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)
Volcker's Demarche - 'You don't have to predict it. We're in it." Thus did Paul Volcker respond to a question Tuesday about whether he still predicted a "dollar crisis" in the coming years. We hope current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is paying attention. Mr. Volcker, a former Fed chief, has a well-earned reputation for straight talk, but there is always strong institutional pressure not to second-guess one's successors at a place like the Federal Reserve. (READ MORE)
'See No Progress'- A useful measure of General David Petraeus's achievement is the turn in the political mood, even in the U.S. Congress. In September, Senators felt entitled to lecture, even berate, the Iraq commander. This time he was accorded more respect, no doubt because the surge is showing results even Democrats can no longer deny. Instead, they ignored them. (READ MORE)
Colombia and Cat - President Bush sent the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress on Tuesday, and Democratic leaders greeted it with a Bronx cheer. No surprise there. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has been promising that the deal won't pass, and we're guessing his confidence has something to do with Big Labor's contributions to the Democratic Party in an election year. (READ MORE)
Bush to Cut Army Tours to 12 Months - President Bush plans to announce today that he will cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, returning rotations to where they were before last year's troop buildup in an effort to alleviate the tremendous stress on the military, administration officials said. (READ MORE)
Stolen NIH Laptop Held Social Security Numbers - Social Security numbers for more than 1,200 participants in a National Institutes of Health study were stored on a stolen laptop containing their medical records, putting those patients at risk of identity theft, agency officials said yesterday. (READ MORE)
Preparing for the Worst in Zimbabwe - MARONDERA, Zimbabwe, April 9 -- The crimson begins at the collar. Its dried, crusty path shows where blood flowed from the head of opposition candidate Felix Muzambi onto his shoulders, down his front and past every one of his buttons. (READ MORE)
Former President Carter to Meet With Hamas Chief - Former president Jimmy Carter plans to meet next week in Damascus with Khaled Meshal, the head of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in a direct rebuke of the Bush administration's campaign to isolate it. (READ MORE)
Citing Agency Officials' Actions After Party, Panel Asks for Probes - A House panel is calling for independent investigations of whether senior U.S. immigration enforcement officials violated federal laws after they honored a white agency employee dressed as an escaped black prisoner at an office Halloween party. (READ MORE)
Senior Al-Qaeda Commander Believed to Be Dead - BERLIN, April 9 -- Al-Qaeda's chief operational planner is believed to have died late last year in a remote part of Pakistan after contracting a fatal illness, a U.S. counterterrorism official said Wednesday. (READ MORE)
Global food riots turn deadly - Deadly clashes over higher costs for staple foods have broken out in Egypt, Haiti and several African states, and an international food expert yesterday warned of more clashes with no short-term relief in sight. (READ MORE)
Bolivia raises hackles with ID - The appearance of a Star of David on new national identity cards has alarmed opponents of President Evo Morales, who recall how the symbol was used to brand Jews in Nazi Germany. (READ MORE)
Iraqi air force lifted by support missions - The Iraqi air force, struggling back to life after being decimated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, played a key role in battles against rebel militiamen in Basra last week, boosting morale among Iraqi troops and providing hope for the country's future. (READ MORE)
Terror planner dies on Afghan border - Senior al Qaeda planner Abu Obeida al Masri, identified by authorities as a key suspect in the 2005 London transit bombings and a foiled 2006 plot to blow up U.S.-bound commercial airliners, has died, U.S. counterterrorism officials said yesterday. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Ann Coulter: Dreams From My Father, Lame Excuses From My Grandfather - Since a Chinese graduate student at Columbia University, Minghui Yu, was killed last Friday when black youths violently set upon him, sending him running into traffic to escape, I think B. Hussein Obama ought to start referring to the mind-set of the "typical Asian person." As of Wednesday, police had no motive for the attack, and witnesses said they heard no demand for money or anything else. The Associated Press reports that the assailant simply said to his friend, "Watch what I do to this guy" before punching Yu. (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: Resolve and Commitment - Observing the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, one profound truth came shining through. And it was Ambassador Crocker who uttered it, as he summarized what the United States faces on two battlefields - the one in Iraq and the political one at home, a major part of which is the presidential campaign. Crocker said, "Developments over the last seven months have strengthened my sense of a positive trend. Immense challenges remain and progress is uneven and often frustratingly slow, but there is progress." (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson: Where Have All the Liberals Gone? - These days Democrats are not sounding very liberal. Classic liberals, after all, would support free markets, internationalism and the universal desire for constitutional government, while downplaying racial affinity. But the following examples highlight how far from these ideals today’s liberals are. Campaigning earlier this year in recession-prone Ohio, both Democratic candidates trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement. Sen. Barack Obama advocated renegotiation of the treaty. And Sen. Hillary Clinton assured voters she had always opposed NAFTA, an agreement that was concluded under her husband’s administration. