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)
Lawsuit Inc. - Should state Attorneys General be able to outsource their legal work to for-profit tort lawyers, who then funnel a share of their winnings back to the AGs? That's become a sleazy practice in many states, and it is finally coming under scrutiny -- notably in Mississippi, home of Dickie Scruggs, Attorney General Jim Hood, and other legal pillars. (READ MORE)
Rambo in Rangoon - Burma's generals apparently realize how precarious their dictatorial rule is. Witness their treatment of Sylvester Stallone's latest Rambo movie as a dangerous threat to their government. A few days after the film was released world-wide last month, Mr. Stallone reported that family members of two Burmese actors in the film had been arrested. (READ MORE)
Obama's Finance Ploy - Barack Obama is promising to end partisanship in Washington, and here's a place to start: He could stop playing politics with the Federal Election Commission in a way that could hamper John McCain's campaign against, well, Mr. Obama. The Illinois Senator is blocking confirmation of one of President Bush's appointees to the FEC, which administers election laws. (READ MORE)
Park Police Face Senior Staffing Shortages - The number of U.S. Park Police officers has dropped to a 20-year low, with widespread vacancies in senior ranks, leaving the agency strapped despite heightened concern about protecting the nation's landmarks from terrorism, according to officers and a watchdog group. (READ MORE)
For Katrina Evacuees, A Chance to Be Heard - HOUSTON -- In a cramped guard booth on the edge of a community of luxury townhouses, the sense of helplessness that has become so familiar to Gregory Sam since Hurricane Katrina uprooted him from his home town of New Orleans can become all-consuming. (READ MORE)
In Israel, Some See No Option but War - SDEROT, Israel -- Aharon Peretz has spent most of his 51 years in this cactus-fringed, working-class town, and he would like to stay. But his wife and six children feel differently: (READ MORE)
Lessons Learned, Kerry Hits Trail for Obama - DALLAS, Feb. 24 -- Sen. John F. Kerry is attending to some unfinished business. Four years ago, his bid to topple President Bush fell short, damaged by a series of Texas broadsides that became known as the Swift boat attacks. (READ MORE)
For Political Candidates, Saying Can Become Believing - John McCain once called televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance," but now the Republican senator from Arizona is currying favor with social conservatives. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) now opposes the Iraq war, although she used to support it. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Melanie Kirkpatrick: Orchestrating Freedom - The New York Philharmonic orchestra arrives today in Pyongyang for a two-day visit, culminating in a concert tomorrow evening. Christopher Hill, chief U.S. nuclear negotiator, has commented, "Sometimes North Koreans don't like our words. Maybe they will like our music." The music -- Gershwin's "American in Paris," Dvorak's "New World Symphony" -- bids to be a revelation to listeners in a country where music, like everything else, serves the state, and jazz and other individualistic forms of art are banned. (READ MORE)
Andy Kessler: Internet Wrecking Ball - Imagine a town that has all sorts of gasoline pipelines running by it but only one gas pump. Rationing is inevitable. So are price controls. Everyone gets equal amounts, except of course first responders like police and ambulances, which should get all the gas they want. And, well, so should the mayor. And if you can make a good business case that you work 60 miles away, you can file paperwork and perhaps pull some strings for more gas. How about those kids hot-rodding around town who can't drive 55? They get last dibs, and maybe we can sneak in some gas thinner to slow down their engines and not waste gas. (READ MORE)
Danielle Pletka & Michael Rubin: ElBaradei's Real Agenda - On Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei submitted a report on Iran's nuclear program to the IAEA's Board of Governors. It concluded that, barring "one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran's nuclear programme" -- including a mysterious "green salt project" -- Iran's explanations of its suspicious nuclear activities "are consistent with [the IAEA's] findings [or at least] not inconsistent." The report represents Mr. ElBaradei's best effort to whitewash Tehran's record. Earlier this month, on Iranian television, he made clear his purpose, announcing that he expected "the issue would be solved this year." (READ MORE)
Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Mexico Under Siege - Perhaps it is a sign of a maturing electorate that Barack Obama's past drug use has not become a disqualifying factor in his bid for the presidency. It may signify that Americans are beginning to view the intake of mind-altering substances as a private decision. For those who embrace the notion of personal responsibility, such a change in public attitudes might be considered progress. But in Mexico, what suggests an increase in tolerance of illegal drug use in the U.S. has a tragic flipside: the gut-wrenching violence that arises when demand meets prohibition. This country is paying dearly for that contradiction. (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Words, Words, Words: The Decline of American Eloquence - It was sad, watching the two remaining contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination engage in a civil little sparring match Thursday night. Because it was hard not to note, once again, the long slow decline of political debate in this country since Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas thought out and fought out the great issues of their day. Those were real debates rather than a joint press conference. I would rather have heard less from my colleagues in the ever-intrusive media and more from the candidates themselves. It would be a step up if the press weren't involved in these productions at all except to report and comment on them. (READ MORE)
