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)
The Price of Fannie Mae - As opposed to GM or Ford, most Americans have never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yet the insolvency of either mortgage giant would have far more profound consequences for every American taxpayer than the bankruptcy of those car companies (READ MORE)
Iran's Missile Threat - Talk about timing, perhaps fortuitous. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Prague signing an agreement that's a first step toward protecting Europe from ballistic missile attack. As if on cue, Tehran yesterday tested nine missiles… (READ MORE)
U.S. Troops in Iraq Face A Powerful New Weapon - BAGHDAD, July 9 -- Suspected Shiite militiamen have begun using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops. (READ MORE)
Mukasey Vows Smooth Transition At Justice for Next Administration - Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey yesterday pledged to use the final six months of his tenure to guard against political interference in Justice Department operations and ensure a smooth transition to the next administration. (READ MORE)
Tanker Bidding To Be Reopened - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that the Pentagon will hold a new, fast-tracked competition to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers, a move that overturns the previous award of the contract to Northrop Grumman. (READ MORE)
Obama Joins Fellow Senators in Passing New Wiretapping Measure - The Senate easily approved legislation to overhaul government eavesdropping rules in terrorism and espionage cases and effectively granted immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in a secret domestic spying program, ending a contentious debate that has raged… (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Daniel Henninger: Will Obama Let the Sunshine In? - How perfect it was that while running for president in 2008, the 40th anniversary of "1968," Barack Obama should denounce the 1960s. His candidacy and his times are bland compared to what was happening then, or so everyone thought. The year 1968 had a torrent of cataclysmic political events, each of which might have destabilized any other year. We just passed Robert Kennedy's assassination, and before that the Paris student riots in May 1968. Up next month, the Democratic convention in Chicago – with its pitched battles in Grant Park between the cops and antiwar demonstrators, the anti-Vietnam protests inside the hall, Mayor Richard Daley on home TVs screaming hysterically at Sen. Abraham Ribicoff. Thus spake Sen. Barack Obama, b. 1961: (READ MORE)
Karl Rove: Barack's Brilliant Ground Game - For a campaign that says it wants to end the politics of the Bush-Cheney years, the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004. For starters, Barack Obama's manager admitted to the New York Times that he wanted an "army of persuasion" modeled explicitly on the massive Bush neighbor-to-neighbor "Victory Committee" of '00 and '04. Those efforts deployed millions of volunteers to register, persuade and get-out-the-vote. Sen. Obama's organizational emphasis wisely avoids the Democratic mistake of 2000, when Donna Brazille's plea for a stronger grassroots focus was ignored by the Gore high command. It also avoids the mistake of 2004, when Democrats outsourced their ground game to George Soros's 527 organizations. (READ MORE)
John Steele Gordon: 2008: A Watershed Election? - Exciting as presidential elections can be, they don't often change things fundamentally. Now and then, however, they can remake the American political landscape for years to come, and the country enters into a new era. Will 2008 be one of those watershed elections? Perhaps, but not in the way that many people think. Let's look at a little history. By 1932, the Republicans had been the dominant party in American politics for more than a generation. Only in 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt split the Republicans, did Democrat Woodrow Wilson capture the White House (with only 41.8% of the popular vote). Four years later, despite a successful first term, the advantages of incumbency, and a world war raging in Europe, Wilson barely won re-election. In 1920, the Republicans won a huge victory and were back in the saddle. (READ MORE)
Joseph Petrowski: A Bipartisan Fix for the Oil Crisis - As president of Gulf Oil, New England's largest independent petroleum company, and as someone who has spent his life in and around energy markets, I find the tone and substance of the current debate about our energy policy to be profoundly disappointing. Partisan sides are using a serious crisis to advance political agendas, create political attack sound bites, and launch hearings to "expose" the culprit. Pick your favorite: speculators, Big Oil, environmentalists, China, India, etc. This is not leadership. A fundamental misunderstanding of how markets work, and how an effective government can support the private sector, is delaying remedies that will bring down energy prices now. (READ MORE)
