A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Zoellick Debuts As Bank Nominee - Robert B. Zoellick, freshly anointed by President Bush as his choice to lead the World Bank, yesterday spoke in conciliatory tones about healing the rifts left from the tenure of the previous appointee, Paul D. Wolfowitz. (READ MORE)
Death of Guantanamo Detainee Is Apparent Suicide, Military Says - A Saudi detainee at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was found dead in his cell from an apparent suicide yesterday afternoon, military officials said. He would be the fourth detainee to take his own life at the facility in the past year. (READ MORE)
Bush Reaches to Putin as Relations Continue to Slide - President Bush yesterday launched a high-stakes effort to repair the dramatically deteriorating U.S. relationship with Russia by inviting President Vladimir Putin to visit the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, after weeks of rhetoric reminiscent of the Cold War. (READ MORE)
U.S. Hunts for 5 Britons Abducted in Iraq - BAGHDAD, May 30 -- Scores of U.S. troops descended on the vast Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad late Tuesday and early Wednesday, residents there said, searching several houses in what appeared to be an intense hunt for a British financial consultant and four British bodyguards... (READ MORE)
Stock Indexes Set New Records - The U.S. stock market yesterday brushed off a major plunge in Chinese stocks and surged to new milestones, with both the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Dow Jones stock indexes hitting their highest closes since the 2000 stock crash. (READ MORE)
U.N. to Set Up Lebanon Tribunal - The U.N. Security Council yesterday approved the creation of an international tribunal to try suspects in a series of Lebanese political assassinations, setting up a confrontation with Syria, which has said it will not cooperate with the new court. (READ MORE)
TB Case Stresses Access Limits - Federal officials said yesterday they're working hard to track down about 80 people who sat near a tuberculosis-infected man on two international flights but said new powers are needed to help officials contact travelers more quickly in similar future situations... (READ MORE)
Freshman Democrats Work With 'Rainmaker' - The class of 41 freshman House Democrats has selected a registered lobbyist to form its political action committee, in what ethics watchdogs and Republicans are calling a contradiction of their promise to end a "culture of corruption" in Washington. (READ MORE)
Morales, Correa Target TV Foes - The leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador are moving with Cuban encouragement and in concert with their mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to restrict press freedom in their countries. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Omar: Imminent Major Battle in Diyala? “Diyala has arguably become the most dangerous place for both Iraqis and Americans. The recent crimes of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups in recent months in this province have cost tragic losses among Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces and American soldiers. I haven't found a confirmation of the following news elsewhere but I know al-Sabah is well-informed as it has access to official sources more than any other local news outlet.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten: What Assad Fears Most Has Come to Pass “Syria's tyrant Bashar Assad has dreaded nothing so much over the past couple of years as a Chapter 7 United Nations Security Council Resolution establishing a tribunal to put on trial the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Chapter 7 means the international community will impose enforcement mechanisms on the guilty.” (READ MORE)
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Baghdad: Embedded Provisional Reconstruction Teams “A few days ago, I spoke with a U.S. official working for one of the new embedded provisional reconstruction teams (EPRTs) in Iraq. Last year ten provisional reconstruction teams (PRTs) were created throughout the country to operate parallel to the military. Each PRT was headed up by a foreign service officer; had a deputy from the U.S. Army; had at least one member from USAID; and had a bilingual, bicultural advisor (fluent in Arabic with a background that allows him to understand the Middle East). Typically there would be about ten people total working for a PRT. The PRTs were designed to further the U.S. mission in Iraq by helping to advance the political process of reconstruction in a variety of ways.” (READ MORE)
JD Johannes: Media Presence “In the foyer outside the Tactical Operations Center of JSS Black Lion poster sized Post-it note is on display. ‘When historians write about the war in Iraq they will write about the invasion of 2003 and the Surge....’ The media is already here in force... In 2005 when I drifted through the Combined Press Information Center I was always the lone member of the media. At Camp Fallujah I rarely saw another member of the media. In fact I saw more talk radio show hosts than members of the MSM.” (READ MORE)
