September 8, 2008

Web Reconnaissance for 09/08/2008

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 takes over Fannie, Freddie - The Treasury Department on Sunday seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in an effort to stabilize the mortgage and global finance markets, opening the door for what likely is to be a major restructuring and downsizing of the mortgage giants in the next administration. (READ MORE)

Palin put Alaskans ahead of Big Oil, greens - Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, now thrust into the heart of America's energy debate, has managed as Alaska governor to confound major oil companies and frustrate environmentalists with pro-drilling policies that put the interests of the state and its 670,000 citizens ahead of either powerful special interest. (READ MORE)

Hurricane Ike looms as trouble for the Gulf - KEY WEST, Fla. With powerful Hurricane Ike on an uncertain course toward the Gulf of Mexico, many on these low-lying islands took a wait-and-see approach to evacuating Sunday, perhaps a harbinger of attitudes to come from Gulf Coast residents returning from an arduous evacuation and already showing signs of "hurricane fatigue." (READ MORE)

Labor fears bias may hurt Obama - Labor leader Gerald W. McEntee has a simple plea to white blue-collar workers - don't be afraid to vote for Sen. Barack Obama because he is black. "There are some of our local union presidents who are afraid - that's the word, afraid - to give out literature for Barack Obama,"... (READ MORE)

Obama's 'Muslim' slip seized by rivals - ST. LOUIS Sen. Barack Obama's foes on Sunday seized upon a brief slip of the tongue when the Democratic presidential nominee was outlining his Christianity but accidentally said "my Muslim faith." (READ MORE)

Democrats haunted by national security - Voters harbor deep doubts about the ability of Barack Obama and the Democrats to keep the U.S. safe from terrorism and handle other national security crises, according to a new Democratic study. (READ MORE)

U.N. seeks to define crimes - UNITED NATIONS A daylong symposium focusing on the victims of terrorism Tuesday was supposed to be an apolitical event with an emphasis on healing, improving support services and combating a common scourge. Instead, diplomats from many Islamic countries are outraged, with their diplomats complaining that the event was organized in secrecy and haste and that it bypassed their governments' concerns and input. (READ MORE)

Weekend at Henry's - In the 1989 movie "Weekend at Bernie's," a pair of young executives create the illusion that their dead boss is still alive to keep a party going. That's not too far from the premise of this weekend's Treasury bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants that have become financial zombies. (READ MORE)

Quicksand for Judges - Congress returns from August vacation this week, but for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee the summer winddown kicked off closer to April. By the time they left town for recess, they had chalked up one of the slowest rates for judicial confirmations in modern times. (READ MORE)

Russia's BP 'Signal' - BP managed to keep its 50% stake in oil-and-gas joint venture TNK-BP, and suddenly we're supposed to believe that it's safe to do business in Russia. "This is the right signal to the whole market," Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin crowed after Thursday's pact between BP and its Russian partners. (READ MORE)

U.S. Seizes Control Of Mortgage Giants - The government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yesterday in a dramatic bid to restore faith in the embattled mortgage giants and arrest a vicious cycle that has driven the nation's economy into a steep downturn. (READ MORE)

Radical Options In Play for New Structure of Firms - Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.'s rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac almost certainly means the two mortgage financiers will cease to exist in their current form, igniting the battle over the future of these giant institutions. (READ MORE)

U.S. Strikes Taliban Stronghold in Pakistan -ISLAMABAD, Sept. 8 -- At least 20 people were killed and 25 others injured Monday after several missiles fired by unmanned U.S. Predator drones hit a religious school and the house of a powerful Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan, near the border of Afghanistan, according to witnesses and a Pakistani security official. (READ MORE)



