Daily Archives: November 24th, 2009

Remember Ashley Todd? [...] Read the rest »

Here’s a dirty little secret about The New York Times. It likes to leak things. Important things. Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant.

Until now. A troublesome hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the "scientific experts" cited so often by the media on global warming display are guilty of crude political talk, attempts at censoring opponents, and twisting scientific data to support their policy agenda.

The e-mails prove just how dishonest this left-wing global warming agenda truly is. And now suddenly, the New York Times has found religion, and won’t publish these private e-mails. Environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, who’s more global warming lobbyist than reporter, quoted – sparsely – from the e-mails, but declared he would not post these texts on his "Dot Earth" blog on the Times website: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here."

That rule didn’t apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists.

Unlike our secret terror-fighting efforts, there is no grave matter of national security to protect here. There is only a danger of shredding the undeserved reputation of some global-warming alarmists as nonpartisan, nonideological, just-the-facts scientists with no preconceived environmentalist or statist agenda.

The networks also have ignored this emerging scandal with all the ignorance they could muster. But in the seven days after the New York Times revealed the existence of an NSA program to monitor communications to terrorist cells abroad, the three networks ran a combined 23 stories about the program, more than one story, per network, per night.

Revkin’s story in the Times did have some truncated quotes with ridiculous details. In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing apparent climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones of the CRU said he had used a "trick" employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to "hide the decline" in temperatures.

Dr. Mann confirmed the e-mail was real, but told the Times "the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word ‘trick’ to refer to a good way to solve a problem," and not as something secret.

Doesn’t a network correspondent just smell the fraud when scientists start offering lame excuses for the words they somehow didn’t mean? Don’t just listen to conservatives. Try Nate Silver, a statistician and liberal-media favorite, recently named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People. He says the scientists in this exchange were unethical:

"Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. This is not a good thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer." But then he adds the typical liberal disclaimer: "Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year? And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate."

When conservatives are wrong, conservatives are wrong. When liberals are wrong, everyone does it, don’t you know?

It’s also important to note that these folks play a rough game of hardball. This isn’t about science. It’s politics – the brass-knuckles sort. In another e-mail from Jones to Mann, reported in The Washington Post, there’s talk of cutting skeptical scientists out of the official United Nations report: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal to reject the work of climate skeptics, perhaps with a boycott: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.

This kind of censor-your-opponents activity ought to disgust a journalist who values openness and rigorous debate above all. Every day the networks avoid this story, they’re saying they don’t really care about either of those values. In fact, they become willing accomplices in a coverup of global proportions.

FNC host Glenn Beck on Tuesday cited a NewsBusters article in his attack on all the television news outlets that have boycotted the growing ClimateGate scandal.

As NewsBusters reported earlier in the day, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC have completely ignored last week's bombshell story about controversial e-mail messages between some of the world's leading global warming alarmists.

By contrast, Fox has been all over this issue.

With this in mind, Beck used the NewsBusters piece to demonstrate that much as in their boycott of the ACORN scandal and green jobs czar Van Jones's peculiar associations, the television press are once again hiding important information from the public hoping it will all just go away (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

GLENN BECK, HOST: Well, once again, there's a budding scandal that is completely invisible to the people who do not watch FOX News. This joins the parade of such scandals as Van Jones Who? ACORN with hookers. What? And now, the terribly titled, ClimateGate. Huh?

Noel Sheppard at "NewsBusters" found that after this thing started breaking late last week, there has been a total, out of all these networks, all the stories combined from ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC - ABC had to cover the affair of Republican Senator John Ensign, which, I guess, some people were talking about in July.

But the scandal we are talking about - all of these combined, all of these networks, zero - zero. Nobody is reporting on this story. CBS also had a breaking story about a 10-year-old pianist playing at the Carnegie Hall - and you know, good for her or him.

And NBC featured not one but two stories on the release of Susan Boyle's new CD. Oh, I can barely contain my excitement. But in case you missed it, because you were anywhere but here, a hacker or whistleblower released thousands of E-mails and documents between some of the biggest players in the global warming non-debate debate.

Give credit to the "New York times" and "The Washington Post" for confirming the E-mails and that they are legitimate. Yesterday, we showed you the messages between the scientists bragging about climate tricks used to hide the decline in temperatures that were all freaking out, "Oh, no, it looks like our models are wrong."

They were asking each other to delete messages to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests. That doesn't sound legal. Scientists are working together to try and change the definition of peer review journals so that anybody who said global warming wasn't real couldn't get their papers published.

Wow, that almost sounds like the dark ages. Back in 2006, the media flocked to report on James Hansen - this is Al Gore's climate scientist of choice. Remember, he is the guy who said, "I'm being silenced by the evil Bush administration."

Bush was apparently very good at silencing scientists as he was controlling spending, because Hansen did hundreds of interviews, hundreds of them. What was the proof of the silencing at the time? He got some pressure in phone calls.

That was enough for all of the networks but not these thousands of E-mails. No, no, no, no. Shouldn't this be - oh, I don't know - everywhere now? The media couldn't get enough of every scandal that pops up from Lewinsky or Scooter Libby or you know, Mark Foley, Eliot Spitzer, apparently John Ensign.

All of them are, to varying degrees, important. But how much could any of those actually cost you? This scandal will literally cost you trillions of dollars. That's what's at stake worldwide. It's on how we deal with the climate.

And this scandal is so far invisible to everyone but FOX viewers. Think of it this way. Let's say you're an astronaut and you're getting ready to go out in space and we're going to switch from the space shuttle to the glorified smart car to get into orbit.

And everybody who's on the smart car team, they're like, "No, no, no. The science is settled. This is perfectly safe." And you're like, "Wait a minute. I want to ask you something." "No, don't ask any more questions."

How do you react when you find out that there are engineers who are privately deleting files to avoid any kind of oversight? Or that they're colluding to keep other engineers quiet that don't think there is going to be - I don't know - enough oxygen for the trip? Or that the data doesn't agree with their predetermined conclusions, so they assume the data just must be wrong?

When it's your body burning up in the atmosphere, I bet you'd be interested. Well, your body is about to be burned up. When trillions of dollars are at stake in the middle of a financial meltdown, maybe we should look into this one because it is getting hard to breathe in here.

Why would we get into the smart car economy when it is now clear that many of the people who are forcing us inside are no longer to be considered honest brokers? Look what we have learned here.

Well, look what you have learned by watching FOX. Highly questionable, possible illegal behavior from some of the top scientists who screamed the loudest about global warming. And on the political and economical side, the president hires Van Jones, who has admitted that there was a radical colonel in the green economy, which was an engine, quote, "for transforming the whole society," end quote.

We know how corrupt politicians are. We are now learning how some of the biggest names in science are not that far behind. There are thousands of other E-mails and documents that echo these same sentiments and scandals in this batch. As we confirmed them, I guess FOX and possibly FOX alone will bring them to you.

I want to make it clear. There are a lot of good scientists out there working hard to do what's right every day, a lot of good scientists that actually believe in global warming.

But even if you're a hard core believer, when you look at these E-mails, shouldn't those scientists and all those hard core believers say, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's clear this one up, because we're about to spend trillions of dollars. And it's based on the words of these people."

I, for one, am not willing to risk our country and our world's economic future on an unsure solution to an increasingly unsure problem. That's just in my head that that science is settled.

Indeed. 

“‘There’s been a lack of acknowledgement by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,’ Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. [...] Read the rest »

Last weekend Democrats in the U.S. Senate took another step toward passing their government run healthcare legislation.  The more we have come to learn about this legislation, the more we all have cause to be concerned about this plan. It fundamentally does not focus on patients or on quality care.  In fact, it is a fiscal albatross for our already ballooning federal budget deficit.

This proposal will cost taxpayers up to $2.5 trillion, create a massive new entitlement, raise taxes, add to the federal deficit and fail to solve our nation’s health care crisis.  It is the kind of big government answer that we have come to expect from Democrats, particularly my opponent, Barbara Boxer. It is the same answer that has proven to fail this country time and time again.

Among the many problems with this legislation, of significant concern is the impact it will have on the ability of doctors and individuals to make decisions about care, particularly for women. Last week a government appointed panel issued a set of recommendations regarding mammograms and self-exams for women in their 40s and 50s. Specifically, this panel discouraged women from self-exams, said women in their 40s should not get annual mammograms as is currently advised, and recommended women in their 50s get mammograms just every two years. As a breast cancer survivor who found my own cancer through a self-exam just two weeks after a routine mammogram, I was alarmed.  To be honest, if I had followed these recommendations I am not sure what my own prognosis would have been.

This panel’s recommendations were more about costs than about saving the lives of women from one of the most common and treatable cancers our nation.  While the Obama Administration tried to calm the outrage created by these recommendations by saying they were just recommendations, Democrats in Congress were moving to give this very same panel more power over healthcare through the bill they moved forward with this weekend.

This bill actually gives much more power to this very same government panel. In fact, this panel would play a role in determining what care and preventative tests should be covered under the new system Washington seeks to create. In short, it is a serious step toward government intervention and away from patient and doctor control over individual healthcare decisions.

This is the kind of approach we have come to expect over the last year.  Whether it was with the stimulus package or this health reform package, the Democrats’ clear solution is more government intervention and more government spending. As a businessperson I look at these programs and ask “what were the results?” The answer: massive deficit spending, higher unemployment and more government involvement in our lives.

Rather than continue down this path toward approving a bill that prioritizes politics over quality healthcare, our leadership should put problem-solving over politics. Any change to our health care system should pursue solutions that would ensure quality of care, better access to quality health insurance, and stimulate competition in the health insurance market. These goals can be achieved by pursuing free market solutions instead of more big government.

On the other hand, the dullards at the dying U.S. monodailies seem to be working overtime to hide the decline. In Fleet Street and on Australian TV, the statist warm-mongers are at least acknowledging that they have a problem. Over here the brain-dead twits doing their best to turn the Boston Globe circulation figures into Michael Mann's phony hockey stick upside down are going with "Boston Faces Deep Risk From Sea-Level Rise." Why not build protective dikes with unsold bundles of the Globe -- or the delivery trucks?

In the comments section of both the Globe and the Houston Chronicle, readers seem to have a better nose for news than the J-school bores. Some declines can't be hidden.    

