A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Pelosi's push for jet remains up in air “The Bush administration has agreed to provide House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with regular access to an Air Force passenger jet, but the two sides are negotiating whether she will get the big aircraft she wants and who she may take as passengers.” (READ MORE)
U.S. mulls Iraq refugees “The State Department said yesterday it will re-examine U.S. policy on the admission of Iraqi refugees, likely leading to a sharp increase in the number it admits each year.” (READ MORE)
Terror takes toll on market, vendors “Along a row of tables that crowd a bustling sidewalk, women in billowing black abayas sift through heaps of newly picked tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, carrots, cauliflower and potatoes.” (READ MORE)
Waxman hits 'waste, abuse' of Iraq funds “Rep. Henry A. Waxman yesterday excoriated the Bush administration for not tracking $12 billion of Iraq reconstruction funds, beginning the first of what he promised would be two years of hearings into ‘fraud, waste and abuse in federal spending.’” (READ MORE)
Senate Leaders Continue Squabbling Over Iraq “Senate leaders squabbled yesterday over how to consider resolutions opposing President Bush's plan for more troops in Iraq, but the quarrel did not stop lawmakers from launching an informal debate on the chamber floor over the war.” (READ MORE)
In Campaign 2008, Candidates Starting Earlier, Spending More “Starting as early as last June, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was hiring staffers and consultants in New Hampshire and Iowa and building the foundation for his 2008 presidential bid at a time when those in early battleground states typically get a breather from national politics.” (READ MORE)
Bush Approves Plan To Pressure Sudan “President Bush has approved a plan for the Treasury Department to aggressively block U.S. commercial bank transactions connected to the government of Sudan, including those involving oil revenues, if Khartoum continues to balk at efforts to bring peace to Sudan's troubled Darfur region, government...” (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Bill Roggio writes The Surge and the Baghdad Security Operation “A process, not an event - News that an Iraqi Army brigade and 2,000 American troops have begun an operation in the Sunni dominated neighborhood of Azamiyah has kicked off speculation the Baghdad Security Operation is now underway in full force.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten writes On the Top Floor of Lebanon’s Civil Society “BEIRUT – On March 14, 2005, Lebanon captivated the world when one-third of the country demonstrated in downtown Beirut and demanded free elections and the withdrawal of the occupying Syrian military dictatorship.” (READ MORE)
Omar writes Operation Baghdad Has Started! “Minutes after nighttime curfew began in Baghdad at 9 pm we saw breaking news on al-Hurra and al-Jazeera saying that Baghdad's security operation has just started. The news says the first operation is currently underway in Azamiyah in the northeastern part of the city.” (READ MORE)
Francis Marion writes It Is The Soldier “Arkin from the WaPo, and now O’Meara, a misguided moron over at Daily Kos, are trying to advance our defeat in a time of war. Since our first troops went into Afghanistan back in ’01, the MSM has spoon-fed the American public highly filtered propaganda in order to front their political ambitions. War does make strange bedfellows, because this one has the American Left biting the pillow for Islamic terrorists.” (READ MORE)
Andrew Olmsted writes Shutting Down Debate “Jonathan Swift wrote, ‘It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.’ I think that most of us realize that overcoming belief is a hard thing to do, and it is one of the reasons it is so difficult for people to think critically.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Michelle Malkin writes The Left's Definition of a "Hero" “Angry, left-wing Washington Post blogger William Arkin considers American troops in Iraq who believe in their mission ‘mercenaries’ who are ‘naïve’ and should be thankful they haven't been spit upon yet. Curdled Democrat Sen. John Kerry thinks those soldiers, who volunteer for service, didn't ‘make an effort to be smart’ and are ‘stuck in Iraq’ because of their intellectual deficiencies.” (READ MORE)
Tony Blankley writes Hillary Lurches Leftward “While political professionals of both parties see the 2008 election as very hopeful for the Democrats, there is no such thing as a lay down hand in presidential politics.” (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey writes Mr. Security's Amnesty “Why is Rudy Giuliani, the security candidate, calling for a ‘technological fence’ to stop illegal aliens from running into the United States?” (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg writes Much Ado About The 'A' Word “Here's irony for you. Last spring, focus-group guru Frank Luntz said that Sen. Joseph Biden should be considered a front-runner in the Democratic presidential primaries because so many Democrats in New Hampshire and Iowa judged him to be - wait for it – ‘articulate.’” (READ MORE)
Debra J. Saunders writes Hot House Science “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last week was billed as 100 percent proof positive that global warming is real, modern man is to blame and anyone who doubts that is a bad human being.” (READ MORE)
Paul Driessen writes Global warming ethics, pork and profits “The ink has barely dried on its new code of conduct, and already Congress is redefining ethics and pork to fit a global warming agenda. As Will Rogers observed, ‘with Congress, every time they make a joke, it’s a law. And every time they make a law, it’s a joke.’” (READ MORE)
