Political Truth and Fact

Wednesday's Web

Political Truth and Fact.Com

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

Opinion:
Obama – no tolerance of critical commentary

Barack Obama pretends to be big on town hall meetings.  He performs at them quite regularly.  Or appears to do so.
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Ordinary Americans who tune in TV coverage of such events, should understand what they are really seeing.  Those spectaculars are nothing more than carefully selected, thoroughly vetted, groups of people who are certain to applaud on cue, ask only carefully framed questions, and display a requisite amount of devotion to the president.  They are not ordinary Americans displaying real sentiments or feelings.  The White House dares not risk such.

These are audiences who get to watch Obama read his teleprompters.  No small favor! Something to brag about to friends and relatives!

No wonder Obama and his minions were so shocked and offended when Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted “you lie” in the middle of an Obama performance before a joint session of Congress.

It turns out, Wilson was right.  Obama knew at the time that his radical health scheme would be extended to illegal aliens…but Obama sure didn’t want to admit that fact, and he deeply resented having his hand called on the issue.

(Far more outrageous was the scene of Democrats attending a joint session, eagerly applauding and celebrating a spate of anti American insults spewed by President Calderon of Mexico.)

Obama is very thin skinned.  That’s why he gets so outraged when people pick at his birth certificate, make fun of his “57 state” gaffe, or try to pin him down about his not realizing for after 20 years that his primary spiritual mentor and designated closest friend, Jeremiah Wright, was shouting anti American, racist, and anti Semitic rants and raves in his sermons.

Perhaps Obama was dozing.  Maybe he never read any of Wright’s magazines heaping unmitigated praise on Louis Farrakhan and Obama.  Perhaps he just looked at the pictures.

Obama has been shielded from negative questioning by what passes for the nation’s “Mainstream Media”, because that group long ago openly signed onto being a participating part of the Obama campaign.

Only Fox News, talk radio, and the Internet have provided critical or honest coverage of Obama.  So several months ago, he attacked Fox News and has tried again and again to undercut them.  Now he is asking Capitol Hill for a “Kill Switch” that would allow him to shut down the Internet for four months without needing Congressional concurrence,

Earlier, Obama Democrats huddled and conspired about resurrecting the “Fairness Doctrine” which would kill Talk Radio.

November cant come nearly soon enough.

Given the looming Fourth of July recess, and another recess during Labor Day, Obama and his dominating Democrat majority have a limited time in which to further their conspiracy before the mid term elections.

If, as is predicted, Democrats take a bath in November, expect a “Lame Duck” session crammed full of the sort of radical legislation and strong arm pressures seen during consideration of the “Stimulus” scam and Obamacare.

If the GOP can clog the machinery and keep the dangers at bay, if they DO win big in November, in February they will have a chance to roll back a lot of bad liberal legislation and begin repairing America itself.

Pray for November.

Buddy Bishop
Bishop & Associates

The day’s top political news:

Finally!!  US accepts international assistance for Gulf spill

The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that's been accepted.

The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement -- Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.

More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn't indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-accepts-international-apf-4104246595.html?x=0&.v=2

Arizona, Texas Call for More Border Troops

State Officials Say Their Share of a Planned National Guard Deployment Isn't Enough to Curtail Illegal Immigration

Officials in Arizona and Texas are clamoring for more National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that their share of a planned new deployment won't be enough to make a dent in illegal immigration.

After a meeting Monday with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, officials with the Obama administration announced that Arizona would receive a sizable share of the 1,200 planned new troops, 524. That is more than double the number allocated to any of the other three border states, even though Arizona abuts only about 19% of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Texas and Arizona, both led by Republican governors, immediately complained about their allocations. "Obviously, that is not sufficient to secure the border," said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. "We're going to continue to urge the federal government to provide the resources we need."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703374104575337362109092700.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

President Obama juggles competing issues of immigration and climate

President Barack Obama hosted two groups of lawmakers at the White House Tuesday on a pair of legislative issues that have divided the Democratic Party and competed for his attention.

He met first with a bipartisan group of senators for talks on the way ahead on climate legislation, then sat down with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on immigration reform.

But even as he gives the appearance that he is pushing hard on both hot-button issues this year, strategists and aides on Capitol Hill are skeptical that the president can deliver on either one.  That’s great news for America.  Ordinary Americans can breath a bit easier.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/106329-wh-juggles-immigration-and-climate

Top Blogs:

1.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/538856/201006291834/Paying-Presidents-Price-On-Carbon.aspx

Paying President's 'Price On Carbon'

The supposedly kinder, gentler energy and climate bill that Sens. Joe Lieberman, left, and John Kerry are pushing is still seen as killing half a... View Enlarged Image

Energy Policy: The administration plans to use sleight-of-hand politics to sneak through an economy-killing tax on energy as necessary to save the Earth. Make no mistake: Cap-and-trade is a tax every American will pay in every aspect of his or her life.

Cap-and-trade is like Jason Voorhees of the "Friday the 13th" movie series. Just when you think you've killed it, it comes back.

Exposures of fraud in the climate science used to justify it seemed to doom its chances as the economy soured and prospective costs seemed prohibitive. Then the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico happened, and images of oil-covered pelicans filled our TV screens. It was, as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has put it, a crisis too good to waste.

So President Obama made his first televised speech from the Oval Office, a forum usually devoted to matters of state and wars, to rail against fossil fuels, to say we needed to end our dependence on them and to push for comprehensive energy legislation such as the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House of Representatives.

The president noted that "the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill — a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America's businesses." It is a bill that would make us all pay, not just British Petroleum.

Obama knows he can't get Waxman-Markey through the Senate — not now, perhaps not ever. He even lost South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was working with Democrat John Kerry and Independent Joe Lieberman on a supposed kinder and gentler bill. Recently, Graham told reporters he would vote against the climate bill he helped author.

"The science about global warming has changed," Graham said as he backed an energy bill by Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind. "I think they've oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they've been alarmist and the science is in question," Graham put it mildly.

As we and others have pointed out, climate change is more like a religion than a science, and its zealots do not give up. As the Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin reported recently, "Several sources familiar with the administration's thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month (July)."

According to Eilperin, "Under this scenario, the final product of any House-Senate conference could come up for a final vote in a lame-duck session after lawmakers have faced voters in November, thereby cushioning the vote's political impact." Lame ducks would save oil-soaked ducks.

They would sneak through a watered-down "comprehensive" energy bill in reaction to the Gulf spill, and then in conference make sure the worst parts of Waxman-Markey are in there, including the cap-and-tax provisions on American energy. As with health care reform, we'll be told we have to pass the bill to see what's in it.

But we know what will be in it. Cap-and-trade seeks, as President Obama says is his desire, to put "a price on carbon." The government would sell or auction off emission credits based on a predetermined cap on the total amount of carbon emissions arbitrarily set for the U.S. economy.

Lower-polluting companies could then trade their excess credits to higher-polluting industries. The cap would gradually be lowered as companies are forced to be more energy-efficient, "green jobs" are created, and the earth is saved. At least that's the theory.

The practice is that the only thing that is capped is economic growth. The cost of these carbon credits amounts to a hidden tax that is passed on to consumers of energy and everything that energy is used to make or transport. Money that could be spent on creating jobs will be wasted trying to save the polar bear.

Cap-and-tax would impact almost every aspect of our lives, from higher gasoline prices to soaring utility bills, to restrictions and regulations related to the "energy efficiency" of our homes. It is a hidden tax on our freedom and our prosperity. It will limit our choices and our actions. It will reduce our supply of energy and thereby increase its costs, another hidden tax.

An analysis prepared by the Treasury Department and obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute through a Freedom of Information Act request put the total in new taxes at $100 billion to $200 billion a year.

The upper end of that range translates to a cost per American household of an extra $1,761 a year. Because personal income tax revenues bring in around $1.37 trillion a year, a $200 billion additional tax would be the equivalent of a 15% increase.

The FOIA'd document written by Judson Jaffe, who joined the Treasury Department's Office of Environment and Energy in January 2009, contains this odd line: "It will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX." The Treasury Department redacted the rest of the sentence with a thick black line. Why would it want to hide the true total cost?

According to the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, prices at the gas pump would leap 58%, and residential electricity costs would "necessarily skyrocket" 90%.

Total GDP loss by 2035 would be $9.4 trillion. Net job losses (after green job creation) could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses about 1 million jobs in 2035.

On Wednesday, the Institute for Energy Research will release an analysis of the American Power Act, pushed by Kerry and Lieberman (sans Graham). IER says it will cut U.S. employment by roughly 522,000 jobs in 2015, rising to more than 5.1 million by 2050.

"Gross annual burden" imposed by the current Senate version of cap-and-trade is put at a paltry $125.9 billion a year or $1,042 per household, with costs disproportionately borne by low-income households.

According to IER, Kerry-Lieberman will redistribute roughly $12.3 billion per year from the bottom 80% of earners to the highest quintile. As the average age of each household rises, so does the economic burden imposed on it. Health care rationing and Kerry-Lieberman — a double whammy for seniors.

Whether through the front door, the back door or behind another closed Senate door, cap-and-trade will put a price not only on carbon, but also on freedom. The power to tax is the power to destroy, but it is also the power to control.

2.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/06/obama-enlists-radical-groups-seiu-labor-unions-to-push-for-amnesty/

Obama Enlists Radical Groups, SEIU, Labor Unions to Push for Amnesty

Barack Obama just enlisted his radical leftist groups, the SEIU and labor unions to push for amnesty this year.

The AP reports:

President Barack Obama is enlisting activists and labor leaders in a push for comprehensive immigration legislation that will showcase Republican opposition and include a speech by the president.

The strategy was discussed during a meeting Monday by a range of prominent labor leaders and activist groups. Participants said Obama reiterated his support for immigration legislation but noted the political realities that have stalled it in Congress.

Latino leaders say they will work in coming months to pressure Republicans to give way and support an immigration bill — and make opponents pay at the ballot box if they don’t.

“We’re going to make absolutely crystal clear who’s at fault here,” said Eliseo Medina, a leader of the Service Employees International Union.

Prospects for passage of comprehensive immigration legislation look bleak this election year, and even many Democrats are wary of wading into the hot-button issue. But Obama, who pledged as a candidate to make immigration reform a top priority during his first year in office, faces pressure from the Hispanic community to act — or at least to try.

3.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/barack_obamas_attention_defici.html

Barack Obama's Attention Deficit Disorder

Selwyn Duke

While I'm no fan of the Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis, I think it may be applicable to Barack Obama.  After all, the man seems to suffer from a case of it that mainlining Ritalin wouldn't remedy.

Just consider Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright.  Despite calling the prejudiced preacher a friend, mentor and uncle, despite sitting in Wrong's church for 20 years, despite being married and having his daughters baptized by him, Obama says he was completely unaware of the bigot's anti-American, anti-white, anti-Jewish, anti-Western and anti-Christian views.  And, just so we can appreciate the severity of Obama's affliction, Wrong has quite conveniently provided a reminder of what those unforgettable views are.  The scene was a five-day seminar at the Chicago Theological Seminary where, for a mere $1000 if taken for college credit and $300 if not, you could be enlightened by Wrong on matters of race, brotherhood and Zionism and kibitz with him during lunch breaks.  Reporting on the wisdom he imparted, the New York Post wrote:

"You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk," he [Wrong] said. "And if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble."

He cited the writings of Bill Jones -- author of the book "Is God a White Racist?" -- as proof that white people cannot be trusted. "Bill said, 'They just killed four of their own at Kent State. They'll step on you like a cockroach and keep on movin', cause you not a brother to them.' "

Wright referred to Italians as "Mamma Luigi" and "pizzeria." He said the educational system in America is designed by whites to miseducate blacks "not by benign neglect but by malignant intent."

Wrong also said, "We probably have more African-Americans who've been brainwashed than we have South Africans who've been brainwashed" and "All your commentaries are written by oppressors."

As for Wrong's oppression, whatever its nature, it's quite a pleasant one.  A few months ago he relocated to a new, opulent, million-dollar home that boasts its own cul-de-sac and proximity to a golf course. 

And then there is the oppression of mental deficiencies.  What I mean is, since Wrong doesn't seem like a shy, retiring type who hides deeply held views from his inner circle, I can only conclude that Obama's ADD kicked in again.  Obama never assimilated the aforementioned wisdom from his longtime pastor.  He never heard Wrong bellow "The US of KKK-A!" or "G**d**n America!"  Instead, Obama said about his friend, "Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms."  "Heard?"  Or is it more like "in one ear and out the other"?  Whatever.  Perhaps, when Wrong's lips were moving, Obama was thinking about golf or basketball or singing "The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round" in his mind while bobbing his head side-to-side.

Of course, we must show compassion for the handicapped, and this is another area where Wrong is found wanting.  In an apparent reference to Obama, the "reverend" said that black leaders were guilty of "cuttin' and duckin'" at the mention of Louis Farrakhan's name.  But can he be so sure?  Maybe Obama never really "heard" anything Farrakhan said.

Given this deficiency, though, we have to wonder what, if anything, Obama has learned or is capable of learning.  Will he come to understand that bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing to humanity for America's alleged sins (which, presumably, he has heard about) doesn't engender respect in this streetwise world?  Can he figure out that if even thoroughly statist European leaders reject his global stimulus plan, spending your way to oblivion isn't prudent economics?  Can he grasp that if an oil gusher was spewing oil into the ocean yesterday, and the hole hasn't been plugged, that it will spew oil into the ocean today?  Can he learn that, if foreign companies with expertise in oil clean-up wish to help in the Gulf, it probably isn't a good idea to decline their services based on a protectionist 1920 law?  Can he fathom that if our border was porous yesterday, and hasn't been sealed, that it will be porous today?  Can he learn that illegal means illegal, that amnesty for criminals yields more criminality, and that when "undocumented" weapons of mass destruction come across our southern back door we'll end up with a very well-documented 9/11-squared?  Can he learn -- anything -- or does the brain shut down with the teleprompter and start to alpha-theta-wave flatline?

So perhaps Obama isn't just our first "black" president but also our first ADD president.  At least, that's what the idea that he could carry on a deep, 20-year relationship with Wrong and not know of the man's vile views -- and not share them to some degree -- suggests.  Of course, there is another possibility:

Barack Obama is a liar.

Barack Obama is a radical, a demagogue and a clear and present danger to these United States.

Perhaps the Americans who voted for  Obama need to consider that he not only is one of Wrong's fellow travelers (the title of Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, came from one of Wrong's sermons) but, just as damnably, only threw him under the bus when Wrong became a political liability; that Obama apologizes because he -- and his wife, who said that she never had been proud of America as an adult -- are consumed with the typical left-wing hatred of the U.S.; that he spends trillions we don't have because he's an out-of-touch fool or, worse still, wants to collapse the free-market system; that he instituted an unconstitutional health-care plan because the nationalization of healthcare is a tenet of communism; that he allows the Gulf's ecosystem to be damaged in deference to unions or, worse still, because he wants to provide impetus for his cap-and-tax scheme; and that he wants our nation flooded with unassimilable foreigners because he knows that such people, once naturalized, will vote for him and hi
s fellow leftists to the tune of 90 percent.

In 2008, Barack Obama (I'll clean this figure of speech up a bit) spit down Americans' backs and told them it was rainin', and 53 percent of us believed him.  Many of us still do.  But it's time to grow up and wise up -- because our time is almost up.  That deluge of national destruction running down your back is not some unexplainable natural phenomenon.  It is the effluent that naturally flows when you elect Marxists, malcontents and miscreants to office.

Contact Selwyn Duke

Tuesday's Web

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

Political Truth and Fact.Com

Opinion:
Change sweeps Capitol Hill

The death of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, has roiled the political waters and threatens several issues dear to the hearts of liberals.

With the upset victory of Senator Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election to replace the extreme liberal Teddy Kennedy, the liberal margin in the Senate fell below the magic 60 vote level – the mark at which filibuster tactics by Republicans can be defeated.

The death yesterday of Byrd, further diminishes liberal forces in the upper house.

The Senate faces a vote on the Conference Committee version of a banking reform bill – a bill Conservative Americans fear will allow government to grab more control over one of the vital segments of our society.  The Conference Committee addition of a fee on banks and hedge funds to cover the cost of the legislation is roiling the few Republicans thought likely to vote for the package.

Democrats must hold onto all the 57 Democrat and Independent senators who remain, while also winning over at least three Republicans in order to prevail on the banking measure without fear of filibuster.  So far, no Republican has signed onto the bill.

Also imperiled by the Byrd death, are far left hopes of once again attempting to pass the infamous Cap and Trade scheme – a measure that would inflict huge financial hardships on all American families including a possible increase in gasoline prices to as much as $8 a gallon.  Cap and Trade is a price too high, a risk too great, and an idea too outrageous given the fragile nature of the American economy today.

Obama has been doing all he can attempting to exploit the oil spill in the Gulf as a means of reviving Cap and Trade – even after the scheme has been pronounced dead several times.

West Virginia seems unlikely to hold a special election to replace Byrd.

Meanwhile, cashiered Four star General Stanley McChrystal has told intimates he will take retirement from the military after having been fired last week by Obama.

McChrystal’s firing resulted from intemperate remarks by Aides to McChrystal regarding Vice President Biden, an ambassador, and other administration officials, as well as less than laudatory comments about Obama himself.

Speculation continues regarding why a West Point trained General – who had even confessed having voted for Obama – would be foolish enough to be so candid and honest regarding negative thoughts about the president – and allowing aides to do the same.

Certainly the reporter was a known far left ideologue who could not be trusted.

Did McChrystal fall on his sword in order to reveal the great amount of distrust of the Obama Administration among the military?  Were his intemperate actions signaling serious revision is needed in rules of engagement many see as foolish and which endanger American lives?

General David Petraus begins confirmation hearings today and is assured of winning a Senate nod.  Because of McChrystal’s fiasco, he will be able to return to the war front with a far freer hand for changing things that need change.

Some things are looking up.

Buddy Bishop
Bishop & Associates

The day’s top political news:

Senate agenda imperiled without Sen. Robert Byrd’s vote

The death of Sen. Robert Byrd inspired the familiar Washington ritual of public eulogies for the loss of a Senate giant alongside private calculations, by Democrats, over how to protect a suddenly imperiled agenda.

With flags at half-staff across the Capitol and Byrd’s Senate desk shrouded in black, Democratic leaders not only have to decide funeral details — like whether Byrd will lie in state underneath the Capitol Dome — but also have to make crass policy decisions over how to cope with the loss of a “yes” vote on a sweeping Wall Street reform bill and a climate and energy proposal.

And in the Senate, Democrats acknowledged not only the institutional loss of the longest-serving senator in U.S. history but also the loss of a reliable vote for their election-year agenda.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39146.html#ixzz0sFMhvOsC

A Modest Start for Kagan

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on Monday sought to counter conservative critics' assertion that she is a liberal activist who would bring a political agenda to the court, promising to respect the "often messy" democratic process.

As Ms. Kagan's Senate confirmation hearing got under way, Democrats and Republicans drew contrasting pictures of her. "Her legal qualifications are unassailable," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), noting that she would be just the fourth woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee's top Republican, recited Ms. Kagan's career, from her college thesis, which he said "seems to bemoan" the demise of socialism in New York, to her current role as solicitor general.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703964104575334731421023498.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

Gen. Petraeus' nomination puts some Democrats in awkward spot

President Barack Obama’s nomination of Gen. David Petraeus has put some Democrats in a politically awkward position.

While Senate Democrats are expected to rally behind Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top commander in Afghanistan, they must also ask tough questions about when the U.S. will withdraw troops from the war-torn country.

 Many on the left are impatient with the Afghanistan war, and some Democrats are nervous much of their base may not show up to vote in this year’s midterm elections.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/106045-petraeus-nomination-puts-some-dems-in-awkward-spot

Top Blogs:

1.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/28/mcchrystals-secret-rebellion

McChrystal's Secret Rebellion

Stephanie Gutmann

One big question that hangs over the quick end of General Stanley McChrystal's mission in Afghanistan: Why would a West Point and Kennedy School of Government graduate who runs eight miles a day, sleeps four hours and is smart as a whip ever do something so dumb as to talk to a Rolling Stone reporter?

Well, maybe he wasn't so dumb after all. Reading the accounts of McChrystal's last months on the job, I think it is clear the general had become so conflicted about the rules of engagement he was imposing on his troops that he finally said "The hell with it. Let Rolling Stone run with this story and see what happens."

