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)
Citizens' U.S. Border Crossings Tracked - The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence... (READ MORE)
If I Were the Boss... - When Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) starts work as president next year, he'll automatically get lots of perks without even passing a probationary period. He'll be able to fly without paying extra for baggage, food or decent leg room. READ MORE)
NATO Urges Russia To Withdraw but Will Say Little Else - BRUSSELS, Aug. 19 -- NATO allies said Tuesday that there will be no "business as usual" with Russia until its troops withdraw from all parts of Georgia, but Moscow's refusal to bend to the West's political will left the alliance with few options for punishment. (READ MORE)
Rice signs missile defense deal with Poland - WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal Wednesday to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. (READ MORE)
Censors vie to keep control of Olympics - BEIJING It has been a busy Olympics for China's censors, for whom image control in front of a domestic audience of more than 1.3 billion is even more important than China's image before the world. (READ MORE)
FCC chief slams cable rates - The nation's top media regulator says he doesn't have the power to solve the "single biggest problem" facing media consumers and isn't counting on Congress to act any time soon. (READ MORE)
Veep speculation around Obama event - RALEIGH, NC. -- Sen. Barack Obama will hold an event Saturday in Springfield, Ill., at the Old State Capitol, where he announced his candidacy 18 months ago, a move that is ramping up speculation about it being used to announce his running mate. (READ MORE)
GOP leaders try to foil Lieberman pick - Republican Party officials in several states are in a frenzy over how to persuade Sen. John McCain not to invite pro-choice Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman to be the Arizona senator's running mate. (READ MORE)
Obama courts military voters - Sen. Barack Obama, edging away from a long-held position, tacitly acknowledged the success of the Iraq troop-surge strategy during an appearance Tuesday before the country's largest organization of combat veterans. (READ MORE)
Georgian prisoners taken in cease-fire - POTI, Georgia Russian soldiers took about 20 Georgians in military uniform prisoner at a key Black Sea port in western Georgia on Tuesday, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered U.S. Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States. (READ MORE)
Democrats and Drilling - It took a few months, and more than a few polls, but Democrats have concluded that they've lost the debate against more oil-and-gas drilling. The surrender became official on Saturday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that even she was ready to "consider opening portions" of the Outer Continental Shelf to oil exploration. (READ MORE)
NATO's 'Empty Words' - "Empty words." That's how Moscow glibly dismissed NATO's criticism yesterday of Russia's continued occupation of Georgia. The Russians may be bullies, but like all bullies they know weakness when they see it. The most NATO ministers could muster at their meeting in Brussels was a statement that they "cannot continue with business as usual" with Russia. There was no move to fast-track Georgia's bid to join NATO, nor a pledge to help the battered democracy rebuild its defenses. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Robert J. Samuelson: The Real China Threat - Obsessed with rankings, Americans are bound to see the Beijing Olympics as a metaphor for a larger and more troubling question. Will China overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy? Well, stop worrying. It almost certainly will. China's economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy, but given plausible growth rates in both countries, China's output will exceed America's in the 2020s, Goldman Sachs forecasts. But this is the wrong worry. By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese living standards may lag behind ours indefinitely. By Goldman's projections, average American incomes will still be twice Chinese incomes in 2050. The real threat from China lies elsewhere. (READ MORE)
Kathleen Parker: Pastor Rick's Test - At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong. It is also un-American. For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won. Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town-hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court? (READ MORE)
Michael Gerson: Inspiration And Danger In Georgia - The nation of Georgia is a place of inspiration and danger. I saw both in a single hour. I was in Tbilisi's Freedom Square during President Bush's visit in May 2005, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried. During the Georgian national anthem, the speaker system broke down and tens of thousands of Georgians movingly sang that song without music -- a song that had been illegal to sing under Soviet occupation. It is shocking to imagine those joyful people now bombed, fearful and occupied. At the same event, an assassination attempt was made against President Bush. A man threw a grenade wrapped in a handkerchief. Bush was behind a bulletproof shield but within the blast radius of the weapon. The grenade was live but did not explode -- or maybe the explosion in Georgia was just delayed. (READ MORE)
David Freddoso: Obama Played by Chicago Rules - Democrats don't like it when you say that Barack Obama won his first election in 1996 by throwing all of his opponents off the ballot on technicalities. By clearing out the incumbent and the others in his first Democratic primary for state Senate, Mr. Obama did something that was neither illegal nor even uncommon. But Mr. Obama claims to represent something different from old-style politics -- especially old-style Chicago politics. And the senator is embarrassed enough by what he did that he misrepresents it in the prologue of his political memoir, "The Audacity of Hope." Barack Obama talks with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, June 6. In that book, Mr. Obama paints a portrait of himself as a genuine reformer and change agent, just as he has in this presidential campaign. He attributes his 1996 victory to his message of hope, and his exhortations that Chicagoans drop their justifiable cynicism about politics. (READ MORE)