Ethan Penner: The Future of Securitization - The deconstruction of the financial services industry this past year has been something to behold. Unfortunately, the responses have been shortsighted, the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. The blunt fact is that we're in the midst of a major structural shift in the financial world: Yesterday's business model has been invalidated. Securitization as it has been practiced will not be the dominant means of financing it has been for the past decade and a half. And it has been truly dominant – moving from $1 trillion to $12 trillion in annual new issuance, capturing a significant share of all new loans including residential mortgages, commercial real estate and corporate loans, even auto and college tuition loans. (READ MORE)
Ted Frank: The Era of Big Punitive Damage Awards Is Not Over - This June, the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, reduced the punitive damages in the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill from $2.5 billion to "only" $507 million. Partisans on both sides of Exxon Shipping v. Baker portrayed the decision as a victory for business -- but plaintiffs' lawyers will find a lot to like in this case. If anything, the opinion highlights the need for legislative reform of arbitrary punitive damage awards. In 1994, plaintiffs in the Valdez case sued under federal maritime law. They sought $800 million of damages based on the theory that, contrary to the law of supply and demand, the oil spill had reduced fish prices. That didn't fly. (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson: Barack W. Bush? - Almost everyone is talking about Barack Obama's flip-flops, as the Senate's most liberal member steadily moves to the political center and disowns firebrands like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger. But less noticed is that Obama is not just deflating John McCain's efforts to hold him to his long liberal record, but also embracing much of the present agenda of an unpopular President Bush on a wide variety of fronts. Take social issues. Obama is now a gun-rights advocate. Like Bush, he applauded the Supreme Court's overturning of a Washington, D.C., ordinance banning the possession of handguns. The senator, also like Bush, supports the death penalty. He recently objected to the court's rejection of a state law that allowed for the execution of child rapists. (READ MORE)
Robert D. Novak: An "Underwhelming" Nominee - WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "I would say he was pretty underwhelming," said Lawyer Gus several days after he and some 200 other big-money supporters of Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign met with the victor, Barack Obama, in Washington on June 26. Lawyer Gus is a longtime Democratic activist, who will support and contribute to Obama as the party's nominee, but will not be enthusiastic about it. He is not alone. After the closed-door session in the Mayflower Hotel's ballroom, Gus was among 20 participants who gathered for drinks to talk it over. They agreed it was not an "exciting performance" by the candidate who has entranced monster rallies across the country. Obama was "low-key" in a perfunctory appeal to them. (READ MORE)
Ken Blackwell: McCain and Post-Racial Politics - On July 16 Senator McCain will address the NAACP at its national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. It will give him a historic opportunity to lay out his vision for individual empowerment, and offer concrete solutions for solving the challenges facing many African-Americans today. For all the talk of post-racial politics, the Obama camp tries to make his campaign all about race when he speaks to African-American audiences. When campaigning for Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee for a U.S. Senate seat in 2006, Senator Obama off-handedly told an audience of African-Americans at a rally that they needed to vote for Mr. Ford because Mr. Obama was lonely in the U.S. Senate. There already were 45 Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama claimed to be lonely because he was the only African-American in the Senate. He was asking those voters to cast their votes in large measure on the basis of racial pride. (READ MORE)
Dinesh D'Souza: Frankenstein Endorses Obama - Frankenstein's back, with a resounding endorsement of Barack Obama. I refer, of course, to the reemergence in public of former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Albright chastized Bush and defended Obama's statement that he would be happy to talk to Iran and other enemies of the United States. Albright blasted the current approach to the Middle East and made the anodyne point that it is just as important to communicate with one's adversaries as it is to communicate with one's friends. I realize that some conservatives have a big problem with America talking to the bad guys. They become very indignant at the idea that we might even converse with anyone who is implicated in terrorism. I don’t share this view. I don’t have a problem with talking to anyone, as long as you go into the meeting with a lot of loaded guns. (READ MORE)
