Political Digest June 3, 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.

E-mail courtesy and techniques
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/06/e-mail-courtesy-and-techniques.html
I hope this will save all of us time and make you more popular! I will not have time to open a lot of the e-mail in my in box today.

Nobel Peace Prize
Now wee know why Obama won—he spreads oil on troubled waters!

Palin issues forceful statement in support of Israel
http://www.examiner.com/x-37620-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m6d1-Palin-issues-forceful-statement-in-support-of-Israel
Excerpt: The media, as usual, seems to be reporting only one side of the Israeli Flotilla incident. Don't trust the mainstream media to give you both sides of a story fairly... you must seek out fair reporting to ensure you have all the information. As far too many in the media, and in various governments, rush to condemn Israel, we must put the recent events off Israel’s coast into the right perspective. This “relief” convoy was not about humanitarian aid, as the liberal mainstream media keeps reporting. The whole operation was designed to provoke Israel, not to provide supplies to Palestinians held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Anyone who sees the video of Israeli commandos being attacked as they land on that ship knows the people aboard were vicious thugs, not “peace activists.” The media insults our intelligence with their outright mischaracterization of who these enemies are. Israel delivers thousands of tons of humanitarian supplies every week to Gaza. These ships could have offloaded their cargoes at a nearby Israeli port if they really wanted to help the people of Gaza. Instead, they chose to incite confrontation and violence. Israel has a right to prevent arms shipments to Gaza that will be used to target innocent Israelis, so they were legitimately checking the cargo on the flotilla.

Letter to the Editor
I wrote the Chicago Tribune about this incident. Makes me crazy when the media says Israel attached the boat. Israel boarded the boat to inspect, and the “activists” attacked them. Here’s what I wrote: Imagine that your next door neighbor has sworn to murder you and your family, and to take over your house. Almost every day, he fires random shots at your home, and members of your family have been wounded and killed. One is held as a hostage in his house. There are no police to help and the authorities pass resolutions condemning you, not him. But you regularly give him food, both because you don’t want his kids to starve (he’s unemployed), and because the other neighbors are on his side, and you don’t want them angrier at you. A more distant neighbor announces that he is going to give some food to the neighbor shooting at you. You ask him to drop it off with you, and if it’s just food, not ammo and weapons, you’ll deliver it with the rest of the food you give your violent neighbor. He refuses, and tells you when he is coming. You know if you allow un-inspected deliveries to your neighbor, the other neighbors who want you dead will send in bigger guns and ammo for him to shoot at your family. You stop the car with the delivery, and the passengers attack you. You fight back, and the entire community, most of whom want you dead, condemn you for your “aggression.” That is Israel’s position.

Gaza Flotilla Raid: Israel Sends a Message
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/israel-shows-its-claws/
Excerpt: In normal times it would have been better to turn away the Hamas blockade-running flotilla using tear gas, high-decibel rock music, warning shots, and public ridicule. These are not ordinary times, and I believe Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to send a clear and unmistakable signal to Israel’s most dangerous enemies, Iran and Syria. A few days ago we heard a public leak that Israel’s three diesel submarines, armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, are being stationed on permanent rotation in the Gulf, right off the coast of Iran. It was a serious check-mate move. In the nature of the hysterically biased leftist media in Europe and America, we will not know the truth about the events that led Israeli commandos to open fire on the Gaza activists who were diverted to the port of Ashdod. Hamas apparently mixed gunmen with self-proclaimed peace activists, civilians, and babies to provoke a violent reaction. The Israelis made a deliberate decision to respond with force.

Isolated Israel Begins to Deport Activists, But Stands Firm on Need for Blockade
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66924
Excerpt: As its isolation at the United Nations deepened, Israel’s government on Tuesday ordered the speedy deportation of all foreign activists who were on ships trying to break the Gaza Strip blockade, and trucked the ships’ cargoes to the Hamas-ruled territory. At the same time, the Israeli Navy was mulling its response to yet another ship of activists attempting to reach Gaza, days after a six-vessel flotilla was boarded in international waters. On one of the ships, nine people were killed Monday after soldiers were confronted by what Israel describes as a waiting “lynch mob.” “They were attacked with clubs, with knives, perhaps with live gunfire, and they had to defend themselves – they were going to be killed,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday. “Israel will not allow its soldiers to be lynched and neither would any other self-respecting country.”

