Lost (Part 87,283)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com He was on his way the next day to Branford College at Yale, where he spoke before some 65 Yale students and faculty. Rabbi Jon Hausman was at the event and, guess what, the “Yale community” was the opposite of welcoming. “The crowd was hostile, Rabbi Hausman reported in an interview. There were a number of self-described Muslims. Those who did ask questions expressed displeasure with Westergaard’s work. The questions from these people were repetitive. One person described himself as a mildly Evangelical Christian who lived for a number of years in a Muslim country working. Yet, he took what I call a dhimmi view in his question — how far can Westergaard go in his work before endangering Christians who live in Muslim countries? I found this to be the most disturbing question and attitude of all. Further, it is clear that the university suffers from the malaise of relativist truth and the multicultural ethic. In the final analysis, I believe that the university is lost.

20%

clipped from pajamasmedia.com UH OH: Foreign policy polling badly. “The latest Fox News/Opinion Dymanic poll is chock-full of bad news for the president. But on foreign policy, the results are nothing short of stunning. On who they trust more to decide the next steps in Afghanistan, 66 percent say military commanders, while only 20 percent say the president. Even Democrats have more faith in the military commanders (by a 45 to 37 percent margin). On Iran, 69 percent say Obama has not been tough enough, including 55 percent of Democrats. Sixty-one percent favor a U.S. military action, if needed, to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Fifty-one percent think Obama apologizes for American too much. . . . In short, Obama has already achieved what it took Jimmy Carter an entire term to attain: the conviction of a large majority of the American people that he is not protecting our interests or performing adequately as commander in chief.”

A Fool And His Lap

clipped from pajamasmedia.com I suppose it’s a tribute to the president’s tenacity, or perhaps his inability to think outside the box of conventional wisdom, but he seems to be totally unwilling to accept a Divine gift. the Iranian regime is on the edge of doom.  The events of the past few weeks demonstrate that the Iranian people will no longer accept repression, and the security forces are no longer able to shut down the demonstrations.  On “Quds Day,” there were too many people in the streets, and the Revolutionary Guards and Basij could only stand by. The leader of the opposition Green Path of Hope, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has long said that any government he heads will terminate support for terrorism and open the country’s nuclear facilities to international inspection, thereby ameliorating all three of Obama’s major headaches with Tehran. But Obama does not seem to recognize the golden opportunity that has fallen into his lap.

Fountain Of Youth Update

clipped from www.breitbart.com The fountain of youth may exist after all, as a study showed that scientists have discovered means to extend the lifespan of mice and primates. The key to eternal -- or at least prolonged -- youth lies in genetic manipulation that mimics the health benefits of reducing calorie intake, suggesting that aging and age-related diseases can be treated. Scientists from the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London (UCL) extended the lifespan of mice by up to a fifth and reduced the number of age-related diseases affecting the animals after they genetically manipulated them to block production of the S6 Kinase 1 (S6K1) protein. The genetically altered female mice lived 20 percent longer -- living a total of 950 days -- or over 160 days more than their normal counterparts. Male mice showed little difference in lifespan although they also demonstrated some of the health benefits "We are suddenly much closer to treatments for aging than we thought," said David Gems of UCL

Against Us

clipped from pajamasmedia.com INDIANS VS. ENVIRONMENTALISTS: Navajo tribes say environmentalists not welcome on reservations. “Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. and Hopi lawmakers say environmentalists’ efforts could hurt the tribes’ struggling economies by slowing or stopping coal mining. . . . ‘Environmentalists are good at identifying problems but poor at identifying feasible solutions,’ Shirley said in a news release. ‘Most often they don’t try to work with us but against us, giving aid and comfort to those opposed to the sovereign decision-making of tribes.’”

