A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
House OKs bill to curb gas gouging - The House yesterday passed a bill that would make price gouging by gas stations and oil companies a federal crime as prices at the pump surpassed a 1981 record reached at the height of the Iranian oil crisis. (READ MORE)
Lott urges Bush to wield veto threat - The Senate's No. 2 Republican yesterday said he has told President Bush to be prepared to save their party from a bad immigration bill through his veto pen. (READ MORE)
Divisive bill stokes GOP anger; base rejects path to citizenship - The bipartisan immigration bill being pushed by the White House and Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, is fracturing rather than "saving" the Republican Party nationally, according to angry party leaders and new poll findings. (READ MORE)
U.N. agency knew of armed foreigners in Lebanon camp - The U.N. agency that oversees the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the scene of three days of battles between Lebanese troops and Muslim militants, said yesterday it had been aware for months that heavily armed foreigners were moving into the camps... (READ MORE)
Iranian Defiance Of U.N. Detailed - Iran has again defied U.N. demands to suspend its nuclear enrichment programs, according to a report issued yesterday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, leading Bush administration officials to demand increased pressure on Tehran. (READ MORE)
In the Democratic Congress, Pork Still Gets Served - When the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives passed one of its first spending bills, funding the Energy Department for the rest of 2007, it proudly boasted that the legislation contained no money earmarked for lawmakers' pet projects and stressed that any prior congressional requests for such spending "shall have no legal effect." (READ MORE)
Antiwar Groups Press Democrats to Vote Against Iraq Bill - Antiwar groups waged a last-ditch effort yesterday to block an Iraq spending bill after Democrats, conceding that they did not have enough votes to override a threatened veto from President Bush, dropped deadlines for troop withdrawals from the legislation. (READ MORE)
Rules Skirted, Millions Wasted on Navy Boat Barriers - The men from al-Qaeda guided their bomb-laden skiff through the harbor and drew near the USS Cole, detonating a quarter-ton of C-4 plastic explosive that killed 17 sailors and tore a 40-foot hole in the side of the Navy destroyer. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Acute Politics: Promotion Party! “The night was hot yesterday. The sun had set an hour or two previously, and yet the thermometer on the back porch still read 105 degrees. Two helicopters flew low overhead, tilting at the sliver of moon rising above our barracks. The rotor wash from the choppers turned the porch into a hellish wind tunnel. On the other side of the dirt-filled wall of HESCO barriers, the Marines were lining up for another mission out into Ramadi. Blue chemlights described glowing arcs through the night as Marines taped the markers to radio antennas and released them skyward, and the night thumped to the tune of Guns 'N Roses on some Marine’s stereo.” (READ MORE)
Badger 6: Memorial Day: Observed “I have long tried to observe Memorial Day as it was intended; in remembrance of those who died fighting America's Wars. My most memorable ones were in 1992 and 1993 when, as a member of 3rd US Infantry (The Old Guard) I walked through Arlington National Cemetery with a ruck sack on my back placing a US flag on each grave in my assigned area. At Arlington the only time flags maybe flown on individual grave sites is during the Memorial Day weekend.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten: The Story of Gaza “Last year I visited Southern Israel after the Lebanon war winded down. The Israelis were then engaged in a similar fight against the rocket launchers in Gaza. The situation in the meantime has hardly changed at all. Once again – still – Israelis are under Qassam rocket fire from Gaza and are planning an IDF operation to stop to it. The crisis, if anything, is only worse now because the rockets are even more frequent. I wrote three articles about this in August last year and I realize now they could have been written today. Here they are as they originally appeared and as relevant as they were when I wrote them.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Victor Davis Hanson: Is Sky Falling on America? “The suicide-murders and roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan sicken Americans. Soon-to-be nuclear Iran seems loonier than nuclear North Korea. American debt keeps piling up in China and Japan. And we think of angry Venezuela, the Middle East and Russia every time we fill up - if we can afford to fill up.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: The Amnesty Fraud: Part III “Whose problem is the immigration bill in Congress supposed to solve? The country's problem with dangerously porous borders? The illegal immigrants' problem? Or politicians' problems?” (READ MORE)
George Will: Compromise Virtually Guarantees Noncompliance “Compromise is incessantly praised, and has produced the proposed immigration legislation. But compromise is the mother of complexity, which, regarding immigration, virtually guarantees -- as the public understands -- weak enforcement and noncompliance.” (READ MORE)
