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THURSDAY,  MAY 6,  2010

TOUGH FIGHT IN FLORIDA – AT 8:17 P.M. ET:  A new poll confirms that the Senate race in Florida has been thrown into turmoil by Republican Governor Charlie Crist's decision to drop out of the GOP primary and go indy.  From RealClearPolitics:

A new Mason Dixon poll conducted in Florida (625 LVs, 5/3-10, MoE +/- 4%) shows Gov. Charlie Crist leading a three-way race for Senate, with Marco Rubio just behind and Rep. Kendrick Meek a distant third.

General Election Matchup
Crist (I) 38
Rubio (R) 32
Meek (D) 19

The pollster suspects, however, that Crist's lead is very soft, and that Meek stands to make up serious ground as he improves name recognition and as Democrats come home.

COMMENT:  I'm still optimistic that Rubio will pull it out, as some of Crist's support is coming from Democrats who will probably, as the story indicates, drift back to their party as the election approaches.

But this will be a race for turnout.  Rubio's supporters are the most enthusiastic, and that enthusiasm has to be turned into real, warm bodies going to the polls – unlike Chicago, where many of the bodies showing up to vote haven't been warm for years.

May 6, 2010     Permalink

JUSTICE IS DONE – AT 8:03 P.M. ET:  The third and last Navy Seal facing abuse charges in the arrest of a major Iraqi terrorist has been found not guilty at a Norfolk court-martial.  From Fox:

A Virginia military jury found a Navy SEAL not guilty Thursday on all charges he punched an Iraqi suspected in the 2004 killings of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah.

"I'm really happy right now," Matthew McCabe, the Navy SEAL, told Fox News shortly after hearing the outcome of the court martial. "It's an amazing feeling. I'm on cloud nine right now."

McCabe, a special operations petty officer second class, called the proceedings "troubling at times," adding "having your career on the line is not an easy thing to handle."

McCabe was the third and final Navy SEAL to be prosecuted in the case. He had faced charges of assault, making a false official statement and dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee. McCabe was accused of punching last year Ahmed Hashim Abed, the suspected mastermind of the grisly killings six years ago.

After the court martial, the 24-year-old from Perrysburg, Ohio, thanked the public for its continued support.

COMMENT:  A waste of the jury's time.

May 6, 2010    Permalink

BRITS DECIDE – AT 7:52 P.M. ET:  Britain has voted.  Exit polls show a conservative victory, but not a majority of Parliament.  In other words, a hung Parliament.

Exit polls at this hour are showing 305 seats for the Tories, 255 for Labour, 61 for the Liberal Dems, and 29 for others.  This is where the beauty of the two-party system shows up. 

The Tories would need about 20 votes more in Parliament to have their majority.  The question is whether they can get that number from the smaller parties, without having to make a deal with Labour, or, more dreadful, the nutty Liberal Dems.

More coming on this.

May 6, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:50 A.M. ET:  From Fred Barnes at the Wall Street Journal, on Obama's contempt for public opinion:

President Reagan had a sign on his desk that said, "It's amazing how much you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit." If President Obama had a sign, it would say, "It's amazing how much you can accomplish if you don't care what the public thinks."

Washington has never been held in lower esteem by Americans than it is today. Yet those in control of Washington—President Obama and congressional Democrats—are bent on enacting a series of sweeping domestic policy changes this year that have one thing in common: They are unpopular, in whole or in part.

This is unprecedented and a bit weird too. A revival of civility and an end to the ugly political polarization in Washington—goals stressed by Mr. Obama in his presidential campaign and again last Saturday in a speech at the University of Michigan—won't be furthered by passage of an unpopular agenda. A more likely result is years of partisan resentment and bitter fighting over efforts by Republicans to repeal the unwanted policies.

COMMENT:  Absolutely true.  The Dems know they have only from now to election day in November to get through their program.  That's six months.  After that, a coalition of Republicans and I-want-to-survive Democrats will probably make it impossible to enact most of the liberal agenda, a phenomenon that also occurred after the 1938 midterms, hampering enactment of FDR's domestic program.

May 6, 2010     Permalink

SAY WHAT?  WILL SOMEONE TELL BIDEN – AT 9:19 A.M. ET:  The sentiment is admirable, but will someone tell Joe Biden that it's already been undermined by The One, who is all-knowing and all-pure? 

BRUSSELS (AP) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that Washington remains determined to deploy its planned anti-missile system in Europe to counter the danger of Iran's nuclear program and its long-range ballistic missiles.

