November 10, 2008

Web Reconnaissance for 11/10/2008

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)
McCain advisers defend Palin - Top advisers and aides to John McCain's presidential campaign are going on the record to defend Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from the barrage of anonymous accusations - some smacking of sexism - that have slammed into the Republican vice-presidential nominee, particularly since the election. (READ MORE)

Obama weighs Cabinet, early action - Top advisers to President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday to expect at least a "token" Republican in his Cabinet as a gesture of bipartisanship, but his transition manager also said to expect the next president to undo some of President Bush's executive orders. (READ MORE)

Unions aim to collect on White House clout - For the nation's labor union leaders, it's time to cash in. Having mobilized an army of workers to help elect Barack Obama, top union officials have not been shy about their plans to push a legislative wish list blocked under President Bush, and they say they will not wait. (READ MORE)

AIG bailout is restructured after losses - CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – American International Group Inc., once the world's largest insurer, said Monday that continued financial market turmoil resulted in a large third-quarter loss. (READ MORE)

Pakistan's anti-Taliban support risky - PESHAWAR, Pakistan Pakistan's support of local militias to help fight Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating from its tribal areas is a sign of desperation that could backfire and lead to more attacks on U.S. and Pakistani forces or civil war in the borderlands, influential tribal elders, U.S. officials and analysts on the region say. (READ MORE)

Wash Post concedes bias for Obama - The mainstream press have been accused of being biased in favor of President-elect Barack Obama for months - a phenomenon now acknowledged by one of the nation's media heavyweights. On Sunday, The Washington Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, offered evidence of an "Obama tilt" in her own newspaper. (READ MORE)

A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks - The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention. (READ MORE)

Under Obama, Web Would Be the Way - CHICAGO -- Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly "wired" presidency. (READ MORE)

Around the World - An Afghan-U.S. investigation has found that an airstrike last week killed 37 civilians and wounded 35 after Taliban fighters used the victims' village as cover for an ambush, the U.S. military said late Saturday. (READ MORE)

Sometimes Continuity Trumps Change - As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to fill top positions for his incoming government, he faces a stubborn reality: Some of the key individuals he will rely upon to tackle the country's most serious challenges are holdovers from the current administration -- a trio of Bush appointees who will... (READ MORE)

At Brazil Conference, G-20 Urges Swifter Action on Financial Crisis - SAO PAULO, Brazil, Nov. 9 -- Financial leaders from 20 of the world's largest economies delivered a message Sunday that governments need to act faster and be ready to cut interest rates or increase spending in order to fortify ailing world markets. (READ MORE)

Nationalizing Detroit - In the Washington mind, there are two kinds of private companies. There are successful if "greedy" corporations, which can always afford to pay more taxes and tolerate more regulation. And then there are the corporate supplicants that need a handout. As the Detroit auto makers are proving, you can go from being the first to the second in the blink of an election. (READ MORE)

Pay As You Go Is Gone - As Congress gears up to pass another spending "stimulus" bill, there's one political silver lining: Democrats are being forced to abandon the pretense of fiscal conservatism known as "pay as you go" budgeting. Late last week the leader of the House Blue Dog Coalition, Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper, announced that with Barack Obama about to enter the White House, "I'm not sure the old rules are relevant anymore." Why not? Because, Mr. Cooper said, "It would be unfair to the new President to put him in a budget straitjacket." (READ MORE)

Michigan Malpractice - One reason we know about the great silicosis legal scam is that a Texas judge was brave enough to expose doctors who'd been paid by tort lawyers to gin up phony diagnoses. So it is encouraging to see a Michigan judge now helping to expose evidence of similar medical fraud in asbestos claims. (READ MORE)


On the Web:
Scott Rasmussen: The Polls Show That Reaganism Is Not Dead - Barack Obama won the White House by campaigning against an unpopular incumbent in a time of economic anxiety and lingering foreign policy concerns. He offered voters an upbeat message, praised the nation as a land of opportunity, promised tax cuts to just about everyone, and overcame doubts about his experience with a strong performance in the presidential debates. Does this sound familiar? It should. Mr. Obama followed the approach that worked for Ronald Reagan. His victory confirmed that voters still embrace the guiding beliefs of the Reagan era. During Reagan's campaign, the nation suffered from high unemployment and high inflation. This time around, data from the Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll showed that Mr. Obama took command of the race during the 10 days following the collapse of Lehman Brothers -- when the Wall Street meltdown hit Main Street. (READ MORE)

