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)
Emanuel to Be Chief of Staff - President-elect Barack Obama made the first appointment of his new administration yesterday, choosing Rep. Rahm Emanuel to serve as White House chief of staff when he takes office in January. (READ MORE)
A Butler Well Served by This Election - For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land. (READ MORE)
Iraq Repeats Insistence on Fixed Withdrawal Date - BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 -- Two days after the election of Barack Obama, Iraq's chief spokesman said with unusual forcefulness Thursday that his government will continue to insist on a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops: (READ MORE)
Obama Gets First In-Depth Intelligence Briefing - For nearly an hour yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama met with two of the country's top intelligence officers for an important rite of passage: his first full-blown classified briefing on national security. (READ MORE)
Ahmadinejad Congratulates Obama, Urges 'Real' Change - TEHRAN, Nov. 6 -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has congratulated President-elect Barack Obama on his victory, the first time since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution that an Iranian leader has offered such wishes to an American counterpart. (READ MORE)
Economy begs priority from Obama - CHICAGO Greeted with the stock market's worst two-day drop in 21 years, President-elect Barack Obama will take on voters' No. 1 concern Friday by fielding questions about the nations economic turmoil in his first news conference since Election Day. (READ MORE)
Geithner touted for top post at Treasury - On an Obama economic brain trust studded with high-profile heavyweights, Timothy F. Geithner, the low-key president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has emerged as a top candidate to head the Treasury Department or another top policy post in the new administration. (READ MORE)
Shell secures 25-year access to Iraq's oil, gas - A joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Iraq's state-owned South Gas Co. could give Shell a 25-year monopoly on production and exports of natural gas in much of southern Iraq - the biggest foreign role in Iraq's oil and gas sector in four decades. (READ MORE)
Jobless rate 14-year high of 6.5% - WASHINGTON (AP) – The government says the nation's unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as employers slashed 240,000 jobs. It was stark proof the economy is almost certainly in a recession. (READ MORE)
'Awful' month for retailers triggers losses - The worst month for retailers in 35 years triggered another plunge on Wall Street on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting nearly 450 points to complete a two-day loss of nearly 1,000 points - the biggest since 1987. (READ MORE)
'Aliens Cause Global Warming' - Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: (READ MORE)
Obama's Russia Test - 'Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. . . . I guarantee you it's gonna happen." Joe Biden's famous campaign gaffe-as-prophecy was off by six months. How Mr. Obama responds to the Kremlin's provocation this week will offer an important glimpse of his Administration's approach to foreign policy. (READ MORE)
Emanuel's Elbows - Republicans are howling about Barack Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff, claiming the Illinois Congressman is a rough partisan who belies Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric about comity and bipartisanship. For our part, we like the choice. Mr. Emanuel is likely to be a restraining influence on the wackier Members of Congress. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Wesley Pruden: A heartfelt toast to Obama - Soon the fever boiling the bloodlust of the known world will break, and then what? Which Barack Obama will we get, the one his friends and allies in Hyde Park are counting on to remake America into a nation of stale leftist dreams, or the Barack Obama who understands that Americans want change, but not changing America to a place they wouldn't recognize? Only those with hearts of brick and stone cannot be moved by the joy and euphoria, unbridled by reality as it may be, of the millions of young and old, black and white, who now imagine that every rough place will be made smooth, every pothole patched, every slight and injustice redressed. (A lot to ask of a mere president.) The quivering chin, the tears trickling down the cheeks of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, standing mute in Chicago's Grant Park on Election Night and unaware of the public eye for once, looked fully authentic. (READ MORE)
Mike Gallagher: Mourning In America - Just how strange has this week been? Real strange. Thursday morning, I appeared on Fox & Friends, the morning talk show on Fox News Channel. I was to “debate” Lanny Davis, the longtime Clinton loyalist. Obviously, the show wanted a reaction to this week's election from a liberal like Lanny and a conservative like me. I thought I'd have some fun and at the last minute, affixed black duct tape to my right arm. The way the week turned out for the GOP, I figured wearing a black armband on TV would be pretty appropriate. Poor Lanny didn't seem to get the joke. “It's pretty silly to be listening to someone give advice to the incoming Obama administration while wearing a black armband”, he sputtered. Liberals never seem to have much of a sense of humor, even in victory. Besides, Lanny, I wasn't giving any advice, I was just expressing an opinion. Unless you guys get your wish and the return of the Fairness Doctrine knocks people like me off the airwaves for good: (READ MORE)