IDF: Global Jihad links on flotilla
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/02/idf-global-jihad-links-on-flotilla/#ixzz0piDN5dA7
Excerpt: Dozens of passengers who were aboard the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship are suspected of having connections with global jihad-affiliated terrorist organizations, defense officials said on Tuesday, amid growing concerns that Turkish warships would accompany a future flotilla to the Gaza Strip. According to the defense officials, the IDF has identified about 50 passengers on the ship who could have terrorist connections with global jihad-affiliated groups. During its searches of the Mavi Marmara on Tuesday, the military also discovered a cache of bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles, as well as gas masks. On Monday morning, at least nine foreign activists were killed during the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which was trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

How should Western intellectuals respond to Muslim scholars?
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/06/07/100607crat_atlarge_mishra
I suppose having your genitals mutilated on the kitchen table, sans anesthesia, when you are five, or having your friend murdered for making a film with you about the oppression of women, might make you biased a tad. Excerpt: Was the prophet Muhammad a pervert and a tyrant? Does Islam promote terrorism and enslave women? Does Islam oblige its followers to wage jihad on Westerners whose roots lie in the secular Enlightenment? Should Muslims consider converting to Christianity? For the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the answer to all these questions is a resounding “Yes!” Hirsi Ali, who renounced Islam in her thirties, speaks from experience of bigotry and intolerance among her former co-religionists: she was genitally mutilated as a child in Somalia, briefly radicalized by a preacher of jihad in Kenya, nearly forced into a marriage, threatened with death in the Netherlands by the Muslim assassin of her collaborator, the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and is still hounded by murderous fanatics in her new home, America. In her latest book, “Nomad: From Islam to America” (Free Press; $27), she reminds her readers of the West’s tradition of intellectual revolt against clerical tyranny and warns of the insidious, intransigent enemies in their midst. “The Muslim mind today seems to be in the grip of jihad,” she writes.

What To Do About the Gaza Incident?
http://blogsforvictory.com/2010/06/01/what-to-do-about-the-gaza-incident/
The world shrieks in horror over it – mostly because condemning Israel costs nothing and can buy some cheap headlines. Here is my view: It was clearly a provocation from start to finish. Why? 1. If you want to bring aid to Gaza, Israel has a regular channel for you do to that – pour it in…but the Israelis would like to check and make sure you aren’t also bringing in rocket parts. 2. Gaza is sealed off on the Egyptian side of the border, too. Why wasn’t there a convoy of trucks heading across the Sinai towards Gaza? 3. Why have anyone on the boat except for people absolutely vital to deliver the aid? This wasn’t a pleasure cruise. The Islamists got what they wanted – people dead at the hands of the IDF. But the responsibility for the deaths must be placed where it belongs – in Islam, not in Israel. The bottom line for me is this – until there is a church and a synagogue operating openly in Mecca, the Moslem world’s pleas will fall on deaf ears with me. In other words, until I’m no longer considered filth unworthy to be in Islam’s holy city, all Moslem claims about being treated justly and such are just so much nonsense spread about to advance a particular, political agenda.

Victims of Illegal Immigrants
http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp
Scroll through this list. You might be on it soon. Excerpt: Schanna Gayden, 13… Mwenda Murithi, 26 & Tony Serrano, 19. Mwenda Murithi and Tony Serrano, illegal aliens, have been arrested in the murder of 13 year-old Schanna Gayden who died on a playground in the sanctuary city of Chicago. Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline reportedly stated that Serrano confessed to the shooting ordered by Murithi. Murithi and Serrano have been charged with one count each of first-degree murder.

Greenhouse emissions lawsuit dismissed
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/greenhouse-emissions-lawsuit-dismissed/#more-20116
Convoluted, but apparently a victory against the warmists attempts to impose their religion on us to the destruction of our economy and the enrichment of their high priests. Excerpt: On May 28, 2010, in a startling decision in perhaps the most important and certainly the most topsy-turvy climate change tort case against the utility, chemical, and oil and gas industry, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed industry a victory by dismissing the appeal in Comer v. Murphy Oil. The decision follows a complex procedural path: a favorable district court decision for industry dismissing the case, a decision of a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit handing the plaintiffs a victory by reversing that dismissal, and an order of the full court en banc vacating that reversal and ordering further briefing and oral argument before the full court. In April, however, the Court lost its quorum to decide the case after a last-minute recusal by an eighth judge on the 16-judge court created uncertainty on whether the Court could consider the appeal further. Last Friday, the Court resolved that uncertainty by ruling the vacatur of the three-judge panel decision remains in place, but the loss of the quorum left the Court with no choice but to dismiss the appeal. The continued vacatur of three-judge panel’s decision is the remarkable win for industry. It means the district court’s decision—which held that property owners did not have standing to sue for climate change and that climate change was a “political question” for Congress—stands as good law. For now, in the Fifth Circuit at least, property owners are not permitted to seek state-law tort damages for industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.

