FRIDAY,  OCTOBER 16,  2009

THE UNSPEAKABLE ISSUE - AT 8:34 P.M. ET:  The tragedy of the black family continues, while too many "civil rights" leaders are more concerned with Rush Limbaugh or defending ACORN:

CHICAGO (CBS) —It is a Chicago public school full of energy and spirit. It has about 800 girls, and 115 of them have something in common – something you might find disturbing.

All those young ladies are moms or moms-to-be at Paul Robeson High School. It's not a school for young mothers, it's a neighborhood school. And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.

If you want to know why, the people closest to the situation say there's no simple explanation.

Oh, no, no.  There's never any "simple" explanation.  But of course there is - a decline in culture, of standards, of family values, of decency.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned in 1962, some 47 years ago, that something terrible was happening to the black family.  For his concern he was called a racist.

Question "culture" and the multiculturalists come out of the woodwork.  Question teenage mothers, abandoned by the fathers, and the hardline feminists come out of the other part of the woodwork chanting, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."

And by the way, note the name of the school - named for a fine singer, no doubt, but a man who betrayed his country by accepting the Lenin Prize from the Soviet Union.  When asked by a reporter about Soviet artists who suddenly disappeared, Robeson said that he knew nothing about it. Even the NAACP shunned this man, but his name appears on a school in the part of Chicago where Michelle Obama grew up, Barack Obama lived, and Rev. Wright preached.

Nothing like an "anything goes" approach to naming a school. 

Chicago Public Schools says it does not track the overall number of teen moms in the district. But Robeson Principal Gerald Morrow knows the count at his school in Englewood: 115 young ladies who are either expecting or already have had children.

I love the "young ladies."  I hope they are.  But someone got to them with some very bad ideas.

To put it in perspective, their school pictures would fill roughly six pages of their high school year book.

Maybe if every liberal newspaper in the country would print a picture of all those young moms, local "leaders" would realize the tragedy, and do something about it. 

This is not racial.  The white illegitimacy rate is also increasing.  It is a reflection of a society that has allowed standards to drop to the bottom.

October 16, 2009   Permalink

WOULDN'T YOU? - AT 8:22 P.M. ET:  A new Fox poll has still more bad news for The One.  It seems the American people, for some foolish reason, trust General McChrystal more than President Obama on deciding Afghanistan strategy.  I don't know.  What's happening to this country, when a man whose military experience consists of speaking at anti-war rallies isn't trusted on military strategy?  The Fox report:

A slim 43 percent plurality of Americans now disapproves of the job Barack Obama is doing on Afghanistan, an increase from the 32 percent who disapproved last month. Only Democrats, at 63 percent, assign positive marks to the president on Afghanistan, compared with 20 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of independents. All in all, 41 percent of Americans approve of the president's handling of Afghanistan, down from 51 percent.

Part of the reason for this shift on the handling of the Afghan conflict may be that a sizable majority of Americans (67 percent) thinks the Obama administration has not "clearly explained" what the U.S. is trying to achieve there. Even a 54 percent majority of Democrats holds this view.

Yeah, an occasional explanation would be lovely.  Don't you think?

Regarding next steps in Afghanistan, Americans are much more likely to trust the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal (62 percent) over President Obama (22 percent).

Those are numbers that Code Pink could get.

Our foreign policy is failing all over.  Our military policy is in the hands of a man who described Iran as a "small country," and we're in deep trouble.

October 16, 2009   Permalink

ISN'T THIS WHERE WE CAME IN? - AT 8:02 P.M. ET:  Please read:

LOS ANGELES (AP) | Schoolchildren dove under tables in Los Angeles and sirens sounded in San Francisco on Thursday as California practiced how to survive a major earthquake.

"Drop, cover and hold on," dozens of fourth-graders chanted just before the announcement of a simulated earthquake sent them scurrying under tables at the California Science Center at 10:15 a.m.

At the same moment, nearly 7 million other people up and down the state were expected to do the same while emergency agencies and hospitals began response drills and mass casualty exercises.

COMMENT:  As Stonewall Jackson liked to say, "Commendable, very commendable." 

