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)
Venezuela Vote a Loss for Chavez - Opposition leaders sounded victorious as last-minute vote counting indicated a sound rejection of President Hugo Chavez's proposals to alter the constitution in order to establish a communist state in Venezuela, despite early predictions of a victory for the government. (READ MORE)
Presidential Race Revives Workplace Debate - A Democratic victory in the 2008 presidential election would reignite the fight between big labor and big business over a contentious workplace-safety issue. (READ MORE)
'Nonpartisan' Groups help Hillary's Bid - An extensive political network of advocacy think tanks and bloggers that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign donors helped create and bankroll is playing a strategic role in her bid for the White House. (READ MORE)
HIV Trial Baffles Doctors - A potential HIV vaccine recently failed a key clinical trial, and top government and drug-industry scientists also are investigating whether Merck's STEP vaccine can increase some people's chances of catching the virus that causes AIDS. (READ MORE)
Russian Voters Turn Out For Putin - MOSCOW, Dec. 2 -- President Vladimir Putin secured a convincing personal victory in Russia's parliamentary election Sunday and with it, his allies say, the "moral authority" he had demanded to maintain political influence in the country after he steps down next year. (READ MORE)
Losing Ground In Iowa, Clinton Assails Obama - CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Dec. 2 -- With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character, challenging his integrity and... (READ MORE)
Paris Suburb Hit by Rioting Tries Healing Power of Talk - VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France -- Desperate to stop the violence after two nights of rioting, social workers, parents, politicians and activists in this tense suburb north of Paris threw open the doors of a local community center last Tuesday night and urged the town's youths to come and vent their rage at a meeting, rather than in the streets. (READ MORE)
Venezuelans Deny Chávez Additional Authority - CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 3 -- Venezuelan voters delivered a stinging defeat to President Hugo Chávez on Sunday, blocking proposed constitutional changes that would have given him political supremacy and accelerated the transformation of this oil-rich country into a socialist state. (READ MORE)
Oil for Food Convictions - Prosecutions in the U.N. Oil for Food scandal are starting to yield convictions -- in the U.S., that is. Would that other countries, far more deeply enmeshed in the world's largest public fraud, followed America's lead. Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt was sentenced recently to a year and a day in prison and fined $11 million for paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime. Swiss oil company Vitol also pleaded guilty, and agreed to pay restitution to the tune of $17.4 million. (READ MORE)
An Inconvenient Reduction - Thousands of government officials, diplomats, NGO folks and journalists are in Bali this week for the United Nations' global warming powwow. While they try to outline an even tougher set of restrictions on so-called greenhouse gases to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, we'll venture that little will be said about America's record on curbing emissions without such caps. It's too big an embarrassment to the assembled worthies. (READ MORE)
Immigration Phonies - When not fielding questions from Democratic moles at last week's GOP Presidential debate, Anderson Cooper and CNN had a grand time portraying Republican voters as Bible-thumping, gun-wielding Confederacy hold-outs. On immigration, however, the candidates didn't need any media help as they continued their descent into self-parody. Mitt Romney persisted in attacking Rudy Giuliani for turning New York into a "sanctuary city," an accusation that even the restrictionist editors at National Review have come around to dismissing as "spurious."(READ MORE)
From the Front:
Northern Disclosure: green to gold - I wrote a post the other day prematurely or perhaps I am clairvoyant but I wrote about the Army putting me in a place where I can see my friends. One of the first ones I mention was a man by the name of Brad Diebold. He like me is (was) a Canadian serving in the US Army. We were privates together and deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division to the Balkans together back in the 90's. Yeah like that was so long ago right, but it was and a lot has happened since then. We talk via phone annually and email more frequently but with deployments and such we don't get much more than that. (READ MORE)
Iraq Pundit: Unwelcome Advances? - Sunni leader Adnan Duleimi went with Mouwaffak Rubei'i, Iraq's national security adviser, to the Rashid hotel in Baghdad today where Duleimi said he would attend the next parliamentary session. Duleimi had claimed he was under house arrest after U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested his son and several bodyguards in connection with car bombs found at the politician's compound. But government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said there was no decision to keep the Accord Front leader at home. Duleimi's colleagues had refused to attend parliament in protest. (READ MORE)
ETT PA-C: Watching the World Expand - Well, let me see here. Most of our time lately has been consumed with the basics......watching the development, or lack there of, Camp Georgia. It's going to be a roomier spot for our little corner of the world that will allow for a little bit of privacy. Right now, as I've stated before, I feel like our monkey, Georgia, in the cage being stared at by every Tom, Dick and Muhammad that walks by. (READ MORE)