We Should Watch the Royal Society Very Carefully
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/1039-we-should-watch-the-royal-society-very-carefully.html
Excerpt: Disquiet led forty-three fellows of the Society to demand that the governing council should conduct a review in order to establish what is widely agreed on climate science, and what is not fully understood. At the heart of the rebel’s concerns is lack of objectivity about uncertainties and derogatory remarks about climate sceptics. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of what is happening. The Royal Society occupies a very special place in the scientific firmament, not just in the UK, but worldwide. The impact of its very partisan outpourings about climate change is thought to have been crucial not only to the last government’s decision to put global warming at the top of the political agenda, but also in persuading national academies of science almost everywhere to throw their weight behind the warmist cause. The ructions behind the grand facade of 6-9, Carlton House Terrace will be watched closely by scientists everywhere, and there can be little doubt that if fellows of he Royal Society are prepared to stick there heads above the parapet, then others will follow their lead.

Military Mysteriously Cuts Short Top War Correspondent's Time in Afghanistan
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37236
I made a small contribution to support Yon, as I found he sent stuff from up front the Leftstream media MISSED—OR IGNORED. Excerpt: The military has cut short a war correspondent's embed, and there may be evidence that the decision may have been part of a smear campaign against the writer. Michael Yon, a former Green Beret, has been covering Iraq and Afghanistan for six years. He has also covered conflicts in Thailand, the Philippines, and Nepal. Following a string of events covered by Yon that cast a negative light on two top NATO commanders, the military decided to terminate Yon's embed prematurely, citing reasons that didn't add up. ISAF's reason for disembedding Yon was “embed overcrowding.” Yet in an email to Admiral Gregory J. Smith, an ISAF public affairs officer, Yon wrote, “I rarely see journalists. Those journalists I see have been doing drive-by reporting.” Yon states that he has forwarded to his attorney “compelling evidence” of a smear campaign perpetrated by members of Gen. McChrystal's staff. He says that the general's staff have released official statements that are “defamatory and libelous.”

East St. Louis Police Officer Sentenced on Civil Rights Conviction
http://springfield.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/si060110.htm?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
I am not conversant on the facts, so I do not have an informed opinion on this case. But it’s a shame either way. It will certainly make the East St. Louis police, black or white, less aggressive, more timid. That will make the thugs bolder. And the vast majority of those who suffer, and perhaps die, will be black folks who just wanted to be left alone.

Justice Department isn't ready for WMD attack, report says
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fbi-wmd-20100602,0,6184552.story
Excerpt: The Justice Department is not ready to provide a coordinated response to an attack by a weapon of mass destruction, the agency's inspector general said in a report out Tuesday. In the event of an attack by nuclear, biological, chemical or other mass-casualty weapons, the Justice Department is assigned the responsibility for coordinating federal law enforcement activities and for ensuring public safety and security if the incident overwhelms state and local law enforcement, the report says. The review found that "the department is not prepared to fulfill its role." "The use of a weapon of mass destruction poses a potential threat to the United States," said DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine in a statement. "It is critical that the department address the deficiencies identified in our report so that it would be better prepared to respond if such an attack occurs." This is the latest in a series of reports criticizing the government for inadequate planning for WMD attacks. In January, a bipartisan commission gave the Obama administration and Congress an "F" for its preparation for a biological attack.

States Line Up Against Funeral Hecklers in Supreme Court Brief
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/states-file-supreme-court-fred-phelps-westboro-baptist/story?id=10770402
Something left and right agree upon. Excerpt: Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia are backing the family of fallen Marine Matthew Snyder in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case that could decide the constitutionality of laws restricting protests at private family funerals. Lance Cpl. Snyder, who was deployed to Iraq in 2006, was killed just a month later in an accident. His funeral in Maryland was disrupted by demonstrators led by Kansas pastor Fred W. Phelps, yelling, among other things, that America's military is evil because it defends a country that tolerates homosexuality. Snyder's family sued, but an appeals court said the hecklers were exercising their right to free speech. Now, all but two state attorneys general have signed a "friend of the court" brief, to be filed tomorrow, that argues the First Amendment should not apply to some "intrusive and harassing" forms of expression.

It’s time to plug the leadership hole
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/01/its-time-to-plug-the-leadership-hole/#ixzz0pev3WEjg
Excerpt: During his Thursday press conference, President Obama once again assured the American people that, when it came to the oil spill, he’d been involved “since day one.” Unfortunately, simply being involved isn’t enough. The Gulf situation has been screaming for leadership and Obama has failed to deliver. Receiving daily briefings, which Obama cited as his sole example of day one involvement, is not leadership. Placing your “boot on the neck” of the people who are in a position to solve the problem is, likewise, not leadership. Screaming “Plug the damn hole” at those trying to implement the solution? You get the point. In crisis, leadership is required – not just “involvement.” Sadly, it’s something sorely lacking in the current administration and Thursday’s Q&A put a spotlight on the shortcoming.

Why Banks Love Short Sales
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssl5yb7FewA
Think I may have posted before, but frustrating info.

