Political Digest June 8, 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.

Digest for June 9?
I have healthcare appoints on Tuesday, June 8, including a lot of travel time, so there may be no time for a digest for Wednesday, June 9. We’ll see. But if not, it will give you more time to review the great articles in today’s and yesterday’s posts.

Nevada Republicans think they can oust Reid, but fractious primary nears
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/06/AR2010060602354.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Elevator technician David Shurtliff, 48, strolled out of an early voting station at the Clark County Government Center the other day, happy to proclaim whom he voted for in Tuesday's Republican primary for the U.S. Senate: "Not Harry Reid, that's who!"
Nevada Republicans are seeking the Not Harry Reid vote with a vengeance this year as they attempt to dethrone the powerful Senate majority leader by portraying the four-term incumbent as a deal-making Washington insider. But someone other than his Republican rivals may benefit Tuesday from the anti-Harry Reid movement: Harry Reid. In their zeal for a third big win this spring after victories in Utah and Kentucky, "tea party" groups are lining up behind the most uncompromising GOP candidate they see: Sharron Angle, a former state assemblywoman with steadfast views against taxes and government spending. She has led a 12-person pack in recent polling. But by backing someone who many times was the lone "no" vote in the Nevada assembly, these groups may be handing Reid the candidate he can most easily beat. (Elections are won in the moderate, weakly-committed middle. If you lose the RINO vote, the left wins.)

In Lincoln's struggle, a cautionary tale for centrist Democrats
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/06/AR2010060603294.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Democrats hunt DINOs as well. But Nelson is smart enough to play to the center, as Obama and Clinton did. Thus if he wins, the seat is likely to stay a vote for liberal control of the senate, as he’s an “outsider,” enough for people who don’t pay much attention. Excerpt: If the defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) at his state party convention last month was an uprising of the conservative grass roots, and the loss three weeks ago by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) revealed the perils of a party switch, then the runoff fight that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) faces Tuesday is indicative of what happens when you cross a major -- and majorly well-funded -- interest group. Ostensibly, Lincoln's opponent is Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. But the practical reality is that she is running against a handful of major labor unions -- the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to name two. In a memo sent to reporters Saturday, Lincoln campaign manager Steve Patterson said that unions had spent more than $10 million on the race -- including $2.5 million in television ads in the three weeks since the May 18 primary, in which Lincoln took 44.5 percent of the vote compared with 42.5 percent for Halter. A third candidate -- little-known D.C. Morrison -- took 13 percent, forcing this week's runoff. The goal of the union spending, according to Patterson? "Attacking Senator Lincoln because she doesn't agree with them all of the time."

New Jersey men arrested are latest from U.S. tied to terrorist groups
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/06/AR2010060600418.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Didn’t get the memo. Excerpt: The two New Jersey men who were arrested late Saturday for allegedly planning to fight in Somalia with al-Shabab, an extremist group allied with al-Qaeda, are only the latest in a stream of American recruits attracted to violent jihad in the failed African state. The increasing allure for some Americans of destinations such as Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen has alarmed U.S. officials, though no evidence has surfaced that the two men planned any immediate attacks in the United States or overseas. Officials fear that radicalized Americans, even if they start off as naive as the two New Jersey aspirants appeared to be, could return home battle-hardened and determined to commit terrorist acts on American soil.

Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264513748386610.html
Important and scary. Excerpt: People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates. People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives. Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—hold the bulk of their wealth in the nontaxed form of unrealized capital gains? The composition of wealth also responds to incentives. And it's also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people not to work, fewer people will work. Incentives matter. People can also change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies. According to a 2004 U.S. Treasury report, "high income taxpayers accelerated the receipt of wages and year-end bonuses from 1993 to 1992—over $15 billion—in order to avoid the effects of the anticipated increase in the top rate from 31% to 39.6%. At the end of 1993, taxpayers shifted wages and bonuses yet again to avoid the increase in Medicare taxes that went into effect beginning 1994." Just remember what happened to auto sales when the cash for clunkers program ended. Or how about new housing sales when the $8,000 tax credit ended? It isn't rocket surgery, as the Ivy League professor said. On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts…. Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010. In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has. When we pass the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks and we get our worst nightmare of a severe "double dip" recession. In 1981, Ronald Reagan—with bipartisan support—began the first phase in a series of tax cuts passed under the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA), whereby the bulk of the tax cuts didn't take effect until Jan. 1, 1983. Reagan's delayed tax cuts were the mirror image of President Barack Obama's delayed tax rate increases. For 1981 and 1982 people deferred so much economic activity that real GDP was basically flat (i.e., no growth), and the unemployment rate rose to well over 10%. But at the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 1983 the economy took off like a rocket, with average real growth reaching 7.5% in 1983 and 5.5% in 1984. It has always amazed me how tax cuts don't work until they take effect. Mr. Obama's experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse. The economy will collapse in 2011.

