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MARCH 30,  2011

HARD TO MAKE THIS UP II – AT 9:48 P.M. ET:  Just read this, just read it.  It happened in Florida:

A 17-year-old girl was charged Friday with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm and battery after deputies say she pulled a gun on her mother during an argument.

Rachel Anne Hachero was upset because her mother wouldn't co-sign on a vehicle purchase, according to a Lee County Sheriff's Office report.

The teen's mother told investigators Hachero threatened to kill her when she refused to co-sign for the vehicle.

Hachero then confronted her mother at home with a gun and pistol-whipped her head, according to the report.

After pistol-whipping her mother, Hachero pointed the gun at her mother's head and stomach and told her she was going with her to sign for the car, according to the report.

The mother told investigators Hachero ordered her mother into the vehicle and demanded she drive to the dealership to sign for the car or she would shoot her.

Hachero and her mother then went to Sutherlin Nissan on South Tamiami Trail, where she had her mother sign for a 2004 black Nissan 350Z. Hachero left the dealership in the vehicle.

Now, drumroll, get this:

The mother told investigators she did not want to press charges against Hachero, because she had recently been accepted to several Ivy League colleges.

COMMENT:  Yup.  Those Ivies sure have high standards.  They're great judges of the best and the brightest.  And they apparently put great stress on the ability to pistol-whip mama.  Hey, it's a skill for the oppressed!

Fight fiercely Harvard.

March 30, 2011      Permalink

HARD TO MAKE THIS UP I – AT 9:20 P.M. ET:  You know all that stuff that the Mideast dictators hand out about "our dear, brotherly Palestinians"?  We've heard that nonsense for years.  Well, get this, from the Jerusalem Post:

Palestinian officials on Wednesday appealed to Arab leaders to stop inciting against them by accusing them of instigating unrest in their countries.

Huh?  The dear, brotherly Palestinians?

The appeal came after the Syrian authorities claimed that Palestinians were behind the recent wave of violence that hit the country.

The Pals are in good company.  Syria also blamed America and Israel.  They may also blame offshore drilling and slow 911 service.

Buthaina Shaaban, an advisor to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said last week that Palestinians had joined Muslim Brotherhood supporters in attacking residents of the cities of Latakia and Deraa.

The Libyan authorities had also made similar charges against Palestinians.

Government officials in Tripoli claimed that opposition forces have recruited many Palestinians living in Libya as mercenaries to fight against the regime.

In Amman, some Jordanians claimed last week that Palestinians were involved in anti-government protests that have swept through the kingdom in recent weeks. Pro-monarchy activists who attacked an anti-government rally in Amman last Friday shouted slogans against Palestinians, such as “Go back to the West Bank!,” eyewitnesses reported.

Oh, isn't that lovely?  They sound like Helen Thomas!  Oh, wait.  She wanted the Jews to go back to Poland and Germany.  Maybe everyone should go back, and the Mideast could be the world's greatest beach.

Palestinians expressed fear that the charges would be used by Arab regimes to justify harsh measures against them, first and foremost deportation.

They specifically fear a repeat of what happened after the first Gulf War in the early ’90s, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were deported from Kuwait and other Gulf countries for supporting Saddam Hussein.

Ah yes, the dear, brotherly Palestinians.

What a farce.

March 30, 2011       Permalink

WHERE OBAMA STANDS – AT 9:11 A.M. ET:  Not in a good place, according to a new Quinnipiac poll just out.  In fact, Mr. Obama's numbers have dipped to all-time lows.  From The Politico:

President Barack Obama’s approval rating and prospects for reelection have plunged to all-time lows in a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

Half of the registered voters surveyed for the poll think that the president does not deserve a second term in office, while 41 percent say he does. In another Quinnipiac poll released just four weeks ago, 45 percent said the president did not deserve reelection, while 47 percent said he did.

The decline in support for a second Obama term comes as his approval rating has dropped 4 percentage points since early March, landing at 42 percent – a record low – in the poll released Wednesday. His disapproval rating has risen from 46 percent to 48 percent.

The downward shift may in part be the result of dissatisfaction over U.S involvement in Libya, with 47 percent of those surveyed saying they oppose it. By a margin of 58 percent to 29 percent, registered voters said that Obama has not clearly stated U.S. goals for the mission.