Party switcher Parker Griffith, Rep. Artur Davis lose in Alabama primaries
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/governors/national-republicans-get-their.html?hpid=topnews
I contributed to Les Phillips. Former Naval aviator, Navy Grad. I thought what the party needs. Excerpt: Alabama Republican Rep. Parker Griffith was soundly defeated in a Republican primary tonight, the second party switcher to lose an intraparty fight in the past two weeks. Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks had 51 percent of the vote to Griffith's 33 percent and 16 percent for Les Phillip with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Although the Associated Press had not called the race, local media reported that Griffith had conceded the contest to Brooks. Griffith, who had been elected as a Democrat to the northern Alabama 5th district, switched parties last year with promises from House Republican leaders that they would back him to the hilt. But, he struggled to convince Republican primary voters that he was one of them; he was battered over his vote for Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) as House Speaker at the start of the 111th Congress, for example.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigns
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060100426.html?hpid=artslot
The damn Marines and their howling helicopters! That’s the sound of freedom, Yukio, of American dollars and American troops providing for your defense so you can spend your money on socialist entitlements. Should we tell China that we are no longer a Japanese ally, and won’t defend you if they decide to invade? Excerpt: Having squandered a historic electoral mandate in less than a year, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned Wednesday, leaving his Democratic Party of Japan without a leader before a pivotal July election. The kingmaker of the ruling party, veteran politician Ichiro Ozawa, also quit Wednesday, after his ties to fundraising scandals had soured voters on the DPJ's leadership. Sometimes called the "Shadow Shogun," Ozawa was the political mastermind behind a landslide victory that last August ended nearly half a century of one-party rule in Japan, when the DPJ trounced the Liberal Democratic Party and Hatoyama took control of the government. Hatoyama's popularity collapsed, in large measure, because he could not make up his mind. He spent months sending contradictory signals -- to Japanese voters and to the Obama administration -- over where to put a noisy U.S. Marine airbase on the southern island of Okinawa. His final decision, which came Friday, pleased the Americans, keeping the Marines and their howling helicopters on the crowded island. But it enraged Okinawans and left most Japanese voters with the impression that Hatoyama was an incompetent and vacillating leader.

National fact-checking site takes on Robin Carnahan claim
http://interact.stltoday.com/blogzone/political-fix/political-fix/2010/06/national-fact-checking-site-takes-on-robin-carnahan-claim/
People tell me that FactCheck.Org is a liberal site, always supports liberals. Here it says the liberal Democrat candidate for the Senate is wrong. Excerpt: If you’re interested in truth in political advertising, there are two sites that are a must-read: FactCheck.org and PolitiFact. Both sites have reputations for accuracy and nonpartisanship. And both sites have already been paying attention to the high profile U.S. Senate race in Missouri between presumptive favorites Roy Blunt, a Republican, and Robin Carnahan, a Democrat. Late last week, FactCheck.org took issue with a Carnahan campaign statement accusing Blunt of supporting a “bailout” for Big Oil. Get used to seeing the “bailout” term in this race. Both candidates have already accused the other multiple times of being in support of some kind of bailout or another, a sure sign that their polling shows voters see the word negatively. In this case, the bailout charge fails to stick against Blunt because of Carnahan’s misinterpretation of a bill related to the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, FactCheck says.

Money intended to help candidates often ends up funding PACs themselves
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060103887.html?wpisrc=nl_politics
Excerpt: Minority Leader John A. Boehner has collected more than $1.4 million from business interests this election cycle for a committee he says he created to help fellow Republican lawmakers. But Boehner's committee has spent only about a third of its money helping other candidates. About two-thirds of its expenditures have gone instead to costs the committee describes as necessary to raise money, including fine meals and trips to luxurious resorts where the congressman mingles with corporate-directed groups and lobbyists. Boehner (Ohio) has spent more than $182,000 through the committee on frequent travel with donors to Florida and similar vacation spots, according to Federal Election Commission records, including $70,403 at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples and more than $30,000 at Disney Resort Destinations. As it turns out, Boehner's use of funds collected for others by his "leadership PAC," or political action committee, is more the rule than the exception among Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Most leadership PACs have given away less than 40 percent of their expenditures this cycle, even though they typically say they are collecting and bundling donations for others, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics at the request of The Washington Post. Instead, the PACs spend the bulk of their money funding their own operations, spending sizeable sums on fundraisers that also offer sweet perquisites for members and their aides. The PACs have financed distant resort stays and expensive meals for members in New York, Miami, Beverly Hills and elsewhere and paid for private jets, liquor, flowers, limousines, ski lift and baseball tickets, and even horse track visits, according to tallies submitted monthly to the FEC.

