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)
From Across Region, 10,000 Rally for Obama - Sen. Barack Obama launched his general election campaign for president in Virginia yesterday, rolling up his sleeves and rallying families, college students and people playing hooky from work to help him "win this election and change the course of history." (READ MORE)
Investors' Growing Appetite for Oil Evades Market Limits - Hedge funds and big Wall Street banks are taking advantage of loopholes in federal trading limits to buy massive amounts of oil contracts, according to a growing number of lawmakers and prominent investors, who blame the practice for helping to push oil prices to record highs. (READ MORE)
Top Two Air Force Officials Ousted - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ousted the Air Force's civilian and military chiefs yesterday, an unprecedented move that came after a classified Pentagon investigation found "a chain of failures" in the Air Force's safeguarding of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. (READ MORE)
9/11 Architect Tells Court He Hopes for Martyrdom - GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, June 5 -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, appeared publicly Thursday for the first time since his capture five years ago and calmly told a U.S. military court that he hopes for a death sentence... (READ MORE)
U.S., British Envoys Attacked by Mugabe Loyalists in Rural Zimbabwe - A mob of loyalists to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe attacked vehicles carrying U.S. and British diplomats yesterday as they were investigating political violence ahead of a presidential runoff election this month, the State Department said. (READ MORE)
Congress Passes $3 Trillion Budget - Congress yesterday gave final approval to a $3 trillion spending plan that proposes modest increases for domestic programs such as education, energy and veterans benefits -- and marks the first time in eight years that lawmakers have managed to adopt a budget in an election year. (READ MORE)
Gentrification turns to fear in crime-riddled neighborhood - The Trinidad neighborhood for the past several years has been one of the last opportunities in the city for families and others to buy affordable homes in an up-and-coming neighborhood. (READ MORE)
Taiwan talks rest on sovereignty conditions - China stands ready to discuss a broad range of sensitive military, economic and diplomatic issues with Taiwan if the island's new government accepts Beijing's terms on national sovereignty, China's U.S. Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong said Thursday. (READ MORE)
Sri Lanka bus blast kills 21 - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – In the second attack in three days targeting civilians in the area, a bomb ripped through a crowded passenger bus near Sri Lanka's capital during Friday's morning rush hour, killing at least 21 people and wounding 47, officials said. (READ MORE)
Clinton, Obama meet for private talk - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama met Thursday evening for their first extended talk since Mr. Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. (READ MORE)
Mob probes hit a hurdle - Months after announcing criminal charges against dozens of reputed Gambino crime family members and associates, Labor Department investigators fear a Bush administration legal opinion could make it harder to investigate organized crime. (READ MORE)
U.S., Britain urge U.N. to act on attacks - NEW YORK The United States and Britain on Thursday pressed the United Nations to take up the issue of political repression in Zimbabwe after police beat up a U.S. Embassy staffer and briefly detained U.S. and British diplomats. (READ MORE)
Iraq and the Election - This spring, the Iraqi army routed insurgents in three of their most important urban strongholds. These gains follow the success of the surge in crushing al Qaeda in the Sunni triangle, meaning that we are at last on the verge of winning in Iraq and securing a strategic victory in the Middle East. Question: Is this emerging victory – achieved at a cost of more than 4,000 American lives – something we are prepared to abandon after November? (READ MORE)
The Political Spectrum - It's deja voodoo all over again at the Federal Communications Commission, where Chairman Kevin Martin is poised to repeat mistakes he made less than six months ago. In January the FCC auctioned off some coveted wireless spectrum that became available due to the transition to digital television broadcast. But instead of handing over the spectrum to the highest bidder, Mr. Martin rigged the auction. (READ MORE)
Real-Estate Woes of Banks Mount - Federal regulators warned Thursday that banking-industry turmoil would continue as financial institutions come to terms with piles of bad loans they made to finance the construction of homes and condominiums. Until now, most of the damage to banks from the housing crisis has come from homeowners defaulting on their mortgages. But amid a dismal spring sales season for new homes, loans to home and condo builders are looking increasingly shaky. (READ MORE)
