Political Digest September 13, 2010

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Nor that I disagree with them, of course.
Obama Unplugged — and Unintelligible
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/354921
Excerpt: Before Obama’s presser on Friday, Michael Gerson wandered down the memory lane, recalling the 2008 campaign, when Obama’s “message had something to do with unity, healing and national purpose.” No more, he explained: “Obama’s initiatives … are not only unpopular; they have made it impossible for him to maintain the pretense of being a unifying, healing, once-in-a-generation leader. It is the agenda that undermined the idiom. With that image stripped away, Americans found Obama to be a somber, thoughtful, touchy, professorial, conventionally liberal political figure.” Actually, it’s worse than that. For starters, it is hard to be “thoughtful” when you are touchy and prone to regurgitating leftist talking points. In fact, Obama’s Friday presser was at times rather incoherent — he didn’t change Washington, it’s the GOP’s fault, the stimulus isn’t really a stimulus but it is stimulating, and so forth. He insisted that, all along, he had warned that health-care costs would bend up (What!? When had that spasm of truth telling occurred?), and lamented that he couldn’t close Gitmo because of politics (i.e., there was no public support for it and no one solved the “where do we put them” problem.) At this point, all but the die-hard Obama supporters must be chagrined to find that the only straight answer he can give is on the Ground Zero mosque. (He is fine with it.)

Harry Reid’s New Dairy Commercial Only Tells Half the Story
http://www.campaignsitebuilder.com/news/disp_news.asp?ID=14645&siteid=2371
Excerpt: As I watched Harry Reid’s ad on ‘saving’ Anderson Dairy and the jobs of 130 employees I felt the need to explain the total ramifications of exempting Las Vegas from the federal milk marketing order referenced in the ad. I manage the Ponderosa Dairy, Nevada’s largest dairy, which milks over 9,000 cows twice a day. We produce 12 semi-tankers of milk each day, or one every two hours, and directly employ 145 employees and indirectly contribute to the employment of over 1,000 Nevadans. Our economic output for Nevada is over $90 million. When Sen. Reid carved out an exemption for Anderson Dairy – which, by the way, milks NO cows – he allowed cheaper ‘overbase’ milk – drinking milk produced in excess of government caps - to flow into Nevada from California, Arizona and Utah, which allows Anderson Dairy to pad their profit margin. That’s a great deal for Anderson Dairy; however, Ponderosa Dairy – an actual production dairy, not a processing-only dairy - now has to truck its milk all the way to California in order to get the full “Class 1” allowable price for drinking milk (as opposed to milk used for making cheese and butter). Then some of our same trucks pick up cheap overbase milk from California and bring it to Anderson Dairy in Las Vegas. Yes, you read that correctly. Ponderosa Dairy now has to ship its milk to California, while California ships its cheaper overbase milk to Nevada. We call it the ‘Milk Loop’ – and it eats up over a million gallons of diesel fuel, costing us millions of dollars a year in higher trucking costs. The Ponderosa is only 80 miles from Las Vegas, but now we have to ship our milk 280 miles to southern California. Because of the special deal Sen. Reid cut for Anderson Dairy – the Milk Money Compact - our business is now at a competitive disadvantage with others in the milk producing businesses in our region. As such, we shelved all expansion plans in Nevada and instead invested over $100 million in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas where we now directly employ hundreds of workers and generate much-needed tax revenue and economic activity which otherwise would have benefited Nevada. (As I’ve said before, when politicians get involved in the economy, the decisions are made on the basis of politics, not economics. ~Bob.)

Animal, Vegetable, or E. O. Wilson
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/11/animal-vegetable-or-e-o-wilson/#more-24709
Excerpt: In a book excerpt in the February 2002 Scientific American entitled “The Bottleneck”, the noted ant entomologist Professor Edward O. Wilson put forward the familiar Malthusian argument that humans are about to run out of food. He said that we are currently getting wedged into a “bottleneck” of population versus resources. He warned of the dangers of “exponential growth” in population, and he averred that we will be squeezed mightily before the population levels off. His solution? In part his solution was that everyone should become a vegivore. (...) Is this correct? Would we have a net gain in carrying capacity if all the human carnetarians agreed to become vegivores? Wilson gets his figure of 10 billion people by taking the total amount of the grain that is being fed to animals, and then figuring how many people that grain would feed. In 1999, about 655 billion tons of grain were fed to animals. That’s a lot of grain. At the world average of about 150 kg of grain per person per year, he’s right, that’s an increase of 4 billion more people who would have enough grain. There were 6 billion on the planet in the year 2000, so that makes a total of about 10 billion people. So up to there, he is correct. But wait. Although he stops the calculation at that point, there’s a few things he is leaving out of the calculation. (Perhaps I'm a raving human supremacist, but I've never even considered becoming a vegetarian. I like to eat things that go moo, oink, and cock-a-doodle-do. I've eaten Bambi, various kinds of sea life, and other creatures I won't bore you with. This is the first good, scientific explanation I've ever heard of why meat-loving cultures produce more and better food than vegan cultures. No wonder vegetarian lifestyles only work well when practiced within, or with the assistance of, meat-eating cultures. Ron P. Well, personally, I believe there is a place for all God’s critters…usually next to the mashed potatoes. ~Bob.)

Disappointment at the White House
http://www.350.org/about/blogs/disappointment-white-house-pride-movement
Excerpt: For the last three days, I've been sitting at my kitchen table in California cranking out press releases, calling reporters, and generally playing "pit crew" for Bill and our Put Solar On It road trip. It's been a great ride: tens of thousands of people have shown their support for putting solar back on the White House, the crew had great stops in Boston, New York, and D.C., and we managed to secure a meeting with the Administration to discuss putting solar back on the roof. As we expected (but secretly hoped wouldn't be the case), the White House didn't commit to ... well, anything. We tossed them a big, fat soft ball to hit out of the park and they just watched it float on by. That's too bad. But it's also a great reminder of who the real leaders are. As Joe put it, if the President can't climb up on the roof and hammer in some solar panels, clearly we need to push him up. That's exactly what we're going to do on 10/10/10. (This is a warmist site dedicated to lowering atmospheric CO2 to 350 parts per million or less. From all the publicity on NPR and various TV networks, I thought this was pretty much a done deal. They would simply show up and install the things the next day. That turns out not to be the case. The true believers tried to strong-arm the White House with publicity and got rebuffed publicly. That's got to hurt. It also has to irritate still another of Obama's support groups. I wonder if we could get these guys to try again right around Halloween instead of Oct 10th? Ron P. )

Harry Reid, Sharron Angle Running Neck-and-Neck
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/12/harry-reid-sharron-angle-running-neck-and-neck-in-nevada-senate/
Excerpt: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican challenger Sharron Angle remained deadlocked in Nevada's Senate race, with Reid holding a statistically-insignificant 46 percent to 44 percent lead, according to a Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey conducted Sept. 7-9 for the Las Vegas-Review Journal. Six percent are undecided and the rest do not like either choice. The margin of error is 4 points. Two weeks ago, Mason-Dixon had Reid at 46 percent and Angle at 45 percent. A Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Sept. 1 had the two tied at 45 percent each. (Even if Reid survives, he may be crippled. Ron P. Well, a win is a win, and it’s six years to the next election. Unfortunately, it was a three way GOP primary, and the pre-primary polls showed Angle as the weakest candidate, but strong with the motivated Tea Party. We will see if the Tea Party thus re-elected Reid. ~Bob.)