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: I Am Woman, Hear Me Pout - Recently, I gave a speech at UCLA that was attended by about two dozen feminist students (and a lot more non-feminist students). The behavior of these feminists goes a long way towards explaining why few take modern (or postmodern) feminism seriously. And they provide strong confirmation of some of my recent assertions about feminist intolerance. Shortly before I began my speech at UCLA, a couple of dozen university women entered the auditorium together. They sat together in silence during the first part of my speech. I told a few jokes and noticed that almost everyone was laughing – except, of course, for the women who came in together and sat together. Their inability to laugh clued me in to the fact that they were feminists. (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey: The Democrats' Iraq Calculation - The interesting thing about the plan that leading Democrats now advocate for Iraq is that its essential element is the same as the essential element of the plan pursued by those we are fighting. It is that we withdraw. Now, if the Democrats' plan is not domestic partisan posturing, but a calculation predicated on the national interest, there are at least three possible explanations for this remarkable coincidence. One is that the fighting in Iraq now (as opposed to the original and now irreversible decision to invade) is just a big mistake... (READ MORE)
Mary Katharine Ham: Vets vs. Code Pink: Class and Trash Clash on the Hill - While Gen. David Petraeus spent the day hammering sometimes unwilling senators with facts and stats about Iraq, all with unwavering patience, more than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts gathered on the Hill to give wavering Members of Congress something to rally behind besides the cardboard charts of Senate tradition. The Vets for Freedom ended a three-week national bus tour in Upper Senate Park Tuesday morning, and were met with significantly more media attention than they garnered during their last visit to the Hill in September 2007. Full video coverage of that event, here. The group set up more than 300 meetings with Congressmen and senators, and planned to drop in on those with whom they couldn’t get appointments. (READ MORE)
Brent Bozell III: "Remarkable" Ted Turner - Ted Turner was not only interviewed, but celebrated on PBS -- on April Fool's Day. The prank was apparently on PBS. It was as if Turner had a subversive mission, to prove that PBS isn't just for smart people. True to form, Turner walked off a cliff of rhetorical excess on the "Charlie Rose" show, charging that global warming was going to grow so severe that in a few decades, most of humanity would be extinct. "We'll be eight degrees hotter in 10 -- not 10, but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died, and the rest of us will be cannibals." Charlie Rose should have been embarrassed, but wasn't. When Turner said during the show, "It's been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid," he should have administered a Breathalyzer test. (READ MORE)
Rich Galen: General Protect Us - From Gen. David Petraeus' opening remarks to the US Senate Armed Services Committee: Security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional forces to Iraq. Last September Democrats were frothing at the mouth as they looked for reasons to declare "The Surge" in Iraq an abject failure. Unfortunately for the MoveOn.org wing of the Democratic Party, General Petraeus proved to be the military equivalent of Chief Justice John Roberts - intellectually honest and factually powerful. (READ MORE)
Michele Bachmann: Freedom Is Not the Problem, It Is the Solution - Doesn’t it seem like year after year, more and more decisions we should be making for ourselves, are instead being made by nameless bureaucrats in Washington? They tell us how to spend our money. They tell us how to run our businesses. They tell us how to raise our families. And now, when you thought things couldn’t become anymore absurd, they even tell us what kind of light bulbs we can use in our own homes. Yes, that’s right, a recent piece of legislation passed in Washington has outlawed the everyday household light bulb. (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Republicans and Blacks - If Senator John McCain needed to prove that he is a real Republican, he did it when he continued an old Republican tradition of utterly inept attempts to appeal to black voters. Senator McCain was booed at a recent memorial on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In typical Republican fashion, he tried to apologize but the audience was not buying it and let him know it. Why would Senator McCain choose a venue where his rejection was virtually guaranteed? Not only did he not get his message out, the message that came out through the media is that this black audience rejected him, which is readily portrayed as if blacks in general rejected him. (READ MORE)