Armstrong Williams: A Fundamental Choice - When you cast a vote for the President of the United States of America on November 4, 2008, you will be doing something far greater than just electing someone to the occupy greatest office in the land. You will be making a fundamental choice about the direction of our country for the next generation or more. For most voters, it will be the biggest political decision they have never made, a decision that runs deeper than politics to the fundamental character of our nation for the foreseeable future. It comes down to two perspectives. Do you vote for a far less experienced candidate whose election will not only make history here in America, but send a message to the world about our social progress? Or, do you vote for the more experienced, status quo, candidate capable of maintaining America’s dominance as a world power? (READ MORE)
Donald Lambro: Economy Needs Any 'Export' In A Storm - WASHINGTON -- The presidential primary exit polls in Wisconsin last week reconfirmed that the U.S. economy was the number one issue on the voters' minds, as it is across the nation. But the most troubling part of the polls' findings was what voters blamed for the economic downturn: free trade agreements that have opened up foreign markets across the globe to American goods and services. Like a lot of other manufacturing states, Wisconsin has lost factory jobs as companies have downsized in a changing economy and moved some of their operations overseas. Many Wisconsin voters blamed trade for the economy's decline. (READ MORE)
Star Parker: A 'yes, we can' plan with beef - With the wide public sympathy today for "cleaning up Washington," it's too bad that more attention hasn't been given to Mike Huckabee's "Fair Tax" proposal. There is no perfectly constructed tax, and this idea, like all, has its critics. But it also has huge benefits relevant to today's concerns and warrants much more serious attention than it's getting. The proposal would get rid of all existing taxes -- the income tax on individuals and corporations, the payroll tax, the estate (death) tax -- and replace them with a single national retail sales tax. Fair Tax proponents say that it would take a sales tax of 23 percent to meet current obligations. (READ MORE)
Harry R. Jackson, Jr.: The GOP Needs Political Viagra - The inference in the title above is not meant to be irreverent. It is simply meant to be illustrative. The answer to the lack of political passion and enthusiasm of the conservative movement can most readily come from a surprising source – the Religious Right. Before you discount this assertion let me explain my reasoning. Four years ago the most powerful lobbying force and voting block was the evangelical movement. It created a positive maelstrom of GOP support. Their influence was felt from every state house to the White House. Many argue evangelical frustration with the GOP was also one of the major factors in the thunderous defeat of the Republicans in 2006. Feeling betrayed, some influential leaders have decided to sit this presidential election out. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: Litigation, Castigation, and Donation - It’s been a long time since I’ve reminded my readers what a bunch psychotic feminists we have in charge of the Womyn’s movement at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Just take a few moments to click on this article and read what the unhinged libbers are doing with your tax dollars. Apparently, small, handheld vibrators are not enough. They need your tax dollars to pay for giant sex organs, too. If an undergraduate psychology major lacks the good sense to know that it isn’t a good idea to dress up as a six-foot tall sex organ and pose for the school newspaper, she probably isn’t bright enough to be in college. (READ MORE)
Carol Platt Liebau: The New York Times' Assault on Working Women - For once, liberals and conservatives can agree on something: The New York Times acted shamefully in publishing a story in part suggesting that John McCain might have had an extramarital affair. The piece, laced with little more than rumor and innuendo, was obviously designed to strangle the McCain campaign in its cradle. As lefty blogger Greg Sargent put it, “The suggestion that the relationship might have been sexual, which is made at the top and towards the end of the story, basically amounts to an allegation that anonymous sources said there was concern that the relationship might have become romantic.” In other words, the report is a big bunch of nothing – a piece that “offered readers no proof” of any wrongful conduct, in the words of the Times’ own public editor. (READ MORE)
Doug Wilson: What Canada Tells Us About Government Health Care - Americans may not agree on much between now and November, but we have reached a consensus about the importance of at least one issue: health care. In a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of registered voters said that health care was very important to their vote. Democrats ranked health care their most important issue; Independents slotted it as their second most important issue. Republicans, meanwhile, positioned health care as more important than social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. This public concern has prompted political action—or at least political posturing. It seems every politician has a plan to solve our health care woes. For Democrats, the silver bullet remains universal, government-funded coverage. Both Senators Obama and Clinton have proposed regulation and tax-heavy programs to offer cradle-to-grave health care for Americans. (READ MORE)