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Hugo Chávez Spreads the Loot - Venezuelan businessman Franklin Durán sat perfectly still last week, staring straight ahead, as a Miami jury pronounced him guilty of acting illegally as an agent for Venezuela on U.S. soil. He could be sentenced to 15 years in prison. Yet while Durán showed no emotion in the courtroom, back in Venezuela the intellectual author of his crime, President Hugo Chávez, went bonkers. The problem for Mr. Chávez is that, for almost a decade, Latin American democrats have been accusing Venezuela of violating the sovereignty of its neighbors by supporting the radical left with money and weapons. Mr. Chávez has denied it. Now comes the Durán conviction, which has revealed that sizable financial contributions went from the Chávez government to Peronist candidate Cristina Kirchner in the 2007 Argentine presidential race. (READ MORE)

L. Gordon Crovitz: Can We Trust Anyone Over 30? - Al Gore might have invented the Internet, but Barack Obama may be the first president to have been elected because of it. The Obama campaign's effective use of digital technologies was a big advantage. More important, the generation that grew up digital overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama: He got two-thirds of the under-30 vote. It will be fascinating to see if his presidency can keep the faith of this age group, or whether their enthusiasm becomes a more typical cynicism about politics. New research aimed at explaining how being born into the Digital Age has altered this generation may help account for why young people supported Mr. Obama -- but also why they could quickly abandon him if there's politics as usual. Don Tapscott, best-selling author and researcher, first realized a decade ago that kids growing up with then-innovative technologies would be very different. (READ MORE)

Paul Ingrassia: Detroit Auto Makers Need More Than a Bailout - As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to enter the White House, he must ponder what to do about the world's trouble spots: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the Caucasus. And, oh yes, Detroit. On Friday, General Motors and Ford announced more multibillion-dollar losses in the third quarter; closely held Chrysler doesn't publicly report results. When GM, which seems in the worst shape, was 45 minutes late releasing its results, rumors spread that a bankruptcy filing was imminent. It wasn't, but the company says it could run out of cash in the first half of next year. Make that the first quarter if the current cash bleed continues. GM is lobbying furiously for emergency federal assistance, with Ford and Chrysler close behind. Let's assume that the powers in Washington -- the Bush team now, the Obama team soon -- deem GM too big to let fail. (READ MORE)

Burt Prelutsky: All the News That's Fit to Censor - Quite recently, it struck me that it’s not that the MSM has done everything in its considerable power to spin, deny or conceal, all the unpleasant truths about ACORN, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge, that upsets me the most. The thing that truly depresses me is that millions of my fellow Americans know the truth, but simply don’t seem to care. They also don’t seem too concerned that in a 2001 radio interview, Obama declared that his problem with the Warren Court was that although it ruled in favor of Civil Rights, it was not sufficiently radical when it came to redistribution of wealth. Apparently, Obama thinks the Founding Fathers should have included that in the Bill of Rights. Obama can deny it all he likes, but anyone who subscribes to the belief that we should adopt a fiscal policy based on “From everyone according to his abilities to everyone according to his needs” is a disciple not of Warren Buffet, but of Karl Marx. (READ MORE)

Steve Chapman: Change We Can Remember - Barack Obama's campaign mantras were "change we need" and "change we can believe in." His victory, and the enthusiasm of his more ardent supporters, may suggest that Americans dream of doing what Thomas Paine proposed we do in 1776: "begin the world over again." In fact, underlying the vote is yearning to return to how things were before: before the Iraq war, before torture, before the housing bust, before the recession. Also before George W. Bush, who has a way of reminding people why Bill Clinton, for all his wretched foibles, left office with a 65 percent approval rating. As Hillary Clinton was fond of saying of her husband's critics during this campaign: "What part of the 1990s didn't they like -- the peace or the prosperity?" Ronald Reagan came into office in 1980 assuming he had an electoral mandate to diminish the size of government. Once there, he found that Americans are a conservative people -- in the sense of wanting to conserve what they have: (READ MORE)

