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)
Madoff and Markets - Capitalism runs on trust, so inevitably there will be men like Bernard Madoff who attempt to steal from the trusting. His alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme is exceptional mainly for its size, the length of time he was able to run his con, and the affluent and sophisticated circles in which he operated. There is something especially shocking when a man held in high esteem turns out to be a thief. (READ MORE)
Disarming Ourselves - Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo get more press, but among the most urgent national security challenges facing President-elect Obama is what to do about America's stockpile of aging nuclear weapons. No less an authority than Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calls the situation "bleak" and is urging immediate modernization. (READ MORE)
Iran's YouTube Generation - Iran's universities are again the scene of battles over the country's future. In the digital age, we're able to take a better peek inside. Footage of recent student protests in Tehran, Shiraz and Hamedan are all over the Internet. In particular, one clip of a student dressing down a government dignitary reveals a remarkable willingness to defy the regime. (READ MORE)
Executive Pay Limits May Prove Toothless - Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules. (READ MORE)
Shoe-Throwing Mars Bush's Baghdad Trip - BAGHDAD, Dec. 15 -- Arriving here on Sunday for a surprise farewell visit, President Bush staunchly defended a war that has taken far more time, money and lives than anticipated, but he received a taste of local resentment toward his policies when an Iraqi journalist hurled two shoes at him: (READ MORE)
Economic Storm Batters Argentina's Breadbasket - ALFONZO, Argentina -- When Héctor Farroni married a few years back, he took his new bride for a swing through Iowa. The silos and windmills, the spider-like combines, the wide, flat fields all reminded him of this region of eastern Argentina, part of a fertile farm belt that has propelled the... (READ MORE)
Brown Offers Pakistan Anti-Terror Aid - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 14 -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised Sunday to provide Pakistan with more information about Pakistani links to the Mumbai attacks late last month, saying that Britain will also work to enhance Pakistan's counterterrorism capabilities. (READ MORE)
Former Opposition Leader Chosen as Thailand's PM -Bangkok, Dec. 15 -- Thailand got its third prime minister in four months Monday, after former opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva was voted into power in a deal that many hope will end six months of political paralysis. (READ MORE)
IG's Report Highlights 'Material Weaknesses,' Financial Mismanagement at the Pentagon - Most critiques of the Defense Department's spending focus on macroeconomic issues that are so large, readers can only groan and move on. Last week provided yet another example: The Pentagon's deputy inspector general for auditing released a 140-page independent auditor's report on the department's financial statements for fiscal 2007 and 2008. (READ MORE)
Critics of PC decry 'top 10 abuses' of '08 - The hallowed halls of academia are ivy-covered and perhaps hamstrung with political correctness - some more pronounced than others. It's extreme PC that interests the Young America's Foundation, which is revealing its picks for "The PC Campus: Top 10 Abuses of 2008" Monday. (READ MORE)
Rosenbaum case pegged to clemency bid - Before pleading guilty in what authorities called the biggest personal tax evasion case in U.S. history, telecommunications executive Walter C. Anderson found himself in solitary confinement in a part of the D.C. Jail that inmates call "the hole." (READ MORE)
Emissions crackdown: Who wins, who pays? - Leaders in the Democratic Congress haven't even passed new emissions standards - which likely would raise upward of $100 billion - but various interests supporting the measure already are split about who should get the money. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Lawhawk: Nanny State Paterson's Latest Tax Grab - The tax on non-diet carbonated beverages might be the lede, but it isn't the real news. That tax proposal is pretty well assured to be dead on arrival, even though it shows that Gov. David Paterson (D) isn't above being a nanny stater in the mold of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I). You aren't going to raise $4 billion in tax revenues from taxing soda. You're going to raise $4 billion (or at least attempt to raise $4 billion) by taxing more of everything that moves. Paterson believes that he could get $404 million by taxing non-diet soda. “The plan will come with a host of revenue raisers — increased taxes on hospitals and insurance policies, for instance — and at least one new assessment, a so-called obesity tax on non-diet soda to raise $404 million. The governor also is contemplating requiring new license plates to raise cash, reviving sales tax on clothing purchases, removing the tax cap on gasoline and threatening to require Indian retailers to collect taxes on sales to non-Indians by signing into law a bill passed earlier this year by the Legislature.” (READ MORE)