COMMENT:  We stress, of course, that this is one poll.  Results will vary according to poll, but the president hasn't scored that well recently. 

It is quite possible, by the way, that the president is in even worse shape that the poll indicates.  It was taken among registered voters, not likely voters.  Surveys among likely voters tend to tilt even more toward the Republican side.

Polls at this stage of the 2012 campaign are very preliminary, as the Republicans haven't even chosen a candidate.  But the door is open for the right person.

March 30, 2011      Permalink

BIZARRE, MAN – AT 8:36 A.M. ET:  How many times have you heard "analysts" and "foreign-policy experts" inform us, based on their special wisdom and regular program of dental care, that if only we understood the "Arab street" and the culture of Middle Eastern peoples, we'd avoid all this unpleasantness. 

What these self-appointed geniuses never tell you is that opinion on the Arab street comes in large measure from what Arabs are fed over state-run propaganda channels.  They've had regular feedings for decades.  What are, for example, Syrians being told today, after days of rioting?  Get this - this is what the Syrian street is being given:

Syrian President Bashar Assad clung to power after protests, saying he is responsible for keeping stability, in a Wednesday speech to his parliament.

"I am speaking to you at an extraordinary moment," Assad said, "it is a test of our unity. These tests repeat themselves due to plots threatening our homeland."

The Syrian president explained that Deraa, where some of the bloodiest protests have taken place, "is in the forefront in confronting the Israeli enemy and defending the nation."

"No one can be defending and conspiring at the same time," he said, "this cannot happen. The people of Deraa do not have any responsibility in what has happened. We are all with Deraa."

"There is a plot to break Syria apart," Assad claimed. "It began with incitement on the internet and on Facebook, and moved on to the media and the street. We were able to stop the American-Israeli plot."

COMMENT:  Yup, it's a Facebook/American/Israeli plot.  Syrians cannot possibly have any legitimate complaints.  And thre are plenty of people who will believe this in Syria, and plenty of useful idiots in the West who will label it a "legitimate alternative narrative." 

You feed a diet like this to people for decades, or even centuries, and you have a backward, failing civilization steeped in conspiracy theories.  And that's what we're looking at.

March 30, 2011       Permalink

STANDOFF IN LIBYA – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  There are no signs of regime change in Libya.  Rebels fighting Qaddafi's forces have been pushed back despite NATO air strikes.  From Fox:

BREGA, Libya -- Rebels retreated Wednesday from the key Libyan oil port of Ras Lanouf along the coastal road leading to the capital Tripoli after they came under heavy shelling from ground forces loyal to leader Muammar Qaddafi.

NATO planes flew over the zone where the heaviest fighting was under way and an Associated Press reporter at the scene heard explosions, indicating a new wave of airstrikes against Qaddafi's forces.

And...

With the help of NATO airstrikes earlier in the week, rebel who control the eastern half of Libya rapidly advanced westward on the main coastal highway that leads to Qaddafi's stronghold in the capital. The got within 60 miles of the city of Sirte, Qaddafi's hometown and a bastion of support for the longtime leader with a major military base.

At that point, they came under heavy bombardments by Qaddafi's ground forces, who outgun the rebels in every way -- in numbers, equipment and training.

COMMENT:  One of my fears here is that Obama, an amateur in military and foreign policy, may have been sold what other leaders have been sold – an air campaign.  But air campaigns alone very rarely are decisive, although they can certainly play a large role in the outcome of a conflict.  It is troops on the ground who make the ultimate difference.

Obama has pledged that no American ground troops will be involved in Libya.  It is hard to see Europeans placing their soldiers on the ground.  And the Arab states...forget it.

So what happens if the Libyan leader doesn't budge, and his troops hold off the rebels?  We may be facing that situation fairly soon.  This is a day-by-day struggle against a man who has been in power more than four decades, and clearly has a knack for clinging to his office.

March 30, 2011      Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE, INCREDIBLE – AT 7:47 A.M. ET:  Periodically, we like to pass on stories about Britain's National Health Service, as a warning of what socialized medicine eventually becomes.  Add to the National Health Service the regulations imposed by the European Union, and you have ingredients for disaster.  Consider this, from London's Telegraph:

The General Medical Council said current European rules represent a “serious cause of concern” and risk to patient safety by banning it from testing GPs’ language skills before they can start working here.

