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SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2010

VULGARITY – AT 8:19 P.M. ET:  You'd think there'd be some decency left in American politics.  It's hard to believe that when you read this:

You might call him Governor Moonbeam, but I prefer Governor Double Dip, and there’s nothing harmlessly moonbeamy and charmingly hippie dippie about his doing business with Jodie Evans, co-founder of the obnoxious anti-American group Code Pink and someone with a well-documented history of supporting terrorists and those countries that would do America harm.

The Great Melanie Morgan is putting together a protest for tomorrow and according to Variety’s Wilshire & Washington, it looks as though the protest will also be an opportunity to do a little star-gazing:

Jerry Brown will be at the Venice home of Jodie Evans for a $500-per-person event on Saturday, with a host list that includes Frank Gehry, Sally Kellerman, Bill Press, Stanley Sheinbaum, Hope Warschaw and Gail Zappa.

Hey, so what if Jodie Evans and her Code Pinksters likes to partner up with Hamas to donate $600,000 in “humanitarian aid” to the same terrorists out on a rampage to kill our military in Iraq? These prominent Hollywoodists and their moneyed ilk are just trying to be open-minded and tolerant. It’s not like she’s Sarah Palin.

COMMENT:  Let us call it as it is:  Code Pink is a pro-Communist and anti-American organization that has infiltrated into "respectable" political society.  It is anti-democratic.

Yet, you will never hear the group described accurately or completely in the mainstream media.  For more than half a century there's been an unspoken arrangement in elite journalism wherein Marxists are vaguely described as "anti-war" advocates, "peace" advocates, or "progressives."  If one tells the truth and identifies them as Communists, one is called a "McCarthyite."

It is outrageous that Jerry Brown, who at times has shown some hints of maturity, would accept the support of these political slimeballs.  But the sad fact is that, among Brown's potential pool of voters, a meeting with Code Pink will probably make no difference.  Just keep the social-project checks coming.

August 21, 2010       Permalink

FORGET IT – AT 1:46 P.M. ET:  Forget the bulletin just below.  Sweden apparently has had second thoughts:

Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- Swedish authorities say they have revoked an arrest warrant that had alleged rape against the founder and editor of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

Assange is "no longer wanted" and "is not suspected of rape," Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne said in a statement posted on the agency's official website Saturday. He is also no longer arrested in absentia, the statement said.

COMMENT:  Very, very strange.  How can you issue a formal charge, then revoke it within hours?  Was there a legal error?  Is politics involved?  I have no idea, but there's something not right.

August 21, 2010      Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  Some people seem to be attracted to trouble.  He'll probably blame the CIA:

Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- The founder and editor of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been charged in Sweden with rape and molestation, a spokeswoman for the Swedish prosecutor's office told CNN Saturday.

I love the way CNN refers to WikiLeaks as a "whistle-blowing" website.  No, it's an anti-American website that releases classified Pentagon information that can be damaging to our own troops and to those who help us in Afghanistan. 

Spokeswoman Karin Rosander said the charges were filed Friday night in relation to two separate instances, but she didn't have more detail about when the alleged crimes occurred or who the alleged victims are.

Assange denied the charges in a posting Saturday on the WikiLeaks Twitter page, saying, "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

The rape charge carries a possible prison sentence, while the molestation charge would not, Rosander said.

There is no further information available at this time.  We'll be watching this.

August 21, 2010      Permalink

THE BARBOUR OF CIVIL (OKAY, OKAY) – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  We've suggested to readers before that they watch Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi.  He's one of the most accomplished governors we have, and one of the most politically astute.  He was a successful chairman of the Republican National Committee.  From The Politico:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is the most powerful Republican in American politics — at least for the next three months.

Barbour, who runs the Republican Governors Association, has more money to spend on the 2010 elections — $40 million — than any other GOP leader around. And in private, numerous Republicans describe Barbour as the de facto chairman of the party.

It’s not just because he controls the RGA kitty but, rather, because he has close relationships with everyone who matters in national GOP politics — operatives like Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie and other top Republicans running or raising cash for a network of outside political groups.

And...