A Newt One: War News: The Socialists Are Working Overtime - San Fran Nanny Nancy Pelosi, the singularly most unpopular SOH in our nation's history is trying extra hard to alienate an ally in South America via blocking the vote to bring about the most needed free trade agreement with Colombia. I can only surmise that Colombia is off track to become a socialist state...must piss her off pretty badly. Judge Bob is doing his best to bring about an end to King Pork Boy's regime in Pennsylvania by exposing the charlatan's antics to the people of PA and the nation as a whole. No wonder Nancy is upset. While our Armed Services are killing our enemies, Jimmy Carter is doing his best to ease their pain by once again, befriending our enemies. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Bilal Hussein Walks On Amnesty Provision – “The decision by a four-judge panel says Hussein's case falls under a new amnesty law and orders Iraqi courts to ‘cease legal proceedings.’ The ruling says that Hussein should be ‘immediately’ released if no other charges are pending. The ruling is dated Monday but AP's lawyers were not able to thoroughly review it until Wednesday.” So, what does this mean - they had info, but had to drop it because of the amnesty provisions (one of the benchmarks by the way), or that they didn't have info on Hussein? (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Dissing Military Decorations is Still a Smear - I noted previously that the radical left eschewed a dramatic pre-testimony smear of General Petraeus this year. Given the backlash MoveOn.org generated last September, perhaps the lefties smartened up a bit this time around. Well, actually, no. It turns out Matthew DeBord, an unafflliated "writer," in today's Los Angeles Times, offers a stomach-turning diss of Petraeus' military decorations: “Gen. David H. Petraeus may be as impressive a military professional as the United States has developed in recent years, but he could use some strategic advice on how to manage his sartorial PR. Witness his congressional testimony on the state of the war in Iraq. There he sits in elaborate Army regalia, four stars glistening on each shoulder, nine rows of colorful ribbons on his left breast, and various other medallions, brooches and patches scattered across the rest of the available real estate on his uniform. He even wears his name tag, a lone and incongruous hunk of cheap plastic in a region of pristine gilt, just in case the politicians aren't sure who he is.” (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: Teenage America says “yeah, whatever.” - It’s very tiresome, isn’t it? The agendas and double-standards of the press and the willingness of the American people to accept superficial analysis and headlines. Yes, things are more expensive right now, mostly because of oil prices and the soaring food prices that are part-and-parcel of the enviro-hysteria that has America held-hostage to foreign oil (rather than independently supplied by her own resources) and is content to starve the world to burn dubiously “clean” bio fuels. I am at a loss to understand - and a little worried by - America’s willingness to be led about by the nose on these issues. Many Americans - seemingly more and more - are so busy entertaining themselves - with their flip videos, ear-buds, increasingly balkanized personal lives - that they don’t really care about the details; they just wants to plug in, tune out and (increasingly) let whoever they assign to be “Mom & Dad” in the government take care of them while they stay in their rooms, chat online and try to do as little around the house as they can. (READ MORE)
Sachi: Between the Lines - It's never safe to take at face value anything written by the mainstream media about Iraq. You must always tease the real story from the misleading and sometimes completely fabricated "first draft of history" they publish. But even propaganda can reveal the deeper truth. It's now clear that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi army and Iraqi National Police showed decisive leadership and initiative -- perhaps a bit too decisive! -- during the recent Operation Knights' Charge in Basra. Even AP is reluctantly reporting the latest achievement of Nouri al-Maliki... though of course they couch it in dismissive terms: “Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's faltering crackdown [!] on Shiite militants has won the backing of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that fear both the powerful sectarian militias and the effects of failure on Iraq's fragile government.” (READ MORE)
Atlas: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD - NYC: All day conference today. The most courageous truth tellers and fighters for free speech descend on the Big Apple to attend an historical conference: FREE SPEECH IN AN AGE OF JIHAD hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and The New Criterion. Luminaries include Mark Steyn, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Ezra Levant, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Dr. Andrew Bostom, Steven Emerson, Frank Gaffney, Claudia Rosett, Cliff May as well as other leading lights in the fight for free speech and against libel tourism. And I will be there reporting live. (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: Is Barack Obama a Communist? - It is reprehensible that we are this deep into a U.S. presidential election run and this question is on the table, but that is what can happen when political parties and the media anoint a candidate based upon rhetoric and marketability instead of vetting him for substance. A blog called The Obama Report has passed along an Accuracy in Media account that cites Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis as Barack Obama's mentor: “In his books, Obama admits attending ‘socialist conferences’ and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a ‘hard-core academic Marxist,’ which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.” (READ MORE)