Michael Yon: The Final Option "The city of Hit (pronounced “heat”) is a spot of green in the desert on the western bank of the Euphrates. The temperature is steadily rising here as the weeks melt into the mirage of summer; the haze shimmering at about 115°F now. The air was blowing hot and dry through the city Tuesday morning 29 May, when I accompanied LTC Doug Crissman for another day of meetings with local leaders in Hit and surrounding towns in Anbar Province. Crissman and the soldiers of Task Force 2-7 Infantry under his command have been welcomed in the area of Hit for about the last one hundred days. Prior to February, Hit was one of the hottest little battlegrounds of the war, with almost daily gun battles crackling through the air, mortars exploding on the bases, and bombs cratering the roads." (READ MORE)
Badger 6: MRAP is Just Fine or All Bombs Are Not Created Equal "USA Today brings us this nice piece of reporting: 'New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials.' Yes Mr. Vanden Brook it's true the MRAP system can be defeated. But do you ever ask the question of how pervaisve the bomb in qeustion is? Read the entire article. You will walk away with the impression that just a new and superior vehicle is fielded the enemy comes up with a new way to defeat that vehicle or protection system. If I did not know better I would be very depressed after reading that article." (READ MORE)
Desert Flier: Hearts and Minds "Some of the top commanders and colonels in the area toured Charlie Medical yesterday. RK, our head surgeon and detachment commander, gave them a tour of the OR and our capabilities. While discussing area topics and patient care for the local populous and Iraqi Forces, the colonel had some genuinely positive encouragement regarding the care we are rending in Ramadi." (READ MORE)
On the Web:
La Shawn Barber: Low-Income Blacks and Illegal Immigration “The battle between blacks and Hispanics for preferred minority group status is only beginning. But blacks don’t need to look to pencil-pushing politicians to ‘lead’ them on this issue. All that is required is common sense and the will to demand that elected officials support immigration law enforcement and oppose any bill that grants the blessing of American citizenship on people who have no regard for this country’s laws.” (READ MORE)
Suzanne Fields: The Justice Teaches Civics “She's creating an interactive website for teaching civics. Remember civics? Civics was where the ‘products of the last century’ learned how their government was supposed to work, and were taught the responsibilities and obligations of an informed citizen. But fashions change, and ‘social studies’ became a catchall class to teach history, sociology and government, and rarely well.” (READ MORE)
Donald Lambro: Bush's Evolving Iraq Strategy “The administration's latest policy changes toward the Iraq war signal a gradual repositioning in anticipation of a shift in strategy by 2008. Some of President Bush's zigs and zags in the past year, as he fought the Democrats' efforts to tie a troop-pullout deadline to the war-funding bill, have led him to accept some of the Iraq Study Group's proposals.” (READ MORE)
George Will: Perennial Themes in Today's Political Argument “Conservatism's recovery of its intellectual equilibrium requires a confident explanation of why America has two parties and why the conservative one is preferable. Today's political argument involves perennial themes that give it more seriousness than many participants understand. The argument, like Western political philosophy generally, is about the meaning of, and the proper adjustment of the tension between, two important political goals -- freedom and equality.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: It Takes a Socialist Village “Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has unveiled her economic vision. Should she be given the power to implement it, we can say goodbye to the prosperity and opportunity we have enjoyed since the Reagan years.” (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey: The Coming Consensus on Iraq “‘By September, when Gen. Petraeus is to make his report, I think most people in Congress believe, unless something extraordinary occurs, that we should be on a move to draw that surge number down,’ the senator said on CBS's ‘Face the Nation.’” (READ MORE)
Larry Elder: About Those "Skyrocketing" Gas Prices “What to do about -- choose the adjective – ‘spiraling,’ ‘skyrocketing,’ ‘out-of-control’ gas prices?” (READ MORE)
Ken Blackwell: Global Jihadists and American Spiritual Rearmament “The merciless monsters who constitute Al Qaeda and its terrorist movement are equal opportunity killers. They will use anyone - man, woman, pregnant mother, child - in acts of suicide to kill anyone.” (READ MORE)
Marvin Olasky: No Student is an Island “Now that we're in commencement season, you may have seen reports of the political tilt at many universities, where Republicans exist as a fringe group and an unusual two-party system -- liberal or radical -- reigns.” (READ MORE)