Mike S. Adams: The President is Black, Hide the Confederate Flag - A few weeks ago, as I was walking across the campus of UNC-Wilmington, I heard an old familiar sound. A rap song was blaring from the general vicinity of the university amphitheater. I heard the n-word broadcast loudly (from over 100 yards away) so I decided to walk over to investigate the source of the racial epithet. I must confess that I had an ulterior motive for seeking the source of the offensive epithet. The last time I heard an offensive word coming from the amphitheater it was an “Obama 2008” group that was playing profanity-laced rap music. I was hoping they were back so I could ask them to change their music to something other than the tired old songs about bitches, niggas, and hos. Like a crack addict voting for Obama I was hoping for a little change. And, of course, I was hoping for another chance to rib them in the wake of the Reverend Wright scandal. (READ MORE)

Ken Connor: Still a Long Way to Go for Equality - The election of the first African-American President of the United States on Tuesday was a great moment in American history. Regardless of policy or party, the simple fact that a black man has been elected Commander in Chief of a country which once enslaved black men is incredible. Bigotry and racism will always exist, but on Tuesday Americans showed that we now live in a country where race is not a barrier to the highest public office in the land. In that sense, this election was a great and historic day for America. Our Founding Fathers grasped the important truth that "all men are created equal." They understood that all men have "unalienable rights" endowed to them by their Creator. Of course there was some hypocrisy and inconsistency in the Founding era, seen clearly in the continuation of slavery despite those great principles of human equality laid down in the Declaration of Independence. (READ MORE)

George Will: Dawning of the Age of Obama - WASHINGTON -- The Capitol Steps, an ensemble that entertains Washington with political satire that often is indistinguishable from the news, begins its current show with a public address announcement advising the audience to note where the auditorium's exits are. But "in the event of an emergency, please remain seated and wait for a federal 'bailout.'" Thus does a conservative era end, with a Republican administration's policy as a punch line. Ironies abound. The election of an African-American discomfits the Democratic Party. It practices identity politics, stressing the relevance of "race-conscious" policies, defending racial preferences in public hiring, contracting and education. But the election of Barack Obama is an American majority's self-emancipation: We are free at last from the inexpressible tedium of the preoccupation with skin pigmentation. Another paradox: More than any presidency since Lincoln's, Bush's has been defined by a single subject, a war. (READ MORE)

In From the Cold: A Lease Deal With Deadly Consequences? - Various media outlets are reporting that the Russian Navy has suffered another, fatal submarine accident. A Russian naval spokesman tells Reuters that 21 sailors died in the mishap, and 21 more were injured. The name of the vessel and the accident location were not disclosed, but Russian sources indicate that the destroyer Admiral Tributs was assisting the rescue operations. Normally based at Vladivostok, the largest base in the Russian Pacific Fleet, the Tributs participation suggests that that mishap occurred near the naval facility. We also know that the unnamed sub had a crew that was much larger than normal. According to Russian sources, at least 208 personnel were on board the sub at the time of the mishap. A "standard" crew for a Russian Akula-class attack submarine is between 50-100 men; a Los Angeles-class attack boat of the U.S. Navy has a complement of 129. (READ MORE)

Maj Pain: Happy Birthday Marines-Nov 10 - There is no greater joy than to serve. If its to serve your family,a beliefe or especially your country, there is no greater joy than to serve. Its not for everybody and its not for profit. Many will never understand what the term “serv” comes with as far as dedication, devotion or sacrifice. Marines don’t join the Marines to be marginal or to meet the staus quo. Marines join to be the best and the American people will expect nothing less. Iraq, present day. Two young Marines are standing guard outside an Iraqi police station. They barely know one another but discuss things during their shift that young Marines discuss. With another dozen Marines conducting training within the police station and another two dozen Iraqi policemen as well, the two young Marines vigilantly stand guard. (READ MORE)

