria for accessing new medicines.

Forget the Populist Rhetoric – We All Pay for Big Government
http://townhall.com/columnists/CarrieLukas/2010/06/14/forget_the_populist_rhetoric_%E2%80%93_we_all_pay_for_big_government
Unfortunately, the vast majority of citizens are ignorant of basic economics. They don’t understand that nailing BP means that the value of BP stock and dividends in lots of pension funds goes down, hurting millions of what a BP executive not very fluent in English stupidly called “the small people” when he meant average people. people, Excerpt: Americans are frustrated with more than just Washington politicians. A recent ABC News poll found that a majority of Americans are “angry” at banks for their role in the recession and more than three-quarters feel banks should do more to “make amends.” Undoubtedly, many who blame big banks for the financial crisis like the idea of those institutions—particularly bailout recipients—paying higher taxes. Yet tempting as it may sound, Americans should be warned that collecting money from “big banks” is more difficult than one might expect. Taxes levied on business tend to find their way to costumers, workers, and anyone with a 401k. In other words, you'll be the one paying taxes that are supposed to hit Wall Street. In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a helpful analysis of this dynamic when evaluating a proposed tax on banks with assets in excess of $50 billion. The tax was supposed to bring in $90 billion over the next decade and make good on President Obama's promise that “We want our money back and we are going to get it.” Yet the CBO revealed that big banks alone wouldn't bear the burden of the tax. The CBO wrote, “The ultimate cost of a tax or fee is not necessarily borne by the entity that writes the check to the government. The cost of the proposed fee would ultimately be borne to varying degrees by an institution’s customers, employees, and investors...”

FCC votes to reconsider regulating Internet providers
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/18/fcc-votes-to-reconsider-regulating-internet-providers/#ixzz0rDKEi9Tv
Another step towards controlling political speech. Excerpt: The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to take another step toward reclassifying the way it regulates Internet service providers, releasing a plan for public comment that would give the federal agency vast new powers over companies that distribute Web access. “The FCC has an obligation to move forward with an open, constructive public comment process to ask hard questions, build a record, find a solution and resolve the uncertainty that has been created,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. The 3-2 vote comes on the heels of a unanimous April ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that said the FCC had overstepped its authority when the federal agency sanctioned Comcast for slowing some Internet traffic within its networks. The FCC has since made efforts to find new ways to regulate the industry that fall within the confines of the law.

Mohegan Sun Casino Owners Received $54 Million In Stimulus Money
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mohegan-sun-casino-owners-received-54-million-stimulus/story?id=10889408
Last of the Mohicans scalps taxpayers. Excerpt: With the support of Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., the federal government has awarded $54 million to Connecticut's politically well-connected Mohegan Indian tribe, which operates one of the highest grossing casinos in the U.S. The tribe runs the sprawling Mohegan Sun casino, halfway between New York City and Boston, which earned more than $1.3 billion in gross revenues in 2009. Each tribe member receives a cut of the profits, a number a tribal official said was "less than $30,000" per capita per year. The stimulus money is a loan from a U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development program that is meant to help communities of less than 20,000 people that have been "unable to obtain other credit at reasonable rates and terms and are unable to finance the proposed project from their own resources.”

Hamilton Police shooting video
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/vmix_cdf93fba-47ca-11df-9f5c-001cc4c002e0.html
Excerpt: Dashboard video from a January traffic stop in Hamilton that ended in gunfire. A jury ruled on April 13, 2010 that Hamilton Police Officer Ross Jessop was justified in shooting Raymond Thane Davis.

Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=an_hcY9YaJas&pos=10
Excerpt: The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history. Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.

Climategate: If The Science Is Solid, Why Stoop?
http://thegwpf.org/climategate/1094-climategate-if-the-science-is-solid-why-stoop.html
Excerpt: ...Climategate is, in my view, the greatest science scandal in my lifetime. Beyond any scientific implications are the implications of the behavior of the East Anglia scientists and their correspondents—suppressing information, denigrating those who don’t agree with them, trying to deny others access to scientific journals, questioning motives, and conniving to disfellow skeptical colleagues. These are the earmarks of zealotry. While maybe not illegal, they are most certainly unethical. Civilized people, much less scientists, just don’t do those things — but then, apparently they do. Some time ago, I published a piece about the double standard in environmental science.(1) Springing from experiences in my own specialty (soil erosion) the main message was that it was much more difficult to publish a skeptical piece or “good news” than a jeremiad. I said that I suspected that environmental zealots, acting in the usual arrogant politically correct guise, tried to suppress skeptics and even viciously discredit them when possible. But my proof was limited to mainly circumstantial evidence and the actions of a few environmental extremists; and there was no smoking gun to expose a general conspiracy to do these unethical deeds. But with Climategate, there is.

