A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
On the Web:
David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey: After Guantanamo - The Guantanamo Bay detention facility's days are clearly numbered. John McCain and Barack Obama have said it should be closed, and even President George W. Bush would like to see it abandoned. Whatever legal benefit Guantanamo offered for being offshore has been largely eliminated by the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which extended American constitutional protections to the foreign fighters held there. That decision has created new and vexing legal and practical problems for the U.S. military. Here are some of the issues: (READ MORE)
Numan Al Faddagh: What Iraqi Expats Are Saying Now - Le Grillion is a restaurant-bar in the always-crowded downtown Cairo. But this restaurant has a particular significance amidst the relentless movement surrounding it. Le Grillion is a cultural center, where a wide spectrum of artists, playwrights, journalists and civil-society activists meet. Owned by an Iraqi, it has become a hive for many of the Iraqi expatriates who fled their country seeking refuge in Egypt. The discussion is endless, with a couple of new faces every night. From deeply connected politicians to ordinary Iraqis, each has something to add. An interesting portrait of Iraq becomes full around midnight, an Iraq that is way more human than that shown on the Arab satellite channels (that of car bombs and sectarian conflicts). These Iraqis are not seeking an increase in viewership or a couple more pennies from ads before a newscast. (READ MORE)
Richard Fernandez: Leaving America - The New York Times has summarized a new UN report by Lakhdar Brahimi, who was assigned to examine why United Nations personnel were attacked in his own country, Algeria, by al-Qaeda in Mahgreb using two car bombs containing a total of 800 kg (1,700 lb) of explosives. There was no mistaking the message in the devastating attacks, which practically obliterated the UN offices in that country. Separate UN facilities were targeted and leveled. There was no question of the UN being a victim of collateral damage. Nor were the targets particularly associated with America. They included the offices of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Department of Safety and Security (DSS) and the Population Fund (UNFPA). There was no way around it: an al-Qaeda franchise had attacked the UN. (READ MORE)
Nibras Kazimi: The Jihadist Caliphate Fails - My paper on the failed jihadist attempt to resurrect the caliphate in Iraq was published online today, [cue trumpets and cymbals] so without further ceremony, here it is: “The Caliphate Attempted: Zarqawi’s Ideological Heirs, their Choice for a Caliph, and the Collapse of their Self-Styled ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ (opens up as a PDF document) (excerpt) It has been the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that not only did al-Zarqawi (who was killed in June 2006) and his successors choose to turn Iraq into a battleground on their own initiative but that they subsequently chose Iraq as the incubator for their grand vision of a unified Islamic empire under the aegis of a ruling caliph. They did so without instructions from or consultations with the traditional leaders of Al-Qaeda hiding out in the Hindu Kush Mountains. Rather, they presented the jihadist world with a fait accompli: the Islamic State of Iraq, thereby capturing the imagination of a new generation of jihadists who were already enthralled by the alleged victories of the Zarqawists in Iraq.” (READ MORE)
Classical Values: sacred grounds and sacrilegious objections - For the third day in a row, the Philadelphia Inquirer has been promoting a newly evolved "SACRED GROUND" meme -- the idea that soil once occupied by colonial slaves is sacred. Central to this belief (at least in Philadelphia) is the idea that slaves belonging to George Washington ought to be considered important historical characters deserving official commemoration as part of the country's founding. I understand the importance of every aspect of history, and while I wonder whether it is helpful that children be taught to rattle off the names of George Washington's Philadelphia slaves, I will name them here and link each name with a biography: Oney Judge, Moll, Austin, Hercules, Richmond, Giles, Paris, Christopher Sheels, and Joe (Richardson). The above nine are highlighted here in the "sacred ground" series, and when I discussed Part I ("Remaking History"), I quoted the park superintendent's gently provocative observation: (READ MORE)
Information Dissemination: On Reputations, Confidence, and Expectations - In crawling the daily reading list today I came across a post over on Thomas Barnett's blog that is interesting to think about. In his post The "League of Democracies" prefers Obama—by a lot! Tom makes an interesting observation worth thinking about. “Polling data saying that if the election is held in Europe, Obama wins in a landslide.” It is interesting to consider what this means, if anything. My first reaction is to remind myself that when the founders of this nation produced a document called the Declaration of Independence, the opinion of Europeans regarding American politics became irrelevant. But upon further reflection, there is more depth to this than my initial nationalistic reaction. (READ MORE)
