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)
Clinton Pullout Likely Saturday - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is likely to suspend her presidential campaign on Saturday and endorse Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, according to informed sources, after a day in which many of her key supporters and party leaders encouraged the senator from New York to... (READ MORE)
Zimbabwean Police Charge Mugabe Rival - Zimbabwean police detained opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai for eight hours Wednesday and charged him with violating public order for campaigning ahead of the country's June 27 presidential runoff election, party officials said. (READ MORE)
Father of Pakistan's Bomb Stands Defiant - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The garden is in full bloom at Abdul Qadeer Khan's house. A lazy summer haze has settled over his manse, and at the small police substation across the way, several men chitchatted amiably on a recent day, barely glancing at the upscale villa that for the past four years has been part prison, part palatial refuge for the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. (READ MORE)
U.S. Navy Ends Bid to Ferry Storm Relief Into Burma - BANGKOK, June 4 -- The U.S. Navy on Wednesday aborted its three-week effort to use helicopters aboard a warship off Burma to deliver much-needed aid directly to cyclone survivors, after the country's ruling military junta ignored repeated offers to assist. (READ MORE)
Former Obama Fundraiser Convicted of Corruption - CHICAGO, June 5 -- Antoin Rezko, a Chicago businessman and longtime fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), was convicted of 16 felony corruption charges Wednesday in a case that alleged influence peddling in the upper reaches of the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D). (READ MORE)
Obama's Vice President - In clinching the Democratic Presidential nomination, Barack Obama is now the leader of his party. The first test of his leadership as a potential President will be his response to the extraordinary campaign already underway to bully him into choosing Hillary Clinton as his running mate. (READ MORE)
The Buck Stops Where? - When Paul Volcker declared several weeks ago that the world was in a "dollar crisis," his successors at the Federal Reserve made their private disapproval very clear. This week current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke waved the white flag over Mr. Volcker's point by declaring his own public concern "that the dollar remains a strong and stable currency." Apologies accepted, provisionally. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Daniel Henninger: Obama's 'Identity' Beat Hillary's 'Identity' - "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." -- Geraldine Ferraro Be that as it may, what remains is that the candidacy of the first liberal white woman to run for president is about to lose, defeated by, yes, a black man. Some in the Clinton tong profess not to understand what happened to her. "We are filled with disappointment and amazement," said Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped deliver unto her the Keystone State. "Why haven't these results caused the superdelegates to come around?" Wonder Land columnist Dan Henninger speaks to Kelsey Hubbard about the role "identity" politics played in the Democratic nomination. (June 5) (READ MORE)
Pete Hegseth: Why Obama Must Go to Iraq - Earlier this year, I spent five days in Iraq, walking the same streets in Baghdad where I had served two years earlier as an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division. The visit reinforced for me not only the immense complexity of the war – so often lost in our domestic political debate – but also the importance of taking the time to visit Iraq to talk with the soldiers and Marines serving on the front lines in order to grasp the changing dynamics of a fluid battlefield. It is for this reason that the failure of Sen. Barack Obama to travel to Iraq over the past two and a half years. (READ MORE)
Karl Rove: Lincoln's Rule: Organization Matters - Politics has become hi-tech with sophisticated databases, the Internet, TV ads, focus groups and polls. But a lanky Sangamon County, Ill., lawyer described the essential task of politics in 1840 in a letter to his Whig campaign committee. Make a list of the voters, he wrote, ascertain for whom they will vote, have undecided voters talked to by someone they hold in confidence, and, on Election Day, get all Whig voters to the polls. Abraham Lincoln was a great president, but he was also a very practical politician. And Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama would be wise to take his advice. In a close election, organization matters a lot. Mr. Obama's background as a community organizer makes him comfortable with organizing. His supporters are demonstrating great energy and enthusiasm. Many are Internet savvy, making communicating with them inexpensive and fast. The long primary season has given Mr. Obama's team time to grow, test and learn. (READ MORE)