Saudi diplomat seeking asylum: 'My life is in danger'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39118941/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
Excerpt: A ranking Saudi diplomat told NBC News that he has asked for political asylum in the United States, saying he fears for his life if he is forced to return to his native country.
The diplomat, Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, has informed U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials that Saudi officials have refused to renew his diplomatic passport and effectively terminated his job after discovering he was gay and was close friends with a Jewish woman. In a recent letter that he posted on a Saudi website, Asseri angrily criticized his country’s “backwardness” as well as the role of “militant imams” in Saudi society who have “defaced the tolerance of Islam.” Perhaps most provocatively of all, he has threatened to expose what he describes as politically embarrassing information about members of the Saudi royal family living in luxury in the U.S. (Send him back. Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance they keep telling us. ~Bob.)

We need to get away from occupation type warfare
http://www.therightscoop.com/we-need-to-get-away-from-occupation-type-warfare
Excerpt: Lt. Col. Allen West talks about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with the Mangru report, as well as the “war on terror”. He says some very interesting things, like “we need to stop calling it a ‘war on terror.’

Risk and Regulation
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/risk-and-regulation/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: As economic activity dwindles, and tea party activism rises, some Americans are now beginning to question the most flagrant of these rules and regulations. But that alone won’t suffice. If we’re to truly effect fundamental and long-lasting change, we must identify, examine and challenge the basic premises responsible for the regulatory state. One vital concept here is that of risk. Regulators act on the implicit premise that our primary focus should be on avoiding risk. According to them, all we have to do to be successful is avoid tainted food, drugs with side effects, companies that could swindle us, imperfect aircraft, etc. Moreover, in their view, doing so is easy. Simply ban and forbid any risky product or idea from the marketplace. What they fail to appreciate is that avoiding a negative is not the same as achieving a positive. Avoiding tainted food doesn’t ward off hunger any more than avoiding a side-effect will cure the primary disease. Instead, what life requires are positive values, from material goods like food, shelter and medicine; to emotional ones like a lover or a spouse; to spiritual ones like a lifelong purpose and career. As much as regulators may pretend otherwise, these values aren’t just there for the taking, they’re created by positive human actions which aren’t—and can’t be—automatically successful. That is, the risk of failure or of something going wrong is inherent in the very nature of value-creation. Investing in a company carries the risk that its new products won’t appeal to potential customers, that competitors will undercut its prices, or that its CEO will turn out to be a deadbeat. A suitor seeking a romantic relationship can get involved with someone unstable, untrustworthy, or who’s simply a waste of valuable time. Yet those are the risks that must be borne to find wealth and love respectively.

Only in Chicago Would Street Gangs Be So Bold
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/only-in-chicago-would-street-gangs-be-so-bold/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Soon a young man, we’ll call him Applicant A, appears at your doorstep. He has obviously made some effort to impress, wearing a coat and tie and giving you cause to believe he adheres to a passably tolerable regimen of personal hygiene. His résumé, though not extensive, indicates some degree of initiative: he has graduated from high school and junior college with passing but not sterling grades, during which education he supported himself by working as a busboy, a cook, and a waiter. For references he presents a list of former teachers and supervisors at his previous jobs. During the course of your interview with him, you form the opinion that he is eager, honest, and intelligent, the kind of young man who, though not highly educated, will be an asset to your business and a pleasant coworker for your other employees. And then along comes Applicant B, who arrives thirty minutes late for his interview. The initial impression he makes is one of stark contrast to Applicant A. Where Applicant A has chosen an approximation of business attire, Applicant B is more casually dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans, the waistband of which rests somewhere well below his waist to expose a vast expanse of his plaid boxer shorts. He also wears athletic shoes with the laces untied and a baseball cap whose bill points off in some direction other than the front. He discloses that he is a high school dropout, and when you inquire about the skills he might bring to the job, he recites a litany of talents which, though impressive in their own way, seem ill suited for the position you seek to fill: he can outrun any cop in his neighborhood, can start almost any car with only a screwdriver, and is an expert shot with a 9-millimeter Glock, so expert in fact that he can — and has — hit a moving target from a moving car. For references he offers his probation officer and a friend he knows only by the sobriquet “Pookie.” Now, to whom do you offer the job? Be honest now — you chose Applicant A, didn’t you? Shame, shame, shame on you. Now Applicant B, having suffered discrimination at your hands, has no choice but to go out and continue in a life of crime. When he shoots and kills someone in the course of a robbery it will not be his fault but yours for having denied him an escape from his descent into perdition. This was the theme of a bizarre press conference held this month in Chicago, where a collection of so-called gang leaders addressed reporters and aired their grievances on a number of subjects including the police and economic conditions that, they claim, offer poor young men no choice but to commit robberies, burglaries, and various other crimes, and to shoot each other with a staggering degree of regularity. The press conference was a response to a meeting Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis held with gang members on August 28, during which Weis and prosecutors are alleged to have threatened to prosecute gang crimes under federal RICO statutes if Chicago’s street violence is not curtailed. The gang members claim they were tricked into attending the meeting, having been summoned under the pretense of a routine parole hearing. (I live in Crook County, just outside Chicago. Had 303 shootings, 33 fatal in July in Chicago. Three cops were shot to death in two months, two of them black guys that black thugs tried to rob on the street. As I’ve noted before, it is decent blacks and Hispanics who suffer the most at the hands of the thugs. Pretty amazing that the top cop would hold a meeting with gang leaders to threaten them, even more amazing that the gangs would then hold a press conference to denounce the threats. Most amazing was that it got a little play in the local media, but not that much. Of course, I live in the relatively safe burbs. Only found one body close to our condo this year, and to be fair, it was actually only half a body, the other half having turned up earlier two towns over. ~Bob.)

