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TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2010

FLORIDA GOP GOVERNOR'S RACE – AT 11:38 P.M. ET:  Rick Scott has become the GOP candidate for governor, defeating establishment candidate Bill McCollum.  But Scott has substantial baggage from questions over his management of a health-care firm, and faces a steep fight in the general election campaign against Democratic nominee Alex Sink, Florida's chief financial officer.

ARIZONA – AT 11:24 P.M. ET:  John McCain has, as expected, won the Republican nomination for the Senate in Arizona, beating back a challenge from J.D. Hayworth. 

FLORIDA UPDATE:  AT 10:07 P.M. ET:  The GOP primary battle for the gubernatorial nomination is still unsettled.  With 72% of the vote in, businessman Rick Scott has a small lead over state Attorney General Bill McCollum, 46-43 percent.  My own sense is that McCollum would make the stronger candidate in November, but voters apparently disagree. 

BULLETIN:  AT 8:37 P.M. ET:  The Associated Press has just called the Florida Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate for Kendrick Meek.  That is good news for Marco Rubio.  Meek has no real chance of being elected in November, but his nomination, as we noted below, will draw African-American votes that might have gone to Rubio's opponent, Charlie Crist.

THE PRIMARIES – AT 8:11 P.M. ET:  You all know that this is primary day in several states.  Most focus is on Florida.

In Florida, Marco Rubio is expected to win the GOP nod for the U.S. Senate easily.  The intrigue is on the Democratic side.  African-American Congressman Kendrick Meek is battling against entrepreneur Jeff Greene.  Polls have just closed.

The Democratic outcome may well decide the general-election result in November.  Florida has a three-way election for the Senate.  Marco Rubio, presumtive GOP candidate, will oppose current Republican-turned-Independent Governor Charlie Crist.  If Meek wins the Dem nod, as expected, it will help Rubio, as African-Americans who might support Crist, who has always had a good rapport with the black community, will rally behind their home-town guy.  If Greene wins, blacks might well flock to Crist.  As of right now, Meek is well ahead in the initial count, good news for Rubio.

Other races to watch are Florida's gubernatorial primaries, and, of course, the primary race between John McCain and J.D. Hayworth in Arizona.  McCain should win handily. 

Stand by for more.

August 24, 2010     Permalink

WELCOME TO OBAMACARE.  START COUGHING – AT 10:22 A.M. ET:  The first programs under ObamaCare are starting to be formed, and we still don't know what our new, socialized health-care system will look like.  But the great Thomas Sowell doesn't like what he sees, and makes the threat clear:

The most basic fact is that it is cheaper to remain sick than to get medical treatment. What is cheapest of all is to die instead of getting life-saving medications and treatment, which can be very expensive.

Despite these facts, most of us tend to take a somewhat more parochial view of the situation when it is we ourselves who are sick or who face a potentially fatal illness. But what if that decision is taken out of your hands under Obamacare and is made for you by a bureaucrat in Washington?

I think we'd like to know the answer.

A new book, The Truth About Obamacare, by Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute, lays out the facts in the plainest English.

While she can’t tell you the future, she can tell you enough about government-run medical systems in other countries that it will not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is in store for us if Obamacare doesn’t get repealed before it takes full effect in 2014. It is not a pretty picture.

We hear a lot about how wonderful it is that the Canadians or the British or the Swedes get free medical treatment because the government runs the system. But we don’t hear much about the quality of that medical care.

Having just gone through some medical stuff, the thing I valued much was the fact that I had choices, and, equally important, that the physician had choices.  I fear that this will evaporate.

We don’t hear about more than 4,000 expectant mothers who gave birth inside a hospital, but not in the maternity ward, in Britain in just one year. They had their babies in hallways, bathrooms, and even elevators...

...the media spin is that various countries with government-run medical systems have life expectancies that are as long as ours, or longer. That is very clever as media spin, if you don’t bother to stop and think about it.

Sally Pipes did bother to stop and think about it in The Truth About Obamacare. She points out that medical care is just one of the factors in life expectancy.