The recent election-related murders in the Philippines are nothing new.  Some 24 people were massacred on a road, including 12 reporters. The victims were associated with one political clan and the suspected perpetrators are associated with another. That will surprise no one.

Back in the day I remember visiting the city of Jolo in sulu after it had been burned to the ground by fighting between the Mayor and the Vice Governor of the Province.  About a square mile was totally incinerated down to the foundations. Nor was it an isolated incent, While in Sulu on another occasion, I got a report of a murder of one mayor by another mayor in the process of a reconciliation meeting. The murdered party was asked to bury the hatchet and when they debarked on the pier, two M1919 .30 caliber machine guns were waiting in a crossfire to greet them. The surviving warlord looted the bodies as they were still twitching in death.

It was not hard to believe. Life was cheap.  Rebels would kidnap road workers for $50 ransom. You’d see their wives collecting money in tin cans to get their husbands out of captivity. I met the aged Father Blanco when he had just escaped from the Abu Sayaf. The old Spanish priest had waited until his captors drank more than the usual and then asked permission to answer the call of nature in the perimeter. He then ran for all he was worth until dawn when he reached an Army roadblock. Pretty wiry guy for a seventy something person. He could probably walk most people half his age into the ground.

Then there was the time when Herminio Montebon, who was the Mayor of Isabela City, told me about the attack on Christmas Eve on the market by 300 armed men. He was attending an office Christmas party when someone rushed in to say he had intelligence that a battalion minus force of rebels would hit the town in about an hour. Montebon rushed to the Army Camp and got to the market with a company of troops and two V-150 armored cars. Montebon hoped to forestall the attack but he was too late. When they got to the market  all hell broke loose. He distinctly remembers the thud of the Ma Deuce in the turret of the V-150 he was in as its slugs ripped through the thin stall walls in the market.

Merry Christmas and welcome to Basilan. But violence isn’t confined to Mindanao. One of the most celebrated massacres occurred in Nothern Luzon.

This involved the burning of two whole towns (Ora Este and Ora Centro)  in the Ilocos on May 22, 1970 by Bingbong Crisologo in a case that is now wholly forgotten. The Crisologo family was feuding with the Singsons and, well, things got hot. Crisologo is now a preacher and a successful politician, proof that memory is short in the Philippines. The incident affected the parish priest, who subsequently went and become a famous Communist guerilla commander. Then he became a Trappist monk and my spiritual adviser. He is now a well known monk. I never met Crisologo personally but saw him occasionally over a prison fence where he led the Sampaguita Rehabilitation Center band. It was a treat to see him and his band, all in orange jumpsuits playing away on the electric guitar. Don’t think that the Thriller Video from Cebu city is a novelty.  The Filipino penitentiary is a musical place.

And of course there was the burning of Ipil in Zamboanga del Sur. Ipil was probably the second largest town in the province. It was completely torched by the Abu Sayaf in their maiden outrage. They came out in style. Some of my friends were in Ipil when it was attacked. One friend, whose initials are “BB” took over the radio station and broadcast a Mayday, which was funny when you consider that Ipil was not far from an Army base which never mobilized in time to intervene.  His heroic initiative was in vain, but he was a quality guy. At any rate, the Abu Sayaf spent the afternoon burning people alive, blowing open all the bank vaults and generally murdering and pillaging.

And so it was (and I’ve related this story before) that I was somewhat amused to hear my seatmate on the plane, a doctor from Medicins Sans Frontiere, confidently declare to me that he would be protected by humanitarian law when he reached Jolo.  I told him if he went much beyond town he’d be kidnapped before he could say Jacques Robinson, which he was. You really have to be well educated to believe that stuff about the “religion of peace”.  Both the victims and the suspects of the latest massacre reported in the New York Times are from Muslim warlord families.  If you’re ignorant, you’ll probably know that human folly and malice is confined to no religion. Man is a beast when he isn’t an angel.

As to Maguindanao, I’ve only been a couple of times, and that with an escort of armed men in whom I reposed scant confidence; their rifles being dirty and ready ammunition meager.  In fact, we were probably better off without them. But heck they had to earn a living as “security escorts”. It’s not always peaceful in them parts, but it’s always interesting.

Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5

My term, not his, although he’s explicitly drawing a parallel with BDS. [...] Read the rest »

That’s according to unnamed “military sources,” although under the circumstances, anonymous intermediaries may be more credible than an on-the-record interview. [...] Read the rest »

On August 6th Kenneth Gladney attended the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in south St. Louis County. Kenneth was there to make some money selling freedom flags and buttons. After the meeting Kenneth was assaulted, beaten and stomped by angry SEIU thugs who were upset that a black man would be selling anti-Obama merchandise. Gladney was taken to the hospital following the attack.

Ken Gladney is pictured here after his public beating by SEIU thugs. Kenneth Gladney attended this protest against SEIU violence in August in St. Louis. He was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters after the town hall meeting earlier that week. St. Louis County officials have yet to press charges.

It’s been over 3 months and still St. Louis county officials have not met with Kenneth Gladney to discuss the case nor have they press charges against the SEIU thugs who beat him.

Today after Kenneth set up an appointment with the county officials to discuss the crime– they blew him off. Kenneth made the appointment and they totally ignored him.

Later today Kenneth Gladney talked about how the county is ignoring the crime against him:

Kenneth Gladney was beaten once in the street in a hate crime. But, it doesn’t matter to county officials.

They have better things to do than protect a black man who was assaulted by SEIU thugs.

Cross-posted at GatewayPundit.

Unbelievable. Three navy seal heroes face court-martial after capturing the Al-Qaeda leader who murdered four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004.
The Al-Qaeda leader had a bloody lip when he was arrested.

The USA Blackwater guards were burned, beaten, dragged through the streets of Fallujah and their decapitated bodies hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River on March 31, 2004.

FOX News reported, via Report on Arrakis:

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 an admiral’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.

HotAir’s Allahpundit throws the US Seals under the bus.
Black Five is not amused.

Personally, I don’t tend to trust Al-Qaeda killers.
We all saw how the Haditha story turned out. That so-called massacre turned out to be a filthy piece of Al-Qaeda propaganda that the state-run media and John Murtha used to undermine our troops in Iraq.
Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to side with Navy Seals over Al-Qaeda killers any day.

Via Ace. [...] Read the rest »

...tomorrow morning at 8:05 eastern, when I'll be on. We'll talk about the recent indictments in connection with the Minnesota/Somalia pipeline, the East Anglia climate email scandal, and canned cranberry sauce. All I can say is, I hope they hold me over for two segments! There are lots of places where you can listen on the web, including here.

An hilariously bizarre situation is happening in the wake of the growing Climategate scandal.  Many of the mainstream media stories about global warming are simply pretending it doesn't exist. Perhaps they feel that by ignoring Climategate entirely that it will just go away. Unfortunately for them, the readers of these global warming stories keep bringing up the inconvenient truth of Climategate by mentioning the scandal in the comments section over and over and over again.

An example is this Houston Chronicle editorial which asserts in its headline, "As a crucial climate change conference nears, more evidence of a warming globe." And as the editorial reveals its "evidence," note what is conspicuously missing although the readers will bring it up much to the embarrassment of the Chonicle:

The Global Carbon Project study concludes that unless emissions are substantially reduced, the result would be a rise in average global temperature by nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That is on par with previous worst-case scenarios outlined by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Scientists have estimated that temperature spikes above 2 degrees could have disastrous consequences, including large rises in sea level, droughts and stronger storms.

One of the authors of the study, Professor Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia, says the conclusions raise the stakes for delegates to the Copenhagen gathering, who will try to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Accords that committed signatory governments to emission reduction goals. The United States did not sign on to that agreement.

University of East Anglia? Hmmm... Where have I heard about this university in the recent past? Something about hacked e-mails, manipulated data, and a coverup? This editorial won't bring up the scandal that dare not speak its name but the readers are not shy about bringing it up over and over and over again:

 Oh dear .. I think you have a bit of catching up to do.

Scandal? What scandal? We're as willfully clueless about this as Charlie Gibson is about the ACORN scandal.

Apparently, the clowns on the Houston Comical editorial board do zero research prior to sitting down at the keyboard to compose their lies. The "researchers" at East Anglia have been exposed as the perpetrators of a massive fraud by manipulating statistics. Yet, here comes the Comical citing the liars at East Anglia in support of their thesis. It's all over the news - even the Houston Comical. (Maybe the editorial board doesn't read the Comical - only the press releases of the DNC.)

AIIIEEEEE!!! Stop with the truth! It's too painful!

This is incredible. Warmists rig climate data, block publication of peer-reviewed papers challenging the AWG theory and the Chronicle publishes this scare-screed. The liberal media barons are flummoxed by thefollowing developments and like the 6 year old who finally realizes there is no Santa Claus, are in deep denial.

We will continue to believe in our global warming Santa no matter what the facts are to the contrary.

More unadulterated BS from the whiners on the Chronicle's Editorial Board. With these phoney scientists now exposed via some hacked emails and hundreds of other highly credentialed climate scientists saying the whole man-made global warming theory is a hoax, why a newspaper thinks it knows more than the skeptics is beyond me.

Dave, stop.

Considering the information that has come out in the last few days about the East Anglia researchers, this cannot be a well-informed and sincere editorial. The editorial board is either ignorant of the facts, deliberately obscuring them, or simply insulting its readers.

Stop, will you?

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, tempatures have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?

The ClimateGate scandal exposes man-made global warming fears as quite simply the best science that agenda driven activists can "manufacture". Claims that the UN IPCC is the 'gold standard' of scientific research have been forever tarnished.

Stop, Dave. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave.

Hey Chron - quit being a stupid doosh and get your facts straight. It came to be known last week that these scientists were fudging data. Perpetrating Al Gore's fraud.

Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.

The IPCC chefs and their lackeys in the press have cooked the books to create a Soviet casserole of lies, flavored with phony data, suppressed research, bullied colleagues and topped with a garnish of elitist arrogance. And they want us to not only to eat it, but to pay trillions for the privilige. They now have all the credibility of an ACORN ethics officer and the public is vomiting at the smell.

There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a…fraid.