Fred Thompson: Living in Terror “Let me ask you a hypothetical question. What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, N.Y.?” (READ MORE)
Ann Coulter: A Green Card in Every Pot “Americans -- at least really stupid Americans like George Bush -- believe the natural state of the world is to have individual self-determination, human rights, the rule of law and a robust democratic economy. On this view, most of the existing world and almost all of world history is a freakish aberration.” (READ MORE)
WSJ Review & Outlook: Zoellick's Clean-Up Duty “Having published at least a dozen of Robert Zoellick's op-eds over the years, we know him as a man who neither minces his words nor takes easily to editing. If that's an indication of the management style he'll bring to the World Bank, then President Bush has nominated a fine successor to outgoing bank president Paul Wolfowitz.” (READ MORE)
Daniel Henninger: How About Amnesty for the Market? “Several years ago, a think tank called the Migration Policy Institute produced a digital map of all the counties in the U.S., depicting where the foreign-born population lives. In other words, the immigrants, not only Hispanic but all ethnicities. The map is color-coded--with deep purple and navy blue counties holding the largest raw numbers of foreign-born people, from 23% to 50% of total county population (the U.S. county average then was 11.1%).” (READ MORE)
Michael Fumento: Is the MSM to blame for blocking good news from the wars? “I personally have repeatedly scored the MSM for wanting to write about nothing but The Car Bomb of the Day and ignoring hearts-and-minds projects. Now I realize that while the MSM still deserve scorn, perhaps things aren't quite as black and white as I thought. In preparing my article on my recent embed that will be appearing in next week's Weekly Standard I sought to get information on such projects in the Zabul Region of Afghanistan directly from the Provincial Reconstruction Team or PRT. Zabul's PRT is run by the Air Force. Here's what transpired:” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Kidnapped by Mahdi; Salahadin Salvation attacked “According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebar, yesterday's kidnapping of five Britons, one adviser, and four security guards from the Finance Ministry is believed to have been carried out by elements of the Mahdi Army. Reports suggest the raid was carried out by Mahdi fighters who infiltrated the police and the ministry's security forces. ‘The number of people who were involved in the operation to seal off the building, to set roadblocks and to get into the building with such confidence must have some connections,’ said Mr. Zebari. The ministry is located near Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Neighborhoods of Sadr City have been cordoned, and at least two raids have been carried out.” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: An Open Letter To Politicians On Both Sides Of The Aisle “I received this letter from one of the Soldier’s that we’ve featured here at ASM in the past. His letter, speaks eloquently of the frustration that our Troops in harms way are feeling when they are constantly barraged with the news coverage of the political posturing that constantly is occurring in Washington D.C. I can fully appreciate and understand his frustration and the frustration of the many men and women serving in our Nation’s Armed Forces. This is a letter which needs to be read by every single one of the Politicians currently sitting on their “thrones” in Washington D.C., not caring that their political posturing gravely affects the lives of the men and women so proudly and valiantly serving our Country.” (READ MORE)
AWTM: A Day at The Museum... “I was lucky enough to spend this past Memorial Day with my family. We spent a couple of days at Fort Benning, as DH is still in school. He had been telling me about how absolutely brilliant, driven, and focused his classmates are. I am proud to hear he is in such good company. Although as a military spouse, this does not surprise me. I know how amazing these men are. I married one. We spent part of the weekend at The Infantry Museum, which I have been to many times. Every visit, I learn something new, or see something I missed the last visit.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: The Wilderness of Mirrors “AJ Strata examines the allegations of Andrei Lugovoy who claims Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko were working for Britain's MI6 and that Litvinenko working to recruit him. In Lugovoy's version of events, Litvinenko was killed by MI6 or Berezovsky after showing signs of instability. Like some out of control missile, Litvinenko had to be destroyed by a range safety officer to avoid causing damage. What of the Polonium 210? Lugovoy implies that MI6 used it to hit Litvinenko, presumably so that the finger would point back toward Moscow.