Amity Shales: Contracts as Good as Gold - People these days fear inflation. We also fear changing rates of inflation. And most of the tools we might use to protect ourselves, such as the Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities bond or gold stocks, are imperfect. TIPS are, after all, based on an inflation-measure whose accuracy is itself controversial – the Consumer Price Index. So it's worth remembering that, 75 years ago today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt destroyed an inflation hedge that was literally as good as gold: the so-called "gold clause." This helped prolong the Depression and has been causing damage ever since. Consider an investor in the gold standard era. An ounce of gold was worth $20.67 and you could, at least in theory, trade your greenbacks for gold at the bank. The gold standard checked a government's willingness to inflate, since it started losing gold when it did so. Those who traded bonds knew a confidence we can never know. (READ MORE)
John Kerry & Chuck Hagel: It's Time to Talk to Syria - After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, President George H.W. Bush did the improbable and convinced Syrian President Hafez Assad to join an American-led coalition against a fellow Baathist regime. Today, these leaders' sons have another chance for a diplomatic breakthrough that could redefine the strategic landscape in the Middle East. The recent announcement of peace negotiations between Israel and Syria through Turkey, and the agreement between the Lebanese factions in Qatar – both apparently without meaningful U.S. involvement – should serve as a wake-up call that our policy of nonengagement has isolated us more than the Syrians. These developments also help create new opportunities and increased leverage that we can only exploit through substantive dialogue with Syria. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Zawahiri Goes for the Familiar - When all else fails (and it certainly has in Iraq and Afghanistan), al Qaeda's Zawahiri calls on its thugs and minions to to go back to basics. He wants them to step up and try to break the blockade of Gaza and essentially calls on his terror minions to go after Egypt and Israel. Gaza is in the hands of the terrorist group Hamas, and Israel and Egypt are both imposing a blockade on the terrorists to try and prevent them from smuggling weapons into Gaza for use in Hamas' ongoing war against Israel. Egypt isn't exactly doing its due diligence in stopping the smuggling, but Zawahiri considers the Egyptians to be traitors to the cause. Let's not forget that Zawahiri is Egyptian and he cut his teeth in opposing Egypt's peace overtures with Israel and sought to overthrow the Egyptian government. He led the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which merged into al Qaeda. This is a subject on which he's quite familiar. (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Anti-Bush Partisans Stuck on "No WMD" Meme - By this time, five years after the run-up to the Iraq war, it's abundantly clear that those on the left implacably opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein's murderous regime are stuck in a pre-surge mentality, and they'll continue to use any and all methods to prolong their deligitimization campaign of the American deployment in Iraq. One of these antiwar nihilists is Cernig at "Newshoggers". I took down old "C" in a post some time back, "Blogging Foreign Policy: Bereft of Credentials, Left Strains to Shift Debate." "C" didn't like that and tried to resuscitate his "credibilty" in the comments. Cernig's got a post up this morning on Australia's Rudd government and its effort to pull the country's contribution to joint security contingents in Iraq: (READ MORE)
Ace of Spades: Callin' Shit By Different Names: Obama Vows His Plan for Withdrawal From Iraq is Actually a "Plan for Victory" - Missed the Headline? Supports Contiguous Palestinian State - Victory over whom? The Bush Administration? More evolution -- well, this one of a purely rhetorical sort -- at the AIPAC conference. Barack Obama picked up fresh support Wednesday from fellow Democrats eager for party unity after a bruising battle for the presidential nomination, at the same time he accused Republican rival John McCain of supporting a "plan for staying, not a plan for victory" in Iraq. "I think he has exercised very bad judgment on national security issues and others," said McCain, one day after welcoming Obama to the general election campaign with sharp criticism. The victor in an enervating primary campaign, Obama courted Jewish voters in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee." (READ MORE)
A Newt One: Haditha Marine Exonerated - Murtha, the fellow once seen redeploying to an elevator, will never apologize for ruining the lives and careers of his once fellow Marines. The guy is a shallow-minded imp and tar and feathers is too good for the lout. Naturally, the Murtha lap lickers of CNN had a headline as follows...Marine acquitted of Haditha cover-up. They have since changed it to this: Marine acquitted in Haditha case. The title to their piece was changed before I could get a screen shot of it but it is still in my reader as follows: Naturally, there is no media bias there, eh? Those reporting the correct way are The Pirate's Cove, Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers and Flopping Aces. I placed a call to Fat Boy's Orifice but he was not available for comment. I wonder why that is. (READ MORE)
