Book Review from the March issue of Leatherneck Magazine

Victory in Iraq: How America Won.

By Hon. Duncan L. Hunter. Published by Duncan L. Hunter, 2010. 393 pages.

I suspect that most military readers will feel a bit unsettled, as I did, when they start reading Victory in Iraq. Then the reason hits you: this guy is on our side! The author believes in America and America’s cause, and reveres the men and women who serve our Republic in uniform. He feels no need to, in the modern “journalist’s ethic,” be neutral between the child and the virus that is trying to kill it. For someone who spends a lot of hours keeping up with news, commentary and reports on current events, it’s exhilarating.

Victory in Iraq focuses heavily on the struggle that developed after the fall of Baghdad, which is good, as the initial invasion has been well chronicled by other writers. This is history on four levels. It deals with the strategic and tactical levels, but also has a strong focus on the guys stacked outside a Fallujah door, ready to kick it in and deal with what follows. Military readers and their families will appreciate how often and reverently Duncan focuses on the individual heroism of our combat troops and their deeds. These are stories military readers will appreciate, but they are stories that civilian readers, fed a steady diet of negativity by a media determined to downplay American success and magnify American setbacks, need desperately to hear. This book should help overshadow the few, highly-magnified alleged misdeeds of our troops in the public’s mind.

The forth level of Victory in Iraq is the political war at home, where what in the 1860s would have been called “copperhead” politicians and their media supporters were willing to undermine victory and denigrate the troops to score political points. So make no mistake, this is as much a political history of the war as a military history by a writer who was in the thick of the political action. A WWII buff once told me that he was interested “in the war-fighting, not the politics” of that conflict. I replied that all wars are political, and you cannot separate the two. Then-Representative Hunter, as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee from 2003 to 2007 and with a son who was a serving Marine officer in Iraq had both a strong, pro-military point of view and unique access to leaders and to information about the struggle there and in Washington.

There are lessons to be learned in Hunter’s book, especially about the successful Task Force ODIN to eliminate IEDs, which, “…saw roadside bombs diminished by 90%.” And which “…killed an astonishing 3,000 insurgents, most caught in the act of emplacing roadside bombs.” (p287) Hunter reports that as of his writing, it had not been replicated in Afghanistan.

The inclusion of numerous pictures adds greatly to the interest of the text. Marines, however, will find poignant the photo of Karen Kelly, wife of Lt. General John Kelly, along with her son, Marine Captain John Kelly, pinning lieutenant’s bars on her other son Robert. Lt. Robert Kelly was KIA in Afghanistan about the time this book went to press.

Military readers may find a bit tedious both the explanations of common military terms and the reiteration of key points as the focus shifts between levels and tactical areas. But they are necessary for clarity for the civilian reader who is familiar with Iraq and the military only from the news-as-entertainment industry.

One note of caution. I recommend this book, especially for your interested-but-less-aware civilian friends, but I hope that politics will not make the title a bitter joke. As a Vietnam veteran, I’m keenly aware that a book entitled Victory in Vietnam: How America Won might have been justifiably published in 1972, had there been potential readers. Let us hope that Congressman Hunter’s title will endure, and the sacrifices of our troops will not be made moot for short term political advantage, to the detriment of the nation.

I’ve heard from people who should know that, had McCain prevailed in 2008, Duncan Hunter would have been on the short list for Secretary of Defense. I hope this book is not his last service to the Republic.

--Robert A. Hall

Editor’s note: Former SSgt Robert A. Hall served with HQ, 26^th Marines, at Khe Sanh in 1967, noting that, “It was quiet when I left—I don’t know what happened.” Immediately after earning a BA in Government from UMass in 1972, he served five terms in the Massachusetts state senate, as well as another six years in the USMCR. In 1980, he earned a Master’s degree in history from Fitchburg State University. Since 1982, Hall has been an association executive. He’s a frequent contributor of poetry to Leatherneck. In 2011, he published two books:  The Coming Collapse of the American Republic and Old Jarhead Poems. He donates all royalties from both books to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund. 

Guest Post - Random Thoughts from Paul

1.       When we liberated Iraq, I do recall that President George W. Bush said that we would take a share of Iraq’s oil revenues (that are supposedly larger than Saudi Arabia’s) to help pay for our work  in providing their freedom in a land without Saddam Hussein. Was I imagining things and, if I wasn’t, what happened?

2.       Why, when it has been reported that our POTUS would consult  with our military leaders about how many of our U. S. troops could be pulled out of Afghanistan without jeopardizing our military gains that the POTUS did not consult with them, with the result being the apparent comments from all members of the JCS that his decision risked undermining the surge that he approved last year; that he was withdrawing too many troops too soon that would, as a result, almost certainly negate those gains; or was his decision based solely on a 2012 re-election campaign that  would benefit from his hoped-for gains in the polls in light of  those gains being in freefall for the past 6-7 weeks?

3.      In WWII, the catch phrase was, among other memorable comments, “Loose lips, sink ships,” with the stated and implied inference being “think before you say anything because what you said could give  the enemy all that he needed to plan for, move forces in place, etc. to take advantage of such a withdrawal, lie low, for a time, and then take control after we leave."  Why would we be so stupid as to telegraph such plans to our enemy?  The enemy is not stupid either, and they are very patient.   I believe that it was a Taliban leader in Afghanistan who, after being caught during interrogation, said, “You may have the watch, but we have the time.”

4.      What is this term “exit strategy” supposed to mean, other than being something that, from a political standpoint, might placate the political opposition as well as the electorate.  In the past wars that we’ve won, the only exit strategy was “Win the war!”  To most ill-educated, ill-informed, uninformed everyday people whom I have talked with over the past 30-some years – beginning with the ignominious end of our involvement in Vietnam – philosophically, “exit strategy to those majority of individuals meant that we had already lost that war, even before it had really begun, and was already looking for a way to get out in some way, while “saving face,” somehow.

Anyone with even a smidgeon of knowledge gained from history, not to mention those with a military background, understand clearly the huge moral and psychological edge that this would give to any  enemy.  As NVN General Giap said, “We knew we couldn’t beat you on the battlefield, but we also thought that you would defeat yourselves in the streets of Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC.”  While  that may not be his exact quote; it is certainly what he was inferring. And that is exactly what happened.  Led by an active national media and certain politicians, we beat ourselves.

5.      With respect to the current federal budget deficit and the POTUS  demanding a tax increase, too, two economic facts are most germane. The first is the fact that taxes of any kind should never be raised in the middle of a very fragile economy.  The second is the fact that every time federal taxes were reduced, tax revenues actually increased.  Why? Because both businesses and individual consumers had more money to spend, which they did and increased economic activity in the process.

The opposite has usually been the case when taxes were raised.  (If you don’t believe me, then “Google” it to check for yourself.)  While the  POTUS and most of his advisors have never run a business, had to  make a payroll, or even served in the military, they seem to have no clue as to what taxes due in an economy when raised or lowered. Instead, even though most of his advisors have advanced degrees, I would have to believe that they have all forgotten what they would have learned in Economics 101.

6.       And finally, when politicians see an opening to rack up political  gains for their party – and not for the U. S. A. and its people – you get what we did to ourselves in 2008.  Hopefully (and I’m not going to hold my breath on this one, either), we can use some common sense and unfiltered information from sources other than our American news media to pull the correct lever on Election Day in 2012 and save this country and ourselves from dying a long and horrible death.

Best regards.

Paul Rendine

Political Digest May 20, 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.

Campaign Slogans
Are you better off now than you were four years ago when the Democrats took control of Congress?

Democrats: Buying your vote with your grandkid’s money

Democrats: Hooked on Pork

When a Democrat brings home the bacon, remember you paid for the Pork.

Sen. Arlen Specter loses Pennsylvania primary; Rand Paul wins in Kentucky
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051805561.html?hpid=topnews
Well, Arlen, seems your new party doesn’t like you much either, despite BO’s endorsement. Or maybe because of it? Like Oliverio who beat Mollohan in the WV Democrat primary, Sestak ran as a non-Obama Democrat, even accused Obama of offering him a job if he didn’t run, which is a crime, but Obama was acquitted by the media, which didn’t follow up. Sestak is an attractive candidate, former Navy Admiral, distanced from Obama, and in a blue state. He should win in November, so this hurts GOP chances of taking over the senate. Meanwhile, Paul in KY proves the Tea Parties have clout in GOP primaries. It remains to be seen if he can hold this GOP seat in November. He’s solid on taxes and spending, but something of an isolationist in the war on terror, which concerns me. Over in Arkansas, Lincoln squeaked into a runoff. I think she may lose that, which, again, probably hurts GOP chances, as her opponent is running against Washington—that is the Washington completely controlled by Obama, Pelosi and Reid, all Democrats. Note this is the fourth race where voters rejected the Obama choice: VA, NJ, MA and now PA.

How (and why) Arlen Specter lost
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-3-4.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's defeat at the hands of upstart Rep. Joe Sestak made him the second Senate incumbent to lose an intraparty battle in the 2010 elections -- the largest number since four incumbents fell in 1980. Specter's loss will be endlessly examined (and then re-examined) in the days to come but, at its root, there were two main factors to blame for it: the perils of party switching and an anti-incumbent national environment. Party switchers almost uniformly struggle the first time they are on the ballot after the switch. The party they abandoned detests them and will do anything to try to bring about their demise while the party they joined is distrustful of both their motives and loyalties. Specter never seemed to adequately explain to Democrats why he switched parties -- beyond the fact that it would allow him to be re-elected. Sestak, in what is the early frontrunner for ad of the year, brilliantly exploited Specter's seeming lack of principle on the switch with a commercial that said the incumbent's party switch was designed to "save one job...his...not yours." Specter's inability to articulate why he had decided to go from "R" to "D" after spending nearly three decades on the GOP side was compounded by a strong sentiment among voters that the people they have been sending to Washington aren't getting the job done and a course correction is required.