J. D. Pendry: I left the country… - I left the country. Do you like that tired old political cliché? I did not leave the party, the party left me. Well, I am just kidding because I only left the country to visit my Grandbabies that are a short 14 hour plane ride past Atlanta. America is my country. Unlike the Hollywood nitwits who all threaten to abandon America whenever someone other than the most unqualified and liberal candidate in the nation’s history is elected president, I will only abandon America for whatever follows this mortal life. Before, however, it was the Democrats and now it is the Republicans who have left me. I congratulate my country for another peaceful change of leadership. It is the signature of the freest nation on earth – the freest for now. I congratulate President-elect Barack Hussein Obama. Unlike the unhinged left, there will be no personal disparagement of the President from here. It is however, open season on his wrong-headed ideas, policies and approaches to governing. (READ MORE)

The Virtuous Republic: How Not to Win as a Republican - Local talk show host, Mike McConnell, on 700 WLW AM was “explaining” to his listeners Saturday, why the Republicans lost. He blamed it on the “whiny, childish, conservative base.” His point was, that the conservative base didn’t get their way and didn’t vote for McCain. And because of their “hardheadedness”, their inability to compromise, they gave the election away. He went further, by saying the conservative opposition to Kennedy-McCain helped to push Hispanics towards the Democrats and that by not accepting a compromise, now the left gets to redefine immigration. My response, more of the same losing strategy offered to us by non-Conservatives. See McConnell is a libertarian. In regards to Republicans not voting. It isn’t childish, it isn’t shortsightedness, it is called principle. (READ MORE)

Matt Sanchez: Civil Right? - As progressive politics have handed an enormous victory to Barack Obama, it's confusing that the most fervent supporters of the liberal president-elect would also be the most staunch defenders of marriage. Despite much political correctness against "writing discrmination into the Constitution," voters in California ( also in Arizona and Florida) decided marriage really should be defined as a union of a man and woman so they defeated gay marriage by 52% to suppport Prop 8 to 47% opposed. California really is about as liberal as it comes. The sensitization of the culture was as natural as the poppies growing along the freeways. Speech codes, hyper-femenism and just about every progressive social trend you can imagine has been cultivated in the Gold State. With San Francisco the self-proclaimed homeland to lesbian,gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, curious, down-low culture, how did Proposition 8, a referendum to define marriage as between a man and a woman, pass despite the enormous stigma associated with supporting it? (READ MORE)

Information Dissemination: Update on Russian Submarine Accident - There are some fresh details on the Russian submarine accident TheCustodian covered last night. According to several news reports this morning, seventeen of the dead were employees of the Amur Ship-Building Enterprise while only three were sailors. The government released a list of 20 names this morning, all were Russian. While the name of the submarine has not been officially released, it is almost certainly the Akula II submarine Nerpa that recently went to sea for trials and is widely expected to be "leased" to India. While it is still unclear what kind of gas was involved, the cause of a gas discharge from the fire extinguishing systems appears to be the official story. Much of the speculation this morning in Russia is questioning whether there were enough oxygen masks for everyone on board and whether this was the deciding factor regarding the number of deaths. According to news reports, there were 208 people on board, three times the number that normally serve on an Akula II submarine. (READ MORE)

John Hawkins: GOP Branding - There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about the GOP "brand," but few people have gone into any sort of depth on the subject. So, let's take a little time to think about the GOP and branding. What Is The GOP Brand Promise? First off, what is the "GOP Brand Promise?" Of course, there is certainly a lot of debate about this subject, but I'd suggest that it can be broken down into some very basic categories: * Limited government. * Fiscal responsibility. * Low taxes * Traditional values. * Law and order. * Clean government. * Personal responsibility. * A strong national defense. * Patriotism. Granted, you could easily add quite a few more items onto that list, especially if you wanted to really get deep into specifics, but I think that's a fairly representative list. (READ MORE)

Kim Priestap: Obama Planning US Trials for Gitmo Detainees - Obama wants to bring some of the worst terrorists this world has ever known to the United States to face trial. This is one of most ignorant, riskiest ideas anyone has ever come up with and it will be prove to be one of the most dangerous parts of Obama's presidency. Obama seems to be more concerned about the treatment of these terrorists, many of whom are still in Gitmo because they are so dangerous their own countries don't want them back, than he does about the safety of the American people. And let's not forget the safety of the CIA agents and other US agents who were involved in capturing and interrogating these terrorists. They may be forced to appear in court, blowing their cover completely, and putting them at grave risk. This would make the Plame affair seem like a game of tiddlywinks. From the Orange County Register. (READ MORE)

