Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

OUR DAILY SNIPPETS ARE HERE.

FRIDAY,  JULY 2,  2010

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH, MAYBE – AT 9:01 P.M. ET:  The following news report from The Hill should fill us all with socialist pride as the advent of Obamacare approaches.  After all that talk, and after all those pages, we get this:

The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured.

Critics of the $5 billion high-risk pool program insist it will run out of money before Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when the program sunsets and health plans can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.

Administration officials insist they can make changes to the program to ensure it lasts until 2014, and that it may not have to turn away sick people. Officials said the administration could also consider reducing benefits under the program, or redistributing funds between state pools. But they acknowledged turning some people away was also a possibility.

COMMENT:  Let's see if I understand this:  A program designed to make sure all Americans are covered may have to turn away desperately sick people, even though the cost of the program – some $5-billion – is a drop in the bucket of our national health invoice. 

Nothing like a job well done.  The founders, whose work we celebrate this weekend, must be wondering somewhere what we did with their country.

July 2, 2010      Permalink

NOT A MAN OF STEELE – AT 8:45 P.M. ET:  Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, has been caught on videotape making disparaging remarks about the American effort in Afghanistan, and claiming that it's really Obama's war.

This isn't the first gaffe committed by Steele.  He seems often to blunder his way through his term as chairman.  But we are four months from an election, and the GOP seems to be revving up to give the Democrats every piece of ammunition they can.  It's an old, and gracious Republican tradition.

We don't like that tradition here.  It's time it was retired.

Bill Kristol has called for Steele's resignation, pointing out that Steele's comments are destructive of troop morale, and are untruthful.  Whatever we may think of Obama, Afghanistan isn't his war alone, and that rewriting of history won't pass the common-sense test.

Charles Krauthammer has seconded the resignation call.  I think both men are correct.  Disparaging a war effort while at war is, as Krauthammer has called it, a capital offense.  Steele must pay the price and a new chairman named.  Otherwise, his quotes will come back to haunt the party.

There is the awkward issue of race.  Steele is the first African-American to head the GOP, and forcing him out will infuriate him and possibly lead to the use of the race card.  It will certainly not do anything to attract black voters.

Steele should be gracious about it and recognize the realities.  If he doesn't, though, then the party has a serious problem and certainly doesn't want a racial brawl right before the election.

Republicans have grown too confident too quickly.  Stumbling doesn't win elections.

July 2,  2010     Permalink

NOT TO WORRY, BUT...AT 9:39 A.M. ET:  There's a little problem with Dubai, one of the world's richest little countries, and a country buying a great deal of influence in the United States.  From London's Telegraph:

Shipments of illegal nuclear and weapons-building material have been intercepted in Dubai and other ports in the United Arab Emirates, local authorities have admitted.

Officials have accepted for the first time that the country is being used as a transit point for smuggling both money and illegal goods.

The admission comes as part of a drive to crack down on underground trade ties with Iran.

In the last week, the authorities have staged raids on dozens of firms regarded as fronts for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Dubai, and frozen 41 Iran-linked bank accounts.

And at a meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism in Abu Dhabi, a senior figure revealed the extent of the trade in weapons and "dual-use" goods.

Hamad al-Kaabi, ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said new laws relating to the trade in nuclear and dual-use goods had "led to the shutting down of dozens of international and local companies involved in money laundering and proliferation of dual use and dangerous materials".

The goods included some whose trade was banned by United Nations regulations aimed at nuclear non-proliferation.

COMMENT:  The issue is not what is intercepted, but what gets through, either through Dubai or other ports.  We'd have to be awfully trusting to believe that all or even most of the material destined for Iran is being stopped.  North Korea will not do its part.  Neither will contraband operators around the world.

But at least Dubai, no friend of Iran, seems serious about the issue.

July 2, 2010     Permalink

MORE FROM THE DYNAMIC RECOVERY FRONT – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  More economic news is pouring in.  We're booming, we're booming.  Just ask Joe Biden.  But, for some reason, not everyone in the work force is getting the message:

U.S. employment fell for the first this year in June as thousands of temporary census jobs ended and private hiring grew less than expected, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama who has identified job creation as a key priority. 