On the Web:
Paul Ingrassia: Detroit's Blackmail Attempt - It was only a matter of time, unfortunately. And now that Michigan is an election-year swing state and Detroit's auto makers are posting sales declines topping 20% each month, the time has arrived. The issue of a government bailout for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler is moving to center stage. Barack Obama has said yes to this proposal early on, and last week John McCain climbed on board. So much for change and fighting pork-barrel spending. We're moving beyond moral hazard here, folks, and into a moral quagmire. At least the Chrysler bailout of 1980 was structured so that taxpayers could reap a reward for taking a financial risk on the company's future. That's not what's happening now. Late last year, in its energy bill, Congress authorized $25 billion of low-interest loans to high-risk borrowers -- a strategy perfected by home-mortgage lenders in recent years. In this case the high-risk borrowers are the loss-plagued Detroit car companies. (READ MORE)

Bert Ely: We Need Fundamental Mortgage Reform - Yesterday's federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was necessary and should help in the short term to stabilize U.S. home-mortgage lending. But this event must spark fundamental rethinking about how best to finance American home mortgages. As we've seen numerous times in recent years, narrowly based or "monoline" financial entities fail when problems arise in their particular line of business. Municipal bond insurers exemplify the failure of that business model. Mortgage insurers have experienced difficulty, too, while the monoline credit-card issuers have been acquired or diversified. Banks that have failed recently were too heavily concentrated in construction lending. S&Ls in the early 1980s were too heavily concentrated in home lending. Arguably, Bear Stearns was too narrowly focused on an institutional customer base. (READ MORE)

John D. Shages: Obama Has a Plan To Manage Our Oil Reserve - Energy is playing a pivotal role in this year's presidential election. And a crucial aspect of America's energy security not widely discussed is how to best use America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Sen. Barack Obama is proposing a simple maneuver -- called an exchange, or swap -- that will help lower the price of oil for consumers, increase the amount of oil in the SPR, increase energy security, and leave taxpayers better off by about $1 billion. His proposal deserves to be adopted. In 1975, after the Arab oil embargo, the U.S. created the SPR to protect against oil supply disruptions. That reserve now consists of 706 million barrels of crude oil, the largest stockpile in the world. As the steward of that stockpile, the Department of Energy plays an important role in oil markets. Merely announcing oil acquisitions or sales from the SPR moves oil prices. (READ MORE)

Bret Stephens: How to Manage Savagery - "Islam has bloody borders." So wrote Samuel Huntington in "The Clash of Civilizations?," his 1993 Foreign Affairs article later expanded (minus the question mark) into a best-selling book. Huntington argued that, eclipsing past eras of national and ideological conflict, "the battle lines of the future" would be drawn along the "fault lines between civilizations." Here, according to Huntington, was where current and coming generations would define the all-important "us" versus "them." At the time of its writing, "The Clash of Civilizations?" had, beyond the virtues of pithiness and historical sweep, something to recommend it on purely empirical grounds. It seemed especially plausible as applied to the "crescent-shaped Islamic bloc" from the Maghreb to the East Indies. In the Balkans, for example, Orthodox Serbs were at the throats of Bosnian and later Kosovar Muslims. (READ MORE)

Jeffery Lord: The Democrats' Missing History - As Democrats prepare to nominate Sen. Barack Obama to be the first black president, the Democratic National Committee and its chairman, Howard Dean, have whitewashed the party's horrific and lengthy record of racism. The omission is in the section of the DNC Web site that describes the party's history. The missing history raises the obvious question of whether the Democrats, unable or simply unwilling to put their party on record as taking direct responsibility for one of the worst racial crimes of the ages, will be able to run a campaign free of the racial animosities it has regularly brought both to American presidential campaigns and American political and social life in general. What else to make of the official party history as presented by the DNC on its Web site? It is a history so sanitized of historical reality it makes Stalin look like David McCullough. (READ MORE)