Specter Down, Paul Up
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703957904575253252128583066.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion
Excerpt: The most satisfying outcome across all parties and ideologies was arguably Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak's comfortable victory over Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary. In defeating the 80-year-old Mr. Specter, voters showed there is at least some limit to partisan opportunism and thus committed an act of political hygiene. Mr. Specter fled the GOP last year when it became clear he would lose a Republican primary to former Congressman Pat Toomey, and he promptly switched positions on everything from union "card check" to health care. Mr. Sestak ran by claiming to be the more authentic Democrat, despite President Obama's embrace of Mr. Specter, at least as long as the President needed him for the 60th health-care vote. In crunch time in the primary, the White House decided to sit this one out. One disloyal act is repaid in kind. In Western Pennsylvania, Republicans were disappointed as their candidate lost a special House election to replace Democrat Jack Murtha, who died in office. Democrat Mark Critz, a former Murtha staffer, won in part because he ran against the Democratic agenda, saying he would have voted against ObamaCare and cap and tax. He also attacked—unfairly in our view—a past flirtation by Republican candidate Tim Burns with the so-called FAIR tax, a form of national sales tax. In other words, the Democrat ran to Mr. Burns's right on taxes.

Obama endorsements don't seem to help Democrats
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100519/ap_on_el_se/us_obama_no_coattails
Excerpt: Voters rejected one of President Barack Obama's hand-picked candidates and forced another into a runoff, the latest sign that his political capital is slipping beneath a wave of anti-establishment anger. Sen. Arlen Specter became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president's active involvement, raising doubts about Obama's ability to help fellow Democrats in this November's elections

Democrats Win Special Election In PA-12
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/democrats-win-special-election-in-pa-12-1.php
Hooked on Pork, district votes for best chance to keep it flowing. I don’t think 53-45 is “narrow,” but then I won my first race by 9 votes out of 60,000 cast. Note that the Democrat ran AGAINST Obama’s healthcare bill and Cap and Trade. Excerpt: Mark Critz (D-PA) appeared to narrowly win a special election today to fill the late Rep. John Murtha's seat, a victory the Democrats believe means the fall midterm elections might not be so bad after all. He'll be quickly seated by House leadership once results are finalized. Critz was leading Republican Tim Burns with 53 percent of the vote to Burns' 45 percent and 70 percent of precincts reporting, and Burns conceded the race around 10:30 p.m. In an unusual twist, both candidates are aiming to be on the November ballot. Critz was on track to prevail in a party primary to be the nominee in the general election, and if Burns' lead for his primary holds steady, these two candidates will be matched up again in November. The Dem turnout was boosted by a competitive Senate primary between Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak, one reason the majority party had been sounding quite confident about the race for several days. Critz was fueled as well by labor activists and Democratic volunteers who made calls and knocked on doors for weeks to help keep the seat. Former President Bill Clinton stumped for Critz over the weekend.

Republican lesson from Pennsylvania 12 special
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Republican-lesson-from-Pennsylvania-12-special-94219379.html
Excerpt: In Pennsylvania 12, so far the state shows 77,410 votes cast in the Democratic primary for Congress and 43,614 in the Republican primary—43% of them for 2008 Republican nominee William Russell, who pointedly did not endorse special election Republican candidate Tim Burns. Thus the electorate in the 12th special election consisted of almost twice as many registered Democrats as registered Republicans. More important, I suspect, is that the primary/special election evidently didn’t bring out the kind of voters who put this traditionally Democratic district (narrowly) in the McCain column in 2008: tradition-minded Democrats who didn’t like Obama and never much liked Republicans but who felt obliged to vote out of civic duty. They didn’t, or so my theory goes, feel compelled to vote in the Specter-Sestak primary, between two liberals from the faraway Philadelphia area they didn’t have anything in common with, and they didn’t feel compelled to vote in the Pennsylvania 12 special between a Democrat who took care to distance himself from Nancy Pelosi but was still a Democrat and a Republican who was a businessman conspicuously not endorsed by the retired military officer who was the party’s candidate 18 months ago. Tim Burns needed these votes, and might have gotten them if they had felt obliged to vote, one way or the other, for president; but he couldn’t get them to the polls.
Dems split on keeping Blumenthal
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/98557-dems-split-on-keeping-blumenthal
A proven liar? Why get rid of him? He’ll fit in perfectly with the Senate in general and the Democrat caucus in particular. Only have to break in someone else. I went back in the Marine Reserves in 1977, after Vietnam. We still had guys who wore wigs to cover their long hair and took out their earrings before formation. They had joined because of a commitment to avoid the draft, not to Corps and country. The reserves got better after they were gone. Former Senator and Governor Jon Corzine was a reservist during that time. Excerpt: Connecticut Democrats on Tuesday began considering replacing state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) on the ballot for the U.S. Senate, even as Senate Democrats offered unwavering support for him in a controversy over his military service. Senators from Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee(DSCC) Chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.) to Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Blumenthal remains their candidate of choice in the race to replace the retiring Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), despite a New York Times report Monday that he had falsely claimed to have served in Vietnam.

Blumenthal’s Soldier Supporter On Stage Today Is a Phony, Too
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/05/breaking-blementhals-soldier-supporter-on-stage-today-is-a-phony-too/
Birds of a Feather. I gotta get a “V” to wear on my Good Conduct Medal, see if anyone notices. Excerpt: Democratic Senatorial Candidate Richard Blumenthal held a presser today after it was discovered that he lied about serving in Vietnam. (He also lied about being captain of the Harvard Swim Team.) So, Blumenthal went before the press along with some former military men and supporters. It was a great show. Maybe tomorrow the swim team will join him on stage? Unfortunately, one of the democratic supporters on stage with him lied about his military service, too. Free Republic reported–Blumenthal’s military buddy on stage is William Joseph Trumpower, aka Elliott Storm, a POW HALL OF SHAME

Lame excuses for Semper Lie
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/lame_excuses_3oF5Ptp6fnREUSP72F1n1K
Excerpt: The front-runner in the Connecticut Senate race -- who had claimed he served in the Vietnam War when he hadn't -- yesterday insisted the explosive scandal was just the result of a few "misplaced words" over the years. Under fire for wildly distorting his military record, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal -- who leads the contest to replace retiring Sen. Chris Dodd -- said his repeated misstatements about his service were "totally unintentional." Blumenthal immediately came under attack from veterans' groups and his political opponents on both sides of the aisle. In recent years, Blumenthal -- a rising star in the Democratic Party -- has told supporters at least once he'd served "in" Vietnam. Several other times, he used language indicating he'd been in Vietnam.

Simmons Stands To Gain Most From Blumenthal Expose
http://newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/simmons_stands_to_gain_from_blumenthal_blunder/id_26278
Huh. Six months at Parris Island. Must have been a real sh-tbird. Usual boot came was 11-12 weeks. Maybe it just seemed longer for him. Excerpt: “The New York Times story is an outrageous distortion of Dick Blumenthal’s record of service. Unlike many of his peers, Dick Blumenthal voluntarily joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1970 and served for six months in Parris Island, SC and six years in the reserves. He received no special treatment from anyone. Dick has a long record of standing up for veterans. Tomorrow, veterans will be standing up with Dick.”

Blumenthal misdirects over Vietnam lies
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Blumenthal-engages-in-misdirection-over-his-Vietnam-lies-94178409.html
Excerpt: Blumenthal spoke as though he were really under attack not for lying, but for joining as a reservist. "There was no certainty," he said, about where he would be sent after he joined the Reserves. Blumenthal served in a unit in Washington, D.C. (If he wanted certainty, he should have joined the regulars. We knew where we were going.)

U.S. must change course on national debt to avoid Greece’s fate
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/4733
The problem is, changing course will be painful and politically unpopular. So politicians of both parties will continue to kick the can down the road and buy votes with new programs (see the PP&ACA) until the can is too big to kick. Then everyone promised entitlements will beat the barricades. I’m already stockpiling cobblestones, torches and pitchforks (I’m a traditionalist.), and I haven’t even qualified for Medicare and Social Security yet. Excerpt: As I have traveled the country recently promoting the need for fiscal responsibility many people have asked me: Are we Greece? Over the past 40 years, U.S. government spending has grown by almost 300 percent after adjusting for inflation, and our revenues haven't kept pace. Our current deficits are the highest as a percentage of our economy since World War II. In that respect, we sure look a lot like Greece, or at least we will in the near future. As a percentage of our economy, total federal, state and local public debt in the U.S. already exceeds levels in Spain, and are comparable to Ireland and Great Britain. We will reach Portugal's levels within two years and Greece's levels within 10 years on our present course. To be sure, there are some big differences between the U.S. and Greece. We are by far the largest economy in the world. The dollar also represents more than 60 percent of the world's reserve currency. That means, unlike the situation in Greece, our foreign creditors will give us the benefit of the doubt for a while. But they also see the very grave threat of the escalating deficits we will face in the future based on our current fiscal path. These projected structural deficits are driven largely by rising health care costs, known demographic trends, and the cost of financing what we will need to borrow to pay for increased spending. So, are we Greece? Not yet. But if we don't change course and recognize that we are not exempt from the fundamental laws of prudent finance, we could be in the not too distant future.

Quote
"By socializing the consequences of Greece's misgovernment, Europe has become the world's leading producer of a toxic product -- moral hazard. The dishonesty and indiscipline of a nation with 2.6 percent of the eurozone's economic product have moved nations with the other 97.4 percent -- and the United States and the International Monetary Fund -- to say, essentially: The consequences of such vices cannot be quarantined, so we are all hostages to one another and hence no nation will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness. Recklessness will proliferate." --columnist George Will. The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/

Obama State Dept. Tells Communist China: AZ Immigration Law Is Indication of 'Troubling Trend' of 'Discrimination' in U.S.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66191
How did the Communists, whose government murdered many times more millions of people than Nazi Germany, stop from rolling on the floor laughing at this administration. Excerpt: The human rights talks, held at various locations in Washington last week, focused on issues that both countries are dealing with, State Department Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner told a press briefing on Friday. Asked by a reporter if the Arizona law came up in the discussions, Posner said it did--and it was U.S. officials, not the Chinese, who brought it up. "We brought it up early and often," Posner told reporters on Friday. "It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society," Posner said. The Chinese did not raise any concerns about Chinese people visiting Arizona, Posner added.

Fuel Swap Deal Does Not Address Core Issues of Iranian Nuclear Dispute
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/66160
Excerpt: The nuclear fuel swap agreement signed with fanfare in Tehran Monday provides insufficient reason for the U.N. Security Council to put sanctions talks on hold, but it is certain to make the effort even more of an uphill battle than it has been up until now.