SFC Chuck Grist: My Mission Continues - For a Little Longer - I am writing this from a less-than-great motel on the plains of Oklahoma. Shipped to the west along with a bunch of my comrades, we are again responsible for doing the pre-mobilization training for a large group of soldiers who will deploy to one of the war zones sometime during the next year. As I have mentioned before, this is one of my last active duty assignments, but it is always just as important as it always was. Other than fighting the battles and serving on the ground in war, nothing is more important than getting these youngsters ready to face a war of IEDs, ambushes, urban warfare and convoys. It will be tough to leave this behind after so many years. (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: The Widening Gyre: Liberty Edition - Today let’s look at some stories that flesh out the idea of the “widening gyre” - think of the falcon, tossed off the leathered glove, ascending ’round and ’round in ever-broader circles. Think of a cyclone. Think how hard it is for us falcons - as we mover further away, caught in all the noise of wind and air - to hear the voice of the Falconer who set us free. There’s lots of noise today. I’ll write about Obama and Hillary later - I’ve got something specific in mind, but let’s see what else is swirling about us and lost in the cacophony. The falcon cannot hear the falconer: The pro-censorship Human Rights Commission er, Tribunal, er Kangaroo Court, er Bastion of Liberal Fascism in Canada prosecutes thought crimes and suppresses free speech for the sake of hurt feelings. Writes David Warren: “…in a case designed to challenge freedom of the press. It is a show trial, under the arbitrary powers given to Canada’s obscene ‘human rights’ commissions, by Section 13 of our Human Rights Act.” (READ MORE)
Kat at Castle Argghhh!: Someone You Should Know: Corporal Jessica Ellis - I was looking over the information regarding casualties in May. Nineteen soldiers lost their lives last month, the lowest in the war. Somehow, though, that makes it harder. In fact, in this war, the reason it may feel so personal to many is that there are not so many that we cannot read a story about each of them somewhere on the internet. They become more than names and faces, they are known to us. When I looked at May's list of casualties, I noticed something that isn't broadcast very often and, to some degree, shows that everyone sacrifices: men and women. And, everyone of them is a great loss to somebody. Three of the casualties in May were women. Here, though, is Corporal Jessica Ellis, 2BSTB Airborne Medic. She wasn't given a medal for valor though she earned the last medal, the Purple Heart, in the hardest way. (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: The land of the free - Congress bans US "military propaganda". According to the Washington Times: “Congressional Democrats want to ban Pentagon propaganda on the Iraq war ... The House passed legislation in May to prohibit the military from engaging in ‘any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.’” The Washington Times says enforcing the ban will be difficult. In an globalized world, what constitutes a domestic release of information? Is there any form of communication that can be directed at the enemy that lacks the potential to reach an American audience? (READ MORE)
The Captain's Journal: Are the Taliban Really on the Brink of Defeat Part II? - In Are the Taliban Really on the Brink of Defeat? the contradictory claims of progress and resurgent violence in Afghanistan were examined within the context of the NATO organizational structure. On the other hand, no coverage of the Marine operations in the Helmand Province has been as extensive as at The Captain’s Journal with our category Marines in Helmand. The Marines are having great success, of course. But we weighed in on the first subject by stating that the British had exaggerated the imminent defeat of the Taliban. Counterinsurgency takes force projection, and that, for a protracted period. But are these two claims contradictory? Since Glenn Reynolds linked the first post at Instapundit there was some interest in the subject. Roger Fraley linked this post and caught on to the potential contradiction, and Noah Shachtman with Danger Room published his similarly themed article Who’s Up in Afghanistan? (several hours after The Captain’s Journal, by the way). Noah points out: (READ MORE)