We declare it good that California holds earthquake drills.  But wait a second.  Isn't this exactly what the left ridiculed when it was applied to the possibility of a nuclear attack?  Remember "Duck and cover"?  We held duck and cover drills when I was in elementary school in New York.  It was common sense.  No one could rule out a nuclear attack on the United States, and millions of lives could be saved by basic civil defense measures, like duck and cover.

But no more.  Isn't even mentioned.  At a time when terrorist groups are trying to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, we are ignoring civil defense.  Sure, an earthquake drill can double, to some degree, as a civil defense exercise, but political correctness doesn't permit the terms to be mixed together.  Might offend someone planning to attack us.

In parts of San Francisco, if a nuclear device went off, a portion of the populace would probably start singing, "Here comes the sun, here comes the sun."

Weird, man.

Bring back "duck and cover."  We may need it.

October 16, 2009   Permalink

ELECTION ALERT - AT 4:09 P.M. ET:  Something strange is going on in New Jersey.  Okay, I know.  That's not news.  But I think, as Arthur Miller wrote, attention must be paid. 

An attempt is being made by a New Jersey court to restrict exit polling.  News organizations don't like it.  From Newsmax;

Six major media outlets are asking a federal judge to stop enforcement of a New Jersey ruling that bans exit polling near voting sites.

The lawsuit was being filed in U.S. District Court on Friday by the National Election Pool. That's a consortium that includes The Associated Press, CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

A Sept. 30 state Supreme Court decision bars exit polling and all "expressive activity" within 100 feet of polling places.

The news group argues that exit polling is constitutionally protected. Federal courts have struck down similar attempts in other states.

Polling experts say the ban means error rates for exit polls will be much higher.

The New Jersey court said it is a reasonable restriction of free speech because all activity is banned.

COMMENT:  We don't often cheer the mainstream media, but we'll do it this time, noting that Fox is also included in the petitioning group. 

Exit polling, while it has its flaws, and can be done well or badly, is an important check on the honesty of elections.  One of the people who opposes exit polling is Jimmah Carter, which should incline you to be for it.  Carter once advised the Mexican government to ban exit polling.

Exit polling, unlike "official" means of tabulating votes, allows outside news organizations, after people vote, to check, generally, on the accuracy of the count.  If the exit poll, taken over the entire voting day, disagrees dramatically with the official count, it may indicate vote fraud. 

Exit polling, of course, is not the entire answer to crooked elections.  Keeping ACORN and the Black Panthers away from polling booths would be helpful.  It would also help, in Chicago and other places, to keep our dearly departed loved ones off the voting rolls, no matter how strongly we wish to keep their memory alive.  And, in places like St. Louis, it would be nice if the number of voters in some inner city precincts didn't exceed the number of people living in the precinct.

But exit polling helps.  The federal court should strike down the New Jersey restriction.

October 16, 2009   Permalink

QUICK - GET HIM ANOTHER PRIZE - AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen reports this morning that the president's poll numbers continue to drop, getting dangerously (or delightfully) close to the bottom they reached in the Ras poll on September 3rd.

Some 47% of likely voters approve of the president's performance, while 51% disapprove.  Maybe the Nobel Prize wasn't high enough.

In Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove, Mr. Obama stands at minus 11, 28% to 39%. 

If someone had said on inauguration day that Barack Obama could become a drag on the Democratic ticket, no one would have believed it. 

Believe.  Believe.

October 16, 2009   Permalink

THEY'RE BAACK - AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  The Adam Clayton Powells, I mean.  Some "mature" readers may recall Adam Clayton Powell as the Harlem-based congressman of the 1960s, an effective committee chairman, thrown out of the House for ethical violations, reinstated by the Supreme Court, then defeated for reelection by Charlie Rangel, who still serves, almost 40 years later.  From The Politico: 

Oft-troubled New York State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV -- the son of the same-named legendary Harlem congressman who was ousted by Charlie Rangel in 1970 -- is creating an exploratory committee for a possible Rangel challenge.

“A lot of people have been talking to me for a few weeks,” Powell told City Hall. “It’s no secret that I’ve always been interested.”

If he takes the plunge, he'll join Vincent Morgan, a former Rangel associate who has said he's interested in challenging the ethics-embattled dean of the New York delegation.