The clues are all in the Rolling Stone article (which the magazine -- sickeningly -- is billing on its website as "the article that changed history"). The key section deals with the new rules of engagement (ROE) that McChrystal had begun to impose on his troops. The average infantryman was reacting with a mounting sense of betrayal and anger. Some described the new regimen as "being handcuffed." Rolling Stone reporter Richard Hastings reports one GI writing McChrystal to ask, "Why are we not allowed to defend ourselves?"

As C.J. Chivers of the New York Times reported in an article entitled "Warriors Vexed By Rules For War" the new rules have shifted risks from Afghan civilians and away from the Taliban, on to Western soldiers. They are about everything but force protection. Although McChrystal helped design the rules and could certainly defend them on intellectually, seeing how they are actually playing out in the field must have been painful for a man trained in the '70s, under the mantra "an officer takes care of his men." Chivers' article appeared in the Times the same day as the story of McChrystal's resignation. Things were obviously coming to a head. Even more suggestively, the first reports to emerge since General David Patraeus replaced McChrystal say the new commander may be revising the rules of engagement.

The new ROE generally require much more caution and many, many more verifications from superiors before a soldier is allowed to use lethal force. When the rules aren't restrictive, they are risk averse -- which is just as frustrating to trained warriors. Soldiers in Afghanistan told Hastings they now carry cue cards reminding them to "Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force." What, one wonders, would be the need to patrol in an area where you wouldn't at some point run the risk of defending yourself with lethal force?

According to the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, penned largely by General Petraeus in 2007, protecting civilian populations is the cornerstone of any effort to defeat an insurgency. But there is a growing problem in Afghanistan -- one that McChrystal may not have foreseen when he unfurled this winning-hearts-and-minds strategy. According to many accounts, the Taliban are starting to game the system. They exploit Western decency by surrounding themselves with women and children, knowing this will slow our advance. There are even accounts of Taliban deliberately creating civilian casualties -- which only creates more bad press and causes our troops to become more cautious. They know once we cause civilian casualties, we scale back.

An eloquent cri de coeur has come from Brigadier General Moheedin Ghori, the commander of the Afghan brigade. Ghori told the AP, "Especially in the south of Marjah, the enemy is fighting from compounds where soldiers can very clearly see women or children on the roof or in a second-floor or third-floor window. They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians."

In an article last February entitled "Civilians in Crosshairs Slow Troops," Wall Street Journal reporter Michael M. Phillips described a scene where Marine captain Anthony Zinni spent 45 minutes on the phone with military lawyers in Las Vegas before deciding not to call an air strike against four Taliban planting roadside bombs for an approaching Marine convoy. The Taliban had brought children into the area with them. "The last thing I want to do is kill kids," said Zinni. But the consequence was to put his own troops at greater risk.

This is the brave new world of warfare in which the old school warrior McChrystal was trying to navigate. My guess is that he had begun to find the whole thing intolerable. That's the only reason an otherwise seasoned warrior would ever put himself on the firing line with a reporter from Rolling Stone.

Stephanie Gutmann is the author of The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy (Encounter, 2005).

2.

http://www.examiner.com/x-34929-Manhattan-Conservative-Obama -

Obama's former pastor Wright still wrong

Former Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivering an impassioned sermon almost certainly laced with bigotry

If it were any candidate other than Barack Obama whose pastor of 20 years had preached a gospel of hatred and anti-white and anti-Semitic bigotry, he'd be a footnote in the history books right now. But Obama it was, and the mainstream media collectively jammed its fingers in its ears and hummed, even as the shrill and despicable hate mongering of former Rev. Jeremiah Wright befouled the airwaves on national television.

In case you thought Wright had vanished after his former parishioner's now-famous defenestration, think again. Last week, Wright was in the spotlight again, this time at a seminar in Chicago, where he compared the United States with apartheid South Africa and claimed the civil rights movement was about "becoming white."

Never one to mince words or err in the direction of the truth, the ever-incendiary Wright is reported to have told the black seminarians assembled that they will never "be a brother to white folk," adding—in what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would revealingly describe as "a Negro dialect"—"White folk done took this country. You're in their home and they're going to let you know it."

The loony Wright made further use of his bully pulpit to take shots at the American education system, which he insisted is built to poorly educate black students "by malignant intent." No target was off-limits, not even civil rights leader Martin Luther King, who Wright took to task for advocating nonviolence. "We probably have more African-Americans who've been brainwashed," he observed, "than we have South Africans who've been brainwashed."

If Obama was made aware that the man he one affectionately called "a father figure" is on a tear again, it is not something he has chosen to acknowledge publicly. Then considering that Obama never heard any of Wright's bitter, racist invective in the twenty years he sat in the pews at Trinity Church of Christ, in Chicago, is it any surprise?

3.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/the_democrats_five_stages.html

The Democrats' Five Stages

Alex Stevenson

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published a groundbreaking analysis of the changes that happen to people upon been informed of a terminal illness. In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Kubler-Ross describes five stages of grief, a process by which people deal with tragedy, especially when diagnosed with a terminal illness. Her work created awareness to the sensitivity required for better treatment of individuals who are dealing with a fatal disease.  The five stages are:

Denial is a temporary defense for the individual.

Anger -- when denial fails, resistance and rage against the truth replace it.

Bargaining involves the hope that the inevitable can be delayed.

Depression is the beginning of understanding the inevitable.

Acceptance is honestly dealing with the reality of the situation.

The Democrats are going through this process. 

Consider the Democrats' response to the Tea Party Movement in terms of this analysis. The Democrats and media offer a classic instance of Denial. The unified response by the party and the media was to characterize the movement as "Astroturf." MSM reports on the Tea Party demonstration in Washington minimized the large number of participants and labeled them as poorly organized and unlikely to have any influence on the debate of the role of the federal government in our current crisis.

The second stage, Anger, is well underway and may have peaked. The House Democrats called the Tea Party "racist," claiming imaginary swastikas at rallies, and marched to the Capitol in force, bearing the Imperial Gavel in order to provoke an incident. The only incident was a phony spitting accusation and a nonexistent racial epithet by an entrenched incumbent race-baiter.

Looking forward in the political process, Americans should anticipate the third stage, Bargaining. The Democrats will offer up candidates under the false-flag, third-party "Tea Party." In Florida, Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson has conspired with corrupt local operatives to register the Tea Party as a political party. The intention is to put candidates on the ballot in November in order to confuse the electorate and draw votes away from the newly invigorated Republicans. We can anticipate more of this nationally, depending on its success in Florida and Nevada.

Depression will be the overwhelming emotion in the Democrat leadership after the elections in November. They will be inconsolable and difficult to deal with in the depths of their despair, and not just a little dangerous. The few months between the November election and new members taking their seats in House and Senate will be a lame duck session we all should fear.

The final stage is Acceptance. Will the Democrats ever abandon the tactics that delegitimize a Republican majority? Accusations of election fraud and lawsuits will be in the news in the period following any significant Democrat loss. It is doubtful that the Democrats will ever accept the new situation and start the cycle of grief over from the first stage, denial. The rage will be renewed through the rent-a-mob, and bargaining will begin anew as committee seats are renegotiated. 

Depression will bring the retirement of the previous powerful committee chairmen and other figures unable to deal with their loss, thus setting the stage for a new generation of Democrats, who will adjust to the new power structure. Acceptance will be required to advance any legislation favored by the Democrats, so in the long run, the new generation will come to terms.

Alex Stevenson is a public safety professional in Florida.

 

Monday's Web

Political Truth and Fact.Com

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

Opinion:
How we win – creating a foundation for November and beyond

The General Election this November is unique.

It is not only an election we want to win, it is an election we absolutely must win.  Democrats understand its importance to furthering their far left plans to fundamentally change this country.  If they lose, the damage they have already inflicted may well be turned back and repaired.

Certainly far left politicians who dominate American government today know the importance of November’s outcome.  As ordinary Americans rebel against what is increasingly an administration and Capitol Hill determined to govern by edict, Democrats are digging in and using their ability to manipulate government to protect their position of power.

Last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrat Majority Leadership made a priority passage of legislation labeled the “Disclose Act”.  It is legislation specifically designed to take away the influence of Tea Party and other conservative groups that reflect majority American sentiment. 

Simply put, the DISCLOSE Act will limit the political speech that was protected and encouraged by a recent Supreme Court ruling entitled “Citizens United”.  The First Amendment is under fire by liberals.

It gets worse. 

Democrats are also moving ahead with a scheme giving Obama power known as the “Kill Switch” – a provision of the law allowing the President to shut down the Internet for up to four months – without Congressional approval.

Democrats are forced to rule the nation through schemes and proposals not not dependent on majorities.  After all, Democrats no longer represent a majority.

In recent polling, George Gallup finds 42% of Americans are conservative – all of them would oppose the Obama – Democrat conspiracy, while only 20% admit being liberals and are, therefore, likely to side with politicians of the far left.

The nation and its future are clearly imperiled.  The only avenue for defending the American culture and idealism, is by removing Democrats from power, and replacing them with Republicans.

In upcoming weeks, strategies that can lead to victory, will be discussed again and again right here on this web site.

Winning strategies are not that complicated.   First, a cadre of support must be created – one that can take a winning message to voters.  The goal is getting 50.1% of the vote in as many races as possible.

Recruitment of dedicated patriots is the foundational element for saving  America from the far left.  The process begins with making a list of voters with honest conservative values – principles that made this nation great.

Email is now a major medium of communication between individuals, so those who recognize what lies ahead, should sign on immediately, let their names be known, then begin creating email lists as long and as large as possible.

The plan is finding “Our” voters, arming them with information through which to recruit others, then developing a reliable contact list through which we can urge identified voters to the polls on election day.

In the old days, telephone banks were effective but those days are behind us.

“Our” people must create a starting list of at least 25 Conservative email contacts.  Such a list provides the solid base. More will follow.

Developing an organizational effort that can identify and turn out our vote, is the key to victory.

Through left wing conspiracies such as the Disclose Act, the Kill Switch for the Internet, and brute force of Democrat groups such as unions, and Obama’s own ACORN, Democrats are already girding themselves for November.

Polling proves we  have the numbers. As the tea party movement demonstrates – we have the enthusiasm.  Certainly we have the obligation.

November is not just another election.

Duty calls.

Buddy Bishop
Bishop & Assiciates

The Day's Top Political News

Senator Robert Byrd dies at 92

Sen. Robert C. Byrd died in a Virginia hospital early Monday morning, ending an extraordinary Senate career that began two years before President Barack Obama was born.

Byrd was 92 — the longest-serving U.S. senator ever — and his life was a kaleidoscope of images that reflect his unique place in American history.

He belonged to the Klan in the 1940s and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he went on to endorse the nation's first black president. An orphan child who rose up from West Virginia poverty, he became a master of pork barrel politics, and his name graces federal buildings throughout his home state.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39087.html#ixzz0s9QIult5

GOP eager to press case in Elena Kagan hearing

Republicans, decided early on that they stand little chance of defeating Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and have settled instead on making her confirmation process a “teachable moment” to highlight the dangers of liberal judicial activism.

But even that modest goal has proved difficult to achieve in the run-up to the opening of her confirmation hearings on Monday, especially with a nominee as elusive as Kagan, whose ascent to the high court hardly seems in doubt.

Republicans have settled on a strategy of painting Kagan, who has never been a judge, as a politically driven ideologue. They insist they haven’t ruled out a filibuster, though that seems highly unlikely.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39081.html#ixzz0s9QwKCGR

In Mass., Scott Brown outpolls Kerry, Obama

US Senator Scott Brown, who only months ago was a little-known figure even within the tiny band of Republicans in the state Senate, not only catapulted to national stature with his upset US Senate victory, but is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll.

Asked their opinion of Brown, 55 percent of those polled said they view him favorably, only 18 percent unfavorably. His rating among Republicans is 79 percent favorable, 3 percent unfavorable. And 55 percent of independents — the majority of the state’s voters — say they like him, while only 11 percent have an unfavorable opinion.

In contrast, Kerry was viewed favorably by 52 percent of those polled and unfavorably by 37 percent of the respondents. And in a sign that Obama is a polarizing figure even in Massachusetts, 54 percent of the respondents view him favorably and 41 percent unfavorably, according to the polling data.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/06/28/brown_outpolls_kerry_obama/

Top Blogs:

1.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/americans_not_inclined_to_pay_more_to_fight_global_war

Americans Not Inclined To Pay More To Fight Global Warming

Democratic Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman declared yesterday that a new EPA study shows their new global warming legislation won't

cost Americans much after all. But so far most Americans don't show an inclination to pay anything for such legislation.

"There'll be some people who will want to demagogue that politically, but that's less than $1 a day," The Politico quoted Lieberman saying at a press conference yesterday. "Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don't have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes."

Our surveying suggests, however, that the answer is no.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Americans say they are not willing to pay more in taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming, according to a Rasmussen Reports national telephone

survey last August. 

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls).  Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Twenty-two percent (22%) of adults are willing to pay $100 more a year.

Just 10% are willing to pay more than that. That can't be reassuring to Kerry and Liberman who, according to The Politico, "found many reasons to gloat after getting the 74-page study

that showed the overall costs from their legislation's major global warming provisions would cost an average household between $80 to $150 per year."

Since the August 2009 survey, Americans have become a bit less concerned about global warming, too. Interestingly, President Obama didn't pick up on the supposed low cost of the Kerry-Lieberman legislation and promote it during his Oval Office address on energy policy last night.

2.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/when_folks_stop_liking_barry.html

When Folks Stop Liking Barry

Bruce Walker

President Obama's image of leadership flounders in the Gulf of Mexico. While Governor Jindal displays the true qualities of leadership, our president is stuck in Saul Alinksy gear, demonizing a foreign corporation instead of actually doing anything constructive. Disgust at Obama's genuine incompetence at this genuine ecological disaster stretches across party lines and the ideological spectrum.

Barry blames Bush for everything about our dismal economy. A partisan rubber-stamp Congress has given Obama the wild and wasteful expenditures which his childish, failed, quasi-Keynesian witches' brew prophesies will spend us into prosperity. It hasn't worked. Now, oddly, congressmen facing electoral apocalypse have stopped writing our wise leader a blank check against the federal treasury.

Wearing the hat of Commander in Chief, Obama explicitly sought a general in sync with his plan to end the war in Afghanistan. Then, when General McChrystal snickered too publicly at Obama's cartoon leadership, the president replaced him with the old Bush team -- the man Obama and his pals three years ago were calling "General Betray Us." Does this cause a "willing suspension of disbelief" in Obama?  

The nomination of radical leftist women to the Supreme Court simply reinforces the image of Obama as a closet Marxist. His cabinet choices reinforce this image of radicalism. The American people, during Obama's administration, profess to be conservative -- and increasingly conservative according to Gallup, a poll that already shows that conservatives outnumber liberals in every single state of the Union.  

The Blagojevich trial, which has already hinted at Obama's connection to the thoroughly seamy side of Chicago political corruption, may do more than hint at criminal misconduct in the future. Other creepy people, like Tony Rezko, keep popping up with common connections to Obama and Blago. How dirty is Obama? No one knows, but no Democrat could rise out of the cesspool of Chicago politics without some ethical problems.

The cumulative impact of these corrosives on Obama's presidency is becoming very clear. Although polls differ in the precise measurement of unhappiness with Obama as president, the trends in all the polls are consistent, and the combined average of these various polls is clear and stark: Confidence in President Obama has fallen dramatically, and a plurality of Americans now disapprove of the job he has done as president. 

What, then, is preventing a total collapse of Obama? In a word, it is Obama's likability. Before my conservative friends commit me to an asylum, we must be objective: Many millions more Americans like Obama than see him as an effective leader. He is (or is seen as) a loving father, a good husband, a sincere man who rose out of difficult circumstances into high office. Obama speaks well, he talks about sports, he is seen in every flattering photo-op which the servile leftist press can engineer. Americans like him.

Since television became king in politics, presidents who appeared "likable" to the camera -- Eisenhower, JFK, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Obama -- have had a huge advantage in connecting to the American people. Why? The reason is largely because Americans are naturally optimistic, friendly, and receptive people. We want to like our leader.

Likability, however, is a two-edged sword. When pettiness peaks its pointy head in a president -- Jimmy Carter is the perfect example -- then Americans sour on the man in the White House. Few Americans ever expected to "like" LBJ, Nixon, or George H.W. Bush. The national judgment on these politicians is more or less connected to their actual accomplishments or failures. When the American people saw Carter as a failure in governance and a more unpleasant person than they imagined, then he became toxic in politics.

When Obama, already a catastrophe as a chief executive and policy innovator, loses his kismet with Americans, then his presidency will simply implode. Hillary Clinton might well challenge Obama just like Teddy Kennedy took on a Carter, who at times was almost running third in election polls (behind, or close to behind, maverick Republican John Anderson).

What might make average, otherwise only mildly political Americans begin to really dislike Barack Obama? If he shows a thin-skinned temper to questions or challenges. Anger comes off very badly on television. If Obama gets caught in a transparent lie, then that deceit could be a quick and deep stinger. If he appears condescending and arrogant, as he did on the infamous San Francisco tape when he was talking about people "clinging to their religion and guns," then the people may see a different Obama.

Will one or more of those incidents occur before the public eye during his presidency? The more appropriate question is: When will Obama show his true character before the American people? Obama's choreography is tight, but national and world events are wildly unpredictable. Who could have guessed that Obama would now be grappling with an oil spill? Who knows what the next time bomb will be?

In fact, the real time bomb is probably Obama himself. As Robin of Berkeley observed in her truly scary article, Barack Hussein Obama may well be have been a traumatized victim in his youth, perhaps of sexual abuse. If he is, then Obama will have personality disorders which simply cannot be cured (read Robin's article for the details). If Robin is right, then at some point, the true, hopelessly sick Obama will show himself before a horrified nation. Average Americans will no longer like the president. They will, instead, be saddened and repelled -- and they will emphatically expel Obama and his supporters from power or influence in our lives. When folks stop liking Barry, the party is over.

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

3.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/25/obama-zones-out/

STEYN: Obama zones out

Search for president's core uncovers - nothing

Mark Steyn

What do Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and BP have in common? Aside from the fact that they're both Democratic Party supporters.

Or they were. Gen. McChrystal is a liberal who voted for President Obama and banned Fox News from his headquarters TV. That may at least partly explain how he became the first U.S. general to be lost in combat while giving an interview to Rolling Stone. They'll be studying that one in war colleges around the world for decades. The managers of BP were unable to vote for Mr. Obama, being, as we now know, the most sinister, duplicitous bunch of shifty Brits to pitch up offshore since the War of 1812. But, in their "Beyond Petroleum" marketing and beyond, they signed on to every modish nostrum of the eco-left. Their recently retired chairman, Lord John Browne, was one of the most prominent promoters of "cap-and-trade." BP was the Democrats' favorite oil company. It was to Mr. Obama what TotalFinaElf was to Saddam Hussein.

But what do Gen. McChrystal's and BP's defenestrations tell us about the president of the United States?

Mr. Obama is a thin-skinned man and, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph, White House aides indicated that what angered the president most about the Rolling Stone piece was "a McChrystal aide saying that McChrystal had thought that Obama was not engaged when they first met last year." If finding Mr. Obama "not engaged" is now a firing offense, who among us is safe?

Only the other day, Sen. George LeMieux of Florida attempted to rouse the president to jump-start America's overpaid, overmanned and oversleeping federal bureaucracy and get it to do something about the oil debacle. There are 2,000 oil skimmers in the United States; weeks after the spill, only 20 of them are off the coast of Florida. Seventeen friendly nations with great expertise in the field have offered their own skimmers; the Dutch volunteered their "superskimmers." Mr. Obama turned them all down. Raising the problem, Mr. LeMieux found the president unengaged and uninformed. "He doesn't seem to know the situation about foreign skimmers and domestic skimmers," the senator reported.

He doesn't seem to know, and he doesn't seem to care that he doesn't know, and he doesn't seem to care that he doesn't care. "It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all," Richard Cohen wrote in The Washington Post last week. "For instance, it's not clear that Obama is appalled by China's appalling human rights record. He seems hardly stirred about continued repression in Russia. ... The president seems to stand foursquare for nothing much.

"This, of course, is the Obama enigma: Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?"