Nonfarm payrolls dropped 125,000, the largest decline since October, as temporary census jobs fell 225,000, the Labor Department said on Friday.

However the unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent, the lowest level since July, as people left the labor force.

The report will add to worries the recovery from the longest and deepest recession since the 1930s could be faltering. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected employment to fall 110,000 last month, with the jobless rate edging up to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent in May.

The government revised data for April and May to show 25,000 more jobs created than earlier reported.

Private employment, considered a better measure of labor market health, rose 83,000 in June, less than market expectations for a 112,000 gain.

Public unhappiness with the economy, especially after a record $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts, is eroding Obama's popularity. Obama, has tried to put the blame on policies of the previous administration.

COMMENT:  Look, everybody knows it's Bush's fault.  As is the oil spill and Al Gore's divorce. 

But, strangely, the ungrateful American people are putting some of the blame on President Obama, not appreciating all he has done for us and the peoples of the world.  And when Obama and his crowd raise taxes to pay for all the good he has done, will Americans applaud it?  Of course not.   This is the damge that Fox News has done.

Oh, ignore the job statistics.  They're just trying to scare us into sealing the southern border.

July 2, 2010     Permalink

JUST A LITTLE FAMILY MISUNDERSTANDING – AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  From Britain there comes news of a little misunderstanding within a family that, I assure you, has nothing to do with religious belief or fanaticism.

The father and brother of an actress who starred in the Harry Potter films have been charged with threatening to kill her.

Afshan Azad, 22, has appeared in four of the movies as Padma Patil, a classmate of the young wizard.

She was allegedly attacked at her home in Longsight, Manchester, on May 21 this year.

Now her father Abdul Azad, 54, and brother, Ashraf Azad, 28, both of Beresford Road, Longsight, have appeared in court.

Abdul is accused of threatening to kill his daughter and Ashraf of threatening to kill and assault occasioning actual bodily harm against his sister.

Both men appeared at Manchester magistrates court and the case was adjourned until later this month for committal proceedings to crown court.

Afshan was studying for her AS levels at the Xaverian College in Rusholme when she was first cast in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

COMMENT:  Nowhere in the story, from Asian News, is there any indication of why a father might want to kill his daughter, or a brother his sister. 

But it has become trendy, especially in the age of Barack Obama, to shove motive under the bed, for fear of "offending" (the worst crime these days) the world's Muslims.  We are fighting a war in which we refuse to identify the enemy.

July 2, 2010      Permalink

BIAS BUILT-IN – AT 8:13 A.M. ET:  We report periodically on the way President Obama has rigged federal investigation panels to make sure the "investigation" produces the right "facts."  Here's a graphic example, from The Washington Examiner:

Francis Beinecke is president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and for several decades has been among the most active environmental legal activists in using court suits and the threat thereof to stop the fossil fuel energy development required to keep the American economy – aka as “the people” – moving.

She was also just appointed by President Obama as a member of his special commission tasked with investigating the Gulf Oil Spill. But they might as well shut down the commission and let the NRDC chief write the panel’s report because Beinecke already knows what caused the worst environmental calamity in U.S. history – We did.

If you doubt it, check out this quote from Beinecke from her May 27 column on Huffington Post:
“We can blame BP for the disaster, and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster, and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America’s addiction to oil.”

I guess that's called "waiting for the facts."

That’s right – BP’s Deepwater Horizon blew up and has since been gushing thousands of gallons of thick, black crude oil in to the Gulf of Mexico because you and I insist on being able to drive our cars to and from work, to and from the grocery store, to and from school, to and from a thousand other places in our daily lives.

It’s all our fault, people.

And, of course, Ms. Beinecke is doing all of this for humanity:

By the way, Beinecke made more than $432,000 last year as NRDC’s president. Her non-profit organization also reported having in excess of $232 million in assets, employed more than 100 people full-time, and received at least $358,000 in government contracts.

Who knew that doing good could be so lucrative?

