SUNDAY,  AUGUST 30,  2009

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 9:16 P.M. ET:  From Cal Thomas, lamenting the new Justice Department probe into tactics used after the 9-11 attacks:

The Justice Department wants to apply new interrogation rules to methods that were used and approved during the George W. Bush administration. This is like lowering the highway speed limit to 55 mph and giving speeding tickets to people who drove 65 mph when the higher speed was legal.

What is to be gained from going after CIA interrogators who thought they were operating within the law and defending the country? Doesn't the white-wine-and-Brie set understand that a terrorist won't discriminate between people with jelly for a backbone and those with backbones of steel? Do they really think they will escape death by being nice to killers who use our laws against us in order to replace those laws with theirs? Islamic terrorists repeatedly say this is their goal, and they have demonstrated it enough by their actions that only a fool would doubt them.

COMMENT:  Problem is, there are a lot of fools on the left.  But invitations to those white-wine-and-Brie parties are cherished, and we have to understand that it is the social structure of the left that often fuels some of these crazy crusades. 

August 30, 2009   Permalink

THE "ANTI-WAR" MOVEMENT STIRS AGAIN - AT 8:15 P.M. ET:  Isn't this where we came in?  The usual suspects are stirring again.  Protesting Iraq?  No, protesting Afghanistan, as The New York Times reports:

A restive antiwar movement, largely dormant since the election of Barack Obama, is preparing a nationwide campaign this fall to challenge the administration’s policies on Afghanistan.

Anticipating a Pentagon request for more troops there, antiwar leaders have engaged in a flurry of meetings to discuss a month of demonstrations, lobbying, teach-ins and memorials in October to publicize the casualty count, raise concerns about the cost of the war and pressure Congress to demand an exit strategy.

And...

“We’re coming out of a low period,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the antiwar group Code Pink. “But as progressives feel more comfortable protesting against the Obama administration and challenging Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress, then we’ll be back on track.”

COMMENT:  What is infuriating is the continued insistence by the mainstream media that groups like Code Pink be called "anti-war."  As Christopher Hitchens has written, they're not anti-war.  They're anti any war America has a chance of winning.  Many are hard left groups that oppose all American military action.  Many are descended from the "anti-war" groups of the Vietnam era, many of which openly sided with the enemy and took Jane Fonda as their heroine. 

I have yet to see, in the mainstream media, any detailed reporting on what some of these groups actually stand for, and against.  If we did get that kind of reporting, the reporters would undoubtedly be labeled McCarthyites, which is the standard charge by which the left shuts down all questions about its activities.

President Obama has called Afghanistan a war of necessity.  Let's see how long his stamina lasts when he's confronted by the fringe left of his party, with its "anti-war" agenda. 

We should remember that opposition to any military action in response to 9-11 surfaced soon after the attacks, in 2001, when a group called Not in My Name circulated petitions among the faithful, including such hard-left activists as Gloria Steinem.  These are the same people, of course, who remain silent in the face of the most unspeakable atrocities and genocides when committed by others.  The free ride given them by the media has kept them going for decades.

August 30, 2009   Permalink 

HOLD THAT HOLDER - AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  Former Vice President Cheney remains unrelenting in his opposition to the CIA probes announced last week by Attorney General Eric Holder.  We should point out that these are sometimes called "investigations" in the media.  They are not.  They are re-investigations.  The same issues were reviewed years ago by career prosecutors in the Justice Department and found, with one exception, not ripe for prosecution.  From Fox News:

Calling it a "terrible decision" that undermines national security and devastates CIA morale, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the Obama administration's probe of aggressive interrogation of terrorists.

"It's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney told "FOX News Sunday" in a no-holds-barred interview.

In blunt, unsparing language, Cheney accused President Obama of setting a "terrible precedent" by allowing an "intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration."

Even a Democratic senator, Diane Feinstein of California, raised objection:

“I think the timing of this is not very good,” Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” She said her panel is studying interrogation techniques, and suggested Holder should allow that work to continue without appointing a special prosecutor. “Candidly, I wish the attorney general had waited,” she said.