Cyber jihad group linked to 'Here you have' worm
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9184718/Cyber_jihad_group_linked_to_Here_you_have_worm
Excerpt: A fast-spreading e-mail worm that crashed systems Thursday may be linked to a cyber jihad organization called Tariq ibn Ziyad, according to security vendor SecureWorks.
The "Here you have" worm spread like wildfire through some computer networks, bringing e-mail servers down and reportedly disrupting large U.S. organizations including Disney, Proctor and Gamble, Wells Fargo, and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). It's known as "Here you have" because that is sometimes the subject line of the messages used to spread the malware.

The Democrats Can Win the House
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-11/obama-visits-could-help-dems-hold-the-house-scholar-says/?om_rid=Mqh-D0&om_mid=_BMjN6SB8UnWJgd
Excerpt: Two months after White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs let slip that Republicans could take over the House of Representatives in November, the Democrats’ prospects have only grown bleaker: No one seems to think that they have a prayer. Nate Silver announced Friday that Republicans have a two-thirds chance of gaining control of the House. Charlie Cook says the Republicans will win “well north of the 39 seats needed for the House to flip,” while, at a recent gathering of the American Political Science Association, several academics predicted Republican gains of 50 seats. But not everyone has written off the Democrats just yet. Deep in the heart of red country, Rob Mellen, an assistant professor of political science and public administration at Mississippi State University, has something that offers liberals a flicker of hope: a model that shows Democrats keeping a slim majority of the House of Representatives—between 224 and 226 of the House’s 435 seats. Mellen’s isn’t the only model that shows the Democrats holding on to the House. But unlike the others in this category, which look mostly at slow-changing economic fundamentals, Mellen’s model shows that President Obama himself can make a difference between now and Election Day. Mellen looks at the impact of presidential campaign appearances on behalf of House candidates in midterm elections. (...) The improvement has to do with the so-called enthusiasm gap. The dire predictions for the Democrats in November don’t necessarily assume a defection of voters from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Rather, Republican voters, riled up by being out of power, are more likely to turn out in the midterms; Democrats, resting on their laurels after the 2008 landslide, are much more likely to sit this one out. ("Please, B'rer Bear and B'rer Fox, don't throw me into that briar patch," cried B'rer Rabbit ~ Uncle Remus's Tales. I think the author has completely misread the situation. Sending Obama on the campaign trail will be the best thing they could do, all right, for Republicans. He might spark a little more enthusiasm in Dems, but would also arouse more ire in republicans, who will then work even harder. Republicans and conservative independents are NOT "riled up by being out of power," they are frightened and upset by the direction the government is going. The electoral problem facing Dems is NOT that Dems won't vote, it's that independents have abandoned the Dems in wholesale lots. The missing enthusiasm isn't among Dems--they're merely depressed--it's with the independents. Yes, republicans CAN still lose the election, if we fail to work to deserve to win; but, giving us even more reason to redouble our efforts seems counterproductive. Ron P.)

Fact check: Obama's health care statements haven't matched reality
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20109120318
The AP calls Obama out! Excerpt: President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money. Now, he's hemming and hawing on that. So far, the law he signed earlier this year hasn't had the desired effect. An analysis from Medicare's Office of the Actuary this week said that the nation's health care tab will go up -- not down -- through 2019 as a result of Obama's sweeping law, though the increase is modest. Obama offered some caveats when asked in his news conference Friday about the apparent discrepancy between what he promised and what's actually happening so far. On several other topics, too, his rhetoric fell short of a full accounting. (Wow, this new capacity in the press to start looking at the man behind the curtain seems to really be taking off, at long, long last. Great... let's hope a lot of people read all these criticisms and determine to make things change in November. --Del)

Agitator & Chief
http://peoriateapartypatriots.ning.com/profiles/blogs/agitator-amp-chief?xg_source=activity
Excerpt: Does anyone else besides me feel like President Obama is poking his finger in your chest almost on a daily basis, agitating the very people he has sworn to defend, "Americans." All I heard with the media during the 2008 Presidential election is how Barrack Obama was going to "unite" this country and the world when he gets into office. He even won the "Nobel Peace Prize" 20 days before he was sworn into office with the mere "expectation of greatness' and the theme of "The One" that surrounded him. He might not have parted the seas, but he definitely had the media sitting up panting like a dog, begging for morsels of face time with him loaded with sugar coated questions, getting tingly feelings up their legs, running interference for him on all sides keeping his mystical aura a glow.

Woman's links to Mexican drug cartel a saga of corruption on U.S. side of border
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/11/AR2010091105687.html
Excerpt: She lived a double life. At the border crossing, she was Agent Garnica, a veteran law enforcement officer. In the shadows, she was "La Estrella," the star, a brassy looker who helped drug cartels make a mockery of the U.S. border. Martha Garnica devised secret codes, passed stacks of cash through car windows and sketched out a map for smugglers to safely haul drugs and undocumented workers across the border. For that she was richly rewarded; she lived in a spacious house with a built-in pool, owned two Hummers and vacationed in Europe. For years, until an intricate sting operation brought her down in late 2009, Garnica embodied the seldom-discussed role of the United States in the trafficking trade.

Dalit girl forced to convert to Islam in Pakistan: Report
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Dalit-girl-forced-to-convert-to-Islam-in-Pakistan-Report/articleshow/6536246.cms
Excerpt: A 13-year-old Dalit girl was kidnapped and apparently forced to convert to Islam in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, according to a media report on Saturday. Poonam was kidnapped from her house in Lyari Town in Karachi on Wednesday, her uncle Bhanwroo told the Daily Times newspaper. When neighbours informed her family of Poonam's presence at a madrassa in Lyari, they went there. "She was very scared and under the influence of maulvis. She told us they will not let her go, so she will stay with them as a Muslim," said Bhanwroo. The family contacted police in Chakiwara to lodge an FIR on the kidnapping but they refused to do so, he said. (Well, the Prophet (PBUH) sanctioned sex with slave girls. ~Bob.)

Path to reelection steeper for U.S. Rep. Ron Klein http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/path-to-reelection-steeper-for-u-s-rep-910625.html
Excerpt: Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein won his Palm Beach-Broward congressional seat in 2006 by nationalizing his campaign against former Rep. Clay Shaw, relentlessly tying the Republican incumbent to former President George W. Bush and the Iraq war. Four years later, Klein is the incumbent confronting a different national tide. In a swing district that will help determine which party controls the U.S. House, Republican challenger Allen West wants to make the District 22 race a referendum on President Obama and the Democratic Congress. West, who calls Klein a "mama's boy" for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, says his mission is nothing less than "destroying the liberal progressive socialist machine and its legislative agenda. Klein is just a steppingstone to that end."

