In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Domenici Breaks With Bush On Iraq - White House efforts to keep congressional Republicans united over the Iraq war suffered another major defection yesterday as Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) broke with President Bush and called for an immediate change in U.S. strategy that could end combat operations by the spring. (READ MORE)
With Bloomberg on Stage, Harsher Light on Giuliani - Madison Square Garden was taken over by New York police and their families, all there for the graduation ceremony of 1,097 new officers. A rousing video flashed images of police responding to the Sept. 11 attacks. It was a scene tailor-made for Rudolph W. Giuliani... (READ MORE)
Bin Laden's Deputy Exhorts Muslims in Iraq to Coalesce - The No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda, in a lengthy video released Thursday, called on Muslims in Iraq to unite against their enemies, at a time when rifts have opened between some Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq and the U.S. military has detained individuals it says are senior members of... (READ MORE)
Indian Doctors Fear Bomb Plot Backlash - When Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced more rigorous background checks on foreign doctors applying for visas to work in Britain, panic spread through India's medical community, whose highly skilled professionals have always found it easy to work and study abroad. (READ MORE)
'Cyber' Gang Targeted U.S. Facilities - Computer files maintained by a "cyber-terrorist" gang in the United Kingdom included a threat by 45 Muslim doctors said to be planning an attack on the Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Fla., and other U.S. sites using car bombs and rocket grenades. (READ MORE)
Gaza Battle Kills 11 Palestinians - A fierce gunbattle yesterday between Israelis and Palestinians interrupted nearly a month of isolation for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, sealed off from the world except for shipments of food and medicine from international donors. (READ MORE)
Glasgow Attack Aimed to be Suicide Mission - When two doctors crashed a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow's Airport and then set it on fire in a desperate attempt to ignite crude bombs, it was clear to a policeman on the scene that they were on a suicide mission. (READ MORE)
Clintons Hit Over Libby Criticism - The White House yesterday ridiculed Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton for complaining about President Bush's decision to keep former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. out of jail, saying their criticism smacks of hypocrisy. (READ MORE)
Pick 1: Higher Taxes or Cuts - Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is telling residents to either support tax increases or prepare for deep cuts in state funding to their local governments. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Badger 6: Sergeant Jesse Kelsch: Someone You Should Know “Longtime readers of Badgers Forward remember 8 February 2007 when our three friends, our brothers, our comrades in arms, Sergeant Holtom, Sergeant Clevenger, and Private First Class Werner were killed in action along a lonely road northeast of Falluja, Iraq. Today I was privileged to present an award for action on 8 February 2007. Sergeant Jesse Kelsch was working as both a Sapper looking for roadside bombs and as the platoon medic on 8 February 2007.” (READ MORE)
Calvey in Iraq: Iraqi Boy Scouts “Greetings from Baghdad! No respite from the heat, although it is down to 111 degrees today. Iraqi Boy Scouts - That's right, the Boy Scouts are operating again here in Baghdad. I bought some Council patches the other day. I find it particularly hopeful that even in a society that has not yet quelled an insurgency in its entirety, there is some room for normal, character-building institutions to grow.” (READ MORE)
Michael Yon: Baqubah Update: 05 July 2007 “Today marks ‘D +16’ of Operation ‘Arrowhead Ripper,’ the Battle for Baqubah. Arrowhead Ripper kicked off on 19 June 07. I have several dispatches in the works about the major events since that time. Although the serious fighting seems to be over, there remains a possibility for some sharp fighting in the near future. The morning of 06 July began with the sounds of American cannons firing, shells whizzing through the air, while they checked systems and aiming for combat. Apache helicopters orbited Baqubah as the orange sun crested into view. Media coverage went from a near monopoly (Michael Gordon from New York Times and me) to a nearly capsized boat as journalists flooded in from other parts of Iraq to see the fight. They managed to miss most of it. Today, I’m told, there are now only 3 journalists remaining, including one writer (me.)” (READ MORE)
Matt Sanchez: Live From Baghdad! The Press' War “In Baghdad, at an informal meeting of the incoming U.S. ambassador to Iraq and members of the media, the ambassador got an earful about how difficult it was to cover this war. Despite the dainty hors d’oeuvre and wine (in the first real glasses I have seen since my arrival in Iraq), the press brought out a laundry list of issues preventing them from doing their job: checkpoints, transportation, the bureaucracy of blood tests at the border, and the need for more personal security. For what was supposed to be a meet and greet, the greet did not last long.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Sen. Joseph Lieberman: Iran's Proxy War “Earlier this week, the U.S. military made public new and disturbing information about the proxy war that Iran is waging against American soldiers and our allies in Iraq. According to Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, the Iranian government has been using the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to train and organize Iraqi extremists, who are responsible in turn for the murder of American service members.” (READ MORE)
