A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Metro Costs For Overtime Are Up 56% Since 2002 - Every weekday, Metro pays overtime to a group of bus drivers whose regular shifts include being on standby in case of accidents or other emergencies. Many workers at the transit agency are able to double their salaries with overtime. (READ MORE)
Lawmaker Indicted on Corruption Charges - Federal authorities accused Rep. William J. Jefferson yesterday of using his congressional office and staff to enrich himself and his family, charging the Louisiana Democrat with offering and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to support business ventures in the United States... (READ MORE)
Discontent Over Iraq Increasing, Poll Finds - Growing frustration with the performance of the Democratic Congress, combined with widespread public pessimism over President Bush's temporary troop buildup in Iraq, has left satisfaction with the overall direction of the country at its lowest point in more than a decade... (READ MORE)
Bureaucratic Failings Are Cited in TB Case - The Atlanta lawyer with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis who crisscrossed the Atlantic on commercial jets last month was not added to a U.S. no-fly list until at least two hours after he reentered the country by car from Canada, according to congressional investigators. (READ MORE)
Liberian Boycotts War Crimes Trial - The trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, the highest-ranking African leader to face an international war crimes court, began Monday with the defendant refusing to leave his cell and prosecutors alleging that his fighters hacked off civilians' hands and legs... (READ MORE)
Illegals bill stems traffic only 25% - The Senate's immigration bill will stem the flow of illegals into the country by just 25 percent, according to Congress' accounting arm. (READ MORE)
Jefferson Charged in Bribery and Corruption - A federal grand jury in Alexandria yesterday indicted Rep. William J. Jefferson, Louisiana Democrat, on charges of bribery and corruption in his promotion of telecommunications equipment and services in Africa. (READ MORE)
Court Deals Serious Blow to FCC Expletive Policy - Broadcasters scored a major victory yesterday when a federal court invalidated a Federal Communications Commission indecency ruling against Fox Television, calling the regulator's policy of punishing "fleeting expletives" "arbitrary and capricious." (READ MORE)
Top Democrats Open up on Faith - Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all got personal last night during a forum focused on something much less commonly mentioned on the campaign trail: their religious faith. (READ MORE)
Taliban Uses Weapons Made in China, Iran - Sophisticated new weapons, including Chinese anti-aircraft missiles as well as items made in Iran, are reaching Taliban forces in Afghanistan, according to government officials and other sources. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Badger 6: Six Days “Ar Ramadi, Iraq, provincial capitol of Al Anbar province, the biggest and western most province of Iraq. In the mind of many the Wild West, home to disaffected Sunni Tribes who even Saddam Hussein could not control. Last summer in a classified report that was leaked to the Washington Post the situation was characterized as ‘dire.’ When I arrived in this city, the thought of being here in the daylight was unthinkable. Over this last six days, in this city there have been no reported insurgent attacks.” (READ MORE)
Gene E. Blanton: Featured Report from Iraq: Battle Sight Zero “I’ve had the privilege to hang around the men of the Multi-National Forces West Training Center in Al Anbar Province, Camp Habbaniyah, Iraq led by CWO-5 “Gunner” Terry L. Walker. Gunner Walker and his team are on a very focused mission – to stand up and train the Iraqi Security Forces so they can fight their own fight. His men are responsible for training Iraqi soldiers and police. They not only train the ‘end users’ but are responsible for ‘training the trainers.’ Below are excerpts from a video interview with CWO-5 “Gunner” Terry L. Walker who heads up the training center.” (READ MORE)
Outlaw 13: I Am An American Soldier... I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.” (READ MORE)
Half A World Away: In Remembrance “Part of the process of getting out of here is remembering those that have gone before us. It struck me the other day as we were making plans for coming home parties, car purchases, and vacations, that not everyone that got on the plane with us is making the trip home. One of the benefits that the Guard sells to young soldiers is that Guard is family, and I think this is true is the sense that you get to know your fellow Guardsmen over the years better then you would in an active duty or reserve unit as personnel are changed out more often.” (READ MORE)
