A happy Thanksgiving to all our readers, their families and friends.  We publish 365 days a year, and will do our normal posts today, with time out in the afternoon to party with some liberals and attempt to convert them.  This is a noble endeavor on a holiday.  If I survive, I will report the results to you.

THURSDAY,  NOVEMBER 26,  2009

SANITY IN HONDURAS - AT 9:34 P.M. ET:  Honduras survived the attempt, shamefully assisted by the Obama administration, to restore ousted corruptionist Manuel Zelaya to the country's presidency.  Zelaya, an ally of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, was legally removed by action of the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress. 

Now the Supreme Court speaks again:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- The Honduran Supreme Court recommended Thursday that lawmakers vote against restoring ousted President Manuel Zelaya, another blow for his quickly fading chances of returning to power.

The Supreme Court submitted its opinion six days before Congress is scheduled to vote on Zelaya's fate as part of a U.S.-brokered agreement to end the political crisis over a June coup.

The justices concluded that Zelaya should not be restored to the presidency because he has criminal charges pending against him, Supreme Court spokesman Danilo Izaguirre said.

"While he faces judicial charges, he cannot return to power," Izaguirre said.

The United States has now altered its position on Zelaya, backtracking from its early alliance with the South American left, and accepting that a new election will select a legitimate government.  It's nice to know that we now think the people of Honduras should elect their own leaders, even if that angers Chavez and Castro.

November 26, 2009   Permalink

SURVIVAL - AT 9:16 P.M. ET:  I have survived my Thanksgiving party with liberals.  My food taster assures me that no poisons were found.  My tires were not slashed.  There were no threats.  The people, in fact, were entirely warm and gracious, which makes me think they weren't really that liberal at all.  Great folks, all around. 

Only the sudden pinprick in my right arm, followed by the sensation that I was dancing with Jimmy Carter, made me suspicious.

November 26, 2009   Permalink

FANATIC - AT 10:10 A.M. ET:  When a president appoints fanatics, and socialists, this is what we get.  Carol Browner, the so-called climate czar of the Obama administration, and a self-declared socialist, speaks out on climate change.  Can you guess in advance what she says?  From the Washington Times:

Obama administration climate czar Carol Browner on Wednesday rejected claims that e-mails stolen from a British university show that climate scientists trumped up global-warming numbers, saying she considers the science settled.

"I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real," said Ms. Browner, whom President Obama has tapped as his chief of policy on global warming.

When will people like Browner learn that science isn't about "consensus."  It isn't a show of hands.  It's about observation and proof.  And a disturbing number of first-class scientists are dissenting from the "consensus."

The e-mails were hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and have come to light over the past week. They appear to show scientists saying they've smoothed over data that doesn't back up their claims of warming, and pondering how to freeze out scientists who disagree with them.

Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see.  Just some boys fooling around.  Remember the consensus!

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, has called for an investigation into the e-mails, and says they confirm his long-held suspicion that climate claims are not supported by the actual data.

Ms. Browner said the only people who still doubt global warming is happening and that humans are to blame are "a very small group of people who continue to say this isn't a real problem, that we don't need to do anything."

COMMENT:  This is what happens when policy becomes religion.  Browner isn't interested in the evidence.  She doesn't care about the credentials of the skeptics.  She has a party line, and will follow it, no matter how much damage is done.

The climate has cooled for the last ten years.  Don't tell her.

November 26, 2009   Permalink

NOT SO FAST - AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  A former British spy chief gives a guardedly optimistic view of the battle with Al Qaeda.  From Bloomberg:

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The al-Qaeda terrorist network may be losing its capacity to carry out large-scale attacks in the U.S. and U.K. because of improved security, Richard Dearlove, former chief of Britain’s MI6 spy agency, said.

“It could be the movement is past the high point in its ability to mount mass-casualty events in the West,” Dearlove, 64, said in an interview in London late yesterday. “It’s because the bar has been raised, the door has been shut.”