Peggy Noonan: We Need to Talk “It is late afternoon in Manhattan on the Fourth of July, and I'm walking along on Lexington and 59th, in front of Bloomingdale's. Suddenly in my sight there's a young woman standing on a street grate. She is short, about 5 feet tall, and stocky, with a broad brown face. She is, I think, Latin American, maybe of Indian blood. She has a big pile of advertisements in her hand, and puts one toward me. "MENS SUITS NEW YORK--40% to 60% Off Sale!--Armani, Canali, Hugo Boss, DKNY, Zegna. TAILOR ON PREMISES. EXCELLENT SERVICE LARGE SELECTION." Then the address and phone number.” (READ MORE)
Kimberly Strassel: Anger Mismanagement “School is out, report cards are in. How fares the new Democratic Congress? Even with grade inflation, it's struggling to hit a gentleman's C. The big question when Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House was whether her party was up to the task of governing. Democrats wisely turned last year's election into a referendum on Republican competence. It was a shrewd strategy, though left unanswered was how they would use their new power. Could Ms. Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid keep the party's angry liberal wing in check? Did Democrats have a big agenda around which they could rally?” (READ MORE)
Michael Reagan: Pardon Me, But “Anybody who watched presidential spokesman Tony Snow face a pack of snarling White House press corps correspondents following President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence will understand the meaning of the word hypocrisy.” (READ MORE)
Mike Gallagher: 'Illegal' Crime “A funny thing happened to a pro-illegal immigrant activist this week in Dallas, Texas. The activist, a League of United Latin American Citizens representative named Jesse Diaz, was carjacked.” (READ MORE)
Burt Prelutsky: What's Fair About the Fairness Doctrine? “Lately, I’ve been hearing rumors that prominent liberal politicians, the very same people who are always proclaiming themselves passionate advocates for free speech, are looking into ways to muzzle conservative radio talk show hosts.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: The Cost of Failure “If you believe the Bush presidency is a failure, what then? Do you delight in whacking him like a piñata for the next 18 months with your only objective a Democratic blowout victory in the 2008 election? If that is your strategy, do you ask yourself what kind of country a Democratic president will inherit and whether he (or she) will have the ability to quickly turn things around after months of pummeling a weakened president?” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: Baghdad Clock, Washington Clock “It's a tale of two clocks, or perhaps three. The vague echo of Charles Dickens' ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ has resonance, with Baghdad and Washington being the two 21st-century capitals, and Iraq's uncertain revolution the historical conflict.” (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: The Elusive Quality We Call Justice “The best of the possible is quite different from the best. In the best of worlds, or at least a better one, an appellate court would have stayed the jail sentence of I. Lewis Libby until his appeal was complete after he'd been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, or maybe only of an inexact memory.” (READ MORE)
George Will: Diversity Education “For most of the 53 years since the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision, the court, in collaboration with people who fancy themselves ‘progressive,’ has been instructing Americans to unlearn the lesson of those decisions -- the lesson that race must not be a source of government-conferred advantage or disadvantage. Last week the court began rectifying its abandonment of that premise in the name of ‘diversity.’” (READ MORE)
Oliver North: Doctors of Death “Mainstream media coverage of the three-part event -- two car bombs that failed to detonate in London and a flaming SUV driven into the front of the airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland -- was a bigger dud than the doctors' poorly designed vehicular-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs).” (READ MORE)
Joel Mowbray: See No Muslims: The NY Times Ignores the Obvious “Imagine the surprise of many to learn that Britain is now under attack from ‘disenfranchised South Asian’ people, not those who murder in the name of their Islamic faith.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: The Democratic Party's Stealth War On Black Americans “If you look back through American history and find a black American being enslaved, lynched, railroaded, or persecuted, 99 times out of a hundred, you'll find a Democrat behind it.” (READ MORE)
Lorie Byrd: Finding the Good News from Iraq “I would love to see more ‘Arthur Chrenkoff’ in my news today. An Australian blogger who wrote a series of blog posts (also carried by the Wall Street Journal) called ‘Good News from Iraq,’ Chrenkoff filled a niche those in the media too often left unaddressed by giving readers information about news from the region that did not consist merely of casualty figures. Chrenkoff scoured media reports and military sources and compiled the ‘good news’ that was often being buried.” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson: The Revolt on Illegal Immigration “After the utter collapse in the Senate last week of a comprehensive immigration bill, Washington insiders are blaming everyone and everything.