David Limbaugh: Conservatives, Don't Be Hypnotized - Let me first say that we conservatives should be gracious in defeat because it's the right thing to do. That does not mean, however, that we should for one minute abandon the vigorous pursuit of our ideas. The left never does, and we cannot afford to. We mustn't be sucked in to demands for bipartisanship from those who wouldn't practice it if their lives depended on it, lest we continue down the perilous path of unilaterally surrendering our ideas in the misguided hope that getting along is our highest aspiration. Remember in 2001, after liberals had already bludgeoned President Bush for 36 days and accused him of stealing an election they'd tried to steal, when they demanded he show bipartisanship? That is, those who lost insisted that those who won reach out to them. They said Bush didn't have a mandate and should voluntarily dilute his conservative policy proposals in the interest of getting along. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Say "Enough's Enough" And Do Your Part To Stop Mitch McConnell - After the 2006 election, the question you heard conservatives asking over and over again was, "Did the Republicans learn anything from their defeat?" As we now know, regrettably the answer to that question is "no" -- and so we're back once again trying to figure out if the GOP's 2nd savage beating in a row has stirred them from the Beltway bubble they've been firmly ensconced in over the last few years. I would suggest to you that there is one surefire way to tell if the Republican Party has learned anything from the 2nd straight whooping that it has received, one test that will determine if we're going to come back in 2010 or remain wandering in the wilderness. If, as expected, Mitch McConnell is once again elected as Senate Minority Leader, then the GOP is still so far out of touch that they need a telescope to see the interests of the people who sent them to Washington in the first place. (READ MORE)
Oliver North: Protect and Defend - GULFPORT, Miss. -- "We're the heart of the U.S. military. Our sons and daughters serve, and our neighbors build military ships." That's how a fan put it this week as I autographed a copy of "American Heroes" for him during a book-signing session. Then he added, "I hope that doesn't change." He has reason for concern, as do those who work at nearby Pascagoula Naval shipyard or Keesler Air Force Base or who serve anywhere in our nation's uniform. President-elect Barack Obama said on election night that "change has come to America." Though the next commander in chief has yet to announce exactly how he will do it, he clearly intends to change the commitments, capabilities and cost of America's military. --Commitments: Candidate Obama made "ending the war and getting out of Iraq" the centerpiece of his foreign policy platform from the very beginning of his campaign two years ago. (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: The Cowardly Character Assassination of Sarah Palin - Sunken ships loosen bitter lips. The failed McCain campaign, for all its high-minded talk of honor, duty and courage, is now teeming with unscrupulous gossipmongers. Seems the dishy staffers forgot to crack open their copies of Sen. McCain's bestseller, "Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember." Rest assured: Their cowardly character assassination of Sarah Palin won't be forgotten. The finks turned to Newsweek and Fox News to spread petty rumors about Palin's intellect and character. The magazine peddled anecdotes from sources horrified that Palin greeted top advisers at her hotel room -- gasp! -- "wearing nothing but a towel" and "wet hair." Fox News reporter Carl Cameron breathlessly reported that his unnamed McCain sources told him Palin lacked "a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate..." (READ MORE)
Michael Reagan: Why McCain Lost - Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States because the Republican Party and John McCain handed him the presidential election on a silver platter. The Republican Party and the Bush White House walked away from Republican ideals and they walked away from Republican values. George Bush allowed the Republican Congress to overspend in the first six years of his administration without once using the veto pen, blindsided the conservative Republican members of Congress on many occasions, and walked away from the base of his party on immigration reform and other issues such as Medicare and No Child Left Behind. He refused to sit down and break bread with the conservative members of his own party on Capitol Hill, yet believed that he could break bread with the liberal Democrats in Washington the way he did with the Democrats in Austin, Texas. (READ MORE)
David B. Rivkin Jr. & Bruce D. Brown: The SEC Should Leave Journalists Alone - It took Watergate's political meltdown to bury one dangerous and intellectually creaky restraint on press freedoms. In the spring of 1974 Richard Nixon enthusiastically supported the idea of forcing newspapers to print responses from candidates for office criticized in their pages. Subsequently the Supreme Court held such "right of reply" statutes to be unconstitutional. "The choice of material to go into a newspaper" belongs to its editors, the Court said. It added that the threat of steep fines for violating the law would steer the press to the "safe course," thus reducing the amount of election coverage precisely when it was most needed. A political crisis was no time to be selling the virtues of government intrusion into the nation's newsrooms. The same logic applies to economic crises. Today the marketplace urgently needs the press and independent analysts to dig for truth without government second-guessing. (READ MORE)