Atlas: GOOGLE ADMITS CENSORSHIP! - Proof of my google ban. Now that Hussein is in the White House, Google (a chief fundraiser and potential member of O's administration) wants to control the news on their man. I never saw this kind of news suppression under Bush. You could say anything, BushChimpHitler, and get away with it. Entering the dark age .... “Google cranks up the Consensus Engine The Register hat tip N47 - By Andrew Orlowski - Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.” THEY PICK AND CHOOSE? “Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that: ‘The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy.’” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: UnAmerican Inactivities - How long would any Republican governor (president, senator, representative, executive chef) have lasted -- after saying this? “Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) said it was ‘un-American’ for senators to have voted against approving a bailout of troubled automakers last night, saying their vote may cause a recession to become a depression. ‘It is unacceptable for this un-American, frankly, behavior of these U.S. senators to cause this country to go from a recession into a depression,’ Granholm said during a radio interview Friday morning.” I have sat, sardonically amused, for several days now, listening for the fall of the hammer; it never fell, of course, for "no enemies to the left" is still the rule, not the exception. That which would have slain the career of anybody to the right of Senate Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 85%), when sounded by Ms. Granholm, was not even worth a finger wag. Here's some more deep analysis from the junior demagogue of Michigan: (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: In God We Trust - The New York Times looks at a microcosm of the damage caused by the Bernard Madoff scandal: a Palm Beach country club many of whose members woke up to find their world turned upside down. It’s one thing to be poor and find yourself poor. It’s another to go to sleep rich and wake up to find everything gone. One man, who entrusted his life’s savings of $11 million to Madoff said “‘I’m taking care of my sick mother-in-law. My wife has cancer. I just can’t deal with it,’ Mr. Spring said, only barely choking back tears. ‘I’m cooked.’” And he was not alone: “In a world where worrying publicly about money was verboten, a worker at the country club said he was surprised recently that some patrons were asking about the prices of certain things on the menu or for certain golf course services. … Mr. Leamer told of several friends who were aghast when a friend offered to take them out to dinner and he took them to a pizza parlor rather than the swanky spot they were used to going.” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: Hey Fitzy: Why Now? - Patrick Fitzgerald said he abruptly brought to light the ongoing investigation of Blagojevich with the 6 am arrest so a replacement for Barack Obama wouldn't be appointed under those nefarious conditions. But, since he IS still the governor AND we have a presumption of innocence in this country...Blagojevich could still make the Senate appointment. So was there a higher purpose for the abrupt halt to the undercover portion of this sting--? What would be important enough to the supposedly non-political, non-partisan Fitzgerald that would prompt him to forfeit expanding the drag net? Perhaps it was to protect the President Elect? Were Obama's people getting close to involving and incriminating themselves? With the country's financial situation so precarious did the powers-that-be decide the country couldn't take another blow...especially at the executive level? (READ MORE)
Pam Meister: Media Suddenly Discovers Obama’s Case of SCS – Shady Crony Syndrome - An AP story on Wednesday carried some shocking information to those of you who get your news from the “mainstream” media. It lists “notable figures who have drawn scorn and scrutiny” who have crossed paths with our President-elect, including Tony “Convicted of Fraud” Rezko; Rev. Jeremiah “G** d*** America” Wright; William “Blow Up the Capitol” Ayers; Emil “Nepotism” Jones; Rashid “I Heart the PLO” Khalidi; and Fr. Michael “We’re Gonna Snuff Gun Shop Owners” Pfleger. Let’s not forget the flavor of the week: Gov. Rod “How Much?” Blagojevich, who has been accused of – among other things – trying to “sell” Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder. Whoever said politics isn’t any fun hasn’t been paying attention to Chicago, also known as “The Windy City,” “Hog Butcher for the World,” “The City that Works” and, more recently, “The Biggest Political Cess Pit West of Washington D.C.” (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: New Democrat - George Bush may as well just start calling himself a Democrat, as much as he's become in love with the idea of big government and government control of industry. Senate Republicans, rightfully, blocked the band-aid "rescue" package for Detroit's automakers, and now Bush has decided to look for a way to use the $700 billion bank bailout package to skirt the Senate and help them anyway. I predicited a few weeks ago that congress would come up with a package just unpalettable enough to get it filibustered so the formerly Big 3 could file bankruptcy. It looks like that is what happened, but GWB doesn't want to see it happen. I can see his point, to an extent. At the beginning of what looks to be a long recession, having the automakers become wards of the court may deepen the economic downturn. On the other hand, spending billions to prop them up until the time is more appropriate for failure doesn't make fiscal sense when we've already increased the deficit more in 3 months than Bush 41 did in 4 years! (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Associated mess - AP: “While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.” The Associated Press has lost it. The story by Seth Borenstein on “global warming” that AP put on its wire today is an embarrassing editorial disguised as a “news” story. It is a silly up-is-down argument