''The United States and European Union have stood side-by-side to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons,'' Biden told the European Parliament. ''Iran's nuclear program violates its obligations under NPT and risks sparking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.'' The NPT is the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Now wait, Joe, wait.  Wasn't there a bit of bother about this last year?

The Obama administration last year scrapped Bush-era plans for an expensive missile defense network based in Poland and the Czech Republic. It replaced them with a more flexible plan to deploy Patriot air defense missiles in several countries in eastern Europe and on ships in the Black Sea and Mediterranean.

Yeah, and that move undercut allies in Eastern Europe who'd taken the risk of defying the Russians over missile defense.  Joe, read the papers.

The original plan strained ties between the United States and Russia, which saw it as directed against its own ballistic missiles. Russia has been somewhat more receptive of the new program, although it still maintains there is no need for it at present.

''Wouldn't it be ironic, as the Iron Curtain fell and the threats of mutual assured destruction diminished among the superpowers, a new arms race would emerge in some of the most unstable parts of the world,'' Biden said.

Already has.  Maybe you're reading the wrong papers.

May 6, 2010     Permalink

A CONSPIRACY SO VAST – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  I'm always amused by the near-McCarthyite tone of many liberals, and their journalistic cousins, when describing Republican strategy.  You'd think it was some kind of sin to plan for conservative victory. 

The headline on a Politico story today reads:

Karl Rove, Republican Party secretly plot vast network to reclaim power

Ah, a conspiracy so vast, and probably plotted from some foreign capital, like San Diego. 

And the story is breathless.  Get set for a bombshell, folks:

The Republican Party’s best-connected political operatives have quietly built a massive fundraising, organizing and advertising machine based on the model assembled by Democrats early in the decade, and with the same ambitious goal — to recapture Congress and the White House.

What a bunch of thugs!  The Republic totters!

The new groups could give Republicans and their allies a powerful campaign apparatus separate from the Republican National Committee. Karl Rove, political architect of the Bush presidency, and Ed Gillespie, former Republican Party chairman, are the most prominent forces behind what is, in effect, a network of five overlapping groups, three of which were started in the past few months.

I'm glad this is being exposed to the public – politicians planning a political campaign.  Why, those subversive degenerates!

The operating assumption of Rove, Gillespie and the other organizers is that despite the historical dominance of Republican fundraising and organizing, the GOP has been outmaneuvered by Democrats and their allies in recent years, and it is time to strike back.

Sure.  Strike back.  Another call to violence.  Do you hear "tea party"?  I hear it. 

And to think, we were worried about Communism.

May 6, 2010     Permalink

BRITAIN VOTES – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  The mother country votes today, as her former colonies watch in anticipation.  Last-minute polls still favor the conservatives, but not by enough to prevent a hung Parliament.  The Times of London reports:

A string of election-eve opinion polls gave Mr Cameron's Conservatives a clear lead over Labour and the Liberal Democrats but suggested that they could fall tantalisingly short of an overall majority and would have to form some kind of minority administration.

A Populus poll for The Times put the Tories on 37 per cent with Labour on 28 and the Lib Dems on 27, representing a 6-point swing to the Conservatives. Given the number of three-way contests, the pollsters face an almost impossible task projecting final results but the Populus figures point to the Tories winning an extra 91 seats but falling 25 seats short of a majority.

After a frenetic final 48 hours of campaigning, which saw them criss-cross the country in a whirlwind of rallies and constituency visits, all three main party leaders last night issued appeals to activists to help get the vote out today.

Mr Cameron told cheering supporters in Bristol that it was time for the Tories to “win for Britain”, urging them: “Vote for change. Vote Conservative. Vote to give this country the hope, the optimism and the change we need. Together, we can build a better, stronger country.”

COMMENT:  Britain is a bit unstable right now.  Its economy is debt-ridden and it may go the Greek route if things don't improve.  But I guess it's better than being blitzed by the Nazis.

We'll follow the returns closely today and report.  If Cameron emerges as prime minister, but with a Parliamentary minority, I would hope he'd avoid a coalition with either Labour or the certifiable Liberal Dems, and pick up some of the smaller groups to gain a majority. 

May 6, 2010    Permalink

THIS JUST IN – AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  Boston may go to war with Arizona.  Stand by for details and war news.  From Fox:

BOSTON - The Boston City Council is scheduled to vote on a resolution calling for the city to pull investments from Arizona in protest over the state's recently passed immigration law.

The vote is slated for Wednesday afternoon.

City Council President Michael Ross and fellow Councilor Felix G. Arroyo said their resolution would ask city officials to end city contracts and purchasing agreements with Arizona and Arizona-based companies. The resolution also would ask city employees not to travel to Arizona for city business.