“He’s clearly the top political strategist and political operative of his generation,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a former RNC chief of staff. “He is without peer when he is raising money.”

And now the sweet spot:

Barbour’s clout is also derived from his serious interest in running for president in 2012, a point he is making clear in private conversations. His logic, one adviser told POLITICO, is simple: When he surveys what most Republicans consider to be a weak field, he sees no reason he couldn’t easily beat them. He’s a better strategist and fundraiser than any other candidate currently considering running — and just as good on television and in debates, his thinking goes.

I'd like to see him run, but he has one enormous liability:  Mississippi.  The governor of the state often seen as the symbol of resistance to racial progress facing off against the nation's first black president?  You know exactly how the Dems will use that.  You can write the script.  It won't just be the race card.  It will be the full deck.  The Politico notes:

A portly Southern conservative who represented tobacco firms and made millions building a lobbying firm isn’t the ideal profile for a Republican nominee in this or any political environment. In recent polls, Barbour is stuck in low single digits, way behind Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

I think it's uphill, and Barbour might have to settle for being a power behind the throne and a good candidate for White House chief of staff.  As superb as he is, the baggage may be too much in a general election. 

But they said that about Richard Nixon in 1968, didn't they?

August 21, 2010     Permalink

ANOTHER DAY IN IRAN, ANOTHER DAY CLOSER TO THE BOMB – AT 8:09 A.M. ET:  This is a major day for the Iranian nuclear program.  From AP:

Iranian and Russian nuclear technicians made final preparations to start up Iran's first reactor on Saturday after years of delays, an operation that will mark a milestone in what Tehran considers its right to produce nuclear energy.

Nationwide celebrations are planned for the fuel loading at the Bushehr facility in southern Iran, while Russia pledges to safeguard the plant and prevent spent nuclear fuel from being shifted to a possible weapons program.

I don't know if I want my children's lives to depend on Russian guarantees.

The startup operations will be a big success for Iran, conservative lawmaker Javad Karimi said in Tehran. It also shows Iran's resolve and capability in pursuing its nuclear activities.

The West has not sought to block the reactor startup as part of its confrontations over Iran's nuclear agenda, a clash that has resulted in repeated rounds of UN sanctions against Tehran. Washington and other nations do not specifically object to Tehran's ability to build peaceful reactors that are under international scrutiny.

However, it is seen by hard-liners as defiance of UN Security Council sanctions that seek to slow Iran's nuclear advances - which Tehran's foes worry could eventually push toward atomic weapons.

What concerns America and others - including Russia - is Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make fuel for nuclear arms.

In fact, Iran hasn't halted any part of its nuclear program.  Yesterday's "reassurance" from the administration that Iran is a year away from a bomb is no reassurance at all. 

We hope the president is enjoying Martha's Vineyard today.

August 21, 2010      Permalink

PRETTY STUNNING, AND AT A COST OF BILLIONS – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  How do we manage to spend so much on education, and get so little?  We were alerted to this by reader Joseph J. Gallick.  From The Wall Street Journal:

New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S high-school students in the last few years.

The results raise questions about how well the nation's high schools are preparing students for college, and show the challenge facing the Obama administration in its effort to raise educational standards. The administration won bipartisan support for its education policies early on, but faces a tough fight in the fall over the rewrite and reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind program.

While elementary schools have shown progress on national achievement exams, high-school results have stayed perniciously low. Some experts say the lack of rigor in high-school courses is partly to blame.

What?  Lack of rigor?  You mean courses like "Race, gender and ethnicity in the history of American oppression, as seen by Oprah Winfrey" isn't a rigorous course?  Who is this reporter?  Some egghead?

"High schools are the downfall of American school reform," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington. "We haven't figured out how to improve them on a broad scope and if our kids aren't dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally."

Gee, how do we do it?  Guess we never educated anyone?  How about tough courses on important subjects, subjecting students to high standards and insisting that they meet them?  That might be a start.  And ridding schools of political correctness, which just dumbs them down, might be a good finish.