NRO: Big Oil Chutzpah - We’re surprised that Sen. Chuck Schumer can keep straight which foreign countries he’s haranguing to pump more oil and which he’s haranguing to stop pumping more oil. A few weeks ago the New York senator and aspiring global Petroleum Czar was threatening to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia if it didn’t produce more oil. Now, he’s outraged that the Iraqi government may give modest no-bid service contracts to Western oil companies as a first step toward more fully exploiting the country’s vast oil reserves. Perhaps Sen. Schumer would approve if the Saudis were to agree to pump the Iraq oil? Consider the peregrinations of the Democrats on the question of Iraq and oil. At first, many of them charged that Iraq was a “war for oil.” Then, they complained that then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had been wrong in his pre-war reassurance that Iraq could pay for much of its own reconstruction — i.e., it wasn’t enough of a war for oil. (READ MORE)
Army Girl: "All-Volunteer Army envy of world..." - “This all-volunteer force is the envy of every single free society around the globe,” he said. “I cannot tell you the number of visitors I’ve had from European nations, nations elsewhere, who simply come and ask ‘how do you do it?’ Well, part of that answer of why we are able to do it (are Soldiers) who raised their right hands…That’s how we’ll do it, so it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal because it’s a volunteer act on the part of a young citizen who has chosen to serve, especially in this tough time.” Lt. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle - I'll tell you how we do it. "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It starts in grade school. (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: Navel gazing in the anti-war movement - The antiwar movement has hit a brick wall and they don’t understand why. The War Resisters League has published a report they call a “Listening Process Report” assessing the movement. Mostly, it reads like a Junior High student council meeting. Lots of lofty ideas not at all with a even a little thought to process. TSO’s secret heartthrob, Kelly Dougherty illustrates that real well: “IVAW’s three goals are: immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq, full veterans benefits, and reparations for the Iraqi people. Our strategy to end the war is to withdraw military support from the war.” Yeah, well, how are you going to do that, Kelly? Are you going to wait until the shooting stops and then declare victory for your side? The Vets for Peace weigh in with the benefit of their experience. Michael McPhearson: (READ MORE)
Meryl Yourish: Defining deviancy - Palestinian terrorists are now resorting to using heavy machinery to kill Israelis. Three dead, and 45 wounded, when an Arab Israeli drove his bulldozer into cars, buses, and crowds. “Three women were killed and at least 30 more people were injured when a bulldozer driven by a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem trampled over pedestrians and vehicles and plowed into two buses in downtown Jerusalem at around noon Wednesday. [...] The driver, who reportedly had a criminal record and was the holder of an Israeli (blue) identification card, was shot dead by a SWAT officer near the old Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The terrorist was identified as 31-year-old Hossam Dawiath, a father of two from the village of Tzur Baher. The terrorist continued on his killing spree, but a short while later a soldier and a SWAT officer jumped on top of the vehicle. The officer then shot the terrorist in the chest and leg and killed him.” Hamas is praising the attack. (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: John McCain Never Called Me a Baby Killer. Clark - Apologize! - When retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, on behalf of the Obama campaign, criticized John McCain's qualifications to be Commander in Chief this week - based on McCain's rank in the Navy and command experience - I initially laughed so hard my sides hurt. The general said in essence that McCain hadn't been high enough up the command ladder to really be a leader, and that being shot down, captured, tortured, and spending five years as a POW in North Vietnam don't really mean he understands war. Basically, it was a retired military version of one-upmanship. "I have more stars than you do, I have more medals than you do, mine is bigger than yours" - so to speak. (READ MORE)
Dale Carpenter: Puzzling Obama on SSM - Today we learned that Barack Obama opposes the proposed amendment to the California constitution defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In a letter to a gay civil rights group in San Francisco, Obama said he rejects "the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution" and similar efforts in other states. At the same time, Obama has repeatedly said that while he supports civil unions for gay couples he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. At a Democratic debate last August sponsored by the gay-themed cable station LOGO, he had this exchange with Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Joe Solmonese: “MR. SOLMONESE: So to follow up on your point about the state issue, if you were back in the Illinois legislature where you served and the issue of civil marriage came before you, how would you have voted on that?” (READ MORE)
