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)
Obama Is Poised To Clinch Victory - TROY, Mich., June 2 -- On the eve of the final two primaries of a five-month marathon, Sen. Barack Obama stood poised to wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton weighed whether to stay in the race in hopes of delaying what appears to be an inevitable... (READ MORE)
Briton Held In Airplane Bomb Plot Testifies - LONDON, June 2 -- A man accused of leading a plot to bomb transatlantic airliners in 2006 denied the charges in court Monday, telling a jury that he planned to detonate a bomb in the British Parliament but never targeted airplanes or intended to kill anyone. (READ MORE)
Polygamous Sect's Children Begin to Return to Parents - SAN ANGELO, Tex., June 2 -- More than 440 children of an insular West Texas polygamist group began returning to their parents and their homes on Monday after two months in state custody, where they were exposed for the first time to a larger world that included bicycles, pepperoni pizza and news of moon landings. (READ MORE)
Harry Reid's Handshake - Senate Democrats are giving fresh meaning to the phrase "trust but verify." Leading up to Memorial Day, Majority Leader Harry Reid walked away from his spring pledge to Senate Republicans to confirm three of President Bush's judicial nominees by the holiday weekend. We'll soon see if Republicans will take this lying down. (READ MORE)
A Man in Full - Next week on Flag Day, Army Private First Class Ross McGinnis would have turned 21 years old. Yesterday, President Bush presented his family with a posthumous Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for courage in combat. It was the fourth time the Medal has been awarded for those who have served in Iraq. (READ MORE)
Cash for Kim, Revisited - You have to read to page 347 of yesterday's report on the United Nations Development Program's antics in North Korea before reaching the recommendation that is likely to cause a panic in Turtle Bay: Give member states access to the internal audits, now secret, of UNDP programs. (READ MORE)
Clinton aide Smith 'beyond true believer' - In between fittings for her bridal gown, Jamie Smith had her Blackberry in hand, pulling together last-minute details for reporters who would travel with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa over Thanksgiving weekend. (READ MORE)
McCain urges world to divest in Tehran - Making a pitch for pro-Israel voters, Sen. John McCain on Monday called for a worldwide campaign to force businesses and nations to divest from Iran and ridiculed his potential Democratic presidential opponent for being willing to negotiate personally with Iranian leaders. (READ MORE)
U.N. OKs ships to fight Somali pirates - UNITED NATIONS (AP) Foreign ships gained authorization yesterday to enter Somali waters when fighting piracy and armed robbery rampant problems along the African nation's lawless coast. (READ MORE)
Democrats' support stayed divided - Barack Obama's support from blacks and young people has intensified during his five-month slog through the Democratic primaries. Hillary Rodham Clinton has grown ever stronger among the elderly, especially older white women. (READ MORE)
Universal fire ruled an accident - UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) A fire that ripped through sets and attractions at Universal Studios has been ruled an accident, Los Angeles County fire officials said Monday. Studio workers had been using a blowtorch to heat asphalt shingles to apply to the roof of a building facade early Sunday... (READ MORE)
On the Web:
William McGurn: Did Scott McClellan Miss the Surge? - In the media week that has been Scott McClellan, my former colleague has had his motives questioned, his character impugned, and his own book dismissed as something he could not possibly have written himself. Yet in the midst of the storm, the press has largely skipped over what is at once Scott's central claim, and his silliest argument: that the president's big mistake was to embrace the "permanent campaign" and that this led to a strategy that meant "never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising. Especially not where Iraq was concerned." (READ MORE)
Bret Stephens: There Is a Military Solution to Terror - Sadr City in Baghdad, the northeastern districts of Sri Lanka and the Guaviare province of Colombia have little in common culturally, historically or politically. But they are crucial reference points on a global map in which long-running insurgencies suddenly find themselves on the verge of defeat. For the week of May 16-23, there were 300 "violent incidents" in Iraq. That's down from 1,600 last June and the lowest recorded since March 2004. Al Qaeda has been crushed by a combination of U.S. arms and Sunni tribal resistance. On the Shiite side, Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army was routed by Iraqi troops in Basra and later crumbled in its Sadr City stronghold. (READ MORE)
