SATURDAY,  AUGUST 29,  2009

BULLETIN AT 11:25 P.M. ET:  It's important for all well-informed citizens to be aware of this.  Please don't sleep tonight before reading these details first:

LA PAZ – The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, on Saturday declared Bolivian President Evo Morales as “World Hero of Mother Earth” in a ceremony at the presidential palace in this capital.

With a medal and a parchment scroll, the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization named Morales “the maximum exponent and paradigm of love for Mother Earth” in the resolution for his decoration that was read during the ceremony.

The document added that the decision was taken “after extensive consultation” among representatives of the General Assembly’s member countries.

D’Escoto recalled that Morales “was the one who most helped” the United Nations declare last April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, or “Pachamama” as Mother Earth is said in Bolivia’s Aymara Indian tongue.

COMMENT:  You know, I'm grateful.  This saves me so much research time.  I was really wondering who the maximum exponent and paradigm of love for Mother Earth was.  Now I know. 

Chalk it up to another service by the United Nations.  And to think, there are people who criticize the fact that we pay 25% of the UN's budget.  These people clearly have contempt for Mother Earth and its maximum exponents.  Shame.  Shame on them.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

MORE COMBAT AHEAD ON HEALTH CARE - AT 9:27 P.M. ET:  It appears that attempts to reach a compromise in the Senate on health-care "reform" are failing.  One of the key players is essentially throwing in the towel:

WASHINGTON — A leading GOP negotiator on health care struck a further blow to fading chances of a bipartisan compromise by saying Democratic proposals would restrict medical choices and make the country's "finances sicker without saving you money."

The criticism from Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., echoed that of many opponents of the Democratic plans under consideration in Congress. But Enzi's judgment was especially noteworthy because he is one of only three Republicans who have been willing to consider a bipartisan bill in the Senate.

In the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, Enzi said any health care legislation must lower medical costs for Americans without increasing deficits and the national debt.

"The bills introduced by congressional Democrats fail to meet these standards," he said.

COMMENT:  The Democrats may, in fact, go for broke and try to get their 1,000-page bill through Congress with no Republican support, placing us at the mercy of a health-care revolution that Americans overwhelmingly do not want and never voted for.  If that happens, it will happen just as the 2010 congressional campaigns get going. 

And the Democrats might actually pass that bill.  They could probably slam it through the House by intimidating enough Blue Dogs - moderate Dems - to vote "correctly."  And they're only a few votes shy in the Senate, if they keep their pegs in order.  If passage occurs, Republicans must see it as an opportunity, not as a setback, an opportunity finally to reveal this administration for what it is, and to confront and defeat it.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

IF TRUE, SICKENING - AT 8:52 P.M. ET:  Fortunately, some British journalists are unrelenting in trying to find out how the Lockerbie bomber was set free.  From The Times of London:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

COMMENT:  If this is true, the Labour government should resign.  But that probably won't happen.  The sad fact is that money talks.  But I do hope that this story gets very wide circulation, and is recalled the next time any of these European nations (I include Britain) lecture us.  While there may well be some Americans who would sell out for oil, I think we're generally better than that.  I also think stories like this remind Americans of what the "realist" school in foreign policy actually is.  Again, we're better than that.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

DON'T DO IT! - AT 11:33 A.M. ET:  The maneuvering to succeed Senator Edward M. Kennedy is centering on a device, recommended by Kennedy himself just before his death, that wise heads should reject:

Massachusetts legislative leaders signaled this week that they will consider a plan to allow Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint an interim successor to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

State lawmakers mostly kept quiet Friday about whether they would support a proposal to give the governor authority to name someone to fill the vacant Senate seat before the state holds a special election in January. But the House member who chairs the joint legislative committee that would handle the bill said a hearing could be scheduled sometime after Labor Day.

COMMENT:  No matter how this is presented, no matter how much it's hyped as a "tribute" to Senator Kennedy, it comes off as basic Massachusetts machine politics.  We just saw a sordid display in Illinois when the Senate seat made vacant by Barack Obama was filled by a party hack appointed by a corrupt governor.  Obama, to his disgrace, never interfered in the vulgarity practiced by his old Illinois political friends. 