The Climate Files; The battle for the truth about global warming
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=2449
Excerpt: Yesterday evening I went to a discussion at the Royal Institution. I’ll first give the abstract of the occasion and then my motivation and conclusions. Please read what I write very carefully, because I am not commenting on the primary science – I am commenting on how the science and its conclusions are, or are not, communicated.... As a result of the presentations and the discussions within the panel it seemed to me that there was a serious lack of Openness in the Climate Research community. It is important not to judge from just one meeting but given the enormous public reporting and discussion I was disappointed to find that there were still parochial and entrenched attitudes about ownership and use of data. My superficial analysis is that the CR community has retreated into defensive mode and has not changed its communication methods or interaction with the community. This is perhaps understandable given the hostility and publicity of much of the media coverage and further comment (and UEA has put a ban on staff speaking on the issue). Such bans can recoil, as it is then easier to believe there is something to hide. It may be difficult, but it seems essential to radically overhaul the governance and communication. On more than one occasion the panel asserted that Climate data should only be analysed by experts and that releasing it more generally would lead to serious misinterpretations. It was also clear that on occasions data had been requested and refused. The reason appeared to be that these requests were not from established climate “experts”. This had led to the Freedom Of Information Act (FOI) being used to request Scientific Data from the unit. This had reached such a degree of polarisation that of over 100 requests only 10 had resulted in information being released by the University. I had no idea that this “FOI battle” had been going on for several years and that nothing had been done to try to solve the problem. This in itself should have been a signal that change was necessary – however inconvenient.

S.C. Democrats refuse to oust Alvin Greene as Senate nominee
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/sc-democrats-refuse-to-oust-al.html
Excerpt: Members of the South Carolina Democratic Party's executive committee voted overwhelmingly tonight against holding a new Senate primary, upholding last week's controversial win by unemployed veteran Alvin Greene (D) over former state Rep. Vic Rawl (D). Rawl, who lost to Greene 59 percent to 41 percent, had brought his case before the committee tonight, but the 61 members present rejected his protest by a five-to-one margin.

Secretary Clinton says DOJ will Challenge Arizona Immigration Law
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/06/secretary-clinton-says-doj-will-challenge-arizona-immigration-law-.html?om_rid=Mqh-D0&om_mid=_BMG2mmB8Lr6796&
Excerpt: Recent comments from a June 8th interview that Secretary of state Hillary Clinton gave to a TV station in Ecuador are getting fresh attention in the debate of over Arizona’s controversial immigration law. In the interview Clinton noted that that the Justice Department will be challenging the Controversial immigration law in court but the Department says they are still reviewing the law. According to a transcript Clinton told the interviewer on station NTN 24 “President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.”

A Counterterrorism Ally in North Africa
http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/14/morocco-islam-counterterrorism-opinions-columnists-ilan-berman.html
Excerpt: Still, the Moroccan experiment is enormously significant. After all, as Mideast scholar Michael Scott Doran wrote in Foreign Affairs back in 2002, the struggle against radical Islam is nothing quite so much as "someone else's civil war" — an internal contest between differing interpretations of the Muslim faith. The West may not have much of a voice in this competition, but that doesn't mean it does not have a stake in its outcome. America desperately needs allies that are willing and able to promote moderate interpretations of Islam at the expense of more extreme ones. In Morocco, it is fortunate to have found one.

Crude-Sucking Barges Stopped by Coast Guard
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379
Excerpt: Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor's wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore. "It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. "Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges." Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk. "These barges work. You've seen them work. You've seen them suck oil out of the water," said Jindal. So why stop now? "The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"

Toy soldiers run afoul of school's weapons ban
http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/06/toy_soldiers_run_afoul_of_scho.html
Politically Correct Assholes (PCAs). Sorry for the language, but it makes me nuts. Excerpt: Christan Morales said her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.
But the school banned the hat because it ran afoul of the district's zero-tolerance weapons policy. Why? The toy soldiers were carrying tiny guns.

Remains of World War II MIAs Identified
http://www.gnn.com/article/remains-of-world-war-ii-mias-identified/1122746
But you couldn’t put a statue of them holding guns on school property. Excerpt: A private researcher who has labored for years to identify the remains of U.S. service members declared missing in action during World War II says he has matched seven MIAs with the remains of unknowns, and he expects to match as many as 19 more within a week. Ted Darcy's list of five Marines and two sailors missing since the 1944 Battle of Saipan may not sound long. But his announcement Tuesday -- the 66th anniversary of the battle's opening day — was remarkable, considering the military's average of confirming 72 such matches annually from all U.S. wars. Darcy, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant from Fall River, Mass., has helped bring home three World War II MIAs since 1991 from burial sites in the Philippines, Hawaii and Newport, R.I. Now he is accelerating his work using computerized databases filled with information he painstakingly entered from two sets of government documents: those containing physical descriptions of MIAs and those containing autopsies of slain service members buried as unknowns. He hands over his findings to the military, which then tries to verify his work.