He's Taking Law Into His Own Hands - PHILADELPHIA -- Sheriff John Green has spent 37 years in law enforcement. But these days he's best known around town for the law he won't enforce. With the economy soft and thousands of Philadelphians delinquent on their mortgages, Sheriff Green this spring refused to hold a court-ordered foreclosure auction. His move raised eyebrows on the bench and dropped jaws among lenders and their attorneys, who accuse him of shirking his duty to enforce legal contracts. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Juan Williams: It's Time for Another Obama Race Speech - Now what? How does Barack Obama, fresh from claiming the Democratic nomination, put Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger behind him, before they ignite yet again and blow up his general election campaign? How does he pre-empt advertising images, sure to be circulated by his opponents, that link him to outrageous racial rhetoric and fears that he is open to the most radical left-wing ideas – including using the power of the White House to exact racial vengeance? There is no doubt that Rev. Wright's inflammatory racial rants hurt Sen. Obama badly during the primaries. (READ MORE)
Michael Rubin: Turkey's Putin Deserves to Go - Istanbul - Yesterday Turkey's constitutional court overturned a new law that would have allowed women in the secular republic – established in 1923 by the Westernizing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – to wear Muslim headscarves in universities. It now appears all but certain that this summer the court will go even further when it decides a larger case against the country's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development (AK) Party. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AK stand accused of violating "the principles of a democratic and secular republic." Penalties could range from a suspension of the party's public financing to its disbandment and the suspension of its leadership from politics. (READ MORE)
Pat Toomey: Don Young Embodies What's Wrong With the GOP - Today, the Club for Growth Political Action Committee endorses Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell in his bid to unseat Republican Rep. Don Young in the state's August primary. The reason for the endorsement is simple. Mr. Parnell is a solid conservative who led the fight for lower taxes and spending in the state legislature, and joined Gov. Sarah Palin in pushing for reform in the state. The man he is hoping to replace isn't economically conservative in the least. Mr. Young is actually a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party in Washington. Over his 35 years in Congress, Mr. Young made himself into the most powerful Republican on the House Transportation Committee. (READ MORE)
Norman Borlaug & Peter McPherson: How to Continue the Fight Against Hunger - At the Washington, D.C. offices of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) there is a plaque dedicated to America's great statesman-general, George C. Marshall. It contains a quote from his epic 1947 Harvard commencement address, which spawned the Marshall Plan. The quote reads: "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos." Our government needs to rediscover that vision. We are in a world food crisis that stands to drive at least another 100 million people into hunger and exacerbate global instability. Solving the food crisis will require emergency food aid in the near term. (READ MORE)
Peggy Noonan: Recoil Election - It is the most amazing thing that a young black man who was just a few short years ago unknown to most of his countrymen—really, unknown—could, this week, win the presidential nomination of one of our two great political parties. It is even more amazing that this historic news could be overshadowed by the personal drama and spite of the woman who lost to him. I like it that she spent the campaign accusing America of being sexist, of treating her differently because she is a woman, and then, when she lacked the grace to congratulate the victor, she sent her stewards out to tell the press she just needs time, it's so emotional. In other words, she needs space because she's a woman. (READ MORE)
Kimberly A. Strassel: What We've Learned About Barack - Barack Obama has finally secured the Democratic Party's nomination. The question now for voters, and for Republican John McCain, is what have we learned over the past 16 months? We've learned Mr. Obama is a gifted politician, with a knack for reading the public mood. His success came from tapping in, early, to the country's deep dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and orienting his campaign around a "change" message. Other presidential aspirants – Republican and Democrat – ultimately adopted a version of this tune. But they couldn't match what was by then a well-rehearsed Obama number. To GOP strategists' frustration, focus groups still show that many people don't know what Mr. Obama proposes policy-wise – and don't care. (READ MORE)