Dhimmi This: US Marine acquitted of all charges in Haditha killings - A court martial on Wednesday acquitted a US Marine for his role in the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha in Iraq in 2005, the sixth man to be exonerated in the affair, a military official said. Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, 27, was declared "not guilty on all charges" by a jury, said a spokesman for the Camp Pendleton military base in southern California where the hearing started on May 28. See full article here. Oohrah - Grayson! And thank you for your service to your country and sorry for your being falsely accused of murder while you were just doing your job. It is time for the Corp to admit that there was no massacre at Haditha and to clear the two remaining Marines. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Ted’s miracle - A New York Post columnist pointed out, Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy might have died under universal health care. Kennedy had a seizure on May 17. It was discovered to be a malignant brain tumor on May 19. 2 weeks later he had it removed, while wide awake (so doctors could make sure they weren’t damaging his brain) and he’s now up and about. It is expensive. True. But if you don’t have your health, what good is the money? And the USA devotes about 15% of its gross domestic product to the medical industry. This attracts the best and the brightest to and from within the USA to the medical industry. Which leads to all sorts of innovations. Which leads to an 85-year-old man surviving a brain tumor. (READ MORE)
Bill Whittle: PROOF OF LIFE! - Is he leaving or returning? Well, at that moment I was playing President of the Imaginary States of America. That's one of the old Air Force One 707's, and it's mounted in spectacular fashion at the Reagan Library. When you take the tour they take a souvenir photo at the entrance. I did the standard arms-round-the-family one, then asked for another. The only photoshopping was to take out the hanger behind the plane and replace it with a night scene of Tuzla. I think that considering the amount of sniper fire I was taking, I look remarkably calm and collected. It's good to be the POTIS. Back to the question: is he leaving? Returning? What? Both! Mostly returning. Kind of. The fact is, my absence has left me bitter, and clinging to my religion and my guns. I've been busy with two major breakthoughs in my non-Eject! life: (READ MORE)
Yankeemom: A Lovely Day In The Neighborhood - I am often dismayed at how much folks don’t know about what is going on in their own country. I realize not everyone is a political junkie and watches C-Span for fun like I do, or reads countless investigative reports about Islam. After all, most people don’t get to work from home, as I do, and have full access to a computer that is not monitored. A lot of folks get their info from the media, not realizing that what they are getting is handpicked and spun by a few who have a definite agenda, the priority item on this agenda being profits. But crickey! Too many people don’t even know the first thing about the candidates running for President! Nevermind what their Congress critters are up to there on that Hill. Or how entrenched radical Muslims are in this country already. (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Going Analog - A fellow tabloidist once mused about the zen of our wretched ink-stained art: “It is all nothingness, and yet it fills space.” That was a different time, long, long ago, when the world was a very different place. About 1996, I think. Cyberspace for most people then was as it has been classically described, the place where you are when you are on the phone. Two real people in two different real places, occupying a common nether zone where neither of them actually are, which doesn’t actually exist. Someone described it that way during the cyberpunk sci-fi era in the 1980s. I forget who. For most people, cyberspatial existence then was tethered to kitchen walls and desktops. Maybe it was where you were when you watched TV, too. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: (Video) Michelle Malkin on Obama’s “intellectual bankruptcy” - Michelle Malkin appeared on Fox and Friends this morning to discuss the oddly similar speeches that Barack Obama gave on Tuesday and Mario Cuomo gave on a Thursday … in 1984. Michelle doesn’t believe that the striking similarities go quite as far as plagiarism, but that they demonstrate something worse — a bankruptcy of intellect. Have Democrats come up with an original thought in the past quarter-century? Obama has run on themes of hope and change, and the only way he can express that is to recycle old Mario Cuomo speeches? That is the pinnacle of irony. Obama doesn’t represent the fresh and new, he conglomerates the old and rejected from decades of Democratic rhetoric. It’s the same old intellectual bankruptcy which lost that 1984 election, and won’t age any better in 2008. (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Bob Barr to put Georgia, North Carolina in play for Obama? - All part of his daring master plan to make his name as widely reviled among the right as Ralph Nader’s is among the left. “Polls in Georgia and North Carolina over the last two weeks show Mr. Barr winning 8 percent and 6 percent respectively of the presidential vote, and in both cases helping keep likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama within striking distance of Mr. McCain in those states — which, taken together, account for more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio… [InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt] Towery said North Carolina and Georgia are exactly the places that Mr. Barr could put in play: both have high African-American populations that Mr. Obama can tap to boost his turnout numbers, and have conservative-leaning voters whose dissatisfaction with President Bush could lead them to a third-party candidate.” (READ MORE)