Michael Knox Beran: Barack Obama, Shaman - In the patois of punditry, "charismatic" has come to mean little more than "like a rock star." But the striking thing about the charismatic leader is the extent to which his followers regard him as a healer of wounds, an alleviator of pain. In this sense, surely, Sen. Barack Obama is charismatic. The carefully knotted ties and the dark, conservatively tailored suits only accentuate the exoticness of his shamanism; he has entered the American psyche not as a hero but as a healer. The country, or much of it, has longed for such a figure, a man from the once-oppressed race whose rise to power will atone for the sins of slavery and racial stigmatization. But Mr. Obama's rhetoric encompasses more than a promise of racial healing. He is not the first politician to argue that politics can redeem us, but in posing as the Adonis who will turn winter into spring, he revives one of the more pernicious political swindles: (READ MORE)

Burt Prelutsky: Dissecting Liberals - If at times, it is not easy to determine what a liberal is, it’s because during presidential election campaigns, politicians who have been voting like liberals, talking like liberals and boasting about their liberal credentials, suddenly insist that they’re really centrists as they go about trying to garner the votes of gullible Republicans and Independents. It’s rather like Michelle Obama trying to convince us that she’s just another stay-at-home mom who loves America and her kids, and in exactly that order. Most of us on the right can spot a liberal a mile away, just as easily as experienced bird watchers can identify cuckoos, parrots and pigeons. But just in case you’re not as proficient at recognizing the odd ducks that populate the left, allow me to be your guide through the wilderness. In America, more than 80% of African-American and Jewish voters can be safely assumed to favor liberals in any and all elections. (READ MORE)

Mike S. Adams: The Gaystapo - Last Thursday, at 1:58 p.m. EST, I received an email message from a bi-sexual reverend from West Virginia. In the text following the subject, “You're a con man,” the queer preacher had this to say: Your recent "Fat Lesbians on Crack" piece is an example of grossly irresponsible rhetoric that serves ideology, not mental health. It is appalling to me that someone with your lack of intelligence and indifference to professional consensus is actively employed in a teaching role. I am always delighted when I get moral advice – especially on human sexual relationships - from people who reside in West Virginia. As a native of Mississippi, I find it best to climb up the moral latter one rung at a time. If I move up too quickly my fear of heights could be enough to make me forget all about my fear of queer preachers from West Virginia. (Author’s Note: When I called the bi-sexual reverend from West Virginia at 304.293.2941, x2319, he said he was not gay but “queer”...) (READ MORE)

Harry R. Jackson, Jr.: A Feminist’s Nightmare - During the last two weeks, I heard an amazing range of speeches from both Democrats and Republicans. After the Democratic Convention, it was hard for me to imagine anything surpassing the showmanship and technical excellence of that gathering. Privileged to attend both conventions, I was able to observe the stark contrast of both style and content of the events. To my surprise the low tech, from-the-heart approach of Sarah Palin and John McCain may create a David-and-Goliath style comeback for the GOP. The Republican National Convention in Minneapolis was an historic moment. It’s historicity, however, is not just based on the gender of its vice president. The amazing shift in the GOP’s campaign focus and theme also strikes me as historic. In retrospect it is easy to see that choosing an unknown Alaskan governor as his running mate was a stroke of genius by the 72-year old war hero. (READ MORE)

Star Parker: The end of race and gender politics - Who would have ever thought, when we were dozing off in the middle of John McCain's presidential campaign, that he'd reel in Sarah Barracuda and change the game overnight? "Barracuda," of course, was what they called Gov, Sarah Palin when she was a star point guard on her high school basketball team. I'm not fond of sweeping pronouncements suggesting that any development is "historic" or "changes things forever." But this time I'm giving in to temptation. This presidential campaign is historic and will change things forever. We've a black man on the Democratic ticket and a white woman on the Republican ticket, and both are out of the mold of conventional race and gender politics. The result will be, if not the end of race and gender politics, then certainly the beginning of the end. The irony of the Obama candidacy is that it did not begin to soar until it was clear to blacks that this was not business-as-usual black politics. (READ MORE)