James Imhofe: We Don't Need a Climate Tax on the Poor - With average gas prices across the country approaching $4 a gallon, it may be hard to believe, but the U.S. Senate is considering legislation this week that will further drive up the cost at the pump. The Senate is debating a global warming bill that will create the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR's New Deal, complete with a brand new, unelected bureaucracy. The Lieberman-Warner bill (America's Climate Security Act) represents the largest tax increase in U.S. history and the biggest pork bill ever contemplated with trillions of dollars in giveaways. (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Irrelevant Apologies - It is amazing how seriously the media are taking Senator Barack Obama's latest statement about the latest racist rant from the pulpit of the church he has attended for 20 years. But neither that statement nor the apology for his rant by Father Michael Pfleger really matters, one way or the other. Nor does Senator Obama's belated resignation from that church. For any politician, what matters is not his election year rhetoric, or an election year resignation from a church, but the track record of that politician in the years before the election. Yet so many people are so fascinated by Barack Obama's rhetorical skills that they don't care about his voting record in the U.S. Senate, in the Illinois state senate, the causes that he has chosen to promote over the years, or the candidate's personal character and values, as revealed by his actions and associations. (READ MORE)
Dennis Prager: Liberalism and Victimhood - If you want to understand the negative impact of feminism on women (and men) and, by extension, the destructive effects of liberal teachers, Democratic politics and liberal news media on African-Americans, here is Katie Couric last week on the CBS Evening News: "A new study on teens and sexual harassment should give every parent pause. "Most teenage girls report they've been sexually harassed. ... In a study that appeared in the journal Child Development, 90 percent of teen girls say they've been harassed at least once." Millions of American parents and their daughters were told on one of the most widely watched evening news reports that nine out of every 10 American girls aged 12 to 18 are sexually harassed. Suspicious that the feminist and liberal I-am-a-victim ideology was at play here far more than some real plague of sexual harassment, I decided to look into the report cited by Ms. Couric. (READ MORE)
David Limbaugh: Obama's Unity Charade - The $64 million question is how long Barack Obama can carry forward this ruse that he is a uniter, when he has placed himself in a climate that is, at the very least, quite accommodating to an anti-white racist perspective, vulgarity and anti-Americanism. How many more shoes can drop without Obama's presidential quest completely imploding? It strained credulity that Obama could have been unaware of the toxic environment of his Trinity United Church of Christ and its pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Actually, that didn't pass the laugh test. But now we have the Rev. Michael Pfleger bursting on the scene -- the scene being the now-infamous Trinity Church -- and spewing the most offensive, racially charged remarks imaginable. Truly, if Obama weren't the protected darling of the mainstream media and if the Democrats were not horrified of losing their monopolistic hold on the African-American vote, superdelegates would abandon Obama in stampedes -- yesterday. (READ MORE)
Patrick J. Buchanan: Munich, 1938 - When President Bush, before the Knesset, used the word "appeasement" to label those who would negotiate with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he invoked the most powerful analogy in any debate over war and peace. No man wishes to be regarded as an "appeaser." But, as this writer has discovered since my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World" was launched Memorial Day, there is a deep well of ignorance about what happened that September, 70 years ago. Why did Neville Chamberlain go to Munich? How did Munich lead to World War II? The seeds of the crisis were planted at the Paris peace conference of 1919. There, the victorious Allies carved the new nation of Czechoslovakia out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (READ MORE)
Chuck Norris: 3 Surprises Awaiting Obama in Iraq - Sen. John McCain played advanced political chess back and forth this past week with Sen. Barack Obama over the war in Iraq. Because the Democratic presidential hopeful has been to Iraq only once (more than two years ago), McCain said Obama has a "profound misunderstanding" about the progress made in Iraq. The fact is John McCain is absolutely right. Barack doesn't have a clue what really is going on in Iraq. And Obama will eat some humble military pie if he goes there. The way I see it, he's going to face at least three major surprises: -- Surprise No. 1: The surge really did work. I have been to Iraq twice to visit the troops since Obama's single visit. During my two trips (2006 and 2007) to Iraq, I visited 28 bases and shook hands with nearly 40,000 troops. I cannot express the profound pride I feel for our troops. I will remember those experiences for the rest of my life. (READ MORE)