Eighty Deuce On The Loose In Iraq: The patrol from hell... - It is good to be back at the FOB, let me tell you. The last venture out in to the city was another long one, lasting a couple days, and my God did it suck ass. Time dragged on for what seemed like an eternity, and it was a tester on the moral of the soldier. To make matters worse, my understanding of the deployments of Vietnam have changed. I had always thought that deployments were 2 years, but apparently it was 1. The whole time I had it in my head that if they did 2 back then, well 15 months isn't bad. Now that bubble has been burst. (READ MORE)
Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure: Afghanistan and Afghans; Random Observations II - Afghanistan is starkly beautiful. The landscape stands in sharp relief against the sky. There is very little gentleness in the land, and the rock itself makes dramatic statements in so many instances that the drama and violence of earthly birth become a theme. The very seams of the earth are exposed here. In huge rock formations jutting hundreds and thousands of feet skyward, the layers of rock and the sharp prow of the mass that has cut itself free of the earth like a tooth cutting through gum are so clear, so evident. It almost looks too simple. (READ MORE)
Desert Dude: 1 December - Today I got up feeling pretty good—still got the cold thing going on, but I feel happy and I am in a great mood… don’t really know why—didn’t sleep well at all, tossing and turning, waking up coughing and sneezing…hot, cold, sweating, freezing… you know, the normal flu crap…but, whatever, I’m happy…so I went out to the shop and cleaned up a little…put tools away and swept up a little…then a Sgt. came by with the other truck we said we would work on…I was ready to work…I went straight to wrenching… (READ MORE)
All Expenses Paid Afghan Vacation: 100 days - I am glad to say we are now under the 100 days remaining milestone for being in country, passing it sometime within a 2 week time frame plus or minus from now (OPSEC) . It’s hard to imagine I have been in country now for 8 and a half months and it’s been 11 months since I left home to start our mobilization training at FT Bragg. We’ve gotten word about our replacements coming and I can say I should be home in Arizona by the end of March…maybe 1st week of April at the latest (nothing is ever set in stone in the Army). We have also heard that with the new National Guard and Reservist deployments that the total deployable time will be reduced from the standard 15 months to 12 months max, including mobilization time…meaning they’ll probably only be in country for 10 months…lucky bastards. (READ MORE)
Tragically Famous: Red Jump'start this deployment' Apparatus - 0700 will be coming soon. It's the time that the packers and movers will be around the barracks on post. We all feel it coming. Slowly, surely, subconsciously... only a few days remain with those we hold dear in our hearts. Could we get this 'deployment' show on the road already? I've got laundry to do afterwards.. not to mention, the crematorium needs to tend to my closet. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Star Parker: Questions about character cost Clinton - The honesty and transparency themes are driving much of voter sentiment in this election. It helps explain the surprising success of Republican candidate Mike Huckabee. And we see similar dynamics with the Democratic candidates. Consider a "The Economist/YouGov'' poll out last week. When Democratic voters were asked which phrases they would use to describe their candidates, results included the following: (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Slick Willie Rides Again - Of course Bill Clinton was against the war in Iraq from the beginning. It's proven unpopular. It would be different if the war had gone better, as it has in Afghanistan. Bill Clinton's still for that one. There's a phrase for someone who'll stick with you through thick and then and in-between: A man to tie to. Bill Clinton's the opposite. Not only does he disappear when the going gets tough, he was never with you from the first - at least to hear him tell it. With him, history is one of the plastic arts. (READ MORE)
Donald Lambro: Not Everyone Loves Huckabee - WASHINGTON -- It is very rare, if not unheard of, to catch a presidential candidate, especially a Republican, in the act of saying he or she would be willing to sign any tax increase that lawmakers wished for.But that's what happened to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has rocketed to a statistical tie in Iowa with Mitt Romney, largely as a result of the former Baptist minister's support from evangelical voters in the nation's first caucus state. (READ MORE)
Robert D. Novak: Will Musharraf Rig? - WASHINGTON -- Diplomats at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad could hardly believe what President George W. Bush said to anchor Charles Gibson on ABC "World News" Nov. 20. He described Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf as "somebody who believes in democracy" and declared: "I understand how important he is in fighting extremists and radicals." Was the president of the United States issuing Musharraf a free pass to rig next month's Pakistan elections? That was not Bush's intention. But lavishing such praise on the general who has ruled through military force led to assumptions in Pakistan that the U.S. would blink at election-rigging. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: Ebonic Plague: The New Black Death - Bertis English, an Assistant Professor of History at Alabama State University is displeased with my recent column, “Hooked on Ebonics.” He wrote the following to me just a few days ago: “Professor Adams, I just read your piece ‘Hooked on Ebonics’ at Townhall.com, which I receive daily. Though I am, of course, familiar with the general platform of the site, as well as its contributors and readership, I was, frankly, taken aback by the seeming ignorance, rambling et cetera of you—a purported academician— in the referenced piece. One, are you familiar with the development of so-called Ebony Phonics, or Ebonics, particularly its 1970s roots and the acidic issues that were debates among certain Oakland school officials during the 1990s? Two, are you truly serious about having your inquiries answered?” (READ MORE)