Jack Army: Patrol “Our patrol yesterday took us into areas we've not been in before. It was a great patrol in that we got some great information, learned something about this part of Iraq and spent some quality time doing what we get paid to do: look for bad guys. We stopped to confirm that we were where we thought we were, which we found that we were (lots of w's in that sentence!). It was a one-family compound with a man, four women and what seemed like two dozen children.” (READ MORE)
Omar: Has Sadr returned stronger? “Given the combination of SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s [wiki] absence from the Shia political scene, the training Sadr received in Iran, and the timing Tehran chose for his return, Moqtada al-Sadr has obviously returned strong. Strong enough to summon seven Iraqi governors to meet him and listen to his instructions about how they should run their respective provinces in central and southern Iraq at the same time his militiamen were fighting the police forces of at least one of those provinces. In the speech Sadr made at that meeting he called for the peaceful coexistence and cooperation of the police and army on one side, and the Mahdi Army on the other.” (READ MORE)
Noah Pollak: Is Iran a threat to Israel or America (or Lebanon)? “I was invited by the editors of jewcy.com to comment on a week-long exchange, hosted on their site, between Michael Freund of the Jerusalem Post and Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com. Freund and Raimondo set out to debate what America and Israel should (or should not) do about Iran, but their epistolary turned sour -- and quickly. My contribution is here, and reproduced below. I sought to address what I believe is the heart of the matter -- the nature of the Iranian threat.” (READ MORE)
Northern Disclosure: ….And EBERYTING “Throughout my time in the Army and life I have had the benefit to work around many people that are learning the English language as a second or third language. The Language barrier is something that I have grown accustomed to and have learned tolerance and understanding. PFC Rolly Alegre is an immigrant from the Phillipines who moved to San Jose. He is a twenty two year old that has a persistant smile and an unbreakable will to succeed and improve. He has a full set of dark hair that is speckled with strands of grey which I am sure were earned honestly back in the Philipines.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Bill Murchison: The Bumper-Sticker War “There comes a time when you don't want even to parody words such as the Democratic candidates swapped with each other, because the effect is so soul-sapping.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: No More Trust on Immigration “Former senator and probable Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson brought Virginia Republicans to their feet last Saturday night in Richmond when he said the public no longer believes in politicians who promise to secure the U.S. border as part of a bipartisan immigration bill.” (READ MORE)
Dennis Prager: Buck Fush" and the Left “Every day I see at least one car, usually more than one, sporting a bumper sticker that reads, ‘Buck Fush.’” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Adolescent Intellectuals “The widespread and fervent use of the word ‘liberation’ in a wide variety of contexts is one of the signs of the adolescent belief that only arbitrary rules and conventions stand in the way of doing whatever we want to do.” (READ MORE)
Jack Kemp: A Letter to Barack Obama “We've only met a few times, but we went to the same college, Occidental in Los Angeles. I graduated 50 years ago and went into the NFL, while decades later you ended up graduating from Columbia and Harvard and practicing law in Illinois.” (READ MORE)
Patrick J. Buchanan: Who Lost Russia? “By 1988, Ronald Reagan, who had famously branded the Soviet Union ‘an evil empire,’ was striding through Red Square arm-in-arm with Mikhail Gorbachev. Russians were pounding both men on the back.” (READ MORE)
Fred Thompson: A Story of Vigilance “I was glad to hear that Morgenstern was rewarded by his employer, Circuit City, for his part in preventing the attack on Fort Dix.” (READ MORE)
Rich Lowry: Againt Know-Nothingism “Supporters of a lax immigration policy love to hurl the charge of ‘Know-Nothingism’ against their critics. But, oddly enough, it is the Senate immigration bill that duplicates a key element of the 19th-century Know-Nothing platform. Those long-ago nativists wanted to make immigrants wait 21 years to become citizens. The Senate bill effectively creates a comparable waiting period.” (READ MORE)
Dinesh D'Souza: Why diversity doesn't matter “The advantage of natural diversity is that it achieves its goal without sacrificing merit. The disadvantage of socially-engineered diversity is twofold:” (READ MORE)