Gee, if only your newspaper had thought to ask those fascinating questions oh, say, a month before the Iowa caucuses.

And even today, Mr. Cohen is still giving President Whoisthisguy a pass. After all, whatever he feels about "China's appalling human rights record" or "continued repression in Russia," Mr. Obama is not directly responsible for it. Whereas U.S. and allied deaths in Afghanistan are happening on his watch - and the border villagers killed by unmanned drones are being killed at his behest. Mr. Cohen calls the president "above all, a pragmatist," but with the best will in the world, you can't stretch the definition of "pragmatism" to mean "lack of interest."

"The ugly truth," wrote Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, "is that no one in the Obama White House wanted this Afghan surge. The only reason they proceeded was because no one knew how to get out of it."

Well, that's certainly ugly, but is it the truth? Afghanistan, you'll recall, was supposed to be the Democrats' war, the one they supposedly supported, the one from which the neocons' Iraq adventure was an unnecessary distraction. Granted the Dems' usual shell game - to avoid looking soft on national security, it helps to be in favor of some war other than the one you're opposing - candidate Obama was an especially ripe promoter. In one of the livelier moments of his campaign, he chugged down half a bottle of Geopolitical Viagra and claimed he was hot for invading Pakistan.

Then he found himself in the Oval Office, and the dime-store opportunism was no longer helpful. But, as Mr. Friedman puts it, "no one knew how to get out of it." The "pragmatist" settled for "nuance." He announced a semisurge plus a date for withdrawal of troops to begin. It's not "victory," it's not "defeat," but rather a more sophisticated melange of these two outmoded absolutes: If you need a word, "quagmire" would seem to cover it.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, the Taliban and the Pakistanis on the one hand and Britain and the other American allies heading for the checkout on the other all seem to have grasped the essentials of the message, even if Mr. Friedman and the other media Obammyboppers never quite did. Mr. Karzai is now talking to Islamabad about an accommodation that would see the most viscerally anti-American elements of the Taliban back in Kabul as part of a power-sharing regime. At the height of the shrillest shrieking about the Iraqi "quagmire," was there ever any talk of hard-core Saddamite Baathists returning to government in Baghdad?

To return to Mr. Cohen's question: "Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?" Well, he's a guy who was wafted ever upward from the Harvard Law Review to the state legislature to the U.S. Senate without ever lingering long enough to accomplish anything. "Who is this guy?" Well, when a guy becomes a credible presidential candidate by his mid-40s with no accomplishments other than a couple of memoirs, he evidently has an extraordinary talent for self-promotion, if nothing else. "What are his core beliefs?" It would seem likely that his core belief is in himself. It's the "nothing else" that the likes of Mr. Cohen are belatedly noticing.

Wasn't he kind of unengaged by the health care debate? That's why, for all his speeches, he could never quite articulate a rationale for it. In the end, he was happy to leave it to the Democratic Congress and, when his powers of persuasion failed, let them ram it down the throats of the American people through sheer parliamentary muscle.

Likewise, on Afghanistan, his attitude seems to be "I don't want to hear about it." Unmanned drones take care of a lot of that, for a while. So do his courtiers in the media. Did all those hopey-changers realize that Mr. Obama's war would be run by George W. Bush's defense secretary and general? Hey, never mind: Moveon.org has quietly disappeared its celebrated "General Betray-us" ad from its website. Cindy Sheehan, the supposed conscience of the nation when she was railing against Mr. Bush from the front pages, is an irrelevant kook unworthy of coverage when she protests Mr. Obama. Why, a cynic might almost think the "antiwar" movement was really an anti-Bush movement and the protesters really don't care about dead foreigners, after all. The more things "change you can believe in," the more they stay the same.

Except in one respect. There is a big hole where our strategy should be. It's hard to fight a war without war aims, and in the end, they can only come from the top. It took the oil spill to alert Americans to the unengaged president. From Moscow to Tehran to the caves of Waziristan, our enemies got the message a lot earlier - and long ago figured out the rules of unengagement.

Mark Steyn is author of the New York Times best-seller "America Alone" (Regnery, 2006).

© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC.

 

Sunday's Web

Political Truth and Fact

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

Opinion:
Ordinary Americans face a liberal political conspiracy.  It’s time to fight back

A serious concern exists among many Conservatives these days.

While political omens bode well for Conservatives looking forward to November and their being able to take back America from far left ideologues, liberals continue to hold power sufficient to allow them to do almost anything they wish.

For example, there is virtually no hope of Republicans being able to defeat Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination. 

The Senate is poised to also give Obama an Internet “kill switch” which would empower him to shut down the Internet without Congressional approval.  The Internet is among the most effective voices opposing Obama’s extremism. It is also potentially the most effective tool in rallying conservative voters and getting them out to vote on election day.

There is Obama’s assault on the Arizona immigration law – a law supported by a majority of Americans.  He already imposed his radical health scheme against the will of another substantial majority.

In short, Democrats have ceased to care at all about “the will of the governed” and all that.  They are solidly into “ruling by edict”.  That’s extreme. That’s dangerous. That’s truly scary.

Make no mistake about it, liberals will not surrender November’s outcome easily.  They will fight, scratch, and gouge to prevent defeat.  They are using several groups through which to enhance the turnout of their voters.  One such group is the “Organizing for America” – OFA –  the Obama campaign’s grass root supporters.  OFA is being massaged and prepared for a major push in the election.

Here is an excerpt from an internal OFA memo to its troops, highlighting its planned use of “new technologies”.  Read and heed.

Verbatim:

Organizing for America has an ambitious plan to reach out to voters this election season and—through the Vote 2010 campaign—reconnect with the millions of people who were inspired to participate in the political process for the first time in 2008.

OFA is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering communities across the country to get involved in the issues they care most about, and fight for candidates who will stand with the President.

With the Organizing for America App for iPhone and iPad, you can stay up to date—and involved—no matter where you are.

FEATURES:

• Alerts: An inbox for receiving AirMail messages from OFA that will alert you to breaking news, events in your area, and ways to get involved. AirMail allows you to take action, view video, or RSVP for events within the messages themselves.

• Up-to-the-Minute News: Keep up to date on the latest news about OFA, the 2010 elections, and President Obama. Choose between national and local information, and share your favorite stories via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Find Events: Find local grassroots events near you. Can RSVP, gets maps and directions, and share event details with friends via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Photos & Video: Browse photos and video from Organizing for America, including video messages from the President and scenes from grassroots events across the country.

• Discussion Points: Get the latest information on the issues of the day, so that you’ll have the facts when we're talking to neighbors, friends and family, or voters in your community.

• Call Congress: Calling your member of Congress is one on the most effective ways to make your voice heard on the issues you care about. Easily find the phone number, call, and report the results of your conversation with your representatives.

Study these plans carefully.  Consider the potential.  Think about how conservatives might adopt and adapt similar approaches.

Meanwhile, an outline of steps Conservatives can and should take approaching November is being prepared.  It will be published on this website.  Standby and be prepared to heed its suggestions…or offer suggestions of your own.

In the end, the traditional strategy will remain: Find our voters, Get them to the polls on election day, then Count them fairly, accurately, and securely.

The formula is from Abraham Lincoln’s admonitions for Whigs.  They remain viable today.

Buddy Bishop
Bishop & Associates

The Day’s Top Political News:

Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

President Obama will be handed the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight if the Senate votes for the infamous Internet ‘kill switch’ bill, which was approved by a key Senate committee yesterday and now moves to the floor.

The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman, would hand absolute power to the federal government to close down networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries under a declared national emergency.

Despite the Center for Democracy and Technology and 23 other privacy and technology organizations sending letters to Lieberman and other backers of the bill expressing concerns that the legislation could be used to stifle free speech, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed in the bill in advance of a vote on the Senate floor.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-can-shut-down-internet-for-4-months-under-new-emergency-powers.html

Rapidly advancing movement to eliminate Electoral College shifts control to coasts

A four-year-old effort that effectively would turn the Electoral College out to pasture in the United States by arranging a direct vote of president by the people is gaining strength, and is poised to claim support from states that control 106 of the 270 votes now needed to claim the Oval Office.  The total might be even higher already.

"Eliminating the Electoral College would probably mean at least two things: Elections will become easier to steal and the two-party system will be undermined. So it follows that two types of political parties would benefit the most: Those that don't mind stealing elections and third parties," she wrote.

The California-based National Popular Vote has been working since about 2006 on its plan that would assign Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who has captured the most individual votes in a presidential election nationwide – no matter who has won in an individual state.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=171493

Top meteorologist Says 'global warming' is just Marx-inspired social-engineering scheme

A highly respected meteorologist breaks ranks with his "global warming" peers and proves the hysteria to restrict carbon-dioxide emissions, tax energy programs and create a "Big Brother" to limit household energy use is aimed at one thing only – giving government unlimited control over people.

The revelations from the e-mails hacked last fall from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have reduced the credibility of one of the world's leading atmospheric institutions to "junk science," Meteorologist Brian Sussman says.

As Sussman proves in his new book "Climategate," the science is indeed settled – settled that global warming is a fraud.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=168305

Top blogs:

1.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324732508609048.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

 

Obama and the Woes of the Democrats

The president's low ratings mean he can't lift his party by campaigning.

Karl Rove

Democrats are acknowledging they'll lose ground in the midterms. The only question is how much. Today, the evidence points to quite a lot.

The most important indicator is the president's job approval. In the Real Clear Politics average of the last two weeks' polls, President Obama has a 48% approval and 47% disapproval rating. This points to deep Democratic losses. The president's approval rating last November was 54% when his party was trounced in New Jersey and Virginia.

On the economy, a mid-June AP poll reported that Mr. Obama has 45% approval, 50% disapproval. That's a dangerous place for any president when jobs are issue No. 1.

The problem is worse in swing areas. Last week's National Public Radio (NPR) poll of the 60 Democratic House seats most at risk this year showed just 37% of voters in these districts agreed Mr. Obama's "economic policies helped avert an even worse crisis and are laying a foundation for our eventual economic recovery"; 57% believed they "have run up a record federal deficit while failing to end the recession or slow the record pace of job losses."

Mr. Obama also suffers because his handling of the catastrophic Gulf oil leak has undermined perceptions of his competence. Both national and Louisiana polls rate Mr. Obama's handling worse than the Bush administration's Katrina response, widely viewed as a tipping point in that presidency.

Mr. Obama's failures mean he can't lift his party by campaigning. A Public Policy Poll earlier this month reported that 48% said an Obama endorsement would make them less likely to vote for the candidate receiving it, while only one-third said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the president.

Republicans jumped into the lead last November in Gallup's party generic ballot match-ups among all voters, and since March the GOP has led or been tied every single week except one. In the Rasmussen Poll's tracking among likely voters, Republicans have been ahead by an average of seven points, 44% to 37%, since March. This reflects a significant political development—independents breaking for the GOP.

Then there is the intensity gap, which is particularly important in midterms. In Gallup, 45% of Republicans are "very enthusiastic" about voting this fall versus 24% of Democrats. This staggering 22-point gap is the largest so far this election year. And in the NPR survey of 60 swing Democratic districts, 62% of Republicans rated their likelihood of voting as 10, the highest. Only 37% of Democrats were similarly excited.

All these trends are influencing individual races. State-by-state surveys show that if the election were today, 49 Democrats and 43 Republicans are poised to win in the Senate. Eight races are too close to call, but Republicans lead in five.

House races are historically much more difficult to predict. But the NPR survey found in the 30 Democrat seats considered most at risk, the GOP leads 48% to 39%. This nine-point margin points to Republican winning virtually all 30 seats. In the next tier of most vulnerable Democratic districts, Republicans lead 47% to 45%, meaning the GOP could take many of those 30 seats. By comparison, in the 10 Republican districts thought at risk, Republicans lead 53% to 37%. Republicans should hold virtually all of those.    

It will take a net of 10 Senate and 40 House seats for the GOP to win control of the legislative branches. These are big numbers—but they are within reach.

Democrats do have some advantages. Unlike 1994, they wouldn't be caught unprepared. And they've stockpiled money. The Center for Responsive Politics reports the average Democratic Senate candidate has $2.1 million on hand to the average Republican's $1.4 million; in the House, Democrats average $504,000 to Republicans' $239,000.

But cash won't save the Democrats. Complex combinations of factors decide elections, and this year the driving forces are the president's low standing, his mishandling of the economy, his failure to respond to the oil spill, and the interconnected issues of jobs, spending, deficits and ObamaCare.

It is an explosive mix for Democrats. All these measures—from his job approval to handling the economy and the Gulf oil leak to the generic ballot to intensity—will remain roughly where they are unless a dramatic event causes a shift. That's unlikely: The president can do little to radically improve the landscape.

It has taken a year and a half of bad policies to put Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats in their precarious position. As voters hold them accountable for misdeeds, mistakes and misjudgments, Democrats will endure a beating this year they are not likely to forget soon.

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

2.

Shovel-ready: Democrat-approved, bat-wielding union thugs smash vehicles, bodies at Philadelphia construction site

The same breed of union bosses pulling strings at the White House appear to be using their traditional persuasion techniques in a Philadelphia suburb.

Violence erupted at a King of Prussia construction site Wednesday, and today, police are seeking the public's help to apprehend some bat-wielding assailants.

Officers responded at 7:10 a.m. Wednesday to the King of Prussia Plaza area of Mall Boulevard for reports that union protestors were blocking the entranceway to the new Toys R Us building site. While en route, an assault was reported in the mall parking lot.

Upon arrival, police found two construction trucks with their rear windows completely shattered, and one victim bleeding from the head. The victims said they were blocked by numerous union protesters from entering the construction site, and so they drove to the mall area to await police assistance.

A short time later, a black sedan pulled up and several men exited with baseball bats, ran up to the two trucks and repeatedly slammed the bats into the windows. As the workers exited the trucks, at least two were then physically assaulted with the baseball bats, and one victim had to be hospitalized...

Another victim was able to use his cell phone to photograph the assailants and their vehicle.

Police said the construction site is being protested by Local 401 of the Iron Workers Union... The vehicle was described as a black, four-door Chevrolet with a Pennsylvania license plate. One of the assailants was described as a clean-shaven, white, mid-30s man with short blondish brown hair, about 6-foot-1 with a husky build.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Upper Merion Police Det. James Godby at 610-265-3232.

I, for one, feel comforted that Democrats financially support these kinds of gentle tactics with various carve-outs and payoffs -- from health care, to nationalizing the auto companies, to financial "reform" and state bail-outs.
 
Worthy bunch of blokes, eh?

3.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/why_the_news_makes_you_angry.html

Why the News Makes You Angry

Theodore Dawes

Some time ago, a general manager of the Associated Press, the massive news collective, opined on the importance of "objectivity" in reporting, calling it the Holy Grail of journalism.

He's right, but only in the sense that objectivity is the source and substance of a massive mythology. In fact, there is no such thing as objective reporting. Unfortunately, that has never stopped those who engage in journalism from claiming not only that it exists, but that they practice it.

Objectivity, in the journalistic definition, is a bare-boned restatement of facts, e.g., he said this, she said that. But by the time the reporter gets around to transcribing comments, he has already made a number of decisions, including perhaps the most important one: Is this subject sufficiently compelling to justify my effort and the requisite newsprint or broadcast time?

In fact, there is simply no way to establish objectively what is important and what isn't. The reporter and the editors have to make that decision. Then the reporter, restrained by available column inches (or face time on a broadcast), must pare down the conversation or action, usually by summarizing it. This introduces another layer of subjectivity.

And on, and on, and on.

But! you may be saying to yourself. Can't we at least get both sides of the story?

Well, yes, if both sides are compelling. It's called balance, and it assumes the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, there is no basis in logic for assuming any such thing, and so it has, naturally, been carried to extremes. Though I've never found strong evidence of the event, there is an urban legend that at least one reporter, in the interest of balance, gave equal time to a rapist to give his side of the story. The tale is often used to illustrate the absurd lengths to which "objectivity" by the press could be taken. 

There are more concrete examples.  During the first Iraq War, CNN reporter Peter Arnett was widely criticized for reporting on Operation Desert Storm from Baghdad, where he was fed propaganda daily by the government of Saddam Hussein. In a later television interview, Arnett was asked, "If there was information you could have gotten out that could have saved scores, hundreds of American lives, you wouldn't have transmitted that information?"

Arnett replied, "I would not have transmitted it. I was in Baghdad because I was a correspondent for CNN, which has no political affiliations with the U.S. government, thank goodness." Objectivity would have required him to stand by and watch American soldiers die.

If you think his stance was unusual, you're right. If you think it's unheard of, think again. Michael Schudson, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, has written a number of respected and widely quoted essays on objectivity in journalism. In one, he said:

"Objectivity" is at once a moral ideal, a set of reporting and editing  practices, and an observable pattern of news writing. Its presence can therefore be identified by several measures:

(a) journalists' express allegiance to the norm - in speeches, conferences, formal codes of professional ethics, textbooks in journalism education, debates and discussions in professional journals, and scientific surveys of journalists' opinions. [...]

Arnett simply spoke for those modern journalists who hold "objectivity" as the highest calling. He felt no obligation to act morally -- in any sense of the word you or I might recognize -- because he had a higher moral ideal, which is objectivity, which is by definition amoral. 

If that sounds paradoxical, that's because it is.

It's also remarkably dumb. After all, without some moral basis, facts are useless in determining what is newsworthy. 

Consider: A bomb exploded. 

Or: A bomb exploded in a day care center. 

The first is meaningless data, while the second outrages the moral sense and thus becomes a story. Determining what is newsworthy requires judgment, and that's why the news is always, in small ways and large, a product of the reporter's very subjective viewpoint.

To illustrate the point, let's reconsider the rape story I earlier mentioned, using it as a kind of thought experiment: 

Let's say you were a reporter for the local daily, and you took the call from the young woman who said she was raped. She tells you it took place at a college party, and her rape was abetted by many of the young men in attendance at the party. Would you then interview the alleged rapist to hear his side of the story? 

What if it took place at Duke University, and he was a Lacrosse team member?

The simple fact is, objectivity is useless at determining what is news, and how it should be covered. That requires judgment, not math.

The concept of journalistic objectivity is fairly new. For our first centuries, most newspapers in the U.S. were partisan, serving the political or religious parties that financed them. H.S. Stansaas, writing in Journal of Mass Media Sciences, said it took until 1904 for objective journalism to become commonplace, and only by 1925 had the practice been established as the norm. 

No one can say with certainty where the notion of objectivity came from or how it became an ethical imperative, but it almost certainly had something to do with money. Some say the primary impetus was the introduction of the telegraph, which introduced the delivery of news over long distances (the news wires). The stories had to be palatable to those in both Seattle and in Sewanee. Certainly in the age of three television networks, objectivity -- defined as unobjectionable to all -- was the only business model that made sense.

It is also largely an American invention. Following the recent elections in Great Britain, essayist Paolo Totaro penned the obituary for objectivity in the British press. Addressing his readers, Totaro said,

"The British media have always been politically aligned, worn their colours on their sleeves" I hear you cry. Yes, true. But never has the bias been so obvious, so untramelled, so utterly and completely fearless.

Most conservatives call for more objective reporting. They are completely accurate in declaring the MSM is almost wholly biased to the left. But here is where things get a little sticky. Those on the far left (see The Nation, for example) claim the MSM is tilted to the right. They are also correct.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby recently provided a nice overview of the "lack of ideological diversity" found within most American newsrooms, describing  "the reflexive support for Democrats, the distaste for religion and the military, the cheerleading for liberal enthusiasms from gun control to gay marriage[.]"

Those on the far left, however, say the major media companies are shills for the country's biggest corporations, primarily because they are so beholden to them -- and are, in fact, mostly owned by them. They're absolutely right.

Let's do another thought experiment. Let's say you're the anchor of the lowest-rated evening network news broadcast. You're nevertheless making $15 million a year, which you know is more than the entire combined budgets for NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Handlers dress you. Important people buddy up to you. And somewhere, in your heart of hearts, you know your only real talent is that you're cute as a bug.

Tell me, Katie Couric, how angry are you with Corporate Amerika?

And yet, many people, particularly those in the press corps, deny that there is bias. Conservatives and leftists both say this is self-serving nonsense, and disingenuous at best. Some dishonesty is in play, but there is another mechanism at work, a kind of optical illusion. Call it a trick of perspective.