Charles Krauthammer: The Power of Four Dollars - WASHINGTON -- So now we know: The price point is $4. At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up, and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed. Americans become rational creatures. Mass transit ridership is at a 50-year high. Driving is down 4 percent. (Any U.S. decline is something close to a miracle.) Hybrids and compacts are flying off the lots. SUV sales are in free fall. The wholesale flight from gas guzzlers is stunning in its swiftness, but utterly predictable. Everything has a price point. Remember that "love affair" with SUVs? Love, it seems, has its price too. America's sudden change in car-buying habits makes suitable mockery of that absurd debate Congress put on last December on fuel efficiency standards. At stake was precisely what miles-per-gallon average would every car company's fleet have to meet by precisely what date. (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: 9/11 Mastermind Wants to be Martyr - 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed dropped his legal defense and demanded the death penalty at his Guantanamo Bay arraignment hearing Thursday morning. U.S. military judge Marine Col. Ralph Kolman asked Mohammed if he understood he would be executed if convicted for his role in organizing largest ever terrorist attack on American soil. "Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time," Mohammed told Kohlman. "I will, God willing, have this, by you." Making sure Mohammed understood, Kohlmann asked again, “So you could be sentenced to death?” Kolhmann got an angry retort. "Maybe you didn't understand what I said," he said. "Military forces are still in Iran and Afghanistan. They are still in our holy land. I am not talking about your American Constitution … your evil law. I am talking about God's law."’ (READ MORE)
Mike Gallagher: Another Chapter In Obama's Book - Now that the anointed one, Barack Obama, will be the Democrat nominee for President, I'd like to submit just one more chapter to the painful book that is part of what defines him, his close-knit circle of radical activist advisors. This week in the Chicago Sun-Times, a chilling column appeared which featured an "exclusive" interview with Rev. Michael Pfleger, the Catholic priest whose ugly, racist rhetoric from the pulpit of Sen. Obama's chosen church led to the candidate's resignation from the congregation. Father Mike, as he is evidently known by people of questionable judgment who support him, wasn't particularly remorseful. In fact, the banner headline quoted him as saying, "This is a dangerous time in America...you have to whisper your thoughts." Anyone who saw the now-famous video would never confuse Rev. Pfleger's shrieking and ranting from the pulpit with whispering. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: A Man's View of Sex and the City - Sex and the City was the ultimate "chick flick" TV series and like most men, I spent years avoiding it like a prostate exam. However, after discussing the show with the incomparable Dawn Eden when I interviewed her about her surprisingly deep and spiritual book, The Thrill Of The Chaste, I decided to take the plunge and actually watch a season of the show. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed watching Sex and the City so much that I cycled through three seasons in roughly two months time. Why was the show alluring? Well, it featured four attractive, single women in their mid-thirties getting into funny situations that revolved around dating and sex -- and then talking about them without men around. For a single man in his thirties, it was almost like watching tapes that had been sneaked across enemy lines. Moreover, the characters, while not necessarily sympathetic, were at least intriguing. (READ MORE)
Oliver North: D-Day in Context - WASHINGTON -- Sixty-four years ago this week, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came on the radio and implored Americans to "devote themselves in a continuance of prayer invoking thy help to our efforts." The "effort" of which he spoke was Operation Overlord, the D-Day landing of 150,000 American and Allied troops at Normandy. The risks were so great that Winston Churchill told the people of Britain: "The invasion has been launched. The result is with God." FDR described it as "a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity." Since then, those who fought their way ashore June 6, 1944, and successfully breached Hitler's Atlantic Wall have been honored justifiably for their participation in the momentous event. On the 40th anniversary of the operation, Ronald Reagan stood on that "lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France" and spoke of that "giant undertaking unparalleled in human history" and praised "the boys of Pointe du Hoc the heroes who helped end a war." (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Let the Games Begin - We've now had the victory statement from Barack Obama. We've now had the non-concession concession from Hillary Clinton. Will we now get the end or only the "suspension" of her campaign? Does it matter? And what about Bill? Stay tuned. (Which sounds like the end of a daily soap opera episode.) Clinton Agonistes still simmers, like a Vesuvius capable of erupting who know when over who knows what. Will it be Obama-Clinton in '08? The way it was Kennedy-Johnson in '60? Or the way it was McGovern-Eagleton in '72? That pairing didn't even make it to election day. Will the winsome young senator leave Miss Hillary to twist slowly in the wind for a few weeks? Will she never tire of calculation? Will Michele Obama embrace Hillary Clinton like a sister at the Democratic convention? That'd be something to see. (READ MORE)