Larry Elder: Why Do We "Keep and Bear Arms"? Part 2 - Did it work -- the Washington, DC, gun ban, that is? The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, struck down the ban, holding that a) the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to keep and bear arms, and b) while the government may regulate the boundaries of the Second Amendment, the DC ban goes too far. The New York Times, in an editorial condemning the Supreme Court case, says: "Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year -- on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly." Really? The 30,000 number includes 17,000 suicides. But a person intent on suicide finds a way -- gun or no gun. In Japan, for example, more than twice as many people, per capita, kill themselves, yet that country bans handguns. (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: (Un)Conventional Wisdom - It is understandable that those who think President Bush has done a poor job want to replace him with a Democrat they think might do a better one. What is not understandable is why voters, who think Congress has performed poorly, would vote to keep the Democratic majority in place and, according to many polls, expand it. The latest Rasmussen tracking poll finds that a pathetic 9 percent of the public think Congress is doing a good or excellent job, a record. A majority of voters - 52 percent - think Congress is doing a poor job, which ties a record. Even Democrats disapprove of the performance of the Congress led by their party. Among Democratic voters, approval of Congress fell from 17 percent to 13 percent in the poll. Unaffiliated voters are the most critical of Congress with just 3 percent giving it a positive rating and 63 percent of these independents saying Congress is performing poorly. (READ MORE)
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Obama Would, In Fact, Govern From the Left - The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly. • He says he believes in a Second Amendment right to bear arms. • He now opposes late-term abortion. • He suddenly is a devotee of using faith-based institutions to deliver public services. • He now says that he won’t raise Social Security taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. In the primary, he said he’d eliminate the threshold entirely, including on people making as little as $100,000. • He recently opposed the Fairness Doctrine for talk radio. • Now he says he’s going to consult with the military before pulling out of Iraq. But so extensive a list of flip-flops, all in the past few weeks, begs the basic question: Was he lying before when he was a liberal, or is he prevaricating now? (READ MORE)
Donald Lambro: Obama' Flip-Flops Anger the Liberal Base - WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama is coming under increasingly heavy fire from his left flank for abandoning long-held liberal positions in an abrupt swing toward the center that threatens his candidacy. After racing away from hardcore positions on trade protectionism, gun control, government wiretapping, the death penalty and even his vaunted troop-pullout plans for Iraq, his once-diehard supporters on the left are attacking his character and honesty and threatening to withhold campaign contributions or, worse, shift their allegiance to Ralph Nader. "We've been hearing more from voters who are disconcerted about Obama's move to the right. We're hearing from antiwar folks, civil-liberties people and other activists concerned about his flip-flops and considering voting for Ralph," said Nader campaign representative Chris Driscoll. (READ MORE)
Peter J. Wirs: Judicial Misconduct Strikes Democratic Congressman's Fundraising - Everyone knows that Philadelphia has more ghost voters than any other place, except perhaps Chicago. So many dead voters cast Democratic ballots there is the standing joke that Philadelphia observes the Resurrection three times a year: Easter, Primary and Election Day. Equally problematic is that in the home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, we also have judges who openly participate in politics long after they have ascended to the bench while their political beneficiaries wink and look the other way. The latest accusations of judicial misconduct concerns Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel J. Anders who ascended to the bench last year, for the benefit, among other Democrats, freshman U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy, Democrat of the 8th District of Pennsylvania. (READ MORE)
Congressman Peter Roskam: Energy Independence - A Question of Will - Over the 4th of July holiday, I, like many of my colleagues, was able to speak with hundreds of constituents. Folks were more eager than ever to talk to me about unaffordable energy prices. And when they asked what Washington is doing to address this issue, unfortunately, I had to tell them nothing. But not because of a lack of Republican will. Despite Democrat promises of ‘common sense’ plans to lower gas prices, the average price of a gallon of gas has increased by more than 76 percent since they took control of Congress. Republicans understand that advancing America’s energy security, and working to bring down gas prices, will require a comprehensive approach that promotes responsible domestic energy production, increased conservation and efficiency standards, and robust research and development to expand the use and application of alternative energy sources. (READ MORE)