I Want It All, Even Better If You Pay for It
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=acQoZ36ss8pU
Politicians, unwilling to bear the political costs of denying entitlements, kick the can down the road. But with each kick it gets heavier. Soon it will be impossible to kick and the collapse will come. Excerpt: Pick up any newspaper and you’re bound to see a prominently featured story about someone somewhere losing a government benefit and enduring hardship as a result. The New York Times is publishing a series of such stories under the rubric, “The New Poor.” Last week’s installment focused on a 22-year-old unemployed single mom from Arizona who qualified for state-run subsidized child care but was placed on a waiting list because budgetary constraints forced cutbacks in the program. We feel for this mom whose work options are limited by the need to care for her 3-year-old daughter. We all know someone who has been left jobless, financially strapped and emotionally bereft by the recession. Yet, at the risk of sounding hard- hearted, the U.S. can’t afford to provide everyone with food, clothing and shelter, not to mention medical and child care, college tuition, a low-interest mortgage and a Social Security check until death. As much as this single mom’s plight tugs at our heart strings, using deficit financing to provide her with government subsidized child care is dangerous to her child’s health. That child will have to shoulder the bill. That’s the pain we don’t feel or hear about; the pain that doesn’t make its way into news stories, at least not in human terms; the pain that’s no less real, just less pressing. “The United States faces a fundamental disconnect between the services that people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government to finance those services,” Douglas Elmendorf, director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, writes in a May 17 blog post.

$750 Billion Global Ad Campaign to Sell U.S. Bonds
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=4664
Satire. Excerpt: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today sought to allay industry fears about getting paid, noting that, “We’re good for it. We’ve always been able to pay our debts. Anyone who says otherwise, would have you believe that somehow China and Japan are going to go broke tomorrow, or that our currency printing presses would all break down at the same time. Absurd!”

Calling a State Sponsor a State Sponsor
http://american.com/archive/2010/may/calling-a-state-sponsor-a-state-sponsor
Going after BO’s Socialist pal. Excerpt: This month a dozen U.S. senators fired the opening salvo in what promises to be an aggressive oversight campaign to get to the bottom of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez’s support for terrorism. A May 25 letter challenges Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to explain what the administration knows about Venezuela’s support for a sprawling network of terrorist states and groups, including Iran, Hezbollah, Colombian “narcoterrorists,” Cuba, and Syria. Rallied by John Ensign (R-Nevada) and George LeMieux (R-Florida), the senators are asking that Secretary Clinton explain what the administration knows about alleged arms shipments, high-level contacts, and financial dealings linking Venezuela to a rogue’s gallery of, well, rogues. The detailed letter signals that the senators already know more than the administration has been willing or able to substantiate about dictator Chávez’s collaboration with anti-American terror groups and hostile regimes. Since the last years of the George W. Bush administration, U.S. diplomats have steered clear of Chávez for fear of ‘provoking’ him. Thanks to congressional oversight, we are about to confront the terrible downside of that naïve, passive policy. “We are deeply concerned about Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s growing ties to U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations and state sponsors of terrorism,” the letter begins. Following a litany of examples of how Chávez economically bolsters terrorist regimes (including Cuba and Iran) and provides material support to terrorist groups (from Hezbollah to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the senators ask Clinton to explain why Venezuela evades designation under U.S. law as a state sponsor of terrorism. Among Chávez’s notorious actions the senators cite: The provision of “sanctuary” and the “flow of guns and money”—including the provision of portable missiles, anti-tank rockets, and other weaponry—to Colombian guerrillas; Complicity in the illegal narcotics trade that fuels terrorism—including the burgeoning traffic from Venezuelan territory to west and north Africa; The “presence and activities of Hezbollah inside Venezuela,” and a November 2009 shipment of Russian weapons from a Venezuelan arms cache to that group; “Extensive support of the Castro regime in Cuba,” and Chávez’s reliance on Castro henchman Ramiro Valdes to repress internal opponents; Possible support for “Iran’s covert nuclear enrichment program” in exchange for Iran’s providing “nuclear knowhow” to Chávez; Venezuela’s delivery of gasoline to Iran and its help for Iran to evade international sanctions; and, Suspicious air traffic and lax immigration controls on Caracas-Damascus-Tehran airline flights.