Jay Tea: The Money Quote - Now that the election is over in what turned out to be the most expensive presidential campaign -- by far, even adjusted for inflation -- in history, I thought it might be fun to play with the numbers a bit. In John McCain's case, it's easy. He accepted public financing for his campaign, so his total for the general election is a nice, fixed amount -- $84 million. In Obama's case, it's a bit trickier. He raised a total of over $600 million for the race, but it's pretty vague what was for the primary and what was for the general. Also, he has yet to release his October figures. But I think I can calculate a decent half-assed guess, extrapolated from a couple of data points-- he got the nomination towards the end of August, and in September he raised $150 million. Let's say he matched that in October, plus he had the end of August and the first few days of November. Just to make the math easier, I'll say he had $316 million. (READ MORE)

Ron Winter: A New GOP? Bread and Circuses! Without Street Fighters, It's Insane - Republican candidates in Connecticut were telling voters during their campaigns that the mess the state is in can be traced directly to the Legislature's Democrat majority. They used variations on the theme that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Send the same people back to Hartford, they said, and nothing will change. Voters seemed to agree, at least before Election Day. Yet, across the length and breadth of the state as well as most of the country, GOP incumbents were thrown out even if they had opposed the most unpopular of policies identified by voters. Challengers did not fare well either. Democrat incumbents, on the other hand, swept in barely without campaigning in many cases. (READ MORE)

Steve Schippert: 'Unproven Missile Defense Systems' Are 'Proven' To Russians - Last week in ‘Fettering’ the ‘Unfettered’ Defense Budget at The Tank on National Review Online, I included Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems” as part of a look at new Defense priorities under an Obama administration. The Russians were listening attentively. And they have beaten President-Elect Obama to the negotiating table, announcing their plan to deploy Iskander missiles to the Polish border. In keeping with the traditions of international negotiations, the Russians have said that this deployment is inextricably linked to the deployment of a defensive American missile shield to defend Europe against a missile threat from the rogue Iranian regime fast tracking its nuclear development. Unfortunately, President-Elect Obama has abandoned clarity and pursued a path of dueling messages, publicly remaining “uncommitted” to the Bush policy of a European defensive shield agreed to with Poland and the Czech Republic, while privately telling Poland’s president that the plan will proceed. (READ MORE)

Texas Rainmaker: A Series of Unfortunate Coincidences - Most folks are attributing Barack Obama’s win to the mortgage scandal that led to the economic crisis. Until Lehman Brothers collapsed in mid-September, John McCain was ahead in the polls. But the Democrat-led scandal and the resulting, collective blame wrongly thrown towards the Bush administration and Republicans in general ushered in an environment that fit perfectly into Senator Government’s “hope ‘n change” mantra. But in hindsight, given that so many people who had incentive to see Obama win were instrumental in allowing or causing the economic crisis to happen in the first place, one has to wonder if this preventable economic crisis was part of a broader campaign to elect the most liberal, most inexperienced candidate with ties to radical 1960s anti-establishment players. It might’ve seemed like a ridiculous question until you add up all the pieces… (READ MORE)

Douglas V. Gibbs: Proposition 8, The Equal Protection Clause, and the Coming Wave of Lawsuits - I guess Proposition 8, the State Constitutional Amendment in California defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, angered a few people. Lawsuits against the choice of the people are emerging. The opponents of the amendment claim that it violates the "Equal Protection Clause" of the U.S. Constitution, as set out in the fourteenth amendment. Since rights apply to individuals, the Equal Protection clause applies to potential state violations of the rights of an individual, based on the individual's status. A law or Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman means "any" man and "any" woman. This applies to any man or woman who wish to marry, and are of legal age or have parental consent. So, the law does not prohibit the rights of gays to marry. A homosexual male and a homosexual female are free to marry one another if they so desire. The right to marry has not been eliminated from anybody. (READ MORE)

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