A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
NSA Spying Part of Broader Effort - The Bush administration's chief intelligence official said yesterday that President Bush authorized a series of secret surveillance activities under a single executive order in late 2001. The disclosure makes clear that a controversial National Security Agency program was part of a much broader... (READ MORE)
House Votes 411-8 to Pass Ethics Overhaul - The House gave final and overwhelming approval yesterday to a landmark bill that would tighten ethics and lobbying rules for Congress, forcing lawmakers to more fully detail how their campaigns are funded and how they direct government spending. (READ MORE)
Earmarks As Usual - It's almost too stereotypical to be true: Even as the FBI and IRS raided the home of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens this week as part of a corruption investigation, Congress is quietly moving to dismantle serious earmark reform. If the Members are wondering why their approval ratings have gone subterranean, this is it. Not that they've had time for soul-searching amid all their self-congratulation over yesterday's House passage of its ethics and lobbying bill, 411-8. (READ MORE)
U.N. Authorizes Darfur Mission - The U.N. Security Council yesterday authorized a new peacekeeping mission for Darfur, a complex military effort with 26,000 African and U.N. forces under a single command that will be the largest ever attempted by the world body. (READ MORE)
House Passes Ethics Overhaul - The Democrat-led House overwhelmingly approved tougher rules governing the relationship between lawmakers and lobbyists, and on legislators trying to slip "pork" projects into spending bills. (READ MORE)
Rice, Gates Urge Mideast to Control Borders - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in a rare joint mission to the Middle East, yesterday urged Saudi Arabia and other neighbors of Iraq to adopt tougher border controls to stem the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq. (READ MORE)
GOP Slams 'Giant Leap' to Social Health Care - Republicans and the White House say Democrats are pursuing a "giant leap" toward socialized health care by trying to draw middle-class families into a federally funded health insurance program for low-income children. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Badger 6: The Final Roll Call Grows “You will notice four new names added to the list of memorial services I have attended. Fortunately the chance to attend these services has gone down, but it has not disappeared. They were three Marines and one Sailor from a unit that is associated with us. They were on a long range mission in a distant province when a sophisticated road side bomb destroyed their vehicle.” (READ MORE)
Hard Soldier: Where the hell have you been? “Ok I get it so I have been gone for quite a while and have left all of my great readers without anything to read for over a month, well no more will you sit salivating staring at your computer screens in anticipation for the new hardsoldier blog to be posted. Allow me to explain my absence, you see I'm in this placed called Iraq and there just so happens to be a war or something going on and while I am trying to keep myself sane and alive it's kind of hard to get to a computer and write down what's going on in the life of a deployed soldier. So, you want to know what my new pet peeve is you'll never guess.” (READ MORE)
Jake's Life: We're really starting to get spoiled “The first three days were pretty much cake. We were expecting that to continue the final three days, but at the midway point we were told we were going to an area called Rufush. Now I'm going to have to put this in perspective for you. Rufush is a place that we have only seen labeled on a map. All that we have ever been told about Rufush is that it's THE al Qaeda stronghold in the Zaidon.” (READ MORE)
Matt Sanchez: Beauchamp “After a helicopter ride around Baghdad, this afternoon I arrived at Forward Operating Base Falcon, where the mood was somber. The Army has begun an official investigation into The New Republic articles of the ‘Baghdad Diarist’, Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Officials at the Army Public Affairs Office (PAO) pointed out that until the initial allegations are investigated, there will be little or nothing to add to what has already been publicly released. Still many questions about facts, accountability and credibility remain.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Douglas MacKinnon: Illegal Aliens Declare War on the United States “In Virginia illegal aliens have just basically declared war on the county, law and order, and the very livelihood of innocent Americans. They have done so, and no one in Washington really seems to care.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: The Latest Mexican War “Let's take Mexico's figurative battle first, the ‘political fight for modernization.’ Figurative, however, doesn't mean without the threat of severe civil disorder.” (READ MORE)