I have no evidence that Deval Patrick, Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is corrupt, but he is a close ally of President Obama.  You'd think the president would want to avoid another display of backroom politics.  That's what you'd think.

And then there's the real world of Barack Obama.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

OH, SUCH WHINING - AT 11:10 A.M. ET:  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a complaint:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today slammed the news media for its coverage of the health-care debate, accusing news organizations of paying too much attention to rowdy town-hall meetings.

“The press has not been” focused enough “on what we’ve been doing,” Reid told listeners in a telephone town hall meeting with Nevadans Friday afternoon, arguing that the media has focused on town hall attendees “yelling and screaming” rather than discussing the substance of the health-care reform effort.

“They can’t ask enough questions about town-hall meetings,” Reid told listeners in a telephone town hall meeting with Nevadans Friday afternoon. “They ask, ‘When are you holding a town hall meeting?’”

COMMENT:  You know the Democrats are really in trouble when they start complaining about the mainstream media.  The mainstream media?  That's practically a branch of the Democratic Party.

Reid's complaint is strange in another way, too.  He wants the focus on what Washington is doing, not on what the American people are saying.  That is about as clear a definition of his party's vision of the country as I've seen recently.  Really quite remarkable.

August 29, 2009   Permalink

A DISGRACE, AND A GREAT REPLY - AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  As some of you may know, Rep. Diane Watson of California, a pro-Marxist member of the California Democratic delegation to Congress, has endorsed Fidel Castro as one of the brightest leaders she's ever met.  In a startling statement, Watson also praised the Cuban health-care system and suggested that those who oppose President Obama on the health issue do so only because he's black. 

Silvio Canto Jr., on whose radio show I'm privileged to appear, has written a sharp, documented reply to Congresswoman Watson.  It's here, and I urge you to go to it.

Diane Watson represents what I call the tragedy of liberalism.  I wrote about it at the Angel's Corner, published last night.  One element of that tragedy is the infiltration of the civil-rights movement by the extreme left, and the devastating impact that has had.  Indeed, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, also of California, and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, is also a supporter of Fidel Castro.

The country buries Ted Kennedy today, but it was his brother, Bob Kennedy, when he was attorney general in the sixties, who went to Martin Luther King Jr. and pleaded with him to get the reds out of the civil rights movement.   

Silvio Canto Jr., through his own cultural background, knows the subject of Castro and his reign of terror very well.  Please read what he's written.  We are in danger now from a president, and his radical allies in Congress, who have never understood the threat that communism poses to our liberties.

August 29, 2009   Permalink   

MORE AND MORE AND MORE - AT 9:49 A.M. ET:  Distracted by end-of-summer activities, the health-care debate, and the death of Ted Kennedy, many Americans may not be aware of the cut-and-run retreat policies that are building up under this administration's foreign policy.  Add this to the list, as reported by The New York Times:

BERLIN — The Obama administration has developed possible alternative plans for a missile defense shield that could drop hotly disputed sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that would please Russia and Germany but sour relations with American allies in Eastern Europe.

Administration officials said they hoped to complete their months-long review of the planned antimissile system as early as next month, possibly in time for President Obama to present ideas to President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia at a meeting in New York during the annual opening at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

COMMENT:  Problem is, Barack Obama doesn't see Poland and the Czech Republic as American allies, but as American burdens.  Obama's real allies are the leftists around the world. 

One by one, the bulwarks of freedom are being dismantled - the gutting of the war on terror, our groveling before an ousted Honduran ally of Fidel Castro, our unspeakable indifference to brave Iranian protesters, our downplaying human rights in virtually every area of the globe, Obama's apology campaign, and much more.

It is getting very, very serious.

August 29, 2009    Permalink  

FRIDAY,  AUGUST 28,  2009

OUR POLICIES ARE REALLY WORKING - AT 8:48 P.M. ET: 

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship carrying North Korean-manufactured munitions, detonators, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades bound for Iran in violation of United Nations sanctions, diplomats said.

The UAE two weeks ago notified the UN Security Council of the seizure, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition they aren’t named because the communication hasn’t been made public. They said the ship, owned by an Australian subsidiary of a French company and sailing under a Bahamian flag, was carrying 10 containers of arms disguised as oil equipment.