When conservatives read The New York Times, they can see that the underlying assumptions of the reporters are basically those outlined by Jacoby in his Boston Globe essay. When those on the far left read it, they are frustrated to see capitalism as the working assumption of the American polity. 

But when a New York Times reporter reads the story, he sees objective truth, because he shares his colleague's underlying assumptions. The assumptions disappear, as if by magic, because it is only in conflict that you can recognize someone else's bias.

Okay, we've now established that journalistic objectivity is 1) a new idea, 2) a bad idea, and 3) impossible.

So what do we do next?

We should stop pretending that objectivity is possible, and stop asking our news providers to practice it.

That might sound shocking, but it may be easier to accept if we properly define our current system. We're indebted to the remarkable Marvin Olasky, who has provided exactly that. Olasky, a former journalism professor at the University of Texas and now editor of World magazine, says journalists today engage in "disguised subjectivity." In reality, it isn't objectivity at all, or even the effort to come close. Instead, Olasky says, it involves the practice of "strategic ritual," which he describes as "the process of selecting sources and structuring quotes so that a reporter may advance his view in the news story while claiming objectivity." 

Sound familiar?

In his comment, Olasky provides the key reason why we need to abandon all notions of objectivity. It is in fact the perfect mechanism for slipping ideas and opinions into news stories while leaving  readers unaware they are being propagandized. Under cover of "objectivity," the nation's reporters and editors are providing us not with the truth, but rather with the facts, the quotes, and the views they want us to hear, read, and believe. 

Of course, if you are unaware you are being propagandized -- if you actually believe you're reading the objective truth -- then you are most likely to believe it.

It's the old primrose path, don't you know. And that's why the news makes you angry.

Theodore Dawes is a freelance writer in Mobile, Alabama.

Saturday's Web

Political Truth and Fact

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

Opinion:
Liberals are enemies of normal America and devoid of common sense

Obamacare, Cap and Trade, Arizona boycotts.  The liberal war on ordinary Americans – a majority – continues.  Far left Democrats, including Obama, press on.

A most recent assault is aimed at the ruling by Federal Judge Martin Feldman sagely restoring drilling in the Gulf by slapping down a ban by Ken Salazar, Obama’s Secretary of the Interior.

Salazar is from Colorado, so he is ignorant of daily realities along the coast.  Judge Feldman lives in New Orleans – he fully understands facts that escape Salazar and Obama, and he realizes the ill thought-out moratorium – easy for Washington Bureaucrats who get monthly paychecks from tax payers – to say and to impose, creates massive economic hardships for thousands of residents along the Gulf Coast.

What liberals don’t get (they don’t get a lot when it comes to common sense), is that not just the workers on the oil rigs are ravaged by the moratorium, but so are all the support populations.  The cafes and restaurants, service stations, and other people who depend on providing for families on shore, and from others whose sales come from drilling operations, all suffer from the knee-jerk reaction of the Obama administration which is doing its best to pull its chestnuts out of the fire by caving to demands by environmental extremists.

Obama gets poor grades on his handling of the Gulf Oil Spill from ordinary Americans.  No wonder, he has dithered, posed for photo ops, but done little beyond bash BP.  After all, Obama is obsessed by his dislike of Great Britain.  His father fought the British as a member of the Kenyan terror group, the Mau Mau.

As  has been pointed out by expert after expert who really understand the  problem, there is a multitude of wells being drilled in the Gulf and elsewhere, and we have a single major fiasco.  It might also be pointed out that a need to drill in deep water is a result of demands of those same environmental “greenies” who forced drillers into the deep water, and who block attempts to drill where no environmental damage is threatened – places such as ANWR.

A growing number of the “greenie” extremists are gleefully celebrating a potential for having to face $8 a gallon gasoline.  I mentioned this threat to one “uninvolved” voter and he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “people will just quit buying gas”.

Sadly, such a response fails to note many people have no such option.  People must drive to work (public transportation is available to a minority) and people who haul groceries and other essentials by truch, rail, or airplane,  have to use gasoline and diesel fuels.  They have no choice, and the increased cost will be passed along to the people.

The South cannot work without air conditioning, and the North must have heating oil.

Alternative energy should be developed, of course, but it doesn’t exist today.  For better or for worse, we will depend on oil for decades yet to come.

Liberals and other greenies will do all they can to shut down off shore drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere.  If they succeed, we will watch as Chinese drills work the same oil reserves – OUR oil reserves – at the behest of Cuba.  We will have to buy that oil and buy it at increased prices.

A day or so ago, George Gallup determined the number of self-identified conservatives has grown slightly, while liberals remain static.  Right now, only about 20% of Americans admit being liberal.  That 20% is running things, however, and they will continue to run them until and unless we remove them from power.

Beating Democrats is a good start – but its only a start in taking back America and returning to commonsense government – a government that serves at the pleasure of the people and reflects their will.

Buddy Bishop
Bishop & Associates

The day’s top political news:

Lawmakers guide Dodd-Frank bill for Wall Street reform into homestretch

Nearly two years after tremors on Wall Street set off a historic economic downturn, congressional leaders greenlighted a bill early Friday that would leave the financial industry largely intact but facing a more powerful network of regulators who could impose limits on risky activities.

The final bill took shape after a 20-hour marathon negotiation between House and Senate leaders seeking to reconcile their separate versions. The legislation puts a lot of faith in the watchful eye of regulators to prevent another financial crisis. New agencies would police consumer lending, the invention of financial products and the trading of exotic securities known as derivatives. Bank supervisors would have the power to seize large, troubled financial firms whose collapse could threaten the entire system. The bill calls for banks to hold more money in reserve to weather economic storms but leaves the details to regulators.

But with a few exceptions, the measure avoids dictating to Wall Street what it can and cannot do. The bill does not break up big banks or ban the trading of derivatives. Nor does it significantly streamline the confusing array of financial regulators in Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062500675.html?hpid=topnews

DOJ urges delay on oil spill ruling

The Justice Department is urging a federal appeals court to delay a judge's ruling overturning a drilling moratorium in the Gulf.  In court papers, the Obama administration says the suspensions in deepwater drilling are crucially important to protect human health and the environment from another disaster.

The companies that succeeded in blocking the moratorium "exaggerate by contending that the 'viability of the entire Gulf of Mexico deepwater industry' turns on six months' worth of continued operations at a small fraction of nearly 7,000 active leases," the government said.

The Justice Department said that the lower court judge, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, committed legal error and abused his discretion by blocking the Obama administration moratorium.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/26/doj-urges-appeals-court-delay-oil-spill-ruling/

Ex-VP Cheney hospitalized after having discomfort

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was admitted to the hospital Friday after experiencing discomfort, the latest health scare for the 69-year-old Republican leader who has a long history of heart disease

Cheney was expected to remain at George Washington University Hospital over the weekend, said spokesman Peter Long.

It was not immediately clear whether Cheney's health concern was related to his previous heart troubles. He sustained his last heart attack, deemed a mild one, in February.Cheney was not feeling well on Friday and went to see his doctors at George Washington University. On their advice, he was admitted to the hospital for further testing.

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ex-vp-cheney-hospitalized-557903.html

Top Blogs:

1.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/06/25/lawrence-solomon-avertible-catastrophe/#ixzz0rv21cL5m

How U.S. labor and environmental rules blocked Dutch spill-cleanup technology

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship  more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.

To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn’t capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana’s marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.

The Dutch know how to handle maritime emergencies. In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If the company shows signs of unpreparedness, the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company’s expense. “If there’s a country that’s experienced with building dikes and managing water, it’s the Netherlands,” says Geert Visser, the Dutch consul general in Houston.

In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with “Thanks but no thanks,” remarked Visser, despite BP’s desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer — the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment — unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, “We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water—the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that.” In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they offload their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls “crazy.”

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer — but only partly. Because the U.S. didn’t want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berns. According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work. “Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands,” he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance.

Then again, perhaps he should not be all that perplexed at the American tolerance for turning an accident into a catastrophe. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to Anchorage airport to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment. The Exxon Valdez became the biggest oil spill disaster in U.S. history — until the BP Gulf spill.

Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.

2.

Online Society, Offline Civilization: How the Internet is Ushering in the End of the Age

Selwyn Duke

When people discuss the overall effects of the Internet, they will weigh the good and the bad.  On one side, they may mention how the Web, along with talk radio, has broken the stranglehold over public opinion the mainstream media once enjoyed; on the other, they may cite the pernicious effects of pornography, cyber-bullying or the loss of privacy.  Whatever the analysis and verdict, though, it never truly captures how tangled a Web we have woven.  This is because seldom recognized is a simple and profound fact: The Internet is one of the most powerful forces ever unleashed by mankind.

   The (Mis-)Information Bomb

We have numerous sayings alluding to the power of ideas, such as “Knowledge is power,” “The pen is mightier than the sword” and “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”  And with modern forms of communication, such as radio and television — and now the Internet — ideas can be transmitted at a rate unfathomable for most of man’s existence. 

This makes civilization very unstable.  Think about it:

http://selwynduke.typepad.com/selwyndukecom/2010/06/online_society_offline_civilization.html

3.

Mid-Term Morsels

A Commnetary by Larry J. Sabato

On Tuesday, political junkies were treated to the latest in a seemingly unending series of primaries. Several critical statewide nominations were determined in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah. Our updates, written by the voters more than us, are below.

NORTH CAROLINA SENATE : The national political party hierarchies on both sides have had difficulty in this anti-establishment year in selling local activists on all their choices. The Tar Heel State gave us another example on Tuesday in the Democratic runoff for U.S. Senate. For a year, D.C. pooh-bahs have been pushing former state Sen. Cal Cunningham as a telegenic veteran who could take down U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) this November. Most of the Democratic top brass enthusiastically agreed with the Cunningham pick. Problem was, Cunningham was seen as too conservative by the actual Democratic voters who showed up in North Carolina’s very low-turnout election. They preferred Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who finished first in the primary by a considerable margin, 36.4% to Cunningham’s 27.2%. With strong African-American support, Marshall cruised to a crushing victory in Tuesday’s runoff, garnering 60%. Republicans were delighted, and they had been hoping to face Marshall rather than Cunningham. The in
cumbent Burr, with a fat war chest of $5 million running in a GOP-leaning year, has a very good chance of breaking the jinx that has cursed this seat for decades. No incumbent has been reelected to it since 1968, when the legendary Sam Ervin (D) won his final term. In fact, this is the most unstable seat in the entire Senate. Nonetheless, we have long leaned it to Burr, and by the fall, we wouldn’t be surprised if our rating changes to “Likely Republican”. LEANS REPUBLICAN

SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR : If politics is entertainment, then South Carolina has become Broadway. Who woulda thunk it? To no one’s surprise, state Rep. Nikki Haley roared to a massive victory in the GOP gubernatorial runoff against white-bread Congressman Gresham Barrett. Having come agonizingly close to an outright majority in the first primary two weeks ago, Haley crushed Barrett by 65% to 35%. (This surprised some state observers, who had predicted something closer to 55% for Haley.) As everyone now knows, Haley is poised to become the first female Sikh Indian governor of any American state (though she says she has converted to Christianity). The national party actually got the candidate it wanted here, recognizing the image-changing potential of a Haley governorship. Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and a host of other party stars weighed in for Haley. As likely as her November victory appears today, Haley’s candidacy is not without risks. During the campaign two men involved in Palmetto State politics claimed to
have had affairs with the married, “family values” Haley. The claims remain unproven, and Haley was given the benefit of the doubt. Should there be any further revelations, however, Haley could be damaged in the general election. The Palmetto State has been deeply embarrassed by its erratic outgoing Gov. Mark Sanford (R), whose hidden relationship with an Argentinean woman and irresponsible abandonment of his duties made South Carolina a national laughing stock. Sanford supported Haley, but so did his former wife Jenny; there was no question which Sanford’s support was more helpful. (In one of the oddest moments of the 2010 campaign season so far, both Sanford and his ex-wife showed up at Haley’s victory party, while infidelity-challenged Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign song, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” played in the background. You can’t make this stuff up.) The Democrats have chosen a charismatic, moderate state senator, Vince Sheheen, as their nominee for governor. Every now and then, South Carolina
voters will elevate a Democrat to the statehouse, but usually the Republicans have to be divided or scandalized. So far that isn’t true, and the national GOP will pull out all the stops for Haley. Barring further disclosures about Haley, we rate this one LIKELY REPUBLICAN .

UTAH SENATE: Tuesday’s results in the Beehive State are an unalloyed victory for the Tea Party, as well as conservative groups like the Club for Growth and the website RedState.com. The biggest news unfolded at the Republican state convention in May, when three-term U.S. Senator Bob Bennett (R) was ousted in a grassroots rebellion of anti-Washington voters. Bennett finished dead third, and attorney Mike Lee and businessman Tim Bridgewater—both of whom had some substantial Tea Party backing—were sent into the party primary. Bridgewater had actually placed first at the convention, and nearly received the 60% of the vote needed for outright nomination. Therefore, he was considered a slight favorite in the primary. Bennett considered Bridgewater the more acceptable choice for his seat, and the more moderate elements in the Utah GOP coalesced behind him. By contrast, Lee is a fierce conservative, and he was championed by those who want a major shake-up in the Senate’s way of doing business. (GOP Senate nominees Ra
nd Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada benefited from similar intensity.) This contest went down to the wire, and was the closest statewide result in all of Tuesday’s primaries. Lee edged Bridgewater by 51.1% to 48.9%, a margin of about 4,000 votes. In one of the two or three most Republican states of the Union, Lee is all but guaranteed victory in November, and at age 39, he could serve for a long time in a state that normally reelects its incumbents. Since 1958, for instance, senators from Utah have served an average of 22 years—and no one has been as young as Lee. SAFE REPUBLICAN

Larry J. Sabato is the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

 

Friday's Web

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

The day’s top political news

U.S. Lawmakers Reach Accord on Radical New Finance Rules

After more than 20 hours of continuous wrangling, congressional Democrats and White House officials reached agreement on the final shape of legislation that would transform financial regulation, avoiding last-minute defections among New York lawmakers that had threatened to upend the bill.

The bill is expected to have enough support to become law. Both chambers plan to vote next week. The margin in the House and Senate will likely be close because most Republicans are expected to oppose the measure.

The agreement is tougher on the banking industry than officials in the Treasury Department anticipated.  Lawmakers agreed to a provision known as the "Volcker" rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which prohibits banks from making risky bets with their own funds.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703615104575328020013164184.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEADNewsCollection

Obama losing Support of Hill liberal Democrats regarding the war

As President Barack Obama reaffirms his Afghanistan policy, he’s also emboldening critics in Congress who think he should use a shakeup in commanding generals to change the course of what they believe is an intractable war.

Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern fired off a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asking her to hold off on a war-funding bill until Congress can assess the full fallout of a Rolling Stone article that concluded — without correction from the White House — that the president and his commanders have been backing off plans to withdraw starting in July 2011.

The bottom line: The president and congressional critics, long on a collision course over the war in Afghanistan, are hurtling ever faster toward each other since the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and doves on Capitol Hill are feeling a little tougher right now.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39010.html#ixzz0rsN2SBEq

Judge Feldman Faces Death Threats After BP Gulf Oil Drilling Moratorium Ruling

Federal Judge Martin Feldman, who struck down the Obama drilling ban is now receiving death threats in the aftermath of his bold ruling. Last night, Feldman served as a celebrity judge at a cooking contest Due to the threats, Feldman was accompanied by a federal marshal security team.

The Judge has been blasted for owning stock in Transocean, Ltd and Halliburton, two of the major companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. However, Feldman owned those stocks in 2008; he sold those shares long before issuing his ruling this week.

If Feldman held financial interests in any of companies involved in the lawsuit or the Deepwater Horizon rig, he would not have been allowed the take the case.  While environmentalist wackos threaten his life, Feldman, by his ruling, has saved the jobs of thousands along the Gulf coast.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/buzz/latest-buzz/10729-gulf-oil-moratorium-judge-threatened

Gallup:

Conservatives have maintained their leading position among U.S. ideological groups in the first half of 2010. Gallup finds 42% of Americans describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative. This is up slightly from the 40% seen for all of 2009 and contrasts with the 20% calling themselves liberal or very liberal.

Opinion:
The General McChrystal fiasco is not over.  The Far left plots against our military

A saying in Washington holds “if something seems easy and simple, it almost certainly is not”. (If such a statement doesn’t exist, it should)

Such is the case of General Stanley McChrystal and the flap surrounding negative comments regarding politicians to which he was required to report .  Obama had no choice but to fire McChrystal,  None at all.
 
Within less than 48 hours after the story broke, the General was back in DC, required to hand in a resignation, and was instantly replaced by General Petraeus who held the job previously.

The quick execution of McChrystal, paired with sending in General Petraeus – a proven replacement,  had liberal pundits agog with praise for Obama and Conservative pundits also endorsomg the action. 

However, once the shouting died, it was clear the nation had not escaped a crisis, but, instead, finds itself in a “not so fast, my friend” moment.

The banter among the McChrystal associates reveals a pervasive sentiment within the highest elements of our front line military, that is disdainful of Team Obama’s people..  Given the critical banter came in the presence of a reporter suggests such negative attitudes are rather wide spread.

People in the military making derogatory remarks about politicians is not new. Obama has never been a favorite of military people at any level.  This, despite McChrystal’s admission of having voted for Obama.

Incredibly restrictive rules of engagement imposed by Team Obama, are wildly unpopular – and are widely viewed as irresponsible.  The rules are designed to protect civilian lives, but they go far overboard in their reach and restrictions.

Elements of the limitations may place US military lives at increased risk.  Most military people see the restrictions as more than absurd.  Thus the critical comments by the General and his people.

But if Obama’s rules in warfare are disdained by the military, they are despised by far left politicians.  They oppose the war entirely.

“Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern fired off a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asking her to hold off on a war-funding bill until Congress can assess the full fallout of a Rolling Stone article

(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39010.html#ixzz0rsOCgObC)

“Of the McChrystal-Petraeus trade, (Massachusetts Democrat Congressman Jim) McGovern said, “Same menu, different waiter.”

“The bottom line: The president and congressional critics, long on a collision course over the war in Afghanistan, are hurtling ever faster toward each other since the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and doves on Capitol Hill are feeling a little tougher right now.

“War critics say Obama is missing a golden opportunity to use the McChrystal flap as an excuse to reshape his policy in Afghanistan. Instead, he’s reaffirming a policy that was shaped in large measure by McChrystal and using acclaimed Gen. David Petraeus to execute it, leaving himself little room to cast blame should things go wrong.“

Conservatives and other common-sense Americans have long criticized Obama’s having set a specific time at which the US would withdraw its forces – not only from Iraq, but from Afghanistan as well.  Such a decision is irresponsible and foolish according to many people.

The withdrawal policy reflects the usual Democrat military strategy of “cut, run, and surrender to the enemy”. Democrats resent being accused of such, but facts are facts, and reality is reality.

Given the Democrat-rules of engagement which seriously restrict US forces in combat, and Democrat plans for withdrawal, provide military people with ample motivation for resentment.

Given the far left anti war push on Capitol Hill, even General Petraeus faces a challenge that is “daunting”.  It’s as if he is being asked to fight a war with one hand tied behind him.  That’s precisely the sort of posture far left Democrats would like to see imposed.

Buddy

Congressman Spencer Bachus Votes to Prevent the IRS from enforcing Obamacare

 
WASHINGTON – Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL-6) today said the Obama Administration should be barred from using I.R.S. agents to implement its government takeover of the health care system.
 
    Bachus voted to deny funding to allow the I.R.S. to hire up to 15,000 new agents to enforce an individual mandate to buy insurance, which is facing a legal challenge in court.  The measure, which would save taxpayers $5 to $10 billion and was inspired by the YouCut program, was defeated on a procedural vote by the Democrat majority.
 
    “The American people do not want the Obama Administration using the power of the I.R.S. to carry out an unconstitutional health care scheme.  The I.R.S. has no right snooping into the personal records of individuals and businesses in Alabama to see if they have bought a government-approved health plan that most likely will mandate abortion coverage.  The message to federal bureaucrats and the I.R.S. is to stay out of the personal health care of Americans,” Bachus said.
 
    Bachus has cosponsored legislation to repeal the government health care takeover and replace it with commonsense reforms.
 
    Congressman Bachus’ website, www.bachus.house.gov, has information on participation in the YouCut program, which this week recorded its 1,000,000th vote.