John McCain once said that all causes become businesses.  We see it all the time, don't we?  Environmentalism, while it surely can be a serious and important cause, has too often become a business.  Al Gore, who seems to need a massage at the strangest times, has profited handsomely.

Not exactly change we can believe in.

July 2, 2010      Permalink

THURSDAY,  JULY 1,  2010

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:27 P.M. ET:  Reader Brian Kuhn alerts us to an excellent column by Victor Davis Hanson, examining the appeasement policies of the Obama administration and the history of appeasement and where it leads.  The column contains this quote:

Even little words and gestures still matter in high-stakes international relations. Bad actors look hard for even the smallest sign that they might get away with aggression without consequences.

A deferential and apologetic President Obama may think he is making those abroad like us --and he may be right in some cases. But if history is any guide, aggressive powers are paying close attention to these seemingly insignificant signs. Soon, they may turn their wild ideas into concrete aggression -- once they convince themselves that America neither wants to nor is able to stop them.

COMMENT:  The Obama foreign policy is getting nowhere.  Far from being more respected in the world, we're increasingly seen as weak, pathetic and ineffective.  History shows where all this will lead.  We wish we had a press that was sufficiently alarmed, but we don't.

July 1, 2010     Permalink

ALL FOR MOTHER RUSSIA – AT 7:52 P.M. ET:  It's perfectly clear that some of the more chic members of the media would like to shove the new Russian spy scandal under the rug – it's so Cold War, dearies – but the sordid facts keep getting in the way.  In days when movies told stories, rather than featured special effects, this would be a natural:

A former City University of New York professor accused of spying for Russia told federal authorities right after his arrest that he had a fake name and that "he would not violate his loyalty to the" Russian secret "service even for his son," federal prosecutors said today.

Given the politics at the City University of New York, a professor who spies for Russia might wind up with an honorary doctorate.  Okay, I shouldn't have said it.

The ex-prof, who lived in Yonkers under the fake name "Juan Lazaro," also told investigators on Sunday that his wife, El Diario columnist Vicky Pelaez, had delivered letters to their spymasters on his behalf, and that their Yonkers home "had been paid for by the 'Service,'" according to a filing by federal prosecutors.

Pelaez is being held without bond along with "Lazaro" -- who is refusing to provide his real name -- on charges that they acted as agents for Russia. The filing indicated that federal authorities were monitoring their conversations by "microphones" in the Yonkers home "for years."

That filing also revealed that two other people accused of participating in the same spy ring -- Richard and Cynthia Murphy of Montclair, NJ -- had a safe-deposit box containing $80,000 in cash.

COMMENT:  Frugal spies.  That's what we like to see.

This is a serious scandal.  I would like to see the response of the institutions for whom these people worked. 

July 1, 2010     Permalink

DID SOMEONE SING, "HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN"? – AT 7:31 P.M. ET:  Well, not recently.   That used to be the Democratic Party's theme song, starting in the FDR era.  Haven't heard it in a long time.

The economic situation is one reason why.  The latest reports are deadly grim:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Fears that the economic recovery is fizzling grew Thursday after the government and private sector issued weak reports on a number of fronts.

Unemployment claims are up, home sales are plunging without government incentives and manufacturing growth is slowing.

Meanwhile, 1.3 million people are without federal jobless benefits now that Congress adjourned for a weeklong Independence Day recess without passing an extension. That number could grow to 3.3 million by the end of the month if lawmakers can't resolve the issue when they return.

All of this worries economists.

You think?

As jobless claims grow and benefits shrink, Americans have less money to spend and the economy can't grow fast enough to create new jobs. Some are revising their forecasts for growth in the third quarter. Others are afraid the country is on the verge of falling back into a recession.

"We find the level and direction in jobless claims somewhat troubling and the increase is likely to feed double-dip fears," said John Ryding, an economist at RDQ Economics in a note to clients.
New claims for benefits jumped by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose to 466,500, its highest level since March.

COMMENT:  A double-dip recession, right before an election?   Well, we know who to blame, don't we?  It's CHENEY (!!!!), and his daughter, Liz (!!!!!!).  They're the ones.  Pass it on.

