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)
Cantor says GOP is no longer 'relevant'- Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, poised to ascend to House Republicans' No. 2 leader this week, said the Republican Party in Washington is no longer "relevant" to voters and must stop simply espousing principles. Instead, it must craft real solutions to health care and the economy. (READ MORE)
Carmakers spend millions to win billions from Congress - The country's "Big Three" automakers have paid millions of dollars in lobbying bills and campaign contributions this year, hoping to curry favor with the federal government's executive branch and with lawmakers they hope will grant them federal assistance. (READ MORE)
Obama to push for college football playoff - President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday said the National Collegiate Athletic Association should institute a college football playoff system, and vowed that he will push them to do so. "This is important," Mr. Obama said, at the end of a nearly 40-minute interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes." (READ MORE)
Stock futures fall ahead of bailout talks - NEW YORK (AP) – An anxious Wall Street proceeded cautiously Monday after last week's selloff, sending stock futures lower ahead of economic data and talks in Congress about the automotive industry. (READ MORE)
GOP gets wake-up call on minority vote - Virginia Republicans say the overwhelming support by blacks and Hispanics that led to big wins for Democrats on Election Day taught them a valuable lesson: The party must work harder to make minority voters feel included and involved or pay dearly at the polls. (READ MORE)
Iraqi Cabinet approves 2011 deal -Prospects of U.S. forces legally remaining in Iraq for three more years improved Sunday when the Iraqi Cabinet passed an agreement setting a 2011 deadline for an American pullout. (READ MORE)
Obama Wrote Federal Staffers About His Goals - In wooing federal employee votes on the eve of the election, Barack Obama wrote a series of letters to workers that offer detailed descriptions of how he intends to add muscle to specific government programs, give new power to bureaucrats and roll back some Bush administration policies. (READ MORE)
Mask Ban Upsets Iraqis Hired as U.S. Interpreters - BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has barred Iraqi interpreters working with American troops in Baghdad from wearing ski masks to disguise themselves, prompting some to resign and others to bare their faces even though they fear it could get them killed. (READ MORE)
Democrats Move Cautiously on DHS Appointment - The next secretary will inherit the politically perilous tasks of securing the nation's borders against illegal immigration, as well as leading the federal response to natural disasters. He or she will take the helm of a $40 billion, 200,000-worker bureaucracy still in the throes of the most complex government merger since World War II, while contending with more than 80 congressional oversight committees and subcommittees. (READ MORE)
Auto Bill Would Add Oversight - A measure to speed $25 billion in emergency aid to the nation's automakers will include provisions designed to protect taxpayers, congressional Democrats said yesterday, including a ban on bonuses for employees who make more than $200,000 a year and a government oversight board with power to veto corporate decisions. (READ MORE)
Karzai Makes Offer to Taliban - KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 16 -- As international pressure mounts for negotiations with insurgents, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that he would guarantee the security of Taliban chief Mohammad Omar if he decides to enter into talks. (READ MORE)
The $639 Million Loophole - We're fresh off the most expensive election cycle in history, in which the winning candidate raised record amounts of money while opting out of the campaign finance limits. With victory in hand, Barack Obama's allies now want to return to the alleged virtues of public money. If there was ever a demonstration of the folly and hypocrisy of campaign finance reform, this would be it. (READ MORE)
China's News Concession - President-elect Barack Obama told a Pittsburgh crowd this year that "trade with China will only be good for you if China itself plays by the rules." Well, thanks to its membership in the World Trade Organization, China is learning to do precisely that. The latest example came Thursday, when American, European and Chinese negotiators resolved a trade tiff over financial information suppliers. (READ MORE)
Recession in the Euro Zone - Just as it took European politicians months to realize that many of their banks were in even worse shape than U.S. financial institutions, they have been in denial when it comes to the economic fallout from the credit crisis. No more. As euro-zone leaders went to the G-20 extravaganza in Washington on Friday, their economies officially went into recession -- the first in the history of the single currency. Let's hope they won't make it worse. (READ MORE)