The English Language and Freedom
http://jewishworldreview.com/0610/pjohnson.php3
Excerpt: It's my view that Britain and the U.S. do not do enough to promote the spread of English, which thereby decelerates or even reverses the spread of democratic freedom. There's little doubt, for instance, that the hostility of the Muslim world toward the West is promoted by the failure of Muslim countries to develop democratic institutions, which, in turn, has been brought about by a resistance to the spread of English. Even among educated Muslims few have read the writings of British philosophers John Locke and Edmund Burke, not to mention those of America's Founding Fathers, which has lead directly to a lack of understanding of what the West is about. This problem will intensify as China moves massively and confidently onto the world scene. Very few mainland Chinese speak English nor do they have any conception of the liberal tradition that the language enshrines. It's alarming to realize that the Chinese government is spending massive amounts of money and deploying large numbers of people (by one calculation more than 1 million) to spread its notions and influence in Africa--cultural and political ideas that differ greatly from the West's. Fortunately it's a different story in India, and the responsibility for this rests largely with one man, the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. In 1834 Macaulay was sent to India as an administrator, and the next year he found himself president of the Committee of Public Instruction for Bengal. As such, Macaulay made up his mind that Indians--there were then fewer than 250 million--must be taught English and be exposed to Western culture because it would, as he put it, give them the key "to all the vast intellectual wealth, which all the wisest nations of the Earth have created and hoarded in the course of 90 generations." Macaulay's policy was adopted, and as a result large numbers of Indians, especially those in the ruling, intellectual and clerical classes, began to learn English. In the process they began to absorb cultural and political ideas from the West, especially the need to uphold and establish the rule of law and to set up representative institutions. Since India gained its independence in 1947 English has continued to spread, and India--now with a population exceeding 1 billion--has maintained democratic structures and methods and free courts of law, despite what was once a situation of overwhelming poverty and many difficulties. The contrast with China is fundamental. Moreover, because India remained attached to the English language umbilical cord, ideas, methods and technology flowed into its educated and commercial classes on a scale and in ways that China, especially since its years of Communist totalitarian rule, has been denied. This gave India the advantage of being able to bypass an updated version of the Industrial Revolution and embark straightaway upon the communications and Internet revolution.

From the oil spill to the financial crisis, why we don't plan for the worst
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060402023.html?wprss=rss_print/outlook&sid=ST2010060404017
Excerpt: The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest of several recent disastrous events for which the country, or the world, was unprepared. Setting aside terrorist attacks, where the element of surprise is part of the plan, that still leaves the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the global economic crisis that began in 2008 (and was aggravated by Greece's recent financial collapse) and the earthquake in Haiti in January. In all these cases, observers recognized the existence of catastrophic risk but deemed it to be small. Many other risks like this are lying in wait, whether a lethal flu epidemic, widespread extinctions, nuclear accidents, abrupt global warming that causes a sudden and catastrophic rise in sea levels, or a collision with an asteroid. (Good piece, but had to get Global Warming in. We are even more unprepared for abrupt Global Cooling, which would be much worse, starvation wise.)