Powell -- who tried and failed to avenge his father's defeat in '94 -- has quite a bit of baggage all his own.

Just last year ACP-IV was charged with DWI and earlier this year, he was was cited for the misuse of nearly $30,000 in campaign funds -- including a trip to Ireland he said was intended to familiarize himself with his district's Irish-American residents. In 2004, he was cleared of any wrongdoing following a Manhattan DA's probe into a charge that he had sexually assaulted a 38-year-old woman.

COMMENT:  Rangel should probably step down on his own, considering the ethics charges against him.  They seem to be accurate.

It's sad, though, that another ethics-challenged guy might replace Rangel.  I was having an e-mail discussion earlier this morning with a respected reader who has an extended, multicultural family, and we agreed that the African-American community deserves better role models.  But one of the tragedies of that community is that its politics is heavily influenced by the hard left, where top-down leadership is all the rage.

Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York, was responsible for saving more black lives than any other mayor before him, and maybe all combined, through his imaginative anti-crime program.  He never got a word of thanks because he refused to genuflect before the self-serving black "leadership," which then instructed "the community" to oppose the mayor. 

I hope Rangel is succeeded by a saint, not a sinner.

October 16,  2009   Permalink

WHY NOT JUST GIVE THEM THE MISSILES, AND SHOW REAL FRIENDSHIP?  AFTER ALL, THAT'S THE OBAMAN THING TO DO - AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  From Bill Gertz at, again, the Washington Times: 

President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.

The president issued a little-noticed "presidential determination" Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Commerce officials say the shift will not cause controls to be loosened in regards to the export of missile and space technology.

Eugene Cottilli, a spokesman for Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, said under new policy the U.S. government will rigorously monitor all sensitive exports to China.

Yeah, right.  I'm sure we'll "rigorously monitor" those exports.  This is just the administration to do it. 

There is a history here of improper transfers of technology during the Bill and Hillary years.  I wouldn't be shocked if the same mistake were made again. 

The presidential notice alters a key provision of the 1999 Defense Authorization Act that required that the president notify Congress whether a transfer of missile and space technology to China would harm the U.S. space-launch industry or help China's missile programs.

The law was passed after a late-1990s scandal involving the U.S. companies Space Systems/Loral and Hughes Electronics Corp.

Sleep tight tonight.  Barack Obama is watching out for you.

October 16, 2009    Permalink

A COLOSSAL FAILURE - AT 8:09 A.M. ET: That's a perfectly reasonable description of Hillary Clinton's mission to Moscow, which just concluded without so much as a nice going-home gift. 

I've always liked Wes Pruden of the Washington Times because he takes no prisoners and says things bluntly.  He would not have been hired as a diplomat in the unarmed army of Obama.  Pruden:

A soft answer can sometimes turn away wrath, but not always, and presidents have to be wary of showing timidity and weakness in the face of a bully. This is the expensive lesson the tinhorns of the world are teaching Barack Obama. So far he is not an honors student.

He'll get an "A" from MSNBC anyway.  Easy grader, if you're a liberal.

Throwing Poland and the Czech Republic under that celebrated bus, a cramped space already brimming with old friends, pastors, mentors, tutors and even members of his own family who are no longer useful, was costly. It's never easy to be a friend of America, and Mr. Obama is making it impossible to be one.

He got a humiliating reminder of reality this week when the Russians, to whom he had paid such humble obeisance, gave him a hard slap across the face, just to remind him who he is and who is meant to be in charge of the world.

Don't worry, be happy.  We're talking.  We're sensitive to other cultures.  We're showing our good side.  Hillary smiled in Moscow.  Ah, for the good old thinking of the sixties, when she lectured a U.S. senator about Vietnam at a Wellesley College commencement.  Those were the days when you could bash America and be so proud.

Mrs. Clinton could not even see Mr. Putin, the real head man; there was a conflict of schedules and he had to depart for Beijing. This was a remarkable snub, treating the secretary of state as if she were merely the representative of the PTA, lobbying for more vegetables in the school lunchroom. Maybe there really was a conflict; maybe Mr. Putin had scheduled a haircut at the only hour she was available.