John Stossel: Economic Illiteracy “When I speak on college campuses, students often ask what can be done about the ‘problem’ of young people who don't care enough to vote.” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Border Cash Comes With a Side of Pork “President Bush issued a veto threat on a pork-laden homeland security spending bill and outraged an anti-illegal immigration group that complained a veto would scuttle $3 billion in border funding.” (READ MORE)
Kathleen Parker: Hillary's Letters to a Young Friend “All over America, boomer women are praying that there is no John Peavoy in their past. That is to say, no erstwhile friend who saved their college letters and feels compelled to share them with The New York Times.” (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg: Too Uninformed to Vote? “Can you name all three branches of government? Can you name even one? Do you know who your congressman is? Your senators? Do you even know how many senators each state gets? If you know the answers to these questions (and you probably do because you're a newspaper reader), you're in the minority.” (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Economic Thinking “Historical costs, sometimes called sunk costs, are irrelevant to decision-making because they are costs that have already been incurred. That's something that's not intuitively obvious, even for some trained economists. On a couple of occasions, I've recommended to a graduate student, having difficulty with his Ph.D. dissertation, that it might be wise to start all over again with a different topic.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Defeatism Defeated? “If victory in Iraq was oversold at the outset, there are now signs that defeat is likewise being oversold today.” (READ MORE)
Jurgen Reinhoudt: Wrong Turn “In Europe, reforms are in vogue. Though many special interests are fiercely resisting change, it is striking to see just how many European Social Democrats have come to recognize the need for structural reforms to welfare states. Witness Gerhard Schröder, the center-left former chancellor of Germany: in 2003, he called for a ‘change of mentality’ in his own party, the SPD, as well as in German society as a whole.” (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Bush, Biden Turn Tables on Iraq War Lies; Gathering of Eagles, Move America Forward Building Momentum “In just one short week the tide of anti-war rhetoric in both the mainstream media and among Democratic presidential candidates has done a 180 degree turnabout, with former doom and gloomers now saying a military victory just might be possible! To what or whom do we owe this sudden turn of events?” (READ MORE)
Winds of Change: John Quiggin, Scott Beauchamp (and Jamail Hussein and Karen Toshima) “Once again, we're dealing with the issue of conditions in Iraq, which those who oppose the war (most of whom opposed the war from the beginning and are proud to have done so) saying things like the comment left by John Quiggin in the post on News, Good, Bad, and Fake: ‘Interesting. On the one hand, the point that the general situation in Iraq is so terrible as to make disputes over minor points in a single story irrelevant is dismissed with "fake but accurate".’” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Standing Up For Immigrants “One of the elements of the illegal alien debate that most irks me is the blurring of the distinction between legal aliens and illegal aliens, often slurred into the overarching category of ‘immigrants.’ It's odd, because it's usually the left that claims to be the party of ‘nuances,’ while accusing the right of seeing everything as ‘black and white.’ Here's a perfect example from the AP, courtesy of the Boston Globe.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Video) Hitchens clashes with CAIR leader over Pace Koran prosecution; Update: Robert Spencer responds to Hooper “From tonight’s Paula Zahn. This one dragged on for 12 minutes so I’ve got to do in two parts. Part one is the main event: arguably the world’s foremost atheist butting heads with CAIR tool extraordinaire Ibrahim Hooper over how, in a world where Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs 24/7 protection and American news bureaus censor their own coverage of the Danish cartoons for fear of stirring up jihad...” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Praise Allah and Pass the AmmuNikes “Allah never did much for Richard Reid. Transformed him from a two-bit British punk to an international laughingstock, I guess that’s something. But in his Colorado supermax cell, Shoe Bomber Dick’s faith is strong: ‘I had a couple of good dreams about my situation changing for the better in the not too distant future so this is a blessing from Allah.’” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Barack Obomber “Via Michelle Malkin, I see where Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has promised to invade Pakistan. Is it insanity or stupidity — or did he really, really inhale in mass quantities? Pakistan is only the second largest Muslim country, well-armed with fierce mountain people. I live in West Virginia. Please, watch ‘Deliverance’ before even thinking about taking on mountain people.