Given conditions in this country, and a foreign policy without a single success, if Republicans mess up this election they don't deserve to be a party.

July 1,  2010     Permalink

UPDATE TO AN OUTRAGE – AT 10:15 A.M. ET:  We reported yesterday on the crusade of a Massachusetts high-school student to get the Pledge of Allegiance back in his school.  Local politically correct "educators" had banned it, in part because they thought it would offend some of the teachers.  I'm not making this up.

Well, here's an update.  We can claim partial victory:

Student Sean Harrington appears to have won his fight to bring the Pledge of Allegiance back into his Massachusetts high school -- except the principal's proposed solution leaves the daily honor to the nation's flag literally hanging in the hall.

Charles Skidmore, principal of Arlington High school in Arlington, Mass., has offered to allow students to recite the pledge before school begins -- but in the school's foyer and not in the classrooms, as 17-year-old Harrington had hoped.

Kathleen Bodie, Arlington superintendent of schools, told Fox News Radio that “The principal wanted to be very respectful about the pledge and be sensitive to the Supreme Court ruling that students are not forced to say the pledge. He wanted to be sensitive to the diverse group of students we have.”

As we said, a partial victory.  And once again the word "diversity" is trotted out to defend the indefensible – the fact that the pledge still cannot be said in class.  Might "offend" someone. 

It is true that the Supreme Court has ruled that no one is required to say the Pledge.  But it has never said that a school should ban the Pledge to avoid "offense."  This is another part of the left-wing game:  You must not offend me, but of course we can offend you because we're enlightened.

It is unclear whether Harrington, who led the fight to bring the pledge back to the school, will be satisfied with the compromise of having it recited in the foyer, and not in class. When he was a freshman, he noticed that there were no American flags in the classrooms, and he enlisted the aid of his fellow students to get them installed. He also began his fight to have students voluntarily recite the pledge.

We hope he wins his fight.  Those "offended" by the Pledge, and apparently some of their agony involves the words "under God," can remain silent.  In their silence they might contemplate the fact that nothing will happen to them for refusing to recite.  They then might reflect on why they refuse to pledge allegiance to a country that has such remarkable freedoms.

July 1, 2010      Permalink 

THEY CALL THIS LEADERSHIP – AT 9:36 A.M. ET:  The president is going to speak this morning about immigration.  You might want to choose to watch The Food Channel instead.  Delicious recipes, good desserts...not what you get from Obama.  WaPo reports:

With immigration stories dominating headlines nearly every week, President Obama is delivering a speech Thursday morning that will frame the issue on his own terms -- calling for comprehensive legislation and the importance of keeping the border secure.

But he is not expected to announce any new policy during the 10:50 a.m. address at American University's School of International Service in Northwest Washington, officials said. Nor is the Justice Department going to announce its decision on a lawsuit in Arizona, where a new law makes it easier for police to detain suspected illegal immigrants.

Obama officials have been widely critical of the law since it was passed and signed by the Arizona governor this spring. But in the Virginia suburb of Prince William County, about 40 minutes from Washington, local leaders have called for passage of a similar law.

COMMENT:  Wow, what leadership, what verve.  Why, it's a regular Abraham Lincoln.

Like Eric Holder's original decision, since delayed, to try 9-11 terrorists in Manhattan, a few blocks from Ground Zero, the Obama administration's assault on the Arizona law is proving less than popular.  So maybe Arizona won't be sued by its own country after all.  We'll see.

Some real leadership, and a thoughtful immigration policy, could ease the situation, but Obama isn't providing what's needed.  He is so good at running, so bad at governing.  Don't look for anything to come from him on immigration.  His party wants him to go left, the rest of the country wants a more moderate course.  There's an election in four months.  That dominates all.

July 1, 2010     Permalink

THERE MAY NOT ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  For those who love England, stories like this are a depressing reminder that there are leftist forces within the country that constantly undermine traditional British values.  This is pathetic:

Five activists who caused £180,000 damage to an arms factory were acquitted after they argued they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes.

The five were jubilant after a jury found them not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage to the factory on the outskirts of Brighton.

The five admitted they had broken in and sabotaged the factory, but argued they were legally justified in doing so.