The regulator said it has some doctors on its books who "are not able to communicate in English" but could not prevent them seeking work here under European law.

It warned that bogus doctors from other countries may find their way into the NHS by presenting fake certificates or ID, because of a lack of security checks, or could hide the fact that they had been suspended from practising in their homeland.

Even genuine doctors from abroad may have little idea of how to carry out procedures that are standard in Britain, because there is no standard training, education or healthcare system.

The GMC’s strongly worded submission to the European Commission, which is reviewing the laws that allow free movement of medics across the continent, comes after the scandal of Daniel Ubani.

COMMENT:  Once again, the patient is last.  Who cares if people die, as long as political correctness and the party line are maintained?

We are going to have that here before long.  You can see it coming, and Barack Obama's Justice Department will be there to enforce the "rights" of "different cultures." 

Recently, in extraordinary statements, the heads of Britain, France and Germany declared that multiculturalism had failed in their countries.  It is unlikely, though, that the leftist elites who run the European Union's bureacracies really care.

March 30, 2011     Permalink

MARCH 29,  2011

RECOGNITION OF EXCELLENCE NEWS – AT 9:24 P.M. ET:  Goofball Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is being given a journalism award in Argentina.  I know that we will all want to congratulate him on this achievement:

Hugo Chavez is getting a journalism award in Argentina.

The Venezuelan leader regularly clashes with critical media, but the University of La Plata is giving him its Rodolfo Walsh Prize on Tuesday for what it describes as his work giving people without a voice access to the airwaves and newspapers.

Chavez's government has bankrolled the growth of the Telesur network, providing a state-funded alternative to privately financed broadcast stations across Latin America.

He met Tuesday with his ally President Cristina Fernandez, who is trying to transform Argentina's communications industry through a law that would break up media monopolies and force cable TV providers to include channels run by unions, Indians and activist groups.

The two presidents also plan to sign commercial accords dealing with food, transport and energy, and to visit a state-run factory where Argentina will build ships for Venezuela's oil industry.

COMMENT:  What's next, a Peabody award?  The fact that a journalism faculty could give a prize to a thug like Chavez, who only days ago expressed his support for Syrian dictator Assad, and has made an alliance with the Iranian regime, demonstrates what we often suggest here – that the media, internationally, has often been part of the problem, not part of the solution.

We are spoiled in America by a free press which, despite all its faults, is still probably the best in the world, although far below what it should be.  We don't realize the level of corruption and ideological degeneracy that dominates news outlets in many countries, including those of Britain and Western Europe.

As for Argentina, it is a problematical country with a fascist past.  Cristina Fenandez, who succeeded her husband as president, is widely regarded as unstable, even, reportedly, by Hillary Clinton.  In America, Argentina is best known through the musical play, "Evita," and for having been beaten by Britain in the Falklands War.  But I understand it's a nice place to visit.

March 29, 2011      Permalink 

POWER TO THE PEOPLE – AT 9:04 P.M. ET:  Samantha Power, a "human rights advocate" in the White House, has come out of the shadows to give fulsome praise to dear leader for his handling of Libya.

Power won the Pulitzer Prize for a book on genocide.  An Obama favorite, she had to lay low during the 2008 campaign after calling Hillary Clinton "a monster."  Thus, the precision of her wonderful mind.

She also is known as pointedly anti-Israel, interesting for a great humanitarian.   There is no record to show that Power realized that the Mideast is ruled by brutal dictators until confronted with the reality of the last several months.  She is credited, along with Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, with pressuring Obama into acting in Libya.  She apparently had nothing to say about Iran when protesters were shot in the streets.  Power speaks:

White House aide Samantha Power, a former news reporter turned anti-genocide advocate, said President Obama’s two-year campaign to promote human rights helped trigger the uprising in Libya against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s rule.In a speech Monday at Columbia University, Ms. Power, director of multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, defended her support for the military operation against Libyan government forces and said the president’s efforts, through speeches in various foreign capitals, made it easier for other nations to stand with the United States against tyrants.

Oh please.  The Libya revolt was made possible by the example of the other revolts that preceded it.  If Obama's speeches had anything to do with it, it would have happened much earlier.

“The president has argued our interests and our values cannot be separated,” Ms. Power said, speaking to a friendly crowd of about 130 people. “These values have caused the people of Libya to risk their lives on the street.”

