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)
Treasury Weighs Action on Mortgage Rates - The Treasury Department is strongly considering a plan to intervene directly in the mortgage industry to dramatically force down rates and stimulate the moribund housing market, according to sources familiar with the proposal. (READ MORE)
Obama Policymakers Turn to Campaign Tools - Barack Obama's incoming administration has begun to draw on the high-tech organizational tools that helped get him elected to lay the groundwork for an attempt to restructure the U.S. health-care system. (READ MORE)
U.S. to Raise 'Irregular War' Capabilities - The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military's mission of "irregular warfare" -- the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely -- to an equal footing with traditional combat. (READ MORE)
As Rice Presses Pakistan, Tens of Thousands Take to Streets in Mumbai - NEW DELHI, Dec. 3 -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday urged Pakistan to act with "resolve and urgency" to help catch those responsible for last week's terrorist attacks in India, part of a stepped-up U.S. effort to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Lawhawk: Quotas On the NY Court of Appeals? - Governor David Paterson has to nominate someone to fill retiring Chief Justice Judith Kaye's seat on the New York Court of Appeals by January 15, 2009. She retires effective December 31. He's not happy that there were no women among the choices put together by the nonpartisan Commission on Judicial Nomination. In fact, he's looking for ways to circumvent the state constitution's requirements to choose from the list proffered. There was a time when we were supposed to be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. The same should apply to being gender neutral when determining who should be appointed to the highest court in New York. Yet, Gov. Paterson thinks that a woman should replace Justice Kaye. (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: Why This Election (Selection) Has Bothered Me So Much - At first I though I was just a sore loser (and there is a bit of that I'm sure), but this week I've come to grips with the fact that my discontent goes way deeper than that. Before Americans pulled their respective levers last month, I found myself arguing passionately with people I'd never argued with...and about politics-a discussion I prefer to avoid in my 'real life.'. I realize that's normal amidst a contentious election...but it's still happening and I almost let a back and forth with my brother-in-law ruin my Thanksgiving. I have such a sore spot about it. But it's not the Republican-Democrat thing, it's the Male-Female thing. I literally get offended each time someone goes on about how 'ground-breaking' and 'historic' Obama's election is. Why? Haven't we been told for years and years that a man is a man regardless of his skin color? Haven't we as a nation striven for color blindness? (READ MORE)
Victor Comras: New Seventh Circuit Boim Decision Puts All On Notice - Liability Will Attach to Those that Contribute Funds to Foreign Terrorist Organizations - Last December I used this space to express concern that the 2-1 decision handed down by a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel in the Boim case represented a serious setback to victims of terrorism seeking to hold accountable those who provide material support to the terrorists that harm them. This decision has now been substantially altered, on appeal, by a second Seventh Circuit panel ruling. The earlier decision had erected significant and complex impediments to establishing liability in victims-of- terrorism cases (see my previous blog). It held, inter alia, that victim-of-terrorism plaintiffs had to establish a clear causal link between the funding of the terrorists and the terrorist act itself. (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Keep Your Friends Close, But... - The warrior saying is keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Watching Barack Obama pick his cabinet, I think he's kept that in mind. Call me a cynic if you must, but I think that part of the Obama strategy in picking his cabinet is to discredit the Clinton Era, since that's when most of their careers took off. I know where Obama is from, and how politics is played in his neighborhood. When you can't get rid of thorn in your side in Chicago's political world you bring that thorn TO your side. Then, as soon as the time is right, you find a reason to toss it, normally with enough innuendo to destroy the person. When you look at his economic team, it's nearly all made up of Clinton leftovers. Most have some pretty decent credentials, and no less than "the most evil man on earth" Karl Rove has called the selections excellent. That alone should make those folks wonder what's next. (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: Cruel and Unusual Norway - There are a couple of notable things about this news story from Norway. The first is that the Norwegian authorities have (so far) behaved in a non-dhimmi fashion about all this. The “no special treatment for Muslim prisoners” policy is refreshingly different — compare the state of Wyoming, for example — and should stand as a model for the rest of the West. The other significant fact is that “[m]ore than a third of all prisoners in Norwegian prisons are Muslims”. The last statistical data I have, from 2004, show that Muslims comprise 1.6% of Norway's population. But there has been a surge of immigration in the last few years, and the latest estimates put the number at about 3%. That means that Muslims are being incarcerated at a rate at least ten times higher than their numbers would otherwise indicate. And yet the authorities have no problem with Multiculturalism. (READ MORE)