Herman Cain writes Entitlement is a Disease “Entitlement is a disease, much like cancer. I fought and won my personal war against cancer, but have thankfully never suffered from entitlement. If there is indeed a divide in our country, as liberals in both political parties are all too willing to espouse and exploit, it may very well be between those Americans who feel entitled to guarantees of health care, retirement income and protections of their self-defined class, and the rest of us who have read the Constitution.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden writes AQ: We’re Surging, Too! “MEMRI has Al Qaeda in Iraq’s latest pronouncement. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi delivers a sort of ‘State of the Jihad’ speech in which he hops on the surge bandwagon. Only the AQ surge is called a ‘Plan of Honor.’” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson writes Give Petraeus a Chance “How about a moratorium on 2008 politics for a bit? - The haggling over various resolutions and nit-picking (inasmuch as no one is seriously going to cut off funding) the surge is surreal. Whatever critics think of its rationale, it is clear that something dramatic is going to shortly transpire, most likely a last-ditch, go-for-broke effort to secure Baghdad that deserves the support of all Americans and our representatives.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit writes Patriarchy nearly done crushing Edwards blogger’s dissent “I haven’t written about this yet because I still can’t quite believe it. Marcotte’s been a punchline on Goldstein’s site for years; to see her suddenly materialize as lead blogger for a major presidential candidate is like the cat lady from the Simpsons being hired as White House press secretary. To call her a caricature of a doctrinaire feminist doesn’t even scratch the surface.” (READ MORE)
Hugh Hewitt writes From Sail To Steam In The Newsroom “Scott Johnson opens another wound from which the Minneapolis Star Tribune can bleed credibility today by noting the paper's current stand on the 60 vote rule in the Senate versus its many past observations on the subject and the general incoherence of its editorial staff in keeping track of the shifting positions of the paper.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea writes Listening to bad advice “The court martial of United States Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada begins today. The charges Watada faces, in military/legalistic lingo, are ‘missing movements’ and ‘conduct unbecoming an officer.’ In plain English, he is accused of refusing to deploy to Iraq and criticizing the war. Watada has said, repeatedly, that he believes the war in Iraq is illegal, and as such he is not only entitled to refuse to serve in it, but obligated.” (READ MORE)
JD Johannes writes Why I Do It “Because no one else will. Actually, that is not true. Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, Bill Androlino, Michelle Malkin, Austin Bay, Chris Muir and the late Stephen Vincent have all done it. But with the exception of Colonel North's crew, Gordon Forbes and handful of others, there are very few producers telling the stories of the grunts.” (READ MORE)
Jimmie writes The Consequences of Failure “Here’s the question. What if we leave Iraq, right now? What if all the anti-war protestors get their way and every single American soldier (and the soldiers from all the other Coalition nations who we in our amazing selfishness seem to have completely forgotten) left Iraq tomorrow. What happens? What are the outcomes we can predict without having to gaze very deep into our crystal balls?” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey writes The Danish Model “Think Positive! That’s the motto that comes up from time to time in 910 Group discussions. We need a proactive and positive agenda, and not just ‘How can we counter CAIR effectively?’ or ‘Islam is evil!’ Whenever someone solicits suggestions for a positive meme, I answer with one word: DENMARK.” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard writes Junk Science And The Creation Of Media Myths “Dennis Byrne, writing over at Real Clear Politics, has a column up that shatters the latest junk science fueled media meme that the Bush administration pressured scientists about global warming. It is not his opinion, either. He is drawing from a report by the Statistical Assessment Service of George Mason University.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber writes Suppose they held a D-Day and AP didn’t go “Operation Baghdad has begun, although you would not know it from reading the news wires. For once AP is keeping a secret, eh? This is why we have blogs.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped writes Irrational Terror “We are living in a time of intense stress. The stress arises, in part, from the accelerating rate of change in society that threatens so many who have difficulty adapting to near constant dislocations. This leads to intense anxiety about the future, encapsulated by the fears that the world is coming to an end because of Global Warming. The stress also involves a difficult war with savages who have shown us our vulnerability in ways that even the cold war failed to make real.” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson writes Putrid Verbiage, cont'd “The Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial board can be relied on faithfully to echo Democratic Party talking points, as it does today in its lead editorial. The Star Tribune to the contrary notwithstanding, the Republican minority assured that debate could continue, though the failure of cloture prevented a vote on the resolution in issue. John patiently explained the substance of the procedural maneuvering in ‘Obstructionism.’” (READ MORE)
Pam writes My Two Cents: Exploiting the Fog of War “Have to admit, some media outlets are doing a great job at the headlines for this one. The video is linked all over the place - A-10 pilots mistakenly firing on British troops. Some of the headlines, though, give an impression of things that just doesn't match with what I saw and heard. And it isn't just the much-maligned usual media suspects.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed writes Did Plame Initiate The Niger Investigation? “One of the accepted facts of the entire Valerie Plame scandal has been that Plame suggested her husband, Joseph Wilson, for the Niger investigation after Dick Cheney requested the research into Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. That timeline paints Plame as responsive to the VP's office and not an initiator of action on the "sixteen words" controversy. Byron York, who has followed the Scooter Libby trial for National Review, reports that the timeline has been proven incorrect, casting doubt on the tenor of Plame's request and Wilson's assignment:” (READ MORE)
Gribbit writes Marriage: No Kids = No Marriage Says Gay Marriage Advocates “Since those who wish to bastardize the sanctity of marriage by allowing gays/lesbians to marry cannot get their way, they are using the argument that marriage is reserved for the purpose of procreation against those who argue against them. By sponsoring legislation in Washington state that would tell those who get married that if they do not have a child within 3 years of their wedding, that they would face annulment. Yes you read that correctly. Gay marriage advocates would annul any marriage that does not produce a child within 3 years.” (READ MORE)
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