Councilors have reported a slew of angry calls over the resolution after area conservative talk radio shows urged listners to call councilors.

COMMENT:  Have you noticed?  A lot of leftist Americans are moving far more quicly with sanctions against Arizona than they ever did with sanctions against Iran.

Do we have our priorities in order?

When you see posters depicting a Boston-created mushroom cloud over Phoenix, you'll know we've taken complete leave of our senses.

May 6, 2010    Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  MAY 5,  2010

YOU'RE DOIN' A HELLUVA JOB, TOMMY – AT 9:01 P.M. ET:  That oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico seems to have "Katrina II" written all over it.  From ABC News:

Though his agency was charged with coordinating the federal response to the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Department of the Interior chief of staff Tom Strickland was in the Grand Canyon with his wife last week participating in activities that included white-water rafting, ABC News has learned.

Other leaders of the Interior Department were focused on the Gulf, joined by other agencies and literally thousands of other employees. But Strickland’s participation in a trip that administration officials insisted was “work-focused” raised eyebrows among other Obama administration officials and even within even his own department, sources told ABC News.

Strickland, who also serves as Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, was in the Grand Canyon with his wife Beth for a total of three days, including one day of rafting. Beth Strickland paid her own way, Obama administration officials said.

How wonderful that she paid her own way.  But we paid hubby, and he wasn't on the job. 

The Stricklands departed for the Grand Canyon three days after the leaks in the Deepwater Horizon pipeline were discovered. Ultimately, after the government realized that the spill was worse than had been previously thought, officials decided that Strickland was needed in the Gulf so Strickland was taken out of the Grand Canyon by a National Park Service helicopter.

One government official, asking for anonymity because of the political sensitivities involved, told ABC News that some Interior Department employees thought it was “irresponsible” for Strickland to have gone on the trip, given the crisis in the Gulf, which was fully apparent at the time he departed for the Grand Canyon.

COMMENT:  If his name was "Brownie," he'd be mud by now, and so would his president.  But this is a new era, and, gosh darn, we must understand that Tommy just had another narrative.

May 5, 2010    Permalink

WE'RE SURE IT WAS ALL IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST – AT 4:01 P.M. ET:  It turns out that the proprietor of "change we can believe in" was getting his funds the old-fashioned way as he beat his path to righteousness.  From The Politico:

While the BP oil geyser pumps millions of gallons of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama and members of Congress may have to answer for the millions in campaign contributions they’ve taken from the oil and gas giant over the years.

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

On top of that, the oil giant has spent millions each year on lobbying — including $15.9 million last year alone — as it has tried to influence energy policy.

COMMENTS:  If it were Bush, this would be the headline story all over America today.  But it's Obama, so it will probably receive only a glancing mention in the MSM, if any mention at all.  After all, no one would suggest that Barack Obama, who has come to save us, would be influenced by oil money.

And Obama will go into self-righteous mode anyway, and rap BP, even mercilessly if he has to.  But his response to the spill was pathetically slow, something else covered up by the media.

May 5, 2010     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 3:52 P.M. ET:  From Victor Davis Hanson, on our anti-terror strategy:

One, we are doing our darnedest to playact that radical Muslims who are trying to kill us are not trying to kill us; and two, we are not seeing a lot of peaceful blowback from the virtual closing of Guantanamo, the virtual trial of KSM, the reach out in the Al Arabiya interview, the "reset" rhetoric, the Cairo speech, and the apology tour — 2009 saw the most terrorism attempts since 2001.

And that, of course, is the charitable take: that these near-miss (and not-so-near-miss) radical-Islamist incidents are incidental to, rather than a symptom of, our new de facto policy of suggesting that the problem with our "contingency operations" against "man-caused disasters" is with us rather than with hostile Muslim terrorists.

COMMENT:  He nails it.  But the strategy won't change, as it's part of the core beliefs of the liberal left, and the colleges that produced this kind of thinking. 

Just after 9/11, Mollie Haskell, the not-so-politically-correct film critic, was at a Manhattan party.  When it came time for toasts, she raised her glass and pronounced, "To victory."  And everyone laughed at her.

That is the problem. 

May 5, 2010     Permalink

NEWSWEEK FOR SALE – AT 3:45 P.M. ET:  This was probable inevitable, from the Washington Post:

The Washington Post Co. announced this morning that it has hired Allen & Co. to seek buyers for Newsweek magazine, the money-losing newsweekly that The Post Co. has owned for decades.

Quoting from the company release:

The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO) announced today that it has retained boutique investment bank Allen & Company to explore the possible sale of Newsweek magazine. The newsweekly was launched in 1933 and purchased by The Washington Post Company in 1961. Newsweek is an internationally known and respected publication, providing unique news, commentary and insight into political and social developments in the United States and around the world.