Kathryn Jean Lopez: There's No Negotiating With Iran “It's not 1979, and we're not watching it every night on television. But Iran has taken hostages again. Does anyone care? The sounds of near silence out of Washington suggest, ‘not as much as we should.’” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Democrats Pile War Criticism on Clinton in Second Debate “All the Democratic presidential candidates disagree with President Bush's Iraq policy, but they stood united in their criticism against Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y) during the Sunday debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.” (READ MORE)
Can Senor: Realists on Iraq “During Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate, the candidates cited an oft-repeated source of the mess in Iraq: The White House's refusal to heed knowledgeable advice. Indeed, it has often been said that the president got into Iraq because he disregarded advice from the true regional experts: foreign-policy ‘realists’ who put together the Gulf War I coalition and counseled President George H.W. Bush against regime change; ‘moderate’ Sunni Arab Governments; and the U.S. intelligence community.” (READ MORE)
Bret Stephens: No Pyrrhic Victory “On the morning of June 5, 1967, a fleet of low-flying Israeli jets surprised the Egyptian air force on the ground and destroyed it. This act of military pre-emption helped save Israel from what Iraq's then-President Abdul Rahman Aref had called, only several days earlier, ‘our opportunity . . . to wipe Israel off the map.’ Yet 40 years later Israel's victory is widely seen as a Pyrrhic one—‘a calamity for the Jewish state no less than for its neighbors,’ according to a recent editorial in The Economist. And the alternative was?” (READ MORE)
Robert A. Swerlick: Our Soviet Health System “When my Labrador retriever became acutely lame, we were able to locate a veterinary orthopedic expert in Atlanta within 48 hours who was able to repair a ruptured tendon within one week. But my prospects of identifying an endocrinologist who can care for my daughter's diabetes when she turns 18 are much less promising. The limited number of endocrine specialists is a not a consequence of limited demand -- everyone is aware of the epidemic of diabetes we are facing.” (READ MORE) *Reg Req*
Linda Chavez: The Great Assimilation Machine “For more than 200 years the United States has been the great assimilation machine, churning Germans, Swedes, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Russians, Lebanese, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis and myriad others into Americans. There are many Americans today who believe, or worry, that the largest group of recent immigrants -- the nearly 20 million Hispanics who have come here in the last several decades -- are unwilling or unable to do the same.” (READ MORE) *Reg Req*
A_C @ Tanker Brothers: They're Home!!! “I caught the ending to what has become such an amazing story on the late news last night. Private Peter Gillson and Lance Corporal Richard Parker left Hanoi last night and are finally home. One of the most moving moments of the interview was when one of the Soldiers involved with bringing the two men home mentioned exactly how many days it had been since thay had been forced to leave Pvt Gillison and LCpl Parker behind. He had finally found peace in returning his mates home after all that time.” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: Central Texas Fallen Heroes Memorial… Honoring Their Memory “At the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery, the eyes of almost 400 fallen Soldiers and Marines will keep watch over the graves of their commrades. On Memorial Day, the Killeen, Texas police department unveiled the Central Texas Fallen Heroes Memorial. The memorial consists of 4 black granite slabs etched with the names of the Fallen Soldiers on one side and the faces of Soldiers and Marines from Fort Hood and the area communities are etched into the other side of each slab of the memorial, paying tribute to those lost from 2003 through 2006. More walls will be added to the memorial to honor those who have died since last year.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: It takes two to tangle “News flash: George W. Bush is not the sole source of evil and conflict in the world -- despite what a lot of people would like you to believe. For example, the deteriorating status of our relationship with Russia. We have numerous people discussing how Bush is ‘bringing back the Cold War,’ how he's ‘turning Russia into our enemy,’ and the like. I just don't see it.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Video) Olby sneers at the JFK terror plot, questions the timing of everything “And to think, some people believe the left doesn’t take terrorism seriously.