Top blogs:

1.

The Leftist 'Purification' Movement

Andrew Thomas

To the contemporary conservative, progressive ideology is often murky and incomprehensible.  It is very difficult for some on the right to understand the apparently illogical and unrealistic machinations of the radical leftist mindset.  Their political objectives, if achieved, inevitably lead to further demands for concessions toward an ever-greater ideological purity. 

Something even darker and more malevolent is happening, however.  The various radical leftist factions and special interest groups are rapidly coalescing into a global movement.

A comprehensive and enlightening treatise on this topic was recently published in Orbis, the Foreign Policy Research Institute's journal of world affairs, written by University of Buffalo professor Ernest Sternberg.  The article is titled, "Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For".  It will open your eyes and scare you to death.

In Steinberg's analysis, from the historical ashes of failed fascist and communist regimes a new totalitarian ideology is emerging:

Though a mouthful, world purificationism would do well in expressing what the movement wants.  It wants to achieve a grand historical vision: the anticipated defeat of imperial capitalist power in favor of a global network of beneficent culture-communities, which will empower themselves through grassroots participatory democracy, and maintain consistency across movements through the rectifying power of NGOs  (Non-Governmental Organizations), thereby bringing into being a new era of global social justice and sustainable development, in which the diverse communities can harmoniously share an earth that has been saved from destruction and remade pristine.

The sworn enemy of the purifiers is simply referred to as "Empire" (preceding it with "the Evil" is not necessary, apparently).  Empire's evil manifestations are capitalism and Zionism.  The geographical focus of purificationism's hatred is the United States and Israel.

Steinberg compares the new movement to previous anti-capitalist and anti-Zionist movements:

Unmentionable for decades in progressive scholarly company, the similarity between totalitarianisms has once again received academic attention, in part because of interest in comparing Soviet, Maoist, Khmer, and Nazi genocides. The new work has renewed appreciation that fascism and communism did not just have similar regimes. They also shared parallel ideologies. [...]

Convinced that they have this unique mission, they must motivate hatred of opponents.  They carry out or at least legitimize ruthless violence.  And they assert the privilege to shape life's purpose and meaning for millions.

The purificationist dream is a world without borders, governed by a global network of NGO's.  Almost all current activist organizations containing the words "green", "justice", "peace", or "solidarity" would find a position in the ruling structure.  These NGO's would gravitate toward forming a totalitarian regime since, as Steinberg points out, they are "unaccountable to an electorate and escape political checks and balances..."

Even more disturbing is the increasing coalition between progressivism and radical Islam.  Steinberg's piece includes a quote from George Galloway, a progressive British parliamentarian, when asked if Muslims and progressives could unite in a common cause:

Not only do I think it's possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies... They have the same interest in opposing savage capitalist globalization which is intent upon homogenizing the entire world turning us basically into factory chickens which can be forced fed the American diet of everything from food to Coca-Cola to movies and TV culture... So on the very grave

big issues of the day -- issues of war, occupation, justice, opposition to globalization -- the Muslims and the progressives are on the same side.

To me, this sounds like a coalition between factory chickens and poultry butchers.  But it exemplifies the unreality in the strategic thinking of progressives.  They visualize a world of communities living in perfect harmony with nature and each other, with minimal industrial activity, no profit motive, and no greed.  Everyone is tolerant of others' beliefs (unless they are capitalists or conservatives).  How they intend to deal with the violent intolerance of Islam toward other religions and cultures is not considered. 

It is imperative to thoroughly understand this evolving ideological movement in order to effectively resist it.  The socialist ideology is so pervasive that it will probably never be completely defeated.  Time after time, it has been seemingly destroyed and discredited, only to rise again in a new incarnation.  Its adherents play by no rules (other than Alinsky's), and their ends justify any means required. 

One issue that Steinberg does not address is the pervasive, unrelenting propaganda machine that constitutes the progressive mainstream media.  As long as free-thinking individuals are misled and kept ignorant of the purificationist agenda, the infiltration of our institutions and the destruction of our freedoms and values will continue.

We who believe in capitalism, the US Constitution, and individual liberty must do everything possible to educate others and disrupt this movement.   Otherwise, the sweet dreams of the purifiers will inevitably result in an unending totalitarian nightmare of global proportions.
 
Andrew Thomas blogs at darkangelpolitics.com

2.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/538452/201006241907/Obama-Drama-Is-Classic-Tragedy-Would-Be-God-Heading-For-A-Fall.aspx

Obama Drama Is Classic Tragedy: Would-Be God Heading For A Fall

Victor Davis Hanson

Do you remember candidate Barack Obama offering his hope-and-change platitudes in front of the fake Greek columns during the Democratic convention? Or earlier pontificating at the Victory Monument in Berlin?

Why didn't an old cigar-chomping Democratic pro take him aside and warn him about offending Nemesis? She is the dreaded goddess who brings divine retribution in ironic fashion to overweening arrogance.

Or maybe a friend could have whispered to Sen. Obama to tone it down when he was merciless in damning the Bush administration for its supposedly slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

Obama railed that Bush showed "unconscionable ineptitude." Obama further charged that Bush's response was "achingly slow," a result of "passive indifference," and that his team was rife with "corruption and cronyism."

Those adjectives now apply to Obama himself, as he seems lost amid his own disaster — eerily in about the same Gulf environs. Adding insult to injury, a recent poll revealed that Louisiana residents thought Bush had done a better job with Katrina than Obama has with BP.

Couldn't one of Obama's many handlers have warned him to ignore the media's tingling-leg gaga worship, or their nonsense that Obama is "a god"?

Didn't Team Obama ever suspect that such an unhinged press, in the manner of a Greek chorus, could just as easily sour on their prophet once his poll ratings fell as quickly as they had soared?

Couldn't David Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel have admonished their candidate to cut out the creepy stuff about himself and his throng being "the ones we've been waiting for"? Why was there a need for all that megalomaniac hocus-pocus about slowing the "rise of the oceans" and healing the planet? Sure enough, Nemesis ensured that instead of Lord Poseidon lowering the seas, Obama is now a smoky Hephaestus fouling them up.

Did the Nobel Committee members really think they were doing their post-national, post-racial heartthrob any good by giving him a peace prize without any record of foreign-policy accomplishment?

Didn't his Scandinavian admirers grasp that prophets suffer the wages of hypocrisy far more readily than mere mortals when things go badly, as they inevitably do?

Jay Leno is now more likely to use the phrase "Nobel Laureate Obama" than a serious diplomat.

For nearly two years, senator, candidate and freshman President Obama ridiculed his predecessor — as if running the United States were as easy a job as community organizing, serving a couple of years in the Senate or campaigning for president.

But now the once-enthralled electorate is starting to tire of the hope-and-change platitudes, and even of the easy blame-gaming of his predecessor, mostly because almost everything Obama once demagogued in weird fashion is coming back to haunt him.

Obama easily damned everything from Guantanamo Bay to Predator drone attacks in Afghanistan to the war in Iraq, only to adopt those policies and more from Bush.

He sermonized about the morals of a corrupt Republican Congress, only to keep quiet about earmarks, lobbyists and the sins of Democratic cronies such as Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Charles Rangel. Deficits were once supposed proof of Bush's out-of-control spending. What does far-greater red ink say about Obama?

If only swaggering George W. Bush could have been smart enough to reach out to Cuba, Iran and Syria. Then Obama did just that, only to make bad things even worse.

And remember the Obama comment about an arrogant Bush turning off our allies? Why, then, does an aloof Obama seem to alienate them even more?

The reality of Barack Obama is that he was an inexperienced community organizer with an undistinguished record as a Senate newcomer. A perfect storm of popular anger at eight years of George W. Bush, a lackluster John McCain campaign, Obama's landmark candidacy as an African-American, a disingenuous campaign promising centrist and bipartisan governance, and the financial meltdown in 2008 got the relatively untried and unknown Obama elected.

Most mortals in Obama's position would have treaded lightly. They would have kept promises, steered a moderate course and listened more than lectured until they won over the public with concrete achievement.

But headstrong tragic figures do not do that. They neither welcome in critics nor would listen to them if they did. They impute their unforeseen temporary success to their own brilliance — and expect it to continue forever. So would-be gods set themselves up for a fall far harder than what happens to the rest of us.

That's about where we are now, with our president playing a character right out of Greek tragedy, who, true to form, is railing about the unfairness of it all.

• Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of "The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern."

3.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=538453&p=2

The Bait-And-Switch On Cap-And-Trade

Richard L. Gordon

President Obama's speech to the nation last week about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico followed a predictable script. Whenever a problem confronts this administration, the president's answer is sure to include one of a trio of his 2008 campaign initiatives: health care reform, action to address climate change or education reform.

Obama claimed in 2008, for instance, that these long-term, slowly acting changes were a fix for a temporary downturn in the economy. Now, in an even greater leap of logic, he contends that the 1,427-page Waxman-Markey bill (which addresses climate change) is the proper response to the oil spill.

Obama's advocacy of this bill exemplifies the incoherence and dishonesty of our present debate about energy policy. Two distinct problems — those associated with oil imports and those associated with greenhouse gas emissions — are treated as if they were one and the same.

At a minimum, those alleged problems have wildly different causes necessitating equally different responses. If we fear oil imports, we should tax foreign oil or administratively restrict imports. If we fear greenhouse gas emissions, we should tax those emissions or administratively restrict their release.

Those direct responses will by definition increase the price of gasoline in the first case and all forms of fossil fuels to varying degrees in the second. The more "progress" we wish to achieve in the course of our pursuit of "energy independence" or a carbon-free energy economy, the larger the price increases will have to be.

The president eschews direct confrontation with these alleged menaces because the public has little stomach for major, sustained increases in energy prices, particularly when the economy is ailing and gasoline prices are at historically rather high levels.

So he followed the established but failed practice of proposing complex, indirect remedies that aim to hide costs from consumers (and thus, voters). At best, this political sleight-of-hand makes import reductions and emission controls far more costly to achieve than would otherwise be the case. Economic harm is the more likely outcome.

Regardless, the animus toward foreign oil is unjustified. Historically, domestic energy producers have claimed that foreign suppliers are unreliable in order to restrict competition. Unfortunately, those arguments are readily embraced by the economically gullible.

Given the large number of suppliers and low transportation costs, a loss of supply from any one source can be relatively easily answered by buying from another. Fears of coordinated producer blackmail run aground on the fact that suppliers need us far more than we need them. That's because the typical oil-exporting country is undiversified and a loss of oil revenue would destroy its economy. An oil supply disruption, however, would do far less damage to industrialized importers.

Similarly, if greenhouse gas emissions are a problem (and it is not altogether clear that they are), direct control of greenhouse-gas emissions is preferable to a complex set of rules. Economists dealing with these issues recognize that, in principle, either a carbon tax or a pure allocation of emission rights (popularly termed cap-and-trade) would work best.

Many prefer a simple tax because experience with quota systems proves that difficult problems arise regarding how to allocate the initial rights to emit. Regardless, even fervent supporters of action have long recognized that U.S. emission reductions were futile unless China and India also acted. Otherwise, warming will scarcely be affected.

Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe that U.S. action will prompt similar action in those states.

Waxman-Markey, despite its own and the president's suggestions to the contrary, is predominantly a greenhouse-gas control measure. It works on imports very indirectly (and very minimally) by attempting a long-term re-engineering of the car.

More importantly, the bill imposes a convoluted cap-and-trade program with every conceivable problem that might be imagined with such programs.

Exceptions are provided for politically well-connected industries. Permits are first given away and then subsequently auctioned with the funds to be used to underwrite various inefficient corporate subsidies, a regime so complicated and convoluted that the relevant provisions constitute over half of the sprawling bill. They are preceded by many pages dictating how electricity is to be generated and what fuels shall be used.

In sum, even accepting that there is a problem to solve, the bill's dictates violate virtually everything that economists know about designing an efficient environmental policy.

Would the Gulf spill have been any less damaging or any less likely to occur had Waxman-Markey been passed, say, 10 or 20 years ago? Of course not. No matter what one thinks about the merits of the bill, it would not have reduced the profits associated with oil production enough to have deterred investment in the deep waters of the Gulf.

Nor would it have changed any of the decisions made by BP officials on the Deepwater Horizon platform or any of the BP management practices that allegedly made an accident more likely.

In short, the president's speech to the nation was a classic political bait-and-switch maneuver that, unfortunately, errs not only by embracing make-believe solutions but bad make-believe solutions at that.

• Gordon is professor emeritus of mineral economics in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.

 

Thursday's Web

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

The Day's Top Political News:

Pelosi begs for donations to fend off potential GOP investigations

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking supporters for contributions to help prevent the "subpoenas and investigations" that would result from a GOP majority.

In a fundraising letter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Pelosi says if Republicans take back the House, they'll initiate "endless investigations against President Obama" and "bring back the days of Ken Starr and the politics of personal destruction."

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, says Pelosi was effectively seeking "immunity" for the Obama administration.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/105013-pelosi-asks-for-donations-to-fend-off-gop-investigations

48% See Government Today As A Threat to Individual Rights

Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.

Additionally, most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. Just 31% say promoting economic growth is more important. But again a sizable number (17%) of Adults aren't sure which is more important.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2010/48_see_government_today_as_a_threat_to_individual_rights

Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook

Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation's economy and environment.

Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure.

Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years. The results show "a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. "The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703900004575325263274951230.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

SPECIAL REPORT:

Bachus. Republicans Blocked from Addressing Fannie/Freddie Reform by Chairman Frank

WASHINGTON – Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL-6)  says Chairman Barney Frank’s outright ban on consideration of amendments to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed government controlled housing enterprises, is an abandonment of congressional responsibility and the direct result of Democrats controlling negotiations on a financial regulatory bill to protect their taxpayer-funded bailouts.
 
Bachus, who is Ranking Member on the Committee, today was blocked from bringing up reform proposals during a House-Senate conference on the regulatory bill. 
 
“Without the ability to even debate how to end the unlimited bailouts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, meaningful GSE reform, which should have been our top priority in this conference, will never come,” said Bachus, who is a conferee on the bill. “Instead, we have focused on other matters, many that are unrelated to the financial crisis, and allowed the GSEs to bleed more than $146 billion of taxpayer dollars without any plan to staunch the losses. 
 
“Just like their lack of a budget, this is a complete abdication of their congressional responsibility.  Thanks to the cameras, now the public knows what the Democrats look like when they protect government bailouts over the interests of taxpayers,’ Bachus said.
 
Under Bachus’ leadership, Republicans on the Financial Services Committee have consistently offered legislation and proposals to end the growing taxpayer bailout of the housing finance entities, which are considered one of the root causes of the financial crisis. 

Opinion:
A State of Obama Report – current version

General Stanley McChrystal is an unmitigated genius.  He accomplished what no one else has.  The General has caused a lot of ordinary Americans – real Americans – to actually praise something Obama has done.

Obama had to sack McChrystal, because the general had been dumb enough to trust a reporter..

McChrystal and his aides allowed a reporter into their midst, and their comments left no doubt of their disdain for Obama, Vice President Biden, and other politicians.  They made snide comments picked up and published by the Rolling Stone Magazine

Many might wonder why McChrystal didn’t fight back.  After all, “truth remains an absolute defense”. 

None the less, McChrystal is gone and :General Petraeus is back running things … facing a stupid an irresponsible Obama deadline for cutting and running next summer about this time.

Al Qaeda and other terrorists have only to wait for Obama’s deadline.  Meanwhile, they can strike cold terror into the hearts of all the Americans will leave behind.  Those seen cooperating with Americans, will be doomed to slaughter when Al Qaeda takes over again.

Meanwhile, Federal Judge Martin Feldman proved not everyone in our judiciary are fools.  He revoked the Obama moratorium on off-shore drilling in the Gulf – an act bailing out thousands of oil workers and others on the Gulf coast.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, moved immediately to worm his way out of Marty Feldman’s rescue effort by conspiring to craft another drilling moratorium.  Especially in the Gulf, Obama is a dedicated enemy of jobs.

He has even blocked desperate efforts of Governor Bobby Jindal to save the fragile ecology of Louisiana.  Obama’s people have ruled against sand berms – a move to block the spread of oil before it reaches the short.  The smack down of the berms comes at the behest of the “green” idiots on the left – people who never miss a chance to make “environmentalist” a dirty word – one suggesting irresponsibility.

But the “Green” lefties, the stricken oil drill wouldn’t have been forced into mile deep water – in fact if Greenies had been shoved aside, the US would be drilling for oil in places such as ANWR where there is no environmental risk,

No wonder a majority of Americans see the country on a wrong track and why they don’t trust Obama, and see that status in growing numbers.  Multitudes pray these disaffected Americans will express their views by voting to oust the radical Democrat liberals in November.

As if these Obama-Democrat fiascos were not enough for just one week, Obama may also be planning to bypass Congress, conspire against the Constitution (again), and use Executive Order power to grant amnesty to the 12 to 14 million illegal aliens in the country – rewarding criminal behavior.

Liberals are total failures in military matters. 

On immigration matters, they believe illegal aliens are just simple people trying to find jobs in order to feed their families.  A dumb assumption. A substantial and growing number of those sneaking into this country are our enemies and potential enemies with goals and objectives against ordinary Americans and their families.  Nor are all these aliens Latinos.   A growing number are from the Middle East and from Asia.

Too bad McChrystal had to fall on his sword in order to call a spade a spade regarding politicians with whom he had to work.  Irresponsibility on the part of Obama and Democrats overall, suggest America faces a time in which strong military leadership is crucial for survival.  America also needs people willing to speak without fear or timidity.

There are far too few such people.

Buddy

Top Blogs:

1.

Unbelievable: Salazar Announces 2nd Obamoratorium To Come

As Louisiana basks in the glow of Judge Martin Feldman’s ruling savaging the Obama administration’s “edict” banning deepwater offshore oil drilling, the President’s bureaucrats are busy concocting yet another Obamoratorium.

CNN reports that this second ban will be coming in the next few days. Details on how it would differ from the original ban thrown overboard by Feldman were not available; neither were statements as to how Obamoratorium 2.0 would overcome the legal issues – among those, the requirement in federal law to assess economic impacts on affected parties prior to creating federal law by executive fiat – which fell afoul of Feldman’s judgement today.

“We see clear evidence every day, as oil spills from BP’s well, of the need for a pause on deepwater drilling,” Salazar said in a statement quoted in the report. “That evidence mounts as BP continues to be unable to stop its blowout, notwithstanding the huge efforts and help from the federal scientific team and most major oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The statement from the Interior Secretary, whose tenure in office has been marked by a seemingly endless string of controversy and error, seems awfully close to outright disregard of a 22-page federal court ruling which castigated the administration for what it implies was a fraudulent bait-and-switch treatment of its expert panel advising on actions to follow the Gulf oil spill and which objected strongly to the promulgation of a ban without input from local stakeholders as required by law.

Salazar’s statement continues the argument the government lost in the hearing with Feldman on Monday – namely, that the BP spill was a “game-changer.” In that contention, the Obama administration is in a small minority comprised largely of left-wing environmentalist radicals. The vast majority of Louisianians and a majority of Americans in poll after poll offer decisive evidence that the country wants offshore drilling to continue. And people with a knowledge of the oil business continue to speak out against the Obamoratorium.

Reaction to the announcement among Louisianians and others with a stake in the issue has been fiery, if nothing else.

“Arrogance doesn’t begin to describe these people,” said one commenter on a New Orleans-based forum.

“If Salazar has new arguments or facts in support of a decision to impose a moratorium, he must present them to Judge Feldman,” said another on a Louisiana political board. “The judge decides, not the secretary of the Interior. If Salazar issues such an order, I’ll guarantee, Feldman will issue a subpoena sua sponte for Salazar to appear before him and show cause why he should not be held in contempt.”

“The Judge ruled that the government did not show adequate proof to invoke the Moratorium,” a Facebook commenter said. “So Salazar said he is re-issuing the Moratorium in more detailed language which will include proof to stand up in court. They have to do that so that maybe Obama won’t get impeached when he directs MMS to deny permits anyway.”

“Can’t we get a protective order against Salazar?” asked another Facebook correspondent.

Louisiana Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu sounded a similar note even before news of a second Obamoratorium. “I’m going to strongly urge the administration not to appeal this ruling, but to try to find a way forward that would achieve the president’s goals for safety and responsibility, but at the same time would not jeopardize and threaten a very vibrant and necessary industry for decades,” she said.