Nina May: The Perfect Storm for Conservatives... If They Don't Blow It - Conservatives have this uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and overplay every hand dealt them. They squandered the Reagan Revolution by parsing and dicing an agenda of positions unobtainable from even the most charismatic, or messianic of candidates. The color required to attain “conservative” credentials on the litmus paper appears in no color wheel known to man. The acceptable candidates in this category are whittled to a pencil point that can only scribe the name of Ronald Reagan. In the hopes that more people would have adopted his manner of principled politics, abandoning the mud fight that is covering the nation in sludge, conservatives have searched diligently for an heir apparent while consistently aborting their own. No one is pure enough, conservative enough, and principled enough to wear that mantel, yet they still hold every elected official to that standard. (READ MORE)
Bullet Wisdom: Congress passes Bill to allow In-State Tuition to Military Families - Let's face it. College admissions love to screw military families. Sure, many schools offer admission break to get our kids into their schools, but the real reason they love them is that they get to charge them out-of-state tuition whether they live in the state or not. Most military members do not meet mandatory the state residency requirements that are recognized by college admissions. Some require residency of up to five years before granting in-state status to an incoming student. A friend of mine had a kid's status changed to out-of-state after his family PCS'd to another state. FAIL. (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: What if, what was, what now, what next... - I suspect we'll be hearing this argument frequently over the next few months: “He (Obama) argued the Iraq war ‘diverted attention from Afghanistan where Al Qaeda, that killed 3,000 Americans, are stronger now than at any time since 2001.’”...in large part because we've been hearing it repeatedly over the last few years. It's a popular argument because it's based in undeniable fact - every soldier, weapon, or vehicle sent to Iraq could not simultaneously be in Afghanistan. It's a powerful argument - as long as you stop thinking about it right there and don't let additional facts intrude on your reverie. To engage in this discussion is to enter into a game of "what if?". Let's indulge those who've chosen to do so - I'm assuming they've thought it through beyond the bumper-sticker/sound bite level and are eager to flesh out their position. So here are a few follow-up questions: (READ MORE)
Word from Warriors: Sheer Exhileration - I posted this way back when I first started doing this. I should have called it "happiest moment." Strange, eh? That my happiest time could have occurred during the most tortuous three months of my life. Sheer exhilaration—ever experience it? I’m talking about being completely swept away with delight, and NOT the common garden variety of delight when you are merely unable to control a grin, or when a smile takes over your face in spite of yourself. Nope, more even than that. I’m talking about fist pumping; I’m talking about when you scream till your voice is gone, and when you jump around like a damn bunny, and fall and roll around on the ground, and you just don’t care how stupid it looks. (READ MORE)
Bill Jempty: "I want to serve this country because this country returned to me my life," - Safaa Wadi not long ago worked as an interpreter for the US Army. Because of his work, the US allowed Wadi to immigrate to the US. Now Safaa is saying thanks by joining the US Army. He hopes to return to Iraq one day as a soldier. I don't have much to say other than to thank Safaa Wadi for his service and patriotism to his adopted country. God bless him and all our fighting men and women. The entire AP story is below the fold. (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Identifying With The Enemy - Words are almost living things. They change and evolve and adapt, their commonly-accepted meaning shifting with usage and time. One word that has become more and more common in the past few years has been "insurgent." I first started digging into the word when I started writing a piece excoriating the media's use of "insurgent" to describe the people we're fighting in Iraq. I was halfway through my tirade, based on the notion that "insurgent" carries the implication of a native rebellion when a good chunk of those terrorists were non-Iraqis, when I actually looked up what the word means: (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Obama Takes Page From Kerry's Vietnam Lies; Hillary Can't Capitalize on Barack's Gaffe - Barack Obama showed this week that John Kerry, who came home from an abbreviated tour in Vietnam to sabotage the war effort and falsely brand American troops as psychotic mercenaries and murderers, is more than a figurehead supporter in the Obama campaign. Obama, in a naive attempt to show that he is capable of handling the role of Commander in Chief, made a statement that is reminiscent of Kerry's lies about Vietnam. Obama said he said he heard from an Army Captain whose platoon was sent to Afghanistan with 24 troops instead of 39 men because 15 of his soldiers had been diverted to Iraq. (READ MORE)
