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 Obama Health Plan Emerges - "Universal" government-run health care proved too ambitious even for FDR, who stripped it out of the Social Security Act of 1935. Lyndon Johnson settled for Medicare and Medicaid. Now liberals think the political moment has finally arrived to achieve what has eluded every other Democratic President from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton. (READ MORE)
A Capital Message - Markets are a harbinger, a collective guess about the future of corporate profits and the larger economy. By that measure, yesterday's stock market rout was another in a series of no-confidence votes in U.S. policies and economic growth. (READ MORE)
The Politics of Entitlement - Republican Ted Stevens's narrow election defeat this week will end his four-decade career in the U.S. Senate. Republicans are thus only two seats away from the minority dead zone of 40 seats, but this latest defeat holds a particular lesson. (READ MORE)
Detroit at the Brink - AFTER TWO DAYS of congressional testimony from the heads of the Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers, the prospects for federal aid are anything but certain, and a big part of the reason is that Detroit is still in denial. (READ MORE)
Mr. Holder at Justice? - IF TAPPED as attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. would bring years of experience and top-notch credentials as a prosecutor, judge, lawyer in private practice and former top official in the Justice Department. The predominant features of his record are independence, integrity and effectiveness. But there is one stain on his record that Senate confirmation hearings should examine. (READ MORE)
Stocks Slump As Signs Point To Harder Times - Businesses cut prices at a record rate and builders started fewer new homes last month than anytime on record, according to new government data, as the outlook for the economy continues to dim. (READ MORE)
For McCain, A Subdued Return to Capitol Hill - He has returned to where he did not wish to return. Back to walking the spotted white marble corridors of the Russell Senate Office Building. Back to Room 241, which says "Senator John McCain -- Arizona" on the door, and where a trickle of people stroll in on this morning in hopes of getting his... (READ MORE)
U.S. Troops in Baghdad Take a Softer Approach - BAGHDAD, Nov. 19 -- It was billed as a peace concert in war-scarred Baghdad. But after 30 minutes of poetry and patriotic songs, only a scattering of tribal leaders and dark-suited bureaucrats were sitting in the vast expanse of white plastic chairs before a stage painted with doves. (READ MORE)
Poland Won't Lobby Obama on Missile Defense - Poland's foreign minister said yesterday that his country will wait for the Obama administration to make up its mind on basing missile defense interceptors in his country and will not lobby to have the project proceed. (READ MORE)
Ariz. Governor Said to Be Pick For Homeland Security Post - Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), whose handling of immigration issues brought her accolades from fellow governors, is President-elect Barack Obama's choice to serve as secretary of homeland security, Democratic sources said late Wednesday. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Ann Coulter: Genius, Thy Name is Obama - With Time magazine comparing Obama to Jesus, I guess we should be relieved that, this week, liberals are only comparing him to Abraham Lincoln. The one thing every liberal on TV seems to know about Lincoln is that he put rivals in his cabinet, as subtly indicated in the title to historian and plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin's book: "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." Like Lincoln, Goodwin is always open to contributions from her rivals, although Lincoln was better at crediting their words. And hasn't Obama talked to former rival Hillary about becoming his secretary of state? Hasn't he had a sit-down with Sen. John McCain? Did I imagine this, or is he even now brokering peace talks between Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck? Ergo: Obama is a genius. (READ MORE)
Larry Elder: Time to Reassess the Iraq War? - President-elect Barack Obama, on "60 Minutes," defended the financial bailout package. Yes, said Obama, the economy continues to suffer, but "I think the part of the way to think about it is things could be worse. … So part of what we have to measure against is what didn't happen and not just what has happened." Interesting. Why not apply the "what didn't happen" standard to the unpopular Iraq war? Obama calls the Iraq invasion a "dumb war." Never mind that all of his Democratic presidential nomination Senate opponents -- Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen./VP-elect Joe Biden, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards -- voted for the war. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, more than 70 percent of Americans supported the war. Intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom, Jordan and Egypt -- just to name a few -- assumed that the dictator of Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. So, but for the Iraq war, what would have happened? (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: The Other Deficit - While Congress spends -- and plans to spend -- like the proverbial drunken sailor to "bailout" various industries for practices that are largely their fault and the fault of those in Congress who were supposed to provide oversight, another deficit looms which is at least as troubling as the economic one. For the third straight year, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has found that a large number of Americans cannot pass a basic 33-question civic literacy test on their country's history and institutions. The multiple-choice questions ask about the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 series of government programs (The New Deal) and the three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial). No, I didn't peek at the answers. I received a good education. (READ MORE)
Ross Mackenzie: A Warrior Departs: "Tell Them My Story" - When word came by cell phone several weeks ago of John Ripley's death, I was driving in remote Michigan and had to pull over to get things back together. Rarely do men like him come this way. John Ripley was a man's man, a Marine's Marine -- an American's American. Well prior to his death he was a Marine legend, one of its most decorated heroes. They named a building for him and wrote a hymn ("Uncommon Valor"). He was a Distinguished Graduate of the Naval Academy, and one of just two Marines depicted (he in a diorama) in the Academy's holiest of holies -- Memorial Hall. He was the only Marine ever inducted into the Army Ranger Hall of Fame. A book ("The Bridge at Dong Ha," by John Grider Miller, Naval Institute Press, 1989) and numerous articles document his astounding exploits in single-handedly bringing down an American-built bridge in Vietnam... (READ MORE)
Maggie Gallagher: No More Bailouts - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson looks like an investment banker. He's a big guy, whose large hands, broad shoulders and balding head signal he's got the drive, the cojones, to be an alpha male in the once-intensely competitive world of big money. The owlishly round glasses suggest intellect, and overall, his combination of physicality and IQ remind one of the way Wall Street had become a kind of Roman Circus of nerd gladiators, transforming surging aggression into extraordinary material abundance. Until lately. Something else is increasingly obvious about Paulson: He doesn't have a clue. Remember when he went before Congress and asked for a "really big number" to throw at the credit crisis? Neither Republicans nor Democrats wanted to be the ones to take the hit for Americans' plunging portfolios and accelerating sense of economic crisis. (READ MORE)
Rich Galen: Pirates! - Pirates have been operating off the coast of Somalia for some time. The other day pirates seized a ship, not near the east coast of Africa, but way out to sea. And it wasn't a jillionaire's yacht. It was an oil tanker. And not just a regular oil tanker. It was an oil tanker, the Sirius Star, carrying two million barrels of Saudi Arabian oil worth well over $100 million. Apparently the futures markets are not terribly concerned about the odd supertanker being hijacked by Somali pirates. Oil closed yesterday about even from the day before at $54.52 a barrel. Then yesterday, other pirates seized a Chinese-flagged ship carrying 36,000 metric tons of wheat. If my math is correct (which is almost never is) that is about $8 million worth of Chinese wheat. That's the bad news. The good news is, that wheat was bound for Iran. Let's go back to the oil tanker. (READ MORE)
Newt Gingrich & Peter Ferrara: Let's Have a Real Middle-Class Tax Cut - President-elect Barack Obama is right: America needs a real and meaningful middle-class tax cut. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric, that is not what his proposals offer. Mr. Obama's tax plan includes creating or expanding nine or more federal income tax credits mostly focused on low- and moderate-income earners, with an estimated cost of $1.3 trillion over 10 years. These tax credits are provided for certain social purposes, such as child care, health care, education, housing and retirement. Buried amid these is Mr. Obama's purported tax cut for the middle class. For the bottom 40% of income earners, who pay no federal income taxes on net today, these refundable income tax credits will not reduce tax liability but instead result in new checks from the federal government for the targeted social purposes. That's not a tax cut. It's welfare. (READ MORE)