The Hobbesian Jungle, Part II
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/the-hobbesian-jungle-part-ii/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-11011
Important—and scary. Excerpt: Hobbes imagined a way out: a Leviathan (or government) large enough to impose its will on everyone else and force them to live in a civil manner. The problem with that idea is that political relationships in a Hobbesian world would be no more stable than any other relationships. Political bonds would be created and dissolved just as rapidly as all other bonds. Why is this important in the modern era? Because too many people take stable relationships with other human beings for granted — not realizing that political stability hangs on a fragile thread. What we are witnessing right now in Congress is a re-creation of the Hobbesian Jungle — where coalitions form and dissolve; where today’s friend may be tomorrow’s enemy; and where the only thing enduring is the desire to plunder.

Rude, Crude & Unacceptable
http://www.mullings.com/06-07-10.htm
Excerpt: Here's the transcript of Helen Thomas' truly frightening position: Q: Any comments on Israel? Helen Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. [She laughs] Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land and it's not Germany and it's not Poland. Q: So, where should they go? HT: They should go home. Q: Where's home? HT: Poland. Germany. And America and everywhere else…..Ok, let me stipulate that I am not an expert on Helen Thomas. Nevertheless, I am quite confident in stating that she is not of Native American heritage. Inasmuch as she was born in Kentucky in 1920, we must assume that she has, over the last 90 years, bought into the theory that if you have taken over a country for enough time, you sort of own it. But, under the Helen Thomas Theory of Primacy, all 310,000,000 people who falsely claim to be "Americans" should immediately leave what we now call the United States and return to the country or region of the world from whence our ancestors came. Helen Thomas is a joke. The fact that she is a left-wing joke protects her from her White House briefing room colleagues. If she were a RIGHT-wing joke, there would have been demands that the Hearst Corporation immediately fire her for what amounts to hate speech, if not astonishing stupidity.

Helen Thomas retires
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/gibbs-helen-thomas-remarks-off.html?hpid=topnews
Guess she’s getting the hell out of Washington and going home to wherever her people came from. Gotta keep those leftist beliefs to yourself, or you can’t help exterminate the Jews. Excerpt: Thomas told a rabbi at a White House event last week that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany and Poland. "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians," Thomas said in a statement on her Web site. "They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon."

Must read: Israel also contempt for U.S.
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/turkey-251885-world-erdogan.html
Excerpt: Foreign policy "realists," back in the saddle since the Texan cowboy left town, are extremely fond of the concept of "stability": America needs a stable Middle East, so we should learn to live with Mubarak and the mullahs and the House of Saud, etc. You can see the appeal of "stability" to your big-time geopolitical analyst: You don't have to update your Rolodex too often, never mind rethink your assumptions. "Stability" is a fancy term to upgrade inertia and complacency into strategy. No wonder the fetishization of stability is one of the most stable features of foreign-policy analysis. Unfortunately, back in what passes for the real world, there is no stability. History is always on the march, and, if it's not moving in your direction, it's generally moving in the other fellow's. Take this "humanitarian" "aid" flotilla. Much of what went on -- the dissembling of the Palestinian propagandists, the hysteria of the United Nations and the Euro-ninnies -- was just business as usual. But what was most striking was the behavior of the Turks. In the wake of the Israeli raid, Ankara promised to provide Turkish naval protection for the next "aid" convoy to Gaza. This would be, in effect, an act of war -- more to the point, an act of war by a NATO member against the State of Israel. Ten years ago, Turkey's behavior would have been unthinkable. Ankara was Israel's best friend in a region where every other neighbor wishes, to one degree or another, the Jewish state's destruction. Even when Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP was elected to power eight years ago, the experts assured us there was no need to worry. I remember sitting in a plush bar late one night with a former Turkish foreign minister. He told me, in between passing round the cigars and chugging back the Scotch, that, yes, the new crowd weren't quite so convivial in the wee small hours but, other than that, they knew where their interests lay. Like many Turkish movers and shakers of his generation, my drinking companion loved the Israelis. "They're tough hombres," he said admiringly. "You have to be in this part of the world." If you had suggested to him that in six years' time the Turkish prime minister would be telling the Israeli president to his face that "I know well how you kill children on beaches," he would have dismissed it as a fantasy concoction for some alternative universe….. As the think-tankers like to say: “Who lost Turkey?” In a nutshell: Kemal Ataturk. Since he founded post-Ottoman Turkey in his own image nearly nine decades ago, the population has increased from 14 million to over 70 million. But that five-fold increase is not evenly distributed. The short version of Turkish demographics in the 20th century is that Rumelian Turkey — i.e., western, European, secular, Kemalist Turkey — has been outbred by Anatolian Turkey — i.e., eastern, rural, traditionalist, Islamic Turkey. Ataturk and most of his supporters were from Rumelia, and they imposed the modern Turkish republic on a reluctant Anatolia, where Ataturk’s distinction between the state and Islam was never accepted. Now they don’t have to accept it. The swelling population has spilled out of its rural hinterland and into the once solidly Kemalist cities….Demography is destiny, for the most part. For example, European Muslim populations are young, fast-growing, and profoundly hostile to Jews. European Jewish populations are old, fading, and irrelevant to domestic electoral calculations. Think of your stereotypically squishy pol, and then figure the reserves of courage it would require for the European establishment not to be anti-Israeli, and, indeed, ever more anti-Israeli as the years go by.