In a move which seems suspiciously related to the Feldman ruling, the federal government has now ordered a halt to Louisiana’s sand berm project, raining down a curtain of red tape as of midnight on Wednesday.

The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.

The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the dredging plan, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, pleading for the work to continue.

Nungesser said the government has asked crews to move the dredging site two more miles farther off the coastline.

“Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil,” Nungesser wrote to Obama. “Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil.

Nungesser has asked for the dredging to continue for the next seven days, the amount of time it would take to move the dredging operations two miles and out resume work.

President Obama, you cannot ask the people of Louisiana to believe anything other than that this is petty revenge on the state for standing in the way of your diktats. It’s un-American and extra-legal, and we will not stand for it.

Our suggestion for fighting fire with fire remains on the table, and we encourage Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to break the glass on it at his leisure.

2.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/06/23/the-threat-of-illegal-alien-amnesty-by-executive-order/

The threat of illegal alien amnesty-by-executive order

Michelle Malkin 
 
NumbersUSA posted a letter on Monday from GOP Sen. Grassley and seven other Republican Senators challenging the White House on rumors of illegal alien-amnesty-by-executive order. The gist of it:

We understand that there’s a push for your Administration to develop a plan to unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States. We understand that the Administration may include aliens who have willfully overstayed their visas or filed for benefits knowing that they will not be eligible for a status for years to come. We understand that deferred action and parole are discretionary actions reserved for individual cases that present unusual, emergent or humanitarian circumstances. Deferred action and parole were not intended to be used to confer a status or offer protection to large groups of illegal aliens, even if the agency claims that they look at each case on a “case-by-case” basis.

While we agree our immigration laws need to be fixed, we are deeply concerned about the potential expansion of deferred action or parole for a large illegal alien population. While deferred action and parole are Executive Branch authorities, they should not be used to circumvent Congress’ constitutional authority to legislate immigration policy, particularly as it relates to the illegal population in the United States.

This administration has accomplished its major policy agenda items through force, fiat, and fraud. Immigration will be no different.

More to the point, as I’ve reported many times and in-depth in my blog posts, colum ns, and books, open-borders activists and open-borders politicians have accomplished illegal alien amnesty-by-special order with almost no grass-roots resistance for years.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations support non-enforcement orders on deportation.

Both Republicans and Democrats have sponsored “special relief” bills to grant amnesty to illegal alien criminals.

3.

The Obama Impeachment Sweepstakes Are Heating Up

In more and more respectable circles -- i.e., not this blog -- and on a more and more frequent basis, politicos and pundits are bandying about the I-word. No, not the I-word that President Obama won't use (Islam), but impeachment itself. Consider:

• At the invaluable American Thinker, attorney Raymond Richman asks, "Is Obama's BP shakedown an impeachable offense?" Richman is incredulous that Obama "insist[ed] that his own personal organization take over the job of paying claims" and that such an organization will operate "without any law, legal controls, or binding rules to guide it on how and how much those injured materially by the oil spill (and whom among them) will be paid"

Richman argues that the President has, through explicit ("ass-kicking") and implicit threats, forced BP to agree to the slush, I mean, escrow find and that such an action is "beyond the powers of his office." He terms these actions fascist, Chavez-like, and that they represent an impeachable offense.

• Rep. Darrell Issa of California believes that the White House job offer to Joe Sestak is clearly illegal and "could lead to the impeachment of President Obama". Issa called upon the Justice Department to name a special prosecutor but, as expected, Attorney General Eric Holder has refused.

• Rep. John Kyl of Arizona has stated the President Obama told him privately that he will not secure the border, because Republicans would then have no reason to support "comprehensive immigration reform" (amnesty for illegals). Were this allegation proven true, the President would be violating one of his clearest requirements under the Constitution. Would a "dereliction of duty" charge or even an "accessory" status for crimes committed by illegals be possible?

• Few of President Obama's appointees are as controversial as Eric Holder. Holder appears to be the most unvarnished political operative to occupy the Attorney General's office since John N. Mitchell under Richard Nixon (the first A.G. to be convicted of illegal activities). Among Holder's outrageous decisions, none is as blatantly partisan as his decision to drop charges against the New Black Panther members caught on videotape harrassing voters at a Philadelphia polling station. Furthermore, the aftermath of these activities are also clouded in controversy as those officials charged with preserving the rights of voters are stonewalled at every turn. Could Holder and/or Obama be held accountable for a clear failure to discharge their duties?

Should the President be impeached? If so, on which charges?

There are, after all, so many offenses and affronts against the American people that it seems difficult to choose.

Wednesday's Web

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

The day’s top political news:

House to take pass on passing budget this year, Hoyer says

Congressional Democrats have decided it's impossible to pass a budget this year, and instead will impose one-year spending limits while trying to lay the groundwork for long-term budget restraint.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Tuesday a budget, which sets out binding one-year targets and a multiyear plan, is useless this year because Congress has shunted key questions about deficits to the independent debt commission created by President Obama, which is due to report back at the end of this year.

The House has never failed to pass its own version of the spending blueprint. The decision leaves much of the rest of Democrats' agenda in doubt and drew ridicule from Republicans, who pointed out Mr. Hoyer himself has deemed passing a budget a basic test of the ability to govern.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/22/house-to-take-pass-on-passing-budget-this-year-hoy/

Federal Gov't Halts Louisiana Sand Berm Dredging

The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the dredging plan, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, pleading for the work to continue. Nungesser said the government has asked crews to move the dredging site two more miles farther off the coastline.

Nungesser has asked for the dredging to continue for the next seven days, the amount of time it would take to move the dredging operations two miles and out resume work.

http://www.wdsu.com/news/23997498/detail.html

House Democrats: “We’re not bound by president’s tax vow regarding Middle Class”

Democrats are looking at the possibility of raising taxes on families below the $250,000-a-year threshold promised by President Barack Obama during the election.  Another Democrat campaign pledge being discarded.

The majority party on Capitol Hill does not feel bound by that Obama pledge, saying the threshold for tax hikes will depend on several factors, such as the revenue differences between setting the threshold at $200,000 and setting it at $250,000.
 
Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, concurred, saying, “I don’t think there’s any magic in the number, whether it’s $250,000, $200,000 or $225,000.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/104919-dems-were-not-bound-by-presidents-tax-vow

Opinion:
Enough is enough.  Time for action has arrived.  It’s time to take back America.

Federal Judge Marty Feldman is a very likable guy – a Republican far more liberal than most of his fellow GOP members in Louisiana, Feldman awoke this morning among the most popular Republican official in the land.

He has brought order out of chaos.

Yesterday Judge Feldman blocked the Obama six month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. That Democrat edict threatened hundreds of jobs.  Feldman brings to the current crisis a rare example of common sense and intelligent reaction to a serious crisis.

The knee-jerk response by the Obama government in closing off shore drilling in the Gulf -- a reaction to the disaster that has produced the huge (and spreading) oil slick, was a sop to environmental extremists – far left radicals wreaking havoc on the nation.  It’s a far left group that must be coralled and have their political influence diminished.

Environmental extremists are the base cause of the Gulf Oil crisis.  Had they not frantically demanded an end to shallow off shore drilling – oil companies would not have found it necessary to work in waters a mile deep.  It goes without saying Chinese oil firms, operating out of Cuba, will help themselves to those same oil reserves without regard to US environmental concerns.

Feldman is on target in noting the current crisis is a result of a single emergency out of years of drilling in the Gulf.  To shut down drilling and inflict more hardship and financial disaster on Americans, was a stupid decision reflecting the sort of extreme response for which liberal Democratgovernment is famous.

By stiff-arming the environmentalists and drilling where we have oil more easily exploited, dependence on foreign oil would be ended.  Environmentalists gasp at such intelligent proposals.  Intellect and pragmatism are not found among such people.

Meanwhile other absurd positions, most from the environmental movement, welcome and applaud the prospect of high gasoline prices.  They idiotically conclude that such prices would force our switching from an oil based economy to one based on alternative sources.

No one objects to searching for alternatives of course.  However, for the next several decades, we will continue to depend on oil for energy.  Shut down oil and raise prices to $8 a gallon for gasoline, and a huge hole would be blown in the economy, and families would be financially devastated.

Such devastation and hardship for American families is a very real prospect should the radical Cap and Trade scheme be adopted. Liberals push such madness because many of their allies are positioned to manipulate sham businesses into scams that would make them millionaires.  They would get rich, while real Americans pay through the nose.

Meanwhile, even as Judge Feldman was bringing common sense and reason to the oil spill crisis, the government was striking back.  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has devised a desperate scheme to use sand berms to ward off oil slick damage and protect the fragile coastal environment (a REAL environmental issue).  Not so fast!  The minions of the federal government are having none of that and have blocked the Jindal plan.

So the oil spill increases its threat, while the Obama government continues to bumble, fumble, and produce embarrassing examples of government madness, failure and total disarray.

At least we can be thankful there is one sane, intelligent, and honest voice in the mix.  It’s Federal Judge Martin Feldman.  He very much deserves our applause.

Buddy

The day’s top Blogs:

1.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/is_obamas_bp_shakedown_an_impe.html

Is Obama's BP Shakedown an Impeachable Offense?

Raymond Richman

As former counsel and trainer in political tactics for ACORN, President Obama used a well-known ACORN tactic, the shakedown, in getting BP to create the $20-billion escrow (slush!) fund without any law, legal controls, or binding rules to guide it on how and how much those injured materially by the oil spill (and whom among them) will be paid. Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, well-respected and well-known for heading the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, was appointed by the president to administer the escrow fund. BP will pay $5 billion into the fund for four years, starting in 2010.

BP announced early after the spill that it would pay all justifiable claims resulting from the disastrous oil spill. It opened 25 claims offices. As of June 15, BP approved initial payments that amounted to $63 million, expected to rise to $85 million by the end of the week, to businesses claiming $5,000 or more in damages. Why did the president insist that his own personal organization take over the job of paying claims? After all, supervising reparations is a judicial function, not an executive function. BP created its own fund, appointed its administrator, and determined how it will be staffed with a view to ensuring only qualified persons, businesses, and governments would be reimbursed for its losses. Now those decisions will be made politically. 

It is obvious that BP's CEO agreed to create this fund and allow the president to administer it to prevent President Obama from bankrupting their company. After all, the president was on record saying that he would "kick BP's ass," and a cabinet members declared he would "put his boot on BP's neck." The president, when announcing the creation of the fund, stated that the terms of the fund would keep BP viable. He cannot know this. BP's liability is not affected by the fund except to the extent claims are voluntarily settled. Those refusing to settle and their lawyers are not bound by it, nor are juries that will hear their lawsuits.

The president has no legal authority to create the escrow fund and no authority to compel BP to contribute to the fund. Forcing BP to agree to the terms of the escrow is ultra vires (i.e., illegal), beyond the powers of his office. Rep. Barton (R-TX) accurately described the slush fund as a "shakedown" (i.e., blackmail), a felony. If so, Pres. Obama has committed an impeachable offense.

Congress itself does not have the authority to create the escrow fund retroactively. Congress will have no voice at all except to vilify any Republican who raises questions about it. All the ACORN employees who lost their jobs when the banks stopped paying "blackmail" to ACORN may be getting better-paying new jobs processing claims.

No doubt the media, which show pictures of the spill and pelicans covered with oil 24 hours a day, seven days a week, will hail the president's tough dealing with BP. But BP's oil spill deserves the strongest action under the law, not above the law. A few miles away, there are pelicans flying "free as a bird" with no oil on them. Not a single photo of them. And more than 10,000 barrels of the spilled oil are being recovered by BP daily with no photos at all; vessels are skimming oil near the spill, and no photos. And the federal government has yet to grant exception to the Jones Act that is preventing foreign vessels ready to skim oil from getting closer to shore to prevent more serious damage which would, incidentally, help save a lot of pelicans. No wonder BP believed it had to surrender to the president.

You don't have to be paranoid to suspect the president (and many in the media) of ulterior motives, a hidden agenda. If you can get enough people to hate the oil companies, you might get the cap-and-trade bill passed. By the time they regret such hasty action, it will be too late to undo the damage. Cap-and-trade was given no chance for passage before the spill. The president pacified the environmental extremists by banning drilling in the Gulf for six months, adding to the rolls of the unemployed and increasing our dependence on foreign oil. To make the hidden agenda more believable, the president overreached by getting BP to agree to pay the lost wages incurred by workers who lost their jobs as the result of the president's six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. The hidden agenda obviously includes getting cap-and-trade passed. It looks like "cap-and-trade, cap-and-trade, cap-and-trade" has displaced "jobs, jobs, jobs."

The president employed a similar tactic when he nationalized GM, violating the bankruptcy laws by denying bondholders their rightful control of the future of those enterprises, and he gave the bondholders' interest in GM to the unions instead, literally. He gave Chrysler to Fiat. The bondholders of both gave their consent, being afraid of having their asses kicked or having a boot on their necks. 

When an executive uses threats to secure the "cooperation" of private businesses, we have a name for it: fascism. It is the kind of act we expect from Venezuela's Chávez, not from a president who swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution and its separation of powers. I believe the President's behavior is ultra vires and that he has committed an impeachable offense.

Raymond L. Richman, J.D., Ph.D., is a member of the Illinois Bar and has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He and his son and grandson maintain a blog at www.idealtaxes.com

2.

Mike Pence and the Winning Back of America

Ed Lasky

As the political landscape shifts, one Congressman in particular is helping lead us forward to win back America: Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana.

What are the talents that leaders need in this environment to rally the troops and lead us to victory in November and beyond?
 
Principles that have been long held not just us, but by the leaders themselves. Politicians who do not flip-flop, but hold fast to their ideals. They are dependable. Their values harmonically resonate with most Americans because they reflect and express the American creed. They are an expression of what makes us Americans. Rep. Pence's fidelity to these values demonstrates his fealty to us. They are conservative values hewn closely to the visions of our founding fathers. They are the values held dear by members and sympathizers of the Tea Party movement.
 
Mike Pence -- like Ronald Reagan -- is a son of the heartland and has those values. While incumbents and establishment insiders try to figure out how to adapt and appeal to the Tea Party movement, Mike Pence was very early recognized by them as someone who had already earned their allegiance by years of devotion to those principles. He has not changed his bedrock values; the rest of the nation has come back to them. He expressed those values quite well as the keynote speaker at the recent Taxpayer March on Washington. After eighteen months of Democratic steamrolling over our principles, the shredding of the Constitution, and the turning of the people's house into a house of ill repute (via bribes and deals behind closed doors), Pence called it like it is when he characterized Nancy Pelosi as "the least Democratic Speaker in U.S. History." Telling it like it is -- that is what we should want in our leaders. 
 
We need leaders who are a fount of ideas: people who are prepared to face the many challenges before us with policy proposals, and not hot-air nonsense read off a teleprompter (Yes We Can; We are the ones we are waiting for) that resembles haiku as written by a freshman. We need someone who has experience with policies that work. Never before have Americans been more primed to learn about policy proposals. This is partly due to a revulsion towards the radical changes imposed upon us (hook and crook, and a lot of the latter) -- by the troika of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid and their Democratic partners.
 
Town hall meetings are just one manifestation of the deep concern people have for policy. They hunger for new policies because the old ones often failed, and the ones put in place by Democrats threaten our future. People are interested in charter schools and vouchers, cutting back public employee unions, the deficit time bomb, and immigration reform.
 
Democrats denigrate Republicans as the "Party of No," as paleoconservatives, as antediluvian dummies. Of course, these slurs are wrong both historically and currently, but liberal partisans are wont to throw insults as often as they throw dollars away.
 
Supply-side tax cuts as a way to boost growth? A Republican idea. Enterprise zones? Republican.

Vouchers and school choice? A Republican idea. Tearing down monopolies is a legacy of the Republican Theodore Roosevelt and has been modernized by the Republican quest to eliminate the one last vestige of monopoly power in America: the provision of "government" services (when was the last time you looked upon government workers as serving you?). Welfare reform to restore a sense of self-esteem to our less advantaged? A  Republican idea (Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin -- Bill Clinton was forced into such reform by a Republican Congress). 
 
The list can be continued to the present day. The GOP has health care plans and budget proposals to slash the deficit, but the media smothered coverage of them. The GOP needs to push past the cover-up and bring the truth to the light of day.
 
As Peter  Berkowitz wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, "Republicans squandered their hard-won reputation as the party of ideas. It's time to reclaim it".
 
Mike Pence has been at the forefront of devising new policies for many years. Even before entering politics, he was president of a think-tank. After entering politics, he has led the way on immigration reform (focusing on securing our borders and following and enforcing our laws, as well as providing a way for honest immigrants to meet our labor needs) and free speech (battling Democratic plans to impose the Fairness Doctrine on us -- which would be the death knell for talk radio and independent voices). He battled the health care plan waterboarded down our throats by Democrats (see his Wall Street Journal op-ed, "This Law Will Not Stand"), the budget (as he was at the forefront opposing the disastrous "stimulus" bill and has tried to prevent yet another bailout -- this time of spendthrift European nations who have avoided the tough choices need to bring this fiscal affairs in order). He wants to stop "the freight train of big government " (a ringing phrase coined by him) before we are crushed by it. The big spending that is endemic in D.C. and has become a pandemic across state governments -- he wants to end the waste of our money and restore fiscal sanity to the asylum that Democrats now run into the ground.
 
Pence is a talented writer; he knows how to explain and expound his ideas (just peruse his Wall Street Journal columns, for example). I predict a book by him -- such as Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney have written -- to be published that charts his agenda to climb the bestseller lists because it is our agenda, too.
 
Mike Pence is a man open to new ideas -- if they bring good things to Americans. He has a real-world example of how pro-growth policies and limited (but well-run) government works in his own home state. Indiana's Republican Governor, Mitch Daniels, has put in place the very type of policies that Pence has championed for years. The result has been an economic miracle in the so-called Rust Belt that has garnered acclaim across America. We need these types of policies writ large across America. Mike Pence can propel them forward.
 
These leaders cannot come out of the blue. We have an example of that in The Oval Office now. We will need a leader who knows the ways of the world, the people to reach out towards, the networks of power to plug into and channel, the levers to pull. Time is of the essence. While there may be a sour mood in the nation regarding incumbents, this is not the time to cast a ballot against them all. The problems we face need to be addressed now.  In other words, we need someone who knows the ways of Washington but has not been captured by them.
 
Mike Pence has, in barely a decade, become an influential leader among his fellow Republicans. He was chairman of the Republican Study Committee and is now the co-chairman of the House Republican Conference. He is the third-highest ranking Republican in the House leadership. His fellow Republicans hold him in high regard; he has powered -- and will continue power -- his ideas and plans into fruition by being able to channel his fellow members' votes in the direction the nation so desperately needs now. He is the one national figure that can bridge the establishment world of party powers and the energized movement of millions of Americans towards the Tea Party. The tent can be big when it is held aloft by standard-bearers such as Mike Pence.
 
We need people in charge who can inspire America. As the Obama-induced malaise spreads across America, we need someone who can boost our spirits and restore our confidence. In our media age, we need someone who is telegenic, fast on his feet, and who has shown skill in using both old and new media not just as message machines, but as morale-boosters. He has to be media-savvy -- with or without a prompter leading the way.
 
Mike Pence has the very skills -- the ability to connect and inspire people -- that Ronald Reagan had during his life. Not surprisingly, both share a background in media and the public stage before entering the political world. Ronald Reagan had experience in radio and film, and his ability to tap the energy of the crowds was honed by giving hundreds of speeches across America. Mike Pence, who was inspired by Ronald Reagan, learned the ropes by hosting both a statewide talk radio program in Indiana as well as a television program covering the issues of the day. Pence is a favorite of talk radio hosts to this day -- and for good reason. But he has not stopped there in his drive to be a tribune for the people.
 
He has been a pioneer in using YouTube to reach over the heads of biased media outlets and into the hearts of Americans across the land (see -- and make a favorite -- the Mike Pence channel on You Tube). Podcasts, the web -- all are tools that a man determined to fix our government has brought to bear over the last few years. He has been ahead of the curve.
 
But he needs our help.
 
We need to step up to the plate and help fuel the engine and prime the pump. How can we do this?
 