COMMENT:  But he won't wait because Eric Holder is the administration's chief enforcer of leftist doctrine.  He has stuffed the Justice Department with liberal activists.  We were told that President Obama left the decision on whether to open the probe to Holder.  That, of course, is nonsense.  The president could have ordered Holder not to probe further because of the very damage that former Vice President Cheney speaks about. 

Of course this is political.  Obviously.  How else can Holder explain a decision to reinvestigate what has already been investigated.  How would you like to be a CIA agent in the field right now?

And remember, the zealots behind this new probe also want to investigate the lawyers who gave the Bush administration their best advice on the subject of interrogations, with a possible eye toward disbarring them.  This is a politicization of law that is utterly chilling in a democracy.  You can practice law, the inquisitors seem to be saying, as long as we agree with you.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

HE TRAVELS IN THE BEST CIRCLES - AT 10:55 A.M. ET:  From NewsBusters:

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather will speak at a $200-a-person fundraising event for the hard-left Nation magazine in New York on September 23. The Nation’s website advertises: "Meet Dan Rather, Jane Mayer, Marcy Wheeler, and Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Help Save The Nation." The panel’s discussion topic? "What Will Become of the News?...A conversation on the future of news."

Let's guess the verdict will be it's too corporate and conservative.

COMMENT:  The Nation is often wrongly described as "liberal."  It's not.  It's hard left.  The New Republic is liberal.  After 9-11 The Nation went into action against the war on terror, with one of its star leftist writers, Katha Pollitt, writing how horrified she was that her own son wanted to display an American flag.

It was in The Nation that Marxist professor Eric Foner wondered which was worse, the attacks of 9-11 or the defiant rhetoric coming out of the White House.  Maybe someone should have explained it to him.

The other names mentioned, besides Rather, are dependable leftists.  It's sad to see Rather lend his name to this event.  But maybe we shouldn't be too surprised.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

THE RECOVERY - AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  We all know that California, whose economy is larger than that of many countries, is in desperate economic trouble.  It's currently holding a garage sale, hoping to sell items owned by the state government to help pay debts.

But what about the other golden state, Florida?  Well, actually they call this one the sunshine state.  It seems there's not much sunshine:

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The smiling couple barreling ahead on the cover of Liberty magazine in 1926 knew exactly where to go. “Florida or Bust,” said the white paint on the car doors. “Four wheels, no brakes.”

So it has been for a century, as Florida welcomed thousands of newcomers every week, year after year, becoming the nation’s fourth-most-populous state with about 16 million people in 2000.

Imagine the shock, then, to discover that traffic is now heading the other way. That’s right, the Sunshine State is shrinking.

And...

“It’s dramatic,” said Stanley K. Smith, an economics professor at the University of Florida who compiled the report. “You have a state that was booming and has been a leader in population growth for the last 100 years that suddenly has seen a substantial shift.”

Florida is losing population, a rarity for a state that depends on population growth for its businesses and state government to survive.  It has become a political powerhouse entirely because of in-migration.  It ranks fourth in population, with more than 18 million people.

When California and Florida are in trouble, the nation is in trouble, no matter what happens in the fantasy world of Wall Street.

Florida is a state filled with retirees.  If Obamacare passes, that can be another blow to the elderly.  Not a happy time down there.

Welcome to the recovery.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

POLL STUNNER - AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  After four days of some stabilizing and slight improvement, the president's poll numbers are slipping again in the Rasmussen survey.

Only 47% approve of Mr. Obama's performance, whereas 52% disapprove. 

And in Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove, Mr. Obama registers a minus 10, 32% to 42%.

The strong disapproval is the worst showing in that category for the president since inauguration.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

YES THEY CAN? - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  In another story that's slipped in under the August radar, Japan has voted, and change is coming.  From The New York Times:

TOKYO — For only the second time in postwar history, Japanese voters appeared ready to cast out the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party in elections on Sunday, handing an apparent landslide victory to an untested opposition that must tackle severe economic problems and point Japan in a new direction.

In early counting on Sunday night, voters were flocking to the main opposition Democratic Party, a broad coalition of former socialists and ruling party defectors who promised to ease Japan’s growing social inequalities and reduce its traditional dependency on Washington.