The Houston Chronicle editorial writers have completely ignored the breaking scandal that is evidencing the climate change hypothesis for what it is -- a pack of lies and manipulations delivered by establishment science. "Climate change" has always been about one agenda: Giving governments more power to control what you do. This one is so big and blatant even the mainstream media can't cover it up.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do.

How embarrassing for the Chronicle! With all that has happened in the past week, shouldn't you have at least taken the line out about the GCP saying '10-degree rise by the end of the century'? Don't you think it is out of your hands by now anyway? We are so close to the summit, how could recycling this old 'news' have any positive impact on the outcome? It just makes the 'collective' look even more foolish to people who have opened their minds and taken the time to truly evaluate the facts that are available to us. Why didn't you run a story on those hacked emals and bring us up-to-date on what is really going on?

I'm half crazy, all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage. I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two …

Bottom line here for the MSM; you can try to avoid mentioning Climategate in your global warming stories but your readers are sure to remind you of your deliberate oversight. Oh how they will remind you!

Listen to this conversation and decide for yourself if Posner manages to make a good case for his theory. I think he ignores important factors, such as government-created moral hazards, which leads him to lump together several types of regulatory failures that shouldn't be lumped together. To be fair, Posner places most of the blame for the crisis on the Federal Reserve, inattentive regulators, and the subsidization of risk. And yet, he supported federal intervention in the economy in the name of recovery.

Russ Roberts's interview and responses to Posner are superb as always.

Current poll data are brutal for the Democrats. In the Rasmussen survey, President Obama's approval index, the difference between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove of his performance, has hit a record low of -15. Overall, voters disapprove of Obama by 54-45%. That's no doubt in part because voters have also turned decisively against the Democrats' health care proposals, opposing them, currently, by 56-38%.

Meanwhile, voters now favor Republicans over Democrats by seven points on the generic ballot, 44-37%.

Byron York examines the numbers behind Obama's slumping Gallup rating and finds that Obama is now at 39% with whites and below 50% among all those who go to church. Pluralities of all of those who are over 29 years old or earn more than $2,000 a month disapprove of Obama's performance. Looking at it positively, you could say that the President is still hanging tough with the pivotal young, poor, atheist voting bloc. Michael Barone, meanwhile, asks whether Democrats are beginning to desert their sinking ship.

Is that premature? Sure. But there is no doubt that if the 2010 election were held tomorrow, the Democrats would be slaughtered. What do they plan to do between now and November 2010 to turn that around? Jam an unpopular health care bill down the voters' throats, enact a job-destroying tax on carbon that most people now believe is founded on a myth, and raise taxes. [UPDATE: I should have added, they're also freeing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four confederates into the federal court system--that'll generate some helpful headlines over the next year--and now they're also talking about bringing back "comprehensive immigration reform," which prior to the Obama administration was the most unpopular thing Congress had done in a long time. It's a perfect storm of legislative malpractice.] Beyond that, they are crossing their fingers and hoping that the extraordinary vigor of the American economy will survive all of the damage they have inflicted on it, and will rally by November.

That could happen, of course. But it seems like a rather poor bet.

This week, the US federal debt surpassed the $12 Trillion threshold.

Congress will vote in December to extend America’s indebtedness above $12,100,000,000,000, necessitated because our national debt grew last year by more than $1,400,000,000,000 and will grow this year by $1,400,000,000,000. According to the Obama White House estimates, the national debt will continue to grow by more than $1 trillion for the next nine years.  Except it won’t…because it can’t. There just isn’t $9 Trillion to borrow.

For years we’ve heard about the immorality of putting this debt on our grandkids. Forget the grandkids, our economy is at grave risk of collapse right now!

The dollar is in free-fall. The Ponzi scheme Congress calls Social Security is about to collapse. Foreigners are beginning to balk at loaning the US government more money. That grave economic turmoil our debt and deficit will cause in the future? It’s here now.

Beyond threatening our economic security, our national debt is imperiling our national independence. We now owe foreign entities $3.448 Trillion – 28.2% more than just 12 months ago!

Three of the five largest holders of US debt should cause you sleepless nights. We owe China the most, $797 billion  — 38.9% more than we did just 12 months ago. We owe Oil Exporting Countries $189.2 billion – 11.5% more than just 12 months ago. And we owe Caribbean Banking Centers (thought to hold billions in narco-terrorist money) $180.2 billion – 35.5% more than just 12 months ago. Japan and the United Kingdom round out the top five foreign debt holders, with our debt to the UK increasing an astonishing 173% in just the last 12 months.

Can we really expect China to increase its lending to the US by nearly 40% next year, and each of the next nine years? Even if it wanted to, the UK doesn’t have the cash to increase its lending to the US by another 173% next year.

Any one of these debt holders could put the US economy in collapse overnight by selling or even just threatening to sell off their US debt holdings.

We owe them…they own us! Clearly, our national independence is in grave risk.

The Federal government also owes Social Security and Medicare $4.5 Trillion. With the economic downturn, Social Security doled out more money than it took from employees’ paychecks for the first time this year. By 2016 – just seven years from now – according to the Social Security Trustees report, Social Security will move from surplus to permanent deficit as the baby boomers retire.

(That “lock-box” presidential candidates like to talk about has never existed. The Social Security ponzi scheme makes Bernie Madoff look like a wayward kid shoplifting a pack of gum.)

If we do not balance the budget by the time Social Security moves to permanent deficit in 2016, we almost assuredly will not without a cataclysmic economic crisis.

What’s the solution? A balanced budget constitutional amendment.

History has shown Congress simply won’t act responsibly unless the voters force them to balance the budget. With great voter pressure, Congress came within 1 Senate vote of passage of the balanced budget amendment in 1996 – and the Congress passed balanced budgets each of the next four years.

When support for the balanced budget amendment waned, Congress spent like crazy.

A balanced budget amendment is the only cure to a Congress unwilling to control spending. In fact, Germany passed the BBA just last year.

That’s why we launch this week DeficitFree.com – a national push for a Balanced Budget Amendment by July 4, 2013, and a balanced Federal budget by July 4, 2016. These would be the two best birthday gifts we could give our country!

Our first and immediate goal is to bring together 5 million Balanced Budget Amendment supporters by July 4, 2010, with a minimum of 5,000 from each Congressional district. You can join the movement at www.DeficitFree.com. This non-partisan movement is being launched by some of America’s most successful grassroots activists – not Washington DC politicians.

We need 5 million voters to work together to ensure the Balanced Budget Amendment becomes the most prominent issue in the 2010 Congressional races and in the 2012 Presidential contest.

If we don’t, it won’t be our grandkids who will suffer the economic collapse of our country and our loss of national independence.

It will be us!

For your enjoyment as we transition to a holiday state o’ mind, a palate cleanser that’s destined to go mega-viral. [...] Read the rest »

You could call this pre-September 11 thinking, except that there never was a time when it would have been sane:

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. ...

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. ...

The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that "Objective Amber" planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and "they had been tracking this guy for some time."

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

Our armed forces have become exquisitely sensitive--toward Nidal Malik Hasan and Ahmed Hashim Abed, and one wonders who else. Such sensitivity comes at a price, of course. But for now, at least, that price won't be paid by those who set the policy.

Encouraging words, and reminiscent of his “necessary war” rhetoric from the campaign trail. [...] Read the rest »

Tonight, Bill O'Reilly asked me why the AARP supports Obamacare. Polls show that just 30 percent of seniors want it.

I think it’s because the AARP is a political machine.

The AARP was founded on lefty principles. Their mission statement references “positive social change”, “collective purpose”, and a “collective voice”. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, AARP employees donated to Democrats 9 to 1. Its president, Barry Rand, gave $8,900 to Obama.

Executive VP Kevin Donnellan used to work for Geraldine Ferraro. Nancy Leamond, “Executive VP of Social Impact” worked for the Clinton Administration. “Chief Brand Officer” Emilio Pardo worked for Democrat Fritz Hollings.

We found only one executive, John Rother, who once worked for a Republican--the late Senator John Heinz.

AARP is just another Washington special interest group that loves big government. They supported the “stimulus” bill. They want to allow drug re-importation from Canada, which would kill drug innovation.

Some say that AARP stands to gain financially from Obamacare, because most of their revenue comes not from membership dues, but from the sale of insurance polices (they put the the AARP name on health insurance polices from UnitedHealth and on life insurance from Aetna and Genworth.)

Earlier this week, John McCain, complaining about AARP’s endorsement of Obamacare, said:

The AARP… I understand gets some $60 million out of this deal. I say [to] the senior citizens of my state, take your AARP membership card, cut it in half and send it back to AARP, because they have betrayed you.

I don’t know where McCain got $60 million. He didn’t return out call.  AARP actually makes more than $600 million from its insurance royalties. Who knows how much more they’d collect if insurance becomes mandatory?

When I called him today, David Certner, AARP's director of legislative policy, told me that insurance money has nothing to do with it--  “we just support the interests of our members.” He claims AARP’s own polling shows their members support individual aspects of Obamacare, like banning different rates for those with pre-existing conditions or basing rates on age. And, surprise – people also want free preventative care.

I doubt that the AARP brass supports Obamacare for the money. I think they really believe in big government.

But even if Obamacare does give more money to the elderly, it comes at the expense of everyone else in the country.

I’ve thrown away my AARP card.

Counterinsurgency Plan To Fight Gangs

The birthplace of author John Steinbeck, and home to sprawling fields of vegetables, now faces one of the worst per capita gang problems in America.

Police say the 24 homicides in Salinas, Calif. this year -- all gang-related -- make the city twice as deadly as Los Angeles.

Frustrated city officials are now turning to the military for help, collaborating with combat vets and faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School in nearby Monterey to adapt counter-insurgency techniques that have worked overseas to address gang violence at home. Military software developed to track terrorists is also being used to map crimes and link suspects.

Veterans helping police put this program together say there are many parallels between fighting terrorists overseas and murderous gangbangers at home. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the goal is getting the locals to work with the military against the bad guys. In Salinas, residents need to trust the cops, so they'll report crimes and make the gangs unwelcome.

It's a long term strategy that relies on winning hearts and minds, and with an estimated one-million gang members nationwide, other cities plagued by youth violence are watching closely to see if this experiment pays off -- reducing crime, strengthening communities and, hopefully, saving lives.