Paul Weyrich: A Falst Frenzy on Global Warming - When I was the political reporter and weekend anchor at WISN TV, the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee, John Coleman was our weatherman. He was s strong conservative and was known for his sense of humor. One time it had rained for 30 days straight. Coleman said if it rained on the 31st day he would produce the weather forecast standing on his head. It rained. He did it. Another time the camera opened on a wide shot of a blindfolded John Coleman throwing darts at a dartboard labeled "Hot," "Cold," "Snow," "Rain," "Sunny," "Cloudy," "Fog," "Drizzle" and so on. He had had a string of days when his forecasts had been erroneous. John said "Well, this probably is as good as my forecasts these days." Coleman went on to be the weatherman on "Good Morning America" for seven years. He began the weather channel with his life savings. He subsequently has forecast the weather in New York and Chicago. Today he says his retirement job is weatherman for KUSI in San Diego. (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: To Walk To School Again… - When there is something reported about Soldiers in the media, it’s often in a negative context. Soldiers are often depicted in the movies, but again, it’s usually in a negative context; often showing them as “crazed, drugged up killers,” who’ve never gotten over the traumas they faced in combat. It’s rare that we see the media or the movies portray our Soldiers in a positive light. We never hear about the thousands of Soldiers who go above and beyond each and every day they spend in the combat zone and at home. I guess, they think that positive press, doesn’t bring in enough viewers. It’s something that has made me refrain from watching the news on television and turn to military related sites for news of what’s occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan. (READ MORE)
Richard Landes: The Self-Destruction of the Al Durah Faithful - When I first began work on the al Durah affair, I my I knew I was on to a story whose unraveling would reveal a wide range of cultural dynamics at the beginning of the 21st century – Part of what attracted me to the topic was its quality of “public secret.” Everywhere I looked there were public secrets: from the obvious staging of Pallywood and the stunning complacency in private of the Western media (“oh, they do that all the time”), to uncanny refusal of otherwise rational people to reconsider despite the deeply troubling evidence. Karsenty calls it the “so what” defense: No blood… so what; no bullets… so what; 55 seconds not 27 minutes filmed of an alleged 45 minutes of non-stop Israeli firing… so what; no “death agonies” that Enderlin cut to “spare the public”… so what; no ambulance evacuation scenes… so what; the kid moves after he’s supposed to be dead… so what; (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Oil is Slippery Subject for Democrats - The Democrats in this country have gotten us in a pickle with regard to energy, specifically oil. In the 70s they asked us to conserve and over time all drilling in this country ceased. Sure, oil companies have leases but they are in places where it will be hard to find oil. We know of the places where the oil is but the Democrats still refuse to let us go after it. Obambi wants us to conserve but our oil consumption is lower now than it was back then. Democrats have told us that it would take 10 years to get oil (which they said 10 years ago) and that we need alternative energy. Affordable alternative energy does not yet exist but oil does. We should be drilling for our own oil while developing new energies for the future. We cannot sit on our hands while the price of oil goes up and while we continue to compete with other nations for whatever OPEC decides to pump out. (READ MORE)
Blogmeister: Change Means a Lot More than You Thought Where Obama Is Concerned - Barack Obama has been promising "change" all throughout his campaign. His followers believed it meant he would change the way things are done in Washington. But it seems as though the more things change, the more they stay the same, and Obama is no exception when it comes to ducking and weaving for poliitical expediency. Seems the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was right about something. The RNC has picked up on one of his latest shifts (or flip flop, if you will) - this one regarding the situation in Iraq. In order to appeal to the far left base of the Democrat Party, Obama had to swear up and down that the minute he put his feet under the desk in the Oval Office, those troops would be scheduled to start coming home. But now that he has to appeal to moderates and righties, suddenly the surge that Obama was "not persuaded" would stop sectarian violence is causing his advisors to whitewash his prior statements. (READ MORE)