Duane R. Patterson: Judicial Nominations Day Of Reckoning Comes To The Senate - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell used the element of surprise today to follow through on a promise he's made to fellow conservatives for quite some time. Either the Democrats were going to give President Bush's judicial nominees, especially ones for the Appellate Court level, the same treatment given to previous administrations, or things were going to start moving very slowly in the Senate. Harry Reid's most recent broken deal with McConnell was to confirm three of Bush's nominees by the Memorial Day recess. It didn't happen. Today, just before 1PM in the East, Harry Reid took to the floor for the purpose of substituting a 491-page amendment by Barbara Boxer on the Climate Change bill currently being discussed. The clerk read the title of the bill, which is customary. Senator Reid asked that the reading of the bill be ended so time could be divvied out and the matter discussed on the floor, which is again very customary. Mitch McConnell then objected to the suspension of the reading of the bill, much to Reid's surprise and amazement. (READ MORE)
Neal Boortz: LIBERAL LOGIC - Senator Barbara Boxer has really displayed the inner workings of a liberal mind. She said in a speech yesterday on the floor of the Senate that a "recession is the precise time to enact the Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade bill because it "brings us hope." Has she lost her marbles? She really believes that by passing this bill, the economy will do a sudden turnaround and all of our problems will be solved ... the earth will be saved! Oh ...In case you haven't heard, Senator Boxer; the American economy is not in a recession. Senator Inhofe's staff has done a great job of compiling some research of the Heritage Foundation. Perhaps Barbara Boxer should consider some of these facts before she goes on making stupid comments like this again. However, to a liberal, "hope" seems to be the most important factor these days. (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Then what would be the point? - Robert Reich is a very bright man whom I almost always comprehensively disagree with - a fact that I’m pretty sure has cost him no sleep whatsoever. Still, I have to wonder at his opinion piece on carbon cap and trade schemes in today’s WSJ. (If only for discussion’s sake, let us stipulate that anthroprogenic global warming is a real problem that can be cost-effectively mitigated). Cap and trade is a scheme of granting ever-decreasing carbon credits - permissions to carbon generating industries permitting them to emit greenhouse gases. When an emitter reaches its limit, it would be forced to either cease work or purchase credits rom other companies who have been more successful in reducing their emissions. The question in play is the difference between the cap and trade schemes favored by the three presidential candidates, which chiefly differ over how the credits are issued. (READ MORE)
Ray Robinson: CIA Director validates American Thinker analysis - A lot of people are hearing for the first time that we are beating al Qaeda and the Taliban. They are literally baffled by the change in the situation because they have heard the opposite from most major media outlets. The mainstream media barely gave any glimpse of the chaos wrought on al Qaeda since 2006 by US and allied forces. To be fair, government sources weren't exactly pushing the storyline of success after being shell-shocked by the fall out over the ‘mission accomplished’ narrative of the left. But if you are a faithful American Thinker reader this news did not shock you. Because we have detailed the evolving environment as best we could from open source material for some time now. Over a year ago we posed the question "Has the Global Islamic Jihad Movement fractured?" (READ MORE)
Winds of Change: Once again: on Hizbu'allah - It is interesting to speculate on the similarity between what Hizbu'allah did in Lebanon a few days ago and what Hamas did in Gaza a year ago. Is the fact that both displayed the same pattern of behavior no more than a coincidence; or is it that the mindset shared by all Islamic fundamentalists, Sunni and Shiite alike, makes them behave in a similar fashion? There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the second proposition is the right one. Theocrats, whose political beliefs are a function of their religious convictions,] may claim to believe in democracy, modern state systems, pluralism and diversity [that is, the acceptance of and respect for the rights of the Other], but do so purely for reasons of expediency. They know full well that paying lip service to such noble sentiments – if only at a certain stage – can serve their interests and avert problems. (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Democracy Dead; Voting Outlawed; Stalin's Ghost Chortles as AP Now Selects US Presidents - This has to be filed under the "Are You Kidding?" and "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes," headings. The news manufacturers and political