Vox Veterana: Afghanistan, NATO, and Bill Arkin - People who have perused my site--or talked to me for more than 3 minutes--know that I can occasionally be a little bitter about the whole state of "the other war." I didn`t go to Iraq--I went to Afghanistan. When I was preparing to go back in late 2005, a lot of people were astounded to learn that we were still there. Wasn`t that a done deal? In a way, I`m somewhat gratified to see that it`s making a comeback in the public consciousness, though I really wish it were for a different reason. This morning my Google News page was infested by a piece by Bill Arkin. Where have I heard that name? Oh yes. That`s the asshat that prattled on about our obscene amenities last year. Today, he`s prattling on about Afghanistan. I`ll say this for Bill: he makes his opinion clearly and unambiguously. (READ MORE)
Ilya Somin: Are Cubans Satisfied With their Government? - Economist/blogger Michael Stastny has recently returned from a trip to Havana, Cuba, where he was surprised by the extent of the "misery and decay" that he found (hat tip Arnold Kling). He has some interesting observations for those who still believe that Castro's Cuba is a paradise for the common people. It's worth keeping in mind, also, that Havana is likely to be far better off than the most of the rest of Cuba. Like other communist regimes, the Cuban government pours a disproportionate share of its resources and public investment into the capital and areas likely to be frequented by foreigners. Other parts of Cuba are likely to be much worse off - especially those where foreigners are not allowed to go. Stastny is no apologist for Castro. But I think he may be somewhat misguided in this passage from his post: (READ MORE)
TigerHawk: Anti-Americanism and creative destruction - Asia Times has an interesting opinion piece about Barack Obama, arguing that anti-Americanism runs deeply in his family, from his departed mother to his opinionated wife. I quite honestly do not know what to make of the argument, other than that it is fairly free of actual evidence and long on psychoanalysis. There is this, though: Barack Obama has not really been tested on the question, because Democratic primary voters include a large proportion of people who profess themselves "ashamed" to be American, at least with George W. Bush in the White House. Obama's intramural rivals, to date, would have had little to gain by raising the issue. That will not be true once his opponent is John McCain. (READ MORE)
Sister Toldjah: Stupid polls at CNN.com are nothing new - There’s a minor uproar developing in the blogosphere over a poll CNN.com had on their website which asked the following question: “Does Barack Obama show the proper patriotism for someone who wants to be president of the United States?” Ben Smith at The Politico has a screen cap of the poll. At the time he wrote his post, the poll was on CNN.com’s main page, but there’s a “quick poll” question there now about last night’s Oscars. First of all, the BO patriotism question they posted is one you’d expect to see asked on an opinion website, not a mainstream news outlet. The poll is beneath the standards most of us would expect major news network to adhere to. Not only that, but CNN automatically assumes in the question that everyone’s definition for what “proper patriotism” means are the same. (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: The New Millenialisms - There is a strange convergence taking place between history and fantasy that bodes ill for the near term. With the news coverage dominated by the horse race aspects of the primary season, and international affairs appearing to have quieted, the undercurrents are moving along out of sight and out of mind for most Americans. Unfortunately, despite the surge of hope in America, history has never really stopped and is likely to re-assert itself periodically. When I talk about Millennialism, I am referring to a particular kind of "end of history" romantic Utopianism. Radical Islam's fantasy of re-establishing the Caliphate is just such an idea. The emotional aspect, essentially emotions replacing reason, comes from the belief that once the Caliphate is restored, history will end and Utopia will arrive. (READ MORE)
Right Truth: America is not broken - According to many Liberals and even some on the Right, America is broken. I beg to differ. America is NOT broken. These people need to be very careful of self-fulfilling prophesies though. Tell someone long enough that they are useless, they then can do nothing right, that they can achieve nothing ... and eventually they begin to believe it. That's what could happen here in the US and around the world. Say a thing enough times and people begin to think it's a fact. People begin to act defeated and broken. They quit trying to improve, they look for someone who can make them feel better about themselves. ... symptomatic of a twisted modern culture, based on the perverted premised of "political correctness." Both portend more harm to be visited on innocent Americans. And, instead of real solutions, both will virtually ensure the hasty implementation of "fixes" that invariably offers more of the liberal disease to cure its symptoms. (READ MORE)