Utah firing squad executes convicted killer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100618/ap_on_re_us/us_utah_firing_squad
Excerpt: A death row inmate who had used a gun to fatally shoot two men suffered the same fate Friday morning as he was executed by a team of marksmen — the first time Utah used the firing squad to carry out a death sentence in 14 years. A barrage of bullets tore into Ronnie Lee Gardner's chest where a target was pinned over his heart. Two minutes later an ashen Gardner, blood pooling in his dark blue jumpsuit, was pronounced dead at 12:17 a.m.

Who told Obama drilling is 'absolutely safe'?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Who-told-Obama-drilling-is-_absolutely-safe__-96603724.html
Just a CYA lie that’s hard to prove but sounds good, not unlike his lies about his parents meeting because of Selma (he was 4) or meeting his wife in class (he didn’t). And he knows the media won’t call him on it. Excerpt: There was one particularly striking moment in President Obama's widely panned Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil disaster. About midway through his talk, Obama acknowledged that he had approved new offshore drilling a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20. But Obama said he had done so only "under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe." Absolutely safe? Even before the Gulf spill, few defenders of offshore drilling would go that far. And when the president announced his drilling plan, on March 31, he said it was "not a decision that I've made lightly" and that he and his advisers had "looked at [it] closely for more than a year." Surely he was told of the possible risks. "If you can find anything that's absolutely safe, I sure want to find out about it," says Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "There is no engineering system that I am aware of that has zero likelihood of failure." "We can never be absolutely safe," adds Ken Arnold, an independent consultant to the oil and gas industry. "The only way you can be absolutely certain of being absolutely safe is to shut down all production and all drilling from offshore today." So how did the president get the idea that new offshore drilling would be absolutely safe? Obama has often said he relies on a "green team" for advice on energy and environmental decisions. The top three members of the team are the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Did Browner, or Salazar or Chu assure the president that new offshore drilling would be "absolutely safe"?

Quietly revising the 2012 Democratic nomination process
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/06/17/quietly-revising-the-2012-democratic-nomination-process/
The fix is in. Again. Excerpt: A good number of people – on both sides of the spectrum – are allowing themselves to speculate on the previously-unthinkable scenario that possibly, just possibly, the President might be successfully challenged in the primaries in 2012. This is America, right? People come out of nowhere to win elections all the time. Why, look at President Obama! He did precisely that in 2008. Yes. That’s why he’s redesigned the system to keep it from happening in 2012.

Obama and the Rising Mob Against Israel
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/obama_and_the_rising_mob_again.html
Excerpt: Iran, Lebanon, and Islamist Turkey have just announced new flotillas to break the Gaza blockade. If they succeed, it will not stop with Gaza. The conquest of Jerusalem and rest of Israel is the target. That is why Ahmadinejad has trained all his life in the "Al-Quds" (Jerusalem) Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the shock suicide brigade for reconquering Jerusalem. That is why the Hamas flag shows a green Islamic Jerusalem. It is why Kofi Annan at the U.N. proudly posed in front of a map of the Middle East with Israel erased. Mob psychology has now been loosed upon the world again -- in the European media, the U.N., and the Middle East, all of them against the common scapegoat of Israel. Lynch mobs have a psychology. They need agitators to whip up popular rage against their victims -- like the "community organizers" in Chicago, who once upon a time used to proudly call themselves communist "agitators." But agitators need followers, who do the actual work of running riot, killing, raping, and burning their helpless scapegoats in their homes and businesses. Think ACORN and the Black Panthers. Finally, mobs need enablers, the authority figures -- the cops, military, and politicos who give the signal that it's now okay to run riot and kill the helpless victims of the moment. Political authorities usually try to control incipient mobs, because their power depends on keeping order. But in Russia and the Dixiecrat South, politicians and cops commonly withdrew their protection at critical moments and signaled the mobs when it was okay to run riot against victim groups like the Jews or the blacks. It happens all over the world, and the race, ethnicity, religion, or wealth of the victims makes no difference. A group label is enough. Barack Hussein Obama is now playing the biggest role in the mob psychology of the Middle East.

Soldier killed in reserve center shooting
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/06/ap_army_gillem_shooting_061710/
What’s up with this? Excerpt: An Army reservist was shot to death and another was in custody Thursday at a post south of Atlanta that is a gathering place for area reserve units. Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio said the victim died at the Army Reserve Center located on Fort Gillem. He could not offer specifics about the shooting that happened between 4:30 and 5 p.m.