Talk to our friends and family, spread the good news, send e-mails with links to his website and YouTube channel, cut and paste his columns and broadcast them far and wide. We can also candidly support his campaigns -- as I have been doing for years. I consider it one of the best investments I can make to ensure a bright future for my children and to restore America to its rightful place in the world. I hope you join me and many thousands of Americans in helping Mike Pence help us.

Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.

3.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062102041.html?wpisrc=nl_pmopinions

Will Charlie Crist be Florida's Arlen Specter?

Marc A. Thiessen

Can Charlie Crist accomplish in Florida what Arlen Specter failed to do in Pennsylvania -- woo Democrats to his cause after bolting the GOP to avoid a tough primary?

In a way, comparing Crist to Specter is a little unfair ... to Arlen Specter. Just three months ago Crist declared himself a "common-sense conservative" who believed in the principles of Ronald Reagan. Specter never made any pretense of being a conservative. He voted with Senate Democrats when it suited his interests, and his transition to the Democratic Party did not require many uncomfortable conversions on hot-button issues like abortion.

Crist, by contrast, has shown an ideological flexibility that makes Specter look like a conviction politician. During the GOP primary, Crist campaigned as a pro-life Republican, and his campaign Web site declared "Governor Crist believes strongly in the sanctity of human life." After he left the GOP, the pro-life page on his Web site mysteriously disappeared -- and Crist vetoed a pro-life bill that would have required Florida abortion providers to allow women to see an ultrasound of their unborn child and would have had Florida opt out of taxpayer-funded abortions under Obamacare.

Crist reversed course on education reform. After declaring his support in March for a Republican bill to end teacher tenure and tie pay raises to student achievement, Crist turned around a few weeks later and vetoed the bill -- angering the GOP while ingratiating himself with the left-leaning Florida teachers union. (He has since hinted that he has an "open mind" when it comes to union "card-check" legislation).

Crist flipped on the Cuba travel ban. In his 2006 race for governor, he blasted his opponent for backing efforts to ease restrictions on family visits to Cuba, and he later signed legislation raising taxes on companies that arranged such travel. And just last month, when asked by a Florida paper if he would support easing travel restrictions to Cuba, Crist replied: "No, I wouldn't. Not until they offer more freedoms to their own people first." But just a few weeks later, Crist announced his support for the Obama administration's decision to lift all restrictions on family travel to Cuba, and he held a fundraiser with advocates of lifting the Cuba travel ban entirely, declaring "I want to listen to what they have to say."

Crist also reversed himself on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. Just three days after declaring, "I think the current policy has worked pretty well for America. I really do. So I don't know why there's any need for change at this time," Crist announced he'd support a Senate bill that lifts "don't ask, don't tell" after a Pentagon study is completed. Crist also announced he no longer supports a Florida law that bans gay adoptions.

The audacity of Crist's ideological transformation is stunning. The question is: Will it work? Unlike Specter, Crist is running as an independent, so he does not have to win a Democratic primary. But to defeat Republican Marco Rubio in November, Crist cannot depend on independents to carry him to victory -- he must win over Democratic voters. For the moment he appears to be doing so. A recent Mason Dixon poll shows that Crist leads Rep. Kendrick Meek by 48 to 36 percent among Democrats, who make up half of Crist's supporters. But as Mason Dixon pollster Brad Coker explained, Crist's support among Democrats is "a proverbial house of cards." Meek is still unknown to 40 percent of Florida voters, and Coker says that as Meek's name recognition rises, Crist's Democratic support will likely slip. If Meek wins the nomination, Democrats are likely to come home in November.

The wild card is Jeff Greene, an eccentric, self-funding billionaire who jumped into the Democratic primary and has pulled even with Meek in the polls. Greene has a lot of money, but a lot of baggage as well. Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss once lived in his guest house, the best man at his wedding was convicted rapist Mike Tyson, and he got rich betting on the collapse of the housing market -- which hit Florida harder than almost any state. Greene has little chance of winning a general election. If he succeeds in winning the nomination, many Florida Democrats could be tempted to vote for Crist in November as the only viable means of stopping Rubio.

Crist is working overtime to make himself palatable to Democrats and independents. But are his ideological contortions so blatant, so mercenary, that voters won't be able to hold their noses and pull the lever for him on Election Day? Crist is turning himself into the caricature of a political opportunist -- and, like Arlen Specter before him, he may find this is not an ideal strategy in a year in which voters are turning on self-serving politicians with a vengeance.

Specter openly declared that he left the GOP because "my change in party will allow me to be re-elected." That gamble didn't pay off in Pennsylvania. It remains to be seen whether it will pay off for Florida's Specter.

Marc A. Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, is a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Courting Disaster." He writes a weekly column for http://washingtonpost.com.

Tuesdays' Web

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

The day's top political news:

Poll: Most Say Obama Lacks Clear Plans on the Oil Spill, Energy or Jobs

Most Americans do not believe President Obama has a clear plan to deal with the oil spill in the Gulf, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. Just 32 percent say Mr. Obama has a clear plan to deal with the oil leak, while 59 percent (including 64 percent of Gulf coast residents) say he does not. The numbers are not much better among those who watched the president's Oval Office speech on the spill last week, with 35 percent of that group saying he has a clear plan and 56 percent saying he does not.

The spill isn't the only issue on which the president is seen as lacking a plan of action: Just 41 percent say Mr. Obama has a clear plan for developing new sources of energy, while 45 percent say he has no clear plan. And when it comes to creating jobs, just 34 percent say he has a clear plan; 54 percent say he does not.

A majority of Americans - 61 percent - says the president's response to the oil spill was too slow. Just 31 percent say they have "a lot" of confidence in his ability to handle a crisis, though a majority has at least some confidence that he can do so. Since January, the percentage who says Mr. Obama has strong qualities of leadership has fallen from 70 percent to 62 percent.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20008373-503544.html

White House Pushes Back Against Kyl on Border Security

The White House on Monday disputed claims by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl that President Barack Obama told him that he would not secure the U.S.-Mexico border until Congress advances comprehensive immigration reform.

President Obama is refusing to secure the border until Congress reaches a breakthrough on comprehensive immigration reform, says Kyl who claims Obama made the admission in a private conversation.

Kyl's office stood by the senator's account. Kyl spokesman Ryan Patmintra said, "There were two people in that meeting, and Dan Pfieffer was not one of them." He said Pfeiffer's call for comprehensive immigration legislation "only confirms" Kyl's story. And later, Kyl himself affirmed to Fox News the accuracy of his version:

http://www.rollcall.com/news/47548-1.html

Gen. Stanley McChrystal coming to Washington to explain anti-administration comments

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington for a White House meeting after apologizing for flippant and dismissive remarks about top Obama administration officials involved in Afghanistan policy. The remarks in an article in this week's in Rolling Stone magazine are certain to increase tension between the White House and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

The profile of McChrystal, , titled the "Runaway General," also raises fresh questions about the judgment and leadership style of the commander Obama appointed last year in an effort to turn around a worsening conflict.

McChrystal and some of his senior advisors are quoted criticizing top administration officials, at times in starkly derisive terms. An anonymous McChrystal aide is quoted calling national security adviser James Jones a "clown," who remains "stuck in 1985."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062200813_pf.html

Opinion:
For Obama – a Truman-like moment

Obama has ordered the Commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McCrystal, home, following a published article in which the was critical of the Obama White House and the Obama Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Per the AP: “The article in this week's Rolling Stone depicts McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to persuade even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.

“The interview describes McChrystal, 55, as "disappointed" in his first Oval Office meeting with Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start”

Obama is faced with a confrontation in which he has little choice other than firing McChrystal,  If he does not do so, Obama will look weak.  Considering he does not have an image of strength to begin with, Obama dare not take another image hit.  A leader must be seen as strong if he is to succeed. 

It was a recognized need to be seen as strong that led Obama to find a moment in which he could use an obscene, “man-like” term in a conspired outburst regarding handling of the Gulf Oil Spill crisis.  Obama’s outburst was not smoothly delivered and reflected staging more than honest emotion.

For his part, McCrystal and other military men have reason to question the degree of support that can be expected from the Obama White House, or from the Democrat dominated House and Senate.

Democrat Senate Leader, the hapless Harry Reid, declared the war in Iraq lost a couple of years ago, and liberal demands have pushed for cutting, running and surrendering – following a long established Democrat strategy.

Obama abandoned the traditional Democrat cut and run strategy, and has ordered an increased number of drone attacks in Pakistan and elsewhere – action that has taken out a substantial number of enemy leaders.

But Obama’s poll numbers are tanking, and there is a loud outcry growing from the far left – Obamas core support group.  November looms, so Obama goes into the McCrystal meeting with few, if any options.

McCrystal is an almost certain goner.

The General has not covered himself with glory in the story, either.  He has admitted having voted for Obama – a strange act given Obama’s open anti military demeanor in the campaign. 

McCrystal’s political common sense was also AWOL in his making his critical comments to a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine – a far left publication.

Making anti White House comments in the presence of any reporter would be irresponsible.  To do so in the company of such a far left representative is even more so.   In short, there is clear evidence the General has failed to meet standards of judgment required for his position.

This will be a Truman-McArthur moment – President Harry Truman fired the General over a disagreement on the handling of the Korean War.

McArthur was a highly decorated General, and a hero in WWII.  McCrystal has no such record on which he can rely.

None the less, Obama is increasingly unpopular.  The public reaction to the McCrystal face off in the Oval Office, will be interesting to watch to say the very least.

It’s not a moment Democrats needed.

Buddy

Top Blogs:

1.

http://www.americanthinker.com/

Hayek and The Road to Ruin

Monty Pelerin

Friedrich Hayek's slim book "The Road to Serfdom" received a great deal of publicity as a result of  Glenn Beck's treatment.

While some might dismay regarding the catalyst for Hayek's revival, others delight in his sudden popularity, apparently subscribing to the old Hollywood line: "There is no bad publicity." (That line greatly preceded the Tiger Woods revelations and might need to be revised for today's society.)

The slim volume, in which Hayek apologized (for leaving his field of expertise), contains the seeds and seedlings of ideas that would define his illustrious career. In hindsight, these ideas are evident.

Taking Hayek Seriously provided the following excerpts from Max Borders regarding these ideas:

[T]here is more to The Road to Serfdom than concerns about the political economy that leads to totalitarianism. A lot, in fact. Hayek goes over many of the vital concepts that constitute his true legacy:

•    Spontaneous Order - Complex society and open markets cannot be planned. Period. Human beings just ain't smart enough. Instead, the extended order emerges - unplanned and undesigned - due to humans interacting in complex ways according to simple rules. These rules do not specify certain social ends, but rather bring order to the diverse ends of billions of people pursuing happiness.
•    The Knowledge Problem - It is impossible for a single mind or group of minds to predict, plan or control the innumerable inputs, outputs and actions in a market. Instead, knowledge is dispersed among billions of people. Entrepreneurial opportunities are seized by individuals with particular, local insights, and/or expertise in some specific area the bureaucrate cannot possess.
•    Price System - Entrepreneurs also respond to information flows communicated through the price system. Bureaucratic control of an economy is impossible due to the loss of information communicated through prices, and due to the inability of one to gain the right kinds of information at the right times and right places. "Prices are signals, not marching orders."
•    Competition as a Discovery Procedure - The circumstances of time and place are critical to the success of competitive market actors. The idea that we can aggregate economic data - like macroeconomic data - in order to say something meaningful about how things should to be coordinated is, well, a bad idea.   Competition among market actors looking for opportunities to offer a previously unnoticed value to consumers is basically crowd-sourcing value creation. Innovators compete, you win.

I'd tell you that Hayek is a Nobel Laureate, but I don't want that to reflect poorly on him. Suffice it to say he is one of the greatest political philosophers and economists in history. He taught us that the economy is not a machine.

Now, If you're [sic] think you're really ready for some good, extended Hayek time, try: The Fatal Conceit and Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 1."

While one might quibble regarding the two selections in the last sentence, there is no questioning the value of reading Hayek, especially "The Road to Serfdom."

In a real education system, this slim volume would be read in every high school in the country, along with many other classics.  In such a world, it is unlikely that we would be in our current situation. Our current situation was attained by a long march down the path that Hayek warned against.

Instead, it is not implausible that a new version of Hayek's classic will be written in the future under the  title "The Road to Ruin." Tragically, it is likely to be history rather than prophecy.

Monty Pelerin blogs at www.economicnoise.com
 

2.

BARONE: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill...

Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
Michael Barone

Senior Political AnalystThuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's Gulf oil spill.

Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet.

Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so I know whose ass to kick." Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the Gulf, is an attractive target.

But you don't always win arguments that way. The Obama White House gleefully took on Dick Cheney on the issue of terrorist interrogations. It turned out that more Americans agreed with Cheney's stand, despite his low poll numbers, than Obama's.

Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad.

The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly "peer reviewed" by "experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and "counterproductive" to safety.

This was blatant dishonesty by the administration, on an Orwellian scale. In defense of a policy that has all the earmarks of mindless panic, that penalizes firms and individuals guilty of no wrongdoing and that will worsen rather than improve our energy situation. Ineffective thuggery.

And what about the decision not to waive the Jones Act, which bars foreign-flag vessels from coming to the aid of the Gulf cleanup? The Bush administration promptly waived it after Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration hasn't and claims unconvincingly that, gee, there aren't really any foreign vessels that could help.

The more plausible explanation is that this is a sop to the maritime unions, part of the union movement that gave Obama and other Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle. It's the Chicago way: Dance with the girl that brung ya.

Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. That inspired blogger Rand Simberg to write a blog post he dated June 1, 1940: "The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport."

Finally, the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It's pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a "shakedown."

For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law."

Obama doesn't. "If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug.

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His columns appear Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.

3.

'Overwhelm the System' A Plan of Action being followed by Obama          
Wayne Allyn Root:
  
    Barrack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.


    Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

    -- Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. Â It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

    -- Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kickback hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."

    -- Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression?  Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

    -- Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

    -- Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America. The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

    -- Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.

    With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

    Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

Monday's Web

Neither fair nor balanced, but totally factual

The day’s top political news:

Emanuel links fall elections to GOP support of BP

President Barack Obama's chief of staff is warning about what might happen if Republicans—who have defended BP over the Gulf oil spill—were to run Congress after the fall election.

Rahm Emanuel says the GOP philosophy is to paint BP as the victim. He says Obama will make clear to voters the fundamental differences in how each party would govern. He says GOP lawmakers and candidates are attacking the administration for demanding that BP set up a $20 billion compensation fund. Of course, Emanuel’s claim is a bald faced lie – revealing his desperation as his party faces massive rejection in November.

Failure of the Obama Administration to aggressively deal with ending the spill, is source of the damage being done to the environment and economy.  Fearing union backlash, Democrats have refused to waive old laws that prevent help from foeign nations who have a record of success in dealing with spills.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GF1A582&show_article=1

Rahm Emanuel expected to quit White House

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his job later this year after growing tired of the "idealism" of Barack Obama's inner circle.

Washington insiders say he will quit within six to eight months in frustration at their unwillingness to "bang heads together" to get policy pushed through.

Mr Emanuel, 50, enjoys a good working relationship with Mr Obama but they are understood to have reached an understanding that differences over style mean he will serve only half the full four-year term.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/7837686/Rahm-Emanuel-expected-to-quit-White-House.html

Arizona law puts Democrats' seats in peril

Arizona’s controversial new immigration law is imperiling a trio of centrist Arizona Democrats who are caught in powerful crosscurrents in their Republican-leaning House districts. More than 70% of Arizonans support the law.

The leader of their party, President Barack Obama, has criticized the state law as “misguided,” and the Justice Department plans to challenge the law in court. On the other side are Republican challengers who are tapping into deep local frustration over the issue and portraying the junior Democrats as sympathetic to illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, liberal Democratic colleagues — including at least one in the Arizona congressional delegation — have called the law “racist” and urged economic boycotts of Arizona. For the three Democrats — Reps. Harry Mitchell, Ann Kirkpatrick and Gabrielle Giffords — the new law’s polarizing force is complicating their reelection campaigns in an already volatile year. And it’s leading them to pursue a simple strategy:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38778.html#ixzz0rV68wEte

House Dems prepare alternative to budget that would avoid deficit vote

House Democrats are crafting an alternative budget that would set next year’s spending levels without requiring a vote on deficits. Democrats have expressed concern about voting for a document showing lots of red ink in an election year.

A traditional budget resolution sets the discretionary spending levels and also lays out the majority’s fiscal policies for future years. Alternative budget measures, known in past years as “deeming resolutions,” set spending caps but lack the statement on future spending and tax policies.

House Republicans have seized on Democrats’ inability to even bring up a budget resolution for consideration. The budget rules call on lawmakers to pass a budget by April 15.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/104373-house-dems-prep-budget-alternative-that-would-avoid-deficit-vote

Opinion:
The Gulf Oil Spill: a report from the front

I live in Panama City, Florida and last night, had dinner on our beach.  For the record, there were no visible signs of oil.  Yet.  But we know its coming.

However, this morning, we see White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, allowing political desperation to generate political ranting that he knows to be a bald faced lie: Emanueal claims Republicans are defending BP. sticking up for them.

Of course, Emanuel’s claim is a bald faced lie – rants from of a politician from the Chicago Democrat Machine, who is facing the certain defeat of his party and its far left agenda.

Texas Republican Joe Barton, did accuse Obama of “shaking down BP” in forcing them to establish an escrow account regarding oil spill damages, yet  Republicans in Congress quickly disassociated themselves from Barton’s comments.

But Democrats such as Emanuel, are desperate in the extreme. They dare not allow facts into discussions of government’s ineffective dealing with the oil.

My own family bears witness to government incompetence in dealing with this oil spill crisis.  Eye witness, ground level witness, personal witness.

My son, home from college, was hired by BP’s agent organization to help clean the beach.  He and several hundred others, spent 40 hours of their own time in class – without salary – being tutored on handling “Hazmet” stuff.

He (and presumably the rest of his classmates) have been idle since then, waiting for a call to work.  Not a word, no acknowledgement, nothing.

Then, consider the experience of my wife, among the very first to volunteer to help the Red Cross deal with the tragedy. She’s that sort of concerned citizen, always among the first to pitch in when duty, or emergencies call.

She, too, attended classes learning to deal with Hazmet” materials.  Since her classes ended several weeks ago, she has also received no acknowledgement.  Not from BP and not from the government. Only today did she received an email from the local Red Cross representative who seems as frustrated as the rest of us – frustrated by the customary bureaucratic morass again preventing an intelligent approach to the crisis.

To begin with, the Red Cross cannot accept any donations offered, because Obama has made it clear, BP must pay ALL expenses.  So, the Red Cross is having to divert any contributions to other projects, dealing with totally unassociated issues.  Obama’s rules mean truly needy people, and problems created by the spill locally – things needing money now – have no help.

Over 1,500 locals joined my wife in volunteering. This is a community long experienced with disasters from Hurricanes.  Volunteering in disasters is a given.

From the local Red Cross official this morning:

“I'm also frustrated.  Here we have over a thousand folks who want to do good and can't find a way to help them to it.  The rules regarding who can touch oil and wild life have made this an exasperating exercise.   I know it must be even more so for all of you.  I have been and am still looking for meaningful ways that you can help.  I have refused to point you in directions that I think are a waste of your time.  I have also refused suggestions that you somehow be redirected to other volunteer jobs in the community.  In several other places, volunteers were surprised to find that they were actually being redirected to other existing volunteer opportunities that have nothing to do with the oil spill.  I think that was less than honest and I have just simply refused to be part of it.”

That Red Cross representative should be saluted.  If we only had more people dealing with the crisis – doing so in so honest a manner.  But when the government is involved, so is bureaucracy.  Bureaucracy seldom does things that are effective, rational, or governed by common sense.

For government bureaucrats – self preservation as “job one”.  Forget anything else.

Thus we have a crisis attracting massive volunteerism and a generous willingness to provide funding, but the government is in the way – and likely to remain so.  No wonder so many Americans grow cynical.

Of course, all of this completely fails to address the primary – or what should be the primary – issue: stopping the flow.

Obama is busy hammering BP – allowing his personal vendetta against Great Britain to lead him to continure refering to “British Petroleum” – a title dropped by the company years ago.  But Obama revels in the cheap shot – another opportunity for venting personal bias and bigotry.  Obama’s family in Kenya were active in the Kenyan terror group, the “Mau Mau”.  Young Obama was treated to hours of stories from his grandmother -- tales, tales of his father and grandfather being hounded and even tortured by the British.