U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/#ixzz0qB4N5JHc
There should be a firing squad, but there won’t be, though I’d be happy to serve. Excerpt: Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned. SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged. Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians. He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.” “Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote.

Iran Red Crescent to send two aid ships to Gaza
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iEWKLpKjRKdQtCat_2tmvahx_Uaw
They won’t send in the rockets to kill Jewish children until after world opinion has helped them break the blockade. Excerpt: The Iranian Red Crescent has decided to send two aid ships to Gaza this week in the latest bid to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory by Iran's regional archfoe Israel. Red Crescent director for international affairs Abdolrauf Adibzadeh told the state IRNA news agency late on Sunday that the decision to send the ships was taken after a meeting with the foreign ministry. "One ship will carry donations made by the people and the other will carry relief workers. The ships will be sent to Gaza by end of this week," Adibzadeh said. He said the Red Crescent has called for Iranian volunteers to act as relief workers and accompany the vessels.

Why Obama’s Stimulus Failed
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/07/morning-bell-why-obamas-stimulus-failed/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Excerpt: Last Friday’s Department of Labor jobs report, which showed private sector job creation fell by 190,000 between April and May of this year, jolted markets worldwide including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell 3.2% Friday to its lowest level since early February. In total the U.S. economy has now lost a net of 2.2 million jobs since President Barack Obama signed his stimulus bill, and his administration is now 7.2 million jobs short of what he promised his $862 billion stimulus would help create by 2010. This morning on MSNBC, former Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-FL) pressed prominent Keynesian economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs on whether it was too early to declare President Obama’s stimulus a failure. Scarborough had to ask the question twice, but Sachs finally relented: “It did fail.”

White House chief tied to BP adviser
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=163281
If true, huge story. A free house from a crony is a terrible thing to waste. Excerpt: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, WND has learned, lived rent-free in Washington, D.C., for years, thanks in part to a friend under contract with oil giant BP.

Buying support
Background: Some seniors will receive a $250 drug rebate check starting next week as part of the new federal health care law, the Obama administration announced last week.
The checks, which will be mailed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services beginning June 10, will be automatically sent to seniors who fall into the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage gap, the so-called "doughnut hole." The rebate checks are the first step in a gradual phaseout of the gap in Medicare Part D drug coverage. The checks will go to people on Medicare Part D who spend $2,830 (the initial coverage limit) in total drug costs in a year. Those costs include the full amount spent on medications, including on the deductible, co-payments, and co-insurance, but not the amount paid in premiums. From a friend and correspondent: With great fanfare, the Obama administration this week will begin touting the distribution of $250 checks to senior citizens, ostensibly to help defray the cost of prescription drugs. In reality, this is a bribe to mollify oldsters concerned about the billions of dollars to be squeezed out of Medicare in coming years and the looming government rationing of healthcare implicit in Obamacare. Everyone is in a different situation, but for those of us who can afford it, the best use of this money would be as a donation in this fall's election to a candidate who can be depended on to do something about the mushrooming debt being piled up by the administration. The national debt will soon equal the total output of the U.S. economy for a year. As demonstrated by the recent anemic jobs report, the unsustainable tax and spend policies of this Congress and administration are choking off the growth we need to begin making a dent in the mountain of debt our children and grandchildren face. For this senior, using government "largess" to help change Washington's culture of fiscal irresponsibility is the best investment I can make. This e-mail is addressed to many "youngsters" who won't be getting checks, but perhaps you could pass the idea on to a senior you know. --Chuck Johanns