The Terry Jones saga shows the strength of anti-Americanism
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/7996761/The-Terry-Jones-saga-shows-the-strength-of-anti-Americanism.html
Good column from a Brit. ~Bob. Excerpt: Anti-Americanism has a new pin-up. “Pastor” Terry Jones, whose congregation may number as many as 50 on a good week, is holding the world in thrall with his on-again, off-again Koran-burning stunt. In spite of his idiotic proposal having been condemned by everyone in US public life, including the President, Sarah Palin, the secretaries of state and defence, the Pentagon, and the spokesmen of every respectable religious group, this wacko fantasist would have been capable (we were told) of destroying any prospect of peace between the West and the Islamic world. Mercifully, after what may have been a persuasive visit from a gaggle of FBI men, the “pastor” decided to cancel his grotesque commemoration of September 11. But presumably if his face-saving story of receiving an assurance that the Ground Zero mosque was to be moved is definitively trounced, he could choose once again to push us to the brink of global Armageddon. Hello? Has anyone noticed how utterly ridiculous this is? One publicity-crazed loony threatens to commit an irresponsibly offensive act, to the virtually universal disgust of his own countrymen and the populations of America’s allies, and that’s it: the annihilation of any chance of bridge-building or conciliation between Muslim countries and the Western nations. That this absurdity became the immediately accepted received wisdom suggests that the world (and not just the Muslim parts of it) must be very eager indeed to find a plausible excuse for casting America as a cartoon country whose heartland is dominated by bigoted know-nothings. Never mind that this is the same America which, only two years ago, was being hailed by ecstatic European liberals for having elected a black president, whose father and stepfather had been Muslims. I remember saying at the time that the victory of Barack Obama would provide only the most fleeting respite from the dominant anti-American mythology which is so essential to European self-regard. But we are where we are. The failure to make any serious attempt to understand the United States and its political culture is now more than smug, stupid and cynical (although it is certainly all those things). The perverse ignorance which allows the British liberal establishment to caricature America’s obsessive concern with its constitutional integrity as simply a front for bigotry (note the BBC’s derisive treatment of the Tea Party movement) is beyond silly: it now presents a real threat to the common cause which the nations of the Enlightenment must make if they are to see their way through the present danger.

As Obama's popularity drops, so do sales of his merchandise
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/11/AR2010091104540.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: In Union Station, the souvenir shop once dubbed the Obama Store because of its mostly Obama-related selection (save for the Michael Jackson memorabilia of the same vein that popped up after his death) has closed. A jewelry-repair shop stands in its place near the food court. "That moment in history is gone," said Molly Andolina, a professor of political science at DePaul University, in the president's adopted home town of Chicago. "You're going to only see the enthusiasts" continue to buy, she said.

In the Middle East, there was cheering that day…
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=18900
Excerpt: This is the video that the non-interventionist wing of the libertarian movement, rather you not see. Palestinians cheer the attacks of 9/11 in the streets of Ramallah, and Gaza, hours after the planes flew into the World Trade Center. (If it wasn’t Islam that attacked us, Mr. President, why were so many Muslims cheering that day? Were they are members of the “tiny minority of extremists” we hear about? Suppose we run this video and the one below on a continuous loop on a billboard across from the Ground Zero Mosque,? We have the right to do that if they have the right to build it. ~Bob.)

Remembering ‘the Jumpers’ of 9/11
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=18897
Excerpt: [CAJ note: Please be advised the videos are disturbing and emotional...] Another post most will not want, and should not have, to read and view. But we owe it to ourselves to witness the utter despair forced upon innocent people by Islamic terrorists adhering to an ideology that is unchanged, unscathed, and will continue to terrorize until eradicated. [The note at YouTube: USA TODAY estimates that at least 200 people jumped to their deaths that morning, far more than can be seen in the photographs taken that morning. Nearly all were from the north tower, which was hit first and collapsed last. Fewer than a dozen were from the south tower. [The jumping started shortly after the first jet hit at 8:46 a.m. People jumped continuously during the 102 minutes that the north tower stood. Two people jumped as the north tower began to fall at 10:28 a.m., witnesses said.]

Bribing the public with the public's money
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Bribing-the-public-with-the-public_s-money-814137-102654784.html
Excerpt: A new report by the Federal Reserve points to "widespread signs of deceleration" in the U.S. economy. No kidding! These signs follow what the Fed calls a "burst" of growth in the last quarter of 2009 and first quarter of 2010 triggered by President Obama's $862 billion stimulus package. Unfortunately, the burst failed to help anybody except special interests like unions and public employees. Note the Fed's evasive word choice: Another word for "decelerating" would be "contracting." That's what happens in an economy debilitated by high unemployment, government over-regulation, spiraling public debt, and whopping tax increases looming for the most productive people and businesses.

Obama hasn't yet learned his economic lesson
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Obama-hasn_t-yet-learned-his-economic-lesson-813640-102651784.html
President Obama was in full campaign mode this week as he delivered a stump speech on the economy in Cleveland. But the magic is gone. He's no longer the silver-tongued orator who could make us feel good about ourselves and the prospects for our country -- which was key to his victory in 2008. Now he's just another partisan hack blaming the other party for his own failure of leadership. Instead of changing his tone and rhetoric, the president should be focused on changing his policies. But he seems incapable of any new thinking on what to do about the ailing economy. His only solution is to spend more. He's now touting a new economic stimulus: $50 billion in supposed infrastructure spending, which he's coupled to some targeted tax breaks for businesses. But few people -- including those vulnerable members of Congress in his own party -- are buying his plan, for good reason. If nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus spending couldn't create enough jobs to drop the unemployment rate to under 9 percent, how could adding $50 billion more for infrastructure improvements make a difference? The problem with the president's new plan is the same as it was with the old one. (Obama’s trapped. Changing his economic policies, even though they don’t work, won’t buy him much with the people who despise him, and his base believes in them no matter how many times they’ve brought misery throughout history. ~Bob.)

Political Digest September 12, 2010

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

9/11 Post
http://commonamericanjournal.com/
The well read and always relevant Common American Journal picked up my post yesterday on 9/11, along with several other good articles on the day.