Will Marshall: Obama Needs a Strong Foreign Policy - Democrats need to spell out clearly the convictions that underlie their vision of American leadership in the post-9/11 world. Fortunately, in President-elect Barack Obama they have a supremely articulate messenger who is intellectually up to the task. Voters continue to harbor doubts about Democrats on security. One poll in September, just as the financial crisis was breaking, gave Republicans a 14-point advantage on questions of terrorism and security. It found that voters were increasingly likely to view Democrats as indecisive in facing threats and reluctant to use force; as insufficiently supportive of the military, and as following public opinion "rather than adhering to a consistent, principled view of the country's best interests." So, among the big challenges Mr. Obama faces heading into his first term is to close the national security confidence gap. (READ MORE)
Kimberly A. Strassel: How to Block the Liberal Agenda - Washington, meet Barack Obama. Barack Obama, remeet the Republican senators who are now going to help define your presidency. Democrats won big on Tuesday but not big enough. The voters' rebuke of the GOP was brutal, though not so cruel as to hand Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes they needed to grease a sweeping agenda. The GOP still owns a filibuster, and that is as big a factor in this new "era" as is our president-elect. Democrats, who now officially own 55 seats, are still salivating over that distant 60. But Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is holding on, and Georgia's Saxby Chambliss is positioned to win a run-off. Norm Coleman in Minnesota is in for an ugly recount, but he starts with a lead. If Mr. Reid goes postal on the McCain-supporting Joe Lieberman, Republicans could also find themselves with occasional help from the liberated Connecticuter. (READ MORE)
Dick Armey: 'Compassionate' Conservatism Was a Mistake - The liberal pundits who embraced the candidacy of Barack Obama are also eager to issue a death certificate for free market capitalism. They're wrong, and they remind me of what the great Willie Nelson once said: "I'm ragged but I'm right." To be sure, the American people have handed power over to the Democrats. But today there is a categorical difference between what Republicans stand for and the principles of individual freedom. Parties are all about getting people elected to political office; and the practice of politics too often takes the form of professional juvenile delinquency: short-sighted and self-centered. This was certainly true of the Bush presidency. Too often the policy agenda was determined by short-sighted political considerations and an abiding fear that the public simply would not understand limited government and expanded individual freedoms. (READ MORE)
Bret Swanson: Obama Ran a Capitalist Campaign - If Barack Obama ran for president by calling for a heavier hand of government, he also won by running one of the most entrepreneurial campaigns in history. Will he now grasp the lesson his campaign offers as he crafts policies aimed at reigniting the national economy? Amid a recession, two wars, and a global financial crisis, will he come to see that unleashing the entrepreneur is the best way to raise the revenue he needs for his lofty priorities? Like every entrepreneur, Mr. Obama's rise was improbable. An unusually-named, African-American first-term senator defeated two of the most powerful incumbent political brands, the Clintons and John McCain. Like many upstarts, he won by changing the rules of the game. Mr. Obama, following FDR's mastery of radio and JFK's success on TV, is the first candidate to fully exploit the Web. The community organizer seemed to realize that new social networking and video technologies were perfect for politics. (READ MORE)
David Foster: Too Much Political Dog Language - In 2004, I wrote about dog language and political language: When you talk to a dog, you don’t have to worry a lot about using syllogisms, complete sentences, good analogies, or crisply-argued chains of logic. What he’s looking for is keywords…particular words and short phrases…like “nice doggie” or “here” or, especially, “dinner.” It strikes me that, increasingly, the way in which politicians address the American people is very similar. It’s enough to say the words that are supposed to elicit the conditioned responses…”jobs” or “health care” or “education.” There is increasingly litle effort to specify exactly what cause-and-effect relationship will cause these good things to come to pass, and why one approach might be better than alternative approaches. This behavior is most noticeable among Democrats, but is by no means totally absent among Republicans. (READ MORE)
In From The Cold: The Way Ahead? - In the wake of Tuesday's GOP meltdown, there is no shortage of advice on how the party can rebuild itself, and reverse the losses of 2006 and 2008. We offered our own advice yesterday; so far, the RNC hasn't requested a detailed briefing. Go figure. Over at Slate, a panel of Republican luminaries--Tucker Carlson; Ross Douthat, Doug Kmiec, Jim Manzi, Kathleen Parker and Christine Todd Whitman--offered a dialogue on the party's future. Some of their advice is rather obvious; Mr. Douthat says we have "no one to blame but ourselves." Tucker Carlson echoes something we suggested--nominating someone who is articulate, for a change. In terms of policy, Mr. Manzi offers a pair of detailed suggestions; fix K-12 education, and once the southern border is secured, offer some sort of comprehensive immigration policy, allowing the world's best and brightest to settle in our country. (READ MORE)