Of course, the first sentence kind of misses the point -- Salinas "now faces one of the worst per capita gang problems in America" precisely because it's "home to sprawling fields of vegetables," which "cheap" foreign labor was imported to pick.

For a detailed examination of immigrant gangs, see "Taking Back the Streets: ICE and Local Law Enforcement Target Immigrant Gangs," by my colleagues Jessica Vaughan and Jon Feere.

Members say they are feeling newly emboldened to go their own way after the White House this month signaled a willingness to tackle the controversial issue next year. What’s more, Democrats recognize the issue is a politically sensitive one for Republicans hoping to curry favor with Hispanic voters in 2010.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who heads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force, said Hispanic lawmakers were taking notes during the health care reform debate, when House Republicans stood firm in their opposition to key aspects of the Democratic plan. In the end, he said, Democrats preserved the heart of their proposal by holding together, not by chipping away at core principles to win over Republicans.

“Had we negotiated with the Republicans on a bipartisan basis, we wouldn’t have had a public option, so there would have been nothing to mobilize us. We did that with immigration reform in the past,” Gutierrez said, signaling that he plans to begin the immigration reform process with a less compromised bill than he has before.

“Our bill will be to immigration reform what the public option was to health care reform,” Gutierrez said.

Good luck with that.

NBC’s Meredith Vieira used a liberal talking point against the Bush administration on the Today show on Tuesday. Vieira asked  Inez Tenenbaum, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, “Under President Bush, the Consumer Products Safety Commission was criticized for being too cozy with business- essentially, toothless. How do you assure the American public...that that’s no longer the case?”

The NBC morning anchor interviewed Commisioner Tenenbaum just after the beginning of the 7 am Eastern hour on the CPSC’s recall of 2.1 million drop-side baby cribs on November 23. Vieira tied-in the concerns of new parents about the safety of the cribs as she included the left-wing criticism of the government agency during the Bush era in her last question to the Obama appointee: “Under President Bush, the Consumer Products Safety Commission was criticized for being too cozy with business- essentially, toothless. How do you assure the American public, particularly parents out there that are worried, that that’s no longer the case?”

Tenenbaum gave a very generic answer to Vieira’s question: “Well, what we’re going to do is enforce every law that Congress has passed. And last year, it passed a sweeping new law called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. We’re enforcing that law firmly but fairly.”

Earlier in 2009, Vieira acted as a liberal apologist during an interview of Fox News contributor Dick Morris. She touted another of the left’s sound bites when she proclaimed how “President Obama [was] lashing out at Wall Street and clamping down on corporate fat cats” during a Today show segment in February. She even went so far to share her “emotional” reaction to Obama’s inauguration (she specified that she was feeling “blissful’ that day).

By popular request, a “festive” exchange from this afternoon’s Cavuto in honor of WaPo’s new poll showing growing skepticism about the topic du jour. [...] Read the rest »

It's worse than useless unless accompanied by a change in strategy from the Vietnam-era search and destroy, which seems to be our unstated current strategy -- or its close cousin, Slow Joe Biden's "counterterrorism" strategy -- to the one that Gen. Stanley McChrystal insists is the only strategy that can actually succeed: counterinsurgency (COIN).

As I said before.

Alas, I cannot tell from the news coverage whether the decision of Barack H. Obama is likely to include a COIN strategy; it's all vagueness, handwaving, and fog, like "a comprehensive strategy" and "an effort muscular enough to 'dismantle and degrade' the enemy and ensure that 'Al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot operate' in the region"... meaningless phrases that every Commander in Chief says about every campaign strategy in every war.

As usual, the left-stream media focuses only on the number of troops -- and on how angry it will make liberals to add any new forces at all. For the One They Thought They Were Waiting For promised them a major American defeat, which they could blame on President Bush. He swore!

So evidently Obama is as sanguine about lying to the Left as he is about lying to the rest of America. I'm sure this will do wonders for his mob approval.

(Actually, that was a typo for job approval... but upon due consideration, I decided to keep it!)

In fact, the Times article devotes far more column inches to speculating how the One will choose to announce his decision than to, you know, exactly how we plan to win: Will it be a short address from the Oval Office, or a long, soporific speech in another venue? (I predict the latter; the voice of the TOTUS will be heard in our land.)

But the only strategic mention of any kind that I can find is what all news accounts agree upon: Barack Obama plans to focus very strongly on an exit strategy.

I’m looking for a new assistant. My current one is being promoted and joining the ranks of my former assistants strewn throughout NR, the nation’s graduate programs, and government. The job requirements are about what you’d expect—we’re looking for a well-organized, detail-oriented person who has editorial and fact-checking skills, a good phone and e-mail manner, and a devotion to NR. Please send a resume and cover letter to assistant@nationalreview.com.

A shocking display of lameness from an unlikely source, courtesy of the producers of America’s Morning News. [...] Read the rest »

On August 6th Kenneth Gladney attended the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in south St. Louis County. Kenneth was there to make some money selling freedom flags and buttons. After the meeting Kenneth was assaulted, beaten and stomped by angry SEIU thugs who were upset that a black man would be selling anti-Obama merchandise. Gladney was taken to the hospital following the attack.

It’s been over 3 months and still St. Louis county officials have not met with Kenneth Gladney to discuss the case nor have they press charges against the SEIU thugs who beat him.

Today after Kenneth set up an appointment with the county officials to discuss the crime– they blew him off. Kenneth made the appointment and they totally ignored it.
Later today Kenneth Gladney talked about how the county is ignoring the crime against him:

Kenneth Gladney was beaten once in the street in a hate crime.
But, it doesn’t matter to county officials.
They have better things to do than protect a black man who was assaulted and was a victim of hate crime.

On August 6th Kenneth Gladney attended the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in south St. Louis County. Kenneth was there to make some money selling freedom flags and buttons. After the meeting Kenneth was assaulted, beaten and stomped by angry SEIU thugs who were upset that a black man would be selling anti-Obama merchandise. Gladney was taken to the hospital following the attack.

Ken Gladney is pictured here after his public beating by SEIU thugs. Kenneth Gladney attended this protest against SEIU violence in August in St. Louis. He was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters after the town hall meeting earlier that week. St. Louis County officials have yet to press charges.

It’s been over 3 months and still St. Louis county officials have not met with Kenneth Gladney to discuss the case nor have they press charges against the SEIU thugs who beat him.

Today after Kenneth set up an appointment with the county officials on Monday to discuss the crime– they blew him off. Kenneth made an appointment with Joyce Kelley to discuss the case. She is not the lawyer assigned to the case. She was supposed to call today, Tuesday. Kenneth waited around, and then called in three times and got no response. They blew him off.
.
Later today Kenneth Gladney talked about how the county is ignoring the crime against him:

Kenneth Gladney was beaten once in the street in a hate crime.
But, it doesn’t matter to county officials.
They have better things to do than protect a black man who was assaulted by SEIU thugs.

*** More… We will be passing around a petition urging St. Louis County officials to press charges against Ken Gladney’s attackers at the St. Louis Holiday Tea Party Protest on November 28th.

*** This was cross posted at Big Government.

Looks awful, but I’m suspicious that it’s as bad as it seems given Fox’s misleading headline: “Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist.” [...] Read the rest »

On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Nancy Cordes reported on the Obamas hosting their first state dinner in the White House and declared: “Everyone wants one, but only a few hundred are lucky enough to get an invitation to the hottest ticket in town...”

Cordes concluded her brief report by mentioning: “Pop entertainer and Chicagoan Jennifer Hudson will entertain the guests, giving everyone, including the Obamas, ample opportunity to dance.” Footage was played of the first couple dancing as co-host Maggie Rodriguez added: “Which we know they love to do.”

Rodriguez spoke with former Clinton White House official Laura Schwartz, who remarked: “What an exciting day today.” Rodriguez agreed: “I know.” She then asked Schwartz: “...what do you think the Obamas want this dinner to say about them?” Schwartz described the event as the Obamas “inviting the world into their home” and noted the couple’s frequent global travel: “...the Obamas have been traveling quite a lot this first year, which is very exciting, it’s good for America. It’s good to be involved.”

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

7:14AM TEASE:

HARRY SMITH: Up next, it’s the hottest it ticket in D.C. We’re going to tell you which Hollywood stars are invited to the Obama’s first state dinner.         

7:17AM SEGMENT:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: The Obama’s first state dinner is tonight and almost everything about it is a closely guarded secret, from who’s invited to what’s on the menu. But we have got a sneak peek for you this morning, courtesy of CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

NANCY CORDES: Everyone wants one, but only a few hundred are lucky enough to get an invitation to the hottest ticket in town, the President and Mrs. Obama’s first state dinner. The guest of honor is India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife. Many of the details are still hush-hush, but the evening is expected to be a mix of Washington heavy weights, staff members, and Hollywood big wigs. Expected to attend are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but not her husband, former President Bill Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. From the entertainment world, likely guests include Obama fund-raiser Steven Spielberg, Ari Emanuel, and film maker M. Night Shyamalan. The Obamas chose to host the event on the South Lawn, under a white tent which can accommodate close to 400 guests. While no one is giving a price tag on this dinner, previous state dinners ranged anywhere from $60,000 to upwards of several hundred thousand.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON [POLITICO]: It’s larger than Bush’s official dinner in 2005, where there were about 150 people there, but smaller than the Clinton’s dinner, which had about 700 people there.

CORDES: Pop entertainer and Chicagoan Jennifer Hudson will entertain the guests, giving everyone, including the Obamas, ample opportunity to dance. Nancy Cordes, CBS News, Washington.

[FOOTAGE OF OBAMAS DANCING]

RODRIGUEZ: Which we know they love to do. Joining us now from Washington, our old friend Laura Schwartz, former White House director of events during the Clinton administration. Helped plan many of these state dinners. Hey Laura, good to see.

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Good morning, Maggie. What an exciting day today.

RODRIGUEZ: I know. From what you heard about the details that Nancy just gave us, what do you think the Obamas want this dinner to say about them?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I think this is their – you know, this is their first state dinner, so they are inviting the world into their home by way of the prime minister of India and it really is the time to put that outstretched hand of America here at home. You know, the Obamas have been traveling quite a lot this first year, which is very exciting, it’s good for America. It’s good to be involved. But this is the first time these honors are given here at home, the people’s house, right behind me.

