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WEDNESDAY,  JULY 28,  2010

AND IN THE REAL WORLD – AT 7:29 P.M. ET:  We should remember that important things are happening in foreign affairs, the kinds of things that may come back to bite us later.  Today, for example, the "Palestinian Authority," in which Mr. Obama has invested such effort and high grovel, knifed him once again:

In a final thrust to persuade reluctant Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to enter direct talks with Israel, the EU coupled strong exhortations on Wednesday to Abbas to immediately begin them, with statements designed to give him confidence that once at the negotiating table, he will have strong support for a number of his key positions.

Abbas arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for a two-day visit to attend a special meeting of Arab League foreign ministers that begins on Thursday. The parley will evaluate the current proximity talks and discuss the possibility of starting direct negotiations.

Despite pressure from the US and the EU, Abbas has signaled in recent days that he does not intend to enter direct talks until Israel stops all settlement construction, as well as construction in east Jerusalem, and commits itself to the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, lines. He is expected to seek Arab League support for these positions.

COMMENT:  Question:  Why should the Palestinians need persuading to sit down with the Israelis to work out an agreement?  Second question:  How can anyone say that the Palestinians "want peace" when their leaders refuse direct talks?  (And the Palestinian Authority is the more "moderate" of the two branches of the Palestinian leadership, the other being the ultra-militant Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.)  Third question:  Would Abbas and his crowd be acting this way if Obama hadn't done everything in his power to humiliate the Israelis before trying a recent election-year kiss-and-make-up campaign?

Just asking.

July 28, 2010     Permalink

ARIZONA LOSES THE FIRST ROUND – AT 7:17 P.M. ET:  A federal judge has issued an injunction against certain parts of the new, controversial Arizona anti-illegal-immigration bill:

PHOENIX — A federal judge on Wednesday, weighing in on a clash between the federal government and a state over immigration policy, blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect.

But Judge Bolton took aim at the parts of the law that have generated the most controversy, issuing a preliminary injunction against sections that called for police officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.

COMMENT:  This is only the first stage.  Higher courts will rule on, for example, issues of constitutionality.  Many legal observers believe that the Arizona law will have to be tested ultimately before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

It was amusing watching some of the leftist pundits react to the ruling today.  Rick Sanchez, CNN's daytime "progressive" anchor, could barely contain his glee, surprising since he's generally so capable of restraining thought.

The hypocrisy here is that there are so-called "sanctuary cities" that refuse to enforce federal immigration law or cooperate with federal authorities in upholding that law, and yet the Obama administration has no problem with them.

Today's decision is a setback, in my view, for the millions of Hispanic-Americans who have come here legally, won their citizenship, and contribute lawfully to the country every day.  But higher courts will rule, and reason may, in the end, prevail.

Nothing that happened today does a thing toward solving the problem of illegal immigration.

July 28, 2010    Permalink

HEY, THE KAMIKAZES DID IT, THE JIHADISTS DO IT, SO WHY NOT DEMS? – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  Are Democrats into suicide?  It sometimes appears so.  From The Hill:

House Democrats are casting doubt on one of President Obama’s top campaign promises by hedging on whether to permanently extend the tax cuts on families making less than $250,000 annually and individuals making less than $200,000.

The tax breaks — passed nearly a decade ago at the urging of President George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress — are set to expire at the end of the year.

While the White House has pushed for making the middle-class tax cuts permanent, Democrats in the House are looking at other options, including temporary extensions that would last more than a year, according to an aide to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
Hoyer and Democrats have said they’ll definitely extend the middle-class tax breaks through next year.

“We ought to have no increase in taxes on middle-income working Americans,” Hoyer said Friday. “Clearly, at a time of recession, we want to make sure that working people have the ability to support themselves.”

A temporary extension of the middle-class breaks would leave Obama open to Republican attacks that he broke his word on taxes if he runs for reelection in 2012.

COMMENT:  Do these people understand the phrase, "Cut spending"?  It seems to be an emotional thing with them, and I know of no medication that can cure the problem. 