Carol Platt Liebau: Feminism’s Animal Farm: Where Pro-Choice Liberals Are “More Equal” Than Others - It has become fashionable among self-identified feminists of a certain age to decry the apparent apathy of their younger counterparts. They wonder why young women seem so disinclined to rally to their banner – or, for that matter, even to identify themselves as feminists. The reason is simple. The feminist movement is full of hypocrites who care about nothing but abortion, and women know it. Perhaps the first clue was contrasting ways feminists treated Justice Clarence Thomas and President Bill Clinton. Unproven, disputed allegations that Thomas had used inappropriately sexual language with a subordinate were enough, in feminists’ view, to render him unfit for a Supreme Court seat. Yet, six short years later, they wholeheartedly defended Clinton, who had sex with a subordinate (an intern, at that!) in the workplace, and was credibly accused of multiple other instances of sexual predation – even rape. (READ MORE)

Kevin McCullough: Why only 'modern' feminists hate Sarah Palin - Sarah Palin has become the most historic feminist icon in a decade. For this honor she has been subjected to derision, ridicule, and endless sexist contempt by not just the Obama/Biden presidential campaign, but other "modern" feminist voices to boot. Palin's nomination and amazing composure in the heat of the national spotlight have so frightened Obama in fact that he has unleashed "feminist attack dogs" (their words not mine) and are now beginning to tout some of the most sexist, divisive, and backwards minded rhetoric in a generation. The "modern feminists" don't like Palin, she scares them, intimidates them, and shatters the presuppositions of the Steinem, Allred, NARAL, and Oprah crowd. One them (guess which one) is in fact so afraid of her influence, she has refused her a spot on her daily nationally televised talk show. So it stands to ask the question, "Why does Palin scare them so much?" (READ MORE)

Doug Giles: If Bill Clinton Could Juggle Five Chicks, Sarah Palin Can Manage Five Kids - Y’know, there’s nothing worse than having a woman hand you your own testicles in a fight. And that’s exactly what Palin did to the Jobama ticket Wednesday night at the RNC. She verbally dismembered their party’s petty personal smears about her family, her “lack” of experience, and the flaming liberal’s vapid platform—and she did it in stilettos with a big grin on her face. It was like watching a leopard bat around a gazelle just before eating it. Now, before I go any further, let me go on record and say as the president of the Alpha Male Heterosexual Testosterone Fog Club that Sarah Palin is hotter than Georgia asphalt (and my wife doesn’t mind me saying that ‘cuz she too is muy caliente). Yep, Palin not only appeals to my conservative roots but she’s not a butt ugly eyesore like the goggle-eyed, nerve grating, unfunny, chunky Marxist chicks the lunatic left jams in our faces. Yes, I am that shallow. But Jesus loves me anyway. (READ MORE)

ShrinkWrapped: A Millennial Election? - Ever since Y2K proved to be a "disappointing" brush with "end times" I have wondered if and when we would see an upsurge in millennialism. Historically, as Europe approached the year 1000, Messiahs and millennial movements were springing up with regularity. I do not think people have become less religious since then (though for many sophisticated westerners, what is derided as religious irrationality has been replaced by pseudo-intellectual irrationality) and there have certainly been plenty of "end times" dogmas promulgated upon the masses. Current favorites would have to include Anthropogenic Global Warming (we have 20 years to reverse AGW or we are doomed), and the sentiment, which I have seen and heard repeatedly, that this election is the most important of our lifetime and that the election of John McCain or Barack Obama (depending on POV) would be the end of America as we know it. (READ MORE)