Ouch.  Hillary wronged by another man.  Will there be anger?  Will there be pain?

Mrs. Clinton and her acolytes at the State Department, ever eager to seek the softest way to say nothing, tried to put a nice face on her visit to Moscow. The United States, Russia and China are "closer than before" on their policies regarding Iran's nuclear-weapons program, Mrs. Clinton told a radio interviewer. She seemed to be taking care not to say that actual positions are closer, just that everyone understands those positions: Russians tough, Americans soft.

That says it.  But are enough Americans concerned?  Our colleges, and, increasingly, our high schools, are churning out students who are taught a moral equivalence in international relations.  Some of those students go into journalism and teach moral equivlance to readers and viewers.  Unless we get to the root of America's corrupt educational system, and increasingly twisted press, we will be in mortal danger of a "citizen's surrender," which is what has happened in much of Western Europe.

October 16, 2009   Permalink

HE MAY BE RIGHT - AT 7:49 A.M. ET:  Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana), is sounding awfully confident these days about the fate of health-care "reform" in the Senate, as Fox News reports:

WASHINGTON -- When it comes time to vote, every Democrat in the Senate -- and perhaps more than one Republican -- will support legislation overhauling the nation's health care system, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee predicted Thursday.

Could be correct.  The Blue Dogs have a notorious history of caving at the last minute.  The "perhaps more than one Republican" comment is an obvious allusion to Olympia Snowe, whose final vote for passage Baucus apparently feels he has. 

That assertion by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was a notable show of confidence coming in the midst of negotiations with Majority Leader Harry Reid and White House officials to finalize legislation that can satisfy liberal Democrats without alienating moderates -- and get the 60 votes needed to advance in the 100-seat Senate.

Baucus told reporters that lawmakers have a moral obligation to repair the health care system to rein in costs and extend coverage to millions of the uninsured.

The problem is, the bill likely to be presented for final passage won't do either, but the Dems will claim that it will.

"And that is why we are going to pass health care reform legislation this year, and it is why every Democrat will vote for it, and it is why there will be at least one Republican and maybe a couple more who also will vote for it," Baucus said.

COMMENT:  The opposition may well be exhausted.  We don't see the kind of eruption we saw in August.  Or, organized opponents may be waiting for final bills to emerge in both the House and Senate.   Final versions in each House may be weeks away.  They would then have to be reconciled in a Senate-House conference.

October 16,  2009   Permalink

THURSDAY,  OCTOBER 15,  2009

WHAT OBAMA MUST CONFRONT - AT 9:08 P.M. ET:  While President Obama ponders what to do in Afghanistan - a decision is expected in 2013 - our enemies are not on vacation.  The New York Times reports a series of disturbing, and telling, developments:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A wave of attacks against top security installations over the last several days demonstrated that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government are tightening an alliance aimed at bringing down the Pakistani state, government officials and analysts said.

A state with a nuclear arsenal.  Hillary Clinton recently declared that the Pakistani nukes are safe.  She also once thought that her husband was loyal.

More than 30 people were killed Thursday in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, as three teams of militants assaulted two police training centers and a federal investigations building. The dead included 19 police officers and at least 11 militants, police officials said.

Nine others were killed in two attacks at a police station in Kohat, in the northwest, and a residential complex in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province.

The assaults in Lahore, coming after a 20-hour siege at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi last weekend, showed the deepening reach of the militant network, as well as its rising sophistication and inside knowledge of the security forces, officials and analysts said.

The umbrella group for the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Lahore, the independent television news channel Geo reported on its Web site.

COMMENT:  But the left wing of the Democratic Party wants us out of that region, so the funds can be devoted to pet projects at home. 

What is striking is the new aggressiveness of our enemies in Pakistan and Afghanistan...since Barack Obama took office.  Maybe they know a pushover when they see one, especially a pushover who kinds of brags about being one.

Obama faces decisions in the next month that can well determine whether terrorist groups will get their hands on Pakistani nuclear weapons.  And we wonder whether the newly minted Nobel peace laureate is up to the task.

October 15, 2009   Permalink

BULLETIN: CNN TO BE SAVED! - AT 5:57 P.M. ET:  CNN, tanking in the ratings, dying in the quality assessments, third-worldish in the reporting, is about to be saved, we think.