She cites a study by Profs. Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider at the University of Iowa, which shows that, if you leave out people who are victims of homicide or who die in automobile accidents, Americans live longer than people in any other Western country.

And, to be perfectly blunt, they seem to accomplish and create more...those dumb, bigoted, Islamophobic Yanks.

In the things that doctors can affect, such as the survival rates of cancer patients, the United States leads the world.

Americans get the latest pharmaceutical drugs, sometimes years before those drugs are available to people in Britain or in other countries where the government runs the medical system. Why? Because the latest drugs cost more and it is cheaper to let people die.

COMMENT:  The Obamans have tried to institute changes that are permanent, hoping that when people start receiving "benefits" they'll demand that those benefits continue.  I have to have more faith in the American people.  When they see their choices disappear, they will know what to do.

I hope.

August 24, 2010      Permalink

GREAT MOMENTS IN NATIONAL SUICIDE – AT 9:40 A.M. ET:  It's come to this:  The United States is reporting on its human rights shortcomings to the UN Human Rights Council, one of the most corrupt, degenerate bodies in the world.  From AP:

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has told the United Nations that America's human rights record is less than perfect while stressing that the U.S. political system has built-in safeguards that promote improvements.

In its first-ever report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on conditions in the United States, the State Department said some minorities are still victims of discrimination. Despite progress in reforming past unfair policies and practices, the report said "work remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all."

This is a farce.  Do you know who runs the Human Rights Council?  It's a garbage bin for some of the world's worst regimes, including Libya, Cuba and Iran.  And we're reporting to them? 

Council members are required to review their rights records.

The U.S. had shunned the council until last year over its criticism of Israel and a membership that includes repressive regimes.

Yeah, really.  Can you imagine President Bush reporting to this gang of thugs?

The Israelis use the term "salami tactics."  It refers to the gradual reduction of a country's strength and standing, one slice at a time.  It is happening to us, but I have a sense that the American people realize it, and will send the current Washington regime packing. 

Hmm.  Barack Obama for secretary-general of the UN.  He'd like that.  And he'd probably wind up as an America basher. 

August 24, 2010      Permalink

IMAGE RESTORATION NEWS – AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  If this weren't so sad, it would be funny.  Michelle Obama, seeking to restore her image after her Fantasy Island-style trip to Spain, is teaming up with...Laura Bush.  What?  You mean the wife of the evil BUSH (!!)?  Yes, that's the one.

The occasion will be a commemoration of the heroism aboard United Flight 93, which plunged to Earth in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, after passengers tried to retake the plane from hijackers.  Ms. Obama, previously known for saying that she'd never been proud of her country until her husband ran for president, will apparently express her pride in the heroism of that day.  CNN will undoubtedly cover her live:

After her sterling public image took on some tarnish from her recent vacation to Spain, the White House announced that first lady Michelle Obama will appear with Laura Bush for Sept. 11 observances in Pennsylvania.

The deft public relations move by the administration will place the two popular first ladies side-by-side for the first time since the 2008 inauguration.

"I am proud to be a part of the ceremony and public gathering in Shanksville on September 11 to commemorate the courageous acts of those on board Flight 93," Bush said in a statement. "We must never forget the brave sacrifice of these extraordinary men and women."

Obama, vacationing with her family on Martha's Vineyard, saw her popularity dip after a recent trip to Spain with daughter Sasha, 9.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll after the Spain trip found just 50 percent of Americans had a positive opinion of the first lady, down 14 percent from the same poll in April...

...Gallup pollsters noted that Laura Bush averaged a 71 percent approval rating during her husband's presidency and left the White House in 2009 with a 76 percent favorability rating.

COMMENT:  There have also been suggestions in the liberal press that former President Bush step up and help President Obama out on the Ground Zero mosque issue.  We observe with pleasure that the former president has remained silent.

The first lady, having returned from Spain, is now on a 10-day holiday with her family in Martha's Vineyard, apparently recovering from the exhaustion of shopping. 

I suppose a trip to remember Flight 93 will help Michelle Obama, but one has to wonder if she really cares. 