Daniel Henninger: Mad Max and the Meltdown -Notwithstanding the cardboard Santas who seem to have arrived in stores this year near Halloween, the holiday season starts in seven days with Thanksgiving. And so it will come to pass once again that many people will spend four weeks biting on tongues lest they say "Merry Christmas" and perchance, give offense. Christmas, the holiday that dare not speak its name. This year we celebrate the desacralized "holidays" amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin -- fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man's theory: A nation whose people can't say "Merry Christmas" is a nation capable of ruining its own economy. One had better explain that. How the financial markets fell so far so fast will occupy economic seers for years. The path to 50% wealth reductions and the death of Wall Street was paved with good intentions: (READ MORE)
Karl Rove: Now Obama Has to Govern - Presidential transitions can be problematic. The candidate is utterly exhausted. Supporters have unattainable expectations and unrealistic personal hopes. The ease of making campaign pledges has given way to the obstinate process of legislating them. And Barack Obama is the first president-elect since Richard Nixon without executive experience. What are some of his transition challenges so far? One of Mr. Obama's first decisions was to make Rahm Emanuel his chief of staff. This smart, aggressive Chicago pol may turn out to be a wise pick. But first he must decide what his role is. Will he be the opinionated enforcer who ran the Clinton White House political office? Or will Mr. Emanuel fashion himself into a more traditional chief of staff? The phrase former chiefs, Republican and Democrat, seem to prize is "honest broker." President Ronald Reagan's chief, James A. Baker III, once cautioned, "Don't use the process to impose your policy views." (READ MORE)
Garry Kasparov: Obama Should Look Into Putin's Record, Not His Eyes - Even as Barack Obama faces front-page issues like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, he will still have to find the time and courage to deal with a certain nuclear-armed autocracy that controls much of the world's oil and gas. How should Mr. Obama deal with Russia's official president, Dmitry Medvedev, and Russia's real leader, Vladimir Putin? The choice is straightforward: Mr. Obama can treat them like fellow democratic leaders or like the would-be dictators that they are. His decision will tell the world a great deal about how seriously he takes his promises of change. The Kremlin is very eager to be accepted as an equal. It apparently hopes that Mr. Obama will send the signal that democracy in Russia doesn't matter, that the Kremlin's crushing of the opposition and free speech is irrelevant, and that annexing pieces of neighboring Georgia is a local issue and not an international one. (READ MORE)
John Fund: The Obamameter Points Left - When reports surfaced that Gregory Craig was to be named White House counsel to the incoming Obama administration, most journalists focused on the fact that a former staunch ally of the Clinton family (he led President Clinton's impeachment defense) was joining Team Obama. But Cuban-Americans and moderate Hispanics worry about the other legal clients Mr. Craig has collected over the years. "It looks like there will be a clear change in policy towards Castro's Cuba given that someone like Craig will be in the White House," Miguel Perez, a journalism professor and former New York Daily News columnist, told me. Mr. Perez pointed out that in 2000, Mr. Craig served as the lawyer for Elian Gonzalez's father in his attempts to have his son returned to Cuba after the boy was found floating in the ocean near Miami following a failed escape attempt that had killed his mother. (READ MORE)
SmoothStone: Barack Hussein Obama has raised his scimitar against Israel - In his first pre-meditated assault on Israel, compelled by his own loyalty to his Muslim identity politics and Jew-hating indoctrination from his Arab peers and associates, the Messiah-elect has promised in a phone call to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a pledge to establish a Palestinian state as soon as possible, a senior PA negotiator told WND. According to the PA’s second most senior negotiator, Saeb Erekat, “Obama expressed his full support for a Palestinian state. He told the president (Abbas) he will continue to promote the peace process, which will end with a two-state solution” and “Obama said he will keep working in collaboration with the Israeli government and PA to reach a final solution. He said he’ll do everything in his power to help create a Palestinian state as soon as we can.” It will be a final solution, indeed. (READ MORE)