CJ: Candy Security Clearances - You know what cracks me up? I've got a Soldier who needs a security clearance. He's been in the Company about six months now. After he first got here, we submitted all the required paperwork. He lost his security clearance because of a problem with his recent divorce. His wife didn't pay bills that were in both their names and his credit suffered for it. Bad credit = difficult security clearance. Unfortunately, his unit didn't stick up for him and yanked his security clearance essentially for something that wasn't his fault. We've been fighting for six months to get it back with no luck yet. It's still in "adjudication". Adjudication could take up to 2 years and because it was revoked, the commander doesn't have authority to give him an interim one. So, you see how difficult clearances are to get an maintain. Simple things like credit affect one's ability to get and keep a clearance. Today, prior to taking questions, White House press secretary Dana Perino briefed on some steps that the Bush administration was taking to get the Obama administration spun up. (READ MORE)
JammieWearingFool: After Months of Decoding Innocuous Speech for Racial Bias, Media Discovers There Was No White Bias During Election - Of course, they don't bother to explain the fact Obama got 106.8% of the African-American vote, but since blacks can't be racist according to liberals, we'll leave that angle for another day. Still, now that we've achieved the vaunted post-racial nirvana, maybe the media can stop obsessing on this, though I highly doubt that, as they'll analyze even the slightest criticism from this point forward seeking some subtle code words. It'll go something like this. Critic A says "I don't like Obama's new tax policy." The media will say to Critic A: "You're racist, pay up." “All the ominous predictions, all the fretting about hidden votes and closeted racists frustrating a victory for the nation’s first African-American president came down to this: the so-called Bradley effect did not exist.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Oh, let’s not follow the money - The Washington Post reports that lawyers are successfully arguing that terror financiers can’t be blacklisted because it violates their fundamental rights. “BRUSSELS — The global blacklisting system for financiers of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups is at risk of collapse, undermined by legal challenges and waning political support in many countries, according to counterterrorism officials in Europe and the United States. In September, the European Court of Justice threw the future of the United Nations’ sanctions program against al-Qaeda and the Taliban into doubt when it declared the blacklist violated the ‘fundamental rights’ of those targeted. The Luxembourg-based court said the list lacked accountability and made it almost impossible for people to challenge their inclusion.” But the fundamental problem with fighting terrorism any further may not be legal technicality. (READ MORE)
Matt Sanchez: Sometimes, it's the little things - Yes, we have the first black president of the United States and yes the world all over seems to love him, but when the First Lady in waiting took the stage, many Americans questioned her sensibility, or at least her fashion sense. Although I appreciate style, I'd like to think substance means much more to me and the American voter. I've never really noticed what politicians wear, unless they wear something unsettling which was the case for Michelle Obama's chosen dress, a flashy one piece ensemble that made her look like either a black widow or a middle-aged pregnant woman. The 2008 election has been remarkable for the inordinate attention paid to what the candidates are wearing, a side-effect of having Senator Hillary Clinton running in what looked to be an assembly line of Mao pantsuits and the media's unhealthy fixation on Palin's wardrobe. (READ MORE)
Information Dissemination: Arbiter, Enforcer, Hegemon - The talk lately of the "Post American World" is a line of thinking I simply don't agree with, for a number of reasons. I see the idea as the fallback position of those who want to retreat from the responsibilities assumed by our nation for nearly 6 decades. They may not realize it, but such a vision is an expression of desire for a world absent leadership. In many ways it represents a position absent the context of history. For example, if we are in a recession, and I tend to believe we are heading that direction, one only has to point to the early 90s to see the last time we experienced such economic conditions. I guess that means the 90s were terrible, right? Hardly. The world is much more complicated, and when the US took an economic hit due to Fannie/Freddie, it took all of about 24 hours for the entire world to feel it. We live in a world where your mortgage payment effects the investment economies of Europe and Asia, and somehow this is a sign of American decline to these supposed thinkers. (READ MORE)