Humberto Fontova: The Environmental Benefits of Offshore Drilling - Louisiana produces almost 30 per cent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood. These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. From these, Louisiana also produces 25 per cent of America's domestic oil, and no major oil spill has ever soiled its coast. So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the “environmental perils” of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly. Fashionable Florida, on the other hand, which zealously prohibits offshore oil drilling, had its gorgeous "Emerald Coast" panhandle beaches soiled by an ugly oil spill in 1976. This spill, as almost all oil spills, resulted from the transportation of oil – not from the extraction of oil. (READ MORE)
Doug Wilson: The Tipping Point for Oil - “We must strip oil of its strategic significance.” These words were spoken by Anne Korin, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) in her presentation before the House Committee of Foreign Affairs on May 22nd.. If oil stays at or above $125 per gallon, we will export 500 billion of revenue in 2008 – equal to our national defense budget – to many nations that are not friendly to the U.S. Saudi oil reserves at $100 a barrel are worth 60 trillion… more than the market cap of all the world’s largest companies combined. If I were the King of OPEC so to speak, I would immediately increase oil supply to the world. Why? Because OPEC has not increased oil supply for thirty years which has resulted in an out of whack supply/demand curve. The bad news for us – oil prices in the past few years have skyrocketed because of world wide growth and a falling dollar. (READ MORE)
Daniel's Big Trip: The Pinto Bean has a heart attack! - Well everyone.... I did my interview this morning on 98 Rock (Special thanks to those guys) and it went very well!! After it was over I fired up the Bean and headed into town in search of food. No less than three miles later, the Bean went into cardiac arrest. I was on the interstate headed south, when I hear a BOOM! and saw black smoke roll out of the tailpipe. It occurred to me things might be about to go badly, so I did what any good motorist would do, smacked the steering wheel and tried to drive a little farther. Needless to say, the result was predictable to say the least! Well after I got pulled over on the shoulder, I did the only thing I could think of to do. I sat there and laughed at the predicament. (READ MORE)
Marc Ambinder: The End: How It Happens - Over the weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton has told friends that she will NOT drop out today. Again, these conversations occurred over the weekend. These friends expect that she will take a few days to think about her next move. They say she does not feel rushed and does not want to feel pressured. It is quite possible that Clinton makes a vice presidential overture in the speech; as in, she'll express a willingness to serve her party in any capacity deemed necessary to to unite the party. The Obama world seems still very cool to this idea. In general, her speech tomorrow night will be a celebration of Hillary Clinton's campaign and her 17 million supporters. It will also be a summary of key points for undecided superdelegates. (READ MORE)
Classical Values: An unlucky jackpot - Citing a Rasmussen poll that John McCain is "Trusted More Than Obama on Economy, Iraq, National Security," Glenn Reynolds made the following observation: “As I said before, a lot of Republicans don't like McCain, but it seems clear that the GOP primary process nominated the one candidate with a decent chance of winning in November. If Democrats respond to this year's primary debacle by revising their procedures, they should probably conside adoptingr a winner-take-all primary, too. Of course, that approach on the Dem side would have produced a Hillary nomination…Which would have been good for Democrats, and bad for Republicans. “ The Republicans are lucky as hell to have McCain as the nominee, whether they know it or not, and whether they like him or not, for the simple reason that he's the only Republican who might retain the White House. (READ MORE)
Information Dissemination: The Money and the Mitigations - Lex got our attention today with a short discussion of sonar restrictions off Hawaii. The big problem with sonar restrictions isn't a pattern of the Navy wiping out marine life, no one has ever made such a claim. The big problem is the perspective of some that the potential exists the Navy could kill marine mammals with active sonar systems. The other problem is that the largest build up of foreign submarines is currently taking place in the Pacific Ocean, and the Navy is being forbidden by the courts from training to fight submarines. Active sonar is the most effective system for detecting submarines, and yet the Navy can't use it. Lex is asking the question never asked on TV: (READ MORE)