The Captain's Journal: The Right Prescription for the Taliban - Admonitions to spin off factions of the Taliban or Taliban-sympathizers against the so-called “hard core” Taliban are becoming commonplace. But who are the Taliban? We have already discussed the disaggregation of the Taliban into drug runners, war lords, petty former anti-Soviet commanders, criminals, Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Taliban, al Qaeda, and other rogue elements in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Drug runners, local war lords and other criminals can be dealt with differently than the Taliban. Drug runners will likely not have strong inclinations to Islamic fundamentalism and certainly not the global expansion of the same. On the other hand, the religiously motivated fighters within Afghanistan likely number as many as ten thousand fighters, including 3000 or so full time insurgents. (READ MORE)
Michael Kraft: G8 Summit Statement on Counterterrorism - Overlooked in the reporting on the G8 summit’s discussions in Rusutsu, Japan, this week on climate change and other subjects, was a major statement on counterterrorism, reaffirming that ”abductions and the taking of hostages are repugnant practices to be strongly condemned.” The terrorism issue was scarcely mentioned in articles found on a Google search except for an interesting Canadian news article focusing on Afganistan. However the statement was a useful reaffirmation of goals: “We, the leaders of the G-8 summit, condemn in the strongest possible terms all acts of terrorism, and commit ourselves to take every possible measure to counter this threat to the international community.” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: Never Too Late to Spread a Little Fear - You have to give credit where credit is due: the Washington Post isn't quite ready to surrender to victory in Iraq, and they're not above hyping a desperate bid for relevance by waning Shia militias as a significant tactical adaptation. U.S. Troops in Iraq Face A Powerful New Weapon by Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post Foreign Service was a much better article the first time I read it over a month ago in Bill Roggio's far more useful Long War Journal article, which the Post mentions but doesn't link. I can only assume that the Post failed to link Roggio's article because is so much more competently written. While Londoño seems intent on describing a weapon system that is a an improvement over past improvised devices in describing a weapon that has killed at least 21 people, he buries the fact that 18 of those 21 (16 civilians, two Madhi Army militiamen) were killed as a result of the jury-rigged bombs failing, and detonating in their launchers. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: 400 Taliban lay siege to Pakistani police station - Police in Kohat arrested seven Taliban extremists, and perhaps they could be forgiven for believing that 35 policemen would be enough to ensure their security. When the Taliban showed up in almost battalion strength, however, the police found themselves cut off. The army sent a battalion of its own, but not before the terrorists kidnapped three of the policemen and essentially captured Kohat (via See-Dubya): “A 400-strong force of Taliban militants laid siege to a police station in Hangu on Wednesday after the arrest of seven of their associates by security agencies. According to officials, 35 policemen were present in the Doaba station when militants encircled it. Heavily-armed Taliban militants were seen patrolling the Doaba bazaar and taking positions to counter any operation by security forces. A military spokesman said that an army battalion had been sent from the Thall garrison to Doaba on the request of the provincial government.” (READ MORE)
Missiles and stilettos: US MISSILE SHIELD: Saber Rattling from Iran and Russia - The missile-bound game of nuclear tic-tac-toe continued across the Middle East and Europe Wednesday as Russia made a provocative response to an expansion of the U.S. missile shield in Europe, and Iran followed with a provocation of its own. After the U.S. and Czech Republic signed an agreement calling for the basing of a U.S. radar south of Prague, Moscow responded with a threat of unspecified "military" action if the system is ever deployed. Then, less than 24 hours later, apparently responding to increasing chatter from the U.S. and Israel about attacking Tehran's nuclear production sites, Iran test-fired a barrage of missiles at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, a vital waterway through which about 40% of the world's oil - much of it bound for the U.S. and the West - passes. (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: Pandora's Box - Start turning over rocks (or picking them up to throw) and you find all sorts of creepy crawly things. That thought occurred to me when I first heard CNN (and others) dredging up the old Swift Boat issue last week. They wanted to make sure everyone in America knew Bud Day was associated with Kerry's fellow Swift Boat sailors. A true story - but they weren't telling the reason for Col Day's opposition to John Kerry - it stemmed from the latter's career-launching repeat of allegations of wartime atrocities committed by Soldiers and Marines in Vietnam before congress in 1971. Some folks might have misunderstood my position on the issue - if so they jumped to a conclusion. I only presented the facts on that post and kept my opinions to myself. I've never claimed American troops are incapable of committing crimes. In fact, the opposite is true. I tend to address those issues head on here as I have zero tolerance for such. (READ MORE)