Harmless Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: It's Time for a Pop Quiz - Okay. So the electorate of this great Country has spoken and Senator Obama is the President-elect. According to his running mate and Vice President-elect, Senator Biden, that means “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy . . . watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." Well the “world” may already be testing the new President-elect. The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, announced in his state of the nation speech that Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland, apparently in response to Poland’s decision to “play” with us in a missile defense system. President Medvedev explained the need to deploy the missiles by saying, “From what we have seen in recent years – the creation of a missile defense system, the encirclement of Russia with military bases, the relentless expansion of NATO – we have gotten the clear impression that they are testing our strength.” (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: Coming for the children - Gateway Pundit writes this morning that Obama has outlined his plan to indoctinate the children into community service (so they, too, can be President someday) by requiring 50 hours every year for elementary and high school students and 100 hours every year for college students. Again, more examples of what IS NOT charity - government-mandated work is not service to the community. “The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America,” JammieWearingFool also writes that Rahm Emanuel is on the same sheet of music with what Emanuel calls “The Real Patriot Act“ (READ MORE)
Soccerdad: No deal - The Washington Post reports that the White House now acknowledges that there will be no Israeli-Palestinian deal before the end of the Bush administration. The Post describes some of what went on during the past year: “After the summit, Rice made nearly monthly trips to Israel and the Palestinian territories to encourage the two sides in their efforts, though she never appeared to be a hands-on negotiator. She also appointed three U.S. generals to assist with building up Palestinian security forces, to assess whether the two sides were meeting their commitments and to consider long-term security needs in a peace deal. But the results were fairly opaque. Israeli and Palestinian officials said the talks were frank and open, but a written outline of an agreement never emerged. The work of the generals remained largely hidden from public review; one report said to be highly critical of Israel was never released.” (READ MORE)
The Wide Awake Cafe: On the Anonymous Attacks on Sarah Palin - Before the last ballots had been counted and John McCain had conceded to President Elect, Barack Obama, the attacks had already begun on Sarah Palin, but not by the Democrats, by her own campaign aides. How far the Republicans have strayed from the conservative days of Reagan. No wonder the milk toast moderates of the Republican Party want to drop the policies of Reagan down the memory hole, they don’t want his ethics either. Sarah Palin’s performance in the past sixty eight days of the Presidential campaign roused the Republican base, stirred up hope, something few Republicans had after the frenzied months of Obama mania. Palin brought excitement to John McCain’s campaign and carried herself with dignity, energy and tremendous grace. (READ MORE)
Lorie Byrd: Obama Following Teacher Practices Indoctrination, Intimidation and Ridicule in the Classroom - I am just now seeing this video of the little girl who dared say she supported John McCain to her teacher. I don't know what is scarier -- that a teacher in my state is so blatantly indoctrinating her students or that a teacher in my state is so blatantly stupid and ignorant. Michelle Malkin posted the video and the transcript. Michelle calls it ghastly and says, "The 'educator' should be disciplined, fired, forced to apologize publicly, and banned from the classroom." I agree and if this was my kid I would go farther than that. A transcript follows, but it is not complete. In the video, following the exchange with the students, the teacher is interviewed and says if a student tells her they support John McCain she says "Oh that's good" and moves on. The woman is not only an ignorant propagandizer, and hateful beyond belief for telling the child her dad is going to be in Iraq for a hundred years... (READ MORE)
Dale Carpenter: Not so fast: is Prop 8 an "amendment" or a "revision"? - The state constitutional challenge to Prop 8 turns out to be more interesting than I initially supposed. The California constitution recognizes two types of changes: "revisions" and "amendments." The distinction, which is not elaborated in the constitutional text and barely explained in California state court decisions, matters a great deal because the state constitution places a higher hurdle in front of revisions than amendments. "Revisions" can be effected only through approval by two-thirds of each state house, followed by a majority vote of the people. "Amendments" can be effected by simple majority vote of the people, without prior legislative approval. Prop 8, which inserted a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution, was styled as an amendment and accordingly went through the amendment process — requiring only the simple majority vote of the people (52%) that it got on Tuesday. (READ MORE)
Eugene Volokh: When Is the Best Time To Vote for a Crook? - When he's been convicted. I've seen some people implicitly or explicitly condemning those Alaskans who voted for Sen. Stevens, and apparently gave him a narrow victory. How could they vote for someone who was pretty obviously a crook? (Set aside those who might think the conviction was unfounded; presumably many voted for him even though they had little reason to doubt the accuracy of the jury's finding.) Seems to me that it's pretty easy: It seems nearly certain that Stevens will be expelled, which means he will be replaced, likely -- in heavily Republican Alaska -- by a Republican in the next special election. (The question whether there'll be a temporary appointed replacement, also a Republican, is irrelevant here.) And this prospect was clear at the time of the election as well. So the choice isn't between getting a Republican crook and getting a Democratic noncrook. (READ MORE)