The council committee that monitors enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea wrote letters to Iran and the government in Pyongyang asking for explanations of the violation, and one to the UAE expressing appreciation for the cooperation, the envoys said. No response has been received and the UAE has unloaded the cargo, they said.

COMMENT:  I'm sure those were angry letters.  You can see North Korea and Iran just quivering.  They know that The One will do nothing except send more negotiators, so why should they care?

August 28, 2009   Permalink

GET 'EM, DICK! - AT 6:21 P.M. ET:  I've always felt that Dick Cheney was the victim of a modern-day McCarthyism, far worse than the original.  He always struck me as a devoted public servant.  You can agree or disagree with him - that's fair - but his sense of service is remarkable.

Like the man he is, he is striking back at this administration's behavior in what used to be called the War on Terror.  Fox News reports:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday said the Obama administration should be debriefing CIA interrogators about keeping the country safe rather than trying to punish them for doing their jobs.

In an exclusive interview taped to air this weekend on "FOX News Sunday," Cheney called the Justice Department probe of interrogators an "outrageous political act" that will do long-term damage to the United States' capacity to protect the country.

"We had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, 'How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?'" Cheney said.

"Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions -- threatening contrary to what the president originally said. They're going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations," Cheney added.

COMMENT:  He is right.  The damage to this country will be immense.  What most Americans won't face, because the media won't let them face it, is that many of those behind this sick crusade want to damage the country.  They are profound leftists caught up in the spirit of the sixties.  They think they are serving the greater good by weakening America. 

By the way, the notion of disbarring lawyers for giving honest opinions will turn the legal profession into a Sovietized branch of the government.  Again, there are people who have no problem with this.  To them, the personal is political and the legal is political.  It's what they've been taught in school.  It's what they practice.

And we must stop them.

August 28, 2009   Permalink

I AM SHOCKED, SHOCKED, AT THIS CHARGE - AT 5:50 P.M. ET:  I know all of you will share my sense of dismay:

Iran is stonewalling the UN nuclear watchdog agency about "possible military dimensions" to its suspect nuclear program, officials said Friday, urging the regime to clarify the mysterious role of a foreign explosives expert and shed light on other issues.

In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it has pressed the Islamic Republic to clarify its uranium enrichment activities and reassure the world that it's not trying to build an atomic weapon.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared solely toward generating electricity. The United States and key allies contend the country is covertly trying to build an atomic weapon.

COMMENT:  Oh, would I love to know about that "foreign explosives expert," especially what country he's from.  But don't despair over this stunning announcement.  The One will simply engage Iran, speak reasonably, say a few words about Islam, and they'll give up their nuclear program...just as we see the Earth cool and the oceans recede. 

Finally, the IAEA is acknowledging the suspicions that sane people have had for years.  The tragedy is that the Iranian program may be too far along for us to stop it, especially given the fact that every signal we send seems to rule out a military strike.

August 28, 2009   Permalink

GIVE 'TIL IT HURTS - AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  Nancy Pelosi is looking for some quick cash, and I know you'll want to help.  So this is published as a public service, via The Politico:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has launched an urgent effort to raise $100,000 by Monday to help combat what she calls GOP "smears" about health care reform.

"Republican opponents of reform are coming out with one outrageous smear after the next, all aimed at derailing our progress. We must be able to counter their special interest-funded attacks and set the record straight," Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic supporters.

"That's why I have set a goal of raising $100,000 in grassroots donations before the August FEC fundraising deadline," says Pelosi.

Pelosi and Democrats are clearly worried that they've lost momentum on health care reform this month, and many in her caucus have been crushed by opposition at town hall events.

COMMENT:  But it's all "special interests" who oppose the plan.  Correct?  Apparently a majority of Americans are now considered a "special interest."

August 28, 2009   Permalink

TRUTH TELLING IN EDUCATION - AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  Education in America has been so politicized that getting real information is sometimes tricky.  After all, there are different cultures, dearie, and we must not judge results...

Yeah, right.

Reader Joseph J. Gallick refers us to this piece by John Hechinger of the Wall Street Journal, who gives us the latest report:

High-school students' performance last year on the SAT college-entrance exam fell slightly, and the score gap generally widened between lower-performing minority groups and white and Asian-American students, raising questions about the effectiveness of national education reform efforts.

