A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Democrats capitulate on war funds - Congressional Democrats yesterday backed down in the standoff with the White House over war funds, abandoning their veto-instigating effort to link deadlines for withdrawing troops from Iraq to President Bush's request for more than $100 billion... (READ MORE)
Senate retains guest-worker program in 'bargain' - The Senate yesterday voted to preserve a guest-worker program as part of the immigration "grand bargain," in the first test of the bipartisan coalition that is backing the bill. (READ MORE)
CBP recruiting volunteers to train Iraqi border guards - U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham is looking for a few good men and women, seeking out veteran U.S. Border Patrol agents and CBP officers willing to train Iraqis to guard their borders. (READ MORE)
Israeli town empties amid rocket barrage - Buses filled with evacuees are fleeing this tiny city adjacent to the Gaza Strip each day, amid a weeklong barrage of rocket fire from Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad that has given Sderot the feel of a ghost town. (READ MORE)
Young U.S. Muslims back suicide attacks - The first nationwide survey of Muslim Americans revealed that more than a quarter of those younger than 30 say suicide bombings to defend Islam are justified, a fact that drowned out the poll's kinder, gentler findings... (READ MORE)
Democrats Relent On Pullout Timetable - Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package yesterday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months. (READ MORE)
Changes Spurred Buying, Abuses - In February 2005, an auditor at the General Services Administration presented evidence to agency leaders that one of the government's top technology contractors was overcharging taxpayers. (READ MORE)
New Strategy for War Stresses Iraqi Politics - Top U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq are completing a far-reaching campaign plan for a new U.S. strategy, laying out military and political goals and endorsing the selective removal of hardened sectarian actors from Iraq's security forces and government. (READ MORE)
Bush Declassifies Alert on Al-Qaeda - President Bush yesterday declassified intelligence that asserts Osama bin Laden ordered a top lieutenant in early 2005 to form a terrorist cell that would launch attacks against the United States and other countries. (READ MORE)
Confrontation at an Islamabad Mosque - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 22 -- Inside this city's oldest mosque, religious students readied for war this week by stockpiling weapons, digging bunkers and asking permission from parents to sacrifice their lives. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Michael Yon: Maysan - A Small Battle in the Media War “As the British increase their forces in Afghanistan, they are drawing down in Iraq. Although the drawdown in Iraq is based on pragmatism, the enemy apparently is attempting to create the perception of a military rout. So while the British reduce their forces in southern Iraq, they are coming under heavier fire and the enemy makes claims of driving ‘the occupiers’ out.” (READ MORE)
Those Wacky Iraqis: Iraq from the air “I went up to Iraq last week to check on some operations which fall under my custody. I go occasionally now but don't tell anyone at home that I am heading north because they worry all the time. It used to be that they did not worry because I was in Iraq full time and only worried when I was in a convoy or flying in helicopters but now they worry when I go. To tell you the truth I used to not worry myself about just being in Iraq but since I have been here in Kuwait for the past few months the immediacy of the war has faded away for me.” (READ MORE)
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: The Desert Heat “Today temperatures will be as high as 111 degrees in Camp Liberty, where I'm embedded. Even walking under the scorching sun can be tiring, and the desert heat will play tricks with your mind. At one point yesterday I forgot the name of a lieutenant I was supposed to meet with -- something that would normally leap immediately to mind. Another time I got turned around and it took an unusually long time to regain my sense of direction. These were small mistakes made in a safe place. In a more dangerous context -- on a patrol, in the middle of an insurgent attack -- small mistakes spurred on by the desert heat can have far more serious consequences.” (READ MORE)
Noah Pollak: Who is responsible for Gaza? A reply to Matthew Yglesias “There has been a dustup between New Republic editor-in-chief Marty Peretz and Atlantic magazine blogger Matthew Yglesias (see here, here, here, and here). It is an unimportant tiff over an important question: Why are the Gaza Palestinians killing each other? Peretz blames the situation on the immutably violent characteristics of Palestinian society -- a culture, he emphasizes, in which genuine nationalist sentiments do not actually exist -- whereas Yglesias says the carnage is pretty much the Bush administration's fault.” (READ MORE)