Spitzer as Victim - Shame is fleeting in modern America, so it was probably inevitable that Eliot Spitzer would seek to return as an arbiter of everyone else's moral behavior. But even we have to admit to being a little surprised by the rapidity and audacity of his attempted self-rehabilitation, courtesy of an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post. This guy makes Bill Lerach seem remorseful. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Wesley Pruden: A cream puff for used-car salesmen - The Democrats are having a hard time selling the bailout of General Motors because nearly everyone has suffered the agony of buying a car. That's how the "used-car salesman," fair or not, became the American icon of deception, fraud and thievery. Maybe it's true that GM is "too big to fail," though from all the available evidence GM is succeeding spectacularly at failure. What the pols and their lobbyist buddies really mean with their used-car salesman's spiel is that GM is "too big for Joe Sixpack to let fail." Nevertheless, who among us is not enjoying a little schadenfreude, that delicious pleasure of watching someone get what's coming to him. GM has led Detroit in building junk on wheels, big hunks of rolling tin designed on the cheap to wear out before it's paid for. Once in a while, frightened by gasoline shortages and diminishing sales, the Detroit manufacturers move briefly to building smaller, more efficient cars of better quality. (READ MORE)
Michael E. Levine: Why Bankruptcy Is the Best Option for GM - General Motors is a once-great company caught in a web of relationships designed for another era. It should not be fed while still caught, because that will leave it trapped until we get tired of feeding it. Then it will die. The only possibility of saving it is to take the risk of cutting it free. In other words, GM should be allowed to go bankrupt. Consider the costs of tackling GM's problems with some kind of bailout plan. After 42 years of eroding U.S. market share (from 53% to 20%) and countless announcements of "change," GM still has eight U.S. brands (Cadillac, Saab, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Saturn, Chevrolet and Hummer). As for its more successful competitors, Toyota (19% market share) has three, and Honda (11%) has two. GM has about 7,000 dealers. Toyota has fewer than 1,500. Honda has about 1,000. These fewer and larger dealers are better able to advertise, stock and service the cars they sell. (READ MORE)
L. Gordon Crovitz: Markets Declare Truce in Copyright Wars - Technology and copyright law have been at odds since the beginning of the digital era. Music publishers sued the fans who illegally downloaded songs. Movie studios and book publishers had their lawyers and lobbyists block digital access as best they could. But content owners are finally realizing they're better off helping their customers use digital media than trying to stop the march of technology. Just in the past few weeks, YouTube announced that MGM will let the online video site offer selected movies and that CBS will let it link to shows such as the original "Star Trek" series. The big four music labels agreed to let the LaLa Web site offer sample songs. Even the Beatles, longtime digital holdouts, agreed their music can be part of a videogame. The most fascinating truce in the copyright wars is this month's settlement of litigation between book publishers and authors on one side and Google on the other... (READ MORE)
Gerald P. O'Driscoll: To Prevent Bubbles, Restrain the Fed - On Nov. 14, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 8497.31. On Nov. 13, 1998, the adjusted (for dividends and split) close was 8919.59. There has been great volatility, but no net capital accumulation as measured by the Dow in a decade. Other indexes, such as the Nasdaq, tell a similar story. Capital has been invested but as much value has been destroyed as created. The U.S. cannot afford to have another lost decade. Or to see the dreams of another generation of Americans who had been told to take responsibility for their financial health by investing in the stock market dashed by failed monetary and fiscal polices. Today, the most urgent task facing President-elect Barack Obama is stabilizing financial markets by instituting policies that foster economic growth and prevent the type of boom and bust cycle that has just wiped out a decade's worth of wealth accumulation. (READ MORE)