Sen. Rockefeller Tells Neil Armstrong: ‘I Am a Substantial Skeptic of Human Spaceflight’
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=66137
Excerpt: Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D.-W.V.) says he is “a substantial skeptic of human spaceflight” and that not all outlets for American exploration are “glorious.” Rockefeller made his remarks during a hearing last week where astronauts Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and Eugene Cernan, the last man on the moon, testified against President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget because it would cancel NASA’s Constellation manned space program. “I am not a huge, but I am a substantial, skeptic of human spaceflight,” Rockefeller told [Neil] Armstrong, [Gene] Cernan, and Norman R. Augustine, the chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. “We’re approximately the same generation, but that’s where I am,” Rockefeller said. “I cannot support going into space as an end in and of itself. I agree with the president that we need a measured, nationally, globally relevant and sustainable human space flight program--not one solely bound by place and time in space.”

Read the Fine Print
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=534458
It is hard for me to believe they could have been so stupid as not to add a severability clause. One was regularly added to any complex piece of legislation at the state level when I served, so I’ll be surprised if this is true. I do not know if they can now pass one as a belated amendment—I suppose so, but never heard of it because the clause is pretty standard. Excerpt: However, Greg Scandlen, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, says due to a little-known legal concept the entire law would unravel if a single part was found to be outside the Constitution. "Apparently there was no 'severability' clause written into this law, which shows how amateurish the process was," he wrote. "Virtually every bill I've ever read includes a provision that if any part of the law is ruled unconstitutional the rest of the law will remain intact. Not this one. That will likely mean that the entire law will be thrown out if a part of it is found to violate the Constitution. "No argument from us. The bill writers and lawmakers who voted for it without reading it were unprofessional.

Consensus? What consensus?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/18/consensus-what-consensus/#more-19653
Excerpt: Ahead of the interview, I thought I’d just check out the Conference Speaker’s list. There are 80 scheduled speakers, including distinguished scientists (like Richard Lindzen of MIT), policy wonks (like my good friend Chris Horner of CEI), enthusiasts and campaigners (like Anthony Watts of the wattsupwiththat.com web-site), and journalists (including our own inimitable James Delingpole). Of the 80 speakers, I noticed that fully forty-five were qualified scientists from relevant disciplines, and from respected universities around the world — from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Norway, UK, Australia and New Zealand. All of them have reservations about climate alarmism, ranging from concerns that we are making vastly expensive public policy decisions based on science that is, to say the least, open to question, through to outright rejection of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) model. Several of these scientists are members or former members of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But how do 45 sceptical scientists stack up, you may well ask, against the 2500 on the official IPCC panels? But of course there aren’t 2500 relevant scientists on the IPCC panel. Many of them are not strictly scientists at all. Some are merely civil servants or environmental zealots. Some are economists — important to the debate but not experts on the science. Others are scientists in unrelated disciplines. The Chairman of the IPCC Dr. Ravendra Pachuari, is a Railway Engineer.

Cameron's Wasted Energies
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/973-camerons-wasted-energies.html
Excerpt: David Cameron last week renewed his promise to cut the U.K. government's carbon emissions by 10% in the next 12 months, and is now taking suggestions on how to achieve that. Here's a thought: How about cutting the central government itself by 10%? That's about the only way the new Prime Minister can simultaneously reduce government emissions and the cost of government. If, on the other hand, the government's plans for shrinking its emissions involve similar measures as its plans to "green" the private sector, Mr. Cameron might ask himself whether, with a budget deficit of 12% of GDP, he can afford this particular boondoggle. It's fashionable to profess that "greening" the economy can be accomplished at no cost, so great are the benefits of efficiency gains and renewable energy. But the history of civilization, from start to finish, can be seen as one long drive to make more efficient use of available resources. If something can be done more efficiently, at least outside of the public sector, someone is probably already doing it. And if they're not, it's because the costs outweigh the benefits. This is for the simple reason that "greening" the private economy requires subsidies, or heavy-handed regulation, or both. But government can't subsidize itself, so Mr. Cameron's quest is certain to cost taxpayers more than they get back in the form of more-efficient government energy use.

Who’s crossing our borders?
http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438712/index.html?taf=atl
Hint: Not all Mexicans. Some of the “jobs Americans won’t do” may be killing Americans.

Obama Tells Mexico President We are not defined by our borders....
http://www.resistnet.com/video/video/show?id=2600775%3AVideo%3A2203933&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_video
So let’s adopt Mexico’s laws on immigration.

Eight Tidbits From the Kagan Document Drop
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/eight-tidbits-from-the-elena-kagan-document-drop/19482470
Excerpt: In a massive digital information dump today, the White House delivered a 202-page questionnaire filled out by the Supreme Court nominee along with tens of thousands of pages of attachments to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which posted it all on its website.

Chuck Schumer vs. Free Speech
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575244772070710374.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion
Excerpt: As former commissioners on the Federal Election Commission with almost 75 years of combined experience, we believe that the bill proposed on April 30 by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen to "blunt" the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC is unnecessary, partially duplicative of existing law, and severely burdensome to the right to engage in political speech and advocacy. Moreover, the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act, or Disclose Act, abandons the longstanding policy of treating unions and businesses equally, suggesting partisan motives that undermine respect for campaign finance laws. At least one of us served on the FEC at all times from its inception in 1975 through August 2008. We are well aware of the practical difficulties involved in enforcing the overly complex Federal Election Campaign Act and the problems posed by additional laws that curtail the ability of Americans to participate in the political process.

Much ado about nothing
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/rescissions-much-ado-about-nothing/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-10711
Excerpt: How many times have you heard President Obama say, “Health insurers won’t be able to drop your coverage just because you get sick?” Or Kathleen Sebelius? Or the Democratic leadership in Congress? Or the mainstream news media? As I wrote at Kaiser Health News the other day, you would think that the private health insurance industry was being revolutionized. In fact, it has been illegal since 1997, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, for insurers to drop coverage because someone gets sick. And even before then, the practice almost never happened. Think of it this way: Do you think there would be a vibrant, active, ongoing life insurance industry if insurers could renege on their part of the contract after someone dies? How many of us would buy fire insurance if the insurers could change their minds and refuse to pay after our house burns down? Would you buy auto insurance from Allstate if the “good hands” could disappear after a collision occurs?

Long but good: Mystic Chords of Memory ... The purpose of Memorial Day
http://article.nationalreview.com/358464/mystic-chords-of-memory/mackubin-thomas-owens
Excerpt: Alas, for many Americans today, Memorial Day has come to signify nothing more than another three-day weekend, a mere excuse for a weekend cook-out. Such an observance of Memorial Day obscures even the vestiges of its intended meaning: a solemn time, serving both as catharsis for those who fought and survived, and to ensure that those who follow will not forget the sacrifice of those who died that the American Republic and the principles that sustain it, might live….. — Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, and is the editor of Orbis. He is a Marine infantry veteran of Vietnam.

Memo from 2002 could complicate challenge of Arizona immigration law
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/17/AR2010051702175.html
Does the state have the right to enforce Federal Law? Well, it’s a Federal law you can’t shoot the president. Should a cop ignore a gunman stalking Obama, on the theory that Federal law overrides state laws against murder and thus he has no authority to stop the shooter? Yes, extreme case. Excerpt: In the legal battle over Arizona's new immigration law, an ironic subtext has emerged: whether a Bush-era legal opinion complicates a potential Obama administration lawsuit against Arizona. The document, written in 2002 by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that state police officers have "inherent power" to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law. It was issued by Jay S. Bybee, who also helped write controversial memos from the same era that sanctioned harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects. The author of the Arizona law -- which has drawn strong opposition from top Obama administration officials -- has cited the authority granted in the 2002 memo as a basis for the legislation. The Obama administration has not withdrawn the memo, and some backers of the Arizona law said Monday that because it remains in place, a Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona would be awkward at best.

New interrogation unit aids in questioning Times Square bomb suspect
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fg-times-square-20100519,0,5645396.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29
Excerpt: The new unit that has been assisting in Shahzad's questioning is known as the High-Value Interrogation Group, or HIG. It was activated several months ago and is staffed mainly by personnel from the FBI, CIA and Defense Department, according to senior administration officials who on Tuesday provided the fullest description of the unit's procedures to date. They were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The HIG's mandate, the officials said, is to ensure that intelligence about terrorism plots is obtained quickly after the arrest of a terrorism suspect. Though there was no reference during the arraignment to the HIG's role in questioning Shahzad, Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for Manhattan, said Shahzad had been cooperative and "has provided valuable intelligence from which further investigation action has been taken." The HIG was created as a replacement for the CIA interrogation program operated during the George W. Bush administration, and the willingness of administration officials to go into detail about its operations appeared aimed in part at rebutting criticism from congressional Republicans and others that the White House is focusing too much on prosecution of terrorism suspects and not enough on obtaining intelligence from detainees.

DoJ trial attorney in Black Panthers case resigns in protest
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/05/doj_attorney_in_charge_of_blac.html
Excerpt: Eric Holder has stonewalled Congress, the Civil Rights Commission, and the American people regarding the inexplicable order that political appointees at Justice gave last year to drop the slam dunk winning case against the New Black Panther party. Members of the group were caught on tape clearly intimidating white voters at a Philadelphia polling place. A summary judgment followed but before sentencing, Justice dropped the case. When some Republican senators asked why, Holder refused to comply with requests for an explanation. Even a US Civil Rights Commission subpoena couldn't get Holder to supply them with a reason why he dropped a case that Justice had already won. Now it appears that someone is going to talk. And what he has to say will no doubt prove very interesting to Congress.

Worth Reading: Lessons of Vietnam
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20100430_art017.pdf
Excerpt: As do most commenting on the Vietnam War, the authors of “Afghani¬stan and the Vietnam Template” suggest that the war, as we and the South Vietnamese fought it, was, a priori, unwinnable and that numerous parallels exist between it and the current war in Afghanistan. However, Johnson and Mason do note important structural differences. Where I think they soon go astray is in their assessment of the enemy in Vietnam. For example, they describe the Viet Cong as “poorly equipped guerrillas,” but this was true only in their early operations. Before long, the Viet Cong were in some ways much better equipped than the South Vietnamese they were fight¬ing. For example, for far too long, slightly built South Vietnamese troops had to carry heavy U.S. semi-automatic M-1 Garand rifles left over from World War II and Korea while Viet Cong forces soon armed themselves with reliable, highly effective, fully automatic Soviet AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles. In this regard, the Viet Cong were even better armed for a while than U.S. troops were. More dubious is the authors’ assertion that “the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC) were not fighting for communism. They were fighting for Vietnam,” a sense we simply did not get at the time.