There are reports circulating on the internet that Ted Turner, that sane, reasoned guy who thought Jane Fonda was a perfectly proper matrimonial match, would like to run his old network again.

Well, that will solve everything.  He could even have Jane do national security updates while sitting on an anti-aircraft gun.

Maybe Code Pink could supply the anchors.

We'll be following this.  Stop laughing.

October 15, 2009   Permalink

ANOTHER WARNING FROM MOSCOW - AT 5:14 P.M. ET:  Boy, Hillary Clinton certainly accomplished a great deal in Moscow.  I want to see that list.  I'm sure I'd feel great pride.  Not.

Here is the latest from our new Russian friends:

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian news agencies are quoting a top Russian diplomat as suggesting the U.S. should not talk with non-NATO nations about a prospective missile shield.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov's remarks appeared to reflect alarm over the idea that neighbors such as Ukraine or Georgia could potentially host U.S. missile defense facilities.

State-run RIA Novosti and ITAR-Tass cite Ryabkov as saying Russia has "concerns" about what he called U.S. contacts on missile defense with countries outside NATO.

President Barack Obama has removed a major irritant in relations with Russia by scrapping U.S. plans to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.

But Russian officials say they want to know details about what system the U.S. will put in place instead.

COMMENT:  Well, Hillary promised transparency to the Russians (and got no promise in return), so I guess we'll tell them everything.  After all, we must reset our relations with Russia after they were so horribly damaged by the infamous BUSH (!!).

You've noticed, I'm sure, the improvement in our relationship with Moscow.  Look in tomorrow's mail for a coupon.  Big discounts on caviar.  Overnight delivery.

October 15, 2009   Permalink

THE NUMBERS, THEY ARE NOT GOOD - AT 4:50 P.M. ET:  Someone finally asked the key political question.  The answer can bring no joy to the White House.  From Fox News:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama's job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. That's down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president -- and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

COMMENT:  No matter how this is spun, it isn't good news for the president.  True, presidents fall in popularity during their first year, but we were told by the huge used-car lot known as Obama headquarters that this was a very special president, The One, the man from whom all blessings flowed.

So far, not many blessings.  Many headaches.  Get the Alka-Seltzer.

October 15, 2009   Permalink

ARE YOU BELIEVING THIS? - AT 3:13 P.M. ET:   From NewsBusters:

The Magazine Publishers of America's American Society of Magazine Editors has added a category to its annual magazine cover awards: Obama. This new category is the only ASME category focused on a single person, and highlights the reverential attitude for the President widely held in the magazine publishing community.

ASME represents about 850 magazine editors nationwide. According to its website, the organization "works to preserve editorial independence." How they manage to maintain this air of objectivity while devoting an entire awards section to such a polarizing figure is a mystery.

COMMENT:  Wait.  We haven't seen the petitions to put him on Mount Rushmore - next week - in anticipation of expected greatness and divinity.

Reverence by the press gets into dangerous territory.  it also reflects what these "journalists" were taught in school and by the "mentors" of their profession, who were shaped by the sixties. 

Ronald Reagan brought the Cold War to a successful close, without firing a shot.  I don't recall similar reverence, and, unlike red darling Gorbachev, he never received the Nobel Peace Prize.  Who said it's a fair world?

October 15, 2009   Permalink

NOBEL PRIZE = NO-VOTE PRIZE - AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  It's now been almost a week since we learned that President Obama was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  Notice the difference?

In fact, the president's award has not exactly been hailed by the American people.  Rasmussen reports this morning that the president's poll numbers have actually gone down since the prize was announced. 

Some 48% of likely voters approve of the president's performance, whereas 51% disapprove.

In Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve, and those who strongly disapprove, the president stands at minus eight, 30% to 38%. 

Maybe we should get him some more prizes. 

October 15, 2009   Permalink

WELCOME TO THE RECOVERY - AT 8:59 A.M. ET:  We regularly run our "welcome to the recovery" tidbits to point out that there remains real, continuing pain in the actual economy, despite gains in the artificial economy of Wall Street.  We point out once more that there was a stock market rally between 1933 and 1937, in the depths of the Great Depression:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite concerted government-led and lender-supported efforts to prevent foreclosures, the number of filings hit a record high in the third quarter, according to a report issued Thursday.