If the Democrats effectively raise taxes, and the recession worsens, their 2012 – which some cultures believe is the year the world will end – will be the year their party ends.  Look, we'll take half a loaf.

July 28, 2010       Permalink

WRONG RECIPE BOOK – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  More on the adventures of Al Qaeda (see post just below), but this should chill us.  From London's Telegraph:

An al-Qaeda cell killed by the Black Death may have been developing biological weapons when it was infected, it has been reported.

The group of 40 terrorists were reported to have been killed by the plague at a training camp in Algeria earlier this month.

It was initially believed that they could have caught the disease through fleas on rats attracted by poor living conditions in their forest hideout.

But there are now claims the cell was developing the disease as a weapon to use against Western cities.

Experts said that the group was developing chemical and biological weapons.

Dr Igor Khrupinov, a biological weapons expert at Georgia University, told The Sun: "Al-Qaeda is known to experiment with biological weapons. And this group has direct communication with other cells around the world."

And...

It was reported last year that up to 100 potential terrorists had attempted to become postgraduate students in Britain in an attempt to use laboratories.

COMMENT:   We're constantly being told how weak and disorganized Al Qaeda is, but the group remains a deadly threat, and that threat includes mass casualties. 

A small squad of hijackers inflicted more death on Americans on September 11, 2001, than the Japanese fleet, with five carriers, did at Pearl Harbor.

Biological weapons, to be sure, are hard to use.  But that should give us no satisfaction.  The panic created by even a small, successful attack could alter the way Americans live, especially in large cities, and cost this country tens of billions in defensive measures.

July 28, 2010     Permalink

THANKS FOR CALLING IN, GUYS – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  The second man in Al Qaeda speaks to us from the heart:

Al Qaeda's second in command Ayman Al-Zawahiri has surfaced again, this time threatening more attacks against the U.S. and the West.

"Oh American people…We offered you a peace plan, and mutual benefit; but your governments were proud and haughty, and so the attacks against you followed one after another, everywhere – from Indonesia to Times Square, by way of Madrid and London. And the attacks are ongoing, and more will come one after another," said Zawahiri, according to a transcript provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington, DC.

I always worry about people who begin sentences with, "Oh..."  I mean, what century is that?

However, put the guy's comments in perspective:

Former White House national security official Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, said that up until this point, there haven't been any correlations between Zawahiri's past threats and any attacks actually occurring.

"U.S. government and counterterrorism officials are not going to increase their alert based on Zawahiri's statement, because of his previous track record," Clarke said. "But they're on relatively high alert already because of the increase in homegrown terrorist threats related to al Qaeda."

COMMENT:  And that is the point.  We've had several very close calls - the Christmas plane bomber and the Times Square wannabe – and a successful attack at Fort Hood.  It's only a matter of time before someone gets through, gets the technology right, and makes a statement in an American city.

July 28, 2010       Permalink

THREE MONTHS OUT, LOOKING GOOD FOR THE GOP – AT 7:59 A.M. ET:  Three months before the most important midterm elections of our era, the prospects for the Republicans in the House are looking good, according to Michael Barone, one of our best political analysts.  From the Washington Examiner:

...take a look at the generic ballot question -- which party's candidate will you vote for in elections to the House? The current realclearpolitics.com average shows Republicans ahead by 45 to 41 percent. Ten of this month's 15 opinion polls asking the question had Republicans ahead; Democrats led in four (twice by 1 percent), and one poll showed a tie.

Keep in mind that the generic ballot question historically has tended to underpredict Republican performance in off-year elections. Gallup has been asking the question since 1950 and has shown Republicans leading only in two cycles, 1994 and 2002, and then by less than the 7 and 5 points by which they won the popular vote for the House in those years.

So the Republicans' current lead in the generic ballot question suggests they may be on the brink of doing better than in any election since 1946, when they won a 245-188 margin in the House -- larger than any they've held ever since.