Mona Charen: Who Do They Love? - Do American Jews really love Israel, or just Democrats? Last week, 7,000 members of the storied AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) rose to their feet to honor Barack Obama a total of 13 times. The first standing O, lasting more than a minute, greeted the senator as he took the stage -- before he had even begun to count all the ways he plans to become a "true friend of Israel." They gushed. They cooed. They were carried away. Someone needs a cold shower. It is difficult to think of any recent major figure on the American scene who should invite disquiet among supporters of Israel more than Barack Obama. (And certainly among Israel's many Christian supporters, he doubtless does.) Yet 61 percent of American Jews, according to a recent Gallup poll, prefer Obama to McCain. True, this is a drop from the 78 percent who voted for John Kerry in 2004, but it still qualifies as slightly deranged, under the circumstances. (READ MORE)
Linda Chavez: Tough Questions - Sen. Barack Obama is, finally, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party -- no mean achievement in this most hotly contested primary race in recent history. He deserves a day or two to bask in this glory -- and certainly the media have been helping this along with fawning coverage of his "historic" achievement as the first African-American to win a major party nomination. But at some point, surely, the press will get back to doing their jobs; namely, asking tough questions of Sen. Obama so that the voting public will learn more about the man who could be their next president. The media should start by focusing on Sen. Obama's proposals in the foreign policy arena. He has offered a pretty radical vision of what his campaign calls "direct presidential diplomacy," offering to sit down, without preconditions, with some of the world's worst tyrants. He first made the offer in the heat of a presidential debate in which he was trying to contrast his approach with the current occupant of the White House. (READ MORE)
Ross Mackenzie: Quotables By and About Senators Obama and Clinton - Quotations — ridiculous and wise — related to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination...Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan: “Don’t fall in love with politicians. They’re all a disappointment. They can’t help it, they just are.” (a) Chelsea Clinton: “I think (my mother) will be a better president (than my father) because she’ll be more progressive and she’s more prepared. She’ll just hit the ground running from Day One in a way that my father was not as equipped to do.” (b) Bill Clinton: “For this time in our history, I believe that Hillary will be a better president than I was.” Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass: “The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate’s politics were born in Chicago. Yet he is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption here, uninfected, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission... (READ MORE)
Robert Knight: Shielding Obama From the Power of Ridicule - Is Barack Obama above criticism in the eyes of the liberal media? The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank seems to think so. Milbank is one of the more readable wordsmiths, largely because he’s not quite as predictable as other ink-stained wretches working for liberal-leaning news outlets. But he lapsed into kneejerk liberal attack mode on May 23 when his candidate, Barack Obama, came under scrutiny from conservatives investigating Obama’s connections with people from the hard Left. The best way to protect your candidate from accusations that could hurt his candidacy is to ridicule the messenger and thereby intimidate others from even thinking of going there. That’s what Milbank did in “Obama as You’ve Never Known Him!” (READ MORE)
Orin Kerr: Is the DC Checkpoint Plan Unconstitutional? – The Washington Post has a detailed story on DC's plans for a "military style checkpoint" to stop gun violence. Eugene mentioned it briefly below, but I wanted to blog at some length about the legal issues. It turns out that there's a fairly specific Fourth Amendment law of automobile checkpoints, and that we can look to those cases to see how the DC law fits in. My bottom line: I think the DC checkpoint plan is pretty clearly unconstitutional. Let's start with some background. The Supreme Court has held that the legality of automobile checkpoints are governed by a reasonableness standard under the Fourth Amendment. The cases try to balance the government's interests against the privacy interest and permit the automotive checkpoint when the government has a good reason and the infringement on privacy is minimal. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Why won’t he quit? - The Left begins its push to have Republican Sen. John McCain quit his stalking and seek the vice presidency instead. It’s over. McCain has no hope against Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. Guy T. Saperstein at Alter Net has figured it out, in his column, “Obama in a Blowout: The Presidential Election Will Not Be Close.” Obama will get 300-350 Electoral College votes, or about what JFK got in his narrow win in 1960 or Nixon in his equally small win in 1968. Wrote Saperstein, “In early December 2007, at a time when Hillary Clinton was tracking 20-plus points ahead of the Democratic field in national polls, I published an article contending that Hillary Clinton was an inherently weak candidate, a beatable candidate, and that Barack Obama would be a stronger match against Republicans.” So there you have it. Obama’s slight edge in early polling can only mean he will gain 20 points on McCain, right and win by 22 points. Or something like that. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: The moment America became the leader of the Free World - Sixty-four years ago today, Allied forces swept onto the beaches of Normandy to liberate France and put an end to Nazi domination of Europe. The D-Day assault comprised American, Canadian, and British forces, but the Americans led, and for the most part the Americans bled, especially on Omaha. This position of leadership and sacrifice heralded the emergence of America as the primary Western power, but on that day, no one could say for sure that we would succeed: “On June 5, 1944, General Eisenhower took advantage of a break in stormy weather to order the invasion of ‘fortress Europe.’ In the hours before dawn, June 6, 1944, one British and two U.S. airborne divisions dropped behind the beaches. After sunrise, British, Canadian, and U.S. troops began to move ashore.” (READ MORE)
McQ: Why energy independence won’t happen any time soon - In 1972, the US imported 12% of its oil needs. Now we're near the 60% range. In those intervening thirty-something years, we, as a nation have done very little to address that problem. R.J. Samuelson, addressing the proposed cap and trade program, provides a litany of why it is a bad idea. A cap and trade system essentially outlaws carbon (and will most heavily impact the poor), but there's an even more important point to be made. There is nothing to replace what is essentially banned: “Reviewing five economic models, the Environmental Defense Fund asserts that the cuts can be achieved ‘without significant adverse consequences to the economy.’ Fuel prices would rise, but because people would use less energy, the impact on household budgets would be modest. This is mostly make-believe. If we suppress emissions, we also suppress today's energy sources, and because the economy needs energy, we suppress the economy. The models magically assume smooth transitions.” (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: Salon writer takes IVAW at face value - Robin sent me a link this morning to a Salon article written by Chris Hedges entitled The real consequences when America is at war. Hedges uses IVAW members strictly as a source in order to demonize the troops and he borrows from our favorites like Geoff Millard and Camilo Mejía to make broad generalizations - mostly that our troops are a bunch of racists and borderline retarded. We all know Millard’s line - every single soldier, Marine and airman in Iraq are racists because, as a general’s gopher, Millard heard one officer refer one time to Iraqis as Hadjis. Well, now Millard has expanded on that idea; “‘The first briefing you get when you get off the plane in Kuwait, and you get off the plane and you’re holding a duffel bag in each hand,’ Millard remembered. ‘You’ve got your weapon slung. You’ve got a web sack on your back. You’re dying of heat. You’re tired. You’re jet-lagged. Your mind is just full of goop. And then you’re scared on top of that, because, you know, you’re in Kuwait, you’re not in the States anymore …’” (READ MORE)
A Newt One: Here We Go Again With The Anti-Americanist Liar Rants - No matter the evidence of libtard shenanigans, these pathetic jerks keep plugging away with their ignorant and retarded stupidity. No one can convince me that McClellan wasn't duped and/or used much in the same manner as the once vaunted Cindy Clueless Sheehan and the more the cowards in DC will not prosecute the enablers of our enemies, the more I despise them all. On top of that, I wouldn't lose any sleep if they were all to drop dead over night. It will be interesting to monitor the violence spikes against our Troops with this new round of anti-Americanist trumped up tripe from the sufferers of BDS. Simply amazing. Yes, McClellan was used by the Soros backed publisher and the poor lad sucked on the O'Reilly interview and I cannot stand O'Reilly for more than one interview a month. He suffers from dhimmitude like so many other morons in this country. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Obama Already Reversing Course on Jerusalem Comments - As if I didn't already have enough reasons not to trust Obama anywhere near foreign policy, to say nothing of the myriad issues of the Middle East. Israel formally annexed Jerusalem in its entirety and treats the whole as its indivisible capital. Obama should have known better than to make the statement that: “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided” ...precisely because it runs counter to the Palestinian position that Jerusalem is to be divided up - split, and that Israel would likely lose access to the Temple Mount and the holiest spot in Judaism in the process. Of course, that too is an intermediate step in the Palestinian position since they ultimately seek Israel's total destruction. (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Why Aren’t Democrats Fuming Over This? - Several weeks ago Hillary Rodham Clinton caused an uproar by saying that it was not unusual for a primary to go into June. She mentioned