You’ll note, I hope, that even Olby recognizes how dishonest he’s being. That’s why he feels obliged to mention not once but twice that coincidences do happen and, in his words, ‘we could probably contruct a similar timeline of terror events and their relationship to the haircuts of popular politicians.’ Why do it, then?” (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: (Video) McCain says reform or riots - Updated “He’s comparing the situation in the US to the situation in France, where unassimilated Muslim “youths” rioted in 2005 and 2006. There as here, politicians looking the other way while illegals flooded in were catalysts to the problem, but the similarities largely end there. Or not.” (READ MORE)
AWTM: A Day at The Museum Part 2 “I am finding it hard to find the words to describe my feelings at THIS DAY. I tried to write just the facts in the post, because the incident was smattered with so many different feelings, I got lost writing about the actual incident, or whatever you want to call it. I do not compartmentalize well. Which is part of the reason I blog, it provides me the haven I need to write things out. And sometimes it is hard to convey those things, and sometimes the words get lost between my brain and my fingers. Something gets lost in translation. You see The Collective are 3 and 5. They are just figuring things out, they are just learning what their Daddy does.” (READ MORE)
Augean Stables: Mowbray on Al Hurra’s Problems: A Peek at the Augean Stables “Joel Mowbray has a particularly illuminating column on why the US Government funded Arabic station Alhurra has turned into another al Jazeera. And this, despite its own claims: ‘Alhurra (Arabic for “The Free One”) is a commercial-free Arabic language satellite television network for the Middle East devoted primarily to news and information.’ In exploring what’s wrong, he enters deep into the Augean Stables of MSM prejudice and arrogance. In realizing the problem, we may begin to ask ourselves what needs to be done before our media can give us a clear idea of what’s going on in the Middle East.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: George, meet Woodrow “George Bush As Woodrow Wilson: Caroline Glick makes the argument in the Jerusalem Post. Who knew? ‘There are many differences between the Bush and Wilson administrations, but three stand out in particular. First, by ignoring the real interests of the US and its allies in favor of utopian peace, Wilson's vision of postwar peace was a flight of fancy predicated on a rejection of reality. In contrast, by recognizing the threat that the global jihad constitutes for the Free World, Bush sought to shake the US and its allies out of their collective flight from reality in the 1990s and force them to contend with the world as it is.’” (READ MORE)
Bear Creek Ledger: S.1348 Immigration Bill - 20 Loopholes “Please pass this information on so all your friends are aware of the flaws with this bill. This bill is more than an amnesty bill. S.1348 gives preferential treatment to illegal aliens, terrorists and felons over US Citizens. Send this information to your Senators and Representatives to find out what their response is to this information. Call them to let them know this bill is not acceptable. Go to NumbersUSA and send a fax to your Representatives and Senators. Senator Jeff Sessions has published a list of 20 loopholes in this bill that he’s found:” (READ MORE)
Big Dog: From Cold Hard Cash To Cold Hard Time “When the Republicans were in the majority in the House they instituted a rule that any member indicted would have to resign from any leadership position. When Tom Delay was indicted he resigned as the Speaker of the House to comply with that rule. Democrats were very happy to see him go because he was a tough Speaker and he led with an iron fist. That is the reason a Democrat in Texas convened Grand Jury after Grand Jury until he browbeat one into indicting Delay on charges that were bogus and to this day have not been pursued further. That of course, is because the left got rid of him and that was their end game.” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: CAIR: "Unindicted Co-Conspirator" of Terror-Funding “Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak ignored the outcry of many constituents and spoke at a CAIR event not too long ago. In his speech he said, ‘CAIR does such important and necessary work in a difficult environment to change such perceptions and wrongs -- from racial profiling and civil rights to promoting justice and mutual understanding -- at a time when it is challenging to be an American-Muslim…’ Despite never-ending reports of CAIR's members being radicals and CAIR itself funding various terror organizations, many politicians on the left keep pretending it's an innocuous group just looking out for innocent Muslims. Well, now there's some documentation:” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Will The Democrats Split Over Dollar Bill? “Now that the other shoe has finally dropped on Rep. William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, the