Naomi Schaefer Riley: Democrats Move Left On Abortion - "Above my pay grade." Those words rang in the ears of Gene Taylor, a middle-age member of Saddleback Church I interviewed after the worship service on Sunday morning. He was referring to the answer offered by Barack Obama when Pastor Rick Warren asked him at what point in its development a baby gets "human rights." "In this country," Mr. Taylor told me, "there is no higher pay grade than the president." Which is true at least metaphorically. Mr. Taylor added, "I thought I was going to be supporting John McCain. Now I'm sure of it." Mr. Obama's flip-sounding response did not go over well with the evangelicals in the audience of Saturday night's presidential forum. After a week in which the Democrats have been renegotiating their abortion platform, Mr. Obama was supposed to provide a voice of clarity, and above all moderation, for the party. (READ MORE)
Sergey Lavrov: America Must Choose - In some Western nations an utterly one-sided picture has been painted of the recent crisis in the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict. The statements of American officials would lead one to conclude that the crisis began when Russia sent in its troops to support its peacekeepers there. Meticulously avoided in those statements: The decision of Tbilisi to use crude military force against South Ossetia in the early hours of Aug. 8. The Georgian army used multiple rocket launchers, artillery and air force to attack the sleeping city of Tskhinvali. Some honest independent observers acknowledge that a surprised Russia didn't respond immediately. We started moving our troops in support of peacekeepers only on the second day of Georgia's ruthless military assault. Yes, our military struck sites outside of South Ossetia. When the positions of your peacekeepers and the civilian population they have been mandated to protect are shelled, the sources of such attacks are legitimate targets. (READ MORE)
James Kirchick: Mugabe Has No Intention - Negotiations held under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community have thus failed to achieve a "power-sharing" agreement between Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. According to some reports, the proposed accord, drafted by South African President Thabo Mbeki, would split executive powers between Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai, grant immunity to regime officials guilty of human-rights abuses, and give control over the military and Reserve Bank to Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. Some in the West might welcome such an accord as a reprieve from months of turbulence, but history shows that sharing power just isn't something Mugabe does. Following his March 29 defeat to Mr. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mugabe unleashed the full force of the state against his opponents, killing over 100 people and torturing and displacing untold more. (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Democratic Platform's Hidden Soros Slush Fund - The Democratic Party platform is like a bag of pork rinds. You never know what high-fat liberal government morsel you're gonna get. Buried in the 94-page document is a noble-sounding proposal to create a "Social Investment Fund Network." The program would provide federal money to "social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations [that] are assisting schools, lifting families out of poverty, filling health care gaps, and inspiring others to lead change in their own communities." The Democratic Party promises to "support these results-oriented innovators" by creating an office to "coordinate government and nonprofit efforts" and then showering "a series of grants" on the chosen groups "to replicate these programs nationwide." In practice, this Barack Obama brainchild would serve as a permanent, taxpayer-backed pipeline to Democratic partisan outfits masquerading as public-interest do-gooders. (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Economic Myths - By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out Professor John R. Lott's "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works." His first chapter is "Are You Being Ripped Off?" It addresses myths about predation where it's sometimes alleged that corporations will charge below-cost prices to bankrupt their rivals and then charge unconscionable prices. There's little or no evidence that corporations would choose predation as strategy; there are too many pitfalls. A major one is that in order to recoup losses from charging low prices to bankrupt rivals, the predator would later have to charge higher-than-normal prices. That would attract new rivals who might have purchased the bankrupt assets of the predator's prey and be able to undercut the predator's prices. (READ MORE)
John Stossel: The Idiocy of Energy Independence - It's amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good. Most every politician and pundit says "energy independence" is a great idea. Presidents have promised it for 35 years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were self-sufficient, protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations? The hitch is that even if the United States were energy independent, it would be protected from none of those things. To think otherwise is to misunderstand basic economics and the global marketplace. To be for "energy independence" is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop destruction from this summer's floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves. (READ MORE)