No Mosque at Ground Zero
http://viralfootage.com/?p=7423
Speaking truth to political correctness

Bears and Terrorists
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/6/border-patrol-has-bear-of-time-stopping-terrorists/
If we can save just one bear, worth any number of dead American kids—or so the left believes. Excerpt: As if fighting terrorism weren't complicated enough, the United States has a new national security threat to worry about: grizzly bears. Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee say that environmental laws protecting grizzlies and other wild animals along rural portions of the U.S.-Canada border have handcuffed U.S. Border Patrol and Department of Homeland Security agents, potentially making it easier for would-be terrorists to slip into the country. Trucks and off-road vehicles are prohibited along much of the border in order to protect bears moving between the two countries. But such laws make it difficult for agents to patrol these areas, the lawmakers say.

Media ignore Iranian caught smuggling arsenal of sniper rifles across border
http://www.examiner.com/x-35976-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m6d6-Media-ignore-Iranian-caught-smuggling-arsenal-of-sniper-rifles-across-border?cid=examiner-email
Excerpt: An illegal immigrant from Iran named Hamid Malekpour was discovered last month smuggling a huge load of sniper rifles and high-powered weaponry across the Canadian border into Washington State. He has since been arrested and charged with entering the country illegally with firearms and ammunition, as well as filing a false report with a federal agency. It has been covered locally and by some bloggers, but that's pretty much it.

Imam unmosqued
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/imam_unmosqued_0XbZMwCvHAVdRZEKgx29AK?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=
Excerpt: The imam behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea this week. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, according to its Website. Perdana is the single biggest donor ($366,000) so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Monday.

Ax the hacks, Bam
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/ax_the_hacks_bam_rgtb80GO6CCnykYsTJPw1I
Excerpt: The flap over the job offers to Joe Sestak in Pennsylva nia and Andrew Romanoff in Colorado shows that it's time to move electoral politics out of the White House. Rahm Emanuel, this means you. President Obama's first step should be to shutter the Office of Political Affairs. Then he should jettison the various political henchmen -- starting with Rahm -- who've infested the West Wing and put them on the Democratic National Committee, where they belong. Since President Ronald Reagan created it, the Office of Political Affairs has become a taxpayer-funded campaign office that has helped administrations of all stripes consolidate their power.
Its current head, Patrick Gaspard, has used his perch to try to push Gov. Paterson from running this fall (Paterson later forced himself out), to push Doug Wilder to support Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial race (Deeds would up losing the general) -- and to persuade GOP state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava to endorse the Democrat after she lost her primary in the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District (which helped keep the seat in Democratic hands). Your taxpayer dollars at work. Gaspard works closely with Emanuel, the White House chief of staff (who was behind the Sestak overtures), and his deputy, Jim Messina (of Romanoff fame). In the Bush White House, Ken Mehlman ran the political office. Karl Rove ran it at one point and held Messina's position, where he worked in tandem with Mehlman to preserve Bush's power.

Pols turn on labor unions
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38183.html
The dog fight over entitlements grows. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Excerpt: Spurred by state budget crunches and an angry public mood, Republican and some Democratic leaders are focusing with increasing intensity on public workers and the unions that represent them, casting them as overpaid obstacles to good government and demanding cuts in their often-generous benefits. Unlike past battles over the high cost of labor, this time pitched battles over wages and pensions are being waged from Sacramento to Springfield to New York City and the conflict is marked by its bipartisan tone, with public employee unions emerging as an intransigent public enemy number one in cities and state capitals across the country. They're the whipping boys for a new generation of governors who, thanks to a tanking economy and an assist from editorial boards, feel freer than ever to make political targets out of what was once a protected liberal class of teachers, cops, and other public servants.