Fjordman: The Funny Side of Islam: Muhammad and the Hadith - Iranian Islamic leader the Ayatollah Khomeini once said that “There is no fun in Islam.” I disagree. Islam can be quite funny; it just isn’t intended to be so. I have long said that Islam’s weakest point is mockery. Any enemy will reveal what he fears the most, if you listen to him closely. Muslims fear criticism or mockery of their religion more than they fear death. Well, if mockery is what they fear above all else, maybe that’s exactly what we should give them? The good thing about Islam is that you don’t actually have to mock it, Islam mocks itself. To demonstrate the funny side of Islam, I will quote a number of authentic hadith, exclusively taken from the major collections of Bukhari and al-Muslim. These are the most important religious texts for a billion Sunni Muslims, second only to the Koran itself. (READ MORE)
Euphoric Express: Pendleton 8 Exposed, Part 2 - We pick up now where we left off in the timeline of events surrounding the incident that put far too many Marines in prison for killing the enemy. If you didn’t see Part 1 yesterday, you can find it here. January 18, 2007: Marine Pleads Guilty to Iraqi Kidnap, Murder “The Marine said ‘Someone’ fired a shot,” and then he and the others in the squad opened fire. Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III went up to the victim to make sure he was dead, [Cpl Trent] Thomas said. “Sgt. Hutchins shot Mr. Awad with a three-round burst to the head to do the dead-check,” he said. (READ MORE)
Euphoric Reality: Exclusive: Pendleton 8 Exposed, Part 3 - In this chapter we’ll be talking about the actual information that could (and should) free these men. Military judges have cited national security concerns. The defense asked for a jury made up of people with the appropriate clearances already in place. However, doing this would take away the government’s excuse for hiding anything exculpatory. The result is that the defense attorneys can only sit and watch as the truth gets buried. Please be reminded that at no point in this story will I or any other person involved with the independent investigation of this case release information that could harm our troops on the ground. It will not happen. Period. That being said, the rest of it is all fair. This is war, after all. (READ MORE)
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay: Valerie Jarrett -- A new player in the Obama drama - HT to Professor Reynolds for highlighting this story from ABC News as to why Obama seems to be silent on the issue of the Olympics and Tibet. It looks like the woman that is in charge of a PAC he has is Valerie Jarrett. She is a part of his "kitchen cabinet," and Lynn Sweet, of the HuffPo, claims she's the "other side of Barack's brain." According to ABC News, Ms. Jarrett is also the chairwoman for the committee trying to win the Olympic bid for Chicago in 2016: “The junior Senator from Illinois has a particularly tricky balancing act when it comes to the subject of the Olympics: Chicago is vying to host the 2016 games and one of Obama's top campaign advisors and close friends, Valerie Jarrett, is the vice chair of Chicago's bid committee.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Media misses the anti-Semitism in Los Angeles rally - Roger Simon reports on a public expression of anti-Semitism that the media failed to report. Since it happened at a high-profile celebration of Martin Luther King on the 40th anniversary of his assassination, one has to wonder what motivated the silence. While the Mayor of Los Angeles and several other city officials sat in attendance, the keynote speaker blamed Jews for black misery in the United States after the African-American fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi awarded its Tom Bradley Award to an Israeli-born activist for the poor: (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Good news: Democratic convention protests to feature free love - Via Slapstick Politics, here’s the reason Hillary needs to stay in the race — to rile these freaks and force-feed the media enough of a “party in turmoil!” narrative that they’ll be forced to cover them. Which is ironic, since they have something important in common with her. Both spend plenty of time whining about the unfairness of rules: “Recreate 68 secured two days’ permits for Civic Center Park - which can accommodate 25,000 people - but did not land one for Aug. 24, the eve of the convention’s opening.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Reality Checks - Lots of talk out there about what’s real, what’s not. Big reality roundup below, but first, this week’s Irony Award to repeat winner Harry Reid. “‘We are stuck in a twilight zone in Iraq,’ Reid said.” He hasn’t been in the news much lately. You’ll remember him as part of the war-ending Democratic mandate. No cruel Twilight Zone jokes, please. The mandate holders now fear the next president will face a quagmire in Iraq. They should. No cruel Capitol Hill quagmire jokes, please. Until they face the reality that war must be fought to win, and we have the strategy in place to do that, the kind of pandering half measures Clinton or Obama are likely to take are guaranteed to produce quagmire in Iraq. (READ MORE)