And...

In 1994, I wrote an article in U.S. News & World Report arguing that there was a serious chance that Republicans could capture the 40 seats that they needed then, as now, for a majority in the House. It was the first mainstream media piece suggesting that, and it appeared on newsstands on July 11.

I cited as evidence five polls showing incumbent Democratic congressmen trailing Republican challengers. None of those Democrats had scandal problems; all five lost in November.
Today a lot more Democratic incumbents seem to be trailing Republican challengers in polls. Jim Geraghty of National Review Online has compiled a list of 13 Democratic incumbents trailing in polls released over the past seven weeks...

...These metrics -- the generic ballot results and polls in individual districts -- suggest that House Democrats are headed toward historic losses.

COMMENT:  So far, so good.  But Republicans have yet to present their platform, which had better be good.  And don't ignore the possibility of an October surprise, especially in foreign policy.

Nor can we ignore the relentless Obama-booming by the mainstream media.  While I don't stay at night worrying about it, I wonder how many "news" organizations are preparing grim-faced special reports on some dark Republican secret or the prospects for the "average" American if the GOP seizes control. 

July 28, 2010     Permalink

TUESDAY,  JULY 27,  2010

WELCOME TO THE RECOVERY – AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  We're constantly told by the administration, channelling one Herbert Hoover, that prosperity is right around the corner.  The American people apparently don't think so, and they see the real economy operating every day:

U.S. consumer confidence sank in July to its lowest since February on job market worries, underscoring the slow path to economic recovery, and home prices rose in May but without signs of a sustained rebound, reports released Tuesday showed.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said consumer attitudes worsened this month as did their expectations about jobs being hard to get.

The group's index of consumer attitudes fell to 50.4 in July from an upwardly revised 54.3 in June, below the median forecast of 51 in a Reuters poll.

"There have been quite a few headwinds — the fiscal stimulus is fading, the European situation certainly did have an impact on consumer confidence and inventories are being brought more into line," said David Sloan, economist at 4Cast in New York. "But clearly the big problem for consumers is jobs."

And this:

About 18.9 million homes in the U.S. stood empty during the second quarter as surging foreclosures helped push ownership to the lowest level in a decade.

The number of vacant properties, including foreclosures, residences for sale and vacation homes, rose from 18.6 million in the year-earlier quarter, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report today. The ownership rate, meaning households that own their own residence, was 66.9 percent, the lowest since 1999.

Lenders are accelerating foreclosures as borrowers fall behind in mortgage payments after the worst housing crash since the Great Depression. A record 269,962 U.S. homes were seized in the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Foreclosures probably will top 1 million this year, the Irvine, California- based data company said in a July 15 report.

“There are a lot of people losing their homes and either moving in with family or renting places to live,” said Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “Foreclosures are still going up.”

And the Congressional Budget Office is warning today that our national debt is at unsustainable levels, meaning we won't have the funds to pay it back and run the government in a manner Americans expect.

Happy days are here again.

July 27, 2010     Permalink

IRAN LATEST – AT 7:38 P.M. ET:  There's been a great deal of chatter today over that bizarre prediction by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, reported in our first post this morning, that the U.S. will attack at least two countries in the Mideast within the next three months.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Fox News, asked, "What's the second country?"  And that's what's intriguing people. 

Charles Krauthammer came up with the most persuasive answer.  He suggested that Iran, through its clients Syria and Hezbollah, would provoke a military action with Israel, leading to an Israeli response and American assistance to Israel.  The Iranian purpose would be to take pressure off Iran and allow Tehran to demonstrate its power to disrupt the entire region.

Well, that's a good a theory as any I've heard.  But the specific nature of Ahmadinejad's prediction – war within three months – has given people a bit of the jitters.  If Iran is going to provoke something, the period right before an election in the U.S. could, in Iranian eyes, be opportune.  The Iranians may not understand the American tradition of rallying 'round the flag, and may think American politicians will capitulate so as not to rouse "anti-war" opposition during their campaigns.  The Japanese misread the American spirit in their attack on Pearl Harbor, even though the planner of that attack, Admiral Yamamoto, had warned his government that this country would strike back fiercely.