Blog Outside The Wire: Fat Guy and Three Home Dudes "'Hey Sir, there's fat little dude with a broken arm!' Specialist Parker yelled down from the gunner's turret in the Humvee. With those words the hunt for the Jaysha Mahdi militia boss in Baghdad's Mahala 885 moved from tips from informants to intelligence databases, to humvees to a foot race." (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Michael Medved: Capturing the Language to Assure Liberal Dominance “A misleading recent headline in the New York Times demonstrated the way that the left abuses the language to cement its continued control of our public discourse.” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Democrats turn a blind eye to rule breakers in their own ranks “Tuesday night House Democrats refused to reprimand Rep. John Murtha (D.-Pa.) for threatening a Republican colleague in a manner that violates newly installed, Democrat-crafted ethics rules.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: The Amnesty Fraud: Part II “Every aspect of the current immigration bill, and of the arguments made for it, has Fraud written all over it.” (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Vive La France! What the French can Teach us “Any American wondering what this year's presidential election in France can teach us need only recall this country's back in 1980. That was the last year of the steady demoralization of American politics known as the Carter administration. It was the year the American electorate finally had had enough, and made a U-turn. In the right direction.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Tiny Minority, Big Problem “A few fringe jihadists here, a few fringe jihadists there, and soon you're talking about bloody real numbers.” (READ MORE)
John Stossel: The Many Myths of Ethanol “No doubt about it, if there were a Miss Energy Pageant, Miss Ethanol would win hands down. Everyone loves ethanol.” (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Creating Effective Incentives “What should our response be if terrorists set off a nuclear explosion, or some other weapon of mass destruction, in one of our cities? I put this question to Professor Victor Hanson, senior research fellow at Stanford University's prestigious Hoover Institution, who spoke on the Iraq war at the Wynnewood Institute lecture series.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: From Surge to Sustain “’You are damned if you are heavy, and damned if you are light -- both cause problems.’” (READ MORE)
Caroline B. Glick: Our World: Denial is not a strategy “The Olmert-Livni-Peretz government is incapable of learning. This is the only possible explanation for its handling of the Palestinian assault on southern Israel which has seen some 200 rockets and missiles fall on Sderot, southern Ashkelon and the surrounding areas in the past week alone.” (READ MORE)
Wendy Kaminer: The American Liberal Liberties Union - The ACLU is becoming very selective about what it considers "free" speech. “‘ACLU Defends Nazi's Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters,’ the humor magazine The Onion announced in 1999. Those of us who loved the ACLU, and celebrated its willingness to defend the rights of Nazis and others who had no regard for our rights, considered the joke a compliment. Today it's more like a reproach. Once the nation's leading civil liberties group and a reliable defender of everyone's speech rights, the ACLU is being transformed into just another liberal human-rights group that reliably defends the rights of liberal speakers.” (READ MORE)
Jeff Emanuel: 'I Love Those Guys' “Operation Iraqi Freedom saw the advent of a practice that revolutionized modern war reporting: the embedding of journalists with frontline combat units in war. This practice gave the media, the American public and the world unprecedented access to the soldiers on the front lines, as well as to the war itself, through the filing of stories, photographs and video from the battlefront in real time, by reporters who were right there with the soldiers doing the fighting. ‘We were offered an irresistible opportunity: free transportation to the front line of the war, dramatic pictures, dramatic sounds, great quotes,’ said Tom Gjelten of National Public Radio. ‘Who can pass that up?’” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: Reformation “For the past few days, I have addressed weak spots and gaping holes in the various plans to address the problem of illegals in the United States. The response has been contentious, and more than a few people have proven themselves unwilling to do anything more than spew venom and insults. Even among those who claim to be experts in this area. Several people have challenged me to announce my own plan, which sounds fair enough, except that most of those wouldn't give it attention except to attack it and target their present phobias and malice upon it.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Taliban trying to find its mojo after Brits liquidate mid-level commanders “The ranks are thinning, leaving Zawahiri with little choice in his new tape but to spin the death of their most important field general as a ‘good omen of victory.’ He sounds like the black knight in Python’s Holy Grail. Pakistan keeps sending them over the border and the British just keep mowing them down.” (READ MORE)