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: A Balance of Question “A mostly anonymous group of ‘experts,’ speaking to the previously unheard-of Intelligence Science Board, has condemned some mostly unnamed methods of interrogation for mostly unspecified reasons. And the President of the United States hasn't even responded yet! ‘As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable. The psychologists and other specialists, commissioned by the Intelligence Science Board, make the case that more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has yet to create an elite corps of interrogators trained to glean secrets from terrorism suspects.’” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Guess Who's Forming The Frosh PAC? “The Democrats, as often observed, won a majority in Congress by demanding an end to the ‘culture of corruption’ and undue lobbyist influence. The main beneficiaries of that campaign, the 41 freshman Democrats in the House, now want to form a political action committee to increase their clout on the Hill. So who did they choose to form and run it? Three guesses, and the first two don't count:” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: Hillary's Socialist Dreams “Hillary Clinton promises to combat rising inequality and rising pessimism in the United States workforce. Translated into english this means raising our taxes, repealing the cuts that are already in place. So lets look at a few things about our current economy. Now, just reminder, Bush inherited a economy that was going into a recession (beginning in March of 2001, yes I know this is two months after Bush took office but unless his immediate policies effected the economy in two months we know that it was the Clinton policies that created this recession)...just food for thought when you look at the below data:” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Real torture ignored, fake torture flogged “If you know about the torture manual used by al-Qaida, then you did not learn about it by reading the Washington Post, the New York Times or sadly, this newspaper. Neither the Associated Press nor Reuters picked up on the story. Fox News was the only major outlet with the story. Sir Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in Australia republished the Fox report.” (READ MORE)
Dymphna: “Terror in the Skies”: One Woman's Persistence “Today the Washington Times released the full report they promised on May 27th regarding the ‘dry run’ Annie Jacobsen wrote about several years ago in both her columns and in her book, ‘Terror in the Skies’. I waited until now to post on this because I wanted to see the full Homeland Security report which the Times obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The first time they tried to get it, all but two lines had been blacked out. Now most of it is contained in a pdf suppied by the Times.” (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: (Audio) Chertoff discards basic crime-fighting techniques to support the amnesty bill “DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff appeared on the Mark Davis Show on WBAP-820 in Dallas last week to promote the Bush-Kennedy immigration bill. In the process of explaining why he thinks the bill is swell, he discards basic crime-fighting logic. Click to listen. That muffled thumping you heard was Eliot Ness rolling over in his grave.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Linda Chavez: If you’re against open borders, you might be a Nazi “That’s a paraphrase, of course, but only a slight one. Dig it: ‘Some people just don’t like Mexicans — or anyone else from south of the border. They think Latinos are freeloaders and welfare cheats who are too lazy to learn English. They think Latinos have too many babies, and that Latino kids will dumb down our schools. They think Latinos are dirty, diseased, indolent and more prone to criminal behavior. They think Latinos are just too different from us ever to become real Americans.’” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Iraq = Korea = Kosovo= Bosnia = Germany = Japan = Australia = Britain = Iceland = ETC “Bush envisions U.S. troop presence in Iraq like S.Korea. Is anyone seriously surprised by this? Could anyone possibly disagree with this? OK, never mind that last question. Did anyone think an ongoing troop presence, Mideast bases somewhere other than Saudi Arabia, were not part of the scenario? Sectarian violence, largely a development of the past year and a half, being aggressively engaged with positive signs, but will require an ongoing presence for the foreseeable future.” (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: Stop Calling Terrorism Jihad “Bottom Line Up Front: Iraqis know that terrorists are not martyrs when they die for their ‘faith’ in acts of terrorism and and we can win the war on terror when we understand this concept, too. Bassim al-Jabouri, brother of the fallen Iraqi police officer in Iraq who bravely gave his life to stop a suicide bomber, said this in the video: ‘I think my brother is a martyr, but the insurgents are not martyrs. They will go to hell; they are evil in this world.’” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Oh. Them “There was something in this article about Special Air Service operators in the UK prepping to join their brothers already on station in Iraq - and yes Mookie, there does appear to be a laser dot on your turban, why do you ask? - that brought a faint smile to your correspondent’s face, weary as he sometimes gets of hearing pols and pundits whose concerns about our troops seems to correlate more closely to the political party of their commander in chief than to any sense of the importance of the mission they are embarked upon. These have lately taken to banging their spoons ever more vigorously on their high chairs in an attempt to “hurry up and bring the troops home so that they can focus on fighting al-Qaeda.” Which, well:” (READ MORE)