Pirate's Cove: Climahysteria Now Getting Dangerous - When it comes to the whole global warming debate, which is primarily political, not scientific, I have not been real concerned over the draconian measures the climahysterics talk about implementing. When the road meets the pavement, most of the chicken littles refuse to change their own lifestyles, barely buy carbon offsets, and nix those measures when they actually would affect themselves. But, when they start talking about measures like they do in this story, that is when I become concerned: “Government scientists are studying the feasibility of sending nearly microscopic particles of specially made glass into the Earth’s upper atmosphere to try to dampen the effects of ‘global warming.’ The idea, while ‘interesting,’ said one leading global warming skeptic, is ‘not practical’ and, if done on a large scale, could depress the ozone layer and cause other problems.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Fiscal conservative hero: Sen. Bunning asks the right questions about the housing boondoggle - I applauded true maverick Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) last week for casting the lone vote opposing the Senate’s latest massive mortgage boondoggle. The excellent L.A. Land housing blog has excerpts of a follow-up interview with Bunning, who sounds many of the hard-nosed, Suck It Up themes I’ve been pounding over the last eight months: “This is an unusually bad bill, and I have opposed it from the start. The course it has followed almost guarantees that it will be filled with the worst kind of gimmickry. And it is. The Senate may be the world’s greatest deliberative body, but this bill is anything but the product of deliberation. It is a jumble of disjointed ideas, unlikely to solve the crisis at hand, and it’s unpopular.” (READ MORE)
McQ: It lives ... - I’m not sure who Ernest Partridge is (apparently one of the Partridge Family who didn’t make the cut and took up writing instead), but if ever anyone wanted a perfect example of why the politics of the AGW crowd are so dangerous, he manages to provide that perfect example. Prepare to see the words such as "consensus", "policy", "libertarian" and "free market" wielded with all the deftness of a meat axe in the hands of a butcher with the DT’s. This is one of those posts which you could fisk almost word by word. Instead here’s the link to our environmental category - you can do your own fisking. (READ MORE)
Socrates’ Academy: Illegal War in Iraq - In a dull repetition of melodramatic echo, never quite dying out but never fully explained, we hear the phrase "illegal war" applied to the conflict in Iraq. "Illegal war" means that by the very existence of the war a law has been broken. But whose law has been broken? Is it a law of the United States, or some other law, say perhaps of France or Sweden, or more likely, of the United Nations? The United Nations doesn't have laws, despite what some power-grabbing third worlder might think. It's an organization, not a nation or sovereign entity. At most, its leadership can say that a member country is in violation of its treaty obligations, which is a different thing from being "illegal". (READ MORE)
ROFASix: Iraqi Immigrants We Want First - While there was great interest in what General Petraeus had to say in front of the Senate yesterday about Iraq, there was even more on what "ol' Botax lips," Angelina Jolie, had to say. In an event that drew 50 last time it was held, the event yesterday had to be moved to a larger venue to accomplish the crowds at the Council on Foreign Relations hosted event. The difference? Jolie's presence was advertised and the crowds came. Some of those in attendance admitted freely that Jolie's draw was greater than listening to 4-star Petraeus. And it was Jolie's "star power," that is exactly why sponsors of various causes love to snag a starlet or two. It gets attention. Jolie's comments focused on refugees from Iraq this time, which is a subject that reportedly has 2 million stories. Had she not been the cause's spokesperson, the meeting might not even have been noticed on the same day of the Petraeus testimony. (READ MORE)
The Tygrrrr Express: General Petraeus stands tall - As expected, some microscopic entities blathered in a language that can only be described as “pipsqueakian.” Across the table from them, standing tall in the saddle was General David Petraeus. The reason why this man is the very best is because he is in an industry where being the best and brightest actually matters. Dimbulbs can become Senators because the fate of human survival is not in their hands. Making speeches about things is not the same as actually doing them. If General David Petraeus gets his job wrong, the world could collapse. That is why that people had better listen when he speaks. They do not have to agree, but they had better listen closely. There are three industries that are meritocracies. They are sports, sales, and the military. A person’s color, religion, or private beliefs do not matter. At the end of the day, these three industries ask one simple question. Did you get the job done? (READ MORE)
Susan Katz Keating: If a General Speaks Before Congress - ...and the nation is at the mall, did he actually deliver testimony? I swiped this analogy from Sheryl Longin, who posited a version of the question yesterday in response to the underwhelming impact of General David Petraeus' speech before Congress. As Longin correctly pointed out, Petraeus' testimony seemed to sway no one, but did much to prompt various observers and pundits to announce that their views are supported by the Commander, Multinational Force - Iraq. And these are the people who have made it their business to inform themselves about the war. As for the rest of the nation: I believe they are occupied with thoughts that do not include Iraq. As a soldier friend wrote to me in an email from Afghanistan: America is not at war. The Army is at war. America is at the mall. (READ MORE)