Talks of Peace -- Threats of War
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/talks_of_peace_threats_of_war.html
Could be an interesting summer. Excerpt: Behind all the optimism that is being expressed in regard to the new Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks, there is great concern of a looming war in the Middle East. While reports have focused on the possibility of a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran, few analysts have considered that the next war might be more limited in scope -- one that could occur, instead, between Israel and Iran's proxies in the region. Recently, an Israeli think-tank, the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, launched simulated war games, gauging international reaction to a possible long-range missile attack on Tel Aviv. Such an attack might be aimed at Israel's Defense Ministry, and Middle East experts at IDC developed possible scenarios to prepare for such developments.... In recent weeks, Israel and the U.S. have been warning Iran and Syria to stop the massive arms transfers. While the threat of war looms over Israel, so does the possibility of Russia transferring the S-300 advanced anti-missile defense system to Iran, which would tip the balance of power in the Middle East. Israel has threatened to knock out that system before Iran, or any other Middle East country, is able to deploy it. Russian President Dimitry Medvedev met with Israel's President Shimon Peres in Moscow in early May and then went immediately to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. To Israel's dismay, Russia secured a deal to deliver MiG-29 fighter jets, the Pantsyr short-range air defense system, and more armored vehicles to Syria for its arsenal. Some of Russia's previous weapons sales to Syria ended up in Hezb'allah's hands and were used in the Second Lebanon War. Since 2006, Hezb'allah has rebuilt its stockpile and now has a reported 42,000 rockets pointed at Israel. Thousands of Hezb'allah's troops are stationed in Shiite villages south of Lebanon's Litani River, also in defiance of U.N. Security Resolution 1701.

Shale Gas Will Rock the World
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303491304575187880596301668.html
Hopeful if accurate. Outside my area of expertise—if I have one.

Immigration and Liberty
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2010/05/19/immigration_and_liberty
Excerpt: My sentiments on immigration are expressed by the welcoming words of poet Emma Lazarus' that grace the base of our Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Those sentiments are probably shared by most Americans and for sure by my libertarian fellow travelers, but their vision of immigration has some blind spots. This has become painfully obvious in the wake Arizona's law that cracks down on illegal immigration. Let's look at the immigration issue step by step. There are close to 7 billion people on our planet. I'd like to know how the libertarians answer this question: Does each individual on the planet have a natural or God-given right to live in the U.S.? Unless one wishes to obfuscate, I believe that a yes or no can be given to that question just as a yes or no answer can be given to the question whether Williams has a right to live in the U.S. I believe most people, even my open-borders libertarian friends, would not say that everyone on the planet had a right to live in the U.S. That being the case suggests there will be conditions that a person must meet to live in the U.S. Then the question emerges: Who gets to set those conditions? Should it be the United Nations, the European Union, the Japanese Diet or the Moscow City Duma? I can't be absolutely sure, but I believe that most Americans would recoil at the suggestion that somebody other than Americans should be allowed to set the conditions for people to live in the U.S. What those conditions should be is one thing and whether a person has a right to ignore them is another. People become illegal immigrants in one of three ways: entering without authorization or inspection, staying beyond the authorized period after legal entry or by violating the terms of legal entry. Most of those who risk prosecution under Arizona's new law fit the first category -- entering without authorization or inspection. Probably, the overwhelming majority of Mexican illegal immigrants are hardworking, honest and otherwise law-abiding members of the communities in which they reside. It would surely be a heart-wrenching scenario for such a person to be stopped for a driving infraction, have his illegal immigrant status discovered and face deportation proceedings. Regardless of the hardship suffered, being in the U.S. without authorization is a crime.

Detained militant in Iraq details World Cup plot
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD9FPCQRG1
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Excerpt: An al-Qaida militant detained in Iraq on suspicion of plotting to attack the World Cup told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wanted to target Danish and Dutch teams to avenge insults against the Prophet Muhammad. Iraqi security forces announced the arrest of Saudi citizen Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani Monday, saying he was suspected of planning an attack in South Africa during the World Cup beginning June 11. During an interview arranged by the Iraqi security officials holding al-Qahtani, he described the plot and said the idea of attacking the World Cup came up in late 2009 during talks with friends over content in the Western media that was offensive to Muslims. "We discussed the possibility of taking revenge for the insults of the Prophet by attacking Denmark and Holland," he said. The World Cup was considered an "important event" and South Africa was thought to be easier to travel to than either of the two European countries they wanted to attack, he explained. "The goal was to attack the Danish and the Dutch teams and their fans," the militant said. "If we were not able to reach the teams, then we'd target the fans," he said, adding that they hoped to use guns and car bombs.

Clinton: It's OK If Pakistan Lets Anti-American Terror Attacks Be Planned There As Long as NY Street Vendors Stop Them
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2010/05/clinton-if-terrorist-attack-planned-in.html
Excerpt: After ascertaining that the Times Square bomber had connections with the Pakistani Taliban, secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about her view of Pakistan's cooperation. She responded: "This is a threat that we share. We have a common enemy. There is no time to waste going after that common enemy." She would not criticize Pakistan and in fact said, “I have to stand up for the effort that the Pakistani government is taking....We’ve gotten more cooperation and it’s been a real sea change" in their efforts. But the tip-offs are the phrases about how effective the Pakistani government is being against terrorists "in their own country" and about a "threat that we share." In other words, as I've previously pointed out, the Pakistani government fights against terrorists that want to overthrow it (Pakistani Taliban) but not against those who merely want to kill Indians (several Pakistani-backed groups) or Americans (al-Qaida, Afghan Taliban).

Hezbollah holds 'Jihad tours' for students
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3891326,00.html
You can blow up Jews at Disneyland? Who knew? Excerpt: Militants teach students to fire rockets after tour of south Lebanon. 'It's like Disneyland,' says one.

Obama Administration Seeks Internet Control
http://www.newsmax.com/JohnLott/fcc-internet-web-fairness/2010/05/10/id/358589
Excerpt: The Obama administration just refuses to take no as an answer to its desire to control the Internet. Just a month ago, the Federal Appeals Court for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that the FCC didn't have the power to regulate traffic on the Internet. It seemed pretty clear, but last Thursday FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced a new plan: redefine broadband services to be something it can regulate, in this case telephone services. This is like a kid being told that he has to eat his "green beans" and then claiming that the "cookies" are really "green beans." The Obama administration has very sticky fingers and doesn't seem embarrassed by this power grab. The notion that the government can redefine things to extend its power is pretty scary.

Iraq says prisoners released by US rejoined Qaeda
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gWGacfnrSRlEVT9_ssR6BwwcQ8Ag
Excerpt: An Iraqi security spokesman on Tuesday said prisoners released by the US military rejoined Al-Qaeda in senior roles that saw them plan and commit bloody attacks inside the country. "The majority of the detainees who used to be inside US prisons went back to work in crimes and terrorism at a high level after they were released," Major General Qassim Atta told reporters in Baghdad. "Many of them occupied leadership positions in Al-Qaeda," he said, referring to insurgents released by the US army before tougher procedures were introduced more than a year ago.

Defending Arizona
http://marinepatriot.blogspot.com/2010/05/letter-from-senator-kyl-and-mccain.html
Letter from Kyl and McCain concerning the Obama administration apologizing to China for Arizona.

If 'truth' has no meaning, then who will stop genocide?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/If-_truth_-has-no-meaning_-then-who-will-stop-genocide_-93816834.html
Excerpt: Had a white supremacist student said the same thing about African-Americans, it likely would have led nightly newscasts. Rampant anti-Semitism, on the other hand, has become as prevalent on campuses as keg stands. Yet the PC police aren't about to defend Jews' right to exist. In fact, Horowitz was speaking at the UCSD event opposite anti-Semitic professor Norman Finkelstein, who refers to Israelis as "Nazis with beards and black hats" and says the Holocaust is exaggerated. Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University for his views, but he doesn't lack for invitations to speak at other colleges as a result. Of course, it's hard to tell which is worse -- this oppressive political correctness, or the moral relativism that enables it. Generations of college kids have been exposed to Michel Foucault, one of the most influential academics of the last century. Foucault's "concept of 'truth' is relative, that 'madness' is a cultural creation and that 'history' is mere storytelling, are now familiar fare at enlightened dinner parties," notes an article in the New Statesman.

Holder ignoring bribes under his nose
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Holder-ignoring-bribes-under-his-nose-93976194.html
Media abetted corruption. Excerpt: Last fall, the Denver Post reported that somebody in the Obama White House offered a plum job to former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff on the condition that he drop his Democratic primary challenge to Sen. Michael Bennett. Then in February, Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., told a talk radio program that somebody in the Obama White House had offered him a job in exchange for dropping his Democratic primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter. Given credible allegations that federal laws against offering federal jobs in return for political favors were broken, a previous Washington Examiner editorial asked: "Isn't that enough for somebody at the Department of Justice to start asking some serious questions?"

Political Satire
http://azconserv1.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/president-wants-lebron-james-to-sign-with-bulls/
Funny stuff, because it sounds true.

Quote
They that are on their guard and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked than the supine, secure and negligent. - Benjamin Franklin

Political Digest May 17, 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.
Worth Reading. War of persuasion: The modern U.S. officer emerges in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/15/AR2010051503645.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Lt. Col. Robert B. Brown could hear the fear in his 24-year-old lieutenant's voice on the patchy radio. "We have enemy inside the wire. It is really bad here," 1st Lt. Andrew Bundermann said. "We need those [expletive] birds now." Just before 6 a.m., more than 300 insurgents launched a massive attack on Bundermann's remote outpost in the Kamdesh district of northeastern Afghanistan. By 6:30 three of Bundermann's soldiers were dead, and the Apache attack helicopters he desperately wanted weren't going to arrive for another half hour. Brown, who was at his base about 30 miles away, grabbed the radio handset from one of his sergeants. "You are going to be all right," the 41-year-old officer told his young lieutenant. "We are going to get you as much help as possible." Bundermann made a wrenching decision. Unable to control the entire outpost, he ordered his remaining troops to collapse around a small cluster of its 23 buildings. Twelve of his 53 soldiers, pinned down by heavy enemy fire beyond those inner defenses, would have to fight on their own until the attack helicopters arrived. One was a 21-year-old soldier from Loudoun County, who had been wounded in his leg and hip. Bleeding, he crawled on his elbows behind the base's latrine for protection. "Help me," Spec. Stephan L. Mace called out to his fellow soldiers. "Help me, please." … After the Kamdesh battle, an insurgent leader known as Mullah Sadiq sent word to Brown that he wanted to drive his more radical Taliban rivals from the area around the Keating outpost. Sadiq, who had been on U.S. kill-or-capture lists for five years, needed money and Brown's help brokering a peace deal with Afghan government officials in Kabul. The offer was Brown's chance to ensure his eight soldiers didn't die in vain. "We don't think Sadiq is a Jeffersonian Democrat," Brown wrote of Sadiq in a February e-mail from Forward Operating Base Bostick in Naray. "But he is rallying public support to the Afghan government and against the Taliban. . . . And frankly, that may be good enough."