Douglas MacKinnon: We Are Americans - Presidential scholars may look back at New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's desire to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens as one of the defining moments of the 2008 election. For it was the pushing of that issue that not only threw the Clinton campaign off its tightly controlled script, but may have finally awakened the silent majority of American voters to the issue of their time. Americans, by and large, are a fair and forgiving people. But over the last couple of years, some on the left, and some who favor amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, have exhausted that well of fairness and forgiveness with a steady stream of invective and ugly accusations aimed at those with whom they disagree. (READ MORE)
Rudy Giuliani: The Meaning of Fiscal Conservatism - With economic uncertainty weighing on the minds of many Americans, Congress is preparing to recess after another year of profligate spending, protectionist talk and promises of higher taxes. No wonder some people feel like we're moving in the wrong direction. But I'm optimistic as I look to the future. It's not our country that's moving in the wrong direction -- it's Congress, and Washington's culture of wasteful spending. (READ MORE) [reg req]
John Fund: Rogan's Run - How much more partisan and petty can Washington get? California's Sen. Barbara Boxer is refusing even to allow a hearing for a judicial nominee who has the backing of prominent Democrats, in part because she harbors a decade-old grudge about the Clinton impeachment. Jim Rogan, now a California Superior Court judge, was a member of the House Judiciary Committee back in 1998, when it fell on him to be one of the 13 managers making the case before the Senate for Mr. Clinton's conviction. It was generally understood at the time that Mr. Rogan's role was unpopular in his Pasadena-based district and could cost him his political career. (READ MORE)
Dan Gerstein: The Oprah Factor - It's tempting to write off the celebrity-endorsement bout between the Obama and Clinton campaigns--with Oprah Winfrey in Barack Obama's corner and Barbra Streisand in Hillary Clinton's--as just another episode of the Democratic Party's long-running series of superstar superficiality. But there's actually a meaningful and telling metaphor wrapped up in this fleeting game of dueling divas, one that helps explain why Sen. Obama's much-hyped yet largely unfulfilling candidacy is finally breaking through, and why the Clinton juggernaut appears (at least for the moment) to be breaking down. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Surprise; Chavez Loses Constitutional "Reform" Vote - I'm frankly stunned. [T]hugo Chavez lost his bid to move Venezuela one step closer to the socialist dictatorship Chavez always wanted. On top of that, he actually didn't contest the vote or claim that the US interfered. He admitted he lost on national television. “It was the first major electoral defeat in the nine years of his presidency. Voters rejected the 69 proposed amendments 51 to 49 percent.” (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Public Opinion Rebounds on Iraq - In a little reported development in the mainstream press, public opinion on the Iraq war is showing continued improvement. These findings come from the Pew Research Center's new Iraq poll out this week: "For the first time in a long time, nearly half of Americans express positive opinions about the situation in Iraq. A growing number says the U.S. war effort is going well, while greater percentages also believe the United States is making progress in reducing the number of Iraqi casualties, defeating the insurgents and preventing a civil war in Iraq." While we're seeing positive change, the Pew findings indicate that the public's good and tired of our long slog toward consolidating Iraq's democracy. As casualties continue to decline, however, and as more positive coverage of the war emerges in the press, we should see additional improvement in the polling numbers. (READ MORE)
Ace of Spades: Heartache: Mary Katharine Ham sides with the "deciders" - Mary Katharine is a friend of mine. I take no pleasure in publicly disagreeing with her. But, I think her take on the CNN/YouTube debate is wrong. So at the risk of being grumpy old Lou Grant to her "turn the world on with her smile" Mary Richards, I'm going to tell you why. Now, MKH titles her latest blog entry "Should We Republicans, Young and Old, Pretty Much Confirm the Old Fogey Republican Stereotype for all time by Torpedoing New Technology Experiments and Debates in Light of the Problems with this one?" She admits that she is intentionally tweaking folks with the title. And it is a rhetorically funny question. Except that I'm here to answer "Yes." (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: Hillary “presidential” and far away - UPDATED - Ann Althouse is wondering if yesterday’s hostage incident affects the way we feel about Hillary Clinton. She and her commenters note the glowing tones of the press