A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Senate Sets Stage For Iraq Face-Off “Faced with his second rebuke in a week from congressional Democrats on Iraq policy, President Bush yesterday summoned Republican allies to his side in an effort to shift momentum in the escalating battle over the course of the war.” (READ MORE)
Grass Roots Planted In Cyberspace “If there's a social networking site that John Edwards is not a part of, we'd like to know what it is, pronto.” (READ MORE)
Iraqi Resident of Britain to Leave Guantanamo “An Iraqi resident of Britain who was seized in West Africa in a 2002 operation orchestrated by the CIA will be released from the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, British officials announced Thursday.” (READ MORE)
French Politics in 3-D on Fantasy Web Site “In a battle between push guns and pig grenades, the exploding pigs won.” (READ MORE)
Senate OKs Iraq pullout “The Senate yesterday approved a bill calling for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq within a year, advancing the Democrat-controlled Congress toward a veto standoff with President Bush while money for troops starts to run out.” (READ MORE)
Bush urges GOP unity on troops “President Bush yesterday rallied his Republican troops, calling the entire Republican House conference to the White House for the first time since they became the minority party to urge lawmakers to stand strong against a Democratic push to withdraw U.S.” (READ MORE)
Militiamen return to Sadr City “Shi'ite militiamen, who melted away from Baghdad when U.S. and Iraqi troops began their security crackdown seven weeks ago, are rolling back into the city with fresh Iranian training, Iraqi and other officials said.” (READ MORE)
Fence firm hired illegals “The head of a California company hired by the U.S. government to help build a fence along the Southwest border to curb the flow of illegal aliens into the United States has been sentenced on charges of hiring illegals for the job.” (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Iraq Pundit: The Democrats' Post-Iraq World “‘We would hope that the president understands how serious we are,'’ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told the press after Tuesday's vote to keep the troop-withdrawal date in the Senate's war-spending bill. And, he added, we would also hope that our enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world understand that we're even more serious about them.” (READ MORE)
Mohammed: Quoted and Proud! “I would like to say a few words to the new visitors who are not so familiar with this blog. I have noticed that our traffic nearly tripled today and that most of the extra traffic is coming from pages talking about the recent speech by President Bush in which he mentioned a quote from our March 5 article on the WSJ…New visitors, welcome to ITM!” (READ MORE)
Acute Politics: Welcome to COIN “I'll try to keep writing about the winds here in Al-Anbar. I'll go out on a little bit of a limb and say that the insurgency is quickly approaching a tipping point. If things continue as they are right now, our military won't need a surge to chase the terrorists out of Anbar- the citizens will do it for us, which is as it should be. It's beginning to show already: more local tips, more police recruits (far more than anticipated), and sadly- in bigger and more desperate Al-Qaeda attacks.” (READ MORE)
Badger 6: Date Certain “So Congress has passed funding bill that gives a date certain by which the US Armed Forces are supposed to leave Iraq. This is supposed to incentivize the Iraqi Government and Security Forces to ‘get their act together and handle this situation on their own.’ This appears to be the logic; if the Government of Iraq and her attendant security forces are unable to take charge of the primary combat role by a certain date, based on set a of milestones, then the Coalition is going to pack up their bags and go home.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Jules Crittenden: Good News Bad News “Thing about news, there’s never any shortage. Good, bad, that’s another issue: There’s no avoiding the bad news. Al-Qaeda wants war and will have it. Al-Qaeda, taking it from three sides with pressure from the Sunni tribes, pressure from the hated Crusaders and Shiites standing down, pushes back against the surge.” (READ MORE)
Mike Gallagher: ';Exposing ignorance is admirable' “I hate disagreeing with people I like, folks like Bill O'Reilly, a man who fights hard for our country, our culture and its good and decent people. But hearing him go after Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban for distributing a kooky 9/11 conspiracy movie the other day left me a bit disappointed in my favorite ‘Culture Warrior.’” (READ MORE)
Ed Feulner: It's time for a dose of reality in federal health-care spending “‘If something's free, I'll take two,’ a mentor of mine once said. His point was that people don't value things they don't pay for, especially things the government ‘gives’ them.” (READ MORE)
Herb London: The influence of George Soros “Who is George Soros and why is he saying such awful things? Most Americans do not know this billionaire investor, but he, using his vast wealth, has become a force in left wing political circles. In some ways, he is the litmus test for Democratic politics.” (READ MORE)
Chuck Colson: No More Stains “For Americans over, say, fifty, the image of desperate Vietnamese surrounding the American embassy during the fall of Saigon is one we will not soon forget. Watching American helicopters fly away leaving people, many of whom had helped us, to their fates in Vietnam made me feel ashamed - a sense of shame that only grew when we learned what happened to many of those people.” (READ MORE)
Charles Krauthammer: The wars against radical Islamic insurgents “The Senate and the House have both passed bills for ending the Iraq War, or at least liquidating the American involvement in it. The resolutions, approved by the barest majorities, were underpinned by one unmistakable theme: wrong war, wrong place, distracting us from the real war that is elsewhere.” (READ MORE)
Oliver North: Road Kill “Modern warfare has made civilian contractors even more essential to our military -- and placed them at higher risk.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: 10 Questions For Al Gore And The Global Warming Crowd “I'll be the first to admit that like most conservatives, I'm deeply skeptical of the idea that mankind is causing global warming. Is that because I take payoffs from the energy industry, don't like Al Gore, don't like science, or any of the other silly excuses global warming alarmists come up with to explain why people don't buy their theory?” (READ MORE)