Alabama voters shake up status quo (again)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-3-7.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Alabama voters added their names to a growing list of those who are mad as hell at establishment politicians and not going to take it anymore. Party switching Rep. Parker Griffith was stunned by Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks in the northern Alabama 5th district while Rep. Artur Davis, long touted as a rising star nationally in the Democratic party, was soundly defeated in a gubernatorial primary by state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks. Griffith's defeat was the more surprising of the two as most Republican strategists had cast the worst case scenario as the incumbent receiving just under 50 percent of the vote and being forced into a July 13 runoff. That Griffith could barely muster one in three GOP primary votes with the full support of the national party behind him is a stern reminder that voters are fed up with politicians acting like, well, politicians. That Griffith's loss came two weeks to the day after party switching Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (D) lost his race to Rep. Joe Sestak (D) means that any Member of Congress who was even considering a party switch won't be doing so any time soon.

Public Employee Pensions Are a Ticking Time Bomb
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19406&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Excerpt: Lawmakers are supposed to set aside money each year to fund public pensions, but they often divert that money to other programs. In the meantime, the unfunded pension liability grows -- silently, inexorably shackling future generations to suffocating debt. In other words, unfunded public employee pensions are a ticking time bomb that threatens economic collapse in cities and states across the country, says Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business. According to an analysis by the Pew Center on the States: State and local governments now owe at least $1 trillion to public employee pension accounts. To pay that debt, taxpayers would have to spend $1 million a day for the next 2,740 years. That works out to about $8,800 for each American household, on top of their estimated $120,000 share of our national debt.

Soaring costs force Canada to reassess health model
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100531/hl_nm/us_health_3
Soaring deficits and declining birth rates. Another socialist state looks into the abyss. Excerpt: Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada's provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate "incentive fees" to generic drug manufacturers. British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit -- an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee. And a few provinces are also experimenting with private funding for procedures such as hip, knee and cataract surgery.

Seniors Will Lose Big Under Obamacare
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/24/side-effects-seniors-will-lose-big-under-obamacare/
I was hoping the entitlement state would out last me, since I paid to support it. Now it’s a race between fiscal collapse and my disease. Who to cheer for? Excerpt: Passage of Obamacare will have negative consequences for practically all Americans. However, it is the nation’s senior citizens who will get the short end of the stick after enactment of the President’s health care agenda. In a recent paper, Heritage health policy expert Robert Moffit, Ph.D., lays out the specific provisions of Obamacare that will hurt seniors: Less Choice. Obamacare will reduce payments to Medicare Advantage, likely decreasing benefits and causing approximately half of current participants to drop out. These seniors will have little choice but to go back to traditional Medicare, and buy a supplemental policy to cover Medicare’s big gaps in coverage. Reduced Access to Care. Writes Moffit, “With the retirement of 77 million baby boomers beginning in 2011, the Medicare program will have to absorb an unprecedented demand for medical services. For the next generation of senior citizens, finding a doctor will be more difficult and waiting times for doctor appointments are likely to be longer. The American Association of Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 124,000 doctors by 2025.” Obamacare does nothing to reverse this worrisome trend, instead making it worse. Medicare Payment Cuts. Moffit explains that “creating a real problem for seniors, the CMS Actuary estimates that roughly 15 percent of Medicare Part A providers—the part of the Medicare program that pays hospital costs—would become unprofitable within 10 years” due to reductions in hospital payment updates under the new law. Higher Taxes. “The higher taxes on drugs (effective in 2011) and medical devices (effective in 2013) will affect seniors especially, as they are more heavily dependent on those very products.” Moreover, federal premium taxes will apply to Medicare Advantage, as well as federal retirees’ health plans.

CBS' "Evening News": Gore's Loss To Bush Contributed To Separation
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/01/cbs_evening_news_gores_loss_to_bush_contributed_to_separation.html
Yup, Gore’s divorce is “Bush’s Fault!”

WWII Marine Raider Dies
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/obituaries/ct-met-0602-quirk-obit-20100601,0,4097806,print.story
In my town—wish I’d known him.

Harry Reid's Tea Party gamble in Nevada
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060102500.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: The only thing you need to know about the upcoming Republican primary race in Nevada is: Whom does Harry Reid want to win? In another instance of strange bedfellows, the answer is the same person the Tea Party people are backing -- former Nevada assemblywoman Sharron Angle. When Tea Partyers and Democrats are on the same team, Republicans might need to worry. For Reid's part, the reasoning is pretty simple. As some of his own campaign folks have let slip, the Senate majority leader figures he has a better shot of keeping his seat in the fall if Angle is his opponent instead of Sue Lowden. A recent Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey shows Lowden holding a three-point lead over Reid and Reid with a three-point lead over Angle. Whether Angle's Tea Party endorsers have thought this through -- or whether they care -- ousting Reid seems to be less important than making their anti-establishment point yet again. Angle, though a relatively blank slate, is considered the low-tax, small-government candidate of choice and has been endorsed by the RINO-hunting Club for Growth.