Ian: (Video) Guest to Chris Matthews: “‘So you’re fact based now?’ Chris Matthews went on one of his anti-Republican diatribes today. This time he went after Rudy Giuliani for saying the Clinton administration’s policy (The Iraq Liberation Act) called for regime change in Iraq and in part, President Bush was acting that out in the current war. Matthews said this was wrong and called Giuliani a ‘liar.’ However, a quick Wikipedia search says, and I quote, ‘The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq.’” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Decline and Awakening “James Kitfield at the National Journal argues that the global decline of America has begun. ‘Less than a decade ago, the United States was held out as the rarest of historical anomalies, a lone superpower leading the world. Today, such talk of boundless promise already seems part of a receding past.’ Mr. Kitfield has not yet grasped that a decade ago America was leading a parade over the edge of a cliff. It was not alone.” (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Murtha Skates Again, Avoids Reprimand “The next time a Democratic politician tells you that he opposes the culture of corruption and that, if elected, everything will be open and honest, take that politician out back and beat him soundly. When the Democrats ran their last campaign honesty was their best policy (to fool the sheeple) and now that they are in the majority they have done nothing to garner the trust of the people. Corruption, as I have said many times, runs across both sides of the aisle and the Democrats have been corrupt for years.” (READ MORE)
Cassandra: Bob Kerrey and Arkin's Law “In today's Wall Street Journal, Senator Bob Kerrey declares rhetorical jihad on his fellow Democrats. Bob Kerrey is no fan of the current administration. He is also no chickenhawk. He not only fought in Vietnam but lost part of a leg there and received the Congressional Medal of Honor and a Bronze Star for his service. Were his own party to accord him the same respectful deference commonly awarded heroic Truth-to-Powerers John Kerry or Jack Murtha, his words would be assured the thoughtful consideration of members of both Houses, no matter their political affiliation.” (READ MORE)
Glib Fortuna: American Legion and ADF to ACLU, FFRF, AU, American Atheists and friends: Step away from the war memorials “About time someone goes on offense: ‘The nation’s largest veterans’ service organization is teaming up with two Christian legal groups in an effort aimed at protecting Christian-themed war memorials from lawsuits that would remove them from public property. The American Legion is asking its members to contribute to a catalog of war memorials that feature crosses and other religious symbols. The group will monitor its database of memorials and will notify the Alliance Defense Fund and the Liberty Legal Institute of any attempts by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and similar groups to challenge their constitutionality.’” (READ MORE)
Blackfive: The fight in Afghanistan “From a friend and NCO in Afghanistan, comes this email. His team has had to fight and kill more than a few Al Qaeda trained Taliban insurgents. ‘...We have many Taliban acronyms; AGE, ACM, or OMF. I just call them DAI's (Dumb-Ass Insurgents). The men that are convincing these men to come here to fight me and the government forces of Afghanistan should be ashamed of what they are doing. The death of the young men we kill rests directly on the shoulders of these evil men and that alone should be enough to reserve the demented leaders of their misguided cause a room in Hell.’” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: Has Edwards Ever Been To the "Other" America? “Edwards loves to perpetuate a class-warfare mentality when he's campaigning. That's his thing. What that says to me is that his campaign staff believes the American people are gullible and stupid. All one that heard one of these speeches would have to do is Google ‘John Edwards + worth’ and find that he made $1.25 million last year and he and Elizabeth have a combined worth of $29.5 million (source). That is more than most constituents he's preaching to would hope to have in 15 life times. Does his staff really hope that poor Americans will buy that his dad working in a mill gives him no-money street cred?” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Competing Analyses On Immigration “The Heritage Foundation has done excellent work in providing cost analyses for public-policy issues, and on immigration they have continued that work. Robert Rector has provided a look at the cost of low-skilled immigrants to the American taxpayer, which is a must read for anyone interested in the immigration debate. The executive summary paints a bleak picture:” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: Surprise! “This just in: Killing terrorists stops them: ‘The Taliban's much-vaunted spring offensive has stalled apparently due to lack of organisation after dozens of middle-ranking commanders were killed by British troops in the past year, according to military sources.’” (READ MORE)