Bill Whittle: Proud of the GOP - Two masterstrokes were accomplished in the last two days of this year’s Republican National Convention. In her first appearance on the national stage — which can only be called a tectonic event — Sarah Palin secured the conservative base for maverick John McCain, while also reaching out to Democratic women. Then on Thursday night, John McCain struck again, making a play for the rest of the Democratic party. When John McCain was sewing up the nomination in the early spring, I spent a lot of time in many comment sections defending him in as many ways as I knew how. He wasn’t my first choice (Fred) or my second (Rudy), but he was the GOP nominee, fairly elected, and looking at the table I thought he was the only man who had a chance to win in November — because frankly, we Republicans don’t deserve to be this lucky. Many conservatives were arguing that it would be better to sit this one out, and let the country go to hell: (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: Party identification difference down to one point? - Allahpundit flagged an interesting point in an updated version of the USA Today story on their latest polling in the presidential race. According to the internals of the Gallup survey, McCain’s ascension to the leadership of the GOP may have healed the brand. Democrats lead Republicans in party identification by a single point: “In the new survey, more voters call themselves Republicans. Now 48% say they’re Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party; 47% say they’re Republicans or lean to the GOP. Not since February 2005, right after Bush’s second inauguration, have Republicans been within a single point of Democrats in party identification. What’s more, voters by 48%-45% support the Democratic candidate in their congressional district, the party’s narrowest advantage this year.” Needless to say, this has huge implications for the election, and not just at the presidential level. (READ MORE)

Jules Crittenden: Two Incompatible Americas - Brit conducts research among the aboriginals, tries to understand their strange ways. Open-minded UK Guardian sophisticate Linda Grant to Republicans: What makes you so small-minded, bigoted and stupid? “Small-town Americans have values and a lot of those values are good ones: neighbourliness, family life, a knowledge of the land and what grows in it. The other America they see on TV seems without ethics - crime, violence, drug addiction, pornography and prostitution - and they don’t want any part of it. So clear is the divide between big-city and small-town America that one American friend said to me: ‘These whitebread Republicans are like children - someone has to tell them what to do and what to think, they’re incapable of independent ideas.’ [...]” I’m sorry, my mistake. Not particularly brainy columnist didn’t actually do any fieldwork among these primitives to confirm the essential correctness of her views. She read a novel and spoke to two pals. Whole pile of bigoted, ill-informed garbage here.* The fact that this woman essentially made all this up to reflect her own biases should not detract from its fundamental truth, however. Sort of like this: (READ MORE)

Don Surber: True grit - A Washington Post editorial praises Republican Gov. Sarah Palin for a job well done. Hockey moms get stuff done. Today’s editorial in the Post — “Ms. Palin’s Pipeline” — may surprise some people but for me it is another example of the Post’s attempt to remove itself from fealty to the Beltway Navel Gazers. Oh, it is a far cry from being in America’s middle politically, but it does take common sense positions, even as its roster of columnists includes a few apologists for the left. The editorial concerned Palin’s role in getting 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to the USA via Canada. She rejected the deal with the oil companies cut by Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski, whom she clubbed like a harp seal in the primary, despite its support by Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who is known as Uncle Teddy in Alaska. Noted the Post: (READ MORE)

Smooth Stone: CAIR Seething Over References to ‘Islamic Terrorism’ at GOP Convention. - Nihad Awad of CAIR is sad because he feels that Muslims are being discriminated against in the United States. Here’s a fact, Nihad Awad: FDR rounded up tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII. Bush only rounded up 1,000 Muslims. In case you weren’t aware, all 19 of the 9/11 hijacker/murderers were fanatical fundamentalist Muslims. And no press release from CAIR or anyone can change that fact. It’s true that not every Muslim thinks like those 19 did. But should our government of the United States pretend there is a terrorist threat that, instead, comes from Rome, Sweden, or Aruba? No, of course not. And one other question, Nihad Awad: tell us why each person on this page is a Muslim. Let’s face it, you’re on the wrong team. Cross back over to our side where one can still live in the warm light of truth and righteousness. (READ MORE)