Ex-Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer indicted on six felony counts
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/ex-florida-gop-chairman-arrest.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Before we Republicans worry about RINOs, who at least vote for Republican control of the Congress, we need to purge the party of crooks, or the people will not trust us to govern. Excerpt: Jim Greer, former head of the Florida Republican Party, was arrested Wednesday morning at his home near Orlando, law enforcement officials said. The Orlando Sun-Sentinel reports that at a press conference Wednesday, statewide prosecutor William Shepherd said that "a statewide grand jury indicted Greer on six felony charges: organized scheme to defraud, money laundering, and four counts of grand theft." Shepherd said Greer developed a scheme to take money from the Republican Party. He used the money for his personal expenses. The Associated Press has more details: Greer funneled party money to a company called Victory Strategies that he controlled and concealed his relationship with, investigators said. On Greer's orders, the Republican Party of Florida paid Victory Strategies for campaign work, much of which was never performed.

Ted Haggard to start new church in Colo. Springs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060201078.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
The church doctrine is that, “Gays are evil, which is why I am not Gay, nor is my boyfriend.”

British Airways red-faced over faux image of Bin Laden boarding pass
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts2359
Bin Laden a bad choice for sample ticket. Ya think.

Gallup Poll shows largest Republican lead ever
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100602/pl_ynews/ynews_pl2355
Excerpt: With five months to go before the general election, a new poll finds that Republicans have opened their widest lead yet when it comes to which party voters prefer this fall. Gallup's generic congressional ballot finds that the number of voters who say they will vote GOP has jumped to 49 percent, compared with 43 percent for Democrats. That's not only the biggest lead Gallup has recorded for the GOP this election cycle, it's the largest lead Republicans have ever had in the poll, which Gallup has run since 1950. Why are Republicans surging? According to Gallup, the GOP gained 3 percentage points in the poll over the last week, while Dems fell 4 points. All of this happened as President Obama's approval rating took a hit, especially with his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Gallup puts Obama's approval rating at 46 percent — not exactly in George W. Bush territory, but low for this White House.

Glitch Shows How Much U.S. Military Relies on GPS
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66947
Excerpt: A problem that rendered as many as 10,000 U.S. military GPS receivers useless for days is a warning to safeguard a system that enemies would love to disrupt, a defense expert says. The Air Force has not said how many weapons, planes or other systems were affected or whether any were in use in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the problem, blamed on incompatible software, highlights the military's reliance on the Global Positioning System and the need to protect technology that has become essential for protecting troops, tracking vehicles and targeting weapons. "Everything that moves uses it," said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, which tracks military and homeland security news. "It is so central to the American style of war that you just couldn't leave home without it."

White House Memo on Sestak Raises More Questions
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66942
Excerpt: Five days ago, on the Friday before the holiday weekend, the White House released a short memo explaining that former President Bill Clinton, acting on behalf of the Obama administration, offered Sestak an unpaid role on a presidential advisory board. The memo said “efforts” (plural) were made to induce Sestak to take an advisory board position in “June and July 2009.” However, the memo mentions only one conversation between Clinton and Sestak. The memo, written by White House Counsel Robert Bauer, said nothing improper happened. It says that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recruited Bill Clinton to offer Sestak an unpaid position on a presidential advisory board while remaining a U.S. congressman. But as a House member, Sestak could not serve on an Executive Branch board. As the White House Web site says, the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board “consists of not more than 16 members appointed by the President from among individuals who are not employed by the Federal Government.”

Chicxulub Redux: A Lesson In How Science Works
http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1041-chicxulub-redux-a-lesson-in-how-science-works.html
Excerpt: A new review article by 41 scientists, published in the March 5, 2010, edition of Science, was cited that summarized what science thinks it knows about the extinction [of dinosaurs]. That article reinforced the single cause asteroid impact extinction scenario. Now, in an excellent example of how the scientific process works, and why scientific consensus is such a bogus term, the May 21 issue of Science has published a number of letters that take exception to the previous article's conclusions.... The controversy over what killed the dinosaurs has raged among paleontologists for three decades. As previously reported, the asteriod impact theory seems to have gained the upper hand recently, though there are competing theories constantly arising (see “Chicxulub Resurgent” and “Shiva The Dinosaur Killer,” respectively). In the Science review article “The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary,” Peter Schulte and 40 colleagues from 33 institutions and universities, put forward a comprehensive review of the evidence surrounding the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Their conclusion: “The correlation between impact-derived ejecta and paleontologically defined extinctions at multiple locations around the globe leads us to conclude that the Chicxulub impact triggered the mass extinction that marks the boundary between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras ~65.5 million years ago.” More succinctly, the asteroid did it. While this may sound like the fabled “scientific consensus” has been reached, the article instead has triggered a firestorm. In a letter, entitled “Cretaceous Extinctions: Multiple Causes,” J. David Archibald and 28 colleagues from 22 different institutions have taken strong exception to the conclusions stated by Schulte et al.... The letter signatories clearly come down on the side of the multiple causes theory, or as Douglas Erwin puts it, the “Murder on the Orient Express” model. But what about the asteroid? Archibald et al state, “it is telling that in all other instances of mass extinction in the past 600 million years, no signature of an extraterrestrial impact has ever been reliably detected, despite extensive searches.” Sounds like fighting words to me. But the fun is only getting started.