July 27, 2010     Permalink

WHAT?  YOU MEAN THAT THE REPUBLICANS STOLE IT AND GAVE IT TO THEIR CORPORATE FRIENDS?  I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN – AT 10:14 A.M. ET: 

A funny thing happened to most of the spilled oil in the Gulf.  It disappeared.  Now there is much to-do over this.  Where is it?  What will CNN do without oil pictures, now that Shirley Sherrod has had her 15 minutes?  Was the oil stolen by the GOP?  By Fox News?  ABC has the painful story:

For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they're having trouble finding it.

At its peak last month, the oil slick was the size of Kansas, but it has been rapidly shrinking, now down to the size of New Hampshire.

Today, ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found none, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was no oil to be seen...

...Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem.

"It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen.

What's a liberal to do? 

Well, for starters, some of the libs who salivated over the oil spill might read some science.  Former Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, a trained geologist, wrote just after the spill started that the oil on the water was not the problem.  It would disappear through the ocean's natural processes.

Schmitt's column was largely ignored.  Didn't fit the approved narrative.  But apparently he was right.  The oil at sea will be taken care of by nature.  The oil that reached shore is a more complicated problem.

We hate to break it to the liberals, but the world may actually survive.

July 27, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA LOSING SOME HISPANIC SUPPORT – AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  The Obamans have gone all out to defeat the Arizona illegal-immigration law, and gaining Hispanic support has certainly been one of the motives behind that maneuver.  But, alas, Mr. Obama's support among Hispanics appears actually to be slipping:

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's once solid support among Hispanics is showing a few cracks, a troubling sign for Democrats desperate to get this critical constituency excited about helping the party hold onto Congress this fall.

Hispanics still overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party over the GOP, and a majority still think Obama is doing a good job, according to an Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Hispanics.

But the survey, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, shows Obama gets only lukewarm ratings on issues important to Hispanics — and that could bode poorly for the president and his party.

For a group that supported Obama so heavily in 2008 and in his first year in office, only 43 percent of Hispanics surveyed said Obama is adequately addressing their needs, with the economy a major concern. Another 32 percent were on the fence, while 21 percent said he'd done a poor job.

COMMENT:  You know, when you act in a patronizing manner toward minority groups, they often come to resent it.  Our Hispanic population is diverse and hard-working.  It is not a monolith marching in lock-step.  A recent poll of Hispanics in Colorado, for example, showed that most are in favor of the Arizona law. 

We've seen recent attempts to whip up the African-American population and get it to the polls on election day, by injecting racial fears into the political discussion.  And we see the same attempt with Hispanics.  Maybe some folks have caught on to the game, and maybe they don't like it.

July 27, 2010     Permalink

ALL THE RAGE – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  Wasn't it a time, wasn't it a time?  Ah yes, members of the sixties generation, now very much in the saddle in Washington – even John Kerry still has a pulse – are always looking for a new gimmick to bring them back to the feathers and flower-jeans days.

And nothing does it better than a good dose of "anti-war" goo.

So they're in Heaven today.  A little wormy left-wing group called Wikileaks, led by an Australian chap who has an Obamagod complex, has gotten hold of thousands of pages of classified documents related to our effort in Afghanistan, and released them.   Frankly, there's not much there, but, to the sixties crowd, it's going home again.

Some of you will remember that there was this chap named Daniel Ellsberg who released a packet called "The Pentagon Papers," setting off an uproar in the early 1970s over the limits of press freedom.  The papers really didn't change anything, but Ellsberg became a hero on the left for doing his thing to reduce popular support for the Vietnam War.

And who should turn up on Larry King last night?  Why, Ellsberg himself, looking almost as old as Larry.  And of course, his voice hadn't changed.  He still had that grim I-am-a-wonderful-person demeanor, and yes, of course, Wikileakers reminded him of what he'd done to save humanity way back then, before home computers and airbags. 