Ariella Bernstein: Democrats Shouldn't Rush on Labor Legislation - The labor movement has announced that it will push passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in the first 100 days of the Obama administration. There is even talk of adding it to President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus legislation, to reduce the spotlight on the issue. This haste is a mistake. I am a Democrat who has worked at both the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), two agencies that figure prominently in this legislation. I believe we need a better understanding of the problems before signing on to this bill as the solution. The Employee Free Choice Act has three main components: certification of a union as the bargaining representative if a majority of employees sign authorization cards; mandatory arbitration on the terms of a contract if the parties cannot reach agreement... (READ MORE)
Burt Prelutsky: Why Dogs, Not Liberals, Are Man's Best Friend - Some people are convinced that a compassionate conservative is an oxymoron. But, I know better. I'm not suggesting I am one, but I do know a few. They're the people who occasionally take me to task for being too critical of liberals. They'll insist that some of their best friends are liberals. Liberals, they'll inform me, make fine neighbors and positively first-rate relatives. I patiently explain that they're preaching to the choir. I know first-hand that liberals can be all of those things, and more. My only problem with liberals is that they're hypocrites and they can't help lying. Perhaps, like my friends, you now think I'm too harsh in my judgment. On the contrary, I think I tend to give liberals the benefit of the doubt. I happen to believe they are so besotted by their emotions that they can't help painting themselves into indefensible corners. (READ MORE)
Bruce Bialosky: The Republicans Don’t Need a New Message; They Need New Messengers - There is a cyclone of analysis happening in the aftermath of the 2008 elections as to the status of the Republican Party. The old strategy of low taxes and small government is being crucified as a message that no longer excites voters. That is flat wrong. The party’s problems are more with the messengers than with the message. While it’s possible to commend President Bush for a job well done in certain aspects, it is very difficult to say he has been a good communicator. Senator McCain was certainly no match for Senator Obama. Republicans now need to install new leaders in Congress who can convey a clear message. Additionally, the new chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) has to be more than a technician. That person must be a skilled communicator. The clear choice is Michael Steele. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: Lawrence of Eurabia - Author’s Note: The following is, unfortunately, a true story that took place this semester at the once-great (and once-conservative) Pepperdine University. No names have been changed to protect the guilty. They don’t deserve it. One Monday morning, just before the 2008 presidential election, a Pepperdine student (and College Republican, or CR) took a sign to the Office of Student Affairs. The sign read “Barack Obama socialism ‘08” in big letters, with “Socialism is bad. Do not vote Obama ’08. More info: CR meeting Weds 8pm, AC 245”. A young woman working in the office took out a stamp and approved the poster. Three members of the CRs hung the sign up in the Café. A couple of faculty members smiled and warned them to be careful since they were placing it up so high. Pepperdine students gave mixed reactions. The CRs sat in the Café awhile and then left. Shortly thereafter, their sign was removed. (READ MORE)
Star Parker: Who will define America? - I retrieve and open a large envelope from today's pile of mail. Inside is a press release announcing "Chick-fil-A Founder to Receive 2008 William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership." I discover that Chick-fil-A founder is 87-year-old Atlanta businessman S. Truett Cathy. Reading about Cathy, amidst today's headlines, I am wondering if his story is what America is about, or was about. Cathy built, and today is owner/operator, of the privately held Chick-fil-A fast food chain, with more than 1400 locations and sales of over $2.6 billion dollars. He's from humble roots in rural Georgia and opened the first Chick-fil-A store in Atlanta in 1967. In contrast to stereotypes equating business, particularly big business, to greed, Cathy's life and work has been defined by service and Christian charity. (READ MORE)
Kevin McCullough: Why The Prop 8 H8ters Lost - There has been much "hate" described in media reports since election day in the nation, much of it related to the passing of Prop 8 as a Constitutional Amendment for that state and as such is no longer touchable by a state sanctioned court. Yet hate has abounded, not from the corners of Jewish synagogues, Mormon temples, Christian churches or Catholic cathedrals. Those are just the places we've been told "hate" resides. The "hate" was also not found in any single ethnicity, political party, or geographical demographic. No the side that has been doing all of the hating since election day in the troubled parts of our nation have been militant activists radicals, who happen to be mostly white, mostly godless, and nearly completely all choose to engage in homosexual behavior. (READ MORE)