RODRIGUEZ: We know that celebrity Chef Marcus Samuelson will be preparing the menu. Is it customary to honor the guest of honor, in this case the Indian prime minister, with the food or in another way?

SCHWARTZ: Absolutely, Maggie. You what happens, about two months before now, one of the delegation members have come over from India, they sit down, they talk about the likes and the dislikes of the prime minister and the spouse. Any food allergies. In this case the prime minister is a vegetarian. And then the White House wants to highlight the best of America. So they’re bringing Marcus Samuelson into work with Chef Cristeta Comerford, the White House chef, who’s fabulous in her own right and she still will oversee the entire dinner, but Marcus Samuelson will definitely add a little zing.

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, unfortunately we’re out of time. Laura Schwartz, thank you so much.

SCHWARTZ: Thanks, Maggie.

RODRIGUEZ: You’re welcome.

Our buddies at Minnesotans For Global Warming have done it again, this time addressing the growing scandal ClimateGate.

Using the old Tommy James and the Shondells classic "Draggin' the Line," our friend Elmer Beauregard has marvelously set this disgraceful episode to song.

Stow all fluids far from your computer, for the following is guaranteed to induce uncontrollable fits of laughter (video embedded below the fold with transcribed lyrics):

Makin' up data the old hard way
Fudgin the numbers day by day
Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Michael Mann thinks he so smart
totally inventing the hockey stick chart
Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line
Hide the decline (hide the decline)
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Oh Climategate I think you have sealed your fate
I hope you do a lot of time, cuz what you did was such a crime
Hide the decline (hide the decline)
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

The tree ring data was very thin
you shoulda chopped more trees instead of hugging them.
Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Oh Climategate I think you have sealed your fate
Well you know its a crime and hope you do a lot of time
Hide the decline (hide the decline)
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Delicious!

Thanks, Elmer!

Our buddies at Minnesotans For Global Warming have done it again, this time addressing the growing scandal ClimateGate.

Using the old Tommy James and the Shondells classic "Draggin' the Line," our friend Elmer Beauregard has marvelously set this disgraceful episode to song.

Stow all fluids far from your computer, for the following is guaranteed to induce uncontrollable fits of laughter (video embedded below the fold with transcribed lyrics):

Makin' up data the old hard way
Fudgin the numbers day by day
Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Michael Mann thinks he so smart
totally inventing the hockey stick chart
Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line
Hide the decline (hide the decline)
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Oh Climategate I think you have sealed your fate
I hope you do a lot of time, cuz what you did was such a crime
Hide the decline (hide the decline)
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

The tree ring data was very thin
you shoulda chopped more trees instead of hugging them.
Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Oh Climategate I think you have sealed your fate
Well you know its a crime and hope you do a lot of time
Hide the decline (hide the decline)
Hide the decline (hide the decline)

Delicious!

Thanks, Elmer!

Every year, ACORN hosts a “Year End, Year Begin” (YEYB) meeting for its organizers. We’ve obtained the detailed agenda for the YEYB conference for 2007. Special dinner speakers for the conference include Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice-Presiden of SEIU and Mark Ernst, CEO of H&R Block. As you can see, the conference covers all aspects of ACORN’s or its affiliate’s work. And, that could be a problem for ACORN.

yeyb agenda –

Conference sessions include how to lobby state legislatures, organize labor unions, build the Working Families political party, conduct get out the vote efforts, as well as providing housing and credit counseling.

Remember, ACORN’s housing and credit counseling work is done primarily through the ACORN Housing Corporation, which receives a substantial portion of its funds from taxpayers. Most of its staff are paid through taxpayer dollars. Their attendance at a conference with such overt political activism raises troubling concerns.

Of course, ACORN could have erected strict fire-walls at the conference. It is possible that ACORN Housing employees weren’t allowed in the political sessions. Or, that they were using vacation time to attend the conference, so taxpayer funds weren’t underwriting their attendance at political workshops. It is also possible that ACORN kept a very strict accounting of the costs of the conference. Any cost sharing by ACORN Housing would have been strictly limited to the sessions dealing with housing and credit counseling. The more politcal ACORN “holding company” would have picked up the costs of the political sessions.

These are all possible. But, for some reason, we doubt ACORN was that thorough in protecting taxpayer funds.

Sen. Joseph "Smilin' Joe" Lieberman (I-CT, 85% Democratic) has drawn his foot in the sand:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

I don't believe he can ever back away from that absolutely flat statement, and he is not the kind of politician who blithely flips and flops: He will vote against cloture at the end of debate unless the government "option" is stripped from the bill; he insists he'll do so even if the government option comes with "opt out" or a trigger:

So any version of a public option will compel Mr. Lieberman to vote against bringing a bill to a final vote? "Correct," he says.

And when Lieberman makes it plain he's doing so, he will be joined by more or less moderate Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AK, 80%), Mary Landrieu (D-LA, 65%), and Ben Nelson (D-NE, 75%). They've already expressed very public reservations against the bill; why should they piss off their constituents and damage their reelection chances if ObamaCare is going to be blocked anyway? It's all pain and no gain.

And if those four go, I suspect others might follow: Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN, 70%), Max Baucus (D-MT, 80%), and Tim Johnson (D-SD, 80%) are all possible defectors -- if others have previously defected, making their own defections irrelevant to the bill's survival.

To put it bluntly, Lieberman's adamant refusal to vote for cloture is the first hole in the Democratic dike; it will very likely lead to more.

Unsurprisingly, Sen. Lieberman focuses on a very different worry than do Republican conseratives:

[Lieberman] insists his objection isn't based on the oft-expressed conservative fear that a public option would lead to a government takeover of health care. He says he doubts this or any subsequent Congress would allow that.

Rather, his objection is based on fiscal risk: "Once the government creates an insurance company or plan, the government or the taxpayers are liable for any deficit that government plan runs, really without limit," he says. "With our debt heading over $21 trillion within the next 10 years...we've got to start saying no to some things like this."

Fine with me; it's a perfectly valid argument. I really don't care why he opposes the government option so strongly, so long as he does!

Mind, Lieberman does want health-insurance reform; he just rejects ObamaCare as currently constituted. He still supports increasing insurance coverage (I don't know if he supports a mandate) and doing something about people being denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

But this leads right back to where I began: I believe the Democrats will manage to pass something which they will label health-insurance reform; it just won't be the massive government takeover that liberal fascists long to impose.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

After a Census Bureau worker was found dead in rural Kentucky in September, liberals jumped at the chance to attribute his death to right-wing extremists whipped into a frenzy by the hate-filled sermons of Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck. It turns out the Census employee committed suicide and tried to make it seem like a murder to recoup life insurance payments for his son.

USA Today reports that Bill Sparkman "committed suicide and staged his death to look like a homicide." He was not murdered by a government-hating extremist with Fox News prime time cued up on his Tivo. Given this revelation, let us review what some in the liberal media and the lefty blogosphere had to say upon the discovery of Sparkman's body.

Newsweek:

The Census Bureau field-training manual advises employees on everything from walking only in lighted areas to staying away from political issues, especially when someone is hostile: "Do not defend yourself or the government with respondents who say they hate you and all government employees. Indicate that you regret this opinion and express a desire to provide them with a positive experience." Perhaps Bill Sparkman wasn't given the time to follow that sage advice.

New York Magazine:

Twelve days ago, in a Kentucky cemetery, a the body of a census worker was found hanging from a tree. Scrawled across his chest was the word "fed." Though it's too early to conclude that the man, 51-year-old Bill Sparkman, was targeted in an act of anti-government violence, that is an angle that authorities are currently looking into. And if that turns out to be the case, it wouldn't be all that surprising, considering the sheer volume of vitriol directed at the federal government and the Obama administration these days by conservative media personalities, websites, and even members of Congress.

Think Progress:

The gruesome lynching of this Census worker seems to bear a disturbing similarity to some of the worst hate crimes committed across this country. Regardless of what the motive for the killing may have been, why would a murderer(s) take such pains to so blatantly convey anger, fear, and vitriol towards a Census employee? Perhaps because some on the right have created an impression that Census employees are terrifying.

Andrew Sullivan:

It's possible, I suppose, that anger at the feds in general could make a drug dealer murder a census worker. But the most worrying possibility - that this is Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts - remains real.

MyDD:

If conservative politicians and opinion leaders keep stoking fears about the government using census data to steal from or perhaps even round up law-abiding citizens, I am concerned that mentally unstable individuals will commit further acts of violence against census-takers next year.

The facts surrounding Sparkman's death, facts that were not available when these writers issued their vitriolic indictments of prominent conservatives, demonstrate the hastiness with which so many of the left's opinionistas will attribute violence to mere words.

Now that the blatant falsities of these accusations have been exposed, we shall see if these writers show some decency and retract their scornful statements.

Matthews made three basic, and related, points. The first is that it is possible to agree with the Church's moral teaching about abortion without thinking that the law should follow that teaching. The second is that the bishop has no business criticizing Rep. Kennedy's voting record on abortion unless he is willing to outline in detail the legal code that he, the bishop, wants to see govern abortion. The third is that this code should, to be consistent, include jail time for the woman seeking abortion.

Matthews is wrong on all three points.

The Church's teaching is that the state has a duty to protect peaceable human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages of development (as at all subsequent stages) from being deliberately killed; to wish that the law would ignore that teaching is to reject it.

The second point is ridiculous (and the third therefore collapses too). Let's say that the bishops said that the government has a duty to help the poor and sick by enacting legislation to expand the number of people with health insurance. Would Matthews really rule their comments out of bounds unless they went on to draw up a bill to reach that goal? (Would it have to be 2,000 pages long?) In that case I suspect that Matthews would be fine with their laying out of a goal. Would he criticize the bishops' comments on the death penalty unless they outlined a detailed penal code they would support? In that case I think he would be able to see that they could support a wide range of legal regimes so long as they did not involve capital punishment. In the case of abortion, as well, a wide range of legal regimes is compatible with adherence to the norm that the law should prohibit the intentional killing of unborn human beings. Not only do the bishops not need to pick one of those regimes; they would be wrong to suggest that the Church's teachings lead to one specific regime of penalties.

There are other sound arguments that could be deployed against Matthews, but I'll just mention one more thing: The Church isn't actually ordering the congressmen to vote in any particular way; it is telling him the conditions for his reception of communion.