The Belmont Club: Why they fight - The Strategy Page describes what really fuels the Jihad: it isn’t religion, it isn’t belief, it’s money. The Taliban in Pakistan (TTP, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) has an economy based on crime. There isn’t all much of a difference between the Taliban and bank robbers, except maybe bank robbers are nicer. What is the Taliban into? Rackets. “The TTP have long been involved in criminal enterprises (smuggling, extortion and other crimes not explicitly condemned by the Koran). Tracking down these funds has always been difficult, because criminals have to be good at hiding their cash … These guys want to maintain some contacts with the Islamic radicals, just in case, and help out by sharing their smuggling and money laundering contacts in the Persian Gulf. So for the government to really hurt the TTP financially, they will have to go after the criminal infrastructure the Taliban is allied with. That won’t happen, because the widespread corruption in Pakistan includes a lot of connections, and cooperation, between government officials and major gangsters.” Crooked politics and terrorism have long clothed themselves in sanctimony. (READ MORE)

Melissa Clouthier: Sarah Palin and The Press - At this point no one can argue that the press and elites editorializing on major newspaper pages, lead by a coterie of elite women including Maureen Dowd, Andrea Mitchell, Sally Quinn, Gloria Steinem and even, in an unguarded moment, Peggy Noonan, have been kind to Sarah Palin and her family. Scurrilous rumors began swirling the moment she was named as the VP candidate in a clear attempt to define her before America met her at the convention and liked her. Jack Kelly (h/t Anchoress who is blog storming, wow) says of this phenomenon: “Journalists last week cast aside the mask of objectivity to reveal they are so deeply in the tank for Mr. Obama most have grown gills. For six days, Sarah Palin and her family were subjected to a relentless barrage of innuendo. Journalists were trying to ‘define’ her before she had an opportunity to introduce herself to the people in the lower 48. She was portrayed as an ignorant redneck from a hick town who should be home caring for her children instead of running for high public office.” (READ MORE)

John Hawkins: Yes, There Is An Entire Website Out There Dedicated To Attack Trig Palin - Make no mistake about it; the left's attacks on Sarah Palin's family are meant to be a Mafia style message to other conservative women -- you cross us and we'll come after your children. If you want to see how far they'll go, witness this entry from an anonymous blog dedicated to attacking Trig Palin (I'll leave it to the netroots to actually link the blog because I'm not going to do it). Yes, that's right, some liberal out there has actually created an entire blog dedicated to mocking a baby with Down's Syndrome. To give you an idea of what the content is like, here's a screenshot of one of the posts; Attacks on Sarah Palin's parenting and children are being seen on a daily basis in the mainstream media and on the left side of the blogosphere -- and quite frankly, most liberals seem to be A-OK with it. (READ MORE)

Harmless Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Actions v. Words - There are certain truisms that may be overused, but despite the overuse still have meaning. “Actions speak louder than words” is one of them. “Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk” is another. For some reason, both of these truisms came to mind when I heard about the 12,000 United States flags the Democrats tossed in black garbage bags after the convention delegates went home. Fortunately, a stadium worker in Denver saved these proud symbols of our great Nation from an ignominious disposal at a Denver landfill. Democrats waved these flags proudly before the national press during the convention, to show just how patriotic they really are. But once the TV cameras left, the Democrats treated these flags as just so much waste. Real patriots, not TV patriots, would have known that there are proper ways to dispose of a flag. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion are always willing to take old and damaged flags for disposal. (READ MORE)

Iraqologist: Malki the strongman? - Iraqologist has noted with interest Greg Gause's recent essay on Maliki the strongman and Abu Aardvark's commentary on it. As Abu Aardvark points out, Gause is making a similar argument to the one Iraqologist's alter ego made a few months ago about the aspiring authoritarians of the Powers that Be and the disenfranchised Powers that Aren't (the PTB and the PTA). First, just to get it out of the way, the PTB/PTA terminology has received some criticism, some legit (it is kind of corny) and some not so legit (it's not as simple as "government vs. opposition"--see footnote). Iraqologist is not a political scientist--he's an iraqologist. As such, he is perfectly willingly to scrap this terminology in favor of a more sophisticated and accurate alternative. But for now, anyway, until something better comes along, he will stick with the basically adequate PTB/PTA. (READ MORE)