Guy Benson: Country First, No Surrender - The election is over, and the results aren't pretty for Republicans. Barack Obama won the presidency by a fairly comfortable margin, Democrats expanded their majority in the House, and the GOP is hanging onto the filibuster by a hair in the Senate. Now that the rallies have died down, the attack ads have been pulled off the air, and Americans are facing a new political reality, it may be instructive for those who supported the McCain-Palin ticket to revisit a slogan with which they're quite familiar: "Country First." Throughout the general election season, this catchphrase adorned thousands of McCain rally signs, stump speech podiums, and election banners. It summed up, in two simple words, the essence of McCain's candidacy—the Republican ticket would put the nation's interests above all else, including partisan consideration and personal ambitions. (READ MORE)
George Will: The Hyperbole of a Conservative - WASHINGTON -- Conservatism's current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket's end-of-campaign crescendo of surreal warnings that big government -- verily, "socialism" -- would impend were Democrats elected. John McCain and Sarah Palin experienced this epiphany when Barack Obama told a Toledo plumber that he would "spread the wealth around." America can't have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans -- whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm -- and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system... (READ MORE)
Hollywood Does Conservative: Israel up for grabs? - Those of us who have seen this coming take no pleasure in seeing it now unfold: the threat against Israel is becoming more ominous and specific. During his campaign, Obama worked hard to downplay his sympathies for Israel's aggressors because he didn't want to lose the Jewish vote. (And lest we forget, the Los Angeles Times helped him accomplish this by refusing to release a tape of the Obamas at a Jew-bashing fete). While Jews in America apparently bought into his rhetoric-- I'm always amazed that the Jewish vote is so consistently against the best interests of Israel-- the Israeli Jews knew better. And while Obama did not disclose this at the time, he was audaciously communicating with Israel's bloodthirsty enemies before he was elected. Small wonder, then, that the war cries against Israel are getting louder and more urgent by the day. In my view, they've been emboldened by Obama's sympathetic noises. (READ MORE)
CJ: Real Milestones - Tonight, the AP reported that the number of US military deaths in Iraq had reached 4,200. No doubt, this number will continue to be used by the media and liberals in this country to make some sort of point about the pointlessness of the war. To counter this, allow me to publicize some numbers that I think should make far more headlines from Iraq: 2 Medals of Honor. 14 Distinguished Service Crosses. 393 Silver Stars. 68 Legions of Merit. 99 Distinguished Flying Crosses. 97 Soldier's Medals. 2008 Bronze Stars for Valor. 608 Air Medals for Valor. 4711 Army Commendation Medals for Valor. 20,000 Purple Hearts. 4,200 of our brave heroes gave their lives for the cause of freedom, protecting our country from future attacks and taking the battle to the enemy. Thousands of others lived to tell the tale and were properly recognized for their bravery. They should be remembered for their sacrifices and not as numbers of dead to be used as pawns in some political game of "I told you so". (READ MORE)
SmoothStone: Barack Hussein Obama, Pan-Arabia, and their united efforts to destroy Israel - First it was the Germans who dictated to us, and now for more than 60 years its the Arabs. This ugly document keeps resurfacing lately. Who are the Arabs to dictate to Jews who we are, where we should live, what our borders are, what offends us, and where we belong? There is no law on earth that requires the Jewish people to accept the revision of their history nor their own demise merely because Arabs or American Presidents say we should. Arabs deceive the world and pretend that if Israel went back to pre 1967 borders there would be peace. But what happened in 1967 that caused the borders to change? Did Israel just decide they wanted more land or was Israel attacked, for the seventh time, by warmongering Arabs? I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: unlike the political Arabian Nation, the Zionist movement to Palestine/the Land of Israel represents a return, not an invasion. (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: “World Leaders” strike again - Tigerhawk calls it “the most terrifying paragraph you are likely to read all year”. “World leaders holding an emergency meeting to combat the economic crisis agreed yesterday to a far-reaching action plan that, over the next 4 1/2 months, would begin to reshape international financial institutions and reform worldwide regulatory and accounting rules. … The Europeans got ‘virtually everything’ they sought at the summit, French President Nicholas Sarkozy crowed afterward at a news conference. … The leaders agreed to set up a new regulatory body, ‘a college of supervisors,’ to examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders, so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks’ operations. They demanded greater scrutiny of hedge funds and the completion of a clearinghouse system to help standardize and limit risk on some of the opaque and exotic financial derivatives that helped bring down Wall Street’s investment banks.