who carry on about how “calm” and “presidential” Clinton seemed while she was hundreds of miles away from the incident. I missed the whole story and don’t really care; I know the press will always shine Mrs. Clinton’s image as much as possible. I was a little surprised, though, to get an email from my Li’l Bro Thom - the least cynical person I know - remarking on how convenient the whole hostage drama was - coming on Friday and ending just in time for the nightly news broadcast. “Bad Thom,” I said, “that’s very cynical.” He agreed. (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Hold NAACP's Doc Cheatham to His Word - In the middle part of November a noose was found at a Baltimore City fire station by two paramedics, one black and one white. According to Henry Burris, the president of the Vulcan Blazers, a black firefighters group, there was a note with the noose that read; «We can't hang the cheaters but we can hang the failures.» This was evidently in reference to a promotion exam given in the fire department in which several blacks placed in the top of the people who took the test. There were allegations that the test was leaked and that cheating was involved. This noose, of course, caused a big stink. Nooses are taboo in our society because they bring up memories about a terrible past that no one alive today has been forced to live. Black leaders all over were indignant about this crime. (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Sudan pardons the Teddy Bear teacher - CNN reports that "Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir pardoned a British teacher convicted of insulting religion, presidential palace sources said. ... Without a pardon, she would have remained in jail another six days." “The pardon came following efforts by Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, Muslim members of the House of Lords, to persuade the Sudanese government that releasing Gibbons would create international goodwill toward their country.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Ouch, What a Nickname! - Because of her propensity for dodging reporters, ducking questions, and avoiding any substantive answers even when she's cornered, Washington Post staffer Howard Kurtz has now given Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Carpetbag, 95%) a new nickname: She's officially the "Catch me if you can" candidate […] Hillary Clinton and especially her handlers seem to do everything they can to prevent any sort of meaningful exchange between "Milady de Winter" and the fourth estate, even physically throwing a block, as in this case. Except for carefully controlled, coordinated, and (I suspect) carefully scripted events -- such as an interview with CBS's Katie Couric earlier this month -- Team Hillary allows only canned communications from the candidate: speeches, e-mails, and blog posts that can be vetted by the staff. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: TNR's Iraq And A Hard Place - The New Republic has published its findings in its internal investigation -- and it goes into great detail before finally retracting the stories of its Baghdad Diarist, Scott Beauchamp. The journey fascinates far more than the destination, a point we all knew they would eventually reach. In the long and meandering path Franklin Foer recounts, some interesting assumptions take place that will not go unchallenged. This account actually generated some sympathy on my part for TNR. They wanted a front-line view of war, and accepted at face value the statements of a soldier serving in Iraq. Most of us who support the military would have that same impulse; after all, we consider the men and women serving this nation as heroes as a default assumption. Unfortunately, Beauchamp proved somewhat unreliable as a correspondent, and TNR made an unforced error by assigning his wife as his editor, a mistake which Foer acknowledges. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: ‘Libertarians’ against free speech - Ron Paul’s supporters shout down Rudy Giuliani. First they spammed the online polls, denying the ability of bloggers to legitimately check public opinion. Now Ron Paul’s supporters are shouting down opponents in a made effort to raise his numbers above 3% in the polls. Given their track record for manipulating the Internet, I doubt seriously that Ron Paul’s money is coming from many individuals. (READ MORE)
Noah Shachtman: How Our Intel Analysts Were Lobotomized - President Nixon and his top national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, thought the reports they received from the Central Intelligence Agency suffered from "serious defects," newly declassified documents show, and prompted them to complain repeatedly about the caliber of the reporting to then-CIA Director Richard Helms. “A six-page memorandum Kissinger sent to Nixon, dated Feb. 16, 1971 and marked ‘Top Secret,’ reminded the president of the ‘weaknesses’ present in the 47-page 1969 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the ‘strategic attack capabilities’ of the Soviet Union . . . ‘Most serious,’ Kissinger wrote, ‘was a lack of sharply defined, clearly-argued discussions of the characteristics and purposes of Soviet strategic forces. It was too often satisfied with reciting facts and reluctant to raise fundamental questions about their significance. Judgments and background which often underlie conclusions were not made explicit.’” Sadly, this sounds disturbingly familiar. (READ MORE)