that her husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June and that it was June when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated (40 years ago today). Her point was that he was still campaigning in June but the left wing lunatics went nuts and claimed Clinton was saying that she stayed in just in case something happened to Obama. Of course it is a sin to mention assassination in anything that deals with Obama. People are hyper sensitive about the issue and act as if someone is lurking around the corner just waiting to bust a cap in this guy’s arse. Unless he goes into the inner cities that Democrats have established, he should be safe. The black on black crime in the liberal bastions would be a concern. Of course, the race baiters want us to believe that some racist will kill the Obamessiah before he fulfills his manifest destiny. (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Gay Bashing in Amsterdam goes Unnoticed in US - While blogging from the Santa Barbara retreat of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, I contended that: “…the greatest enemies of gay people are not social conservatives in the West who may question (what they call) our lifestyle and oppose legislation benefiting us, but Islamic theocrats who execute gay people in jurisdictions where they predominate and seek to destroy the nations with political systems which allow us to live freely.” Well, it seems the threat in not just from such theocrats in nations where they hold sway, but also from angry followers of their anti-gay doctrine in Western lands. At that retreat, I met a nice and intelligent Dutch gay lesbian who told me about a gay-bashing on April 30 in the Netherlands. She has since translated articles from the Dutch press (included with links below the “jump”). (READ MORE)
Heading Right: Trailblazers - They say that where Europe is today, America will be twenty or thirty years from now. Given the massive turn to the left we’re in the process of making, starting in 2006 and culminating this November, that axiom certainly seems to be panning out. One would also surmise that if we’re following along in Europe’s cultural and political wake, we would be following even more closely in Great Britain’s footsteps. Again, politically, that looks to be shaping up, as the Brits are in their twelfth consecutive year of Labor Party rule, and we’re entering a minimum sixteen-year Donk swerve at the presidential level and a like congressional hegemony that could well outlast the previous sixty-year dynasty. However, if our cultural destiny is similarly linked, we are in desperate, desperate peril: (READ MORE)
Jon Alterman: Iran’s strategy in the Levant - A funny thing has happened in the Middle East: virtually all of the government opposition to the United States has gone away. After almost a half-century of Cold War battles to protect oil fields, deny Soviet access to warm-water ports, and commit hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, the number of Middle Eastern states hostile to United States can be counted on one hand, with several fingers left over. South Yemen merged into North Yemen in 1990, Saddam fell in 2003, Libya came in from the cold in 2004, and on they went. The only countries with truly adversarial relations with the United States are Syria and Iran, with Iran being the more consequential of the two. This remaining opposition is not trivial. Indeed, the Iranians’ return on their regional investments is breathtaking compared to the U.S. return on a far greater investment over the last five years. (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Drive a stake through the heart of the green boondoggle bill; Update: Blocked! 12 short, 48-36 - Scroll down for updates…Bill is killed for now; Dems fall 12 votes short - Good news: The Lieberman–Warner eco-boondoggle is set to go down in flames today. But this is no time to rest. While the massive tax hike/green slush fund bill will most likely be shelved, it’ll come back sooner or later. And when it does, keep your eyes on “moderate” Republicans such as John Sununu who will try to appease their red-faced greenie donors and lobbyists by pulling a “for it before I was against it maneuver” this morning a la John Kerry. As for the presumptive presidential candidates and the hanger-on, none of them are expected to show up today to vote. It’s leadership we can believe in! (READ MORE)
neo-neocon: Obama, Andrew Sullivan, and the surge: foresight vs. hindsight - Peter Wehner does a wonderful job of fisking Obama’s recent speech on Iraq in which the candidate combined masterful oratory, abysmal ignorance, denial, and lawyerly circumlocutions in his signature manner to show exactly why he should never be elected President (not that his supporters know or care). Perhaps Obama’s speech reflects the fact that he faces a real conundrum on Iraq. Not only has he been consistently wrong about the surge, but he was bold enough to go on record in an unequivocal manner about how it would not work. His predictions have since been contradicted by facts on the ground. In that, of course, he was no different than 99% (roughly speaking) of his Democrat colleagues, and most of the MSM. But they’re not running for President. He is. (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Opportunism knocks, part 2 - During