Obama And Media Minions Inspire Violence
http://www.newswithviews.com/Marcus/lloyd135.htm
Excerpt: In case you have not realized that Obama and his media minions' relentless playing of the "Race Card" could inspire violence, I have some news for you. The New Black Panther Party hosted a National Black Power Convention. The following chilling quote is from the convention organizer and party chairman. "With the rise of the Tea Party, the white-right and other racist forces. With gun sales nationwide at an all time high amongst whites, with a mood that is more anti-Black than any time recent, it is imperative that we organize our forces, pool our resources and prepare for war!" Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz, Esq. Convention Convener and Party Chairman. "...prepare for war!" -- folks, this is crazy talk. I am black conservative, singer/songwriter and tea party spokesperson, Lloyd Marcus. I have attended over two hundred tea parties across America on three Tea Party Express tours. Most assuredly, the tea parties are not about racism or hate. The truth is quite the opposite. The tea parties are about love; love for the greatest nation on the planet and a fervent desire not to see it transformed into something unrecognizable. The Tea Party Movement is no more complicated than that. So where did the Black Panthers Party get the erroneous idea that the tea party patriots are as Janeane Garofalo says, "a bunch of redneck racist against a black president"? The unfortunate answer is the Obama media machine.

Robert Gibbs says White House did not offer Joe Sestak intel post but refuses to provide details of job offer
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/01/robert-gibbs-says-white-house-did-not-offer-joe-sestak-intel-post-but-refuses-to-provide-details-of-job-offer/#ixzz0piFItr3t
Excerpt: Sestak said Friday there was only one 30- to 60-second conversation between him and Clinton back in the summer of 2009. But Bauer’s memo said that “efforts were made in June and July of 2009″ to gauge Sestak’s interest being named to some unnamed advisory board. “Despite months of stone-walling and behind-the-scenes effort to get on the same page, the two are still singing two different tunes,” said RNC spokesman Doug Heye. “It is clear that either the White House or Joe Sestak has a problem with the truth and that an outsider is needed to look at the facts in order to come to an objective conclusion.”

White House misses early deadlines in ObamaCare implementation
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/02/white-house-misses-early-deadlines-in-implementing-obamacare/#ixzz0piBGzFGH
Excerpt: Critics say missed deadlines and other signs show the Obama administration is stumbling out of the gate on its early steps to implement the president’s health-care law. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already missed as many as four deadlines under the law – not on any major regulations — but still a worrying trend, critics say. Congressional staff and industry representatives have also been asking HHS for a timeline specifying when it will issue the numerous regulations required by the law. They were shocked to find the agency has not produced such a document, one aide said. The issue is important because vast industry sectors are trying to plan their own implementations of the health-care law and most of the details remain in bureaucrats’ hands, leaving a vacuum of uncertainty about the final burdens the law will impose. The missed deadlines include creating task forces on breast cancer and Alaskan health care, publishing a list of new authorities granted under the law, and setting a schedule for a Government Accountability Office study and financial audit.

The promise of national security, with a straight face
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060102505.html?referrer=emailarticle
Excerpt: American troops in Afghanistan spent their Memorial Day securing routes into Kandahar and engaging local tribal leaders in preparation for a major offensive. I spent part of my Memorial Day reading President Obama's recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) -- a document that concedes the importance of the military but emphasizes the security imperatives of "affordable health care" and "redeveloping our infrastructure." America, we are told, requires "a broad conception of what constitutes our national security," which happens to coincide with the administration's legislative priorities. Never forget: They also serve who pass health entitlements and distribute highway construction funding. It is commonplace to assert that there are economic foundations of national power. It is shameless to use a national security document to advance a debatable domestic agenda that shows scant understanding of how economies actually grow stronger. And it is doubly shameless -- naked-on-a-downtown-bus shameless -- for this administration to assert "responsible management of our federal budget" as a national security priority.

Rahm to Bill to Joe
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272702149862906.html
Excerpt: It's possible that all we really have here is a case of the Obama White House playing Washington politics as usual, which the White House refused to admit for three months because this is what Mr. Obama promised he would not do if he became President. However, this is clearly what he hired Mr. Emanuel to do for him, and given his ethical record Mr. Clinton was the perfect political cutout. So much for the most transparent Administration in history. Then again, George W. Bush merely exercised his right to fire a handful of U.S. Attorneys, and Democrats made that a federal case for years even though it has since gone nowhere legally. The Emanuel to Clinton to Sestak job offer still needs a scrub under oath by the Justice Department and the relevant Congressional committees.