Rightwing Nuthouse: OBAMA, THE PROMISE BREAKER - Yes, campaign promises are a dime a dozen and few people believe most of them. But even for someone who promised the moon to so many, Barack Obama’s campaign promises are being quietly shelved or thrown under the bus at an unusual rate. His tax policies are in ruins. And many of his prized ideas are now going to have to be financed through tax increases on every working American or their cost added to the ever ballooning deficit – the result of George Bush’s massive bailouts. Then there’s his personnel choices which hardly give substance to his call for “change.” The establishmentarians he has hired on to run his national security and economics shops fall laughably short of any promise for a “fresh breeze” to blow through Washington – more like a fetid wind of revolving door government. (READ MORE)
ROFASix: The Legacy of President Bush - At the end of any President’s term in office, it is natural to think about the legacy they leave. Bush's first term was all about 9/11. His second was about continuing a war that history will no doubt determine did not need to be fought after the invasion of Iraq deposed Saddam Hussein. Frankly, I don't care much about Bush. But, I do care a lot about the warriors who signed on to fight the war Bush described so eloquently as a "War on Terror" and then managed a fumbling and inept policy that seemed destined to insure US defeat in Iraq. When the words and the deeds no longer matched our warriors did not ask why, but continued to "soldier on." When we stayed after finding Saddam and screwed up with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, the US achieved no protective or selfish self-interest that achieved any national security objective – the only valid reason for any war. (READ MORE)
Melanie Phillips Blog: From the horse's mouth - Trevor Loudon has got hold of a fascinating analysis of Prez-elect Obama’s administrative appointments by Mark Rudd and Jeff Jones, two former Weather Underground terrorists (chums of Obama’s old ally chance acquaintance, the unrepentant former WU terrorist William Ayers). The two of them are now on the board of Movement for a Democratic society, in turn the parent body of Progressives for Obama, the leading leftist lobby group behind Obama’s presidential campaign. And waddya know – just like me they believe Obama is practising stealth politics with a degree of sophistication and success with which ‘even Lenin would be impressed’. As they say, Obama knows that he must be subtle and reassure even the most conservative of his opponents if he is to achieve his radical goals. Mark Rudd writes: (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: Worse Than You Think - Part 3 - The three largest automakers in the United States have clearly been deficient in their diligence and results. While there are structural and procedural differences between them what is common between General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler is an inability to produce a viable core product. The key question that absolutely has to be answered, and in full, is how these companies can credibly promise that all money loaned to them will be paid back, not only in full but with interest. If the car companies want an exceptional package to help them, their credibility and logic for requesting it must be just as excellent. So, with that in mind, let's examine the latest arguments from the CEOs of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The information presented here comes from the Detroit Free Press: (READ MORE)
Chicago Boyz: Certificates of Deposit (CDs) In Your Brokerage Account - There have been some recent changes on FDIC insurance limits for CDs and there is a (relatively) new way for time strapped investors looking to buy CDs, which is through a brokerage account. This method allows investors to pick from a variety of institutions online at a single place and receive the income in their brokerage account rather than physically go from place to place to purchase CDs and then receive a pile of paper at year end. There also is the ability to sell CDs in the market during the life of the CD (i.e., you could sell a 5 year CD 2 years into it) at either a gain or loss depending on the direction that interest rates have moved in the interim (down, you will have a gain, and up you will have a loss). You can keep it until maturity and always get what is promised, this is just another subtle opportunity. Read more if this topic interests you. (READ MORE)
In From The Cold: Shadow War - The world's military powers are spending billions on information warfare (IW), but--for obvious reasons--they don't publicize their capabilities. As a result, we only get occasional glimpses of the growing battle in cyberspace, as illustrated by Russian attacks against Estonian computer networks in 2007, and more recently, against Georgian systems during the run-up to this summer's war with the Tbilisi government. American capabilities in IW remain equally guarded, but there are occasional displays that make their way into the public arena. Earlier this year, at least three of Al Qaida's most important propaganda websites were shut down for over a month, after a series of cyber-attacks. (READ MORE)