that takes facts and fits the theory. That’s not how real science works. Such hysteria is promoted by a news organization that really should stick to reporting the facts, ma’am. Borenstein wrote: “Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government’s machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it’s thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: SEIU charity an oxymoron? - People gauge charities by the overhead used to get the dollars to the targeted problem. Some charities lose only a small percentage of their revenue in costs, while others soak up a majority of contributions on internal costs. Only those who commit outright fraud wind up spending none of their revenue on their stated purpose. So what does that say about the SEIU’s low-income housing charity? “A nonprofit organization founded by California’s largest union local reported spending nothing on its charitable purpose — to develop housing for low-income workers — during at least two of the four years it has been operating, federal records show. The charity, launched by a scandal-ridden Los Angeles chapter of the Service Employees International Union, had total expenses of about $165,000 for 2005 and 2006, and all of the money went to consulting fees, insurance costs and other overhead, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings.” (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: Ignorance: Billy Joel's Gift to the World - So I'm out driving this morning, listening to Christmas songs on the radio. Among them, John Bon Jovi's "Back Door Santa" - first time I'd ever heard it, but I immediately thought it was the worst Christmas song I'd ever heard. (Update: Heh) Until I got home and opened an email from Sgt Sumner (of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America): “Greyhawk: If you follow the links within the article and the instruction, you can both see the lyrics and for free download the actual song (just hit the skip icon in the payment options screen when you get to it). As Mrs G might read this ahead of you, I will not fully express here what I think of Joel's POS song.” Joel explains that he's "not charging for the song because he simply wants people to hear it and think of the soldiers - "those poor bastards'' - stuck in Iraq for Christmas." But the song is his way of thanking the people of Australia for still thinking he's worth listening to: (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: War Defended - Washington Post, reporting on the shoe thing, informs that Bush “staunchly defended a war that has taken far more time, money and lives than anticipated.” On the first two, true. What were they thinking? On lives, there was in fact an expectation in the invasion that thousands of Americans could be killed by stiff resistance and chemical weapons. That’s why they made everyone wear the protective gear. There was stiff resistance in places, but Iraqi tactics and weapons were poor, and while some Iraqi soldiers and fedayeen fought bravely, holding their ground, launching counterattacks and staging ambushes … as well as in cowardly fashion, moving and firing from behind civilian shields … it ended when they either surrendered or died. Contrary to the expectations of the world’s major intelligence agencies and Saddam’s own generals, there were no stockplies of chemical weapons to be deployed. The cost in American lives that was anticipated came in a manner that was not. (READ MORE)
Danielle Allen: Red-State Army? - In 1969, the 10 states with the highest percentage of veterans were, in order: Wyoming, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California, Oregon, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Connecticut and Illinois. In 2007, the 10 states with the highest percentage of post-Vietnam-era veterans were, in order: Alaska, Virginia, Hawaii, Washington, Wyoming, Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Maryland and Georgia. Over the past four decades, which states have disappeared from the top 10? California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Illinois, all big blue states that have voted Democratic in the past five presidential elections. These states and another blue state, New York, which ranked 12th in 1969, are among the 10 states with the lowest number of post-Vietnam vets per capita. New Jersey comes in 50th of the 50 states; just 1 percent of current residents have served in the military since Vietnam. (READ MORE)
Lawrence Di Rita: Gen. Shinseki's Silence - The announcement that retired Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki will be President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of veterans affairs has energized one of the most enduring myths of the Bush presidency. Among the media coverage in recent days: Gen. Shinseki "clashed with the Bush administration on its Iraq war strategy" (Associated Press). In "questioning the Pentagon's Iraq war strategy" (The Post), Shinseki "warn[ed] that far more troops would be needed than the Pentagon had committed" (New York Times). For his candor, he was "vilified" (Boston Globe) by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Shinseki has a chance during his confirmation hearings to set the record straight: None of those statements is correct. The source of the Shinseki narrative was testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war. Shinseki and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan had this exchange: (READ MORE)