Read this post »

Way, waaay too good to check. [...] Read the rest »

Not actually murdered by anyone, in fact: It’s been ruled a suicide. [...] Read the rest »

Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, tells NRO that the leaked correspondence from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at Britain’s University of East Anglia could potentially be a bigger scandal than the release of undercover videos exposing ACORN earlier this year. “If you use financial criteria and evaluate the costs involved, then this is certainly more expensive,” says Inhofe. “It’s a wake-up call for America.”

Inhofe says that the e-mails, which reveal climate scientists working together to present a united front on anthropogenic global warming, are the “final redemption” for climate-change skeptics.

“The notion that these scientists tried to declare the science settled for personal reasons is disgraceful,” says Inhofe. “They were purposefully misrepresenting the facts. They tried to make America believe and it worked, for a time. Even my grandkids came home filled with this stuff, saying that ‘anthropogenic gases cause global warming.’ I reminded them that these things go in cycles. We’ve had warming then cooling, then warming and cooling again. I’m delighted that people are discovering that the science has been cooked for a long period of time.”

Inhofe points out that the CRU data were used in the 2007 report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was subsequently used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as it prepared its guidelines on carbon emissions. These connections, he says, are very worrisome for the American taxpayer.

“There are tremendous economic ramifications to what these guys were trying to do,” says Inhofe. “The IPCC, for years, has been costing the government so much money, and now, wasted time in trying to pass faulty legislation based on bad data.”

Inhofe tells us that he will begin an investigation into the e-mails soon. Today, he sent letters to several scientists, some of whom allegedly manipulated climate data, as well as the inspectors general of the EPA and the Departments of Commerce, Interior, and Energy, other governmental organizations.

“Meanwhile,” says Inhofe, “Al Gore has been out there making hundreds of millions of dollars pushing anthropogenic global warming. It’s clear now that we shouldn’t listen to him. He represents the far-left extreme of Hollywood, which calls the shots for the Democratic party. He has an extremist mentality.”

Following the worldwide attention on the leaked CRU e-mails, Inhofe says that he still plans to go to the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month. He also says that cap-and-trade legislation is “dead in the Senate.”

“I’ll be going to Copenhagen to expose the truth,” says Inhofe. “I’ve been ridiculed for the past six years, yet we were right all along.” (The Oklahoman led a similar “truth squad” in 2003, during the U.N.’s climate-change negotiations in Milan, Italy.) Supporters of cap-and-trade who also plan on attending, such as Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), “are in denial,” he adds.

“My message will be easier to deliver, that’s for sure,” says Inhofe. “When I was in Milan, it was kind of humorous. I had put out a statement calling anthropogenic global warming a hoax and they put up my picture on ‘Wanted’ posters around the city. I tore them down, brought them home, and auctioned them at fundraisers.”

“It’s different this time,” says Inhofe. “We went to Milan with little credibility, saying that this thing is rigged, that the science is cooked. We didn’t have much to back us up in 2003. I know that Boxer and Kerry would try to misrepresent the state of cap-and-trade in the Senate. I can hear their speech now saying it’s not dead -- that’s it’s passed out of a committee. But look, it’s dead. It’s not going to pass. It’s dead because regardless of what you think of the science, which these e-mails certainly don’t help, you know that the costs are simply too much. Jobs would go elsewhere if we introduced harsh carbon regulations.”

Let the Obama show trials begin…

Story Balloon captured this Khalid Sheikh Mohammad sing-a-long from Rush Limbaugh’s show today:

The lawyers for the 9-11 terrorists already admitted that the US will be on trial during the proceedings. Attorney refused to say that innocent civilians were murdered on September 11th by the Al-Qaeda killers.

Matthews' based his accusations on a portion of a speech on religion delivered by then Sen. John F. Kennedy in which he stated:

I believe in an America that is official neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish, where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source, where no religious body seeks to impose its will, directly or indirectly, upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.

Bishop Tobin briefly responded that the Church does not want to "dictate what the public policy should be in the United States from a purely Catholic doctrinal point of view," but "what [it] is trying to do, most of all, is instill good human values but also have Catholics who are in political office be faithful to the dictates of the Church and the dictates of their conscience and the teachings of the Church."

The point, Tobin said, "is that any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith, not just for a Catholic, but for a member of any religious community. No commitment is more important than your commitment to your faith, because it involves your relationship to God."

Rather than continue to engage Tobin on that logic, Matthews veered off to badger the Bishop with questions of how he would vote if he were in Congress (which incidentally, Tobin is blocked from doing by an order written by Pope John Paul II) and how to penalize abortion if it were to be outlawed.  

Matthews continued to insist that the Church was "instructing people now how to vote," and used the Bishop's admittance that he didn't know how abortion should be prosecuted as evidence that the Church should stay out of politics. The host also claimed abortion has nothing to do with morality:

I think you're wrong. I think you're intervening. I think you're getting into law here, and you don't like Congressman Kennedy's voting record in Congress. That's what you're really going after, where he stands on the law. A lot of Catholics agree or disagree in every poll I've seen about what the law should be. They generally accept the teaching authority of the Church, the Magistar [Magisterium], your teaching authority, your Excellency.

Where the disagreement is what the law should be, what the penalty should be. I've never heard of anybody in the church, in the laity, in the clergy, or in the hierarchy saying a woman should be put in prison for having an abortion. And then I said, wait a minute, if you think it's murder, there's an inconsistency here.

And if there is a hesitancy to punish a woman for having an abortion, maybe that's instructive to you, sir, your Excellency, because when you realize you don't really want to punish a woman for having an abortion, under the law, then maybe you should step back from using the law as your tool in enforcing moral authority.

Maybe your moral authority comes from the pulpit and from teaching, and a congressman has a totally different role, which is to write the law. Now, I've asked you three times, your Excellency, to tell me what the law should be. And if you can't do it, maybe you shouldn't be involved in telling Congressman Kennedy how to write the law. You say you don't know how to do it. Well, you ought to try before you tell him what he's doing wrong. That's my thinking.

Because when it comes to the law, it's a secular question. It has nothing to do with the moral - we do a lot of things in this country we don't like, we think are immoral. But the question is, what sanction do you apply to it? And I'm asking you again with respect, because you are here on the show of your own free will, at our request. What should be the penalty for a young women or a girl, even, to have an abortion? And if there is not penalty for it, are you really outlawing it?

Matthews also insisted to the Bishop:

Your problem is you haven't gotten people to obey your moral code through teaching and you have resorted now to use the law to do your enforcement for you. And the problem with that is you are hesitant, even here your Excellency, to state for me now what the punishment should be under the law for having an abortion, because you know, deep down, if you said one minute in prison, you would be laughed at, because the American people, Catholic and non-Catholic, do not think it's a criminal act to have an abortion.

They may not like it. They may think it's immoral. But they don't think it's criminal. And yet you are here bringing the force of the law, the authority of the police, and the bench, the law, the judiciary. You want to bring it all to bear, including the Constitution, to enforce your moral beliefs, which are very valid, and I happen to share them.

Tobin stated "it's not at all unusual to have the moral law reflected in the laws of the land" before he reminded Matthews that he is "not a legislator" nor can he "begin to write those laws." "My job is to try to promote the truth, the moral law, and to encourage members of my church who freely choose to be Catholic to follow the dictates of their faith," he told Matthews.

Therein is what Matthews refused to understand. Patrick Kennedy professes to be Catholic - in many ways, he and his entire family owe their political fortunes to their identity as Irish Catholics. But the Church has made abundantly clear that to enjoy full communion with the Church, a person cannot simply cherry pick those teachings he's comfortable with - and least of all on an issue as serious as abortion.

Matthews, however, failed to play or even cite Kennedy's public denigration of the Catholic Church's position.

The representative told CNSNews, a news organization affiliated with the Media Research Center, last month:

I can't understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time, where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we're caring and giving health care to the human person - that right now we have 50 million people who are uninsured. You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people life-saving health care? I thought they were pro-life.

If the church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health care reform because it's going to provide health care that are going to keep people alive. So this is an absolute red herring and I don't think that it does anything but to fan the flames of dissent and discord and I don't think it's productive at all.

As part of its strategy to build membership from the ground up, ACORN often first focuses on very local, neighborhood issues. ACORN correctly recognizes that if people can successfully organize for change in their own neighborhood, they will be more willing to organize for greater change in the overall community. A manual it provides its organizers suggests focusing on items like speed bumps, street lighting and vacant lots, as examples.

The manual provides a bit of background on the issue, some suggested actions and, helpfully, identifies “targets” for these actions.

Basic Issue Development for Organizers –

We draw your attention to two interesting sections. The first is on speed bumps:

If you’re tired of beating up on the City for speedbumps, and the City allows people to pay directly for speedbumps, you can do an ACORN safe streets pledge campaign targeting local businesses, and get each of them to sponsor a speedbump.  Targetting autodealers would make a lot of sense here.  This gives you a private-sector target.  You could also do a campaign to set up a special taxing district to tax local businesses (or downtown businesses, maybe, this may be legally harder) to pay for traffic calming. (emphasis added)

The second deals with the issue of vacant lots:

This would be a massive neighborhood level campaign, but feasible where we’d built something.  The strategy would be to force the City to make a plan to turn the vacant land it owns, or where taxes are delinquent, into an opportunity for decent housing affordable to our members.  We demand the City pool the land, and go after a developer to agree to develop it at an affordable level.  To add a smart growth twist to this, we could go after a big sprawl developer with deep pockets and demand some development in our neighborhoods as payback.  The developers will argue they need subsidies to make it all work out affordably, which may be true.  Call AHC…(emphasis added)

Again, this is an ACORN manual suggesting what is very close to a “shakedown” of private businesses. We’re stunned that the word “payback” is actually used in this document.

We assume “AHC” is “ACORN Housing Corporation,” the ACORN affiliate that receives considerable taxpayer support.

President Obama said at a news conference today that he will "finish the job" in Afghanistan:

After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job.

Obama added that he plans to announce his new course of action for the war after Thanksgiving. The rumor is that he will do so in a prime time address next Tuesday.