The Hatemonger's Quarterly: Another Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell - Well, our pals on the far Left have yet another gleaming example of liberal media bias to scoff at or ignore. As you undoubtedly know by now, dear reader, CNN flew in a fellow named Keith H. Kerr to ask a question about gays in the military at the recent CNN-Youtube Republican presidential debate. And, as it turns out, Mr. Kerr is something of a shill, since he had been part of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s steering committee on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. Thus he wasn’t exactly the sort of undecided Republican who ought to have been asking questions of the prospective Republican presidential nominees. (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: And now for some shoddy war reporting…from an NRO milblogger - Update: Kathryn Lopez has more details about the chronology and reports that NRO is “taking a look at the Smith archive and will give you a full assessment in the coming days because we owe that to our readers.” Good. Ugh. This is bad on many levels. W. Thomas Smith, Jr., a former Marine and milblogger who writes at National Review Online’s The Tank (and whose work in Iraq I’ve praised and linked to here), posts a long-winded defense of bogus, shoddy reporting he published while he was in Lebanon earlier this fall. It’s painful to read because he takes nearly 1,400 words to get to the main points: (READ MORE)
Patrick S Lasswell: Fisking KINK - Woke Up this Morning and I Got Myself a Fisk - Yesterday I got angry, today I decided to get mean and get help. I couldn't sleep this morning thinking about how badly biased, patronizing, and out of touch the KINK-FM commentary about deploying the Oregon Guard was. Since the author of this epistle refuses to discuss his lapses with me, I've decided to discuss them with you and try to get your assistance. Please visit the KINK site and leave your comments about their editorial. Please be respectful and serious, because that is the best way to drive the message home. Yesterday I had to prod the general manager to get the transcript published on the web site. KINK normally posts its broadcast editorials, but for some reason they were three weeks behind on doing so. This is probably due to a change in web page software, we all know what that's like, but it didn't improve the quality of their expression to have that lapse. Here's what they had to say: (READ MORE)
McQ: Bravery isn’t just found in a firefight - I think you’ll enjoy this story. It is the script of what I’ll be presenting tonight on Pundit Review radio’s "Someone You Should Know" segment. The story comes from a Gina Cavallaro piece in the Military Times. There’s also a video at that link which is a "must see". One of the fears of any soldier going into combat is, of course, that he will be wounded. That’s completely natural. But that sets a soldier to thinking about how he will be cared for. Of course they usually know their own medic and are usually confident in their skills and know that he or she will do everything in their power to treat and save them. But what if the wound is worse than that? What if it is life threatening. For most soldiers, that is the great unknown. I want to take some time tonight to tell you a story and highlight some people all along the line who risked their own lives to save the life of a badly wounded young infantryman. (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: Newt Nails It - Many of us on the right are increasingly dissatisfied with the Bush Administration's handling of the "war on terror". Most of us aren't even really happy with that term, and those of us who accept it tend to do so only because either they don't think it can be changed or because none of the other choices seem better. The president started out strong after 9-11, and it seemed that there was a new sheriff in town. The rest of the world saw that after those attacks on our homeland we did not hesitate in quickly going to Afghanistan and routing the Taliban and al Qaeda there. A little over a year later we removed another cancer in the region by quickly smashing the Iraqi army and rolling into Baghdad. The outlaw regimes of the world trembled and the rest of the world looked on in awe. (READ MORE)
Orin Kerr: What Will the Supreme Court Do In Boumediene v. Bush? - In today's New York Times, Linda Greenhouse offers an excellent preview of Wednesday's oral argument in Boumediene v. Bush. What will the Supreme Court do with this case? No one knows, but here's some speculation. For reasons explained in part in my Congressional testimony back in May, I'm pretty confident that there are five votes for the view that the Guantanamo Bay detainees have a constitutional right to the writ of habeas corpus. Justice Kennedy's Rasul concurrence pretty much said so back in 2004, and I doubt Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, and Breyer will disagree now that they're forced to answer that question. The real question becomes, what does that right mean? (READ MORE)
TF Boggs: PTSD - Over the past few weeks NPR interviewed a few soldiers about their experiences since coming back from Iraq. To cut to the chase both soldiers said they have been plagued by PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) and act differently as a result. They also found a way to blame their problems on the administration, as it was they who got us into Iraq upon faulty pretenses in the first place. I always listen to these types of interviews with interest because I want to see if my experiences in Iraq compare to the people being interviewed. What I have realized is that they do more often than not, and when they don’t they really aren’t that far off. I say that because I wonder what causes PTSD in some and not in others. Before I get into the reasons why I believe what I do about PTSD I’ll tell you what it is I think about the disorder to begin with. (READ MORE)
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