“The losses at Newsweek in 2007-2009 are a matter of record. Despite heroic efforts on the part of Newsweek’s management and staff, we expect it to still lose money in 2010. We are exploring all options to fix that problem,” said Donald E. Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Company. “Newsweek is a lively, important magazine and website, and in the current climate, it might be a better fit elsewhere.”

In an interview with my colleague Howie Kurtz, Graham said "The staff of Newsweek has been unbelievable, both on the quality of the magazine and getting costs down." But the losses are a "continuing frustration," especially on the digital side, where Newsweek made only $8 million last year, he said.

COMMENT:  I wonder if anyone knows what the problem is.  The problem is bias, a bias that grew and grew over the years.  We used to be Newsweek subscribers, and subscribed for decades until the bias became so great that it was impossible to read the magazine.  Had Newsweek improved and corrected its journalism, rather than let it deteriorate, it might have survived.

If it's bought at all, I suspect it will be bought by a liberal sugar daddy who's prepared to accept the losses so he can say he owns a major magazine.  It's like investing in Broadway.  Most people don't invest for the profits, which only sometimes show up.  They invest to rub shoulders.

May 5, 2010     Permalink 

THE MIDTERMS – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  Scott Rasmussen reports on where some critical races stand, taking into account yesterday's primaries in Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina:

Yesterday’s Primary Elections finalized the Senate campaign match-ups in two key states and forced a run-off in North Carolina. Rasmussen Reports polling conducted before the Primaries shows the GOP candidates begin with a double digit lead in both Indiana and North Carolina. The race is tighter in Ohio. The top GOP candidate also continues to lead in Colorado, but Florida’s Senate race has become very competitive with Governor Charlie Crist running as an Independent.

COMMENT:  There may be a bit of bother in Pennsylvania.  Pat Toomey has been leading Arlen Specter in the polls, but Specter's challenger in the Democratic primary, Congressman Joe Sestak, is gaining.  Should Sestak win, it's a new ball game.  He won't be carrying the baggage that Specter carries.

And, as we've noted, Republican confidence in Florida was a bit premature.  We assumed Marco Rubio would walk into the Senate in November.  But the race is suddenly tight.

We have a lot of work to do.  Always run as if you're 20 points behind.

May 5, 2010    Permalink

NEW MONEY CRISIS? – AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  We, in this country, have not fully absorbed the impact of the economic crisis in Europe, precipitated by the financial collapse in Greece. But international markets are reacting, and our own recovery will almost certainly be affected if this goes on.  From Bloomberg:

Stocks fell around the globe, erasing the 2010 gain for the MSCI World Index, and the euro weakened to a 12-month low on concern Greece’s bailout may have to be extended to other indebted nations.

The MSCI gauge of equities in 23 developed nations declined 0.7 percent at 8:42 a.m. in New York, leaving it down 0.5 percent for the year. Spain’s IBEX 35 Index slumped 2.6 percent. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index lost 1.8 percent, heading for the biggest three-day slump in three months. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index retreated 0.8 percent. The euro traded at less than $1.30 for a second day. Copper slid below $7,000 a metric ton.

More than $1.1 trillion was wiped from the value of global stocks yesterday amid growing expectations that Greece’s 110 billion-euro ($143 billion) rescue package will need to be repeated in Spain and Portugal. European Central Bank council member Axel Weber said today there is a threat of “grave contagion effects” in the euro area.

“We are in an era where governments are no longer considered risk free,” said Gary Jenkins, head of credit strategy at London-based broker Evolution Securities Ltd. “The capital markets could soon be in the midst of the largest financial crisis of the last 100 years.”

COMMENT:  This one is coming out of left field.  If capital markets freeze again, and cash is needed, where will it come from?  Will markets be allowed to collapse?

We're out of money, deeply in debt, and storm clouds are gathering.  Has the White House noticed?

May 5, 2010    Permalink

BRITAIN VOTES TOMORROW – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  And our Michael Barone is there.  He isn't exactly finding a Churchill or Thatcher in the mess of candidates:

British voters go to the polls tomorrow, and it appears likely that they will boot the party in power for only the second time in 31 years. Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives ousted a Labor government in May 1979 and Tony Blair's "New Labor" party ousted the Conservatives in May 1997...

...My impression, watching from abroad and this week in Britain, is that in the course of this campaign voters have, to varying extents, rejected both of the two major parties and the third party, Liberal Democrats, as well.

Refreshing.  How refreshing.