Timing of probe is crucial for Charlie Rangel
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38186.html
I hope Rangel survives—from that district, likely to get another thief. If they can whitewash it, it will come out before the primary. If not, afterwards. Excerpt: With the investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel nearing its second anniversary, the New York Democrat and the House ethics committee face a new challenge — the political calendar. Rangel, a member of Congress since 1971, filed for reelection Sunday, and the Democratic primary in New York is Sept. 14. If the ethics committee releases a damaging report on Rangel before the Sept. 14 primary, it could be a death blow to the Harlem congressman’s storied career and open the door to a serious Democratic challenge, Democratic colleagues and party strategists said. But if the ethics committee’s findings come out after the primary, Rangel will very likely survive and win a 21st term in the House. Still, that timing would raise questions about the ethics committee’s process and whether the investigative panel was too aware of the political calendar.

Cairo refuses to let aid into Gaza
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=177687
Probably turned down this humanitarian request because he has been tortured. Excerpt: Meanwhile, Hamas announces refusal to allow Red Cross to see Schalit. The Egyptian authorities over the weekend turned down a request by Arab physicians to bring aid into the Gaza Strip. Hamas, meanwhile, announced that it won't allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit as a condition for the lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Khalil al-Hayyah, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said the proposal was designed to "distract attention for the crime that was perpetrated against the flotilla aid ships last week."

Letting Israel hang
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/letting_israel_hang_F5zJfknQYINIa2q0tBMC1K
Excerpt: In less than a week, the Obama administration left Israel hanging out to dry three separate times. Media coverage of the "flotilla" incident has ignored this critical shift in US policy. But it's a safe bet that America's adversaries, especially the terrorists, understand it all too well. Worse yet, President Obama's visible discomfort in defending hard-pressed US interests around the world is only growing -- with implications America hasn't experienced since Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Hamas refuses to allow flotilla aid into Gaza Strip Expired medicine from flotilla aid
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Hamas_refuses_flotilla_aid_Gaza_Strip_2-Jun-2010.htm
Guess the aid wasn’t very vital. Excerpt: As of 2 June (18:30), the State of Israel has loaded 20 trucks with various types of aid found onboard the flotilla. Expired medication, clothing, blankets, some medical equipment and toys were among the aid found on the ships. Unfortunately, the Hamas terror organization is unwilling to accept the cargo and the trucks filled with humanitarian aid have not been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. It appears that Hamas is in fact stopping the transfer of the humanitarian aid.

Why BP will be the next bailout
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_bp_will_be_the_next_bailout_hvrvH54dE8Luyjl9JJavOK
Interesting, but I think it would be political death. Excerpt: For all the administration's tough talk on the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, the signs are already there that this crisis will actually play out like the financial crisis -- complete with BP's being declared "too big to fail." Once again, politics and posturing will govern the response to catastrophe -- at the expense of both free-market discipline and the rule of law -- creating a bigger disaster for the economy and the environment. Oil and credit both grease the real economy. But the economy won't work right if oil or credit is too expensive -- or too cheap.

Satellite Photos Support Claims of Iraqi WMD in Syria
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/06/06/mauro-satellite-photos-support-claims-of-iraqi-wmd-in-syria/
I’d call this possible, but not likely. Someone in Iraq would have talked to save his skin. But if true, BO will have to declare top secret to protect Democrats. Excerpt: Ha’aretz has revived the mystery surrounding the inability to find weapons of mass destruction stockpiles in Iraq, the most commonly cited justification for Operation Iraqi Freedom and one of the most embarrassing episodes for the United States. Satellite photos of a suspicious site in Syria are providing new support for the reporting of a Syrian journalist who briefly rocked the world with his reporting that Iraq’s WMD had been sent to three sites in Syria just before the invasion commenced. The newspaper reveals that a 200 square-kilometer area in northwestern Syria has been photographed by satellites at the request of a Western intelligence agency at least 16 times, the most recent being taken in January. The site is near Masyaf, and it has at least five installations and hidden paths leading underneath the mountains. This supports the reporting of Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who said in 2004 that his sources confirmed that Saddam Hussein’s WMDs were in Syria.