"They were the worst three months of all time," said Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes.

During that time, 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter -- whether a default notice, auction notice or bank repossession, the RealtyTrac report said. That means one in every 136 U.S. homes were in foreclosure, which is a 5% increase from the second quarter and a 23% jump over the third quarter of 2008.

Nevada continued to be the worst-hit state with one filing for every 23 households.

COMMENT:  One of the great hustles of the last 25 years is the notion, bought by too many gullible citizens, that real estate never goes down.  Of course it does. 

Yes, for many it's been a wonderful investment, and, being pro-free enterprise, we applaud good investments, in real estate or anything else.   But too many Americans became true believers, and have gotten burned.

There are no sure things. 

October 15, 2009   Permalink

REPEAT AFTER ME:  "THERE IS NO TERROR THREAT.  IT'S AN INVENTION OF BUSH (!!), THE NEO-CONS, AND THEIR CAPITALIST GIRLFRIENDS" - AT 8:43 A.M. ET:  From Fox News:

NEW YORK — The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with Al Qaeda that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city's mass transit system, the two intelligence officials said.

Intelligence officials declined to discuss the nature of the contact or whether al-Yazid contacted Zazi to offer simple encouragement or help with the bombing plot prosecutors say Zazi was pursuing.

Al-Yazid's contact with Zazi indicates that Al Qaeda leadership took an intense interest in what U.S. officials have called one of the most serious terrorism threats crafted on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks.

COMMENT:  We remain at risk, a risk that will only grow if terror groups get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, something that they're attempting to do.

Our risk also increases if an enemy believes he can get away with terror against the United States, or feels he is so well protected in his homeland that he'll never be caught, or even pursued.

And yet, we have a weak president whose base is a segment of his party that is often hostile to national defense, and which too often believes that threats against the American people are caused simply by cultural misunderstanding.

Once again we learn that elections have consequences, and that the election of 2008 had disastrous consequences. 

There's another election next year.  There are polling signs that the public is waking up.  It is our job to keep Americans awake, and appropriately angry.

October 15, 2009    Permalink

DISGRACEFUL - AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  This is another kind of democracy - democracy by intimidation.  From The New York Times:

One day after Commissioner Roger Goodell said that Rush Limbaugh’s bid to buy the St. Louis Rams would receive little support from N.F.L. ownership, Limbaugh was dropped from the group of investors hoping to buy the team.

“Rush was to be a limited partner — as such, he would have had no say in the direction of the club or in any decisions regarding personnel or operations,” Dave Checketts, the former Madison Square Garden executive who is leading the group that included Limbaugh. “This was a role he enthusiastically embraced. However, it has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions; endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion.”

COMMENT:  I wrote about this at the Angel's Corner last night.  The disgrace here is that Limbaugh was dropped based on trumped-up charges of racism - charges founded partly on statements he hotly denies making, and that no one can find.

You can like Rush, or not like him, but this is modern-day McCarthyism.  If Rush were pro-Communist or pro-Nazi, I could understand the objection to him.  But he's a conservative, with no serious evidence that he's a racist.  This smear will be with him for the rest of his life, unless he fights back to clear his name.  I hope he does.

October 15, 2009    Permalink

NOBEL DEMOCRACY - AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  Well now, this is interesting, from AFP:

OSLO — Three of the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee had objections to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to US President Barack Obama, the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang (VG) reported Thursday.

"VG has spoken to a number of sources who confirmed the impression that a majority of the Nobel committee, at first, had not decided to give the peace prize to Barack Obama," the newspaper said.

In a surprise move last Friday, the Nobel committee attributed the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama less than nine months after he had taken office.

The committee, appointed by the Norwegian parliament, honoured Obama for "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"The committee was unanimous," its influential secretary Geir Lundestad told AFP on Friday.

COMMENT:  Look, Obama came up through Chicago politics.  He understands this kind of thing.  No one should be embarrassed.

Yuch.

October 15,  2009   Permalink