Eugene Volokh: "Our Supreme Court [Is] in Alliance With the [Murderers]" - "It’s just completely befuddling that our Supreme Court would be in alliance with the [criminals]," a government official said about the Court's Confrontation Clause case, in which the Justices held that the Confrontation Clause required the reversal of a murder conviction. A pretty poor argument, it seems to me: The point of the Confrontation Clause is to protect everyone, and while it unfortunately sometimes (in fact, disproportionately) protects criminals and even murderers, it hardly means that the Court is in "alliance" with the murderers. Even if you agree with the minority and think the majority got it wrong, that just means the majority Justices are unnecessarily doing something that will unfortunately help some criminals; it hardly makes them the criminals' "alli[es]." Many politicians and others (mostly conservatives as to the criminal procedure amendments, I should note) make this mistake. But it's still a serious mistake. (READ MORE)
The Sundries Shack: America Is Not The Government - Jonah Goldberg had a nifty column in yesterday’s USA Today on the subject of patriotism as it pertains to Barack Obama’s constant redefinition of the word. I neglected to link it then because I had seen it linked at a bunch of other sites and I figured it was getting plenty of coverage. Well, this morning, Larisa Alexandrovna at the HufflePuff, got wound up about it and posted somewhat of a prolix rebuttal. Mostly, it’s a pseudo-intellectual defense of the same old puffball “dissent if the highest form of patriotism” claptrap I’ve heard for the past eight years from people generally not bright enough to think their way out of a wet paper bag. You’ve heard the argument before and it usually sounds something like “I only criticize my country every single day of the week because I love it so”. That’s nonsense on a stick, but it’s what has passed for patriotism across most of the progressive community at least since George Bush was elected in 2000. (READ MORE)
McQ: Reid and the Dems have no plan for future energy needs - Investor's Business Daily brings us the latest from probably the worst Majority Leader the Senate has seen in a very long time: “The Dr. No of the drill-nothing Congress tried to deflect the issue of rising gas prices Monday by telling Fox Business News that there are costs we should worry about besides those stemming from Democratic inaction. Our guilt is supposed to replace our anger. ‘Coal makes us sick,’ Reid said, ‘oil makes us sick, it's global warming, it's ruining our country, it's ruining our world, we've got to stop using fossil fuel . . . .’” In this case, he's partially right - we all know that in a perfect world, we'd be using something else - an alternative. But this isn't a perfect world and our energy needs aren't going to stand still as we try to develop alternatives. So we have to deal with and use what is available now and exploit it. The problem is, "Dr. No" isn't just against petroleum and coal, but he's also against the use of very clean nuclear energy. (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Change the Teamsters can believe in - Wall Street Journal reporters Brody Mullins and Kris Maher reported in early May how Barack Obama won the Teamsters' endorsement for president. In a meeting earlier this year, he privately "told the union that he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption[.]" Obama holds himself out as a new kind of politician who refuses to play the old games. The story should have blown Obama's pretense up several times over, but it has generated next to no coverage. The Teamsters union of course has had a long and storied relationship with the Mafia. To take just one vivid example, consider the case of Anthony Senter. Senter was the Mafia hit man who arranged a deal with a Teamsters local for a pension after he was convicted of being a member of a mob hit squad in New York City that committed 25 murders and dismembered most of the victims. (READ MORE)
Yankeemom: I Am An American - This year, for some reason, July 4th is more poignant than it has ever been for me. Maybe it’s because our guys and gals are really kickin’ butt in Iraq and Afghanistan (while the Dems still cry LOSERS!), or maybe it’s because I’m not in Code-Pink-I-Hate-Everything-American Land, CA and am back in America (or so it seems), or maybe because I’ve been doing a lot of reading about our Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War. Maybe it’s all of these combined. Well, for whatever reason(s), I’ve been thinking alot about being American and what a blessing it is. As soldier-turned-singer Luke Stricklin says in his song about his time in Iraq: “Well when you’ve seen what I’ve seen - Things don’t seem so bad - You quit worrying about what you ain’t got - And thank God for what you have - Because I could be raising my family in this place - But I was born an American by God’s amazing grace.“ (READ MORE)