Obama's statement indicates that, as expected, he will increase our troop level in Afghanistan. The consensus seems to be that he will add 20,000 to 40,000 troops. General McChrystal has asked for 40,000. Obama reportedly has been tinkering with McChrystal's proposal in an effort to develop a plan that will commit fewer than 40,000 new troops.

It's difficult to see what Obama would gain by sending, say, 30,000 or 35,000 additional troops, rather the 40,000 recommended by McChrystal. If Obama is going to add troops, it is clearly in his interest to add enough to "finish the job." In theory, it's possible that someone has come up with a sure-fire way to win the war on-the-cheap -- i.e., with fewer troops than McChrystal says he needs -- but it would be foolish for Obama to bet on this.

Moreover, complying with McChrystal's request gives Obama cover. If he holds back 5,000 or 10,000 troops and things don't go well, he'll be vulnerable to criticism that if he had listened to his hand-picked commander, things might well have gone better. If he follows McChrystal's recommendation, he avoids that line of attack. And if, as is likely, he decides to pull out of Afghanistan in the event of failure, he can argue that he gave us every chance to succeed.

What, then, would Obama gain by scrimping on troops? Nothing, as far as I can tell. The left will still be unhappy with him for escalating at all.

Obama loves to talk about false choices. "Escalation lite" may strike Obama as a way to avoid a false choice, but it seems more like a false alternative.

UPDATE: This post focuses mainly on the politics of Obama's impending decision. As to the merits, Max Boot makes the point that if Obama sends "substantially fewer troops than Gen. McChrystal wants, he risks perpetuating the sense of malaise" among our troops who will continue to believe "they [are] essentially fighting a holding action without the capacity to achieve decisive results."

What’s hidden in health care reform that you haven’t heard about? Plenty. Without a news media interested in questioning the contents of the legislation, how could you know about the punitive taxes and job-killing provisions lurking in it?

My clients in the restaurant industry alerted me to the House bill’s mandate that all restaurants and retail establishments that are part of chains, franchise groups or multi-brand groups of more than 20 outlets be required to prominently post accurate calorie counts for most food items sold – including items on salad bars and buffets or self-serve counters.

Maybe this seems “healthy” on its face, until you consider the costs, the legal liability incurred in getting inaccurate information and posting it, the competitive disadvantage foisted on businesses with 20+ outlets vs. those with 19 or fewer, and the broader point of health care reform being used as means of creating new and expansive regulatory activity and interference in our lives.

(Incidentally, should you happen to own 20 restaurants, I advise shuttering the least productive one or ones and putting the staff on the unemployment rolls immediately. If you were thinking of investing in opening another restaurant and creating jobs, don’t.)

The Senate bill includes a tax on elective cosmetic surgery procedures. Does it on elective cosmetic dentistry procedures? Or on massage therapy chosen for general “feel good” stress relief vs. injury rehabilitation? Of course, it’s intended to only “tax the rich,” as are most of the new taxes created by the Senate bill.

But women might note how much revealed in past week is aimed at their gender: a tax on cosmetic surgery; the panel recommendation that that life-saving diagnostic tests could best be postponed by a decade and then done less frequently. Democrats appeared hither and thon blathering about too much testing causing unnecessary anxiety and unnecessary, costly surgeries. It reminded me of the head of Health and Human Services’ fairly recent opining about seniors getting scooter-chairs at Medicare’s expense, when they could just walk.

These are just two examples, one targeting restaurants, bakeries, cookie stores, popcorn stores, convenience stores, coffee shops, movie theater snack counters, etc.; the other targeting cosmetic surgeons and the hoity-toity, rich women who waste money on wrinkle removal, when that cash could go to feed starving urchins or fight global warming. These are not the only two, in those 2,000 pages or so in each bill – 4,000 total; and climbing. Countless special interests are favored. Countless specific businesses, products and services and consumer choices are singled out for discriminatory, punitive taxation or costly, burdensome regulation.

Never mind that the government demonstrates daily its incompetence at administering the regulations already in place, or the responsibilities it already has – evidenced by the hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud pervading the present government health care program, Medicare. Forget about the rats and filthy conditions found in the veterans’ hospital right there in Washington, D.C., under their noses, which most have already forgotten. It was a big news story, briefly. Ignore the fact that Bernie Madoff pulled off his scam in a heavily regulated industry. Don’t give a thought to the government’s inability to control the U.S. border … Need I go on?

Regrettably, mainstream media has not made dissecting these bills its mission, to itemize each and every individual target, tax, created power.  

Here then, in general, is what is hidden in the House and Senate’s versions of health care reform:

1. An impossibly complex collection of new rules, regulations, and entirely new bureaucratic boards and committees empowered to make up more rules and regulations after the fact – creating a crushing avalanche of unfunded mandates to state governments and untold new costs to hospitals and doctors’ offices, and other affected employers, thus killing jobs. My admittedly unscientific, common sense, K-Mart calculator deduced estimate of the jobs slaughter is at least 5 percent to 15 percent of all in the private health care sector.

2.  Myriad attempts to suppress the consumption of health care, now that the government and not the private sector will be paying for it. President Obama himself has accused doctors of unneeded operations, of taking out Tommy’s tonsils when a cough drop might do, and said that Americans get too much health care, that more is not necessarily best. Translation: you’re going to get less. Starting with seniors and women.

3. More direct and concealed new taxes than you could read off a teleprompter in a month. For example, there will be the equivalent of a value-added tax (VAT) on medical devices, with a bureaucrat at liberty to decide what might be a medical device.

They have made this clear: they are determined to get a bill passed (and their media friends are determined to help them). Any bill. No matter how poorly constructed, how incomprehensible, how expensive, how destructive, how laden with unknowns. They so desperately want a win, they’ll sacrifice anything for it. Integrity. Sanity. The economy. Your life.

Dan Kennedy, a contributor to the Business & Media Institute, is a serial entrepreneur, adviser to business owners, sought-after speaker and author of 13 books. More information about Dan can be found at www.NoBSBooks.com, and a free collection of his business resources including newsletters and webinars at www.DanKennedy.com.

Most of this segment covers whether the American public is “waking up” to the difference between Barack Obama’s rhetoric and his performance, but both Tim Pawlenty and Sean Hannity get to the details — especially on jobs and the economy. [...] Read the rest »

Speaking with Brookings Institution analyst Michael O’Hanlon on Tuesday about President Obama’s upcoming decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith worried: “...how much is this going to cost him on the Left? Because I’m – I’ve got this sense that there will be people on the Left of President Obama who are not pleased by this.”

Despite representing a liberal leaning think tank, O’Hanlon dismissed the political concern: “Of course that’s right, Harry. But I think the real risk is if the war isn’t won. You know, the Left won’t like this, but if in a year we can see progress, people will forget their original doubts and they’ll be glad there is an exit strategy emerging ahead.”

Prior to Smith’s discussion with O’Hanlon, White House correspondent Bill Plante reported on the soon-to-be-announced war strategy and pointed out: “A new CBS News poll shows 69% of Americans think the war is going badly. And only 36% believe more U.S. troops would make things better.” A clip was then played of another Brookings analyst, E.J. Dionne, who lamented: “We’ve been at this since 2003. We have spent a lot of money, we’ve lost a lot of lives. When does this end?” He mistakenly confused the start of the Iraq war with that of Afghanistan, which began in 2001.

Plante concluded his report by making sure to promote White House spin designed to appease the President’s anti-war liberal base: “But here’s the key. This won’t be presented as a troop increase. It will be presented as a plan to stabilize Afghanistan and begin a timed withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country.”

Smith began by asking O’Hanlon: “Is General McChrystal going to get everything he wants?” O’Hanlon responded: “Well, I doubt it, although I’m hearing that NATO countries, our allies in Europe, may actually provide a few more troops than expected.” O’Hanlon went on to praise Obama for reaching out to U.S. allies: “And of course with President Obama preaching multilateralism and trying to create a new tone in American foreign policy there was hope that allies might want to contribute more in this sort of a situation. It hasn’t happened yet, but that may compensate for any gap between what General McChrystal has proposed and what President Obama may want to provide.”

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

7:00AM TEASE:

HARRY SMITH: Breaking news. After months of meeting, President Obama will soon announce his decision about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. We’ll bring you the very latest from the White House.

7:06AM SEGMENT:

HARRY SMITH: The White House says President Obama is ready to announce his new Afghanistan strategy within days. But will his decision, which took months to make, cost him politically? CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante has more on that. Good morning, Bill.

BILL PLANTE: Good morning to you, Harry. The long wait is over. The President has made his decision on Afghanistan. And he’ll tell the nation about it next week. Last night’s session with his war council is expected to be the final one before the President announces both an Afghanistan surge and an exit strategy.

ROBERT GIBBS [WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY]: I characterized a decent part of it as not just how we get people there, but what’s the strategy for getting them out.
                    
PLANTE: The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has recommended 40,000 additional troops. Many military officials expect McChrystal to get most, but not all, of the requested troops. Between 20 and 30,000. A new CBS News poll shows 69% of Americans think the war is going badly. And only 36% believe more U.S. troops would make things better.

E.J. DIONNE [BROOKINGS INSTITUTION]: We’ve been at this since 2003. We have spent a lot of money, we’ve lost a lot of lives. When does this end?

PLANTE: Now, the new strategy will involve more troops, no doubt about that, but it’ll be –  and it’ll be presented to the nation by the President in a speech nationally televised, probably next Tuesday. But here’s the key. This won’t be presented as a troop increase. It will be presented as a plan to stabilize Afghanistan and begin a timed withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country. Harry.

SMITH: Bill Plante at the White House this morning. Thank you very much. Joining us from Washington is Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Good morning, sir.

MICHAEL O’HANLON: Good morning, Harry.

SMITH: Is General McChrystal going to get everything he wants?

MICHAEL O’HANLON: Well, I doubt it, although I’m hearing that NATO countries, our allies in Europe, may actually provide a few more troops than expected.

SMITH: They certainly have been pushed in the last couple of days to put up more troops.

O’HANLON: That’s right. And of course with President Obama preaching multilateralism and trying to create a new tone in American foreign policy there was hope that allies might want to contribute more in this sort of a situation. It hasn’t happened yet, but that may compensate for any gap between what General McChrystal has proposed and what President Obama may want to provide.