Must Read: Time for an Islamaphobia Beer Summit
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/time_for_an_islamaphobia_beer.html
Excerpt: With 70% of Americans standing in hardened opposition to a victory mosque being built on our national graveyard at Ground Zero, it would take a complete elitist ninny to sum this up as "Islamaphobia." But since our elitists are indeed calling the 70% of us irrational, phobic nutcases, it would seem an awfully good time to have an Islamaphobia beer summit. Forget the beer; we need sober heads. Forget the president; he's out to lunch. We'll just have a dry summit among ourselves. For starters, what is a "phobia"? I'm darned well sure that at least 98% of the overwhelming 70% already know that a phobia is an irrational fear or loathing of some quantifiable thing or idea. The key word here, of course, is irrational. One ought never confuse reasoned repugnance with irrational fear. In this case, 70% of Americans oppose Imam Rauf's plan to build a "bridge" mosque so close to the site where his fellow Muslims murdered three thousand of our fellow citizens in the name of Islam just nine years ago. And I daresay there is nothing whatsoever irrational in this opposition. A monument erected to the killers over the graves of their victims is a bridge too far for truly rational people. And it is doubtful that any rational American president would have ever lent his support to such an arrogantly vulgar idea in the first place. This is both stupidity and appeasement on steroids, which no reasonable person with even a smidgen of real knowledge about Islam could possibly support. In light of the now-countless acts of worldwide jihad committed since Jimmy Carter let the worldwide Islamic terror genie out of its bottle in 1979, it would verily take a nitwit of ostrich-level denial skill not to see Islam as anything but a "religion of peace." If one wanted to be really thorough, though, all one would need would be a curious glance at the post-WWII history of Israel. Now that we ourselves have tasted the bitter fruits of Islamic jihad, we have a much better sense of how it's felt to be an Israeli since day one. The big question of our era is: Can Islam become a religion of peace? For the record, anyone who has read the Koran understands well that political tyranny is inextricably woven into Islam's religious fiber. State-enabled terror is part and parcel of the religion of submission. The word "Islam" itself means "submission," and within every tenet of true Islam is the vociferous command to force this submission upon everyone. Even in the so-called enlightened, tolerant Ottoman Empire, all infidels were so buried under the dictates of submission that they were living as slaves to a capricious state caliphate, just as the few remaining Jews and Christians who now live under Islamic governments all over the Muslim world. Just as communists and fascists promoted the perverted idea that peace was defined as the day all resistance to their tyrannies stopped, so do Islamists. The idea that the Muslim god, Allah, demands worldwide submission by all, whether voluntarily or at the point of a sword, is at the very heart of the Koran.

Beyond mourning
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/beyond_mourning_qPqXGbgFcDbaohqpCCSDEK
Excerpt: For the ninth time, Americans today will gather at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., for the now familiar -- but achingly painful -- commemorations of 9/11. The nation will mourn its loss -- nearly 3,000 innocent lives, snuffed out on a Tuesday morning that seems at once so long ago, and as if it were yesterday. And America will commemorate the heroism of the first responders who unhesitatingly rushed to the maelstrom to do their jobs -- even at the cost of many of their own lives. But it would be a mistake to sentimentalize what happened on that brilliantly sunlit late-summer morning -- just as it would be wrong to lose sight of the true nature of the event. The attacks were acts of mass murder, committed to advance political goals that were -- and remain -- antithetical to civilization itself. Lenin wrote that the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, and he was right. In this case, the object was to weaken the will of the established order to resist murderous medievalists who meant to drag the West back to the 9th century. Who still mean to. Even if important people don't see it. "There is always going to be the potential for an individual, or a small group of individuals, to kill other people," President Obama said yesterday. But it is so much more than that.
Al Qaeda was never anything more than an Islamist cooperative: deadly, decentralized and ideologically obsessed. It coalesced in Iraq after 2003 to fight America, and suffered grievously for the miscalculation. But now component parts are hard at work in Sudan, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula (especially Yemen) and anywhere else Islamist radicals gather to plot the demise of the West. For all its horror, 9/11 was not a declaration of war by radical Islam. Rather, it was a dramatic escalation of a war that had begun decades earlier -- in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran, in the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon, in the first World Trade Center bombing and in the attack on USS Cole. Obama notes that America is "not at war with Islam." That may be true, but it means absolutely nothing if elements of Islam are at war with America. For sure, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair gets it. The West, he says, is under attack by an ideology -- and "its roots are deep, its tentacles are long and its narrative about Islam stretches far further than we think."

Egyptian Christian Burned Alive; Father Murdered Also
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090310/egyptian-christian-burned-alive-father-murdered-also/index.html
Thankfully it was just a man and not a Qur’an that was burned. That would have led to trouble. ~Bob. Excerpt: A young Christian man was suddenly set on fire by a Muslim man in Egypt after a rumor circulated that the Christian man had a relationship with the Muslim man’s sister. Yasser Ahmed Qasim approached 25-year-old Sabri Shihata and poured gasoline on the Coptic Christian and then set him on fire, reported the Voice of the Copts on Friday. The young Copt tried to put out the fire by throwing himself into a nearby canal, but the burns were too severe and he later died. His 60-year-old father, Sabri Shihata, later arrived at a village rally where a group of Muslims stabbed him to death. One stab reportedly entered his back and came out of his abdomen below the rib cage, according to Voice of the Copts. The elder Shihata was taken to the hospital but nevertheless died from the attacks.

Bible burnings of recent times, but who cares
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=18818
Excerpt: I mentioned 2 days ago that the MSM is ignoring the burning of Bibles in recent history, among other things, while feigning outrage over a planned Koran burning event that has since been cancelled: Everyone Up In Arms About Koran Burning, But Say Nothing Of Christians in Gaza Who Fear for Their Lives as Muslims Burn Bibles and Destroy Crosses. From that prior post I asked “Is there a single “flashback” link to Muslims burning Bibles and crosses in Gaza in 2007? … How do these people show outrage towards one idiot guy here in the US burning his own copies of the Koran, while ignoring much worse going the other way in many other places? How about reporting some more about our own Army forced under Obama’s control to burn Bibles? How about the NC church that burned Bibles last year? Last year from Jihad Watch: Pakistan: Jihadists attack historic church, burn Bibles, destroy altar and cross — police reluctant to investigate. Recall that even right now, Muslims are building a mosque on top of a Christian graveyard in Pakistan. Where’s the outrage over those incidents?” (The difference is that Christians are unlikely t kill Muslims or riot over Bible burnings. ~Bob.)

On eve of Sept. 11, Obama struggles to balance messages of war, tolerance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091004370.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
It is not, IMHO, “anti-Muslim” sentiment. It is anti-Jihadist sentiment, and a suspicion that a sizeable minority and perhaps a majority of Muslims support the Jihadists, at least tacitly and often actively. ~Bob. Excerpt: As President Obama marks nine years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he is attempting to harness the event's potent legacy to rally support for the war in Afghanistan while urging religious tolerance as anti-Muslim sentiment in the country rises.