Harmless Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: PFC Ross A. McGinnis - President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor today to Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis. PFC McGinnis was only 19-years old when he threw himself on a grenade, saving the lives of four other Soldiers. PFC McGinnis had been standing in a turret, manning the 50-caliber machine gun in an armored humvee when an insurgent threw a grenade that managed to fall through the hatch onto the radio at McGinnis’ feet. He yelled “grenade, it’s in the truck.” The other four Soldiers had no way to escape the humvee. Although PFC McGinnis could have jumped out of the turret and escaped the blast, he didn’t. Instead, he jumped on the grenade, using his body to absorb the grenade’s blast. Did I say he was only 19-years old? (READ MORE)
Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group: Civilian Irregular Market-State National Security Operators - The new SERVIAM is out. Commander Joseph A. Gattuso, USN (Ret.) has an article in it entitled Trading Places: How and Why National Security Roles Are Changing which fits in nicely with recent discussions on this blog and elsewhere of non-military, non-governmental responses to threats to the security of the United States. Don’t agree with all of it, but here are the good parts. Bolding added by me. “…the nation-state (1860–1990), which had as its legitimizing basis welfare of every individual. This is the form of governance with which most are familiar. In the nation-state, a collection of individuals gives the governing entity power to govern; in turn, the governing entity agrees to ensure the material well-being of the governed. Like the state-nation before it, the nation-state form of governance is rapidly losing its legitimacy because it can no longer execute its fundamental purpose: to assure the material well-being and security of those it governs.” (READ MORE)
Soccerdad: Fulbrights and qassams - Israel’s DM Ehud Barak announced that the siege of Gaza is working: “Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday said that Israel has identified signs of distress coming from Hamas. According to the defense minister, some 70 Hamas fighters have been killed during the last two months, and more than 300 have been killed during the past six months. ‘Hamas is very stressed. The most effective action is the siege,’ Barak said, referring to the Israeli-imposed economic blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza after the Islamist group seized power over the impoverished coastal strip last June. Since then, Israel has allowed only basic staples to be transported through the border crossings it controls, into Gaza.” While it may not be enough, it’s certainly welcome to hear. Unfortunately, even if Hamas is losing its political hold, operationally the Qassams have kept on coming. Elder of Ziyon noted that there was no day in May that was Qassam free. (READ MORE)
Meryl Yourish: State Dept. clueless on terrorism - Bad enough the State Department has mandated the banning of jihad, jihadi, and Islamic terrorist. Now they’re trying to tell Israel that isolating Hamas has made it stronger. No, isolating Hamas without hunting down and killing its leadership has made it stronger. When the IDF goes after Hamas with a vengeance, Hamas sues for peace and cries uncle. When the IDF goes in in dribs and drabs and lets the leadership survive, Hamas wins. But this is unconscionable: “Israel’s continued blockade of the Gaza Strip is misguided and has helped rather than harmed Hamas, a senior State Department official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. [...] ‘What we’re telling the Israelis is that the policy that was adopted after the summer [of June 2007] wasn’t working, of really closing the borders,’ said a senior State Department official.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: I Question The Timing, Part II - Recently, I had reason to revisit a certain resolution passed by Congress -- the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. This was passed by a vote of 360-38 in the House, by unanimous consent in the Senate, and signed by President Bill Clinton. I found myself drawn to Section II, the Findings part, that spelled out why the Act was pushed forward. It cites 12 distinct points. The first four outline Saddam's acts that provoked the world's condemnation: “(1) On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, starting an 8 year war in which Iraq employed chemical weapons against Iranian troops and ballistic missiles against Iranian cities. (2) In February 1988, Iraq forcibly relocated Kurdish civilians from their home villages in the Anfal campaign, killing an estimated 50,000 to 180,000 Kurds.” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: Heavy Handed, Cold Hearted - The Texas DFPS has finally discovered limits to its arrogance. Following an Appeals court decision (and Texas Supreme Court confirmation), that the DFPS exceeded its authority in grabbing hundreds of kids from their families and dispersing them across the state in a fairly callous disregard for the rights of just about every civilian involved, another judge has ordered that all the children must be returned to their families. Despite the excuses and claims of the DFPS, the general lesson one may take from their raid is that the state jumped to conclusions, failed to do its job properly, and in the end violated the rights of hundreds of innocent people. Two months after the raid, no evidence whatsoever exists to support the initial contentions against the group, despite a great deal of malignant rumor-mongering by the DFPS. (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Hillary 'Checks' Barack; Fox Moves to the Dark Side - Here is what really happened in Puerto Rico during Sunday's Democratic primary voting. Hillary Clinton walloped Barack Obama by nearly 69 percent to just over 31 percent. She took the overwhelming bulk of the delegates and received nearly 150,000 more popular votes than he did. She effectively blocked Obama in his quest to garner sufficient pledged delegates to guarantee his nomination as the Democrats' presidential candidate before the national convention in August. The Democrats only have two primaries left, both this week, one in Montana which has 16 delegates and one in South Dakota which has 15. Barack Obama needs 46 or 47 pledged delegates to lock up the nomination, depending on which misrepresenting news organization you want to believe. If you can count, and if you can add, you will see that if you add 15 and 16 it totals 31, which means there is no way short of rewriting the laws of physics and mathematics that Barack Obama can lock in the nomination prior to the convention. (READ MORE)
Westhawk: Iran to join North Korea out in the cold - If it was the Bush administration’s plan to walk away from the Iran nuclear issue in order to get the rest of the world to get serious about it, its plan just might be working. Following a post I wrote ten days ago, yesterday’s New York Times discussed how the IAEA now seems to be more hawkish about the Iranian nuclear threat than the U.S. government seems to be. The Iranian government has responded to the IAEA’s new hawkishness with anger and threats. We have seen this storyline play out before, with North Korea. If the plot logically repeats, the Iranian government will eventually storm away from the IAEA process, throw the nuclear inspectors out of its country, and join North Korea as a nuclear rogue out in the cold. Hopefully that would finally focus some minds in Moscow and Beijing. (READ MORE)
Kirk Stark: The Evolution of GOP Attitudes toward Wartime Taxes - One of the most striking features of the history of U.S. tax policy is the shifting attitude of Republican elites toward wartime taxes. For more than a century -- from the founding of the Republican Party through the war in Vietnam -- Republican leaders consistently supported high wartime taxes. Indeed, support for higher wartime taxes was a defining feature of being a military hawk among the GOP faithful. Examples abound of GOP support for higher wartime taxes. Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s first Republican president, was of course also the first president to sign into law a federal income tax, which took effect in 1862. Not surprisingly, GOP support was also strong for the tax increases enacted during World War I and World War II. (READ MORE)
Cassandra: Garrison Keillor... Still a Colossal Asshat - Why is it some people are never all that keen on taking their own advice? If only Garrison Keillor had honored the fallen in the manner he seems determined to impose on others - with a moment of silence: ‘A patriotic bike rally is sort of like a patriotic toilet-papering or patriotic graffiti--the patriotism somehow gets lost in the sheer irritation of the thing. Somehow a person associates Memorial Day with long moments of silence when you summon up mental images of men huddled together on amphibious assault vehicles and pilots revving up B-24s and infantrymen crouched behind piles of rubble steeling themselves for the next push. You don't quite see the connection between that and these fat men with ponytails on Harleys.” But instead, he chose to bray like a jackass about those fat men in ponytails. You know, the kind of poseurs who need to be airlifted to Baghdad so they can show their support of the troops in a more tangible way: (READ MORE)
Steve Schippert: 'There Can Be No Deal' With Pakistan for Mehsud, Either - There is a pretty good profile of South Waziristan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in the New York Times and it is worth the reading time to digest. In reading, early on in the article a paragraph seemed to leap from the pages for all it told about the prospect of ‘peace’ in the assorted ‘truces’ made between the new Pakistani government and various Taliban factions in various agencies throughout the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and pieces of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that lie between the rest of Pakistan and the Afghanistan border. “‘Islam does not recognize boundaries,’ he [Mehsud] told the journalists, in accounts published in Pakistani newspapers and reported by the BBC. ‘There can be no deal with the United States.’” (READ MORE)