Dearlove served as chief of MI6, known officially as the Secret Intelligence Service, from 1999 to 2004, a period that included the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. “There is much more international security cooperation,” he said, though “the threat is not completely removed.”

COMMENT:  If true, there are two men who deserve our thanks on this Thanksgiving - George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  And yet, their names are hardly mentioned.

Obama has, in fairness, kept in place a number of the security measures that Bush introduced.  But the image of weakness around him can only encourage Al Qaeda to grow again, and the decision to try the mastermind of 9-11 in a civilian court in New York, as if he'd done some shoplifting, is absurd, and flashes a pre 9-11 mentality.

We've made progress against Al Qaeda, and largely defeated it in Iraq.  But that progress can be reversed through indecision and trendiness.  The ball, and it isn't a basketball, is in Mr. Obama's court.

November 26, 2009   Permalink

PRESIDENT AND PARTY - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  A well-reported Washington Post story makes it clear that the president's greatest opposition to his Afghanistan plan will come from his own party:

President Obama will reveal his new Afghanistan war strategy in a speech Tuesday evening to cadets at West Point, but his most skeptical audience is likely to be the powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill who oppose a troop buildup.

Top Democrats have made it clear to Obama that he will not receive a friendly reception should he announce what is considered the leading option: sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The legislators have indicated that a request for more money to finance a beefed-up war effort will be met with frustration and, perhaps, a demand to raise taxes.

How pathetic.  This was once the party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy, not to mention Lyndon Johnson, who receives too little credit for his concern for national security. 

Now it's the party of Dennis Kucinich and Barney Frank. 

The president should see the opposition of the leftist wing of his party as an opportunity to declare his independence and show a little spine.  But will he?  So far, the record isn't encouraging. 

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) described what she called "serious unrest" in her caucus over the prospect of another vote to finance billions of dollars for an expanded war.

Serious unrest?  Really?  Will they have to send the Capitol Police?  Use tear gas?  Will the California delegation be Tasered?  I've never heard the term "serious unrest" used to describe a condition in a caucus of the House of Representatives.

In June, Pelosi strong-armed anti-war Democrats into voting for a $100 billion measure to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During an interview in July, she recounted her appeal to the lawmakers: "Will you change your mind and one more time vote for war funding?" She also promised not to ask again. "This is the very last time," she told them.

Real smart, Nance. 

Now, barely five months later, Pelosi and Obama will soon have to go back to the war well, even as they seek difficult votes from the same Democrats on health-care reform, climate change legislation and regulation of the financial industry.

Those domestic policy efforts are far from settled, but Pelosi has described them only as "heavy lifts" that were "nothing" compared with the war votes of the past three years. "You have to go to somebody who is totally, completely, entirely opposed to war funding, and you need to have them vote on it. And you don't even want to vote on it yourself," she said in the July interview.

What a strange world that party has become.  What a strange and dangerous world.  The sound you hear is our enemies applauding.

November 26, 2009   Permalink

THE TRUTH DAWNS ON HIM - AT 9:19 A.M. ET:  Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, will leave office soon.  Apparently, this Nobel Peace Prize winner wants to redeem whatever is left of his reputation:

VIENNA (AP) -- The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that his probe of allegations that Iran tried to make nuclear arms is at ''a dead end'' because Tehran is not cooperating and warned that confidence in Tehran had shrunk in the wake of its belated revelation of a previously secret nuclear facility.

Mohamed ElBaradei also criticized Tehran for not accepting an internationally endorsed plan meant to delay its ability to make such weapons.

The unusually blunt comments appeared to be a reflection of frustration four days before he ends his tenure leading an agency that has proven unable to overcome Iran's defiance and ease international concerns that it may be using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for plans to make weapons.

''There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program,'' ElBaradei told the opening session of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors. ''We have effectively reached a dead end, unless Iran engages fully with us.''