Dan Reihl: Cancel The Invasion, I Have A Hang Nail - A couple points while linking this bit from ABC's Tapper verifying Obama's Afghanistan story from the debate. If Clinton and the libs AND the McCain's in Congress hadn't savaged our military budget in the nineties, these problems might not be so pronounced now. I doubt Obama would build it up, he just wouldn't use the military. And he showed no leadership on Iraq. Americans have too short a memory - years of sanctions, pleading for Saddam to comply with the UN, all to no avail. We were right to go in when we did, if anything, we waited too long. Anyone who thinks Obama is ready to be CIC is crazy and willing to embrace a weak America when it comes to such issues. That's the last thing we need right now. (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: Reform Muslims We Need - Every now and then it is good to remind ourselves that in our fight against Jihadism, there are in fact Muslims on our side. I do not mean pseudo-moderates, who claim to be "against terrorism", but then either refuse to condemn groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, or who insist on denouncing Israel in the same breath as they do al Qaeda. I've mentioned some reformist Muslims in the past, and today want to take time to do so again. In fact, I've started a new blogroll dedicated to reformist Muslim organizations. Unfortunately much of the thinking regarding Islam alternates between the extremes. On the one hand you have the insistence that Islam is a "religion of peace" and how dare you suggest otherwise. (READ MORE)
McQ: A warning to the right - stick with the issues - Rick Moran, at RightWing Nuthouse, points out that the way to go after Barack Obama has nothing to do with him being "a closet muslim" as the emails circulating on the net constantly claim. And it is a strategic mistake to go down that road. That’s been a familiar refrain from Kevin Whalen at Pundit Review and other conservative sites. Stay away from the silliness of this argument because all it is going to do is turn off and drive away voters that the right both wants and needs. And that goes for questioning his patriotism and all the other nonsense the right seems so apt to try to trot out in these sorts of situations. Oh, and lay off his wife - that’s just as bad a road to travel. (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Anatomy of a smear - Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei purport to explain why conservatives did not look kindly on the New York Times's report that someone thought John McCain may have had a romantic relationship with a pretty blonde lobbyist ten years ago: “Conservative leaders often portray their political mission in moralistic terms: right vs. wrong. But their reaction to a news report that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) might have had an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist shows the activist right is often animated by a different impulse: us against them.”Given the fact that the "romantic" element of the story was one which the Times's public editor himself found indefensible, Allen and VandeHei's thesis is remarkably lame. This is all they have to say about the story's patent flaws: (READ MORE)
Political Pistachio: Things that make idiots angry. . . - Was entering into Iraq a mistake? Some would say so, and others would not. The liberal left seems to think that Islamism is a marginal phenomenon, and fail to understand why Conservatives take the threat of Sharia's creeping advance so seriously. The obvious Islamization of Europe, and the fact that it will be an Islamic continent before long, seems not to concern them. After all, the liberal would argue, war is "Not a game of Risk," and as a result of Iraqi people are dead. nd Bush is a war-mongering, pro-war president that is letting all these people die, right? (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Winning and losing - I’ve said before that the US and its coalition allies are in the rare and enviable position of deciding whether or not to win the wars they find themselves embroiled in - the social costs of wartime defeat are historically so burdensome that it is far more often imposed than chosen. Put aside for now blood-stirring but essentially intangible Jacksonian costs such as diminished national pride and prestige, not to mention the moral price of implicitly sanctioning genocide and the imposition of soul-destroying tyrannies upon peoples imprisoned by their circumstances. From a purely pragmatic perspective, there are still those holes in the New York city skyline bearing mute witness to the fact that permitting toxic forms of repression to take root inside failed states encourages the eventual export of their barbarisms abroad. (READ MORE)
Jake's Life: February 18th - A couple of days ago I received a text message from a friend of mine. It read, "You better crack a beer open tonight, I hope I don't need to tell you why". The text message was completely unnecessary. I absolutely knew why. February 18th marked one year since I was on a QRF mission with my squad, the night we rolled over an IED laid in by Iraqi insurgents, and the night Blake Howey was killed in that blast. That event changed a lot of things for a lot of people. For me, it marked the first time that I ever saw combat, if that's what you want to call an IED blast. It was the first time I've ever had a friend die. It was the first time that I really truly feared for my life. It was the first time that someone has actually made an attempt to kill me. It was the first time that I ever wanted to actually make an attempt to kill someone else. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: K Street boom - Remember “drain the swamp”? The swamp is now overflowing. Thanks, Nance. Pelosi became House speaker by promising to “drain the swamp” and cut congressional ties to K Street, which is Washington lingo for lobbyists. So how did it go for K Street in the first year of the reign of Speaker Pelosi? Roll Call headlined today: “K Street Posts 9% Growth in 2007.” Woo-hoo! The big quote from Akin Gump partner Steven Ross: “This is a return to normalcy, and a return to people recognizing the value of having a broad-based ability to articulate and advocate the interests of clients to people on both sides of the aisle.” (READ MORE)
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