Cassandra: Want Higher Test Scores? Put Down the Sign and Pick Up a Book - In an era of falling test scores and persistently uneven educational outcomes, we naturally reach for simple answers and one size fits all solutions. It is unsatisfying to be told such a large scale problem requires a bottoms up solution when institutions can neither exert control over, nor impose accountability upon, individual families and students unless we are willing to stand aside and watch some children fail. Intuitively we know failure is normal, but this knowledge doesn't prevent us from cringing at the sight of it. The Bell curve represents a broad spectrum of ability ranging from the nearly nonexistent (which, in these politically correct times, we call exceptional) to the richly abundant, which we are glad to call gifted. (READ MORE)
Jonathan Adler: Rosen's Unnatural "States of Nature" - New Republic legal affairs editor tries his hand commenting on environmental law in “States of Nature: How George Bush's legal war against the environment backfired,” and makes a complete hash of it. Rosen’s thesis is that conservatives have waged a “long-standing campaign against environmental protections” in which they “have taken a kitchen sink approach,” deploying various – at times even contradictory – legal arguments, irrespective of legal principle. Writes Rosen, “The only consistent objective was to thwart regulation, and the only question was which strategy would be most effective in achieving that goal.” An unintended consequence of this strategy, Rosen hypothesizes, is that “conservative anti-environmentalists may find that they have laid the legal groundwork for their ultimate defeat.” (READ MORE)
Eugene Volokh: Legal Requirements That You Write Things or Create Photographs - Let me mention again the hypothetical I posed in my earlier post, and ask for the reaction of those who think the New Mexico Human Rights Commission's decision is constitutional. Maybe I'm mistaken, but my sense is that there weren't many responses to it, and I'd love to see more, again especially from people who think the Commission's decision doesn't violate the First Amendment. Say you're a freelance writer, who holds himself out as a business offering to perform a service. Someone tries to hire you to write materials -- press releases, Web site materials, and the like -- for his same-sex marriage planning company, or his Scientology book distribution company, or whatever else. May the government force you, on pain of damages liability, to write those materials, even if you would prefer not to because of the sexual orientation, religion, or whatever else to which the materials would be related? (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Levin Again Displays Ignorance of Military Issues; Cross Examines Petraeus Like Criminal Defendant; Dems Use Troops As Pawns - We can only thank whatever deity we believe in that Michigan's Democratic Senator Carl Levin represents only a small portion of the American political landscape and that our system of government allows only one vote per person. In his latest outrage perpetrated on the American populace, and especially the military, Levin again attempted to boost his political standing by using the blood and sacrifices of American troops to advance his political agenda and that of his cronies in Congress. Levin's actions and statements in Congress during a public interrogation of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker today represent another low point in American politics. (READ MORE)
Jennifer Rubin: Obama Is Lying - When was the last time the MSM took a Republican's side in a fight over credibility with a Democratic opponent? Well, it has been a while. However, conservatives have little to grumble about in the recent face-off between Barack Obama and John McCain over McCain's statement that troops might have to remain for "100 years" in Iraq "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" after fighting had concluded, as they have done in South Korea and Germany. Most recently, ABC's Jake Tapper noted that at least on three occasions Obama had personally said that McCain favored continued fighting in Iraq for 100 years. Tapper concluded that "Obama has in the past distorted McCain's comments" and "that he is violating his own stated aspirations...[b]ecause not only has he distorted what McCain said, he is not being honest about having made those distortions." (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: Moron speak running it’s course - I’m beginning to think that Obama’s candidacy will eventually be good for this country. No, not because he might win the presidency - that’s impossible, unless photos emerge of John McCain eating live puppies. No, the Obama candidacy may end up shaking all of this bullshit about race and the inherent bogus sensibilities right out of the culture. I know I’m getting sick and tired of it and I’ve always been too tolerant of morons and cry-babies. Anyway, yesterday, while I was transfixed by my sitemeter, Gateway Pundit ran a post about Obama event organizers calling for “more white people” to lighten up the complexion on the stage. Apparently the melanin was running a little too thick behind Queen Michele. I really don’t care about trivial crap like that, I live in the Metro DC area and I already know that what I, a melanin-deficient American, think about race doesn’t matter. (READ MORE)
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