COMMENT:  Same old, same old.  These old socialists come into power promising everything, and then they realize they have to govern.  As far as dependency on Washington goes, it's hard to see how a depression-wracked Japan can reduce that.  After all, what can North Korea do for them?

The White House will be pleased, as another untested group of amateurs is coming to power.  Misery loves company.

August 30, 2009   Permalink

SATURDAY,  AUGUST 29,  2009

BULLETIN AT 11:25 P.M. ET:  It's important for all well-informed citizens to be aware of this.  Please don't sleep tonight before reading these details first:

LA PAZ – The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, on Saturday declared Bolivian President Evo Morales as “World Hero of Mother Earth” in a ceremony at the presidential palace in this capital.

With a medal and a parchment scroll, the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization named Morales “the maximum exponent and paradigm of love for Mother Earth” in the resolution for his decoration that was read during the ceremony.

The document added that the decision was taken “after extensive consultation” among representatives of the General Assembly’s member countries.

D’Escoto recalled that Morales “was the one who most helped” the United Nations declare last April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, or “Pachamama” as Mother Earth is said in Bolivia’s Aymara Indian tongue.

COMMENT:  You know, I'm grateful.  This saves me so much research time.  I was really wondering who the maximum exponent and paradigm of love for Mother Earth was.  Now I know. 

Chalk it up to another service by the United Nations.  And to think, there are people who criticize the fact that we pay 25% of the UN's budget.  These people clearly have contempt for Mother Earth and its maximum exponents.  Shame.  Shame on them.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

MORE COMBAT AHEAD ON HEALTH CARE - AT 9:27 P.M. ET:  It appears that attempts to reach a compromise in the Senate on health-care "reform" are failing.  One of the key players is essentially throwing in the towel:

WASHINGTON — A leading GOP negotiator on health care struck a further blow to fading chances of a bipartisan compromise by saying Democratic proposals would restrict medical choices and make the country's "finances sicker without saving you money."

The criticism from Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., echoed that of many opponents of the Democratic plans under consideration in Congress. But Enzi's judgment was especially noteworthy because he is one of only three Republicans who have been willing to consider a bipartisan bill in the Senate.

In the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, Enzi said any health care legislation must lower medical costs for Americans without increasing deficits and the national debt.

"The bills introduced by congressional Democrats fail to meet these standards," he said.

COMMENT:  The Democrats may, in fact, go for broke and try to get their 1,000-page bill through Congress with no Republican support, placing us at the mercy of a health-care revolution that Americans overwhelmingly do not want and never voted for.  If that happens, it will happen just as the 2010 congressional campaigns get going. 

And the Democrats might actually pass that bill.  They could probably slam it through the House by intimidating enough Blue Dogs - moderate Dems - to vote "correctly."  And they're only a few votes shy in the Senate, if they keep their pegs in order.  If passage occurs, Republicans must see it as an opportunity, not as a setback, an opportunity finally to reveal this administration for what it is, and to confront and defeat it.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

IF TRUE, SICKENING - AT 8:52 P.M. ET:  Fortunately, some British journalists are unrelenting in trying to find out how the Lockerbie bomber was set free.  From The Times of London:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

COMMENT:  If this is true, the Labour government should resign.  But that probably won't happen.  The sad fact is that money talks.  But I do hope that this story gets very wide circulation, and is recalled the next time any of these European nations (I include Britain) lecture us.  While there may well be some Americans who would sell out for oil, I think we're generally better than that.  I also think stories like this remind Americans of what the "realist" school in foreign policy actually is.  Again, we're better than that.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

DON'T DO IT! - AT 11:33 A.M. ET:  The maneuvering to succeed Senator Edward M. Kennedy is centering on a device, recommended by Kennedy himself just before his death, that wise heads should reject:

Massachusetts legislative leaders signaled this week that they will consider a plan to allow Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint an interim successor to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

State lawmakers mostly kept quiet Friday about whether they would support a proposal to give the governor authority to name someone to fill the vacant Senate seat before the state holds a special election in January. But the House member who chairs the joint legislative committee that would handle the bill said a hearing could be scheduled sometime after Labor Day.