next question is what the Democrats intend to do about him. Under indictment on sixteen counts of corruption, Jefferson represents just about everything against which the Democrats campaigned last year, with their attacks on the supposed ‘culture of corruption’, and they'd like to be rid of the albatross. However, the Congressional Black Caucus smells a double standard, and they're not likely to go along with any plan that could railroad Jefferson out of the House without having been convicted first:” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: Losing Ground “Here I am citing the Washington Times again, not something I do with great regularity. But they have what should be a media blockbuster - but they are the only ones reporting it. The super-whamadyne new Senate compromise immigration "reform" bill will have a whopping effect on illegal immigration according to none other than the Congressional Budget Office. It will reduce illegal immigration by 25%. At best.” (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Dennis Byrne; Dissing Al Gore “Dennis Byrne's latest column in the Chicago Tribune is serious slap at Al Gore. ‘Scary thought: Al Gore could be in charge’ supposes that if Gore had been elected in 2000 we'd be a less safe place, with many more missing buildings from Islamofascist attacks, a war between Syria and Israel, and a brewing nuclear arms race between Iran and Iraq, $8.35 a gallon gas and 9% unemployment. I'm not sure Byrne is right on every count in his op/ed indictment of Gore, but I'm sure he's probably closer to the truth than fiction with lots of it.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Liberal prudes “My Tennessee bureau is all upset by it, but Margery Eagan’s column in the Boston Herald was a hoot: ‘GOP wives are a pol’s breast friend - Front-runners get ample attention on the front lines.’ Ah yes. The claws are out to attack the trophy wives.” (READ MORE)
Lars Hedegaard: Interview: A Continent of Losers “While the European populations are shrinking and the best-qualified young people are leaving, we continue to allow mass immigration of unqualified Muslims, who will soon make our welfare states collapse. Add to this the fact that the Muslim world has built up a ‘youth bulge’, which according to experience will lead to mass murder and whose effects cannot be offset by foreign aid. The originator of these bleak predictions is the German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn, who believes that the game is over for Europe.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Againstism “A quick roundup from the war to the ladies room. Dan Senor at WSJ on what the party of surrender doesn’t want to talk about: Iraq war opponents who don’t want to leave, and what happens if we do. Eugene Robinson at WaPo boils down the war debate on the left as underscored by Sunday’s Dem debate: I’m more against it than you are. Robinson comes out for againstism.” (READ MORE)
Mudville Gazette: The Forgotten War “Scott Kesterson who blogged while in Afghanistan at KGW sends us a Film Chronology of his time in Afghanistan. A citizen journalist and a former National Guard soldier himself, Scott arrived in Afghanistan in May 2006 to begin a 14-month journey as an embedded journalist with Alpha Company, 2nd Platton, the Red Devils. His film examines the pitfalls and perils of a mostly forgotten war told through the experience of daily living with soldiers.” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: When lieutenant colonels collide “Analytic readers will remember that the Deputy CO of the 3rd ACR, one LTC Paul Yingling made something of a splash late in April, when he took the current crop of Army general officers to task for a failure of moral courage. Another LTC begs to differ: ‘I think I know what moral courage is. I lost soldiers in my squadron. I spoke to their families shortly after they were killed and gave them an honest rendering of the death of their loved ones. In this sense, I have a perspective on moral courage. That perspective on moral courage combined with my perspective of senior American generals in Iraq in 2006 causes me to conclude that Col. Yingling is hugely off the mark in his condemnation of American generalship.’” (READ MORE)
Right Truth: All-Qaeda in Iran and other news “As I read the news this morning, I am reminded how complicated this war against terrorism really is. The diverse countries, nationalities, religions, tribes who are all involved in some way, make it seem an almost impossible mission. But it's not impossible. It is absolutely necessary that we achieve victory. Some folks don't realize that not only is Iran a threat to Israel, Iran has been sheltering members of al-Qaeda. Putting those words in print I know the anti-war crowd will respond with ‘here we go again from the neo-cons.’ But facts are facts.” (READ MORE)
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For lack of a word, will terrorists go free? from Right Truth
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