Anna Husarska: Freedom Fighters Need Not Apply - At a hearing in April, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was asked about an Iraqi Kurd who had served as an interpreter for Marines in Iraq for nearly four years but had been branded "a member of a terrorist organization" and denied permanent residence in the United States because of his past membership in the Kurdish Democratic Party. Chertoff responded: "With respect to Mr. Ahmad, the translator, I waived the objection to his getting a green card yesterday, so we're out of Alice in Wonderland." As it so happened, 10 days before Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy asked Chertoff this question, the story of Saman Kareem Ahmad -- an extreme but hardly isolated instance of the Department of Homeland Security ruling that former freedom fighters are in fact terrorists -- had been told in a front-page story in this newspaper. The timing was not lost on Leahy, who asked Chertoff: "Is each of these cases going to require a major story in The Washington Post: (READ MORE)
Paul Ingrassia: Bush Blinks on the Auto Bailout - You have to hand it to Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers union, and his colleagues. Negotiating for a living is, you know, what they do. And they're good, very good. They know when somebody's about to blink. So it was last Thursday night that Mr. Gettelfinger rejected the deal offered by Senate Republicans for interim bailout money to keep General Motors and Chrysler alive for a few more months. The UAW chief was betting that the Bush administration would blink, and that the union would get a better deal from the politicians than it would get from the marketplace or from a bankruptcy judge. It's a ploy we all learned in childhood. When dad won't give you what you want, turn to mom. Mr. Gettelfinger was right, of course. (READ MORE)
Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Innocents Die in the Drug War - Of all the casualties claimed by the U.S. "war on drugs" in Latin America, perhaps none so fully captures its senselessness and injustice as the 2001 CIA-directed killing of Christian missionary Veronica Bowers and her daughter Charity in Peru. No one is suggesting that the CIA intentionally killed Mrs. Bowers and her baby. It was an accident. But according to Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.), it was an accident waiting to happen because of the way in which the CIA operated the drug interdiction plan in Peru known as the Airbridge Denial Program. Mr. Hoekstra says the goods to prove his charge are in a classified report from the CIA Inspector General that he received in October. Under the program, initiated by President Clinton, the CIA was charged with identifying small civilian aircraft suspected of carrying cocaine over Peru on a path to Colombia, and directing the Peruvian military to force them down. (READ MORE)
L. Gordon Crovitz: Internet Attacks Are a Real and Growing Problem - In the 1960s, the Pentagon looked for a secure way to keep its lines of communication going in the event of all-out war. The interlinked packet networks of computers became the Internet. Fast-forward to today, and that system of open protocols brings the enormous benefits of the Web to civilian life. But the Web has also become an open field for cyber warriors seeking to harm the U.S. We're only now realizing that many of these attacks have happened, as evidence mounts that outsiders accessed sensitive government networks and other databases. A report based on closed-door information about cyber attacks reached a sobering conclusion: Foreign governments and terrorist groups are focused on cyber offensives in a "battle we are losing." Last week's Center for Strategic and International Studies report disclosed that the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Commerce all have had intrusions by unknown foreign entities. (READ MORE)
Frederic S. Miskin: The Fed Still Has Plenty of Ammunition - There is a common view that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy has been ineffective, akin to "pushing on a string." Aggressive monetary policy easing during the recent financial crisis has, after all, been unable to lower the cost of credit or increase its availability to households and businesses. This view has been expressed in a number of op-eds, and also by some members of the Federal Open Market Committee. This perspective is dangerous because it leads to the conclusion that there is no reason to use monetary policy to cope with the current crisis; all that aggressive easing of monetary policy does is weaken the credibility of the central bank with regard to inflation without stimulating the economy. Is this true? To see why the opposite is the case and why aggressive monetary policy easing is called for, ask yourself: What if the Fed had not cut rates during the current crisis? (READ MORE)
Burt Prelutsky: A Legal System Only a Mother Could Love - I think I understand the reason why so many politicians are reluctant to take a tough stand against the illegal aliens pouring in from Mexico. It’s partly pandering for votes, partly providing corporate America with cheap labor, and partly a natural reluctance to be branded as racists by the liberal media, Latino leaders on the make, and the moral cretins in the ACLU. I don’t like it, but at least I can understand the tawdry motives. However, when it comes to our legal system, I am totally at a loss. More often than not, I feel as if I’ve fallen down the same rabbit hole as Alice, and found myself lost in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. Why, for instance, do we go so far out of our way to protect criminals? It’s as if we’re playing a game and all the rules are in their favor. For instance, why should a cop making an arrest have to pause to read the perp his rights? Why shouldn’t jurors be made aware of the defendant’s criminal history? (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Modern