COMMENT:  No matter how this is presented, no matter how much it's hyped as a "tribute" to Senator Kennedy, it comes off as basic Massachusetts machine politics.  We just saw a sordid display in Illinois when the Senate seat made vacant by Barack Obama was filled by a party hack appointed by a corrupt governor.  Obama, to his disgrace, never interfered in the vulgarity practiced by his old Illinois political friends. 

I have no evidence that Deval Patrick, Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is corrupt, but he is a close ally of President Obama.  You'd think the president would want to avoid another display of backroom politics.  That's what you'd think.

And then there's the real world of Barack Obama.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

OH, SUCH WHINING - AT 11:10 A.M. ET:  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a complaint:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today slammed the news media for its coverage of the health-care debate, accusing news organizations of paying too much attention to rowdy town-hall meetings.

“The press has not been” focused enough “on what we’ve been doing,” Reid told listeners in a telephone town hall meeting with Nevadans Friday afternoon, arguing that the media has focused on town hall attendees “yelling and screaming” rather than discussing the substance of the health-care reform effort.

“They can’t ask enough questions about town-hall meetings,” Reid told listeners in a telephone town hall meeting with Nevadans Friday afternoon. “They ask, ‘When are you holding a town hall meeting?’”

COMMENT:  You know the Democrats are really in trouble when they start complaining about the mainstream media.  The mainstream media?  That's practically a branch of the Democratic Party.

Reid's complaint is strange in another way, too.  He wants the focus on what Washington is doing, not on what the American people are saying.  That is about as clear a definition of his party's vision of the country as I've seen recently.  Really quite remarkable.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

A DISGRACE, AND A GREAT REPLY - AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  As some of you may know, Rep. Diane Watson of California, a pro-Marxist member of the California Democratic delegation to Congress, has endorsed Fidel Castro as one of the brightest leaders she's ever met.  In a startling statement, Watson also praised the Cuban health-care system and suggested that those who oppose President Obama on the health issue do so only because he's black. 

Silvio Canto Jr., on whose radio show I'm privileged to appear, has written a sharp, documented reply to Congresswoman Watson.  It's here, and I urge you to go to it.

Diane Watson represents what I call the tragedy of liberalism.  I wrote about it at the Angel's Corner, published last night.  One element of that tragedy is the infiltration of the civil-rights movement by the extreme left, and the devastating impact that has had.  Indeed, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, also of California, and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, is also a supporter of Fidel Castro.

The country buries Ted Kennedy today, but it was his brother, Bob Kennedy, when he was attorney general in the sixties, who went to Martin Luther King Jr. and pleaded with him to get the reds out of the civil rights movement.   

Silvio Canto Jr., through his own cultural background, knows the subject of Castro and his reign of terror very well.  Please read what he's written.  We are in danger now from a president, and his radical allies in Congress, who have never understood the threat that communism poses to our liberties.

August 29, 2009   Permalink   

MORE AND MORE AND MORE - AT 9:49 A.M. ET:  Distracted by end-of-summer activities, the health-care debate, and the death of Ted Kennedy, many Americans may not be aware of the cut-and-run retreat policies that are building up under this administration's foreign policy.  Add this to the list, as reported by The New York Times:

BERLIN — The Obama administration has developed possible alternative plans for a missile defense shield that could drop hotly disputed sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that would please Russia and Germany but sour relations with American allies in Eastern Europe.

Administration officials said they hoped to complete their months-long review of the planned antimissile system as early as next month, possibly in time for President Obama to present ideas to President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia at a meeting in New York during the annual opening at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

COMMENT:  Problem is, Barack Obama doesn't see Poland and the Czech Republic as American allies, but as American burdens.  Obama's real allies are the leftists around the world. 

One by one, the bulwarks of freedom are being dismantled - the gutting of the war on terror, our groveling before an ousted Honduran ally of Fidel Castro, our unspeakable indifference to brave Iranian protesters, our downplaying human rights in virtually every area of the globe, Obama's apology campaign, and much more.

It is getting very, very serious.

August 29, 2009    Permalink