Not so fast, Sammy.  We're really not sure who the rebels are.  And Obama sure exercised American values when he remained silent for days over Iran. 

Ms. Power sidestepped questions about reports she was among three female Obama administration aides who pressed the president to go to war in Libya.

On the military operation to impose a no-fly zone, however, Ms. Power, said that “force can be justified on humanitarian grounds.”

Ms. Power said the international coalition acted to save the rebel-stronghold city of Benghazi because of Col. Gadhafi’s attacks. “On a single day, he killed 1,200 people on suspicion” of being anti-government rebels, she said.

“To put Libyan events in historical perspective,” she said, “in Libya, it took us nine days impose asset freezes and travel bans,” while pressuring regimes in the Balkans and other places took years.

Power has her fans, but others feel she has little idea how the real world works, that everything to her is black and white.  We'll see if the Power Doctrine, or Obama Doctrine, or whatever it is, has any use down the road, when things may get much tougher and decisions harder.

March 29, 2011      Permalink

EU GOES NUTS – AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  Well, to say that the European Union goes nuts isn't really a news story, but a continuation of an existing situation.  This, though, takes the prize.  From London's Telegraph:

The European Commission on Monday unveiled a "single European transport area" aimed at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050.

The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.

Top of the EU's list to cut climate change emissions is a target of "zero" for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU's future cities.

Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto "alternative" means of transport.

"That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."

The Brits give a proper response:

The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.

"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.

"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."

COMMENT:  Why is it that some people have this obsessive need to run everyone else's life?  Is it their sense of their own superiority?  Their fear of modern times?  Their deep distrust of anything that resembles "the American way"?  I'd love to see a good psychiatric analysis of the European Union's growing bureaucracy, and its mentality.

March 29, 2011      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – JOE SCARBOROUGH COMES ALIVE – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:   I'd lost confidence in Joe for quite a time.  He is welded to MSNBC, a journalistic enterprise that doesn't hide its left-wing flag, and Joe's defense of his former conservatism has become, in Maggie Thatcher's term, wobbly.  But today he shows a pulse in exposing the hypocrisy of the left over Libya.  From The Politico:

How can the left call for the ouster of Muammar Qadhafi for the sin of killing hundreds of Libyans when it opposed the war waged against Saddam Hussein? During Saddam’s two decades in Iraq, he killed more Muslims than anyone in history and used chemical weapons against his own people and neighboring states.

With the help of his equally despicable sons, Uday and Qusay, Saddam devastated Iraq, terrorized his people and destroyed that country’s environment. By the time American troops deposed him in 2003, Saddam had killed at least 300,000 of his own people — and human rights groups say that tally does not even include the million-plus casualties his invasion of Iran caused.

If Obama and his liberal supporters believed Qadhafi’s actions morally justified the Libyan invasion, why did they sit silently by for 20 years while Saddam killed hundreds of thousands?

And how do they claim the moral high ground in Libya while not calling for the immediate invasion of Syria? The monstrous Bashar al-Assad regime is slaughtering his own people by the hundreds. More killings are sure to happen as that corrupt regime teeters on the brink of collapse.

COMMENT:  Look, the left has no moral consistency.  It believes only in itself.  (I'd caution, however, that some Republicans are also sounding a bit hypocritical over Libya.)

There was a time when the Democratic Party had a coherent, defense-oriented foreign policy, far more thoughtful and useful than that of the old GOP isolationists.  That's no longer the case, and hasn't been since the late 60s.  Scratch the Dems down deep and they'd cut defense to the bone and, to quote their ideological leader, George McGovern, "come home America."  But, as Scarborough points out in another part of this piece, most of the Democratic left is giving support, if lukewarm support, to Obama, to help his reelection chances.  These are the same people who called Bush a fascist and baby killer for liberating Iraq.

March 29, 2011       Permalink 

SETBACK IN LIBYA – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  After a day making progress, Libyan rebels have now been set back in their effort to overthrow the regime:

BIN JAWWAD, Libya – Libyan government tanks and rockets blunted a rebel assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte on Tuesday and drove back the ragtag army of irregulars, even as world leaders prepared to debate the country's future in London.