But such personal bias means nothing to those of us here on the Gulf.  The oil has reached Destin, Florida – a resort city west of Panama City – and is said to begin touching our beaches.

Last week end, a huge tank from the stricken well head, washed up on our beach here, and there are rumors a body from the disaster washed up on a beach at nearby Tyndall Air Force Base.

People here offer all they can offer.  But they remain frustrated.  Big government complicates matters without positive result.

So Obama “talked dirty” about “kicking butt”.  So Rahm Emanuel and others struggle to find partisan political traction.  So The BP Chief is on a yacht, while Obama plays golf.  The spill continues, our beaches remain in peril.

Help from foreign countries – countries with proven records of success – is  rejected for fear of offending labor unions.  We are mindful of the fact, our hurricane season just began.  Does Obama have a commission for weather?

Stay tuned.

Buddy

Top Blogs:

1.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/19/AR2010061903034.html?hpid=topnews

Democrats spend big to lure Obama's minority and young voters back to the polls

Karen Tumulty
Washington Post Staff Writer

As political gambles go, it's a big and risky one: $50 million to test the proposition that the Democratic Party's outreach to new voters that helped make Barack Obama president can work in an election where his name is not on the ballot.

The standard rule of midterm elections is that only the most reliable voters show up at the polls, so both parties have traditionally focused on the unglamorous and conventional work that turns out their bases. But this year, the Democrats are doubling down on registering and motivating newer voters -- especially the 15 million heavily minority and young, who made it to the polls for the first time in the last presidential election.

"It's a great experiment to see whether we can bring out voters whose only previous vote was in 2008," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The party's overall budget for reaching new voters is more than twice as big as the $17 million it spent during the tumultuous 2006 midterm, which returned control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats.

Much about its "Vote 2010" effort has that way-back feel of two years ago: legions of canvassers going door-to-door, a stream of inspirational videos, an e-mail list of more than 13 million, and ads on Web sites including Latina.com, BlackPlanet.com, YELP.com and DailyCandy.

On Thursday, the 2008 presidential campaign's surviving grassroots operation, now Organizing for America, unveiled a spiffy Web site where supporters can get customized information about voting rules and deadlines in their states. It takes but a few keystrokes to fill in a voter registration form that then requires only a signature and a stamp.

But for all the wizardry, what the Democrats don't have is a candidate on the ballot named Obama. Instead, they face a political climate in which hope and exhilaration has given way to anger and disappointment. To the degree there is enthusiasm now, polls show, it is largely on the Republican side.

There does not seem to be a similar effort within the GOP. A spokesman would not discuss its operations and scoffed at the bet that Democrats are making this year. "When that announcement was made, it just wasn't taken very credibly," says Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye. "Those voters just aren't going to be there this time."

He's not alone in thinking that.

Some veteran Democratic Party operatives are also skeptical that the $50 million investment will pay off -- except, perhaps, in keeping the grassroots operation alive for Obama's reelection bid two years from now. Some even suggest that the president's team has put his long-term interests ahead of his party's immediate struggle for survival.

"I have zero confidence that they're heading in the right direction here," says one longtime Democratic organizer who didn't want to be quoted by name criticizing his party's major midterm election initiative. Added another: "I think they're going to come in for a very rude awakening. It's going to be brutal."

If that turns out to be the case, the doubters say, Democrats will wake up the morning of Nov. 3 wishing they had spent that $50 million on more traditional methods, like television ads, for reaching their base and persuading independents.

Rick Farmer, a Democratic activist in Sarasota, Fla., is seeing the challenge firsthand as he knocks on doors in a region where people are dreading the arrival of the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on their beaches. "I can't tell you how much anger there is out there," he said. "I have people ready to spit in my face." Some, he said, tell him, "We've been hoodwinked -- not by Obama, but by government."

In Mobile, Ala., Organizing for America volunteer Darlene Gay-Allen blares the Dells' "I'm Only a Man" from her boombox as she registers voters and tries to persuade her neighbors not to lose faith. "President Obama is only a man, and he's doing the best he could," she said.

Last year's Democratic gubernatorial losses in Virginia and New Jersey only increased the doubts that Obama's magic can rub off on other Democrats.

Although the president stumped for the party's nominees in both states, voter falloff was sharper than typical for an off-year election. Several private post-election analyses, which Democrats and their allies are using to plan their campaign strategies, showed that the decline was particularly steep among African Americans, Hispanics and, especially, younger voters.

"There wasn't a real effort to excite them," counters Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, the former Virginia governor. "The effort in Virginia was to go after independent voters, but we ended up losing out on the group of Democrats and Democratic-leaning folks who had turned out in 2008."

Party officials concede that their efforts to remotivate the new Obama voters are not likely to affect contests where Democrats are running far behind. But they insist it is not unreasonable to believe they can make a difference in races that will be decided by two to four percentage points.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, Gov. Ed Rendell -- himself a former national Democratic Party chairman -- notes that Democrats now outnumber Republicans in voter registration by 1.3 million, an advantage nearly three times larger than when he ran for governor in 2002. "They are motivate-able," Rendell said of newer Democratic voters. "Can you motivate all 100 percent of them? No. Can you motivate 20 percent of them? Yes." How much higher it goes than that, Rendell said, "will decide whether we win or lose."

The party plans to embark on a massive new program this fall to register college students, including many who volunteered for Obama as high school students but were too young to vote.

It is working barbershops and beauty salons in African American communities, and organizing events around the World Cup to reach out to Latinos. Every Wednesday in California, party organizers and volunteers attend naturalization ceremonies.

But what will matter more than anything else, many Democrats say, is Obama himself. How effective will he be in convincing those who came to the polls for the first time in 2008 that this election is crucial to accomplishing what he promised then?

"It is very important to make that case to these voters and that the president be involved in it as well. And he will be at points along the way," Kaine said. "The president is definitely signed into this plan. He likes the community-organizing aspect of it."

So the party will try things his way.

Has Obama indeed reinvented the art and science of winning elections, or will 2008 turn out to have been a unique moment that suited the particular gifts of one politician? The Democrats are about to lay down $50 million to find out.

Staff writers Sandhya Somashekhar and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

2.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/islam_antithetical_to_religiou.html

Islam: Antithetical to Religious Freedom

Janet Levy

Freedom to Believe: Challenging Islam's Apostasy Law
Patrick Sookhdeo, Isaac Publishing, 2009

The religious allegiance of Barack Hussein Obama has been the subject of intense debate across the United States. Is Obama, who was raised a Muslim, a committed Muslim or a Christian convert? A Harris Poll conducted in March of 2010, revealed that fully 57% of all Republicans and 32% of Americans overall believe that Obama is a Muslim. In 2008, a University of Texas survey found that 23% of Texans were convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

The American public has been confused by Obama's statements and actions that bring into question the Christian faith he professed prior to his election. It is certainly confounding that Obama would recite the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic during a New York Times interview in 2007 and call it the "prettiest sound on earth." In an infamous September 2008 interview on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos corrected Obama's ostensible slip of the tongue when the candidate stated, "John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith." In addition, following the election, it was quite puzzling to hear the leader of a Judeo-Christian nation refer to the "holy" Koran, publicly proclaim civilization's debt to Islam, and avow that "America is not and never will be at war with Islam."

Barack Obama's religious practices have raised questions about his affiliation with Christianity. For twenty years, he attended the church of controversial former Muslim Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In 2007, Wright, who wrote his University of Chicago Master's thesis on "Islam in West Africa," honored Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan with Trinity Church's Man of the Year award. Since becoming president, Obama stopped attending church, even on Christmas day, and specifically requested that no religious decorations grace the White House tree, which featured an ornament with the image of Mao Tse-Tung. In 2009 and 2010, much to the consternation of American Christians, Obama canceled the White House National Day of Prayer ceremonies.

Obama's official actions while president have fueled speculation about his continued allegiance to the Muslim world. As president, his first phone call as the nation's highest foreign statesman was to Abu Abbas, the terrorist leader of Fatah who was responsible for financing the Munich Olympic massacre in 1972. Obama's first television interview was with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya. In it he emphasized the importance of engaging with Iran and explained how the Israelis recognized the importance of achieving peace and would be willing to make sacrifices. No mention was made of any Arab-Palestinian sacrifices, the Arab-Palestinian vote to install the terrorist group Hamas as their official government, or the barrage of rockets they were directing toward Israel from Gaza. One of Obama's first speeches as president was at Cairo University, where he greeted the audience with "assalaamu alaykum," a greeting typically reserved for Muslims to extend to their fellow Muslims. In his speech, he focused on the wrongs committed by the West against Muslims and never once referred to the Islamic doctrine of jihad and its threat to the West. Curiously, Obama explained that as president, it was his responsibility to combat negative Islamic stereotypes, yet he remained silent about the protection of other religious groups. He did not describe his duty to fight Islamic terrorism or the threat of jihadist attacks on America. At the G-20 summit in April 2009, Obama bowed to Muslim Saudi King Abdullah, a shocking and unprecedented departure from U.S. presidential protocol.

In his book, Freedom to Believe: Challenging Islam's Apostasy Law, Patrick Sookhdeo contemplates a future in which Muslims extend to apostates the respect he believes they conferred on Barack Obama when he was invited to speak at Cairo University in 2009. However, Sookhdeo may be mistaken. Obama's religious status is ambiguous, and it is unclear if he is truly an apostate. The president may quite possibly be inappropriately labeled a Christian, and thus his case is unrepresentative of the dilemma posed by Islamic apostasy and cited by Sookhdeo. Nevertheless, as Islamic apostasy law is explicit and historically incontrovertible, Sookhdeo's dream of freedom of religious affiliation, that he imagines is now enjoyed by Obama, is probably out of reach for the majority of Muslims.

Patrick Sookhdeo is a British Anglican canon who serves as the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity.  A Christian convert from Islam, he is a spokesman for persecuted Christian minorities in Islamic nations worldwide. Sookhdeo has authored several books on Islam, including Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam and Understanding Islamic Terrorism.

In Freedom to Believe, Sookhdeo describes how freedom of religion is not recognized in the Muslim world because Islam is viewed as a way of life with both political and religious implications. Religion and adherence to Islamic doctrine is not viewed as a personal or private matter, but a function of the state. Any concept of an autonomous individual expressing free will is absent from Islam. Leaving Islam is viewed as treason and betrayal of the umma, or Muslim community, and disruptive to the social order. Muslims may also be accused of apostasy if they are not orthodox enough in their observance of Islamic doctrine.

Although conversion to Islam from other religions is actively encouraged, the reverse does not hold in Islamic doctrine. Sookhdeo cites all five main schools of shari'ah, or Islamic law, that consider apostasy from Islam a severe crime punishable by death. No disagreement exists about whether an apostate should be put to death; the only debate is whether the individual should be allowed a period of repentance. The death penalty for apostasy is brutal and can include decapitation, crucifixion, burning, strangling, drowning, impaling, and flaying. Muslims who participate in the killing of apostates are rewarded by a place in paradise. The humiliation of apostates continues into the afterlife, and those who leave the religion are denied a decent burial. 

In actual practice, observes Sookhdeo, apostates usually lose all civil rights. Their marriages may be dissolved, they may lose their families, and they may forfeit their inheritance rights. Apostasy accusations are often accepted uncritically with scant or no evidence. Apostates are often framed for spurious charges, arrested, tortured, and jailed. They may be dismissed from their jobs by their employer and suffer severe harassment, plus shame is visited upon their families and communities. Often family members try to have apostates declared insane to spare their lives, or they may even attempt to kill them or drive them away.

In Freedom to Believe, Sookhdeo also reviews the law of apostasy. It is based on the shari'ah and founded in the Koran and the practices of Mohamed, or the Hadith. The Hadith is very clear on the requirement to kill apostates, Sookhdeo writes. In Bukhari, the most authoritative of the Hadith collection, Mohamed is recorded as saying, "Whoever changed his religion, then kill him" (9:84:57). Whether or not the apostate is given a chance to repent is unclear, as there are verses that support either position. No designated punishment exists in Islamic doctrine for killing an apostate.

Ostensible contradictions in the Koran -- illustrated in the verses "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256) and "Fight and slay the non-believers wherever you find them" (9:5) -- are discussed by the author. He explains that this apparent discrepancy is an example of abrogation, a method of interpretation that imposes the precepts of later-day verses over earlier ones. More violent and definitive later-day verses, written after Mohamed had been victorious in Medina and Mecca, take precedence over earlier, milder verses written when Mohamed lacked sufficient power.

Sookhdeo also explains that apostasy is linked with blasphemy -- the cursing or insulting of Mohamed -- under the category of kufar, or unbelief. In contravention to Western principles of freedom of expression, the 57 Muslim states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have called for criminalizing religious defamation. Their goal, cites Sookhdeo, is to give Islam a privileged place among the world's religions. It would seem to be working. Non-Muslims are increasingly self-censoring to avoid charges of Islamophobia and to prevent actual violence, such as that which occurred with Cartoongate -- the protest against cartoons of Mohamed published by the Jyllands-Posten in 2005, which resulted in over one hundred people killed and embassies destroyed. Of course, Muslim violence against others, such as the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world, Muslim anti-Semitism, and slavery in the Sudan, are off-limits. 

The OIC has been trying to use the United Nations to support incorporation of shari'ah-based, anti-blasphemy prohibitions into international human rights law. In 2008, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution against the defamation of religion, specifically mentioning Islam four times to the exclusion of all other religions. In March 2009, Pakistan put forth a draft resolution on behalf of the OIC to combat the defamation of religions, specifically mentioning Islam and Muslims but no other religion or religious groups. The effect of such a law, Sookhdeo believes, will be to stifle religious freedom, outlaw conversions to other faiths, and persecute non-Muslims. 

He contrasts Western tolerance of religious freedom with various religious restrictions in Muslim countries. For example, in Saudi Arabia, non-Islamic religious worship is strictly forbidden. Individual judges are able to make decisions regarding apostasy in secret proceedings. In Pakistan, the desecration of the Koran carries a sentence of life imprisonment. Oftentimes, charges of apostasy and blasphemy are spurious and used to settle a personal vendetta. In Malaysia, non-Muslims are prohibited from using the word "Allah" in their publications. In the Maldives, all citizens must be Muslim, and the public practice of any other religion is not allowed.

Sadly, recounts Sookhdeo, Muslims who immigrate to the West in search of religious freedom are gravely disappointed. Apostasy still remains a problem for Muslims who convert and move to countries where religious freedom is guaranteed. Such immigrants are often at risk from their own families as well as radicals in their communities. Many are harassed with death threats and find it necessary to keep a low profile or even go into hiding. Often their adoptive countries lack an understanding of the risks they face and are unsupportive of their plight. If refugees, they also face the threat of deportation to a death sentence in their home countries.

Sookhdeo concludes that Islamic apostasy law stands in direct contrast to Western principles of human rights and religious liberty. He sees scant hope for change -- that Muslims will be able to freely change their religions -- as Muslims remain shocked and repulsed by apostasy and believe harsh punishment is justifiable. Further, dissent invites blasphemy charges, which effectively silences opposition, and criticism, which, in turn, stifles reform. Given the conclusions in Sookhdeo's book, it is likely the respect shown by Muslims to President Obama is simply acceptance of a Muslim brother, not a foretaste of a future in which Muslim apostasy is tolerated and accepted.

3.

Democrats spend big to lure Obama's minority and young voters back to the polls

Karen Tumulty
Washington Post Staff Writer

As political gambles go, it's a big and risky one: $50 million to test the proposition that the Democratic Party's outreach to new voters that helped make Barack Obama president can work in an election where his name is not on the ballot.

The standard rule of midterm elections is that only the most reliable voters show up at the polls, so both parties have traditionally focused on the unglamorous and conventional work that turns out their bases. But this year, the Democrats are doubling down on registering and motivating newer voters -- especially the 15 million heavily minority and young, who made it to the polls for the first time in the last presidential election.

"It's a great experiment to see whether we can bring out voters whose only previous vote was in 2008," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The party's overall budget for reaching new voters is more than twice as big as the $17 million it spent during the tumultuous 2006 midterm, which returned control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats.

Much about its "Vote 2010" effort has that way-back feel of two years ago: legions of canvassers going door-to-door, a stream of inspirational videos, an e-mail list of more than 13 million, and ads on Web sites including Latina.com, BlackPlanet.com, YELP.com and DailyCandy.

On Thursday, the 2008 presidential campaign's surviving grassroots operation, now Organizing for America, unveiled a spiffy Web site where supporters can get customized information about voting rules and deadlines in their states. It takes but a few keystrokes to fill in a voter registration form that then requires only a signature and a stamp.

But for all the wizardry, what the Democrats don't have is a candidate on the ballot named Obama. Instead, they face a political climate in which hope and exhilaration has given way to anger and disappointment. To the degree there is enthusiasm now, polls show, it is largely on the Republican side.

There does not seem to be a similar effort within the GOP. A spokesman would not discuss its operations and scoffed at the bet that Democrats are making this year. "When that announcement was made, it just wasn't taken very credibly," says Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye. "Those voters just aren't going to be there this time."

He's not alone in thinking that.

Some veteran Democratic Party operatives are also skeptical that the $50 million investment will pay off -- except, perhaps, in keeping the grassroots operation alive for Obama's reelection bid two years from now. Some even suggest that the president's team has put his long-term interests ahead of his party's immediate struggle for survival.

"I have zero confidence that they're heading in the right direction here," says one longtime Democratic organizer who didn't want to be quoted by name criticizing his party's major midterm election initiative. Added another: "I think they're going to come in for a very rude awakening. It's going to be brutal."

If that turns out to be the case, the doubters say, Democrats will wake up the morning of Nov. 3 wishing they had spent that $50 million on more traditional methods, like television ads, for reaching their base and persuading independents.

Rick Farmer, a Democratic activist in Sarasota, Fla., is seeing the challenge firsthand as he knocks on doors in a region where people are dreading the arrival of the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on their beaches. "I can't tell you how much anger there is out there," he said. "I have people ready to spit in my face." Some, he said, tell him, "We've been hoodwinked -- not by Obama, but by government."

In Mobile, Ala., Organizing for America volunteer Darlene Gay-Allen blares the Dells' "I'm Only a Man" from her boombox as she registers voters and tries to persuade her neighbors not to lose faith. "President Obama is only a man, and he's doing the best he could," she said.

Last year's Democratic gubernatorial losses in Virginia and New Jersey only increased the doubts that Obama's magic can rub off on other Democrats.

Although the president stumped for the party's nominees in both states, voter falloff was sharper than typical for an off-year election. Several private post-election analyses, which Democrats and their allies are using to plan their campaign strategies, showed that the decline was particularly steep among African Americans, Hispanics and, especially, younger voters.

"There wasn't a real effort to excite them," counters Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, the former Virginia governor. "The effort in Virginia was to go after independent voters, but we ended up losing out on the group of Democrats and Democratic-leaning folks who had turned out in 2008."

Party officials concede that their efforts to remotivate the new Obama voters are not likely to affect contests where Democrats are running far behind. But they insist it is not unreasonable to believe they can make a difference in races that will be decided by two to four percentage points.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, Gov. Ed Rendell -- himself a former national Democratic Party chairman -- notes that Democrats now outnumber Republicans in voter registration by 1.3 million, an advantage nearly three times larger than when he ran for governor in 2002. "They are motivate-able," Rendell said of newer Democratic voters. "Can you motivate all 100 percent of them? No. Can you motivate 20 percent of them? Yes." How much higher it goes than that, Rendell said, "will decide whether we win or lose."

The party plans to embark on a massive new program this fall to register college students, including many who volunteered for Obama as high school students but were too young to vote.

It is working barbershops and beauty salons in African American communities, and organizing events around the World Cup to reach out to Latinos. Every Wednesday in California, party organizers and volunteers attend naturalization ceremonies.

But what will matter more than anything else, many Democrats say, is Obama himself. How effective will he be in convincing those who came to the polls for the first time in 2008 that this election is crucial to accomplishing what he promised then?

"It is very important to make that case to these voters and that the president be involved in it as well. And he will be at points along the way," Kaine said. "The president is definitely signed into this plan. He likes the community-organizing aspect of it."

So the party will try things his way.

Has Obama indeed reinvented the art and science of winning elections, or will 2008 turn out to have been a unique moment that suited the particular gifts of one politician? The Democrats are about to lay down $50 million to find out.

Staff writers Sandhya Somashekhar and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.