August 24, 2010      Permalink

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OUR COUNTRY? – AT 8:09 A.M. ET:  While we're being told by CNN and assorted pundits that anyone who opposes the mosque at Ground Zero must be a bigot, a stunning development in New York State shows the degree to which Islam is being whitewashed at the expense of Christianity.

The New York State regents exams, given to high-school students to test their knowledge, have been among the most respected in the country.  Given that background, consider this:

State testmakers played favorites when quizzing high-schoolers on world religions -- giving Islam and Buddhism the kid-gloves treatment while socking it to Christianity, critics say.

Teachers complain that the reading selections from the Regents exam in global history and geography given last week featured glowing passages pertaining to Muslim society but much more critical essay excerpts on the subject of Christianity.

"There should have been a little balance in there," said one Brooklyn teacher who administered the exam but did not want to be identified.

"To me, this was offensive because it's just so inappropriate and the timing of it was piss-poor," he added, referring to the debate over the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

The most troubling passage came from Daniel Roselle's "A World History: A Cultural Approach," observers said.

The passage reads: "Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western Christendom."

Meanwhile, an excerpt listing the common procedures used by Christian friars to introduce the religion in Latin America stated that "idols, temples and other material evidences of paganism [were] destroyed," and "Christian buildings [were] often constructed on sites of destroyed native temples" -- and built with free Indian labor, to boot.

"I can see why some people might see these questions as skewed," said Mark MacWilliams, a religious-studies professor at St. Lawrence University in upstate Canton. "Why does the exam seem to have only documents that portray Islam as a religion of peace, civilization and refinement, while it includes documents about Christianity that show it was anything but peaceful in the Spanish conquest of the Americas?"

COMMENT:  That is only a taste of what is happening all over the United States.  Does it reflect some sudden love of Islam by "educators"?  Of course not.  It reflects the infiltration into education of the hard left, which will always boost those forces that hate the United States.  And, of course, it reflects the contempt for Western religion that the hard left has always felt. 

Ask the question:  What are my children being taught?  It will take courage to ask the question, for you'll be accused of stupidity, McCarthyism and bigotry simply for asking.

August 24, 2010     Permalink

MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2010

HANSON OUTS THE MOSQUE GUY – AT 7:55 P.M. ET:  The Ground Zero mosque controversy can get worse for President Obama.  Victor Davis Hanson reports that the man behind the mosque has a full treasury of quotable quotes, none of them designed to cheer Americans:

Self-described Sufi moderate Imam Rauf may prove to be an Islamic version of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. With Wright, the Left kept insisting that outrage over his racist and anti-American remarks was driven by right-wing racism, and for a while, the narrative worked — hence Obama’s pre-under-the-bus assertion that he “could no more disown Reverend Wright than” etc. But then Wright committed the mortal sin of insulting the elite media right at their embryo, at the D.C. National Press Club.

So too Imam Rauf. He has a vast record of quackery — the latest tidbit is his 2005 contorted assertion that Westerners have more innocent Muslim blood on their hands than does al-Qaeda (e.g., “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims”), presumably because between 1991 and 2003 America tried to stop Saddam’s aggressions and WMD program through non-violent sanctions...

...Perhaps with two or three more disclosures from Imam Rauf’s corpus of speeches, we will hear a stronger walk-back from the president — something analogous to “The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago.”

COMMENT:  We learned today that this learned buffoon also called for the end to the state of Israel, something that will certainly go down well in New York City. 

The Democrats are becoming desperate to get rid of this issue, which can only hurt them.  As we reported earlier today, Scott Rasmussen has found that three out of four Americans who are not members of the political class oppose the placement of the mosque at Ground Zero.

August 23, 2010     Permalink

DISGRACEFUL CHUCK – AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak, fortunately in trouble against Pat Toomey, is calling in the little guns.  He will soon be endorsed by a man for whom the word "turncoat" was apparently fashioned:

Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak’s campaign for Senate is getting a much-needed bipartisan boost in a competitive race.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will endorse the Democratic nominee at events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Tuesday, according to Sestak’s campaign.

This is hilarious.  This is a "bipartisan boost"?  Hagel is no longer a Republican, refused to back John McCain in the 2008 election, and his wife openly supported Barack Obama.  Hagel declined to run for reelection to the Senate, as it was clear that the Republican Party would not have renominated him anyway.