Cassandra: A Case of Indecent Exposure - The Supreme Court is currently debating whether We the People are deprived of an irreplaceable First Amendment right when the f-word is stricken from broadcast TV shows aired between the hours of 6 and 10 pm. Traditionally the FCC has regulated the use of profanity and nudity during prime time to allow families to watch TV without being involuntarily confronted with age inappropriate fare. A rare example of indecency enforcement occurred in February when the FCC fined Fox TV for airing a risque reality TV show. The government has been slow to prosecute claims of indecency, going after only the most egregious offenders in markets where viewers lodged vociferous complaints. Typically, enforcement is both difficult and expensive: “In yesterday's order, the FCC turned down a Fox claim that said the April 7, 2003, show -- which featured digitally obscured nudity and whipped-cream-covered strippers -- was not indecent.” (READ MORE)
The Sundries Shack: Meet the New Special Interests, Same As the Old Special Interests - You’ll ever guess who are licking their chops waiting for January to get here. The Hill reports that lobbying firms and other special interest groups are scrambling around looking for any Democrat they can get their hands on to help them cash in when the new administration takes office. And it’s not just the special interests who are looking to hire Democratic lobbyists either. The Obama administration wants to fill the White House with them. “The Barack Obama campaign sought to keep lobbyists at arm’s length by not accepting their political contributions. But an Obama administration is likely to raid lobbying firms as well as congressional offices for talent. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, said in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that lobbyists will have a place in the administration.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: I Recommend Relaxed Vigilance - I have been reading various commentary from left and right since the elections and have to admit to some fatigue and discouragement. I am not discouraged by Barack Obama's election. To the contrary, I think the Republican failures, in conjunction with the polling data that America remains a moderate-conservative country, present a major opportunity and can initiate a renewal of a more Conservative (small government, strong defense, low taxes) Republican Party. What is discouraging is that a number of commentators have taken the position that there is nothing wrong with the Republican party that cannot be solved by mirroring the Democrats of the last 8 years. The idea that Barack Obama's election is going to usher in the long, dark night of fascism in America is troubling. I have no doubt that there are groups and individuals on the far left who would like nothing more than to form the nidus of an American brown shirted militia, but we are a very long way away from such an eventuality. (READ MORE)
Dan Riehl: How About Some Math And Science, First - I think it might be wise to back off on some of the criticisms of what appears to be a new Obama initiative by labeling it Marxist indoctrination. And, yes, I get the collectivist nature of it and Obama's mindset. Still, I suspect it's more John Kennedy, than Karl Marx. Starting off sounding a tad unhinged doesn't leave a lot of room for growth over the next four years. And that's precisely how critics will paint such criticism early on. “Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.” That said, American school and even college age kids need to learn to read, write and do Math and Science better than they are doing right now. (READ MORE)
Politics of a Patriot: America - By now, we all know that we have a new president-elect of our great country. I am truly saddened by the overwhelming majority opinion of the American people, as well as afraid of what the future may hold for all of us. I desperately hope that I am wrong, and that our freedoms are not lost and our way of life not compromised. I do not feel that this was a great gain for civil rights, but that a candidate was likely elected by a group of individuals who voted for him because of his race, rather than because of what he stands for. I see that public opinion often voted on a basis of race, rather than on service, devotion, and past performance. I hope I am wrong. It saddens me to have seen several small businesses already making plans to close. I struggle with the naiveté I see of individuals who believe the president-elect is a “savior” or “messiah” or “the anointed one” or “the chosen one.” He is a man, like every other presidential candidate. No more, no less. He is not the messiah. To suggest such things is scary. (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Ruck Up - The 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne is coming home from Iraq (ed: Iraq? Where’s that?) six weeks early: “Washington will accelerate its plans to reduce the number of combat troops in Iraq by bringing a brigade home this month, six weeks earlier than anticipated, the U.S. military said on Thursday… ‘Due to the continued improving security environment … the unit is able to redeploy six weeks early,’ said military spokesman Colonel Bill Buckner.” Which might just be a good thing for the doggies of 2/101st. Since the Iraqi government apparently believes it will be able to strike a more favorable status of forces agreement with the new administration: (READ MORE)
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