August 21, 2010     Permalink

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2010

END THE WEEK ON A HAPPY NOTE – AT 7:33 P.M. ET:  Political prognosticator Charlie Cook has some very good news for Republicans:

...Mr. Cook, who is editor and publisher of a newsletter that bears his name, and who stands as perhaps the most respected crystal-ball gazer in politics, now says it more definitively than ever: Republicans are on track to win back control of the House of Representatives, claiming their most coveted prize of 2010.

"I think Republicans are going to get the House back," he said flatly in a conversation taped for WSJ.com's "Big Interview" segment, which will be posted on the site Friday morning.

To be precise, Republicans need to win 39 Democratic seats to get control of the House, and Mr. Cook's current estimate is that they are in line for a 35- to 45-seat gain. "But frankly, I think we're being very conservative with that," he added. "The odds of it being higher than that range are a lot better than lower."

And...

The basis of his analysis is simple: This doesn't look or feel like a normal midterm election. "There are two kinds of elections," he said. "There's sort of the Tip O'Neill all-politics-is-local, and then there are wave elections. We're seeing just every sign in the world that this is going to be a wave, and a pretty good-sized wave."

COMMENT:  From his mouth to you know whose ears.  But we're ten weeks from the only poll that counts.  Work, work, work.

August 20, 2010      Permalink

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT – AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  Secretary Clinton announced that Israel and the Palestinian Authority (which controls the West Bank, but not Gaza) will start face-to-face peace talks on September 2nd.

Hmm.  September 2nd is the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay.  Just a note.

Should we be optimistic?  Pessimistic?  Well, let's put it this way:  The Palestinian delegation can't speak for all of "Palestine," since a good chunk of it is controlled by Hamas, which rejects peace talks.  So any agreement can only be partial.

We've been here before.  The parties negotiated face-to-face for years, with little to show for it.  As Bill Clinton points out, the Israelis put forth generous proposals in the late 90s, and they were turned down.  The Israelis are wary of making still more concessions, and then being told to make more and more, just to get a signed piece of paper. 

And there are plenty of interests who oppose a peace agreement, including the increasingly powerful Iranians, Hamas itself, Hezbollah, and leftist groups in the West, who would like to see Israel, becaue it is an American ally, defeated.

So, I'll lean toward pessimism, but I'd like to be pleasantly surprised.

August 20, 2010      Permalink

IS OUR AMERICA BEING DISMANTLED? – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  Thomas Sowell, one of the most brilliant writers working today, asks an alarming question:  Is the America we know headed for extinction at the hands of today's elites?

How did we get to the point where many people feel that the America they have known is being replaced by a very different kind of country, with not only different kinds of policies but very different values and ways of governing?

Something of this magnitude does not happen all at once or in just one administration in Washington. What we are seeing is the culmination of many trends in many aspects of American life that go back for years.

And...

It is not just evil people who would dismantle America. Many people who have no desire to destroy our freedoms simply have their own agendas that are singly or collectively incompatible with the survival of freedom...

...Someone once said that a democratic society cannot survive for long after 51 percent of the people decide that they want to live off the other 49 percent. Yet that is the direction in which we are being pushed by those who are promoting envy under its more high-toned alias of "social justice."

Inevitably, we must look at what our "educational system" has become, and what it is doing to our country.

It is not just particular segments of the population who are under attack. What is more fundamentally under attack are the very principles and values of American society as a whole. The history of this country is taught in many schools and colleges as the history of grievances and victimhood, often with the mantra of "race, class and gender." Television and the movies often do the same.

When there are not enough current grievances for them, they mine the past for grievances and call it history. Sins and shortcomings common to the human race around the world are spoken of as failures of "our society." But American achievements get far less attention-- and sometimes none at all.

And try criticizing this ugly trend in American schools.  Be prepared to be labeled a "McCarthyite." 

Abraham Lincoln warned of people whose ambitions can only be fulfilled by dismantling the institutions of this country, because no comparable renown is available to them by supporting those institutions. He said this 25 years before the Gettysburg Address, and he was speaking of political leaders with hubris, whom he regarded as a greater danger than enemy nations. But such hubris is far more widespread today than just among political leaders.

Those with such hubris-- in the media and in education, as well as in politics-- have for years eroded both respect for the country and the social cohesion of its people. This erosion is what has set the stage for today's dismantling of America that is now approaching the point of no return.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's well worth it.  Sowell has it right.