Black Panthers tell Qur’an Burners they will be a target
http://patriotupdate.com/stories/read/4991/Video-Black-Panthers-Tell-Koran-Burners-You-Will-Be-A-Target-

Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan
http://patriotupdate.com/stories/read/4975/Military-burns-unsolicited-Bibles-sent-to-Afghanistan-
Excerpt: Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday. (Burning Qur’ans? Highly offensive. Burning bibles? Not so much. ~Bob.)

Once more on RINOs
The key legislative vote is the vote to organize, which determines which party controls the body, the flow of business and the committees. Say the US Senate has 48 Conservative Republicans and 48 Liberal Democrats. If the other four seats are held by blue-dog conservative Democrats, the liberals are in charge of everything that happens. If the other four seats are held by RINOs the conservatives are in charge of everything that happens. Since real conservatives can't get elected in places like Maine, Massachusetts and Delaware, defeating RINOs hands the Senate to the liberals. All we need from Scott Brown, for example, is that he gets re-elected and defeats Vicki Kennedy in 2012, so he can vote Republican to organize in January 2013. He's the only chance to keep the seat out of liberal Democrat hands, as is Mike Castle in Delaware and Snowe/Collins in Maine. Get it? ~Bob.

‘Like a Dog’: The Origins of Barack Obama’s Petulance
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-origins-of-barack-obamas-petulance/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Obama in just twenty months has developed a reputation for being petulant, unusually sensitive to the normal run-of-the-mill criticism. His latest pushback was his strangest so far: “And they’re not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, it’s just — but it’s true.” Given that Obama has previously called out talk radio critics by name — Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh — attacked everything from limb-lopping surgeons to vacationing at Las Vegas, and in condescending fashion tsk-tsked those who attend Glen Beck rallies, rural Pennsylvanians, and his own “typical white person” grandmother who raised him, his thin-skin touchiness seems inexplicable. Surely the most powerful man in the world knows that when you elevate talk radio critics to near-equal adversaries, then one cannot complain that they press their now high-profile serial attacks even further. Add that his team has indulged in invective like few recent administrations — whether Obama’s own slur against the stereotyping and stupidly acting police, Eric Holder’s collective denunciation of Americans as “cowards,” Van Jones’ various hysterics (e.g., polluting and mass-murdering whites, Bush in on 9/11, etc.), Anita Dunn’s attacks against Fox News, or the generic “Bush did it” chorus. The wonder is not that Obama is angry at criticism, but why he is so surprised in a weird “how dare they?” fashion. Various explanations come to mind. Like the early presidential years of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Obama has experienced a radical drop in approval ratings. His preconceived notions about the world abroad have proven shockingly therapeutic. He must be disappointed that an Ahmadinejad or Putin is not swayed by his charisma and does what he pleases, which is mostly to oppose America and its interests whenever he can. Messianic disappointment with an unappreciative lesser world can explain a lot. Keynesian economics did not pan out. Pundits without the responsibility of governance, who advised him to borrow trillions, now abandon him for not borrowing more trillions. He must be confused why he is both being attacked by friends and yet unable to borrow his way to recovery.

Sailors Defend Pirate Suspects Treatment
http://www.military.com/news/article/sailors-defend-pirate-suspects-treatment.html?ESRC=eb.nl
Excerpt: A group of Somali nationals captured in an alleged pirate attack on the frigate Nicholas were held for days almost constantly in handcuffs, often blindfolded, made to wear Navy-issued "poopy suits" and forced to sleep outside, officers testified Thursday. But the conditions of the five Somalis met the humane requirements under the Geneva Conventions, as well as Navy policy, Lt. j.g. Chad Hutchins and other junior officers testified in U.S. District Court at a hearing on pre-trial motions. (Shameful. Should have been tried by instantly convened military court, hanged from whatever passes for a yardarm in today’s Navy, and buried at sea. Before noon chow. ~Bob.)

Obama Brings Along His Beloved Teleprompter to Press Conference…
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/09/10/shocker-obama-brings-along-his-beloved-teleprompter-to-press-conference/
One wonders if he can make love without it. ~Bob

Trapped in the Medicaid Ghetto
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/trapped-in-the-medicaid-ghetto-102366214.html#ixzz0yxEN2inN
Excerpt: The evidence for this unsettling conclusion is solid and data-driven. According to a Congressional oversight report released by the Senate’s two serving physicians, Dr. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Dr. John Barrasso (R-WY), the president’s choice to expand Medicaid services dramatically will have a disproportionate impact on the health of the poor—and as a side effect it will trap a significant percentage of African-Americans in a ghetto of poor medical care. Academic studies have repeatedly confirmed Medicaid patients experience poorer health outcomes and higher infant mortality rates. In July a new report from the University of Virginia found even worse performance: surgical patients on Medicaid actually fare worse than the uninsured. They are 13 percent more likely to die than those who have no insurance and 97 percent more likely to die than patients with private insurance. Yes, you read that right — having no coverage at all is statistically better than being covered by Medicaid.

Convicted felon Robert Creamer advising Jan Schakowsky’s campaign
http://www.pollakforcongress.com/2010/09/10/convicted-felon-robert-creamer-advising-jan-schakowsky%E2%80%99s-campaign/
I’m hoping to help Nancy Pelosi drain this corner of the swamp in November. Excerpt: New evidence has emerged that convicted felon Robert Creamer, husband of incumbent Democrat Jan Schakowsky, is actively advising his wife’s campaign in the 9th congressional district. Creamer, who went to federal prison in 2006 after pleading guilty to charges of bank fraud and tax evasion, inadvertently revealed his role in the Schakowsky campaign in a column he wrote this week in the Huffington Post. “To win this fall,” Creamer wrote, “Democrats…have to assure that the election is not about the ‘effectiveness’ of Democratic policies — but whose side a candidate is on.” [1]