Tuesday's primaries could provide early answers for election year
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/15/AR2010051502816.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: An angry electorate, which already has delivered a series of shocks to the political system, will render a fresh verdict on Washington, incumbency and both party establishments in a slate of high-stakes contests Tuesday that are shaping up to form one of the most important voting days of the year. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) could be the next incumbent to fall, but by late Tuesday night, everyone from President Obama to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could feel the sting of voter anger that has shaped the election climate and that could produce a dramatic upheaval in Congress by November.

Conservative thinkers tout three innovative and controversial proposals
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/14/AR2010051401307.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Billboards advertising the importance of marriage. Shifting coverage of the elderly from Medicare to private insurance companies. Big tax cuts specifically for parents. Conservative thinkers are touting those bold ideas and others in journals, op-ed pages and blogs. While the "tea party" movement has dominated public attention, small blocs of Republicans have quietly spent the past year crafting policies on a wide range of issues, looking to build support if the GOP regains control of Congress or the presidency. Many of these ideas won't appear in the GOP's platform anytime soon, because they lack broad agreement within the party. And Republican lawmakers plan to spend most of their time ahead of this fall's election attacking Democrats instead of pushing new policy ideas, a view conservative thinkers acknowledge is politically wise

'The Un-Obama' doesn't run with the GOP pack
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0516-20100516,0,6249981.column
Excerpt: What separates Daniels from other Republicans is his attitude toward the populist tea party movement. He doesn't want to tame the tea party. He doesn't want to own it. He wants to keep a respectful distance. He agrees with the ideas expressed by this amazing gathering of independents, conservatives, Democrats and Republicans who are worried about the federal debt and the federal leviathan growing by the hour "But the tea party must be authentically separate and spontaneous, which I think it is," Daniels said. "I have carefully stayed away from it — not because I don't appreciate what they are doing, because I do — but because I don't want them tainted by too close of a relationship to either party. "By being independent they have gotten the attention of their fellow citizens in a way that the existing parties, the Republican Party, let's just say, doesn't. I think it's been very constructive. I've said a little creative hell-raising on behalf of freedom is a good thing," Daniels said.

Why Conservatives Love the Founders
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/why_conservatives_love_the_fou.html
Excerpt: A Salon writer wonders, "What's the conservative fetish with the Founding Fathers?" It's because we read history, my sadly ignorant friend. So did the Founders. History is full of Obamas, and the people who idolized such power-hungry self-glorifying narcissists. The Founders understood human history in their very bones, because they read history from the Bible to the Roman Empire, Europe's bloody and tyrannical history, and the Americas. If you want to understand Obama, just look at any idolized hero in Latin America: Chavez, Fidel, Bolivar, Juan Peron. Look at European monarchs. Look at Napoleon. They are all the famous Man on Horseback, the hero of the hour who instantly turns into a tyrant. Even today Latin America is bedeviled by its own Obamas, who all demand to be idolized and worshipped. Obamas are a dime a dozen. The Founders knew about abuse of power by arrogant and ignorant narcissists, over and over again in human history. They read it in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. They read it in the Book of Kings, where you can find out all about Saddam Hussein, because the politics of the Middle East hasn't changed much. They saw it in the Middle East of their day, which was full of clan tyrannies and immense cruelty. Arab slavers were still raiding Britain when the Founders proclaimed the Declaration of Independence. They read it in Plutarch's Lives of the Ceasars. They read it in the history of Athens, torn between bloody factions, and constantly raising new Obamas to power. You see, all you Salonistas, the Founders were profoundly educated people. They were passionate believers in the Enlightenment. They understood the role of free speech, free thought, free political debate, and free trade. They saw the benefits of freedom in their own lives. The Founders knew about slavery in the South, and they were deeply ashamed of it. But unlike contemporary liberals, who are massively ignorant of everything but their navels, they also knew that slavery was the norm in the British Royal Navy, for example, which recruited its sailors by force, using press gangs in London and other port cities. The British Navy also kidnapped American sailors.

Fake Tea Party Run by Democrats in Michigan Trying to Become official Third Party!
http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2010/05/breaking-fake-tea-party-run-by.html
Excerpt: This isn't even AstroTurf. It is outright political fraud. Fearful of the tea party movement in Michigan (which Democrats and Republicans alike should be), the Democrats and/or their special interest groups have begun the process of officially hijacking the movement. Like in Nevada, they will likely launch their own 'tea party' candidate that is anything but. Unfortunately for the Democrats, 1) the tea party is more informed than they give us credit for; and 2) this news is breaking at the very conception of this slimy political move. The news was broken last night by Chetley Zarko on his website Outside Lansing: Zarko Research Exclusive: Dem Dirty Trick on Fake Tea Party Petition Revealed Zarko Research has learned that a nefarious unknown group calling itself "The Tea Party" at PO Box 23 in Richville, MI 48757 (near Flint) is circulating a petition on a paid basis, at roughly $1 per signature to the circulator. The group is so new that the Secretary of State has nothing on file as of this moment.

Progress in Winning the Senate
http://townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2010/05/15/progress_in_winning_the_senate
Unlikely to run the table, but… Excerpt: Behind the scenes, the chances of a GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate increased in the past two weeks with key developments in pivotal states.
Already, Republican candidates are ahead in eight states now represented by Democrats: Delaware, North Dakota, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado, Arkansas and Nevada. And, in California, Sen. Barbara Boxer is polling in the low 40s, just barely ahead of her Republican challengers. But nine seats won't give us control, since Vice President Biden would break the tie for the Democrats. We need 10. Enter Washington state, where a large field of Republican candidates have failed to dent the lead of three-term incumbent Sen. Patty Murray. But now it appears that Dino Rossi, the former Republican candidate for governor, is likely to get into the race. Rossi, in fact, won the election for governor in Washington only to have it stolen from him by 200 votes after multiple recounts. Rossi trails Murray by only 48 to 46, even though he has yet to announce his candidacy. The vital 10th seat may well be Washington.

Iranian cleric wants creation of 'Greater Iran'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100515/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran
But the Iran problem has nothing to do with Islam, right? Can’t wait for these folks to have A-bombs. Excerpt: A radical cleric called Saturday for the creation of a "Greater Iran" that would rule over the entire Middle East and Central Asia, in an event that he said would herald the coming of Islam's expected messiah….He said he envisioned a Greater Iran that would stretch from Afghanistan to Israel, bringing about the destruction of the Jewish state…."The Islamic United States will be an introduction to the formation of the global village of the oppressed and that will be a prelude to the single global rule of the Mahdi," the Hezbollah newspaper quoted him as saying. Besides Israel, he said the union would also destroy Shiite Iran's other regional adversaries, whom he called "cancerous tumors." He singled out secular Arab nationalists such as members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in Iraq, as well as followers of the austere version of Sunni Islam practiced primarily in Saudi Arabia that is known as Wahabism.

Interfaith meeting rocked by terror accusation
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=153433
Excerpt: An American Islamic leader friendly with the White House who leads an interfaith-dialogue movement was unexpectedly confronted at a Connecticut synagogue about her organization's ties to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, the parent of al-Qaida, Hamas and numerous Islamic groups that aim to establish Islamic law worldwide through terrorism and other means. Ingrid Mattson, director of the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, was a featured speaker May 4 at an interfaith event hosted by Congregation Kol Haverim in Glastonbury, Conn., titled "How Religious People of Peace Can Transform Differences and Build Bridges of Understanding." Jeffrey Epstein – who as president of the non-profit America's Truth Forum has researched and hosted conferences on the Islamic terror threat to the U.S – told WND he "felt it best to leave" after the president of the synagogue interrupted his second question, which had elicited noticeable gasps from the mostly Jewish audience of about 100.

Next big terrorist attack on US will be postmarked 'Pakistan': CIA analyst
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Next-big-terrorist-attack-on-US-will-be-postmarked-Pakistan-CIA-analyst/articleshow/5933520.cms
Guess he gets the big bucks to figure stuff like this out. Excerpt: A former CIA analyst, who helped President Barack Obama formulate his Pakistan-Afghanistan policy, sees "a very serious possibility that the next mass casualty terrorist attack on the United States will be postmarked Pakistan." "What we're seeing going on in Pakistan now is a very dangerous phenomenon," says Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think tank. "The ideology of al Qaida, the ideology of global Islamic jihad that all jihadists should focus on the United States as the ultimate enemy, is gaining ground with groups beyond al Qaida," said Riedel, who chaired a special interagency committee last year to develop Obama's Af-Pak policy. Obama and previous Bush administrations have been pressuring Pakistan for years to shut down completely the jihadist Frankenstein that was created over three decades in Pakistan, Riedel said. But "no Pakistani government has yet been willing to take on the entire network of terrorist groups."

'Obliterating' Iraq's Christians
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/05/obliterating_iraqs_christians.html
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. And when militant Muslims have enough power here, it will happen here. Excerpt: What is most startling about the report of the heartless double bus bombings on May 2 that targeted and injured 80 Christian students traveling to northern Iraq's Mosul University was that the young Christians there attend university at all. Since the U.S. invasion, Iraq's Christians have been mostly driven out of the country by violence directed against them for their religion. Their communities are shattered. That these young people continued to dream of preparing themselves to serve their country signals that community's deep commitment to Iraq and a modicum of hope they still harbor for its future. Unless the Obama administration acts fast to develop policies to help them, though, their hope will likely be in vain. Relentless waves of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, extortions and rapes have triggered a mass exodus of Christians from Iraq over the past seven years. Since 2003, over half of the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian, Syriac Orthodox, and Armenian Christians, as well as some Protestants have fled to Syria, Jordan and farther flung places. While only 3 or 4 percent of Iraq's pre-2003 population, they account for 40 percent of its refugees, the UN reported….The Christians and the other smallest minorities are not simply caught in the middle. The refugee branches of both the UN and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops separately concluded after extensive research that their presence in Iraq is being "obliterated" (the bishops group's term) because of fiercely intolerant attacks specifically targeting them. From southern Basra to northern Kirkuk, the religious minorities have suffered bloody reprisals from terrorists and extremists for failing to conform to Islamic behavior -- in their dress, social patterns, and occupations, as well as in their worship. The sustained violence against the Christians started with a coordinated bombing of churches in August 2004. The Christians remember that similar bombings of synagogues in 1948 prompted Iraq's Jewish community to flee, leaving a total of seven Jews in Baghdad today.