SMITH: All of these meetings, nine – some people have counted ten meetings in all – over several months, this still doesn’t necessarily guarantee the outcome the President is looking for, no matter what the strategy.

O’HANLON: Well, that’s right. Because you need a strong host partner. You need a strong Afghan government. Or at least a competent – you know, even if it’s just a mediocre one, one that can at least start to move forward. The good news here, even though President Karzai has a lot of cronies who are not very good actors and are corrupt, there are some people in key positions who run, for example, the police and the army. His two top guys in the cabinet who do that, who are seen as pretty good, who are working pretty well with us. And we have this very vigorous program now to train the Afghans and essentially do an apprenticeship program with the Afghan army and police under McChrystal’s proposal. So that gives me some hope.

SMITH: This is a little bit like Iraq after the country was stabilized.

O’HANLON: Yeah, I mean, you know Iraq did work out, at least in military terms. We obviously see the politics there continue to be difficult. I’m not quite as confident yet that we’re going to get there in Afghanistan, but the plan is equally intense and equally focused and I think McChrystal, frankly, is as good as Petraeus, so do I have some reasons for hopefulness.

SMITH: And very quickly, how much is this going to cost him on the Left? Because I’m – I’ve got this sense that there will be people on the Left of President Obama who are not pleased by this.

O’HANLON: Of course that’s right, Harry. But I think the real risk is if the war isn’t won. You know, the Left won’t like this, but if in a year we can see progress, people will forget their original doubts and they’ll be glad there is an exit strategy emerging ahead. The problem will be, of course, if we don’t have progress in a year, that’s going to mean that we reinvested in a failing mission and that would be the problem.

SMITH: Michael O’Hanlon, thank for your expertise this morning. Thank you sir, appreciate it.

O’HANLON: Thank you, Harry.

Will anyone try to spin the Obamas' first state dinner (with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh) as a ritzy affair utterly clashing with today's hard times? They did with the Bushes in 2001, as we reported in the September 11, 2001 morning Cyber Alert. MRC's Ken Shepherd found Newsweek magazine's snarky Conventional Wisdom box introduced its up and down arrows with this Bush-bashing blurb:

The Bushes held their first state dinner. POTUS served buffalo meat, wore cowboy boots and welcomed Clint Eastwood. Meanwhile, the rest of America priced horse meat.

On Tuesday's Good Morning America, two ABC personalities expressed their excitement about being on the Obama guest list:

CLAIRE SHIPMAN: Of course, we're all looking forward to see what magic will happen tonight. And if anybody has any complaints about not being on the guest list, Mrs. Obama makes all of the final decisions. But I know there's one lucky person up there in New York who is on the guest list. Our own Robin Roberts. Robin, looking forward to it?

DIANE SAWYER: Expect dancing until dawn?

ROBIN ROBERTS: I still haven't picked out my dress. I'm a little -- I'll have to get one on the way to the airport. Should be a wonderful night. Thanks for giving us a sneak peek. I'll see you there, Claire. Thank you.

As you may recall, Shipman will attend as the wife of James Carney, Vice President Biden’s communications director.

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 an admiral'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.

Give credit where its due, ACORN builds its organization from the ground up, with old-school hard work and shoe leather. Its organizers are instructed to spend at least three hours a day going door-to-door in neighborhoods, recruiting members and–importantly member dues. ACORN even provides its organizers with a very illuminating and well-though-out manual on “doorknocking basics.” The document is below

DOORKNOCKING BASICS –

The whole thing is definitely worth a read. We draw your attention, though, to two sections. The first explains what the organizer should do once a person is interested in ACORN:

3.  POLARIZE:  DIRECT THEIR ANGER AT A TARGET

This is where you politicize the issue.  As Saul Alinsky wrote, it is every organizer’s duty to “rub raw the sores of discontent.”  Questions can include:

• Don’t you think you pay enough taxes to get the lot cleaned?
• Does the mayor have vacant lots in his/her neighborhood?
• Why do you think they don’t care about this problem?
• Would rich folks put up with this in their neighborhood?
• What’s it gonna take to get the city to treat you with the dignity and respect you deserve?

Well, isn’t that charming? Just a few minutes into their introduction to ACORN and they’re already being radicalized. ACORN has probably found this is an effective way to get the person to sign up for membership and regular membership dues. The manual spends considerable time discussing how to get a commitment for dues. It even role-plays some scenarios:

Organizer:  “So, our members pay their dues through the bank.  Some pay $20 a month, some pay more, and some pay less.  What can you do?”
Contact:  “I don’t like to mess with my bank account.”
Organizer:  “Yeah, I can understand that.  Actually, it works really easy.  You just fill this out, and the money is sent on the 5th of every month—and it shows up on your statement.  Our members think it is very convenient.”
Contact:  “No, I really don’t want to touch my bank account.”
Organizer:   “Okay, no problem. So I’m sure you’d like to see the streets fixed in the neighborhood, right?”
Contact:  “Yes!
Organizer:   “Then there’s the $120 option.  That’s a year in dues.”
Contact:  “I couldn’t do it all at once. Maybe after I get paid.”
Organizer:   “No problem.  You can postdate the check!”
Contact:  “No, I couldn’t do that.”
Organizer:  “Well, I know you want to start your membership today, so you could do $60 for 6 months.”
Contact:  “Yeah, could you come back at the end of the month?”
Organizer:   “We’re going up against the city and it takes money to win.  How about $30 for 3 months and we’ll start your membership right now.”
Contact:  “Okay, I can do that.”

ACORN should train door-to-door salesmen.

Here's a FoxNews photo of (from left to right) me, NYC firefighter and 9/11 survivor Tim Brown, and Rep. Peter King (among others) surrounding the irrepressible Debra Burlingame (all around dynamo and sister of Chic Burlingame, the pilot of Flight 77) who spoke eloquently and led the proceedings.

According to media reports -- and confirmed by Hill/Pentagon sources -- President Obama will likely announce a substantial troop increase in Afghanistan at a prime-time press conference on Tuesday of next week (December 1).

Most insiders believe the president will embrace a version of the so-called Gates proposal, which involves U.S. troop increases between 30,000 and 35,000 (three to four infantry brigades, plus enablers and trainers), with another 5,000 to 10,000 troops coming from NATO countries. In addition to employing a counterinsurgency approach, the proposal rightly puts a heavy emphasis on training and mentoring Afghan security forces. I’m told General McChrystal supports this approach.

In short, Obama is likely to give McChrystal almost everything he needs, though his plan will replace some of the U.S. combat troops McChrystal requested with trainers and NATO forces, presumably in the hope that they can take over non-combat assignments, freeing up additional U.S. trigger-pullers. Importantly, the plan rejects the folly that is the Biden “light-footprint” approach.

This is all good news, and worthy of support. At this level, this Afghanistan surge would be larger than the Iraq surge, albeit it will take longer to insert U.S. troops into Afghanistan than into Iraq. If the president announces this approach, he should be commended.

The most interesting -- and equally important -- aspect to watch will be the president’s rhetoric and actions during and after his announcement. He must show a willingness to sell this approach, robustly making the case for finishing the job.

So far, unfortunately, message control has not been a hallmark of the 100-day Afghanistan decision-making process. The president’s repeated comments while in Asia about needing an “exit strategy,” as well as his “eight-year occupation” remark, were terrible; and Secretary of State Clinton’s remarks on Meet the Press last week about not seeking any “long-term, you know, presence” in Afghanistan were unhelpful. Regardless of the substance, any talk of occupation, exit strategy, and no long-term presence at the advent of a new offensive sends the wrong signals to our allies and enemies.

But on Tuesday night, President Obama can change all of this. Based on recent reports and his most recent statements, there is reason to believe he might. When asked about his announcement, the president specifically said his strategy would be aimed at “finishing the job,” an unambiguous statement. It also appears that General McChrystal will (finally) be called to testify before Congress next week. Additionally, President Obama will be on the Hill shoring up support.

These are all good signs that initially, at least, the president is prepared to make the case for “finishing the job.” However, the larger test will be whether or not the president is willing to continue making the case (for years) to the American people, especially as U.S. casualties initially increase (as we push into enemy havens) and the success of the Afghan surge is called into question (remember July of 2007 on Iraq?). Facing a robust Taliban enemy, a corrupt Afghan government, and an inability to insert all necessary troops quickly, the onus will be on the president to be patient, and to call on others to do the same. Success is possible, but it will take time, and will necessitate presidential leadership.

This decision -- should it hold -- is the first step. But the ensuing debate will likely be an Iraq surge redux, and this time, America and its warriors need President Obama to be on the right side of history.

Also, last week I took issue with Sen. Fred Thompson’s Harry Reid-like “the war is lost” comments. To his great credit, he has invited me on his radio show tomorrow to discuss this, and hopefully I will make the case why we cannot afford to do to President Obama on Afghanistan what the Left did to President Bush on Iraq.

— Lt. Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006, is executive director of Vets for Freedom.

Read this post »

Previously, we reported to you that our national polling showed that the under-30 voters were the strongest supporters of the Obama healthcare initiative. While seniors opposed it by almost 2-to-1 and voters 30-64 opposed it by five- to 10-point margins, the under-30 voters backed his program by 58-30.

So with the funds you have donated, we ran television advertisments and an Internet campaign aimed at young people focused in Arkansas, North Dakota and Maine. The results are incredible! Now under-30 voters are the strongest opponents of the plan. In the table below, we show you the vote on the Obama plan broken down by age. (We aggregated all three states so we would have enough interviews to make the age subsets statistically meaningful.)

(more…)

"Yours is the first official state visit of my presidency, its fitting that you and India be so recognised," 48-year-old Obama told the 77-year-old Indian leader.

The general reaction in India has been: Who the heck does this guy think he is? Note to the Great Diplomat: When you do a head of state an honor, you don't remind him, in public, of the fact that you have done him an honor, particularly in self-aggrandizing terms of this sort.

I cannot imagine Dr. Singh responding to Obama: "I am the first state visitor of your presidency, and it is fitting that you and the United States be so recognized. Especially considering that I have the guts to stand up to the Chinese from time to time, while you're basically groveling and praying that they don't decide to divest their dollar holdings. Did I mention our 7 percent economic growth, compared to your ... 3 percent, 3.5? Now, what did you want to talk about?"