the run-up to the primaries, Senator Obama did not appear in the Senate to vote on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment calling on the government to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force a terrorist entity. On the day of the vote on the amendment, however, Obama issued a statement announcing that he would have voted against it. In the statement, the closest he came to addressing the merits of the amendment was his assertion that "he does not think that now is the time for saber-rattling towards Iran." The amendment passed the Senate 76-22 on September 26 with many Democrats including Hillary Clinton voting in its favor. Obama subsequently advanced three explanations for his opposition to the amendment. The McCain campaign has usefully compiled them here. Obama specifically condemned Hillary Clinton for her vote in favor of the amendment. (READ MORE)
Socrates' Academy: Presidents Govern As They Campaigned - For the most part, presidential candidates will govern the way they campaigned, or as they said they would while campaigning. It's true that many politicians are duplicitous liars who will say anything it takes to get elected. But they do so equally while campaigning and governing, and the President is too visible to change on too much. There are exceptions, and most politicians break a campaign promise or two, or fail to follow through on their promises, once elected. But few do a dramatic turnaround. Consider all of the Presidents in the multimedia era, since 1960. (READ MORE)
Melanie Phillips: Change we can all believe in - So the new dawn of American politics has brought us, on day one, what exactly? First off, Obama makes a speech to the American Jews of AIPAC that is such a brazen piece of cynicism as to make one’s eyes water. The man whose support for Israel has hitherto been, let us say, equivocal, who thinks ‘no-one is suffering more than the Palestinian people’ who he therefore thinks are suffering more than the Israelis they routinely murder, whose every foreign affairs adviser is viscerally hostile towards Israel with one of them, Daniel Kurzer, saying last month that Israel should surrender part of Jerusalem to the Arabs, suddenly tells the Jewish lobby group AIPAC in his first major speech after clinching the Democratic nomination that he is Israel’s bestest friend in the whole wide world and insists that Jerusalem must always remain the capital of Israel and must never be divided. His number one fans in the Middle East, Hamas, didn’t like that one little bit; nor did that man of peace Mahmoud Abbas. (READ MORE)
Jay Fraser: Mexico – Failed State/Failed Policies? - It is a harsh, but probably true, reality. If Mexico is not yet a failed state, it could well be on its way to that end. Arguably, if a country cannot quell violence within its borders, it is on its way to failure; if a country has multiple gangs, in this case drug cartels operating seemingly freely within its borders, it is on its way to failure; if, despite increasing the deployment of troops to combat the drug cartels, the cartels continue to kill, the state is on its way to failure; finally, if thousands of its citizens are murdered by the unceasing drug violence and hundreds of its law enforcement officers are killed in the process, the state is on its way to failure. Yes, it is a harsh reality. My position on the situation in Mexico has been clear since before I began writing on ThreatsWatch. The unrelenting drug violence south of the border represents a threat to our National Security. (READ MORE)
Soccerdad: Sophomoric oxymorons - A few years ago Thomas Friedman wrote a column, “Wanted: Fanatical moderates.” It was advocating the Geneva Accords, a PR exercise undertaken by Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo and a number of others. The point of the exercise was to lay out an example of what an Israeli Palestinian peace treaty might look like. The fanatical moderate of the title was Yossi Beilin, an Israeli politician and former Knesset member and member of the cabinet. Of course, in Israel, Beilin isn’t in politics anymore. Last election he couldn’t even get a seat. It’s not because there’s anything extreme about Israel’s political scene - it is in fact pretty leftist in orientation compared to twenty years ago - it’s because Beilin is so far the left he no longer has any constituency. (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: The Importance of Knowing What You Don't Know - My daughter has always been an exceptional student. She is very bright and works very hard. In college, she would study enough to feel that she had mastered even the most difficult material. When she arrived at Medical School she discovered that no matter how much she studied, and no matter how bright she is, she could never master the quantity and complexity of all the material she was expected to learn. This led to several painful conversations where she complained of how difficult Medical School could be and how impossible were the expectations of her and her classmates. I explained to her that the tests were designed to be so difficult not only because of the sheer quantity of the material but for a more important, more deeply subtle reason. Impossible tests were part of the creation of a Doctor. (READ MORE)
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