This A'int Hell: Bellyaching Jack Murtha hides behind Constitution - If this doesn’t get your blood boiling nothing will; fatassed cow John Murtha claims that he can’t be sued by the Marines who he slandered by calling them murderers because to do otherwise would violate his freedom of speech as a legislator. In other words, the same crowd who claims they can arrest and impeach the President of the United States for supposed lies are saying that to hold them accountable for their lies violates their privileges. From The Hill, by way of Defend Our Marines, by way of Michelle Malkin; “A government lawyer representing Murtha argued that the congressman does not have to agree to testify under oath and is immune from the lawsuit because he was acting in an official capacity as a member of Congress when he made the comments to the media. Last year a federal judge ordered Murtha, a decorated former Marine and Vietnam veteran and close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to testify in the case. His lawyers are appealing that decision.” (READ MORE)
Meryl Yourish: All the Hamas lies fit to print - Say, remember last year, when the news media took pictures of Hamas members sitting around a table in the dark, without telling us that the picture was shot in the daytime, with the curtains drawn, to make it seem like the Israeli refusal to ship more fuel to Hamas was actually affecting them? Well, they’re doing it again. “‘There’s no shortage of fuel in the Gaza Strip and the Electricity Company is continuing to function normally,’ said a PA official. ‘Our people in the Gaza Strip have told us that the blackouts are all staged as part of the Hamas propaganda.’ Another PA official noted that Hamas’s lies reached their peak last January when its legislators held a meeting in a darkened hall of the Palestinian Legislative Council - while light could be seen coming in through the curtained windows.” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: WWRRD? - Yesterday, as word got around about the CEOs of the Big 2.5 automakers hopping on their private jets to go begging before Congress, I found myself thinking about Ronald Reagan, wondering what he would do in this situation. And I find it remarkably easy: He'd tell them no. First up, a lot of people say that offering bailout loans to the automakers would keep them out of bankruptcy, which would most likely bust the United Auto Workers -- or, at the very least, diminish their power tremendously. Well, Reagan's stance on abusive union power is very clear: he's against it. When the air traffic controllers went on strike, in direct contravention of federal law and their contract, he gave them 48 hours to return to work. Barely 10% of them did return; the rest were fired and banned from any government employment for three years. (READ MORE)
Kim Priestap: What's the Point of Voting in California? - The citizens of California voted and decided that they want their state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Well, not satisfied listening to their citizens, Democratic legislators asked the state supreme court to nullify proposition 8 that California citizens just passed. A variety of pro-gay marriage supporters have filed lawsuits asking the state Supreme Court to stop proposition 8. We heard this afternoon that the California State Supreme court has agreed to hear the challenge: “The California Supreme Court today denied requests to stay the enforcement or implementation of Proposition 8, and at the same time agreed to decide several issues arising out of the passage of Proposition 8. The court's order, issued in the first three cases that had been filed directly in the state's highest court challenging the validity of Proposition 8, directed the parties to brief and argue three issues:” (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Amtrak Could Benefit From Compulsory National Service - If I have to travel a long distance, and time is not a pressing issue, I love riding the train. There are myriad benefits to travel by train, such as far more leg room than airplanes or private automobiles, more comfortable seats, more storage room for luggage, and the ability to get up and walk around with worrying about turbulence. Trains have club cars where you can get a sandwich or snack and a drink, at your pace, and you aren't insulted by being limited to a cracker or some sort of gelatinous mess that the airlines refer to as "food." You can have a hot dog if you want, or nachos, or a bag of peanuts. You can select what you want to drink, or you can even pack your own lunch if you prefer. (READ MORE)
Ilya Somin: Lessons of the Libertarian Party's Most Recent Failure - It's hard to remember now, but back in the spring and summer, some libertarians were optimistic about Bob Barr's presidential campaign under the Libertarian Party banner. Barr's eventual failure exemplifies the flaws of the LP as a vehicle for promoting libertarianism. As a former prominent Republican congressman, Barr was probably the best-known politician ever to run on an LP ticket. And libertarian-minded voters might have been expected to flock to his standard in a year when the Democrats nominated a highly statist candidate like Barack Obama, and the Republicans went with John McCain - a nominee whom most libertarians and pro-limited government conservatives viewed with great suspicion. Supporters hoped that Barr would win many more votes and raise much more money than previous LP nominees, and would effectively spread the libertarian message. (READ MORE)