COMMENT:  President Obama will announce his plan for Afghanistan on Tuesday.  He will soon have to announce a plan for Iran.  Negotiations have gone nowhere. ElBaradei has been next to useless.

We recall that President Kennedy's first year in office was catastrophic, as is Obama's.  Kennedy understood that, despite his spirited inaugural address, he was perceived as weak, and easily rolled.  The question is whether Obama will come to the same realization, and firm up.  If he does, and is willing to take on the powerful left wing of his pathetic party, he has a chance for redemption.  If he doesn't, he'll go down as Jimmy II, not one of the higher honors available to him.

November 26,  2009   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER 25,  2009

ANOTHER POTENTIAL SCANDAL - AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  Brought to you, apparently, by the same wonderful folks who brought you Major Hasan:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called a captain's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

A bloody lip?  A bloody lip?  That's the damage?  And for that we ruin the careers of three courageous men?

Oh, come on.  After Fort Hood, and the political correctness it revealed, you'd think someone in the Navy would have some common sense.

The lawyer for one of the SEALS, Neal Puckett, said it best:

“I don’t know how they’re going to bring this detainee to the United States and give us our constitutional right to confrontation in the courtroom,” Puckett said. “But again, we have terrorists getting their constitutional rights in New York City, but I suspect that they’re going to deny these SEALs their right to confrontation in a military courtroom in Virginia.”

Yeah, the terrorists are getting more rights than our own service people. 

These American sailors will not have a happy Thanksgiving.  Think about them.

November 25, 2009   Permalink

COMING SOON TO A SCREEN NEAR YOU - AT 6:16 P.M. ET:  The president has chosen West Point as the backdrop for his Afghanistan speech Tuesday.  From AP, via Fox:

President Obama will address the nation on his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

At least AP got the name right.  I've been infuriated today, while checking the news channels, at the number of times it's been referred to as "the West Point Military Academy," which sounds like a training school for difficult boys.  It's the United States Military Academy.  It's proper to refer to it simply as West Point, just as the Naval Academy is called "Annapolis."  But it definitely is not the West Point Military Academy.

The president is expected to lay out his plans for expanding the Afghan conflict and, ultimately, ending America's military role.

The U.S. will not be in Afghanistan for another eight or nine years from now, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday when asked whether the Obama administration had an exit strategy.

Bad approach.  You want to achieve your objective as quickly as possible, but, when you start talking about time limits publicly, you flash a schedule to enemies, who then know how long they'll have to hold out before we leave. 

The president and his top military and national security advisers have held 10 meetings to discuss America's future steps in Afghanistan. Though the top general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has asked the president for about 40,000 troops, military officials expect the president will deploy about 35,000, starting next year.

Why not give the general what he wants?  If it's 35,000, it looks like the president is throwing a bone to the political left, saying, in effect, "I didn't go along with McChrystal."  Silly.

The president says the American people will support his strategy once they understand the perils of losing the war.

Question:  Why wasn't that explained earlier in this administration?  Does a president wait ten months to explain why we're fighting?

We'll watch Tuesday night.  It better be good.  The president's numbers are sinking, and his indecision on Afghanistan is one of the reasons.

November 25, 2009   Permalink

SAD - AT 6:07 P.M. ET:  The Washington Post is contracting:

NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The Washington Post is closing its last U.S. bureaus outside the nation's capital as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news.

"At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country's politics, policies and government," the newspaper's top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.

The Post will close its bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, effective Dec. 31.

The news comes after the Post told several employees at its website that they would be laid off, and follows several rounds of buyouts in recent years.

The Post, like nearly every other U.S. newspaper, has been battered by falling advertising revenue and circulation as readers get more news online for free.

With a circulation of more than 582,000 copies, the Post is the fifth most read daily newspaper on weekdays, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It is the third most read Sunday paper, with paid circulation of more than 822,000 copies.