Kathleen Parker: Purpose-Driven Politics - At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong. It is also un-American. For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won. Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court. Suffice it to say, each of the candidates' usual supporters felt validated in their choices. McCain convinced and comforted with characteristic certitude those most at ease with certitude; (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Modals and Me - It is a regular source of amazement, the things people will be amazed by. For example, it was our privilege the other day to publish a letter to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette from one of our valued correspondents. The letter was a model of brevity. It was also a thorough provocation to any defender of the mother tongue in these parts, aka Suthuhn. To quote the letter, in toto: "I was utterly amazed to see Œthe board might could use a little guidance' in a recent editorial. Might could use? What English grammar book did that come from? Shame on you. Your Arkie background is showing." Ooo-wee. My reactions came fast and a little furious. First came a not very nice question: "You're not from around here, are you, friend?" (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: Crime and Warfare: An Anatomy of Terror - One reason the debate question, "Is terrorism warfare or crime?" irks me is that it is patently both. Take Colombia's sad experience as a particularly prima facie example. All but the most ritually blind Marxists now concede Colombia's "leading insurgent army," the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), is a narcotics cartel with a residual political agenda. Of course they wouldn't mind being the Colombian government, which may or may not differentiate them from American mafiosos, but during the decades of Colombia's heinous violence, whatever social idealism powered FARC has decayed. In Colombia, Marx became Murder Inc. The Colombian people knew it. In early February 2008, The New York Times quoted a Colombian citizen who was participating in an anti-FARC demonstration held in downtown Bogota. "The FARC made themselves into criminals a long time ago," declared Martin Orozco... (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Amateurs Outdoing Professionals - When amateurs outperform professionals, there is something wrong with that profession. If ordinary people, with no medical training, could perform surgery in their kitchens with steak knives, and get results that were better than those of surgeons in hospital operating rooms, the whole medical profession would be discredited. Yet it is common for ordinary parents, with no training in education, to homeschool their children and consistently produce better academic results than those of children educated by teachers with Master's degrees and in schools spending upwards of $10,000 a year per student-- which is to say, more than a million dollars to educate ten kids from K through 12. Nevertheless, we continue to take seriously the pretensions of educators who fail to educate, but who put on airs of having "professional" expertise beyond the understanding of mere parents. (READ MORE)
Ben Shapiro: Government Is One Big Traffic Jam - Late Sunday night, my wife and I drove from Sacramento, Calif., to Los Angeles. We figured that it would be wise to leave Sacramento in the early evening to avoid traffic. At 7 p.m., we climbed into the car and headed for Interstate 5, the major highway connecting Northern California and Southern California. For the first five hours of the drive, things went as planned. The highway was relatively clear, and we sailed along happily at 80 mph. Then we saw it. A sign. A large orange sign reading: Freeway Closed Ahead, 11 p.m.-4 a.m. It was too late to get off the freeway; it was too late to turn around. There were no turnoffs, no exits, no restrooms. We were stuck an hour from Los Angeles, bumper-to-bumper, moving less than 1 mph. Literally. During the next three hours, we moved a grand total of 1.6 miles. Families were pulling onto the shoulders of the highway to catch some winks. (READ MORE)
Dick Morris & Eileen McGann: Obama's Backbone Deficit - Last week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia's invasion of Georgia. This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter. Consider first the domestic and political. Bill and Hillary Clinton have no leverage over Obama. Hillary can't win the nomination. She doesn't control any committees. If she or her supporters tried to disrupt the convention or demonstrate outside, she would pay a huge price among the party faithful. If Obama lost - after Hillary made a fuss at the convention - they would blame her for all eternity (just like Democrats blame Ted Kennedy for Carter's defeat). (READ MORE)
Lee Culpepper: Liberals Hold Off China in Propaganda All-Around - Spanning the globe to bring you a constant variety of pretense! The make-believe thrills of socialism...and forsaken agony of actual consequences! The human drama of presumptuous politics! This is LIB’s Wide World of Programming! Even with all the scandals hovering over the Beijing Olympics, communist China continues to trail liberals in the art of propaganda and masquerade. China, like the left, pretends to be champions of the common man, yet history and facts prove the opposite. When it comes to exploiting, pillaging, and deceiving downtrodden people, China and liberals are battling for the title, but both easily dominate the rest of the competition. During the extravagant opening ceremonies of this summer’s Olympics, China unveiled wily trickery that rivaled the campaigning propaganda of the Democrat Party. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Who's Gorby Kidding? - Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbochev claims that Russia never intended for there to be a war in Georgia. Right. Which country invaded Georgia under the pretense of claiming to act as peacekeepers in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia. That would be Russia. Which country continues to break its own ceasefire agreement with Georgia. Again, that would be Russia. Which country unilaterally acted in violating the territorial sovereignty of its neighbor. Again, that's Russia. Gorbochev is doing nothing more than proffering the standard Russian line on Georgia - that it was Georgia's own fault for attacking the South Ossetians. He would rather ignore the fact that the war has reduced South Ossetia's towns to rubble. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: PUMA alert: “Massive” e-mail campaign to derail Obama at convention - Hillary Clinton’s supporters will not go quietly, it seems. According to a Scripps-Howard report this morning, unnamed backers of Hillary have begun a “massive” e-mail campaign insisting that she won more votes and is the only electable candidate in 2008. Perhaps, in consideration of the polling free-fall Barack Obama has experienced this summer, they may have a point (via TMV): “A massive e-mail and Internet campaign is under way aimed at derailing the nomination of Barack Obama and making Hillary Clinton the party’s standard bearer next week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Most of the messages Lowery has received from across the country come from Hillary supporters making the case that she won more voters’ votes in the primaries, she won bigger states, that Obama won states that won’t vote Democratic in November, and that she is the only ‘electable’ Democrat.” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Really, too rich - I know that some of us part ways with our fellow travelers on the left on the issue of personal responsibility, but this is simply too much: After days of making themselves look small and mean over unprovable allegations that, in his book “Faith of My Fathers, John McCain plagiarized from Alexander Solzhenitsn his “cross in the dirt” story, the left is forced to admit, that well: It wasn’t actually in any of Solzhenitsn’s oeuvre. Never happened. The old man never once wrote about it. Who do they blame for appearing not just small and mean, but also intellectually lazy and unread? The right wing. Bastards made them do it: (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Heart-ache: Obama advisors converging on Saturday for “major event” in … Indiana - Rush’s dreams? Dashed. Blogger’s heart? Broken. Pawlenty’s and Romney’s prospects? Brighter, since a bland choice on one side makes a bland choice on the other safer. Bayh Bayh, Biden? “NashvillePost.com has learned that senior campaign officials from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign are being dispatched from various locations around the country and are converging in Indianapolis for a ‘major event’ to take place on Saturday. Saturday is the same day that Obama is expected to make his first public appearance with his yet to be announced vice presidential running mate. Indiana is the home state of Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, widely considered to be on the short list of Democratic vice presidential contenders.” Obama’s advance people have supposedly been pulled out of Denver to handle this, too. (READ MORE)
Harmless Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: It's Official - So it’s official. (Actually it was official a week ago, but I think I needed some time to consider what that meant.) My daughter, Sevilla, has been selected to deploy for 365 days. I’m not going to say where she's going, or what she’ll be doing, since I have no idea what is (or isn’t) covered by OPSEC (operational security, for those of you who don’t speak military acronyms). She won’t deploy for a while, so I have some time to get used to the idea; but she will deploy. Now being who I am, I’ve already started looking at the practical impacts of her deployment. Sevilla’s a single parent, so obviously the biggest concern was her daughter. Of course, we will be ready, willing, and able to look after the Princess while her mom is serving her country. It won’t be much of a change, since the Princess lives with us anyway. She’ll attend the same school. She’ll sleep in the same bed. She’ll enhance the lives of her Grandparents; just like she does now. (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: We’re paratroopers, we’re supposed to be surrounded - The above quote is from the movie “Band of Brothers” and spoken by Richard Winters when warned that he was about to be surrounded by Germans at Bastogne in December of 1944. Recent events near Wanat, Afghanistan indicates that the spirit of the Airborne still lives today as it did in World War II. Some of you may remember that I got to spend the evening with some of the reluctant heroes of that battle, from Chosen Company, 2/503rd, as well as Tankerbabe , a blogger who has adopted the unit. She has put up several articles about the battle, and everytime I read one of them, I’m in awe of the guys with whom I had the honor of slamming back Carbombs (apparently Tankerbabe’s libation of choice). She has one article about a medic, Specialist Jonathan Kaderli, who has been nominated for a Bronze Star with a “V” and another about Specialist Tyler Stafford; (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: The Consquences of Twiddling - Some years back, the Democrats took a look at the process in Presidential elections - they were getting their keesters handed to them on a regular basis - and decided the way to fix it was to start the process early and get their nominee chosen much earlier. This decision resulted in Senator John "Magic Hat" Kerry getting nominated in 2004, and appears set to tap Senator Barack "Magic Suit" Obama for the spot this year. Kerry proved singularly inept as a candidate, and recent events have begun to show Obama's failings at a time where he can ill afford it. The decision to 'front-load' the primary process has produced candidates of dubious qualifications, but more to the point, no effective vetting, so that surprise collapses and mistakes are inevitable. The Republicans also decided to front-load their own primaries this year, which is one reason for the very weak choice of McCain. (READ MORE)
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