Ann Coulter: The Cleanest State Meets the Pushiest Person - Until now, Minnesota was always famous for its clean elections. Indeed, Democratic consultant Bob Beckel recently attested to the honesty of Minnesota's elections, joking: "Believe me. I've tried. I've tried every way around the system out there, and it doesn't work." But that was before Minnesota encountered the pushiest, most aggressive, most unscrupulous person who has ever sought public office, Al Franken. On Election Day, Franken lost the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota to the Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman by 725 votes. But over the next week, Democratic counties keep discovering new votes for Franken and subtracting votes from Coleman, claiming to be correcting "typos." In all, Franken picked up 459 votes and Coleman lost 60 votes from these alleged "corrections." (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: The Liberal Doth Vote Too Much, Methinks - Editors' note: the following column contains language that some may find offensive. Readers have been asking me for weeks to write about the voting patterns of college students. I think most of these readers know that Barack Obama was very popular among young people in this election cycle. But most of my readers don’t know why and they would like to hear my insights, if not incites. In response to these requests, I decided to survey my 100 or so students right after Election Day. I asked them two simple questions: “Who did you vote for (for President)?” and “What was the principal reason for your decision?” The results indicated that 58% of my voting students pulled the lever for John McCain, 42% for Barack Obama. The fact that this went in the opposite direction of the national trend is easy to explain: Students taking criminal justice classes, many of them criminal justice majors, tend to be more conservative. (READ MORE)
Joel Mowbray: How Conservatives Helped Elect Obama - The most underreported story of the election is that conservative voters provided the margin of victory for Barack Obama—a finding that has dramatic implications for both Democrats and Republicans. Normally winning with impressive margins in the popular vote and Electoral College would translate into a governing mandate. Obama’s victory was not an ideological one, however. The electorate is almost exactly as center-right as it was in 2004. The Bush 2004 voters who pushed Obama over the top rejected Bush and the GOP, but not conservative principles. Voters backed the candidate who ran on change, but they haven’t much changed their views of the public sector. On the fundamental question about the role government should play in society, voters shifted only slightly from four years ago. (READ MORE)
Larry Elder: 'Slumdog Millionaire' - "Does it have subtitles?" I asked. My friend Nina wanted to see a Bollywood film with the weird title of "Slumdog Millionaire." I preferred to see the new James Bond film because, really, I just wanted -- during the Thanksgiving holiday -- to put my brain on cruise control for an hour or two and watch good ol' reliable 007 blast bad guys. "Sort of," she said. "Oh." "But I've heard amazing things about this film," she insisted. So off we went. Movie reviews that reveal too much always bother me. So here's an outline -- and I mean outline, because for a brief 120 minutes, "Slumdog Millionaire" surprises, astounds, amazes, entrances and intrigues. It is, at its bottom, a love story. A dirt-poor orphan boy, Jamal, ends up on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." How he got there, why he got there, how an uneducated young man managed to answer questions -- well, that's the journey. (READ MORE)
Rachel Marsden: No Bailout Causes Coup In Canada - I’m not joking. This isn’t hyperbole. Liberals in Canada are staging an actual political coup to unseat the government, using as an excuse the fact that governing Conservatives are denying the country a bailout. The public treasury is to liberals what heroin is to junkies. Never underestimate the lengths to which they will go to get their fix - even if it means staging a political coup to overthrow a democratically elected First World government, which also happens to be America’s largest trading partner. Only a month ago, Canada re-elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party to a near-majority with 143 seats in a 308 seat parliament. The next highest number of votes (77 seats) went to the Liberal Party – which has been parked at the trough for so long that it has been branded “Canada’s Natural Governing Party”. (READ MORE)
Steve Chapman: False Cures for the Recession - Times of emergency produce demands for action, and Barack Obama does not need to be urged twice. Weeks before taking office, he wants Congress to pass a fiscal stimulus bill costing half a trillion dollars or so, and his allies on Capitol Hill will undoubtedly give it to him. Amid a recession that some fear will spiral into a depression, no one wants to be accused of doing too little. Obama's plan is expected to call for a host of remedies -- including extended unemployment benefits, aid to state governments, more infrastructure spending and a middle-class tax cut. It brings to mind the character in Stephen Leacock's humorous novel "Gertrude the Governess," who "flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions." Even many conservatives, however, want Washington to deploy fiscal weapons. (READ MORE)