The big story for most of the official campaign period was the rise of the Lib Dems as a result of their leader Nick Clegg's performance in the first debate on April 15. Clegg damned both parties for mismanagement and bickering -- something you can do when your party holds only 67 of 650 seats in the House of Commons.

But the polls indicate that the Lib Dem surge has ebbed. Clegg's call for legalization of illegal immigrants hurt him in the third debate, and so did his past support for Britain to drop the pound and join the euro -- a position that's hard to defend when the Greek fiscal crisis is putting the euro at risk.

That's the tip of Al Gore's rapidly melting iceberg.  Clegg is anti-American and, in some ways, even anti-British.  He has compared his own country to the Nazis.  A dangerous, deluded man.

That leaves the Conservative party, led by David Cameron since December 2005, in the lead...

...The way the district boundaries are drawn gives Labor an advantage; it is not going to lose light-voting working-class seats. But the Conservatives' lead in the polls makes it likely they will win more seats than Labor, in which case Cameron will form a government.

The big question is whether Labor and Lib Dems will together win enough seats to deny Cameron an absolute majority and hold one themselves. If so, they may force another election in six months or next year. If not, Conservatives might hold on for four or five years...

...Hard slogging is ahead for Britain, whatever the voters do.

COMMENT:  I'm afraid that's the truth.  This isn't the Britain of the blitz or the spirit of "Very well, alone."  This is the Britain of the nanny state, and the suction of that state has even drawn in some conservatives. 

Of course, Obama would like nothing better than to see a British government that is hostile to him.  Then he can draw even further away from the "special relationship," and continue the hard grovel toward the nations he prefers.  After all, why ride in a Rolls-Royce when you can hop on a goat?

May 5, 2010     Permalink

PARADE OF DUMBNESS – AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  Following on the theme of our first post this morning, just below, Mary Katherine Ham catalogues the parade of inept comments that began when news of the Times Square bomber first broke.  From the Washington Examiner:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg put his ignorance of the situation and the suspect to great use...jumping to conclusions that might earn him a long-jump spot in the London Olympics if he decides not to put his dough toward a presidential run that year:

Bloomberg later told CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric that the suspect behind the bombing attempt could be a domestic terrorist angry at the government who acted alone.

"If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything," he said.

Well, wait.  We all know that Obamacare is deeply unpopular among jihadists.  It doesn't cover shrapnel damage, nor skin abrasions caused by suicide belts.  What kind of a health plan is that?

And...

Moving on, we have CNN's morning anchors suggesting this attempted bombing is probably just fall-out from the housing market crisis.  Video at the link from our friend Michael Moynihan:

Now that a deranged Pakistani-American with a political agenda (one presumes) has been detained, CNN did some honest to goodness journalism and discovered that—wait for it—suspected bomber Faisal Shahzad is a deadbeat that failed to make payments on his mortgage. This, says the blow-dried bozo in Atlanta, likely "brought alot of pressure and alot of heartache" and could have motivated him to take his revenge on the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

And the one that's been making the rounds on the internet:

And, finally, we have Contessa Brewer of MSNBC taking the silly crown so early in the game and with an enthusiasm which will be hard to top:

"I get frustrated...There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country."

Brewer continued, "...There are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry."

Oh, those outdated bigots – you know, people who worry about people who chop off women's heads because they disagree with the Taliban (or their husbands), or who try to kill as many "infidels" as possible.  Nothing to see, folks, nothing to see.

May 5, 2010     Permalink

HEADLINE OF THE DAY – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  The MSM once again falls in behind the politically correct leadership of Dear Leader, who sees no evil, only misunderstanding.  A headline from Associated Press today:

NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery

Oh dear, oh dear.  That mysterious motive again.  Can't you see that headline on December 8, 1941:

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, but motive a mystery

This is what happens when reporters take Psychology 101 at Princeton. 

Now, is the motive for the Times Square bomber such a mystery?  Was the Fort Hood motive a mystery?  How about 9-11?  Or the attack on the USS Cole?

Now, after me, slowly say the words "Islamic extremism."

Okay, don't choke.  If you can't say them at first, try them a bit at a time.  Start with "Is..."  Work gently from there.

Then write the words in big block letters with a thick marking pen and send the paper directly to the White House.

We know what the Times Square motive was.  But the president of the United States is the host of an orgy of political correctness.  The better not to offend the brothers in the Muslim world.  Strange, but we don't seem to be doing any better in that part of the world under Obama than under Bush.  But don't tell the publisher of The New York Times. 

Journalists love to claim that they're the eyes and ears of the public.  Today, too many of them are the eyes and ears of their favored president, and the colleges they attended.

May 5, 2010     Permalink