Muslim Infidels
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/07/muslim-infidels/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=2d311920fb-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
The fate of peaceful Muslims. Excerpt: The Ahmadis just across from my window go about their business, disturbed by no one and disturbing no one. There is a reason for this. The reason is that this Ahmadi mosque is not in Pakistan. It is in Haifa, Israel. You know, that same Israel that is defamed as a discriminatory apartheid state by the members of the Islamofascist-leftist alliance, that 21st century Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Of course, the reality is that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is not an apartheid regime. The minarets of the Haifa mosque are the most interesting thing one sees from my living room window. But I turn from the window to the television screen. There on the evening news are other Ahmadi mosques. They are filled with blood and flames. Those Ahmadis were not fortunate enough to live under Israeli “apartheid” rule. They were the victims of Pakistani barbarism and savagery. On May 28, 2010 a group of Sunni Muslim terrorists attacked two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan, belonging to the Ahmadi sect. At least 98 people died in the carnage. The terrorists used bombs and automatic rifles. The massacres drew attention to a little discussed facet of modern Islamofascism, namely Islamist violence against other Muslims. The Ahmadis are a heterodox sect, known collectively as the Ahmadiyya, founded in the late 19th century in Pakistan. It is estimated that they have four million followers just in Pakistan, and they claim to have tens of millions more worldwide. They have two million followers just in the African country of Benin. Ahmadi followers believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) was sent by Allah as a prophet “to end religious wars, condemn bloodshed and reinstitute morality, justice and peace,” this according to an Ahmadi web site. The founder of the sect claimed to be a prophet and a sort of Islamic messiah or Mahdi. The sect even claims that Mohammed foresaw and foretold of the coming of Ahmad.

Did 2008 Democratic primary voters underestimate value of experience?
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/06/did-2008-democratic-primary-voters-underestimate-value-of-experience/#ixzz0q8miQhwh
Nah. Calling for “change and hope” will fix anything. Excerpt: Citing the BP oil spill, unemployment and Israeli attacks on a Gaza flotilla, Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s top strategist and pollster for her 2008 presidential campaign, last week argued that voters are now “wondering if they underestimated the value of experience and crisis management as important attributes for their president.”

Clinton Says She Expects Iran to 'Pull Some Stunt'
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/hillary-clinton-says-she-expects-iran-to-pull-some-stunt/19505284
If she has hard intel, she just revealed it to Iran. Excerpt: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she thinks Iran will "pull some stunt" in the next few days because it expects further United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program. "They have consistently tried to avoid being held accountable," Clinton told reporters before leaving on a trip to Latin America. The U.S. suspects Iran is enriching uranium to build a nuclear warhead. Tehran denies this and insists on its right to a peaceful nuclear power program. The U.S. hopes to bring a fourth sanctions resolution to a U.N. Security Council vote this week. On Sunday, Clinton said, "I fully expect Iran to pull some stunt in the next couple of days because they know that sanctions are on the way." She added, "I think we will see something coming up in the next 24 to 48 hours where Iran says, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, look at what we're going to do now."

A tale of two houses
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
You may have seen before, but I pulled it up on snopes.com after it was again sent to me. So who is the environmentalist.

Obama 2008: I ran a big campaign, so I can handle a Gulf emergency
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-2008-i-ran-a-big-campaign-so-i-can-handle-a-gulf-emergency-95720589.html
Well, now he’s got one. Handle it. Excerpt: It’s not mentioned much now, but in the late summer of 2008, a major hurricane, Gustav, was in the Gulf of Mexico and headed toward New Orleans, threatening a replay of the disastrous Katrina experience. On September 1, 2008, Barack Obama, fresh from his Roman-colonnade speech on the final night of the Democratic convention in Denver, talked to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about Gustav and the Gulf. The question: As president, could he handle an emergency like that? Obama pointed to the size of his campaign and its multi-million dollar budget as evidence of his executive abilities. “Our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years,” Obama said. That executive ability, he added, “indicates the degree to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.”

Mayor Daley is wounding gun control advocacy
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Mayor-Daley-is-wounding-gun-control-advocacy-95729124.html
Excerpt: America's gun control proponents might want to consider shooting (pun intended) this memo to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. "Dear Mayor Daley: Please shut up. You ain't helping us." Is there anyone doing more damage against advocates of gun control than Daley? The man is a walking billboard for right-to-carry laws. Anyone needing proof of that might want to read the statements he made in the wake of an 80-year-old Chicago man fatally shooting a career criminal who invaded his home.