Average scores for the class of 2009 in critical reading dropped to 501 from 502, in writing to 493 from 494 and held steady in math, at 515. The combined scores are the lowest this decade and reflect stalled performance over the past three years. The reading scores are the worst since 1994.

Many observers Tuesday viewed the flat results of recent years as discouraging in light of a more than 25-year effort to improve U.S. education. "This is a nearly unrelenting tale of woe and disappointment," said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "If there's any good news here, I can't find it."

COMMENT:  Please note the first paragraph:  There's a widening gap between "lower-performing minority groups" and "white and Asian-American students."

That's code language.  I always thought Asian Americans were members of a minority, and a minority that still faces discrimination.  But, apparently, if you work hard and do well in school, your minority status magically disappears.

That papers over the very poor practices in many minority communities.  We know, for example, that while Hispanic parents are eager for their children to learn English, so-called "educators" for many years kept the kids down through "bilingual" education that was a disgrace. 

We also know that culture has a dramatic effect on education.  Good schools are built by good families and good attitudes.  The refusal to deal with the social pathologies in some minority communities is directly related to poor performance in school and on tests.  But it's not politically correct to talk about that.

Some years ago I asked a guidance counselor from Los Angeles, who worked in a largely minority school, whether he could predict which parents would come to PTA meetings.  He replied, "Yes, all I have to do is look at grade reports.  It's the parents of the A and B students."  Then he paused and said, "That's why they're A and B students."

In other words, those kids got direction at home.

Unless we start dealing with the cultural mess in our communities, with the indifference of parents, and the excuse machines built by "leaders" and "educators," our drive for better student achievement will fail.

August 28, 2009   Permalink

MESSING UP THE MIDDLE EAST - AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  The president is about to take on the Middle East "peace process" again, from a kind of Jimmy Carter perspective.  The blunders have already begun.

There's a terrific writer on Mideast affairs, Michael Young, who works out of Beirut, and is a straight shooter.  I'm surprised he's survived.  He ridicules the Obama approach, a contradictory, sloppy, poorly thought out approach that we see in almost everything else this administration does:

There is great discomfort these days among those who backed Barack Obama’s “new” approach to the Middle East when he took office 10 months ago. That shouldn’t surprise us. Everything about the president’s shotgun approach to the region, his desire to overhaul all policies from the George W. Bush years simultaneously, without a cohesive strategy binding his actions together, was always going to let the believers down.

And...

As the president’s accelerated pullout from Iraq begins to look increasingly ill-thought-out, as his engagement of Iran and Syria falters, as Arab-Israeli peace looks more elusive than ever, and as Americans express growing doubts about the war in Afghanistan, Obama is discovering that personal charisma is not enough to alter the realities of a Middle East that has whittled down better men than he.

Well, actually, I don't think he's discovering it.  The rest of us are, but he's not.  I don't know if he's capable of discovering that.  He once remarked to a political associate, "I'm gifted."  I think he still buys that line.

On Iraq, the president's policy seems to be contained in one word:

That word is “withdrawal,” and Obama described his Iraqi policy this way in Cairo: “Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future – and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq’s sovereignty is its own.”

Those were noble thoughts, but how do they square with other American concerns, such as the containment of Iran, the avoidance of sectarian conflict that might engulf the region, the stability of oil supplies, and much else? Obama feels that an America forever signaling its desire to go home will make things better by making America more likable. That’s not how the Middle East works.

No, I guess not.  On Iran:

...there was always something counterintuitive in lowering the pressure on Iran in the hope that this would generate progress in finding a solution to its nuclear program. Engagement is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end among countless others. Where the Obama administration erred was in not seeing how dialogue would buy Iran more time to advance its nuclear projects, precisely what the Iranians wanted, while breaking the momentum of international efforts to force Tehran to concede something – for example temporary suspension of uranium enrichment.

Chalk up another failure.

He’s virtually folded over Iraq, is stumbling in Afghanistan, and does not occupy himself very much with Lebanon, all places where the Iranians can and are hurting the Americans. By placing most of his chips on engagement, the president has failed to develop a more multifaceted strategy while relinquishing other forms of coercion that could have been effective in Washington’s bargaining with the Islamic Republic.

That's not the kind of letter home you hope to get from the teacher.