Susan Katz Keating: Nine Days in May: The Truth About Minot - Nine days. That's how much time nuclear safekeepers spent inspecting the workings of the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base last month. For those of you who have been snoozing in the bomb shelter for the past year, Minot wound up under scrutiny because its B-52 unit has been unacceptably loose with its nukes in ways that boggle the mind (see recap). The mil-bosses were so concerned that they dispatched a Defense Threat Reduction Agency team to inspect security at Minot. The inspectors spent nine days on the ground, seeking to uncover the truth about Minot. Although the inspectors gave high marks in many areas, other problems were so egregious that the team issued a failing grade overall. A low point on the inspection report was the revelation that a security guard played video games on his cell phone while on duty. (READ MORE)
Mark Steyn: THE LAST LAUGH - Of late I've been having some sport with a fellow called Oscar van den Boogaard. He's a novelist over in Europe, and, while I'm not the most assiduous reader of Continental fiction, my eye was caught by an interview he gave to the Belgian newspaper De Standaard. Reflecting on Europe's accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Eutopia he loved, but what could he do? "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." This seemed such a poignant epitaph for the Continent that I started quoting it hither and yon. And one thing led to another and I started explaining that Mr van den Boogaard is a Dutch gay humanist, which is, as I like to say, pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool. A cheap joke, but it got a laugh. And before you know it Mr van den Boogaard was playing the same function in my act that Elizabeth Taylor does in Joan Rivers'. (I haven't seen Miss Rivers since, oh, 1973, so this may have changed.) (READ MORE)
Melanie Phillips: Britain's Terrorism Derangement Syndrome - Today’s article in the Telegraph by Peter Clarke, the former Metropolitan Police officer who was until recently national co-ordinator of terrorist investigations, is a straightforward and sensible endorsement of the government’s embattled proposal to extend the detention period for terrorism suspects from 28 to 42 days. The opposition to this measure, when it is not merely playing mischievous politics, borders on the hysterical. Opponents shriek that it is internment by another name, and that if it is passed Britain will have destroyed its ancient liberties and handed victory to the terrorists. They also declare triumphantly that, since no-one can identify a case that has already occurred where 42 days was necessary and its absence caused terrorists to be released, this clinches the argument that it is totally unnecessary. What utter drivel. (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: The Curdling of Women's Liberation - Women's liberation has been one of the outstanding successes of the Judeo-Christian West. In a relatively brief historical moment, women became equal partners in society and all opportunities were opened to them. The removal of legal and conceptual barriers to full participation in society was a triumph that essentially doubled the amount of human intellect available to address our species problems. Unfortunately, removing legal barriers is not the same as dissolving all social inequalities, nor does the removal of legal barriers to opportunity ensure equality of outcome for people with different sets of abilities. This bitter piece of reality has caused endless anguish for those who need to deny that we are born and raised with disparate abilities and has caused endless mischief for our society under the ministrations of those who are deeply troubled by unequal outcomes. (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: WHERE IS JOHN McCAIN? - Trying to come up with something original to blog about can be a real pain. That’s why many bloggers follow the lead of one of the bigger sites and write about the news of the day with their own special take on what’s happening. But if you want to blog about something that hardly anyone in the MSM or the internet is writing about, might I suggest you write something about John McCain? The poor fellow is, for all intents and purposes, being ignored. Now admittedly, the Democratic race (such as it is) holds out a lot more promise of being interesting on any given day. You just never know, for instance, what radical in Obama’s background is going to jump up and say something totally outrageous. After all, the guy has more leftist nuts associated with him than are found at a convention of Communist squirrels. And if you stick a microphone within 10 feet of Bill Clinton, you’re bound to hear something interesting, quotable, and off the wall – three attributes that are guaranteed to generate “controversy.” (READ MORE)