Sestak faces former Rep. Pat Toomey in November, and recent polls show him lagging behind the Republican nominee. Sestak needs to shore up support from independents and Republicans in order to win the seat currently occupied by the man he defeated in the Democratic primary, Sen. Arlen Specter, a former Republican himself.

The feelings appear to be mutual between Sestak and Hagel. In a forum earlier this month, Sestak called Hagel the “No. 1 guy I’ve met” in the Senate.

“I talk to him probably every couple weeks,” Sestak said on Aug. 3. “I think he is the guy who I most admired in the Senate.”

Hagel is a snake, but this snake may wind up as our next secretary of defense, when Bob Gates leaves.  Endorsing Obama ally Sestak is a logical step toward that end.  Hagel was a constant thorn in the side of President Bush, and contributed nothing to the war on terror.

Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral whose separation from the Navy is widely believed to have occurred under less than glowing circumstances, but the details are being kept secret. 

A few weeks ago Sestak was also endorsed by New York City's increasingly eccentric Mayor Bloomberg, whose latest cause is boosting the mosque at Ground Zero.

With friends like those...

August 23, 2010     Permalink

THE REAL AMERICA VS. THE POLITICAL CLASS:  Scott Rasmussen has done late polling on the Ground Zero mosque dispute.  It reveals a sharp divide, as usual, between common-sense America and the political class:

A lot more voters are paying attention to the plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, and they don’t like the idea.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 85% of U.S. voters say they are now following news stories about the mosque planned near Ground Zero. That’s a 34-point jump from a month ago when only 51% said they were following the story.

The new finding includes 58% who are following the story very closely, up from 22% in mid-July.

Now 62% oppose the building of a mosque near where the World Trade Center stood in LowerManhattan, compared to 54% in the previous survey. Twenty-five percent (25%) favor allowing the mosque to go ahead, and 13% more are not sure.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the Political Class, however, favor building the mosque near Ground Zero. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Mainstream voters are opposed.

COMMENT:  So, take out the political class and we find that three of four mainstream voters oppose the location of the mosque.  Well, I guess they're all 1) bigots, 2) racists, 3) Islamophobes, 4) paid-up members of the Israel lobby; 5) Fox News fanatics; and 6) people who keep secret pin-ups of Sarah Palin.

There are plenty of people in the Washington press corps who'd take that last paragraph seriously.

August 23, 2010      Permalink

LEAVE IT TO THE BRITS – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  We've said before that some of the sharpest commentary on the Obama administration is coming from British columnists.  And now Toby Harnden of London's Telegraph is giving legs to one of the most intriguing questions making the political rounds:  Will Barack Obama settle for being a one-term president?

Almost everything Obama does these days suggests that he doesn't care much about being re-elected. Strange as it might seem, perhaps he wants to be a one-term president.

Obama was elected in 2008 at an extraordinary moment in American politics. Suddenly, this charismatic figure, elected to the Senate without serious opposition in 2004 and without any executive experience, was catapulted into the White House.

His presidential bid had been based on the power of his life story and his ability with the spoken word. Doubtless he was as surprised as anyone else that he pulled it off. Governing has been altogether more difficult for him and there are signs he is already tiring of it.

There were signs as soon as he finished the cake at the inaugural ball.  All this deciding business, and this stuff about protecting the country.  A golfer and world traveler could get bored.

Doubtless he has been advised to prove he is "connected" to ordinary Americans by doing things like being seen attending church and taking "regular" holidays. But Obama seems happy to act as a European-style secularist, vacation in Martha's Vineyard and send his daughters to one of America's most exclusive private schools.

Obama does not suffer for self doubt. He has long seemed so convinced of his own virtue that to question his motives is illogical. Increasingly, his pronouncements carry the tone of one who believes those who disagree are stupid or bigoted.

Yeah, we've noticed. 