FBI files discuss Cronkite aiding Vietnam protesters
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100514/ts_ynews/ynews_ts2067
The Media: Helping statists destroy freedom since at least WWII. Excerpt: Legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite allegedly collaborated with anti-Vietnam War activists in the 1960s, going so far as to offer advice on how to raise the public profile of protests and even pledging CBS News resources to help pull off events, according to FBI documents obtained by Yahoo! News. The documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, say that in November 1969, Cronkite encouraged students at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., to invite Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie to address a protest they were planning near Cape Kennedy (now known as Cape Canaveral). Cronkite told the group's leader that Muskie would be nearby for a fundraiser on the day of the protest, and said that "CBS would rent [a] helicopter to take Muskie to and from site of rally," according to the documents. The claims are contained in an FBI memo recounting a confidential informant's report on a November 1969 meeting of a Rollins College protest group called Youth for New America. The group was planning rallies near Cape Kennedy on Nov. 13 and 14 — the latter being day of the Apollo 12 launch from Cape Kennedy, which President Nixon would be attending — as part of a nationwide Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. That protest action culminated in a huge march on Washington on Nov. 15. According to the informant, the group's leader (whose name is redacted in the documents) told the attendees that during a visit to a local CBS News station to drum up publicity for the protests, he ended up in a 45-minute phone conversation with Cronkite.

2005: What Housing Bubble?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE

Saluting Obama, Our Demagogue in Chief
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22942
From Canada. Excerpt: Is the central purpose of communication to persuade an audience, or to tell them the truth? Of course, a combination of both is the goal of effective and ethical speaking. But has this question ever sprung to Barack Obama’s mind when rising to pontificate? Contra, it appears Obama’s entire approach to communication is simply using words to service political goals.

Woody Allen: “It Would Be Good If Obama Could Be a Dictator for a Few Years”
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=14387
Statist dreams. Excerpt: “…sería bueno…si pudiera ser un dictador durante algunos años, porque podría hacer un montón de cosas buenas rápidamente.” The translated quote: “…it would be good…if he could be a dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly.”

Palin: Research is your friend, News Media. Try it sometime
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=14406
Excerpt: The more things change, the more they stay the same with twisted media coverage of my comments. Stories from yesterday are littered with typical inaccuracies and half truths; and in our never-ending quest to hold the press accountable, here are the points that require correction: 1) I was not “interviewed” by ABC News. I had an ABC News camera in my face while I was signing things and greeting some attendees following the Susan B. Anthony List Breakfast. 2) My remarks at the NRA Annual Meeting regarding the anti-Second Amendment sentiments of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were as follows: “President Obama and his allies like Nancy Pelosi have been relatively quiet on the gun control front – not because they don’t want to limit your rights, but because they’re afraid of the political consequences. Don’t doubt for a minute that if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns, and ban ammunition, and gut the Second Amendment.”

SAS comes out fighting as details of top-secret missions are exposed
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sas-comes-out-fighting-as-details-of-topsecret-missions-are-exposed-1962552.html
Col. Stirling would be appalled. Excerpt: Britain's elite fighting force, the SAS, has become enmeshed in controversy and recriminations, with one of its most successful former senior officers being banned from headquarters and its current chief engaged in a dispute with the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan. The Independent has learned that General Stanley McChrystal, leading Western troops in the war against the Taliban, has received a complaint from the UK's Director of Special Forces (DSF) after he broke the SAS's code of silence and spoke about the missions mounted by the SAS and their Royal Marines equivalent, the SBS, in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Williams, who led the SAS during the Iraq war in undercover operations run by General McChrystal, has been told to stay away from the regiment's headquarters in Hereford.

Supreme Court nominee without judicial record needs to be more forthcoming.
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=14390
So said Sen. Obama.

Extraterrestrial Global Warming
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/16/extraterrestrial-global-warming/#more-19550
Excerpt: Apparently, man-made global warming has gotten so out of hand because of SUVs and coal-chugging global warming skeptics that even the biggest planet in our solar system – Jupiter – is being affected by our addiction to carbon pollution. And that follows the other solar effects of our dependence on fossil fuels, including Mars losing its polar ice cap (what will Martian polar bears do now?), Neptune changing its reflectivity, Neptune’s moon Triton increasing in temperature by a whopping 5% due to the American energy-intensive lifestyle, and Pluto’s atmospheric pressure tripling due to higher temperatures because of Bushitler. From Yahoo! News via American Thinker: Jupiter Has Lost a Cloud Stripe, New Photos Reveal.

U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/world/16contractors.html?om_rid=Mqh-D0&om_mid=_BL7-FHB8ImWi11&
Excerpt: A senior defense official said that the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew the contract, which expires at the end of May. While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expanded role of contractors on the battlefield — from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects — has raised questions about whether the United States has outsourced some of its most secretive and important operations to a private army many fear is largely unaccountable. The C.I.A. has relied extensively on contractors in recent years to carry out missions in war zones. The exposure of the spying network also reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the C.I.A., which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan. In December, a cable from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military’s hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another.

Vietnam
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87404
Thanks to John Kerry, Jane Fonda, Ted Kennedy and many other leftists who made this happy situation possible. Human Rights Watch is hardly a conservative group. Excerpt: Vietnam intensified its suppression of dissent in 2009 in an effort to bolster the authority of the Communist Party. Authorities arrested dozens of peaceful democracy advocates, independent religious activists, human rights defenders, and online critics, using vaguely-worded national security laws such as spreading "anti-government propaganda" or "abusing democratic freedoms." The courts convicted at least 20 political or religious prisoners in 2009, including five people sentenced in October whom the previous month the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had determined to be arbitrarily detained. People imprisoned in Vietnam for the exercise of fundamental rights number more than 400. The government tightened its controls on internet use, blogging, and independent research, and banned dissemination and publication of content critical of the government. Religious freedom continued to deteriorate, with the government targeting religious leaders-and their followers-who advocated for civil rights, religious freedom, and equitable resolution of land disputes. In an effort to eliminate challenges to the Communist Party and curb social unrest in advance of a key June 2009 party plenum, in May the government launched a wave of arrests, detaining 27 people for alleged links to the banned Democratic Party of Vietnam (DPV). At least five were prosecuted on national security charges, including prominent lawyer Le Cong Dinh; their trial is pending at this writing. The arrests of at least eight other dissidents, bloggers, and political activists followed. The government bans independent trade unions and human rights organizations, as well as opposition political parties. Workers are prohibited from conducting strikes not authorized by the party-controlled labor confederation. Activists who promote workers' rights and independent unions are harassed, arrested, or jailed. While government officials often tolerate farmers gathering in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to file complaints about land confiscation or local corruption, political protests are generally banned. Police crackdowns on protests-especially those in the countryside-often take place away from the public spotlight. In May, for example, police dispersed demonstrations in the Mekong delta by ethnic Khmer farmers protesting land grabbing, and arrested Huynh Ba on charges of organizing the protests. Since his arrest, he has been held incommunicado in Soc Trang prison. Vietnamese law requires that religious groups register with the government and operate under government-controlled management boards. Adherents of some unregistered religious groups, as well as religious activists campaigning for internationally-guaranteed rights, are harassed, arrested, or placed under house arrest. In the Central Highlands, authorities in 2009 arrested dozens of Montagnard Christians accused of belonging to unregistered house churches considered subversive by the government, planning land rights protests, or conveying information about rights abuses to activists abroad. A focus of the crackdown was Gia Lai province, where more than 50 Montagnards were arrested and at least nine sentenced to prison during the year. On several occasions police beat and shocked Montagnards with electric batons when they refused to sign pledges to join the government sanctioned church.

American History, Not Ethnic Studies
http://townhall.com/columnists/LindaChavez/2010/05/14/american_history,_not_ethnic_studies
Excerpt: Most ethnic studies programs in public schools are at best a waste of taxpayer money, and at worst racially and ethnically divisive indoctrination. But the goal shouldn't be just getting rid of these programs, which a controversial new bill passed by the Arizona legislature attempts to do, but ensuring that public schools give all students a firm grounding in American history, culture, and government. The impetus for the Arizona bill is a program used in the Tucson Unified School District that provides ethnic studies courses for Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans. Critics of the program claim that the courses, especially those aimed at Mexican Americans, have become forums for political propaganda. And the school district's own website provides evidence the critics are right. Among the goals listed for the Mexican American Studies program are the following: "Advocating for and providing curriculum that is centered within the pursuit of social justice. ... Working towards the invoking of a critical consciousness within each and every student. ... Providing and promoting teacher education that is centered within Critical Pedagogy, Latino Critical Race Pedagogy, and Authentic Caring." The idea of the public schools promoting "race pedagogy" of any sort should send shivers down the spine -- and is there such a thing as "inauthentic" caring, whose antidote this program pretends to be? Programs like Tucson's have been around since the 1960s, starting first in colleges and universities and, later, adopted in public school curricula. Afrocentric education was all the rage in the 1990s in public schools from Portland, Ore., to Prince George's County, Maryland. The study guides used in those programs were not just racially incendiary but downright kooky, claiming, for example, that absence of melanin in the skin made whites more likely to become sexual deviants. (Bob: See, it’s not my fault. I’m a victim of melanin deficiency and need a government bailout.) Tucson's program, it appears, follows a similar pattern of turning facts on their head. According to a series in the Arizona Republic last year, videos posted online showed Tucson Chicano Studies classrooms decorated with "heroes" such as Fidel Castro, the communist dictator who ruled for nearly 50 years and single-handedly turned Cuba into one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere; Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentine revolutionary who served in Castro's regime, ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent Cubans and personally executing more than 180 men; and Pancho Villa, a common criminal whose escapades were more about enriching himself than freeing Mexico from one of its perennial dictators, Porfirio Diaz. Venerating this rogues' gallery of despots certainly won't help Mexican-American students understand anything about the role of Mexican-Americans in U.S. history, which is how such programs are often sold to an unsuspecting public.