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Bankruptcy, Not Bailout For The Big 3 - One of the big questions of the day is whether or not you, me, and the rest of the American taxpayers should be bailing out the Big 3 Automakers. Not only should we not be bailout them out, we shouldn't even be asking the question. It's not the job of the government to decide which businesses succeed and which businesses fail -- although they do it all too often through subsidies, tariffs, and corporate welfare. Those are areas we need to work on as a country, too, but for the moment, let's concentrate on the bailout. First, why do they need a bailout in the first place? I'd suggest to you that there is one simple factor causing the entire problem: unions. Over the years, because Congress has rigged the game to give them ridiculous leverage when they negotiate with companies, the unions have managed to put together such great deals for their members that they're literally destroying the auto industry. (READ MORE)
Winds of Change: The Prisons of the Arab Mind - I have been studying the Arab mindset for the last four decades from several perspectives. For a start, I myself am a product of this Arabic-speaking region and was able to study the phenomenon from the perspective of an 'insider' as it were, as well as from my vantage point as a researcher who has had twenty books published in Arabic and English (including five devoted exclusively to the Arab mindset and Arab culture). I also had the opportunity to interact with the Arab mindset and culture from a different angle during my years as chairman & CEO of a multinational oil company in the Arab region, when I worked in close proximity with the end product of Arab culture, so to speak – the Arabic-speaking worker in the work environment. The fourth and final perspective from which I interacted with Arab culture and the Arab mindset was when I was called upon to lecture to post-graduate students at a number of universities in various Arab countries on subjects related to modern management sciences and techniques. (READ MORE)
Steve Schippert: Call It "The Audacity of Victory" - Over at The Tank on National Review Online, I expressed a few thoughts going forward as Michael Yon confidently called in from Iraq to say, "The war is over and we won." After noting that there are a lot of people - known and unknown to the public - who deserve measures of credit for the successful strategy that made victory possible, we dare not forget one important man amid all the criticisms, due and undue. “But the fact remains that only President George W. Bush made or would have made the command decision he made. Only President George W. Bush, derided and vilified, had the conviction and determination to allow a path to victory when nearly everyone else had written Iraq -- and her people -- off to defeat. Call it ‘The Audacity of Victory.’ Imagine life as an Iraqi in Baghdad or Ramadi or even Fallujah or Najaf or Baquba and all points between had President Bush relented to common popular domestic and international wisdom, opinion and sentiment and left the Iraqi people to the wolves among them, only to abandon them by ‘ending it,’ executing an ‘honorable withdrawal,’ or ‘redeploying’ our forces. Our defeat would have been theirs ten-fold. Ask one.” (READ MORE)
The Hatemonger's Quarterly: The Return of the Golden Age - Since last we wrote in this space, dear reader, a fellow by the name of Barack H. Obama (D-Hope and Change) won the election for the next president of these here United States. And we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” couldn’t be any happier. Like various level-headed folks around this great country of ours, we’re simply euphoric. Our collective voice is still hoarse from our stentorian cheering. We mean, come on: We’ve barely survived the Fascist Police State known as the Bush Administration, and now we find out that we shall spend the next four years under the august stewardship of the august Sen. Obama. Oh, joy of joys! Finally, America will be a complete paragon of virtue. No longer will it be sullied by the odious Bushies and their disgraceful associates. You know: Tony Reszko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers—those kind of folks. Nope, as our Obama supporting pals correctly note, soon all will be perfect in the United States. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: The bailout oxymoron - George Orwell, please call your office –stat. Today’s Washington Post report on the proposed auto bailout bill has the humorous oxymoron of taxpayer protection embedded in loans to an industry whose entire market capitalization comes to less than a third of the loan itself. If that sounds like a Fannie Mae loan program, it should come as no surprise, since the same people who brought you the financial collapse are pushing this monstrosity as well: “A measure to speed $25 billion in emergency aid to the nation’s automakers will include provisions designed to protect taxpayers, congressional Democrats said yesterday, including a ban on bonuses for employees who make more than $200,000 a year and a government oversight board with power to veto corporate decisions.” (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Save Our Jobs, But Don't Ask Us to Help! - You gotta love unions. The UAW has said that while they want a goverment bailout of the auto industry, Congress and the car makers shouldn't look to them for any more concessions. Ron Gettelfinger, head of the UAW claims that "labor costs now make up 8 percent to 10 percent of the cost of a vehicle". That might be true, if all you look at is direct labor costs such as wages. However, when you look at the included health care costs of current and retired workers, pension costs, etc, the US auto industry still spends more money on workers; active and retired; than it does on steel. Congress of course is in a tizzy over the bailout. They of course want to help their union buddies with money from the financial bailout. But the Treasury won't do it, claiming the money is for a "financial sector bailout", like the law they passed says. (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Does She Get a "Bye?" - Rich Galen, of Mullings fame, wrote a cybercolumn about the 63-question "questionaire" that the Obama transition team now requires all applicants for administrative positions to fill out; it includes a very large number of very intrusive questions, which Galen compares to the "are you now or have you ever been a Communist?" type questions asked during the heyday of McCarthyism (which "ism" I happen to applaud, by the way, but that's not germane to this point). Immediately after reading that issue of Mullings, I read this: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the candidates that President-elect Barack Obama is considering for secretary of state, according to two Democratic officials in close contact with the Obama transition team.” This raises an immediate impasse: How on earth is Hillary going to be able to answer even half the questions on the questionaire? Here are a few examples, complete with Sen. Clinton's answers (leaked to Big Lizards by someone who identified himself only as "Ted"): (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Obama Needs To Wait His Turn - Not content with their affirmative action president elect, Obama supporters are concerned that actions by President Bush in his waning months will have an effect on the next administration. Jesse Jackson was in Baltimore to deliver a sermon at a local church and he was interviewed afterward. The race hustler indicated that he was worried that Executive Orders signed by Bush would cause problems for the incoming administration. Jesse is not content that Obama won because he wants Obama to be able to run things NOW. “All of that talk of bipartisanship begins now,” Jackson said. “And the new president deserves his vision to be implemented immediately.” Yahoo News Jesse, the only talk of bipartisanship is from the left because they won. They have refused to work with President Bush or Republicans for 8 years so if you think that Obama’s victory is going to make Bush or the Republicans roll over and play nice then you are more delusional than usual. (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Rather Biased - This NYT report, that is … rather biased in its presentation of Rather’s GOP bias claim against CBS. He doesn’t have any grounds to squawk on the legitimacy of documents he used to trash George Bush’s National Guard service, because they were fake, so he’s going after the process that led him to bail. It takes a while, but after you slog through the memos and lists of names that Rather and NYT hope will demonstrate shocking right-pandering bias, you’ll learn that CBS, aware of its reputation for leaning left, bent over backwards to ensure balance on the panel that looked at Rather’s reporting. “Mr. Rather attracted the ire of Republican bloggers and talk radio in particular after the segment, which was broadcast on a weekday edition of ‘60 Minutes’ in September 2004. It purported to have unearthed evidence about favorable treatment extended to President Bush during his Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard.” (READ MORE)
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