Rockets and tank fire sent Libya's rebel volunteers in a panicked scramble away from the front lines, before the opposition was able to bring up truck mounted rocket launchers of their own and return fire.

The latest rebel setback emphasizes the see-saw nature of this conflict and how the opposition is still no match for the superior firepower and organization of Gadhafi's forces, despite an international campaign of deadly airstrikes.

The two sides traded salvos over the small hamlet of Bin Jawwad amid the thunderous crash of rockets and artillery shells as plumes of smoke erupted in the town. The steady drum of heavy machine gun fire and the pop of small arms could also be heard above the din.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- As fighting between government and rebel forces rages on in several Libyan towns, world leaders will gather Tuesday in London to plan ways to put pressure on leader Moammar Gadhafi.

More than 40 foreign ministers and representatives from regional groups will attend the conference, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of the African Union Jean Ping and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"The purpose of this conference is to broaden and deepen the coalition effort," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "We all want to see that cease-fire. We all want to see Gadhafi go. Those things are clear. But once we have that cease-fire, we have something to work with."

Wait, wait, wait.  Once we have a cease-fire we have something to work with?  Really?  What do we have to work with?  I would imagine – excuse me for my ignorance – that military pressure might do the trick in removing Gadhafi from power.  I'm not sure how a cease-fire fits in.

This sounds like one of those sanctions meetings that will precede a negotiation that will precede a waiting period that will precede an international conference that will precede a UN study. 

Look, I hope we succeed, that the Libyan dictator goes, and that a reasonable government is elected in Libya.  But this does indeed look like a plan written by a committee.

March 29, 2011       Permalink

MUSICAL CHAIRS IN OLD SYRIA – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  Cosmetic surgery has come to Syrian politics.  A new facelift is under way.  From AP:

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian state-run television says the Cabinet has resigned as the country sees the worst unrest in decades.

President Bashar Assad accepted the Cabinet’s resignation following a meeting Tuesday.

The resignation is the latest concession by the government aimed at appeasing more than a week of mass protests.

Assad is expected to address the nation in the next 24 hours to announce he is lifting the emergency law and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.

COMMENT:  The only problem here is...Bashar Assad.  Assad is Syria's dictator.  As long as he remains dictator in one of the harshest of Arab states, none of these changes will mean a thing.  But, although the U.S. has intervened in Libya, it has pledged not to intervene in Syria, a far more important country.  And our interest in Iranian freedom seems nonexistent. 

The policy is confused and contradictory, but, let's face it, community organizing is not the same as world organizing.  The world is bigger, and they talk funny.

March 29, 2011       Permalink

WHEN EVEN THE COAST GUARD IS AGAINST YOU – AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  Amidst all the chaos in the world, this was almost overlooked.  Remember the Gulf oil spill last year, the one that threatened to destroy America and the entire Universe until Barack Obama stood on the Louisiana beaches, raised his arm and proclaimed, "Hark, oil stop, in the name of me!"

Well, okay, not quite. 

It turns out the administration's anemic response to the emergency was even more pathetic than we'd thought.  The assessment comes from a study now published by the Coast Guard.  From Fox:

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration failed to set up an "effective" communications system during last year's BP oil spill and threatened its own credibility by "severely restricting" the release of "timely, accurate information," according to a newly released report commissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Quietly posted on the Coast Guard's website two weeks ago, the report offers the first major assessment of the federal government's communications efforts during the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"Several layers of review and approval by the White House and (Department of Homeland Security) prevented timely and effective crisis communications and hindered the Coast Guard's ability to ... (keep) stakeholders informed about the status of the response," the report reads, adding that "accurate and timely messaging from the response organization improves transparency with the public."

Information centers in Houma, La., and Mobile, Ala. -- established by the Coast Guard in accordance with pre-set plans for major disasters -- were "effectively muted," the report reads.

Photographs could not be released without Washington's blessing, and Coast Guard officials leading efforts on the ground "were not authorized to conduct media interviews, hold press conferences or send press releases without prior approval from DHS," according to the report.

COMMENT:  Change we can believe in.  Transparency in government, etc., etc.   But please notice that there's not a peep out of the mainstream media.  Compare please to the reporting of Katrina, in which Bush was blamed for everything but the rain itself.

No, there's no press bias.  Nothing to see here.  Nothing to see.

March 29, 2011     Permalink