And our feel-good story of the day
Gone in 28 seconds: Rapid-fire sniper takes out five Taliban soldiers from more than a mile away to save British patrol
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1273679/Gone-28-seconds-Rapid-sniper-takes-Taliban-soldiers-protect-British-patrol.html
Excerpt: A British sniper shot dead five Taliban gunmen in just 28 seconds to save the lives of comrades walking into an ambush. The marksman felled the rebels from more than a mile away as they prepared to attack troops on foot patrol in Afghanistan. The corporal - whose identity cannot be revealed for security reasons - has killed a record 37 enemy fighters during a four-month tour of duty. But his most remarkable feat of arms came when he and the spotter who accompanies him saw the group of armed Taliban. They were taking up positions to fire on a patrol that included the platoon commander in Helmand Province. Hiding in an old fort, the sniper prepared his British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle.

Political Digest April 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.

Stop the Islamisation of America
This organization is gearing up. Anyone interested in forming a state chapter, e-mail me and I’ll pass on. tartanmarine@gmail.com.

Coburn threatens to block all spending bills in Senate that aren't 'paid for'
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/90883-coburn-threatens-to-block-all-spending-bills-in-senate
A gallant effort to hold the line, at personal political cost. We all need to write our Senators and support this fight. Excerpt: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) on Tuesday vowed to block all future spending bills in the Senate that aren’t fully “paid for” with cuts to other spending programs. Coburn and other Republicans are already blocking a $9 billion bill to extend jobless benefits for 30 days that isn’t offset with other spending cuts. That impasse halted benefits to 200,000 unemployed people this week. In a phone interview with The Hill, Coburn said he would “absolutely” object to any other spending measure that isn’t funded. “The fact is that the country wants us to start making hard choices on spending, and if we can’t do it on a $9 billion bill, then we’re certainly not going to be able to do it on our $1.6 trillion deficit,” he said. “The problems are so severe in our country, our debt is so severe and the impact is so great in the near and long term that it’s time for some of us to take a stand. We may lose. But we’re not going to give up on doing the tough things that Washington needs to do, and if that earns us consternation, so be it.” Coburn has a well-known penchant for holding up Senate bills — notably tangling with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2008 over a large lands bill package that he objected to — but his vow Tuesday represents a more expansive approach.

Must Read: Race and Politics: Part II by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/04/07/race_and_politics_part_ii
Excerpt: No dogma has caused more mischief-- and, in some countries, tragedies-- than the notion that there is something strange and wrong when some groups are "over-represented" or "under-represented" in some occupations or institutions. This dogma is so widely accepted, and so deeply entrenched, that no one asks for evidence and no speck of evidence is offered. Moreover, tons of evidence to the contrary are ignored….. A major factor in the housing boom and bust that created the present economic predicament was massive government intervention in the housing market, supposedly to correct discrimination in mortgage lending. How did they know that there was discrimination? Because blacks were turned down for mortgage loans at a higher rate than whites. It so happens that whites were turned down for mortgage loans at a higher rate than Asian Americans, but that fact seldom made it into the newspaper headlines or the political rhetoric. Nor did either the mainstream media or political leaders mention the fact that black-owned banks turned down black mortgage loan applicants at least as often as white-owned banks did. There was never the slightest reason to expect the different racial or ethnic groups in the United States to have the same credit ratings or the same behavior or performance in any other way, when both racial and non-racial groups of various sorts have for centuries had radically different patterns of behavior and performance in countries around the world.

Democrats face tough budget fight
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/90955-house-dems-face-bruising-fight-on-budget
Excerpt: House Democrats are facing a much tighter vote on the budget resolution in 2010 because of big deficit projections and the looming mid-term election. As a result, centrist Democrats will have a harder time voting for the resolution, which sets discretionary spending levels and previews the federal government's fiscal situation for the next few years.

Five stumbling blocks that could wipe out many Democrats
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/90715-five-stumbling-blocks-that-could-wipe-out-the-democrats-in-november-
Excerpt: Democrats feel they have grabbed political momentum, but the party still faces several dangers that could wipe it out in November. Democratic strategists and independent political experts identify roughly five stumbling blocks that the party must overcome to avert big losses: history, jobs and the economy, an apathetic base, ethics and anti-Washington sentiment. Almost every Democratic strategist acknowledges the party will lose seats in Congress this fall. The question is whether the loss will be moderate or severe, or even enough to give Republicans control of the House.

FCC Democrats determined to reclassify broadband
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/90853-fcc-democrats-determined-to-reclassify-broadband
Soon, peasants, we will control everything! Ba-wa-ha-ha-ha! Excerpt: Democrats on the Federal Communications Commission say the federal court's decision regarding Comcast has renewed their resolve to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service in order to enact net neutrality regulations. "The only way the Commission can make lemonade out of this lemon of a decision is to do now what should have been done years ago: treat broadband as the telecommunications service that it is," said Michael J. Copps, the senior Democratic member of the panel. "We should straighten this broadband classification mess out before the first day of summer."…. Republican commissioners, however, said they were pleased by the court's decision and hope the Chairman does not try to reclassify. "I am pleased that today’s court order makes clear that Title I of the Communications Act provides the FCC with no authority to regulate the network management practices of an Internet service provider," said Robert McDowell. "I hope this decision will provide certainty in the marketplace and will not lead to the unnecessary classification of broadband service as a monopoly phone service under Title II of the Act.” Meredith Attwell Baker said the court was right to limit the FCC's authority to regulate the Internet. "The D.C. Circuit’s strong words today remind us that as an independent agency, we must always be constrained by the statute. We stray from it at our peril," she said.

House liberals shift climate change tactics, will not draw 'lines in the sand'
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/90905-house-liberals-shift-climate-tactics
Translation: We’ll vote for any damn thing that says “Climate change” at the top, as we did with healthcare. Excerpt: Liberal House Democrats are shifting their political tactics on climate change after failing to secure a public option in the new healthcare reform law.
The move comes in the wake of liberals having to walk back threats that they would vote against a healthcare bill without a government-run program. “Drawing the line in the sand too quickly was part of the lesson we learned on healthcare,” the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), told The Hill.

The Fix: Mark Kirk
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/20100407-house-democrats-hawaii.html?wprss=thefix
The “felons” were mobsters. The bank’s president—Alexi’s brother—said they didn’t look into their background. Think you could get a $20M loan with no background check? Excerpt: Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk (R) will report raising $2.2 million in the first three months of this year, a staggeringly strong total that comes as his opponent in the Senate race -- state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (D) -- continues to weather negative stories about his family's troubled bank. To date, Kirk has collected $6.6 million for the race and closed March with just over $3 million in the bank. Giannoulias's fundraising numbers for the first quarter of the year were not available at press time but as of Jan. 13 he had collected $3.6 million for the race and retained $963,000. Both men won primary races on Feb. 2 although Giannoulias's was the more serious contest as he bested former Chicago inspector general David Hoffman 39 percent to 34 percent. Since that win, however, Giannoulias has been hamstrung by Broadway Bank, a family-owned enterprise that is in dire financial straits. The latest story came on April 1 when the Chicago Tribune reported that the bank had loaned $20 million to two felons while Giannoulias served as a senior loan officer. Kirk's outstanding fundraising and Giannoulias's struggles have made this a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans despite the fact that Illinois is not only one of the most Democratic states in the country but also President Obama's political backyard.

General Motors posts $4.3B loss
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040701922.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
As a co-owner, please send your share of the loss to president Obama. Make the check out to the UAW. Excerpt: General Motors posted a $4.3 billion loss for the second half of 2009 but could be profitable this year, the company announced Wednesday.

Anti-govt protests rock Kyrgyzstan, 17 said dead
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040700671.html?hpid=artslot
Excerpt: Anti-government unrest is rocking the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan and opposition politicians claim they are negotiating with the president and demanding he step down. Government officials cannot immediately be reached for comment. The opposition has taken over state television and says that it is talking with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev (bak-EE-ev) and expects results soon.

Automaker Pensions Underfunded By $17 Billion
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19187&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Another harbinger of the coming collapse. Think BO will let the union pensions fail? Or will he just add it to the deficit? Excerpt: The pension plans at General Motors and Chrysler are underfunded by a total of $17 billion and could fail if the automakers do not return to profitability, according to a government report released Tuesday.

Shortfall Awaits California's Big Pension Funds
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304620304575166192781597892.html
Another harbinger of…ah, the hell with it. Have a beer. Excerpt: A study released Monday by Stanford University estimates that California's three largest state-operated, public-employee pension funds—the California Public Employees' Retirement System, California State Teachers' Retirement System and University of California Retirement System—currently face a total shortfall of more than $500 billion.

Play Ball! But Not With Taxpayer Money
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/04/06/play-ball-but-not-with-taxpayer-money/
Bread and circuses for the mob. Excerpt: As we enjoy the opening week of the new baseball season, we should reflect on the dastardly organization that spends too much money and raises the price of baseball for everyone. No, it’s not the New York Yankees: it’s the United States government.

Independents rally to the Tea Party
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Independents-rally-to-the-Tea-Party-90036092.html
Excerpt: Democratic activists and officeholders, and their liberal friends in the media, have told us for more than a year that the Tea Party movement is nothing more than a bunch of lily white conservative Republicans, gun-toting far-right kooks, and unreconstructed Confederates who hate President Obama because of the color of his skin. This liberal narrative of the Tea Partiers as dangerous right-wing bigots reached its apotheosis last month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders paraded around the Capitol just before the decisive congressional vote on Obamacare. Allegations flew for weeks afterward that the assembled Tea Party protesters lining the march route hurled spit, racist taunts, and violent threats at Pelosi and her fellow marchers. It got so bad that columnist Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post said last week that "the danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left." But now comes hard facts from multiple sources that put the lie to the liberal stereotype about Tea Partiers. For one thing, the Tea Partiers are almost certainly more in tune with the views of the average American voter than is Obama. Pollster Scott Rasmussen found that 48 percent of his respondents say their views are closer to those of the Tea Party than to Obama. Not surprisingly, far more Republicans than Democrats said that to Rasmussen. Less predictable and more important, 50 percent of the independents identified with Tea Partiers over Obama, while only 38 percent of independents said the president's views matched their own. It appears the independent center of American politics has shifted decisively to the right as the Tea Party has grown during the past year.