Patterico's Pontifications: AP Spins for the Terrorists on GTMO Suicide “The AP reports on a recent suicide at Guantanamo, with characteristic pro-terrorist spin: ‘A Saudi Arabian detainee died Wednesday at Guantanamo Bay prison and the U.S. military said he apparently committed suicide. Critics of the detention center said the death showed the level of desperation among prisoners.’ Way to put that spin up front, AP! The article reinforces this spin again:” (READ MORE)
Bryan Pick: Overt threats (for your own good) “Seatbelt laws are as much a timeless libertarian bugaboo cliché as anything, joining bike helmet laws, trans fat bans and a thousand other instances of well-intentioned meddling. So why tread old water? Well, for one, I was slightly disturbed to hear recently, ‘I’m New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, and I should be dead.’ For another, it’s a bit ridiculous to see Bush chided for not buckling up to drive on his own property. Observe: ‘So why didn’t a brave cop give Dubya a ticket for driving around his “ranch” without wearing the seatbelt? It’s simple! If you are super rich, you just buy up all the land and then it’s “private property” and you can do whatever you want!’ Oh, Wonkette! How your satire delights me. (It was satire... right?)” (READ MORE)
William Teach: GOP Fights Bush On Immigration “You know, it is a shame that of all the topics President Bush wants to truly fight back on, it is an illegal immigration bill that goes against his own base. Iraq, the assaults on secret anti-terrorist programs, fixing social security, you name it, he has barely said a word. A few shots at Democrats, and move on. But with the illegal bill, he seems to want to take on the majority of Conservatives. And some Republicans in Congress are fighting back (Washington Times)” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: Fred Thompson: The Man, The Moment, The Mess “When I survey the disaster that is the current Republican party – a leaderless, rudderless, dispirited mob without a clue of how to begin fixing what’s broke – the obvious question that leaps to mind is can anything be salvaged from the current situation? Or is the GOP condemned to walk the earth like Zombies for the foreseeable future with no direction, no heart, and little in the way of motivation to animate its followers? You think I’m being too hard on Republicans, huh? Quick, name the leader of the Republican party. Time’s up. If you said Bush, I’ll give you points for loyalty but then take away your Haliburton Club card.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Double crossed “Earlier this week, when it was revealed that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann had escaped Europe and fled to Argentina on a passport issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross, I was shocked and disgusted. And then, as I thought about it some more, I was dismayed. At myself. I should not have been shocked. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has won the Nobel Peace Prize three times (and its founder won the first Peace Prize for that feat), has spent years ‘cruising’ on its reputation, while repeatedly doing things that should have caused reasonable people to at least question the organization, if not revile it. Their role in aiding Nazi war criminals to escape justice (along with elements of the Catholic Church) are just part of it.” (READ MORE)
Right Truth: Clear and imminent danger, do you see it? “McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario is the former haunt of Adnan el Shukrijumah, thought to be the next Mohammad Atta and head of a terrorist cell intent on attacking America with suitcase nukes ... American Hiroshima. McMaster is also known as a 'nest' for many of the Canadian terrorists. Oh yes, McMaster has a 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor on campus.” (READ MORE)
Reflecting Light: Needed: a troop surge in Tucson "I lived in Tucson, Arizona, for three years. No compelling reason. I liked the landscape, the Spanish and Pueblo style architecture, and the general laid-back friendliness of the people. Today, thanks to our criminally irresponsible president and politicians who collude with him, Tucson is about to become a war zone, according to one local observer." (READ MORE)
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