COMMENT:  We don't rejoice here in the financial decline of any newspaper.  There are employees involved - families.  And we need a variety of voices in journalism.  Further, depending on the internet for news carries risk.  The internet is a delicate mechanism, and we don't know what restrictions may be placed on distribution in the future.  There are plenty of forces, mostly on the political left, that would like to control the internet and use it to advance only their interests.

At the same time, newspapers must expand their understanding of why they're in decline.  It isn't just the internet, or the recession.  It's the way many of them have presented the news for a generation - too often with a smug, leftward slant, and a certain contempt for their own readers.  Does anyone doubt that the editorial opinions of The New York Times have drifted onto its news pages?  A number of readers have been turned off, and they drop out.  A better, more balanced product, may not save mainstream newspapers, but it would put them back in the fight.

November 25, 2009   Permalink

A GOP PICKUP, IN NEW YORK? - AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  Now what have we here?  What we have is a finding by Rasmussen that Rudy Giuliani, if he runs for the Senate next year against incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, would defeat her by double digits.  Gillibrand was appointed by Governor David Paterson to fill out the term of Hillary Clinton, who resigned from the Senate to become secretary of state:

Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand may have a serious problem on her hands if Rudy Giuliani gets in next year’s race for the U.S. Senate in New York State.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state finds Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City, leading Gillibrand by 13 points – 53% to 40%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate, and just two percent (2%) are undecided.

News reports that Giuliani has ruled out a run for governor next year and is interested In the Senate race could turn Gillibrand’s bid to fill out the rest of Hillary Clinton’s term from a close struggle to an uphill climb.

If this race happens, it will be spectacular.  However, these cautionary notes: 1)  Gillibrand, an appointed senator with very little built-in support around the state, might be pushed aside and possibly offered a post by Obama, with a more credible candidate taking her place; 2) Giuliani will be subjected to one of the greatest smear campaigns you can imagine.  He was an extraordinarily successful mayor, but he is despised by the left, a powerful force in New York and in the New York media.

There will also be underlying racial tensions.  Giuliani, through his effective and enlightened anti-crime programs, saved more black lives than all mayors of New York put together, but never got any credit from the black community.  The reason?  He refused to genuflect before black leaders.  They will be coming after him. 

There is the corruption factor:  Giuliani's last police commissioner, boosted by Giuliani to become secretary of Homeland Security, is going to prison on corruption charges.  This fact alone will give opponents a field day.

There is the personality factor:  The fact is that Giuliani, whose work I admire immensely, isn't known as a nice guy.  It sometimes comes through.  He apparently has a poor relationship with his children. 

But, bottom line, Rudy is the GOP's best shot at gaining a Senate seat in New York, if he can run a good campaign.  His campaign for president was lackluster.  He'll be running in a heavily Democratic state.  But he was elected may of New York City twice, and the city has a lopsided Democratic registration.

This, if it happens, will be a great race.

November 25, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  From Washington Post economic reporter Steven Pearlstein:

What really sticks in our craw, however, is that while most of the country is hunkered down, Wall Street continues to feast on a bounty of trading profits. You'd expect that a new liberal Democratic president would find a way to give voice to this populist outrage and constructively channel this public anger. But too often, the response from the administration has been to try to convince us that there's little we can do, or should do, to ensure that the economic harvest is more equitably distributed. Now, the White House and congressional leaders find themselves scrambling to get ahead of a growing political backlash that threatens to upend their carefully calibrated agenda, not to mention their political fortunes.

COMMENT:  No matter what your politics, the vast contrast between the economic distress of most of America and the huge profits (and bonuses) on Wall Street must be a matter of concern.  We can repeat all the clichés about our having the best economic system in the world, but the system must work, and it must work for enough people enough of the time for it to retain support. 

One problem is that Wall Street interests now have substantial influence in both political parties.  And let us not forget that one of Obama's chief backers is George Soros, the somewhat shady Wall Street genius.