Cassandra: The Persistence of Memory - How do you say goodbye to a friend? To a lover? To a son, a brother, a nephew, someone you grew up with? Someone you always thought would be there? The email dropped into my Inbox at precisely 8:54 last night. It doesn't matter who it was from. What matters is that he was remembered: “If you have a minute tomorrow, please think of Michael and Terri Troyer. Her son, LCpl Tyler Troyer was killed on 11/19/2005 in Al Karmah. Sniper bullet. He grew up with my **** and served with ****. I'm going to run out to their house at lunch for a few minutes but couldn't get out of a late afternoon meeting for the hot dog roast at his grave site. I'll drink a beer in his memory tomorrow night though, and I never drink beer in the wintertime except on November 19.” I remember when emails like that felt like hailstones, battering their way past the carefully constructed barriers I erected to get me through the work day without crying. In 2005, even when I had quit VC - mostly quit writing - they demanded a response. And they got one. They always got one. (READ MORE)
Warner Todd Huston: Media Only Just Notices Obama Has Thin Resume? - Interestingly, Dan Morain of the L.A. Times had discovered back in April that Barack Obama has a pretty thin resume prior to being elevated to the presidency. Between 1993 and ‘96, Obama, the much-ballyhooed “Constitutional scholar,” had only an unusually low 3,723 billable hours of legal work accrued over a four-year stint with his law firm employer Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Gallard. Further, he seems to have worked on but few cases and made little impact commensurate with his reputation. Yet, just this month the Orlando Sentinel decides to re-print the Morain piece. The question I have, of course, is why is the Orlando Sentinel only NOW interested that Obama was “involved in relatively few cases before entering politics”? Where was this investigating before the election? (READ MORE)
Stop the ACLU: ACLU Attacks Proposition 8, California, and the Concept of Democracy - The California Supreme Court amended the state’s constitution to find a right for homosexual marriage. Then the people of California used the same constitution for an initiative to define marriage in the constitution as between one man and one woman. Having lost that vote, the ACLU has attacked again, demanding that the courts again overrule the sovereign people and again force the issue on the people. The facts for this analysis, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article in the Los Angeles Times on 6 November, 2008. California voters approved Proposition 8, placing the historical definition of marriage as consisting of one man plus one woman into the state’s Constitution. Then the ACLU and several other “civil rights” groups filed suit asking California courts to throw out the new provision in the Constitution. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: The selling of Gates begins - Signs abound that Barack Obama will keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense for a significant period of time in his administration. Negotiations have reportedly reached the point where they’ve begun reviewing org charts for potential replacements and retentions. Meanwhile, anticipating the shrieks from the Left when Change doesn’t include the DoD, Harry Reid began telling people that Gates isn’t a Republican: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was supportive of the idea when asked about it Sunday by substitute anchor John King on CNN’s ‘Late Edition.’ ‘I think we need a good transition there,’ Reid said. ‘You know, it’s interesting: My conversation with Secretary Gates, he’s not even a Republican. Why wouldn’t we want to keep him? He’s never been a registered Republican.’” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Iran threat - Liberals dismissed it as saber-rattling by President Bush. Now the UN shows Bush was absolutely and undeniably correct. About this time last year, a report came out that Iran had abandoned its nuclear program in 2003. The invasion of Iraq by allied forces who were enforcing UN edicts had made Iran and other belligerent nations — most notably Libya — decide they had better things to do than develop WMD. But as anti-war fervor took hold here, Iran resumed its quest for nukes. Rather than admit this, the Left seized on that report to mock Bush. Said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, “It now appears that the Bush administration was either unaware of this assessment by its own intelligence analysts, or that it continued to escalate its bellicose challenges against Iran in spite of it. Both possibilities are deeply troubling… This administration’s continued fondness for chest-pounding and saber-rattling instead of sound intelligence and strong diplomacy does not serve our nation well.” (READ MORE)
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