Rebecca Hagelin: Ethanol: Time to steer away “A new paper by The Heritage Foundation’s Ben Lieberman road-tests the latest boondoggle from Washington and finds that its earth-friendly claims are seriously overblown.” (READ MORE)
Tim Chandler: No Way, Poway: In Harper Case, High Court opts not to shirt the issue “The case sprang from an incident three years ago at a San Diego-area high school, when the school - with the support of many administrators, teachers, and students - hosted the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network’s ‘Day of Silence’ to encourage tolerance and support for those practicing homosexual behavior.” (READ MORE)
WSJ Opinion Journal: Accountability Act “When do the troops get the money? Congress leaves for Easter recess today, with Democrats congratulating themselves for having endorsed, by the narrowest of margins, ‘a deadline’ for withdrawal from Iraq. The press corps is also praising their ‘cohesion.’ Wonderful. Now that MoveOn.org is happy, maybe Congress will finally fund the troops. Democrats are calling this, in short form, the ‘Iraq Accountability Act,’ but the key word in that construction is the last one. This is all an act.” (READ MORE)
Bruce Thornton: Third-Worldism - What does Africa need? “I hate to use a cliché, but “bleeding-heart liberal” is just too accurate not to use. I suspect the phrase derives from those depictions of Jesus Christ with his exposed heart wrapped in thorns and dripping blood. This image nails the egocentric, self-righteous exhibitionism of most self-styled ‘progressives.’ These right-thinking, tender-hearted folks think that they weep for all the suffering and misery in the world because they are sensitive, intelligent, and morally upright.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Video) Rosie melts down on “The View” “I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the video against which all future Rosie clips will be compared. Never has so much useful idiocy about so many subjects been compressed into so little time. It’s her finest hour.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: ...with TROOOOOOTH and justice for all the evil Rethuglicans. “On Tuesday, I received an e-mail tip from a reader about a forum on Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's official campaign page. I was vaguely curious, so I clicked over and my jaw dropped. Here's the brand-new governor of Massachusetts, the first Democrat to sit in that seat in 16 years, and here he's hosting some of the dumbest, most paranoid, most downright infuriating crap in existence today -- the ‘9/11 Truthers’ conspiracy insanities.” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: The Same Old Snake Oil from the EU “We all know that Europe is descending into a sort of politically correct mass insanity. That’s been evident for quite a while. This morning a reader in Britain has brought to our attention an article from today’s online Telegraph which demonstrates that the slide into multicultural madness is in fact accelerating.” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: Repercussions “I've mentioned the unintended consequences the sudden mad rush to produce ethanol for fuel is generating. Rising cost of animal feed has already been seen and is predicted to go higher. The last warnings being generated focused on meat prices. They will continue to rise as feed costs skyrocket. At that time I predicted there would be more bad news for consumers.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: None dared call it pork “Dana Milbank’s page two-er today, ‘Senate’s Bold Proposal for Iraq: Sugar Beets and Rural Schools — in the U.S.’ in the Washington Post, broke down some of the items added to the emergency spending bill for the war on terror.” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: Shias Rampage in Iraq: Idiots Rampage on the Left “A bad day in Iraq yesterday as violence has exploded in the formerly quiescent Tall Afar: ‘A day after twin truck bombings laid waste to predominantly Shiite neighborhoods in the northern Iraqi city of Tall Afar, marauding Shiite gunmen and police executed dozens of Sunnis in retaliatory attacks that many Iraqis feared might precipitate a resurgence of open sectarian warfare.’” (READ MORE)
Paul Mirengoff: The latest on the teapot tempest “‘Ex-Aide Contradicts Gonzales on Firings.’ That's one of two lead headlines in this morning's Washington Post. The Post goes on to explain that the aide in question, Kyle Sampson ‘spoke with Gonzales at least five times about the plan to dismiss selected U.S. attorneys [whereas] Gonzales has at times portrayed himself as more detached from the process of developing a list of prosecutors to be dismissed.’ But the process that culminated in the firing of the prosecutors lasted nearly two years. Five meetings in almost two years suggest substantial detachment.” (READ MORE)
Dr. Rusty Shackleford: Irony: Muslims at CAIR Complain About Those Disturbing Public Order “How does a ‘civil rights’ group like CAIR know when Americans make false reports with the intent to discriminate? That's easy. Any time someone urges an investigation of a Muslim, for whatever reason---DISCRIMINATION!. In the words of Dana Carvey as George Michael, It's a formula, but it works.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Taliban, Pakistani security forces battle in Tank “Baitullah Mehsud's Taliban mass; 25 Taliban, 1 security officer killed after school principal kidnapped - The Taliban continue to challenge the Pakistani government's writ in the Northwest Frontier Province. Taliban forces, estimated at “more than 200 Taliban soldiers” by Tank District Police Officer Mumtaz Zarin, massed and attacked the city of Tank on Tuesday night.” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: Embedded Frustrations “If you are a journalist or blogger who wants to embed in Iraq, good luck making it through the PAO system. As a pair of prominent bloggers tell us on the record, getting into Iraq can be all but impossible thanks to obstacles put in place by the U.S. military's Pubic Affairs Office, and once there, the PAO seems to delight in making the life of an embed a living hell.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed: Arab Nations Offer Peace But No Partner “The Saudis have pressed in recent days for Israel to accept in principle their 2002 plan for normalization in the region. Calling on the Israelis to accept a return to 1967 borders and some version of the right of return, the Arab nations endorsing the plan seem to have forgotten that the Palestinians haven't even accepted the pacts that they have already signed with Israel:” (READ MORE)
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