Rod Blagojevich trial rattles insiders
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38015.html
Excerpt: The corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is already shaping up to be a political circus, promising to lay bare the underbelly of Chicago politics.
But while the stakes are clear for Blagojevich — he could be the fourth Illinois governor in 40 years to retire to a federal prison — some of the most powerful Washington insiders are braced for potential political damage from the trial, which begins Thursday. President Barack Obama, White House aides Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) all have at least some interest in the outcome, according to documents produced by prosecutors, defense lawyers and the White House counsel. Blagojevich has been charged with engaging in state-level kickback schemes, but Washington is much more focused on allegations he tried to sell Obama’s old Senate seat.

The chasm between Apollo and the Gulf
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-chasm-between-apollo-and-the-gulf/#more-20122
Excerpt: President Obama has shown repeatedly that the best interests of the American people are a lower priority than his ideological goal of changing America from what it has been, to some mystical, socialist utopia with a renewable-energy-based standard of living equivalent to that of the late 1800s. As if the Administration could not make its ineffective, disjointed response to the Deepwater Horizon accident any worse, it did not even use previously established sea surface burn-off and dispersant procedures to minimize the effects of the spill. In addition, it has inexcusably delayed approving and assisting in Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s request to protect the state’s shores and wildlife habitats, by building offshore sand barriers – as unnecessary as having to make that request should have been. And this is the government that Congress and the President want to run healthcare, immigration, banking, carbon emissions, auto manufacturing, and everything else in American life?

How Wars Begin
http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankGaffney/2010/06/01/how_wars_begin
Excerpt: In hindsight, it will probably be obvious that the missteps of the Obama administration vis a vis Israel were critical catalysts to a war that today seems ever more likely to engulf the Middle East, and perhaps the world more generally. Assuming such an outcome is neither the intention of the President and his team, nor desired by them, American course corrections must be urgently taken. To be sure, as is often the case in the moment, a different narrative is operating. The rising tensions in the region are widely seen as the fault of the Jewish State. Most recently, Israel is being portrayed as the villain of the bloody interception of a "humanitarian flotilla" bringing relief aid to the Gaza Strip.

Obama's 'Chicago Way' plunders the private sector
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama_s-_Chicago-Way_-plunders-the-private-sector-95367879.html
Excerpt: An interesting thing about Barack Obama is that he chose, on two occasions, to live in Chicago -- even though he didn't grow up there, had no family ties there, never went to school there. It was a curious choice. Chicago has a civic culture all its own and one that is particularly insular. Family ties and personal connections are hugely important. Professionals who have lived and worked there for a quarter-century are brusquely reminded, "You're not from here." Nonetheless Obama moved upward in the Chicago civic firmament with apparent ease. The community organizer joined the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church in search of street credibility in the heavily black South Side. The adjunct law teacher made friends around the University of Chicago from libertarian academics to radical organizer William Ayers. The young state senator designed a new district that included the Loop and the rich folk on the Near North Side. Obama could not have risen so far so fast without a profound understanding of the Chicago Way. And he has brought the Chicago Way to the White House

Nice blog post on “I’m Tired.”
Sir, I don't know if you read these comments, and I don't know if I'm too late to join this bandwagon, but the world needs more people like you. I'm just a little girl, fifteen, probably younger than your granddaughter, but I've seen enough in my short life to scare me. I don't know very much about the world before I was born, but, as far as I can gather, it was a better place, albeit marginally.

Both my parents served in the British forces, my father for twenty-two years, and I'm not saying that's impressive, but he saw a lot in those times. So did my uncle, my mother's brother, who served in 'Nam proudly, though he still bears his scars.

I don't even know much about American politics, or your different parties or whatnot, but I know of your troubles with the Mexican immigrants and the Muslim communities. With the Mexicans, the same thing goes on here, though not with the Hispanics.

I think I'm a little young to be saying this, but I'm tired, too, but more of the 'anti-injustice' that's going round than anything else. I think everyone should be given religious freedom, and the freedom to be themselves. But with the 'everyone', I mean everyone, not just the Blacks or the Mexicans or the Asians, or whatever. I want to be able to call on racism for once, racism against whites. I want to call on unfair treatment against everyone, not just racial or religious minorities.

It's like you said, with the people living off the Government's money, that they're living the good life because they're not doing anything, just crying wolf and watching the sympathy seep in.

I'm not saying it's everyone in every racial/religious minority - never. And I'm not saying that no white man has ever been racist, because that's a lie. But I think fair means fair, for everyone.

Thank you, good Sir, for posting this and reviving my faith in the fact I'm not the only one with these views. With all who have responded to this in agreement, I think that, just maybe, the world won't be all that unbearable when I reach your age.