MPs Mull 'Climategate Enquiries' That Failed To Enquire
http://thegwpf.org/climategate/1517-mps-mull-climategate-enquiries-that-failed-to-enquire.html
Excerpt: Might the University of East Anglia now rue its handling of the Climategate affair? An MP tells us that the University has ignored instructions given to it by the House of Commons Science Committee earlier this year, and MPs were given misleading impressions. "Everybody on the Committee last time asked that there be no gaps between our report, and the Muir Russell report and the Oxburgh Report - but there are huge gaps. The Muir Russell people and the Oxburgh people didn't talk to each other, so there were bound to be gaps," says Committee veteran Graham Stringer MP. "We are left with the science left unlooked at." The allegations of misconduct and intellectual corruption raised by the release of the emails, data and source code last November are amongst the most serious British academia has ever heard. UEA responded with two internal enquiries, but MPs won't let it lie. Members on the Commons Science Select Committee have summoned the two chairmen of the UEA enquiries back for further interrogation. At the first of these yesterday, the chairman of the Science Assessment Panel, Lord Ron Oxburgh, puzzled Committee MPs with his answers. When the University announced the composition and role of the Science Assessment Panel, it billed it as an "independent internal reappraisal of the science". In March the University's Vice Chancellor Lord Acton confirmed the impression, telling the select committee that Oxburgh's enquiry would "reassess the science and make sure there is nothing wrong". That was misleading, Oxburgh told MPs yesterday. "I think that was inaccurate ... You have to bear in mind the Vice Chancellor had been in the post for a month or so. It came as rather a deluge." Oxburgh pleaded time pressure. "They wanted something within a month. There was no way our panel could in that time validate the science. If you wanted the science validated, you'd appoint another panel.” (...) [MP]Stringer says the practices exposed at CRU undermine the scientific value of paleoclimatology, in which CRU is a world leader. "When I asked Oxburgh if [Keith] Briffa [CRU academic] could reproduce his own results, he said in lots of cases he couldn't. That just isn't science. It's literature. If somebody can't reproduce their own results, and nobody else can, then what is that work doing in the scientific journals?" (The University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, Jones, Mann, et al may not be quite as clear of the woods as they had hoped. The Parliamentary committee that initiated the inquiries is having some serious second thoughts about whether or not they actually got answers to their questions. Ron P.)

BREAKING: DOJ Undermines Pentagon, Allows Wisconsin To Ignore Military Voting Protections
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-doj-undermines-pentagon-allows-wisconsin-to-ignore-military-voting-protections/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: It is 2008 all over again. Today the Department of Justice effectively rewrote the 2009 MOVE Act designed to protect military voters. In a settlement reached with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the Holder Justice Department allowed Wisconsin to mail ballots to overseas military voters only 32 days before the election, instead of the statutorily mandated 45 days. Once again, it is no accident this embarrassing settlement is being released on a Friday, so fewer might notice. The Pentagon had denied Wisconsin’s application for a waiver from the 45-day requirement: “The states granted waivers presented thorough and comprehensive plans to protect the voting opportunities for military and overseas voters,” Bob Carey, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said in a statement. Wisconsin’s waiver application didn’t even come close to compliance with the MOVE Act. They wanted to send ballots only 29 days before the election. The folks at the Pentagon rightfully denied the waiver request. The victory for military voters was short-lived. Instead of aggressively suing Wisconsin immediately after the waiver denial, the DOJ engaged in secret negotiations. An immediate lawsuit would have strengthened the negotiating position of the DOJ as well as preserved various equitable legal arguments, including the argument DOJ waited too long to commence litigation. Instead of doing the right thing, the DOJ did the easy thing and reached a settlement with Wisconsin that undermined the Pentagon’s denial of Wisconsin’s waiver request. The tough negotiating stance of the Holder DOJ extracted a whopping additional three days out of Wisconsin. Ballots will mail 32 days before the election instead of 29. A consent decree filed Friday will reflect this quisling agreement. (...) By sending ballots only 32 days before the election, many overseas soldiers will be denied this important guarantee. Congress specifically rejected post-election add-on time as a solution. Compressing the pre-election time ignores both of these important statutory purposes. (...) The limp DOJ settlement demonstrates a core fear inside Justice of litigating military voting cases. Even when the DOJ actually acts to protect military voters, the investigative methods resemble the Keystone Cops. After the administration changes, an increasing possibility in 2013, it will be essential to clean house and install litigators who don’t flinch under fire, both in the courtroom and also on the battlefield. It’s time to put someone in charge of protecting military voters who cares about military voters, preferably with military experience. (...) Could Wisconsin have done something differently? Lots. Wisconsin could have done what Florida, Georgia or Vermont did, and fix the problem in the nearly twelve months since the MOVE Act was passed. It’s a question of priorities. Wisconsin could have just gotten the job done like other waiver-requesting states did when their waivers were rejected. The primaries in Wisconsin are on September 14, but the DOJ settlement won’t require ballots to be printed and mailed until October 2. This is what happens when government bureaucrats negotiate with other government bureaucrats. (It's become the "new, normal expectation" of the politicized Department of Justice: vigilant protection of favored groups, no protection at all of those without favor. Ron P. Just because the troops are risking their lives for this country doesn’t mean they should have the right to vote against Obama supporter Sen. Russ Feingold, in the DOJ’s opinion. ~Bob.)

Beyond Politics: Removing the Progressive Drag on America
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/beyond-politics-removing-the-progressive-drag-on-america/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: The reasons that wider change is a must are not hard to find. Even where their relative numbers are low, progressives have come to dominate much more than just the Democratic Party and the major news outlets. They control curricula for public K-12 education almost everywhere, despite the presence of a great many teachers who disagree with their views. Progressive educators’ numbers are bolstered by the roughly 70-85% of college educators and administrators who identify as liberals. They dominate credential-required education courses, and strongly influence textbook selection. Clearly, postmoderns have long been the decision-makers and creators for most mainstream film and television, even while they make up a minority of total participants. Major films and television programs are made by many thousands of writers, actors, technicians, and so forth, who line the bell curve of viewpoints. Yet it’s a rare movie that doesn’t blithely depict entrepreneurs as rapacious, or anti-pharmaceutical crusaders as saintly. Even TV advertising often shows the influence of John Muir’s grandchildren. One Ad Council commercial asks: “What do forests mean to you?” The question spurs absurd answers like “sparkling clean water” and Native American tree worship. Fairy-tale “green” commercials extend even to truck ads these days, as if a half-ton Dodge Ram pickup could — or should — be “eco-friendly.” Magazines like Scientific American, once upon a time offering real science for the layman, have become organs for anthropogenic global warming propaganda. Smithsonian runs features on the alleged superiority of primitive cultures. National Geographic touts how negligibly modern humans are in advance of apes. That would’ve been unthinkable as recently as three generations ago, yet for today’s followers of Rousseau, it’s so obvious as to be beyond debate. (Interesting thoughts but a too-broad outline of remedy. Ron P.)