Young notes that Obama has confronted Israel over settlements:

However, there is more to Palestinian-Israeli peace than settlements. Obama is exerting considerable political capital to confront Israel, but it may be capital wasted at a moment when Hamas can still veto any breakthrough from the Palestinian side. In other words, Washington is working on a narrow front whereas its failure to weaken Hamas may render the whole enterprise meaningless. But how can the US weaken Hamas when improving relations with the movement’s main regional sponsors, Iran and Syria, remains a centerpiece of American efforts?

Ah, no one thought these things out.

And finally...

Barack Obama’s devotees may imagine that because he spent a few years abroad as a boy, he is well equipped to understand our complicated world. Perhaps he is, but his approach to the greater Middle East, shorn of the soaring rhetoric, has been artless and arrogant. The president is being tied up every which way by his foes, who can plainly see that the Obama vision is an unsystematic one. If ever the US has been close to achieving potentially terminal self-marginalization in the region, it is now.

We award the grade of F- to the administration.  Re-take the course.  Maybe some different instructors are required.  And maybe the student should do less talking, and more learning.

August 28, 2009   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 8:17 A.M. ET:   From the great Andy McCarthy in NRO, commenting on the recent wave of "grovel and appease" tactics toward terrorism coming from the Justice Department:

I suppose that's what happens when control of the Justice Department shifts from the lawyers who spent the last eight years going after the terrorists to the lawyers who spent the last eight years representing the terrorists. That certainly is Change.

COMMENT:  And McCarthy certainly is right.  What we're getting now in what used to be the war on terror is worse than we got from the Clinton administration.  Terrorism?  What terrorism?  Just another law enforcement problem, like littering and double parking. 

We are impressed, though, with the number of articles in the last few days challenging the New Order.  At least our side isn't sleeping, even though it's the end of August. 

This appeasement problem may well get worse, as Justice is now staffed with leftist lawyers from the Ivy League who believe that Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the real world.

August 28, 2009   Permalink 

INADVERTENT TRUTH TELLING CONTINUES - AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  Oh dear, oh dear, what is happening to these Democrats?  Apparently, we learn from private sources, some truth serum was recently slipped into the organic tofu at a Democratic party get together, and it's still having its effect.

We have seen, in the last few days, Howard Dean admit that the reason there's no tort reform in the Dem health plan is the power of the trial lawyers in the party.  We have seen hot-tempered Representative Pete Stark of California call moderates in the party "brain dead," reflecting the real view of the party's radical left.  And now a Dem member of Congress from Colorado admits what the Obama administration has refused to admit, that some people are going to get hurt by her party's health plan, including Medicare recipients, who've been told most of their lives that the Democratic Party would take care of them:

Some people, including Medicare recipients, will have to give up some current benefits to truly reform the nation's health-care system, Rep. Betsy Markey told a gathering of constituents in Fort Collins on Wednesday.

Markey has repeatedly said during the August congressional recess that Medicare spending needs to be reined in to help pay for reforming the broader health-care system.

"There's going to be some people who are going to have to give up some things, honestly, for all of this to work," Markey said at a Congress on Your Corner event at CSU. "But we have to do this because we're Americans."

Say what?  We're Americans, and that's why we have to do this?  Will someone please explain the relationship there?

And if we all have "give up some things," why does the "all" never include those who benefit from the corrupt malpractice system, which costs the nation between $60-billion and $200-billion a year?

The truth is coming out, bit by bit. 

But Rasmussen is also reporting that attitudes toward the Democratic plan have stabilized, with 53% of respondents opposed, 43% in favor.  Hasn't changed much in a few weeks.  Rasmussen also reports, though, that those opposed are far, far more passionate than those in favor:

As has been true since the debate began, those opposed to the congressional overhaul feel more strongly about the legislation than supporters. Forty-three percent (43%) now Strongly Oppose the legislation while 23% Strongly Favor it. Those figures, too, are similar to results from earlier in August.

COMMENT:  Our national "leaders" come back from their recess within days.  Then the combat really begins.  I'm concerned that 43% still support this corrupt farce.  That is enough of a base on which the liberal Dems can build.  We have to drive that number down, and one way to do it is to come up with thoughtful, practical and calming alternatives.

August 28, 2009   Permalink