McQ: Obama’s radical roots - Barack Obama tossed his church - now his former church - under the bus last week, claiming to be shocked and disappointed in what it had become. Of course few, to include myself, believe that what we’ve seen out of Trinity UCC is something new or recent. In fact, what we have seen out of Trinity is its "spiritual" basis and the staple of its existence. It is, unashamedly, a black liberation theology church to include the time in which Barack Obama attended. Stanley Kurtz writes a very important piece about Obama and Trinity that deserves a lot of attention. Its a long piece and you need to read it all, but the nut of his argument is that while Obama can claim the church doesn’t represent him or his views and disavow his association with it, a look into his past makes such claims and disavowals pretty hollow: (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Six theses on Obama - Barack Obama stands poised to clinch the Democratic nomination for president today and put in an appearance at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican convention will be held this summer. It is a remarkable story for a man with such a thin public record and no tangible accomplishment in his 46 years other than writing a best-selling memoir. Moreover, Obama is the most left-wing candidate the Democrats have nominated since George McGovern. If Obama wins the presidency, it is fair to say that it will be Jimmy Carter's second term. I think it is more accurate to postulate, however, that it will be George McGovern's first term. Even so, the Democratic Party has moved left since McGovern's defeat, and Obama is a product of the Democratic Party's post-McGovern left. (READ MORE)
Paul Mirengoff: On track in Iraq - The number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in May (19) was the lowest since we invaded in early 2003. Moreover, this low-water mark was set during a month in which successful military operations were carried in Sadr City and Mosul. The paradox, if any, is resolved by the equally good news that Iraqi soldiers took the lead in both venues. The relatively low death count in May follows an April in which the death total reached 52, the highest since September 2007. This spike (which still did not approach the normal figures for the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007) had several readers emailing to accuse me of viewing the world through ideologically-tinted glasses in claiming, modestly I had thought, that we were making significant military progress in Iraq. I haven't received any such emails lately. (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Sore Loserman Zombie - Abroad in the land! Embittered Hillary blogger accuses DNC’s RBC of stealing the nomination for Obama. It’s a ”Sore Loserman” redux. Someone needs to explain the difference between the United States Constitution, the Supreme Court, and a bunch of Democratic Party hacks in a smoke-filled backroom to that guy. Never mind, it sounds like he plans to vote McCain.* It is truly tragic to watch this great American party self-destruct. First the Great Mandate of 2006, now this. But as entertaining as it may be to some meanspirited cynics, it is a scary and dangerous situation. What if these petty short-sighted infighting incompetents win? *Not that it’s over yet. Politico: Clintonistas vow “August and no earlier!” (READ MORE)
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay: Mark Steyn's trial has begun - Readers may not know this, but the BC Human Rights Council is beginning their prosecution of Mark Steyn today. Macleans, a news outlet in Canada, published excerpts of Mark's book "America Alone" and Muslims went nuts. They accused the outlet and Steyn of perpetuating hatred of Muslims by publishing those pieces. To be honest, the Muslims up north obviously like to cherry-pick parts of the excerpts because anyone who has read "America Alone" (and we have, several times) knows that his argument is based on demographics, and that unless things change in the world, Islam will "win" by default because they are breeding faster than the rest of the world. Andrew Coyne is live-blogging the whole fiasco all week long. People should take serious note of this because the council, in essence, is arguing for a curtailing of speech because some people are offended. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Marines in Afghanistan have “routed” Taliban: NYT - Where do Hot Air readers turn for good news on the war? The New York Times? Carlotta Gall reports that the Marines in southern Afghanistan have “routed” the Taliban in the region and have them streaming back into Pakistan. This provides a second data point for progress on the war, but could something else be happening? “Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan are fleeing to the Pakistani border after being routed in recent operations by the United States Marines, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said on Monday. Marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been clearing Taliban and foreign fighters from the district of Garmser, in southern Helmand Province, an important infiltration and drug trafficking route used by the Taliban to supply insurgents farther north.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Paging the ACLU - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s church got $15 million from taxpayers. Trinity United Church of Christ’s pastor may have preached “God Damn America,” but he raked in $15 million from federal taxpayers over the years, Fox News reported. The money preceded the ascendancy of the church’s most famous member to the U.S. Senate. It shows that many social services are contracted out to churches. Think about that the next time some liberal complains about Faith-Based Initiatives. Separation of church to liberals means separation from only certain churches; the ones they don’t like. I have no problem with using churches for government-funded programs like Head Start (although Head Start is a terribly ineffective program). My problem is with the two-facedness of the Trinity United Church of Christ’s pastor and yes, its parishioners — both current and longtime-but-former. (READ MORE)