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Senate GOP Caucus Caving On Earmarks? “The British newspaper The Guardian reports that the watered-down version of ethics reform will apparently get Republican backing after all in the Senate. Despite removing requirements for certification by chamber parliamentarians for earmark compliance, the elimination of searchability, and the restriction of the definition of personal benefit to an impossibility for enforcement, the Minority Leader and the Republican Whip both indicated that they would press the caucus to pass the bill:” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: Locking Out The Politics “One afternoon after school, I was listening to few videos from both the CNN Database, and the FoxNews Database. I don’t often watch television, but I do like hearing and seeing my news above reading it. Sometimes, if I could find a transcript of the video, then I would listen to the talk and read along, so in that sense I would read(other than books and magazines that is). Well, I came across a Fox News video being anchored by David Asman. For those of you who don’t know, he’s a father-in-law of a United States Marine.” (READ MORE)
Blackfive: That Which Others Did Not Want To Be “‘I was that which others did not want to be. I went where others feared to go. And did what others failed to do. I asked nothing from those who gave nothing, and reluctantly accepted the thought of eternal loneliness, should I fail. I have seen the face of terror, felt the cold sting of fear, and enjoyed the sweet taste of a moment of love. I have cried, pained and hoped, but most of all I have lived times others would say were best forgotten. At least someday I will be able to say I was proud of what I was!’” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: To Heck With Our Enemies, Let’s Invade Our Allies “Barack Obama, in what can only be described as insanity, has just made a speech warning that he would invade Pakistan if he felt that government was not doing enough to curb terrorists. Harshly critical or the Iraq war, he proposes invading an ally.” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: Pandering to the far-Left “I saw this article from Ralph Peters and found it interesting; especially in light of recent commentary I provided regarding the Democrats desire to see us lose in Iraq. I feel compelled to add my two cents on the subject (something I’ve done ad nauseum in the past and will undoubtedly do in the future).” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Al Qaeda leader calls for the overthrow of Pakistan's Musharraf “Al Qaeda has weighed in on the Pakistani government's military assault on the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad last month. As Sahab productions, the media outlet for al Qaeda's central leadership, released a 21 minute tape by Abu Yahya al Libi, a senior al Qaeda leader who has served as a spokesman and released numerous propaganda videos. In the video, titled ‘Of the Masters of Martyrs,’ al Libi praised the followers of the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa as ‘martyrs.’” (READ MORE)
Quid Nimis: Believe It or Not, 3 “By coincidence, as I was delving in to the ‘Shock Troops’ silliness, I read a piece by Michael Yon that seemed to address pretty directly the issue of what gets ‘reported’ from Iraq. Pvt. Beauchamp is an ambitious young man with an ideological bent: he is agenda driven, and that agenda is to become ‘an author’ and frankly, a leftwing author at that. Read his blog: he retreats to Gramsci for comfort and calls T.S. Eliott a ‘crypto-fascist.’ Michael Yon, on the other hand, is a journalist who goes where the action is and reports it. He doesn't take money from any news organization, he documents and references everything carefully, and when he can't get corroboration, says so.” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: NYT: “Our readers are stupid” “The New York Times - uniquely, among the mass media outlets, has apparently come to the conclusion that its readership is stupid. For evidence, one need only read their report on yesterday’s confirmation hearings for current Chief of Naval Operations and Joint Chiefs Chairman-nominee Admiral Michael G. Mullens. Part of any JCS Chairman’s concern will be supressing the threat presented by Islamist terror groups like Al Qaeda, the homicidal boys club led until fairly recently by Osama bin Dirtnappin’. Al Qaeda claims responsibility for the worst terror attacks ever sustained on the US homeland and continues to issue credible threats against the democratic West.” (READ MORE)
McQ: A note of caution about the present situation and our future in Iraq “I’ve had a bit of fun the last couple of days yanking the chain of various anti-war leftists about a few reports that have said things look somewhat better in Iraq. I want to make it clear that I’m not claiming it’s over, nor am I claiming we’ve turned the corner, or that they’re in their "last throes. Nor am I saying success is guaranteed. That’s because none of those claims would be true.” (READ MORE)
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