But Senator Joe Lieberman, one of the great stalwarts of national defense, reminds the nation of the cost leaks like this, and the nature of the people behind them:

The disclosure of tens of thousands of classified documents on the Afghanistan war is profoundly irresponsible and harmful to our national security. The Obama administration is absolutely right to condemn these leaks.

Most of these documents add nothing to the public understanding of the war in Afghanistan. The materials – which cover the period from 2004 to 2009 – reflect the reality, recognized by everyone, that the insurgency was gaining momentum during these years while our coalition was losing ground. That is precisely why President Obama carried out a policy review in late 2009 and subsequently ordered a surge of forces to Afghanistan as part of a comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency strategy that is now under way under the command of General Petraeus. We should give General Petraeus and our troops on the ground the time and support they need to succeed. Although we know that the path ahead is difficult, we also know that the consequences for our national security will be catastrophic if we abandon this effort and allow the Taliban and their allies to regain a safe haven in Afghanistan. That is the path back to 9/11.

It is also important to recognize that Wikileaks is not an objective news organization but an organization with an ideological agenda that is implacably hostile to our military and the most basic requirements of our national security. Americans and our allies should be wary of drawing conclusions based on materials selectively leaked by Wikileaks, as it seeks to sap support for the Afghan war among the American people and our European allies.”

COMMENT:  Superbly said.  Now I hope other members of Congress come out and support Joe. 

And yes, the Obama White House has strongly condemned the leak, for which the president should be commended.  Maybe now he's starting to understand the gross irresponsibility on the left.

As for Ellsberg, he did no good.  The collapse of the American effort in Vietnam led to ghastly events in both Vietnam and Cambodia.  And, as usual, the left has never apologized for its recklessness, its very selective "anti-war" movement, and its disgraceful treatment of returning American soldiers.

July 27, 2010        Permalink

WHERE IS HE GETTING THIS? – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  The revered president of Iran is making a startling set of predictions:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran expects the United States to launch a military strike on "at least two countries" in the Middle East in the next three months, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told state-run Press TV.

In an interview recorded on Monday, Ahmadinejad did not specify whether he thought Iran itself would be attacked nor did he say what intelligence led him to expect such a move.

The United States and Israel have refused to rule out military action against Iran's nuclear program which they fear could lead to it making a bomb, something Iran denies.

"They have decided to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months," Ahmadinejad said in excerpts broadcast on the rolling news channel on Tuesday.

Israel, which refuses to confirm or deny the existence of its own nuclear arsenal, has a history of pre-emptive strikes against suspected nuclear targets. In 1981 it destroyed Iraq's only nuclear reactor and in 2007 bombed a suspect site in Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran "the ultimate terrorist threat." His deputy, Moshe Yaalon, has said Israel had improved military capability which could be used against foes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or Iran.

COMMENT:  It is hard to know what is behind such a statement.  Ahmadinejad, to be sure, is not the greatest source of information.  At the same time, he's going way out on a limb in making this prediction, and obviously will be chided, even within Iran, if it doesn't come true. 

Please note the time frame of the dear leader's prediction:  It is the period up to the American midterm election.  Sinister minds might reason that nothing would save Obama faster than a massive military action, prompting Americans to rally 'round the flag and the president.  Non-sinister minds might suggest that there is new information that could hurry American military action against Iran. 

There is also the issue of David Petraeus, no shrinking violet, and the advice he may be giving.

There have been a number of stories and columns in the United States recently – we mentioned them last week – suggesting that the administration is giving up its "outreach" notions about Iran and is preparing to take a much harder line.  Also, some stories suggest that the Obamans have finally concluded that a nuclear Iran really is unacceptable.

I don't know what second country the Iranian president could be referring to.  Syria comes to mind.  So does Yemen.  But we await further information to determine whether Ahmadinejad is in fantasyland, or if this is something real.

July 27, 2010     Permalink