Walid Phares: Hezbollah Ruled, the West was Fooled - In the next days a major battle in the War of Ideas will be unfolding worldwide and particularly through the international media. We are now witnessing a massive campaign by Hezbollah's strategic communication machine (as our Western jargon likes to describe it) to frame the outcome of the battle for Lebanon, significantly lost by the United States, the West and the forces of Democracies in the region. The main issue at hand in the Iranian funded war room is not about convincing the international community and the Arab and Muslim world that Hezbollah has defeated its opponents in that small but strategically located republic, but that an overwhelming majority of Lebanese are now firmly standing behind Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in his vision for the future of the Eastern Mediterranean and probably the Greater Middle East. (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Obamanomics 101 - When the Democrats seized Congress in 2006, they promised, among the many promises they made -- among the seemingly millions of promises they made -- to move immediately to solve "global warming" (they hadn't yet gotten the memo about calling it "global climate change," so as to include global warming, global cooling, and global unusual stability). They swore they would reduce America's "carbon footprint." They vowed to cure the Earth's "fever" by any means necessary (a progressive term of art that means "no matter what you great unwashed, with your false consciousness, may think you want"). After two years of concerted action to surrender in Iraq, they have now turned to this particular promise. They have decided that the time for talk is over, and what we need now is action, action, action! Today, the Democrats in the Senate, having trampled underfoot a more moderate climate plan supported by John McCain and the Senate Republicans ("false consciousness!"), introduced their own draconian vision. (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Punished for being right - MacLeans.CA/blogs is liveblogging the British Columiba Human Rights Tribunal Proceedings against Mark Steyn. The most striking entry in the running narrative of proceedings are these arguments from the complainant's counsel, who tells us, in legalese of course, that freedom of speech confers no protection when offending Islam: “Lead counsel for the complainants (i.e., Mohamed Elmasry and the Canadian Islamic Congress) is Faisal Joseph. ... Section 7.1 of the BC Human Rights Code is the relevant legal text, prohibiting exposure to hate. Free speech, in Joseph’s humble submission, is a ‘red herring.’ ... Islamophobia is the real issue. Steyn’s article shows ‘multiple hallmarks of hate.’” As a matter of fact, Joseph may be partly right. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: The Rumor Mill - The last couple of days have seen rumors of impending video releases that would devastate the Obama campaign. Thus far, we've gotten mealy mouth nonsensical claims from an ex-CIA hack who also happens to be in the tank for the Clinton campaign, Larry Johnson. Now, we get a similar claim from Bob Beckel and Roger Stone who claim that there's a videotape showing Michelle Obama engaged in a racist rant and that the GOP and Hillary's campaign are both in a race to get it. It's my belief that there's no videotape floating around that purports to do what they say, and I'd give any such rumors the 24-hour rule. (READ MORE)
Chickenhawk Express: Veteran's for Peace & The BDS Constitution - The hypocrisy knows no bounds... So afflicted with BDS that they can't or don't care about mocking the US Constitution, the VFP has decided to write a new Constitution with a BDS slant. After Downing Street even has it in PDF format so you can make flyers with it... Here's a few snips from the BDS screed... “The history of the administration of President and Vice President, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney is a history of repeated crimes, injuries and usurpations, all having as a direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny of the Executive Branch. A President whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant is unfit to be the leader of a free people. To prove this, let these Facts be submitted to a candid world:” (READ MORE)
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