Watch this situation carefully.  Economic disillusionment, and a sense of gross unfairness, can fuel a social and political revolution, especially if conditions in most of the country worsen.  That is when demagogues get going. 

The Democrats are hopeless.  Their economic education came from their junior years abroad.  But now is the time for the GOP, if it has any imagination at all, to propose a new contract with America that will expand economic opportunity and build the economy.  And the GOP must shake the image of being "the party of big business."  It really hasn't been for years, but it still has that image.  If it can show that its policies help the greatest number of Americans, it will have a future.  If it can't, it won't.

November 25, 2009   Permalink

 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE POLLS - AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  We've been reporting on the president's steady slippage in the polls.  Byron York, at the Washington Examiner, goes inside the latest Gallup Poll to show just where the damage is:

Among age groups: For the first time in the White House, Obama is below 50 percent with every age group of Americans except those between 18 and 29. He's at 48 percent with people in the 30-49 range; 46 percent with people in the 50-64 range; and 42 percent with people 65 and over. Among those 18-29, he's at 61 percent.

Churchill once said that anyone who isn't a liberal at 20 has no heart, and anyone who isn't a conservative by 30 has no head.  What we're probably seeing in the 18-29 exception is the traditional liberalism of young people.  However, what we may also be seeing is the effect of the educational system, which has tilted increasingly to the left.  We've seen that this malady often gets worked out with age.

Among racial groups: For the first time in the White House, Obama support among white Americans has fallen below 40 percent. He's at 39 percent among whites; 91 percent among blacks, and 70 percent among Hispanics.

Not really shocking.  Blacks, understandably, have an affinity for Mr. Obama.  Whites have been trending away from the Democrats, even under white presidents.  If there's any surprise, it's the high approval number for the president among Hispanics, who haven't always had the best relationships with blacks.  But the GOP is seen as tough on immigration, which is having its effect on Hispanic voters.

Among income groups: For the first time in the White House, Obama is below 50 percent with every income group except those making less than $2,000 a month.

Although he does smashingly in Beverly Hills and Manhattan. 

For the first time in the White House, Obama is below 50 percent with everyone who goes to church.

During the campaign, in a statement he didn't know was being recorded, Mr. Obama decried Americans who cling to their religion and their guns.  Apparently, they're not clinging to him.

Of course, these numbers can change dramatically.  It's not in the bag for Republicans.  Mr. Obama is still personally liked by a majority of Americans.  But he is political trouble because of his policies, and his perceived weakness.  It's being reported that those around Mr. Obama worry that he can become another Jimmy Carter. 

The question is whether the president, not known for modesty, is equally worried...or equally unimpressed by Jimmah. 

We may get some hint of where the president's head is in his Afghanistan speech next Tuesday. 

November 25, 2009   Permalink

THE PROCLAMATION - AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  This is the day before Thanksgiving.  The president will, I believe, issue some kind of proclamation.  It is his first Thanksgiving in the White House.

This proclamation should be a beaut.  After all, his wife said during the campaign that this was the first time she was proud of America.  So what's there to be thankful for?  Barack?  That appears to be it.

And then of course there's the delicate matter, the president will tell us, of "those who, understandably, cannot give thanks."  We will then hear about the Indians, er, native Americans, first Americans, abused native peoples, native victims of the greed, disease, and lust brought by colonialist Europeans living in luxury aboard the ocean liner Mayflower. 

The president will say that their descendants should be tried in civilian courts, not the military tribunals set up by BUSH (!!). 

Mr. Obama will apologize for our history, but say that we should give thanks that we have the freedom to apologize and make amends.  He will sign a symbolic bill granting health insurance to all native peoples alive in 1620.  Free visits to the sorcerer.  Inoculations against all the illnesses brought by the Pilgrims, especially seasickness.

The president will then pardon a couple of turkeys, then go prepare for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner - tofu with all the trimmings. 

I can't wait.

November 25,  2009   Permalink