They believed that EDO MBM, the firm that owns the factory, was breaking export regulations by manufacturing and selling to the Israelis military equipment which would be used in the occupied territories. They wanted to slow down the manufacture of these components, and impede what they believed were war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

And, get this:

They are the latest group of peace and climate-change activists to successfully use the "lawful excuse" defence – committing an offence to prevent a more serious crime – as a tactic in their campaigns.

No doubt our own left-leaning law schools, and members of the Obama administration, are looking at importing this kind of thinking, which they consider "advanced." 

It's a sad thing that's happening to Britain.  But I'm afraid it will happen here unless we can reverse what is happening in major precincts of our own society.

July 1, 2010      Permalink

IS PETRAEUS TOO BIG TO FAIL? – AT 8:53 A.M. ET:  That's an intriguing question, asked this morning by The Politico.  And is raises questions about 2012:

President Barack Obama’s new Afghanistan commander was confirmed on a 99 to 0 vote Wednesday, a rare moment of bipartisan unanimity in the Senate — and a reminder of what a formidable partner Obama has brought into his most sensitive area of foreign policy.

It’s an old adage of management and politics that you shouldn’t hire anyone you can’t fire, but Obama did just that, bringing in Gen. David Petraeus, America’s most acclaimed and best-connected officer, to lead a war effort to which the White House has grown increasingly committed. And while the sacking of his predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, named “the runaway general” by Rolling Stone, provoked inevitable comparison to President Harry Truman’s dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the comparison was to the wrong general.

McChrystal, despite his position, was an obscure special operations figure with no political profile. Petraeus, by contrast, has a deep well of personal popularity and Beltway connections. If he chose to, he could pose a genuine challenge to Obama, should they at some point differ on the course of the war.

COMMENT:  That is correct, and, unlike Douglas MacArthur, Petraeus is politically astute and comes off as modest, not arrogant and theatrical, two characteristics that did not endear MacArthur to other high-ranking officers, and certainly didn't endear him to Harry Truman.

There has been an undercurrent of buzz about Petraeus in 2012.  I think it's very much a long shot.  For him to run against a man who's been his own commander-in-chief, as George McClellan did when he ran against Lincoln in 1864, would require not only a split, but a split based on high principle.  Petraeus would pretty much have to suggest, if not say openly, that Obama was endangering the country.

As an alternative, consider that there's an old Mafia proverb: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."   Some speculated that Obama was invoking that wisdom when he hired Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state.  Keep her in the tent.  That could be his thinking behind the Petraeus appointment:  Keep a potential competitor in the household employ.  And...I brought this up before, don't ignore the possibility of an Obama/Petraeus ticket for 2012.  Petraeus has been called a Rockefeller Republican, but that ain't too far away from being a moderate Democrat, and Obama may need one.

You know, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  Ah, "Casablanca."

July 1, 2010     Permalink

WE ARE SHOCKED AT THIS REACTION TO OUR LOVE AND OUTREACH – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  The foreign minister of Iran has announced his country's reaction to the latest round of UN pussycat sanctions:

The latest round of Security Council sanctions against Iran will not prevent the country from proceeding with its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Thursday.

In a letter addressed to the fifteen member-states of the UN Security Council and communicated by AFP, Mottaki wrote that Teheran “considers that the adoption of such resolutions [against Iran] will not affect its utterly peaceful nuclear program.”

He reportedly added that the “hasty adoption” of “unjust and illegal” new sanctions had only made the Islamic republic “more determined” to go ahead with its plans.

On Friday, the Obama administration welcomed Congressional approval of sweeping Iran sanctions, after months of reservations and negotiations over the legislation.

COMMENT:  Yeah, right.  Once they were approved, and considering that this is an election year, Obama "welcomed" our own sanctions.  His boys had been trying to undercut congressional action for months.

Look, we know where this is going.  Iran will have the bomb, but will probably not announce it, allowing our intelligence agencies to give ambiguous assessments, which would serve Obama's purpose, which is to do nothing serious.

This chicken will come home to roost.  I hope it avoids an American city.

July 1, 2010     Permalink