Ira Mehlman: DREAM Over: Illegal Alien Student Amnesty Awakens to Fiscal Reality - Even as the illegal alien advocacy lobby is frantically trying to spin the election of Barack Obama as a mandate for a sweeping amnesty, they have all but conceded that the economic crisis and worsening unemployment have probably doomed their efforts. They’ve set their sights on the more modest goals of achieving amnesty for segments of the illegal alien population and using those to leverage further concessions down the road. Advocates for illegal aliens believe that the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act offers them their best hope to enact a mini-amnesty. The DREAM Act would confer amnesty on most illegal alien youths and just about anyone who could vaguely be described as a student, and guarantee them subsidized in-state tuition rates in their states of residence on the premise that as children, they are not responsible for being in the country illegally. (READ MORE)
George F. Will: Obama's Jobs Lowball - Three days after the president-elect announced in a radio address that he had directed his "economic team" to devise a plan "that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011," he said at a news conference that he favored measures "that will help save or create 2.5 million jobs." To the extent that his ambition is clear, it is notably modest. It is, however, unclear. How will anyone calculate the number of jobs "saved"? In what sense saved? Saved from what? Saved by what? By government action, such as agriculture subsidies or other corporate welfare? What about jobs lost because of those irrational uses of finite economic resources? Should jobs "saved" by, say, protectionist policies that interfere with free trade be balanced against jobs lost when export markets are lost to retaliatory protectionism? In recent years, in normal conditions, the economy has "lost" tens of millions of jobs through capitalism's "creative destruction" (Joseph Schumpeter's phrase). (READ MORE)
Peter Fromuth: Pirates, Again - Somali pirates hijack another boat -- or two or three -- every day despite the best efforts of the U.S. 5th Fleet, NATO, Russia, India and others. This is not new; pirates have been frustrating the mighty for at least 2,000 years -- since snatching Julius Caesar, then ransoming him for 50 talents, and leading Alexander the Great on a wild goose chase around the Mediterranean. As the U.N. Security Council grapples with Somali piracy, its members are in venerable company. According to Plutarch, Caesar got even: He caught and crucified his hapless captors, but he never drove piracy from the Roman Empire. Today's brigands have faster boats and rocket-propelled grenades, but their best assets are the same as those used to stymie Caesar and Alexander -- big seas, many prey and few protectors. For Somali pirates today, the odds are even better: It may be time for a new strategy. (READ MORE)
Robert Bixby: Congress in a Glass House - After hearings last month to consider the plight of the Big Three automakers, Congress's warning was clear: no plan, no bailout. It was a tough-love message, but it rang a bit hollow coming from lawmakers who have no plan of their own to avoid a fiscal debacle that could be many times more serious than anything the automakers face. Although this year's budget deficit, likely to top $1 trillion, can be largely explained by temporary factors, shortfalls of this size will become routine and ultimately unsustainable if nothing is done to close the projected gap between government revenue and spending on federal health-care and retirement benefits. In these circumstances, it is worth asking what might be demanded of Congress by a special guardian appointed to safeguard the interests of today's youth. A good place to start is the letter written to the automakers by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid. (READ MORE)
David S. Broder: The Danger of Holdovers - In the two most crucial areas facing his presidency, national security and economic policy, Barack Obama has opted for continuity, not change. That is reassuring to many in the short term, but it entails long-term risks. By keeping Robert Gates as defense secretary and selecting Tim Geithner as his secretary of the Treasury, the president-elect has enlisted two stars of the Bush years. No one will fault Obama's judgment in recognizing their talents or the contribution they can make to his success. Gates, who took over from Don Rumsfeld two years ago, has not only managed the Pentagon with a firm hand but has rebuilt its relationships with Capitol Hill and the State Department, both of which were badly damaged by his predecessor. In a series of thoughtful speeches, Gates has argued for a higher level of coordination in administration policy, rejecting any hint of parochialism and setting an example for others in the national security arena. (READ MORE)
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