Steve Schippert: Obama And 'Tax Cuts' - Come Again? - Yesterday, our friend Bookworm wondered if Obama was conceding that raising taxes hurts the economy when he appeared on ABC's Sunday show, This Week. “‘Even if we're still in a recession, I'm going to go through with my tax cuts,’ Obama said. ‘That's my priority.’ What about increasing taxes on the wealthy? ‘I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now,’ Obama said on ‘This Week’ on ABC. ‘The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we're fragile.’” How magnanimous. The economy is hurting, yet he is still going to let you keep more of the government's money. That first sentence probably belies any economic/tax/revenue/Laffer epiphany by Obama. But its that first sentence above is what caught my eye: "I'm going to go through with my tax cuts." Come again? (READ MORE)

Cassandra: The Forgotten Voter? - It's an odd thing. I've heard little else for the past few days except Sarah Palin and her speech. I suppose it was alright. But what surprises me is that there has been so little comment about the speech John McCain gave last week. I realize it began somewhat haltingly. That's not surprising; McCain is not a charismatic speaker. But I thought it by far the more remarkable of the two speeches. I also can't help but think that in our enthusiasm over the latest 'shiny thing', we may be taking our eye off the ball: “From time to time I check in with fellow Virginian Larry J. Sabato about the state of the presidential race here and in other swing states. Sabato tells me: ‘I’ve always said Virginia was a toss-up but unless McCain is losing by 5-8 points nationally, he can probably eke out a win. [Sarah] Palin has only a marginal effect in Virginia. McCain’s veteran ties are far more important in this veteran-rich state.’” (READ MORE)

McQ: Obama’s smoke and mirror tax and spending plan - Do you happen to notice anything interesting about this statement by Barack Obama? “Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush’s tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.” An admission that his taxes on the "wealthy" are punitive not only to the wealthy but to the economy. And yet we’re to believe that he has a well thought out economic plan? Instead, what he’s admitting is leaving money in the hands of those who earn it is better for the economy than government taking it for their priorities. Of course that means his mammoth spending programs which depend on spending money in the multi-billions of dollars all supposedly to be mined from "wealthy" Americans can’t proceed without committing to huge amounts of deficit spending, can they? (READ MORE)

Michael J. Totten: Russia's Kosovo Precedent - Russia’s Vladimir Putin darkly hinted that his country would invade and dismember Georgia months before last month’s war in the South Caucasus region began. “We have Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Pridnestrovie [Transnistria],” he said back in February this year after Kosovo declared independence from Serba, “and they say Kosovo is a special case?” Putin has a point, but only a very small one. The overwhelming majority of Kosovars want nothing more to do with Serbia just as the majorities in Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia want to secede. But there the similarities end. Kosovo is a viable nation state of more than two million people, greater in size than its neighbors Montenegro and Macedonia which also broke free of Yugoslavia recently. (Montenegro’s secession from the Yugoslavian rump state of Serbia-Montenegro in 2006 somehow didn’t produce any hand-wringing about a “Montenegro precedent” in Russia or anywhere else.) (READ MORE)

Walid Phares: Ten Questions about al Qaeda and its Jihadi nebulous - At the eve of the this year's anniversary of 9/11, World Defense Review (WDR) conducted an interview with me on the current debate about al Qaeda and its Jihadi nebulous. The conversation took place with Thomas Smith, military expert and writer, based on themes raised by an article published in el Publico, a daily in Portugal and in other publications. The Ten questions asked by WDR focused on the central issue of how to analyze the war with al Qaeda, hence on the conclusions drawn in the ongoing debate within the expert, academic and political communities. My answers to the Ten Questions are certainly not exhaustive but tried to address the general directions of the current studies provided by a number of think tanks and colleagues in the field. Based on my more comprehensive analysis covered by my last three books, the points addressed the essence of the conflict with the Jihadists: (READ MORE)


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