Gay Patriot West: Why Didn’t Jimmy Carter Monitor Zimbabwe Election? - At the recent African Union summit in Egypt, member nations failed to condemn Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s President-for-Life, for stealing the election from opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai. The union did pass a resolution “calling for him to negotiate with” the man who bested him in the initial balloting on March 29. Some say Tsvangirai would have won that election outright, thus not requiring a subsequent runoff; a delay in releasing the final results (showing him winning a plurality, but not with the necessary majority) led many to believe that Mugabe’s government tinkered with the returns. Because “of violence against his supporters,” Tsvangirai withdrew from the June 27 run-off, allowing Mugabe to win reelection unopposed. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Denver preps for DNC with national anthem snub - The city of Denver has already begun to celebrate the Democratic National Convention, which officially begins less than two months from now. Pre-events have included the Colorful Food Watch and the Festival of Unpaid Bills, and yesterday’s State of the City speech began with Leftist Patriotism on Display. Instead of singing the national anthem as requested, Rene Marie replaced it with a protest song: “Mayor John Hickenlooper’s annual State of the City address may get more attention for what wasn’t included than what was. At the start of the event Tuesday morning, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem. Instead, she performed the song ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,’ which is also known as the ‘black national anthem.’” (READ MORE)
BostonMaggie: OK, I'll Admit It... - ...by the end of this campaign cycle, I will probably need meds. I spent the morning doing things around the house. I had not really listened to, or read anything this morning. I did laundry - the Craig's List washer is a dream!. I did dishes. I showered and used one of my favorite's - Biotone Lavender and Calendula. The little kids I have doing yard work trimmed the ivy around my kitchen window. I hadn't realized that it had encroached so much, but the kitchen was full of light, very pleasant. It also opened up the view to the lilies. Tomorrow I will post a pic. Frankie slipped me some walking around money because he is a good son....Tom is too, but Tom is "po", as he likes to say. I went to the dump. I got a Starbuck's venti vanilla chai latte. No rush, full staff at work carrying my water. LOL Life is good - right? (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Democrats Flip-Flop on Importance of Military Service - It seems that the Democratic strategy is to minimize John McCain’s military service so as to put him on an even playing field with Barack Obama with regard to experience and ability to lead the country as well as the armed forces. Obama surrogates have been minimizing McCain’s service and repeating that it does not give him any experience needed to be president and the sole purpose is to make people think that McCain is no more qualified with regard to military matters. The interesting thing is that after 6 or 7 of his surrogates have beaten up on McCain (the latest being Wesley Clark) they have changed tact and now want McCain to stop discussing his military service (which McCain does very little of). Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia put it this way: “‘I think what we really need to work on over the next four, five months, and it goes back to the speech that Sen. Obama gave [Monday] and this little fight that I’ve been watching and that is, we need to make sure that we take politics out of service,’ Webb said. ‘People don’t serve their country for political issues.’” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: The Voter's Dilemma - The marathon campaign season already feels interminable and it is increasingly difficult to feel engaged in a process that more resembles a Kabuki dance than an actual political discussion. John McCain is conducting a campaign that seems to be filled with enough lassitude to convince the electorate that he is not only chronologically in his 70s but has the energy (or lack thereof) of an elderly man. Barack Obama is conducting an aggressive and quite negative campaign yet is consistently depicted as a positive post-political candidate. His ruthlessness and apparent opportunism suggest he would be a formidable President but his Clintonian habit of saying whatever he imagines the majority of voters wants to hear raises questions about what, if any, core beliefs he contains, beyond his firmly fixed belief that he should be President. Obama's tack to the center is remarkable for how overtly and easily he has tossed old friends and ideological positions overboard: (READ MORE)
Warner Todd Huston: A ‘Silence of Feminists’ Over Michelle Obama? - Mary C. Curtis is in high dudgeon. She is all twisted up inside over the seeming lack of support that feminists have for Michelle Obama. She has decided to scold all those recalcitrant feminists, too. Yes, she’s all upset over this thing wondering, “Where are Obama’s feminist defenders?” Curtis is even moaning that black women are second-class citizens, even with feminists. She is all in righteous indignation about the “The Loud Silence Of Feminists.” Curtis is agonizing over the fact that women aren’t defending Michelle Obama. She imagines that feminists have failed women, specifically black women. Well, I agree at some point. Feminists have failed women, but the least of which is Michelle Obama. (READ MORE)
THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS: Coercive Interrogation is not Torture - Once again, a left wing columnist that reflexively dislikes President George W. Bush has decided to criticize him and his administration as supporting torture. Once again, the Tygrrrr Express has to take on the role of being an unofficial ombudsman to prevent a liberal position from being accepted as truthful. Allow me to offer the least delightful passages of the above link before ripping them to shreds in what I can only describe as a mercy killing. “The story of torture as US government policy is one of the most shameful episodes in American history…” No, that would be slavery, with the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II coming a close second. Both of those were enacted and enforced by democrats. (READ MORE)
Kathleen Parker: Courage Under Fire - WASHINGTON -- Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, as retired Gen. Wesley Clark infamously said recently. But what men do under fire might tell us about the character we may discover in a president. Clark's precise words, aimed at undermining John McCain's executive experience, were: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." In fairness, Clark also praised McCain's heroism, saying that he honored his service as a prisoner of war and even that "he was a hero to me." Predictably, Republicans were outraged and Democrats were outraged at the GOP's outrage. For his part, Barack Obama performed the political minuet of condemn 'n' distance. He condemned the remarks and distanced himself from his surrogate/general. (READ MORE)
Michael Medved: America: Land of Hope and Fresh Starts - America has always seen itself as part of the “New World”—a fresh start for civilization and humanity, leaving behind the “Old World” of hereditary hatreds and permanent class divisions. But the nation isn’t fresh only in terms of the society created by our Founders, but it also provides new life and second chances for recent arrivals and long-time residents alike. The current Governor of California provides a prominent example. As son of a tough cop from an obscure village in Austria, he re-invented himself as a body-builder, actor (or, more accurately, movie star), entrepreneur, politician and, most importantly, an American. Today, regardless of our reaction to his policies or performance, Governor Schwarzenegger is as American as, well, hot dogs (or frankfurters, another Central European import, by the way). (READ MORE)
Tony Blankley: Formed on the Anvil of His Captivity - As of today, Sen. Barack Obama is about halfway through his "patriotism theme week" message cycle. As of 2008, Sen. John McCain is about seven-ninths through his patriotism theme life cycle. I guess that is the difference between the new politics and the old patriotism. The Obama campaign launched its new politics patriotism week last Sunday, with retired Gen. Wes "Speichellecker" Clark smearing John McCain's war record -- even to the point of the former general saying that "riding" in a fighter plane and getting shot down are not qualifications for being president. Well, in fact, McCain wasn't riding, of course. He was the pilot in his 23rd mission over heavily defended enemy territory when he was shot down by a Soviet missile. But when Wes "Camera Hound" Clark goes on a mission, he always aims low. (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Does Patriotism Matter? - The Fourth of July is a patriotic holiday but patriotism has long been viewed with suspicion or disdain by many of the intelligentsia. As far back as 1793, prominent British writer William Godwin called patriotism "high-sounding nonsense." Internationalism has long been a competitor with patriotism, especially among the intelligentsia. H.G. Wells advocated replacing the idea of duty to one's country with "the idea of cosmopolitan duty." Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism. In France, after the First World War, the teachers' unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism. (READ MORE)
Brent Bozell III: Who Dares Oppose the Obamas? - In the thick of the fight over the wrong Reverend Wright, Barack Obama put on his annoyed face and said the whole issue of his preacher's hate speech was a distraction from the real issues, like health care and education and war. So many in the media were quick to agree. But now that the primaries are over, the network news crews aren't covering the issues. They're warbling a happy tune about all of Barack and Michelle Obama's wonderful personal qualities. Think of all the inane stories designed to boost the picture of Obama being loaded with charisma and momentum. All "news" that is good is presented with great enthusiasm -- like the utterly unsurprising and uninspiring endorsement by Al Gore. All news that is bad is buried -- or if that seems too obvious, it's mentioned briefly, and then killed and buried. (READ MORE)
Douglas MacKinnon: Honor, Don't Exploit, Our Military Wounded - As has been infrequently reported, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan progressed, a number of members of our military became somewhat dismayed and disturbed by the almost complete lack of positive coverage printed or aired by the U.S. media. Now, over five years into those conflicts, they have come to accept the sad reality that for much of our media, their decisive victories against the enemy, their critically important intelligence intercepts, their comrades lost in-the-line-of-fire protecting Iraqi and Afghani civilians, and the growing trust they have painstakingly cultivated with those civilian populations, has been deemed “non-newsworthy” by their own press corps. They don’t like it, but realize that the ethics, judgment, and bias of some in the media, is beyond their control. (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: The Ultimate