Chickenhawk Express: We Can't Let Our Heroes Down! “There are many things that I am passionate about - my faith, my family and my country just to name a few. But since the War on Terror began, I have been passionate about supporting our soldiers. That is one of the reasons that I have been consumed with the Haditha Marines' stories. The treatment that our soldiers (not just the Haditha Marines) have received from many in this country is beyond reprehensible. Not a day goes by that some fool with a political agenda decides to take their partisanship out on the soldiers…” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: Forcing War: Brian Ross, ABC News Undermine Non-Military Plan Against Iran “And here I thought the media were against war with Iran. I'll be very interested to see whether or not the Justice Department will attempt to prosecute anyone in the intelligence community who leaked this information, as they obviously should. I doubt that Brain Ross or the staff of ABC News will be tried for criminal offenses (including treason), though the majority of comments posted on the Blotter's comment thread clearly favor that action... at least those they haven't yet deleted.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: Decline: Change, Anxiety, & 4GW “Rapid change is destabilizing. When people experience rapid change, they tend to have anxiety. When the anxiety is powerful enough, it increases the sense of dislocation and impairs the person's ability to cope adequately with the changes in his environment. If the anxiety enters into a positive feedback with the change, the anxiety becomes traumatic; at that point the individual shuts down (dissociates) and loses their ability to effect the situation. Traumatic anxiety is paralyzing. This is as true on large scales as it is true on the level of the individual. We can see how this plays out in our own politics and policies.” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: What Were They Thinking? “When the history of these times is written 100 years from now – that is, if the west is vouchsafed such a luxury as surviving that long – historians will view the role of the free press in the western world with a combination of confusion and awe. Confusion because they will look in vain for evidence that many in the media were actually working for the enemies of freedom, so often it seemed they played directly into their hands or seemed to do their bidding. And a feeling of awe that those professing to be so intelligent could act with such towering idiocy and irresponsibility:” (READ MORE)
Billy Hollis: Trust and the 2008 Presidential Election “I’ve spent most of my life not trusting politicians. No surprise to most of you, and I’d wager a majority of our readers feel the same way. But it’s worse now than it’s ever been in my lifetime. Despite the ‘culture of corruption’, which I find as disgusting as anyone, I don’t think the typical politician is a dishonest sleazebag. I think the average politician honestly believes he is doing the best he can to serve the people. But I still don’t trust them because they are just too disconnected from the real world that they govern.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Why Are We Asking Illegal Aliens What They Think About The Immigration Bill? “The AFP has gone out to ask illegal aliens what they think of the new bill -- which is an interesting concept in and of itself -- asking criminals what they think of the new laws designed to deal with the problem they're causing. What's next? Will we be asking carjackers and drunk drivers what they think of new laws that deal with the crimes they're committing?” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Second surge sinks “The news from Baghdad and beyond was relatively light today. While Coalition and Iraq forces continue to target al Qaeda and insurgent networks, al Qaeda conducted a mass casualty suicide attack inside the capital, its first large scale suicide bombing since May 11. But the big ‘story’ comes from Hearst Newspapers, which purports a ‘second surge’ is occurring in Iraq, which will double the number of combat troops on the ground by the end of the year.” (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: Colonel's Report From Fallujah Contradicts Dems Iraq Talking Points “Bottom Line Up Front: Progress in Iraq runs contrary to Democratic talking points. COL Richard Simcock, U.S. Marines Commander Regimental Combat Team Six in Fallujah, Iraq, reported to media at the Pentagon Briefing Room on May 18 that ‘phenomenal’ changes have occurred in the Iraqi city in the past three years.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: No Responsibility “In a meandering speculation about who is behind the violence in Lebanon and what their goals are, Robert Fisk absolves Syria with this astonishing paragraph: ‘It is too simple to claim that this is Syria’s work. Syria may have an interest is watching this destabilisation, even - through its security networks - assisting these groups with logistics.’” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Barbarism “The news video showed the face of a pretty girl, dark haired, slender. Somebody’s cherished daughter - you can almost see the life in her eyes, the hope in her future. And then there are the grainy cell phone images, the guttural mutter of an enraged mob. A face beaten beyond recognition, a pool of blood. A sudden stillness. Duua Khalil Aswad was her name, 17 years old forever.” (READ MORE)
John Donovan: On the Democrats, Republicans, and the waging of the war. “I've made no secret of the fact that I was very uncomfortable with invading Iraq. I wasn't blogging *before* the actual event, so there is no googleable record to support that contention, but I've always been uncomfortable with the conduct of what appear to be optional wars. At the same time, as a career soldier, I also know that it isn't my responsibility to choose those wars, that decision is left to the President and Congress. I never fooled myself by thinking we were going to see a nice, tidy, democracy-in-our-style government in the region.” (READ MORE)
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