McQ: Dems and the shifting political winds - Politico claims that "Dems [are] Searching Their Souls on Drilling". Poppycock. They’re searching the polls, not their souls, and they aren’t happy with what they find juxtaposed with their present position on the matter. So, as is typical of the breed, they’re easing toward the more popular position. “Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday that Democratic and Republican leaders are negotiating a compromise on energy legislation. Kyl declined to say who’s doing the negotiating or what results, if any, their discussions have yielded. But Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a longtime proponent of increased offshore drilling, said he was seeing ‘a big shift, a big shift in my direction,’ and it was hard to find Democrats who disagreed.” We’re then treated to the most preposterous quote of the day: (READ MORE)
Smooth Stone: Muslims continue to lie about Jews in America - This is really not to be believed, but the sad fact is that what you're about to read is true: Muslims are profane bigots, losers really, and worse, are insufferable miserable hateful bastards, who will go to any length no matter how foolish they come off, to villify Americans and Jews. Does the word Ryan sound like the word Zion to you? It does to Muslim misanthropes. To be honest, it's astonishing that Islam still thrives considering how backward and myopic and superstitious it is, but then again, that it still exists after 1,400 years of its own barbarism, cruelty, raping, pillaging, killing, murdering, and thieving, it merely proves that there are a lot more stupid people in this world than previously estimated. (READ MORE)
Melanie Phillips: The 42-days debate - To read today’s papers, you’d think that yesterday’s House of Lords debate on extending the time limit for detention before charge in terrorist cases from 28 to 42 days was a total and humiliating rout of the government’s position, with Security Minister Lord West’s lone frigate being blown out of the water by a fleet of destroyers led by the former head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, and with not even a rowing boat coming to his support. But Hansard records an altogether more complex argument, in which despite a blizzard of very serious but nevertheless largely tangential objections or assertions, Lord West’s main contention was never effectively challenged. This was the problem West outlined that 42 days was intended to address: (READ MORE)
The Sundries Shack: Today is the Day that Global Warming Jumped the Shark - I think we’re all in agreement that clean air is a good thing. We enjoy our air pollutant-free and we made a big push a couple of decades back to ban all sorts of things and to curtail our soot and clean up our factories. I mean, who doesn’t like clean air? I’ll tell you you who doesn’t like it. The Earth. The Earth doesn’t like clean air, at least not quite as much as Woodsy the Owl and that crying Indian led us to believe. And your children and grandchildren are probably going to want it just a little bit dirty because, as it happens, clean air seems to contribute heavily to global warming. No, you didn’t read that wrong. It looks like clean air is the next to add to the list of things that are causing global warming. (READ MORE)
Warner Todd Huston: Chgo Sun-Times: Violent White Men ‘Not Held Accountable for Their Actions’ - Did you know that violent white men are never arrested for their actions? The Chicago Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell is sure of it, if you aren’t. In another of her typically race baiting articles, Mitchell this time says that any time a white man is engaged in violent behavior, he is let off “to go on his merry way,” never to be “held accountable” for his actions. Race monger Mitchell is sure of this, see, because she saw a traffic scuffle between two “old white guys” where no arrests were made by Chicago police. Two “old white guys” let go without arrest after a traffic altercation? Wow, case closed, racism exists, eh? (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Forget Cheney; Investigate Waxman - California Congressman Henry Waxman who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is threatening to subpoena Attorney General Michael Mukasey because he wants a copy of a FBI interview with Vice President Dick Cheney in the long dead and who cares Valerie Plame affair. Waxman apparently wants to revisit the Plame issue because the other stupid investigations launched against the Bush Administration in the last six years have fallen through and he needs some sort of distraction to keep the public's mind off the pending American victory over terrorists in Iraq. Without going down in the mud on the Plame affair, it erupted after she helped get her under-employed husband a trip to Nigeria on behalf of the CIA where she had an inside job in Virginia. (READ MORE)
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