America is losing the war on its 'third front'
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/BarbaraHollingsworth/Barbara-Hollingsworth-America-is-losing-the-war-on-its-third-front-90032837.html
Excerpt: Fighting a two-front war is ill-advised, as Napoleon Bonaparte, Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolph Hitler all found out the hard way. But the U.S. is now facing an unprecedented triple threat. But with combat troops already stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama has largely ignored what Rep. Ted Poe, R-TX, calls “the silent third front,” our1,951-mile border with Mexico. Poe’s war reference is meant to be taken literally. Members of increasingly bold Mexican drug cartels have already killed more than 18,000 Mexicans and 79 Americans. More than 5,000 people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez alone over the past three years, including two U.S. consulate employees Poe says were deliberately targeted for execution in March, sending a clear but chilling message to U.S. authorities. But when Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to send unmanned drones and 1,000 additional soldiers to assist beleaguered Border Patrol agents and local sheriffs, he was rebuffed. Instead, Napolitano announced she was canceling the “virtual” border surveillance project, leaving states that have to deal with the unending illegal flow of people, drugs, money and guns every day largely on their own.

Five things we learned about Obamacare after it passed
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Five-things-we-learned-about-Obamacare-after-it-passed-90029262.html
Excerpt: "[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said that about President Obama's health care reform package. She was right. We are just finding out what was contained within that Obamacare law that Obama signed weeks ago.
Here are five things we've learned so far:

More Americans Sever U.S. Ties as IRS Gets Tougher
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304017404575166211517964090.html
Drive the productive away, welcome the drones. Excerpt: The number of American citizens and green-card holders severing their ties with the U.S. soared in the latter part of 2009, amid looming U.S. tax increases and a more aggressive posture by the Internal Revenue Service toward Americans living overseas. According to public records, just over 500 people world-wide renounced U.S. citizenship or permanent residency in the fourth quarter of 2009, the most recent period for which data are available. That is more people than have cut ties with the U.S. during all of 2007, and more than double the total expatriations in 2008. An Ohio-born entrepreneur, now based in Switzerland, told Dow Jones he is considering turning in his U.S. passport. Mounting U.S. tax and reporting requirements are making potential business partners hesitate to do business with him, he said. "I still do dearly love the U.S., and renouncing my citizenship is not something I take lightly. But more and more it is seeming like being part of a dysfunctional family," said the businessman, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution. "The tax itself is only a small part of the issue," the Swiss-based entrepreneur said. "It's the overall regulatory environment."

How the Left Really Plans to Pay for Obamacare
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/07/morning-bell-how-the-left-really-plans-to-pay-for-obamacare/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Excerpt: This doc fix is big enough that, if it had been included as a cost of Obamacare, it would have sent the President’s bill into the red all by itself. But the half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts used to fund the rest of Obamacare are a much bigger problem. Even if we assume they all go as planned, President Obama’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010; would run a $1.6 trillion deficit in 2010; and would leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion as late as 2020. Add on the half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts that, given Congress’ track record, the American people would be naive to think will ever happen, and the federal government is looking at a pile of new debt. The left’s solution to this problem has been simmering for some time now. Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) floated the idea to The Washington Post last May. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told Charlie Rose it was “on the table” in October. And yesterday White House adviser Paul Volcker told the New York Historical Society it should be considered. The “it” here is a Value Added Tax (VAT), which is a fancy way of saying national sales tax. A VAT can be (and has been) structured in many different ways. But the real world results are always the same: higher taxes, more government spending, lower growth, fewer jobs and more special interest power. (How do the exempt those of us making less than $250k from the VAT? BO promised we wouldn’t pay a dime more!)

Taxes likely to rise eventually to tame deficit
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6355N520100406
The drums are beating to break BO’s most solemn promise. I’m not angry—I knew he was lying at the time. Excerpt: The United States should consider raising taxes to help bring deficits under control and may need to consider a European-style value-added tax, White House adviser Paul Volcker said on Tuesday.

Fanning the Flames of Poppycock
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/fanning_the_flames_of_poppycoc.html#
Excerpt: James Taranto, who writes the Best of the Web for the Wall Street Journal has a devastating, well documented retort to Congresswoman Maxine Waters who accuses the tea party of vicious rhetoric. He plays back her own stuff, fanning the flames of the LA riots and expressing her support for the rioters, and her vicious attacks on then President Bush when the anti-war crow was en fuego here in the Capitol. In other words, Maxine really has fomented political violence and it is particularly odd that she accuses the innocent Tea Party of doing what she actually did….. In response West wrote: The history of the Democratic party is steeped in intimidation. It was the Democratic Party that started the KKK to enforce Jim Crow segregation laws. It was the Democratic party that instituted lynching and other means of violence to preclude blacks from enjoying the Constitutional rights the Republican party established in the 13-15th Amendments and the early Civil Rights Legislation during the Reconstruction Era through the 1960s. It is the Democratic party which today promotes the intimidation tactics of ACORN, SEIU, Code Pink, Anarchist groups, and the New Black Panther Party. Mitch Ceasar is typical of liberal Democrats in seeking to create a smoking mirror when nothing exists. Caesar is a true representative of the politics of hypocrisy that infests the Democrat party. The liberals of Broward County are evidencing their fear of the American people, and our campaign, and OUR voices will not be silenced.

Black Conservatives Get Pressure For Aligning With Tea Party
http://standupamericaus.com/black-conservatives-get-pressure-for-aligning-with-tea-party:29747
They’ve been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement – and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation’s first black president. “I’ve been told I hate myself. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom. I’ve been told I’m a spook at the door,” said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.

A sinking ship of state
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/06/a-sinking-ship-of-state/
Excerpt: Last summer, President Obama spent several months publicly anguishing over what he would or wouldn't do in Afghanistan. Finally, he agreed to ramp up troop levels but warned that he intended to start getting American troops out in 18 months. After anguishing in several columns over the president's anguishing, I concluded in November 2009: "If the Taliban and al Qaeda retake Afghanistan, the world (and America) will have hell to pay for the consequences. But this president and this White House do not have it in them to lead our troops to victory in Afghanistan. So they shouldn't try. The price will be high for whatever foreign policy failures we will endure in the next three years. Let's not add to that price the pointless murder of our finest young troops in a war their leader does not believe in. Bring them home. We'll need them later."

Obama swings and misses at Sox lore
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0407-20100407,0,5135867.column
By John Kass, Chicago Tribune: Obama's troubles started Monday after he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals home opener. He threw lefty and missed the plate, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising is what happened after he joined announcer Rob Dibble in the booth for some happy talk. Dibble commented on Obama's hat — a nicely faded black Sox cap — which the president proudly wore on the mound reminding all of us once again of the heroic team from Chicago that has actually won a World Series in the past 100 years. Dibble asked the fateful question, one so easy that Hawk Harrelson would have called it a "can of corn." Dibble: "Who was one of your favorite White Sox players growing up?" Obama: "You know … uh … I thought that … you know … the truth is, that a lot of the Cubs I liked too." Ouch. The silence between the stammers was excruciating. America's No. 1 Sox fan couldn't name one Sox player

The Left-Wing World is Upside Down
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/04/06/the-left-wing-world-is-upside-down/
Excerpt: Recall if you will Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s campaign. His twenty year old college thesis, the left would have us believe, should have disqualified McDonnell from ever being elected governor because of his advocacy of traditional family and lifestyles. Consider a host of people on the right who through various indiscretions, dumb acts, etc. the left would make sure we never move beyond, never forgive, never forget, and never allow redemption. Now consider Tim Russo. He is running for political office in Cleveland, OH. Nine years ago “in November 2001 he solicited sex from an FBI agent posing online as a minor “. Of course you and I know exactly how the left responds. No, Bob McDonnell, because of what he wrote, should never have been elected Governor of Virginia. But Russo and his predilection for underage sex? According to Howie Klein at the Huffington Post, “Local media want him to pay for that for the rest of his life.” Poor him. Russo, you see, is the victim. He is trying to move and get over the “dumb things” he did.

Border Insecurity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMXRFVbM8g

North Koreans fear another famine amid economic crisis
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/23/world/la-fg-korea-famine24-2010mar24
The never-ending joy of central economic planning, so beloved of statists.

Obama Bets it All on Kandahar
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36330
Excerpt: President Obama is betting his “war of necessity” on the outcome of the pending battle for Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city. Failing to secure and then provide good governance for that million person city by this December will be the death knell for the President’s time-line which is essential to his entire Afghan strategy. Last December, Obama outlined his strategy in a speech at West Point. He promised a 30,000 man surge of fresh troops “will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July 2011.” But Kandahar could defeat Obama’s ambitious timeline because the Afghans are either unprepared and or unwilling to do what’s necessary to transform that city.

Machete used in anti-Semitic attack in Gatineau, Carleton students say
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Machete+used+anti+Semitic+attack+Carleton+students/2766537/story.html
Didn’t get the memo. Excerpt: Nick Bergamini, 22, vice-president of the Carleton University Students’ Association, said he and roommate Mark Klibanov were leaving Le Volt bar on Promenade du Portage at 1:45 a.m. when a group of about 10 men began yelling in English and Arabic that they were Zionists and Jews.

'Collateral Murder' in Baghdad Anything But
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/collateral-murder-baghdad-anything
Excerpt: Wikileaks, the website devoted to publishing classified documents on the Internet, made a splash today with a video claiming to show that the U.S. military "murdered" a Reuters cameraman and other Iraqi "civilians" in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. But a careful watching of the video shows that the U.S. helicopter gun crews that attacked a group of armed men in the then Mahdi Army stronghold of New Baghdad was anything but "Collateral Murder," as Wikileaks describes the incident. There are a couple of things to note in the video. First, Wikileaks characterizes the attack as the U.S. military casually gunning down Iraqis who were innocently gathering on the streets of New Baghdad. But the video begins somewhat abruptly, with a UAV starting to track a group of Iraqi males gathering on the streets. The voice of a U.S. officer is captured in mid-sentence. It would be nice to know what happened before Wikileaks decided to begin the video. The U.S. military claimed the Iraqis were killed after a gun battle with U.S. and Iraqi security forces. It is unclear if any of that was captured on the strike footage. Here is what the U.S. military had to say about the engagement in a July 2007 press release:

In Iraq?
Al-Malaki is claiming vote fraud. I didn’t even know that ACORN had a chapter in Baghdad!

Quotes from The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
Threats. "If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this: We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few." --Greenpeace blogger Gene Hashmi. (But do you know we are armed, fascist thug?

"Half a century ago, Khrushchev and Nixon had what was dubbed the kitchen debate. Nixon predicted that the Russians would become capitalists, while Khrushchev insisted that socialism would bury us. Who would ever have guessed that they would both be right?" --columnist Burt Prelutsky.