Times - It might have been a vision of the future borrowed from "Modern Times," Charlie Chaplin's classic protest against the industrial age. Made in 1936, the almost silent movie still speaks powerfully. Whether as comedy or tragedy. Perhaps its most famous scene is the one in which Charlie, aka The Little Tramp, is caught in the maw of a giant conveyor belt at the Electro Steel Corp., where he's supposed to tighten the same bolts on the same widgets in the same way at the same rate as they pass by in endless succession. At last, man had become machine, or at least part of it. The machine never stops, even feeding Our Hero to keep him on the job. It eliminates any need for him to think. He's become just another cog in its works. But when Charlie pauses to brush away a fly, or just itch and scratch, the result is (1) chaos on down the production line as the clockwork system is thrown off pace, and (2) a pink slip for Charlie. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: Sea of Faces - Late one morning in May of 1996, I stuck my head out of the window of James and Stephanie’s Manhattan apartment to get some not-so-fresh air while I drank my morning coffee. We were just getting up before noon after a long night of talking God and politics at an Irish pub called Peter McManus’ located somewhere around 20th Street. I looked down at the droves of people flooding the streets for the noon lunch break wondering whether it was possible for God to have a plan for each one of their lives as well as a concern for each one’s well-being. Those questions may seem odd for one to ponder over morning coffee but they aren’t so strange for one who just weeks before had broken the chains of atheism that had bound him for so long. Just because I renounced atheism one day on the way out of a damp prison in Quito, Ecuador, did not mean I instantly became a Christian. (READ MORE)
Dinesh D'Souza: Run, Peter Singer, Run - I never knew Peter Singer could run so fast. The controversial bioethicist is originally from Australia, and I hear that they breed some good sprinters over there. Still, I was very surprised to see a man who has devoted decades to formulating some very controversial views run so desperately away from them. This was precisely what Singer did when I debated him on December 3 on the campus where he currently teaches, Princeton University. My first debate against Singer was at Biola University in Los Angeles several months ago. There the organizers came up with the resolution, “God: Yes or No.” In my opening statement I suggested that Singer was a perfect illustration of what you get when you reject God and attempt to construct ethics on a purely secular, Darwinian foundation. Singer’s atheism, I suggested, is the primary foundation of his advocacy of infanticide, euthanasia, and animal rights. (READ MORE)
Star Parker: Republicans need to get back to business - There are now nine capable candidates vying for the chairman's job at the Republican National Committee. The day of reckoning will be Jan. 29, when 168 committee members from around the country will vote their preference. The stakes are high this time around. It's different when you are looking for a caretaker - someone to keep a good thing going - as opposed to a turnaround specialist - someone to transform a loser into a winner. Clearly after consecutive electoral shellackings led to Democratic takeovers in both houses of Congress and the White House, and significant drop-off in the number of self-identified Republican voters nationwide, it is the latter type of executive that the RNC needs. What kind of leadership talent should the RNC seek? Republicans think of themselves as the party sympathetic to free enterprise. But the party has gotten off track applying sound business principles to its own operation. (READ MORE)
Brian Birdnow: The Duty of the Opposition Party is to Oppose - The baleful events of November 4th have unleashed a torrent of howling, recrimination and demonstrative public soul searching as the politicos, pundits, and public attempt to determine the future of the defeated, and presumably chastened, Republican Party. Spokespersons for the various interest groups and movements are busy charting new courses that will transform the GOP into variously, the Junior Democrats of the 1970s, a sort of European technocratic-managerial Party based on the British model, a social issue-averse libertarian clique, or a combination of all three, and probably more. The Republican search for a coherent identity, as the clear minority is indeed necessary and proper, since the Party numbers are worse than they have been at any time since the late 1970s. (READ MORE)
Terry Paulson: Let the American Dream Work Again - While our “Republican” President and the Democrats work to figure out how to bailout and nationalize more troubled corporations, citizens need to send them a message! Stop rewarding incompetence and let people experience the natural consequences of failed business models and poor decisions! Let the free-enterprise system work! If you are not afraid of what is happening in Washington, you should be. Instead of maintaining a government committed to ensuring equal opportunity, the Democrats and our “Republican” President are trying to take away the possibility of failure! It’s clear that president-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats have campaigned and won on equal outcomes for all! They feel all Americans are entitled to healthcare, a living wage, affordable mortgages, jobs that won’t go away because of foreign competition or poor business plans, and a government committed to meeting every “need.” (READ MORE)
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