How Obamacare Guts Medicare
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703649004575437311393854940.html
Excerpt: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has attacked Senate Republican candidates for wanting "to end Medicare as we know it." And in Nevada's hotly contested Senate race, Majority Leader Harry Reid is attacking Republican Sharron Angle, saying she wants to "gut" Medicare. But Mr. Reid has already gutted it. He and his colleagues did so by passing ObamaCare. Senior Editorial Writer Joseph Rago explains the increase in insurance premiums. Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady critiques the President's plan. In his analysis accompanying the recently released Annual Report of the Medicare Board of Trustees, Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, noted that Medicare payment rates for doctors and hospitals serving seniors will be cut by 30% over the next three years. Under the policies of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by 2019 Medicare payment rates will be lower than under Medicaid. Mr. Foster notes that by the end of the 75-year projection period in the Annual Medicare Trustees Report, Medicare payment rates will be one-third of what will be paid by private insurance, and only half of what is paid by Medicaid. Altogether, ObamaCare cuts $818 billion from Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) from 2014-2023, the first 10 years of its full implementation, and $3.2 trillion over the first 20 years, 2014-2033. Adding in ObamaCare cuts for Medicare Part B (physicians fees and other services) brings the total cut to $1.05 trillion over the first 10 years and $4.95 trillion over the first 20 years. These draconian cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers that serve America's seniors were the basis for the Congressional Budget Office's official "score"—repeatedly cited by the president—that the health-reform legislation would actually reduce the federal deficit. But Mr. Obama never disclosed how that deficit reduction would actually be achieved.

'Green' jobs no longer golden in stimulus: Environmental projects fail to live up to hype
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/9/green-jobs-no-longer-golden-in-stimulus/
Excerpt: Noticeably absent from President Obama's latest economic-stimulus package are any further attempts to create jobs through "green" energy projects, reflecting a year in which the administration's original, loudly trumpeted efforts proved largely unfruitful. The long delays typical with environmentally friendly projects - combined with reports of green stimulus funds being used to create jobs in China and other countries, rather than in the U.S. - appear to have killed the administration's appetite for pushing green projects as an economic cure. After months of hype about the potential for green energy to stimulate job growth and lead the economy out of a recession, the results turned out to be disappointing, if not dismal. About $92 billion - more than 11 percent - of Mr. Obama's original $814 billion of stimulus funds were targeted for renewable energy projects when the measure was pushed through Congress in early 2009. Even some of the administration's liberal allies have expressed skepticism over the original stimulus package's use of green investments as a way to spur quick employment growth at home. "Spending on renewables is slow to get out of the door. Leaks to foreign companies is an inadequate driver of jobs and growth and may not create a strong exporting industry," said Samuel Sherraden, an economic analyst at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based progressive think tank. Only about $20 billion of the allotted funds have been spent - the slowest disbursement rate for any category of stimulus spending. Private analysts are skeptical of White House estimates that the green funding created 190,700 jobs.

Feds say Ariz. violates rights of English learners
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ENGLISH_LEARNERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-09-10-10-47-43
Excerpt: Two federal investigations have found that Arizona is violating the civil rights of some students who are not native English speakers by denying them access to special programs for English learners. In one case, the U.S. Education and Justice departments concluded that Arizona is inappropriately classifying students as fluent in English when tests show they are not. In the other case, investigators found that the state is not identifying thousands of students who might struggle with English because it replaced a three-question survey with a single vague question. Arizona could lose millions in federal funding if officials don't fix the system to address investigators' concerns. (We let them in, but you gotta educate them. ~Bob.)

Media Bias: The Chasm Widens
http://www.lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=563704
Excerpt: That the media were in the tank for Barack Obama in 2008 is almost a given. But how much they favored him is now being quantified, and the margins appear to be even wider than those for liberal candidates of the past. Thanks to the Washington Examiner, which analyzed data from the Center for Responsive Politics, we learn that "senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC" were overwhelmingly in the Obama camp. Overall, 1,160 employees of the big three networks gave Democratic candidates and campaign committees $1.02 million, while 193 contributed $142,863 to Republican candidates and campaign committees. That's a 7-to-1 ratio. It pales against the imbalance at the candidate level. Obama took in 710 such contributions worth $461,898 compared with the $26,926 that his GOP opponent, Sen. John McCain, got from 39 contributors. That's 18-to-1 contributors and 17-to-1 contributions. Someone will no doubt eventually come out with a study of how journalists voted in '08. But the ratios will probably be similar. If so, media support for Obama was even greater than those of Democrats in past presidential elections — and those were pretty one-sided. (40% of the country say they are conservative, 20% liberal. Imagine what it would be if the media and the universities were balanced in viewpoint? ~Bob.)

ICE Says It's Caught-and-Released 506,232 Illegal Aliens Who Are Now Fugitives--More Than Entire Population of Sacramento, Calif.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/72328
Excerpt: The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) says that as of Sunday, Sept. 5, it had caught-and-released 506,232 illegal aliens who are now fugitives. That is more than the population of Sacramento, California, which currently numbers 486,189. Fugitive illegal aliens are individuals who were apprehended ICE for being in the United States illegally and then were released ahead of their court proceedings and deemed fugitive when they failed to appear in court.

Fed red tape eyed in bloodbath: Suspect free while facing deport hearing
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1280176
Excerpt: A fatal federal red-tape delay may have left a suspected illegal alien accused of gunning down two people at a Lawrence birthday party free to roam the country while awaiting a March 2011 deportation hearing, the Herald has learned. Dominican immigrant Fernando Guerrero-Lara, 27, was awaiting a March 7 preliminary removal hearing in U.S. Immigration Court in Harlingen, Texas, when authorities say he and a second triggerman unleashed a bullet bloodbath at a Labor Day birthday bash at La Guira Restaurant on Broadway in Lawrence. Guerrero-Lara, charged in Texas with violating immigration law, was scheduled to appear at a so-called master calendar hearing on March 7, a preliminary step toward deportation, said Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review. When he and co-defendant Johan Saintclair, 30, were busted, Guerrero-Lara coughed up to cops he was the subject of an “arrest of alien” warrant issued Aug. 12. Mattingly declined to elaborate on why the Department of Homeland Security was trying to give Guerrero-Lara the boot and referred questions regarding why he wasn’t being detained to Harold Ort, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Report: US Must Deal with Domestic Radical Problem
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75179
Excerpt: The U.S. was slow to take seriously the threat posed by homegrown radicals and the government has failed to put systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon, according to a new report compiled by the former heads of the Sept. 11 Commission. The report says U.S. authorities failed to realize that Somali-American youths traveling from Minnesota to Mogadishu in 2008 to join extremists was not an isolated issue. Instead, the movement was one among several instances of a broader, more diverse threat that has surfaced across the country. "Our long-held belief that homegrown terrorism couldn't happen here has thus created a situation where we are today stumbling blindly through the legal, operational and organizational minefield of countering terrorist radicalization and recruitment occurring in the United States," said the report, which was obtained by The Associated Press. As a result, there is still no federal agency specifically charged with identifying radicalization or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of U.S. citizens and residents, said the report, slated to be released Friday by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Preparedness Group.