Matt Barber: Left Consumed by Hate, Self-Loathing “The recent media tempest surrounding the passing of Reverend Jerry Falwell has blown away the mask of sublime compassion and tolerance worn by members of the mainstream left. Sadly - pitifully, really - the collective face exposed beneath the altruistic facade is one marred by ugliness and hatred - scarred by latent self-loathing.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: Israel's next war “There are consequences to losing a war, or being perceived not to have won. Israel's ability to win wars has been based on its capacity to pound its many enemies into submission whenever they have dared attack.” (READ MORE)
Ken Blackwell: The Evolution Trap “Crucial presidential debates are coming soon. They can be a subtle problem, especially when it comes to evolution. Often reporters ask questions that are designed to do irreparable harm to conservative candidates. That was exactly the intent of the evolution question in the first GOP candidate forum on MSNBC on May 3.” (READ MORE)
Cliff May: The Turkish Model “Why aren’t more moderate Muslims protesting against Islamism? Actually, hundreds of thousands have been doing exactly that -- marching in the streets of Turkey’s major cities to insist on strict separation of mosque and state.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: 5 Big Problems With The Senate's Amnesty Bill “The amnesty bill in the Senate looks as if it's going to be around a thousand pages, so there are sure to be dozens of serious problems with it that either haven't been discovered or widely publicized yet. Then, once the amendment process gets started, a whole new host of issues will be created. But in the interim, here are 5 huge problems with the bill that should lead conservatives to oppose it.” (READ MORE)
Ann Coulter: Importing a slave class “Apparently, my position on immigration is that we must deport all 12 million illegal aliens immediately, inasmuch as this is billed as the only alternative to immediate amnesty.” (READ MORE)
Rich Galen: Democrats Surrender on Iraq “Flinching in the face of a veto threat, Democratic congressional leaders neared agreement with the Bush administration Tuesday on legislation to pay for the Iraq war without setting a timeline for troop withdrawal.” (READ MORE)
WSJ Review & Outlook: Immigration and Welfare “The immigration debate is roaring again, and we're happy to join the fun. One place to start is a myth that has become a key talking point among restrictionists on the right--to wit, that immigrants come to the U.S. for a life of ease on the public dole. Leading this charge is the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector, who argues in a new study that ‘the average lifetime costs to the taxpayer will be $1.1 million’ for each low-skilled immigrant household.” (READ MORE)
Pete Du Pont: Dems Want You to Take a Hike “The hottest domestic political issue of the coming two years will be federal income taxes. The Democratic Party is for a big tax increase, via repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Its three major presidential candidates are for it (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards voted against the 2003 Bush tax cuts and Barack Obama against their extension). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are for it. Bill Clinton is for it because he believes the 2003 Bush tax cuts were ‘way too big to avoid serious harm.’” (READ MORE)
Daniel Henninger: Dancing With Ghosts “A recent trip through Spain was not long enough to absorb the depths of modern Spanish politics. But it was possible to take the nation's political pulse. It felt a lot like what's been going on in the U.S. The particulars of a nation's politics aside, it must mean something if the drift of political conversation over tables in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville recurringly feels like that in Washington, New York or San Francisco.” (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: Dems straddle failure; Iraqis unite against AlQaeda “It’s what we’d been hoping would happen, so this is good news out of Iraq. If I were a Democrat, I’d really be pinning my kite to an idea of victory over one of surrender, but then again I’m not a smart politician surrounded by intellectuals, and I have no polls by which to guide my thinking, so I’m stuck thinking for myself. Betsy points out that Bob Kerrey is trying to warn the Democrats away from the wrong side of history.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: Charlie Rose: Journalists Are Infidels “Check out the Charlie Rose interview with three Iraqi journalists, Ali Fadhil, Zeyad Kasim, and Ali Nuri. (Zeyad blogs are healingiraq.com. ) Ali Fadhil discusses attacks on Iraqi journalists, at about 6:01 or so into the show. Now this isn’t at all like Eason Jordan at Davos accusing the US of attacking journalists. Fadhil is talking about the real world attacks — by Islamists.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Harnessing the Desert Wind “Joe Klein of Time notices that not everything is going al-Qaeda's way in Iraq. ‘There is good news from Iraq, believe it or not. It comes from the most unlikely place: Anbar province, home of the Sunni insurgency. ... This is a result of sheiks stepping up and opposing AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] and volunteering their young men to serve in the police and army units there.’” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Yes, Political Arson Is A Form Of Terrorism “I have sympathy for family members of people discovered to be domestic terrorists. After all, in many cases, they have no idea what their relatives were doing. The family of John Walker Lindh didn't urge him to go to Pakistan and get training from Osama bin Laden, after all. My sympathy ends when they assert that people who conduct violent acts for political purposes don't amount to terrorists, however. Today's Los Angeles Times opinion piece from Caroline Paul is an example. Her brother, Jonathan Paul, awaits sentencing for arson in connection with the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, and a terrorism component of his conviction could multiply his sentence. Caroline angrily denounces the application of terrorism in his case:” (READ MORE)
Jeffrey Breinholt: The Holy Grail of Public-Private Counterterrorism Cooperation “Since 1986, the U.S. has had an anti-money laundering regime that involves banks reporting certain types of banking transactions - including those that bankers find merely "suspicious" and indicative of customer criminality. For the last twenty-plus years, banks have been the government's eyes and ears. More recently, they have been brought into the intelligence community. In intelligence parlance, banks are "intelligence collectors." Their tasking comes from the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and the regulations promulgated thereunder. People who do not like this need to get over it.” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: Remember Way Back When “When celebrities supported our troops AND their mission: Everywhere he goes, actor Gary Sinise is recognized as Lieutenant Dan from the movie "Forrest Gump." It was this recognition that gave him the inspiration for his band name: The Lt. Dan Band; a tool that Mr. Sinise uses to support the men and women in the Armed Forces by playing overseas tours and stateside through the United Service Organization, or USO. The Lt. Dan Band performed at Spangdahlem Air Base May 15 wrapping up the band's 2007 European tour. They played five shows throughout Belgium and Germany.” (READ MORE)
Christine: Governor Tim Kaine surrenders Virginia to Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, receives nice dinner as payment “This last weekend, the Commonwealth of Virginia was signed over to the Muslim Brotherhood, care of the Muslim American Society (MAS). Kaine must be hoping for a VP nomination from Obama — after all, if the Democrat Party presidential ticket needs a Southerner, he’d better prove his dhimmitudiness early in the game.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Bad News in the Search “The search for the three missing U.S. soldiers abducted west of Mahmudiyah on May 11 may have taken a turn for the worse. Unconfirmed reports indicate that up to three bodies resembling American soldiers have been found in a river near the town of Mussayab, south of the search area. The bodies are said to have been clothed in Army fatigues. Multinational Forces Iraq confirmed it was working to identify one body, but there is no confirmation on the other two. In today's briefing, Maj. Gen. Caldwell stated that intelligence indicates both soldiers may still be alive.” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: Mindsnap “The terrorist attacks on 9/11/01 astonished the world. Rather than admit that the plot was well-designed and executed, many people fell back on acceptable assumptions and conceits. I call this behavior ‘mindsnap.’ Recognizing this syndrome is helpful in comprehending the behavior of certain groups. Mindsnap is why people afraid of Islamofascism can ignore that the horror or Terrorism is carried out by less than one-tenth of one percent of Muslims. It's why millions of American Muslims can demand that they be respected without publicly denouncing the murder of innocents in the name of their religion.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Another secret revealed: CBS exposes western sabotage of Iranian nuke equipment “As was the case yesterday, it’s not much of a secret. But they’re putting it out there anyway, I guess just to make Iranian media’s job that much easier. CBS News has learned that Iran is continuing to make progress on its expanded efforts to enrich uranium — in spite of covert efforts by U.S. and other allied intelligence agencies to actively sabotage the country’s nuclear program.” (READ MORE)
McQ: Anatomy of a bad law “Yesterday, in a fit of pure pandering, the House passed a bill which outlaws ’price gouging’. Never mind the fact that expert after expert (and no, not experts with the American Petroleum Institute) point out the pricing problem is "structural" and has to do with tightening supply due to increased demand (you know, like China?) and stagnant (and even declining) refinery capacity. Never mind that the largest cost to consumers added on to a gallon of gas comes not from the oil companies or the local dealer, but from the government in taxes.” (READ MORE)
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