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: The dragon stumbles “A little while ago, I wrote about the wave of problems involving Communist China's exported consumer products to the United States. Well, it turns out that we shouldn't be so paranoid; it turns out they're poisoning people in Panama, too. I discovered this story through Paul Hamilton at Wizbang Blue, who ascribed it to ‘corporate greed.’ I found that tremendously amusing. The Communist Chinese company that passed off the poison -- like pretty much every other company in Communist China, and everything else in the country -- is owned by the government.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Doctor Evil “So, the big question is, how much does the United States currently know about the Islamo-docs it is letting into the country? How much scrutiny do medical doctors get when they apply for visas? Might be worth looking at any who came here from the UK, for starters. Among other foreign Muslims, professional and otherwise. 45 Muslim docs planned US terror raids:” (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: Bush officials don the hijab “We’ve arrived at yet another teachable moment in the war. The West has been distracted for years by the leftwing shibboleth that poverty and adverse conditions, as opposed to a religion and an ideology, are at the roots of terrorism. Those doctors who plotted to blow up London and the Glasgow airport provide powerful evidence to the contrary:” (READ MORE)
Michael Fumento: Hollywood Goes to War Against Anti-Terrorism “In 1942, Hollywood went to war. It began pumping out countless movies designed to be both entertaining and instructive as to the nature of our enemies. A lot of them were done on the cheap and others were pretty hokey, but they kept drilling home the message that we must persevere no matter the costs or how long it would take. Fast forward that reel to the post-9/11 era. Just how many movies can you count in which Islamist terrorists are the bad guys and that do not specifically concern the Sept. 11 attacks?” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Ted K’s Halliburton “The Boston Globe reported that Ted Kennedy earmarked $100 million for development of a ‘spare engine’ for a fighter jet, ‘even though the Air Force concluded in 2005 that it was redundant — and two independent review boards agreed.’ But the defense of the nation is secondary to aiding General Electric.” (READ MORE)
Smooth Stone: The Peel Commission “Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Peel Commission Report, released on 7 July 1937. From INN. The Peel Commission recognised that there was an insoluble conflict in Palestine between the Arabs and Jews, necessitating the partition of Palestine into two independent sovereign states. There was no mention of a third interested party - the ‘Palestinians’ or ‘the Palestinian people’ - who also deserved a separate state. This ‘people’ was the subsequent creation of skillful Arab propaganda in the 1950's and '60's in response to Israel's creation in 1948. The Peel Commission Report succinctly summed up the nature of the conflict in the following words:” (READ MORE)
TigerHawk: Our bi-polar attitude toward Iran “Public discussion of American policy toward Iran has become bi-polar. On the one hand, virtually all of the political left (and the isolationist wing of the right) are desperate to avoid another war in the Muslim world or anything approximating it. There are many reasons for this desperation, ranging from the rough sledding in Iraq to an intense desire to refocus on domestic policy to the fear that even speaking directly about Iran's war against the U.S. will create ‘excess demand’ for military action. Then there are rank political considerations:” (READ MORE)
Dan Riehl: Where's The Moderation? “Two important reads, one from the UK and one the US, on radical Islam. It looks like Moderate Islam, but is it, really? First lgf on CAIR insinuating itself into our politics, despite being tagged as a dubious organization ... and the White House's continued failure to speak out against radicals dressed as moderates. And then this from the UK. And No, it won't do!” (READ MORE)
Redstate: June was a better month “It was still a tough month, but June was the first month when U.S. forces were fully manned and operational, and it marked the beginning of Operation Phantom Thunder, which started June 16th. But first, the numbers. Civilian casualties in Baghdad are down. The killings are down in both categories. The ‘other killings’ include the spectacular suicide bombings that are the trademark of al Qaeda and affiliates. Civilian casualties elsewhere in Iraq are way down, and this would include the belt provinces surrounding Baghdad, where al Qaeda has been most active.” (READ MORE)
McQ: The differences between right and left “One of them is neatly summed up in this post at Suburban Guerilla, where, talking about the death of a leftist blogger, Susie tells us that leftist bloggers are owed support (something, she says, the Democrats are woefully poor at providing) by those they support: ‘Someone from either the Democratic party or some liberal organization showed up a few years back at the Philadelphia Drinking Liberally to ask the question, “What do bloggers want?” She had, of course, already answered the question: Free Lexis-Nexis access! One account to be shared by I don’t know how many bloggers!’” (READ MORE)
A.M. Mora y Leon: Millions Of Colombians March Against FARC Marxist Narcoterrorists “As in Cuba and Venezuela, white is rapidly becoming the color of freedom and democratic revolution through the Western hemisphere. Millions of Colombians, all clad in white, marched through Bogota, Cali, Medellin and other cities to protest the murderous kidnappings by the FARC Marxist narcoterrorist guerrillas, who have made war on this unlucky country for more than 44 years. FARC currently holds 3000 people hostage in its jungle redoubts, in the name of forcing Marxism on an unwilling nation. Three of those hostages are Americans.” (READ MORE)