power brokers at the Associated Press decided on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, that they had waited long enough for the Democratic Party to anoint Barack Hussein Obama as the next president of the United States. It didn't appear he could convince sufficient voters to give him the go ahead, so the AP czars up and did it themselves. There is a process by which the Democratic Party votes through primaries to select its nominee at a national convention in August. In this process each state holds a primary vote, and based on how much of that vote the candidates receive, a corresponding number of both committed and uncommitted delegates are assigned to each. (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Tell Me Another One - One of the hallmarks of Barack Obama's campaign for president is his "judgment." (It's no wonder he touts this as his greatest strength; he certainly has no long record of accomplishments to run on.) He boasts of having opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning, and this -- along with... um... ah... well, a bunch of other things that escape me right now, show that he has the judgment to lead our nation. I've done it before, but I think it's quite educational to take a look at other areas Obama has shown his judgment -- and see just how well that's worked out. In his personal life, Obama chose to join the Trinity United Church of Christ and picked its leader, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as one of his three spiritual mentors. I think we've all seen how well that played out -- Obama recently resigned from that church when he discovered that it was a hotbed of inflammatory political agitation and race-polarizing. (READ MORE)
Trying to Grok: NOT JUST A QUIBBLE - I read a comment from someone over at RWN that frustrated me. The commenter was very civil and tried to be constructive, but what he/she said just doesn't hold water. “In my humble opinion, it hurts our country when we group ourselves and others into groups of ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals.’ In my experience I have met a lot of liberals, and a lot of conservatives, and I seem to get along fine with all of them. So, instead of listening to some ‘study’ that suggests liberals are Satan's army of darkness, why don't you just try to remember that they are people LIKE YOU who only believe what they believe because they think it is what is best for their country. Instead of attacking their character, attack their ideas, debate with them on why they believe war is bad, or why we should spend tax dollars on certain things.” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: The First 'I Am My Own God' President? - Barack Obama has made a number of questionable statements, including a recent pronouncement in which he seems to count moral values by how well they fit his personal choices. If that portrayal is accurate, then rarely have we seen so self-centered and self-serving a candidate who won his party's nomination to become President of the United States. The office is an exceptionally demanding one, and it often requires a selfless individual to do the job right, so whether Mr. Obama is the delusional narcissist he appears to be is an important question. To address that question, I went looking for the whole interview from which the damning statement was taken. (READ MORE)
Daniel's Big Trip: Go North, young man! - Well I've learned an important lesson today... Few exciting things happen in the rain, so I guess there's not too much to talk about, but we'll see! I spent the night in Reading, PA. This is the same Reading of monopoly Reading R.R. fame. Try as I might though, I couldn't find anyone willing to sell me the title to the RR for my $200. I guess it doesn't really matter anyhow, since I don't own the other three... Anyhow, I stayed with a buddy from the Army whom I've known for about 11 years now. The reminiscent stories flowed freely, the Old Milwaukee flowed even more freely, and Rockstar just flowed, mostly on the bushes.... I drove about the city a bit and had a GREAT Italian sandwich at the place pictured here. If you ever pass thru indulge in the tasty goodness! I guess it pays to eat at a local place that's owned by Authentic Italians, unlike that danged Olive Garden... (READ MORE)
Classical Values: The invisible exception to the 4th Amendment? - One of the things that has long appalled me about Child Protective Services (CPS), as well as the various agencies charged with enforcing animal welfare laws, is that unlike normal police, neither the child cops nor the animal cops seem to believe the Constitution applies to them. It's as if they think the founders of this country must have inserted invisible asterisks in the 4th and 5th Amendments going to invisible footnotes which say "except in cases involving crimes against children or animals." Don't get me wrong. Not only do I oppose crimes against children or animals, I can be just as emotional as some of the enforcement people under the right set of facts. But that does not mean I'm willing to allow my emotions to strike the Fourth and Fifth Amendments from the Constitution. (READ MORE)
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