For Obama, the crowning moments of his presidency have been speeches abroad - the statement in Strasbourg that America had been "dismissive and arrogant", the address to the Muslim world from Cairo, the acceptance in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Berlin in 2008, Obama cast himself as a "citizen of the world". He has dismissed the bedrock notion of American exceptionalism by describing it, also in Strasbourg, as little more than narrow patriotism. Elite opinion among liberal Ivy League types - of which Obama is the embodiment - holds that we are already living in a post-American world.

Translated:  A Ronald Reagan he ain't.

Obama is the first black American president, an established author, multi-millionaire and acclaimed figure beyond American shores.

It seems highly unlikely that Obama will decide not to run in 2012. But he might well be calculating that embarking on a post-presidential role as the leading global thinker in the post-American world, as a Republican successor enters office, is more attractive than being sullied by the political compromises and manoeuvrings necessary to win.

COMMENT:  Well said.  Obama may decide not to run because 1) he doesn't like the job; 2) he may feel he'll lose, and he doesn't want to be tossed out; 3) the White House kitchen wasn't up to expectation; or 4) he believes he's accomplished all that he ever will as president, and doesn't want to run downhill.

His not running can, in certain respects, be more dangerous than his seeking a second term.  If he doesn't have to present himself to the people again, he can go wild in his fourth year in office and do very damaging things, especially in foreign policy, where there is very little congressional check.

August 23, 2010      Permalink

FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  This was bound to happen.  How we react will be the story.  From The Wall Street Journal:

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites.

One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.

"By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames."

White House homeland security adviser John Brennan told reporters Friday that he had seen no evidence that the debate over the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, other mosque protests or the planned Koran burning had affected U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

COMMENT:  We may not be at war with Islam, but part of Islam is definitely at war with us.  Readers will undoubtedly recall the Danish cartoon mess, when the publication in Denmark of cartoons deemed offensive by some Muslims resulted in rioting around the world, and some deaths.  The religion of peace has odd ways of showing it.

Don't be shocked if there are some unseemly incidents at American embassies in Muslim countries because of the Ground Zero mosque debate in the United States.  And how should we react?  Firmly and courageously.  We have freedom of speech in America, and we have the right to debate issues.  We will not have that freedom controlled by threats, foreign or domestic.

I'd love to see how some of the pro-mosque liberals react if we're threatened abroad because of our domestic debate.  These liberals recently discovered freedom of religion, something they hadn't noticed before, and I'd hope they'd stand with us in defending freedom of speech.  However, many of them were "educated" in universities that have adopted that most un-American of thought-control techniques, speech codes, which codify what students can or cannot say, the better to avoid "offending" this group or that. 

The mosque controversy may well become a good test of our freedom of speech traditions, and whether they've been compromised.  I have faith in the American people.  I don't think they'll back down in the face of threats.  But don't expect too much backbone from the Ivy League.

August 23, 2010      Permalink

THIS TIME OF YEAR – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  We always know when it's the last two weeks of August.  The journalism gets even sloppier than normal, and we read articles that we're sure we've read before.  We have. 

A lot of old stuff gets reworked during this period, as reporters and editors take time off or slow down, anticipating the election-year madness ahead.  Audiences are also smaller, although in some cases, like CNN or The New York Times, audiences have been smaller for so long that it's hard to notice just one more dive.  In the case of MSNBC, who cares about a decline from eight viewers to seven.  Maybe the guy went for a snack.

What I've noticed, though, is that the internet hasn't slowed down.  I think that has a great deal to do with the fact that bloggers are never really on vacation, are in closer contact with their readers than are the mainstream boys, and are part of a new, growing industry, where enthusiasm is greater.  Having been in older, fading industries, like Hollywood and book publishing, I've seen the difference.  I've never read any political blogger say that the highlight of his or her day is lunch.  In Hollywood, lunch is like going to Mecca, as long as you can get there in a Mercedes. 

I think the internet is driving the mosque story, and keeping mainstream up to date on other issues that don't take a holiday in late August – like the burgeoning Iranian military program.  One of the qualities of the internet is that it is always there, and it is relentless.  It is 12-month, 24/7 journalism.  Some of it is good, some of it definitely isn't.  But it is changing journalism.  On balance, I think it's a change for the better. 

August 23, 2010     Permalink