August 20, 2010      Permalink

IRANIAN INTRIGUE – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  Con Coughlin, of London's Telegrah, reports on a series of mysterious explosions inside Iran:

In the past few weeks Iran’s gas infrastructure, which is central to the country’s energy requirements, has been hit by a series of unexplained explosions.

The series of mysterious explosions began at the end of July when the state-owned Tehran Times reported that a pipeline carrying gas from Iran to Turkey had exploded near the eastern Turkish town of Dogubayazit. Iranian officials blamed the blast on Kurdish rebels.

Or, they blame faulty maintenance.

But the high number of attacks on Iran’s gas pipelines within the space of less than a month will inevitably raise suspicions that this is the work of professional saboteurs. The CIA, for example, is known to have a clandestine operation underway to destabilise the Iranian regime. Certainly the prospect of facing the next winter without adequate fuel supplies would not go down well in a country which has still not come to terms with last year’s rigged presidential election contest.

I certainly hope that the U.S. or its allies are involved in this, and in a lot more. 

Meanwhile, Washington believes the Iranian nuclear program has run into trouble.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year — and perhaps longer — for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, according to American officials.

Administration officials said they believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in thinly veiled threats.

The problem is, we seem more concerned about preventing Israeli military action than in preventing an Iranian bomb.  And, beyond sanctions, there does not seem to be a Plan B. 

If the U.S. is correct in its intelligence assessment, that would place achievement of an Iranian nuclear weapon right in the middle of our 2012 presidential election campaign.  It could prove a critical issue, a point of sharp division between the accommodating Obama and a more realistic challenger. 

August 20, 2010       Permalink 

AN ANNIVERSARY – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  Today is the 90th anniversary of the first radio broadcast.  No, Rush wasn't on it:

On August 20, 1920, the radio station WWJ, known then by its call sign 8MK, aired the first public broadcast ever at 8:15 p.m. Using a borrowed phonograph from the Edison Shop, Howard Trumbo placed a record on the turntable. He chose two records for the occasion: “Roses of Picardy,” and “Annie Laurie,” two of the most famous World War I songs. Frank Edwards, one of WWJ’s first operators called into the night on-air “This is 8MK calling,” to the delight of an audience listening on homemade receivers, in perhaps 30 Detroit homes.

COMMENT:  Thirty homes?  CNN would kill for those numbers.

August 20, 2010      Permalink

YOU CAN'T EVEN BE IRONIC ANYMORE – AT 7:56 A.M. ET:  We began yesterday's edition of Urgent Agenda with an ironic and sarcastic report on the president's latest vacation:

BULLETIN:  PRESIDENT GOES ON VACATION TODAY – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  President Obama leaves for Cape Cod after lunch today, starting a 10-day vacation with his family.

We thought you'd like to know about this, and to be assured that the president and first lady are finally getting some time off.  My goodness, there are people who actually begrudge our leader this bit of time in the sun. 

Our knowledgeable readership obviously got the sarcastic tone, given the fact that this is the Obamas' sixth vacation this year.  Little did I realize that the next day, this morning, the AP would say almost the exact same thing, and mean it seriously:

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP) - Finally, President Barack Obama can relax on vacation.

The Gulf oil leak is plugged. The last combat troops are out of Iraq. And Congress is on its own summer break. 

You can't make that up.

At least Britain's Telegraph, which was on to Obama early in his administration, gave us the reality in the first paragraph:

The Obama family will begin their sixth holiday of the year today, an 11-day sojourn in Martha’s Vineyard, the island destination of the wealthy and well-connected American elite.

That'll play well in Peoria. 

Bill Burton, the deputy White House press secretary, said that the US president was “going to spend a little time recharging his batteries” at the Massachusetts island ahead of the November midterm elections.

“There will be some hiking, some time at the beach, some time at the ice cream store - all the sort of things you do when you’re at Martha’s Vineyard. You enjoy the people and the good food.”

We're sure the unemployed and underemployed are impressed. 

This White House might have its collective tin ear checked.

August 20, 2010     Permalink