Resource - Why is it that mankind enjoys cell phones, computers and airplanes today but not when King Louis XIV was alive? The necessary physical resources to make cell phones, computers and airplanes have always been around, even when caveman walked the Earth. There is only one answer to why we enjoy these goodies today and not yesteryear. It's the growth in human knowledge, ingenuity along with specialization and trade that led to the industrialization, coupled with personal liberty and private property rights. For most of mankind's existence, he has been self-sufficient and spent most of his time simply eking out a living. In pre-industrial societies, and in some places today, the most optimistic scenario for the ordinary person was to be able to eke out enough to meet his physical needs for another day. (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Interview with a Hollywood Patriot - Let us not, on this Independence Day weekend, dwell on the political pretenders to patriotism rushing to out-proclaim their love of country. Nor let us pay heed to the sneering movie directors and journalism pooh-bahs allergic to red, white and blue. Instead, I'd like to share a bit of a special interview with a true Hollywood freedom-lover. Last week, my friend Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward and I co-hosted a special Internet telethon on Ustream.tv to raise money for care packages to send to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The effort yielded more than $1.1 million, thanks to thousands of generous donors across the country. Among the special guests who contributed time and resources was musician John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting. New Yorkers have a special place in their heart for Ondrasik's work. (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey: The Battle of the Surge Was a Win - Page 12 of a Government Accountability Office report published June 23 features data about the war in Iraq -- drawn from the Defense Intelligence Agency -- that must be central to the debate about what the United States does next in that country. It indicates we have started to win a war we cannot afford to lose. The GAO report is titled, "Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq; Progress Report: Some Gains Made, Updated Strategy Needed." The key DIA data is presented as a chart, titled "Enemy Initiated Attacks by Month, May 2003 to May 2008." The chart itself is comprised of color-coded vertical bars that illustrate the overall number of enemy attacks that took place in Iraq in each month from May 2003 to May 2008. (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: The Hard Thing of Democracy - A Vietnam vet friend of mine argues that maintaining a democracy requires three things: a passion for freedom, tolerance for diversity and intolerance for threats. A letter from a reader, responding to a column on Iraq's struggling democracy, suggested I write about the United States' own tortuous path -- sketching a nation that began with limited voting rights and confronted powerful factions, ethnic animosities, urban riot, rural rebellion and destructive civil war. The reader thought America's saga might help the public "understand that this democracy thing is hard." Hard indeed. Mull my friend's threefold guidance, and you'll find tricky paradox after paradox entwined within several enigmas. Balancing tolerance and intolerance is an obvious tension, which requires reason, experience, maturity and discipline, but the aspiration for freedom, the drive to obtain it and retain it, also involves emotional passion and desire. (READ MORE)
John Stossel: Dire News from My Colleagues - "It's been described as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it brings with it grave dangers for all American families ... ," said Martin Bashir on "Nightline." "Recession looms .... " On the "Today" show June 20, David Faber referred to "the recession ... these tough economic times." Yet that very day first-quarter GDP was revised upward again to 1 percent. America is not in recession, and who knows -- maybe we'll be less likely to have one if my compatriots would just chill. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. We haven't even had one quarter of negative growth. Yes, growth has slowed, and many people are suffering because of falling home prices and higher food and energy prices. These are real problems, but watching TV, you'd think we were in a recession so severe it must be compared to the Great Depression. (READ MORE)
Jacob Sullum: Obama's Toothless Second Amendment - "What works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," Barack Obama said after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Washington, D.C., gun ban. The Illinois senator was talking about gun control laws, but he could just as well have been talking about his interpretation of the Second Amendment. Although the amendment protects an individual right to arms, Obama says, it permits "common-sense" gun control, a category that for him seems to include every existing restriction on the possession and use of firearms. That view not only does not fly in Cheyenne (and in many other places where presidential candidates aspire to win votes); it was decisively rejected by the Supreme Court. "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms," Obama said after the ruling was announced... (READ MORE)
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