Pros and Cons: Irony all around on NPR and other news venues this morning - with rolling updates “Jamie Gorelick, author of the most stringent of the ‘wall’ memos, the ones that prevented intelligence sfrom sharing data with law enforcement prior to 9-11, AND one of the people who fought hardest to prevent the Clinton White House from sharing information with the incoming Bush White House in 2001 as Gore and Bush duked it out in the courts, talks about a very real problem - the weaknesses of a government in transition as departments turn over and institutional memory disappears (in the case of Sandy Bertger, by design). This is especially relevant in light of the UK bomb plots. Golly, who would know that problem better than one who exacerbated it in early 2001? Why does that year ring a bell, I wonder?” (READ MORE)
Augean Stables: What Me Worry? Buruma Tackles the Islamofascist Threat “I was sitting in the airport and struck up a conversation with an interesting fellow, headmaster of a boy’s high school. He asked me what I do, and I replied that I was trained as a medievalist, working on the 21st century manifestations of medieval phenomena. ‘Oh, you mean like George Bush?’ he shot back without missing a beat (i.e., pausing to think). ‘No, precisely not George Bush. No medieval ruler would tolerate a fraction of the criticism that Bush puts up with every day,’ I replied, thinking of the last (very funny) John Stewart and Colbert shows I’d just seen.” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Fun with numbers, part 2 “John Wixted writes in response to Paul's ‘Fun with numbers’ regarding this Washington Post story by Joshua Partlow: ‘The folks at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count track the number of dead bodies found on the streets of Baghdad every single day (as reported by the media). I tabulate their numbers, and I reported them most recently here (look at my third graph). The number of dead bodies found on the streets of Baghdad was 735 in January and 540 in June (a 27 percent drop).’” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: News Flash: Another RINO Has It Both Ways! “So yet another Republican who is much more liberal than the mainstream of the GOP conference, Pete Domenici (R-NM, 75%), has broken ranks with the president and come out against the Iraq war... though he cautions he won't vote to end it, either. Domenici joins such Republican conservative stalwarts as Dick Lugar (IN, 64%), George Voinovich (OH, 56%), Olympia Snowe (ME, 36%), Susan Collins (ME, 48%), Arlen Specter (PA, 43%), Chuck Hagel (NE, 75%), Norm Coleman (MN, 68%), and John Warner (VA, 64%). Remember, the percentages above represent how many times the senator voted with the American Conservative Union. To the elite media, a senator like Pete Domenici represents a ‘GOP stalwart’:” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Domenici Wavers “George Bush's efforts in Iraq took a blow yesterday when Republican Senator Pete Domenici announced that he wants American troops out of combat areas in Iraq by early next year. Oddly, he insisted that he didn't want a withdrawal, leaving his vision of American involvement unclear: ‘White House efforts to keep congressional Republicans united over the Iraq war suffered another major defection yesterday as Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) broke with President Bush and called for an immediate change in U.S. strategy that could end combat operations by spring.’” (READ MORE)
Ft. Hard Knox: Digg’s New Censorship Strategy? “I tried to Digg an article from a site today. It’s called Defense against Islam Helped Forge the United States of America, on Foehammer’s Anvil. Instead of the normal screen requesting a title and story description, I received a red exclamation point, with the following message: ‘URL Blocked: This URL has been widely reported by users as being regularly used to Spam Digg’s submission process and cannot be submitted at this time.’ Huh?! I looked through Foehammer’s site, and looked for anything that would normally be considered “Spam.” I looked for obnoxious self-promotion, attempts to sell something to readers or Diggers, ads eating up an inordinate amount of bandwidth…I found nothing of the sort.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: The battle at the Red Mosque “The confrontation between the Taliban-supporting Islamists of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and the Pakistani government in the heart of Islamabad appears to be moving towards the end game. With yesterday's capture of Maulana Abdul Aziz, the leader of the Lal Masjid, and the surrender of upwards of 1,400 students, the hard-core Islamists inside are now in a stand off with the Pakistani Army, the Pakistani Rangers and the Islamabad police.” (READ MORE)
Gribbit: Dems Launch 300 Investigations In 100 Days “Utilizing the prevailing theory being if they put enough lines in the water, they are bound to catch at least 1 fish, Congress is pulling out all the stops in order to find ANYTHING that can be construed as improper. A report out of Washington from Yahoo News quotes White House Spokesman Scott Stanzel as saying, ‘They’ve launched over 300 investigations, had over 350 requests for documents and interviews and they have had over 600 oversight hearings in just about 100 days.’ Talk about overkill.” (READ MORE)
MountainRunner: Contracting out national security: connecting the dots of the media surge “Wow, the media is surging on the contractor front again. From T. Christian Miller's Los Angeles Times article comparing the number of US-paid contractors in Iraq to American military forces to James Risen's New York Times article telling us
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