Hamilton's Curse

clipped from www.youtube.com

Today's Obama/ACORN/SEIU "Surprise"

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com With the revelation that White House Director of Political Affairs, Patrick Gaspard, has close ties to Bertha Lewis and to ACORN, Matthew Vadum and Erick Erickson appear to be onto something significant. While the Gaspard matter needs further investigation before we form any hard conclusions, it certainly seems to confirm that President Obama’s ties to a whole series of ACORN-controlled organizations are neither minor nor by any means long-past. There’s been a good deal of attention to ACORN of late, and deservedly so. Yet for all the fuss, what is arguably the most important Obama-ACORN tie of all has gotten short shrift. During the 2008 election, Obama’s close links to the far-left New Party were revealed and explored (although not by the mainstream press). Yet many seem to have forgotten that the New Party, particularly in Chicago, was dominated by ACORN (and by an ACORN-controlled SEIU union local).

Ignored

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Charles Gasparino reports that, although they will not admit anything of the sort in public, people like Morgan Stanley's John Mack, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Greg Fleming (once at Merrill Lynch), JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, who backed Obama at the time of the financial crisis last Fall, are now, in private, expressing grave misgivings. Even more to the point, he reports, I'm told that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers have both complained to senior Wall Street execs that they have almost no say in major policy decisions. Obama economic counselor Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, is barely consulted at all on just about anything -- not even issues involving the banking system, of which he is among the world's leading authorities. At most, the economic people and their staffs get asked to do cost analyses of Obama's initiatives for the White House political people -- who then ignore their advice.

But Not Until After The Mid-Term Election I'm Guessing

clipped from finance.yahoo.com WASHINGTON (AP) -- To prevent inflation from taking off, the Federal Reserve will need to start boosting interest rates quickly and aggressively once the economy is back on firmer footing, Fed officials warned Tuesday. "I expect that when it comes time to tighten monetary policy, my colleagues and I will move with an alacrity that, if needed, will be equal in speed and intensity" to when the Fed was slashing rates to battle the recession and the financial crisis, said Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Although Fisher has a reputation for being one of the Fed's toughest inflation fighters, it marked the second such warning by a central bank official in recent days. Fed member Kevin Warsh on Friday said the central bank will need to move swiftly when the time comes to raise rates.

Now The Pain Is Almost Gone

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Various interest groups use patently bogus statistics to try to convince us that socialized medicine would be a good thing. But those who live under government medicine have a different story to tell: When the pain in Christina Woodkey's legs became so severe that she could no long hike or cross-country ski, she went to her local health clinic. The Calgary, Canada, resident was told she'd need to see a hip specialist. Because the problem was not life-threatening, however, she'd have to wait about a year. she drove across the border into Montana and got the $50,000 surgery done in two days. When the relationship between supply and demand is broken by government controls, one common if not inevitable result is rationing by queue. Thus, in the Soviet Union you had to stand in line for hours to buy milk. In Canada (and anywhere else where socialized medicine prevails), you have to wait in line for months or years for medical treatment. Costs are saved because many patients die waiting.

Pluto Was The Correct Answer

clipped from www.youtube.com

Too Late

clipped from pajamasmedia.com It is events in the United States that have really provoked the crisis. European socialism was fantasy viable only while the US successfully performed the role of global system administrator. With Barack Obama crashing subsystem after subsystem, the socialist appendages are powering down. Without free energy from the capitalist system they despise, socialism is indeed doomed. What no one anticipated was how quickly the end might come. It would be really interesting if the key problem in the next few years turned out to be not about how to defeat the left, but how to survive the maelstrom left by its sinking. There is some sense in the Left that things are no longer the same. But that’s a mistake. They have never changed. Mr. Judt argues that European Socialists need a new message — how to reform capitalism, “recognizing the centrality of economic interest while displacing it from its throne as the only way of talking about politics.” Maybe its too late for that now.

Not So Hot

clipped from www.climateaudit.org The quote of the week is: I hardly know where to begin in terms of commentary on this difference. - Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit in Yamal: A “Divergence” Problem The graph above shows what happens to the “Hockey Stick” after additional tree ring data, recently released (after a long and protracted fight over data access) is added to the analysis of Hadley’s archived tree ring data in Yamal, Russia. All of the sudden, it isn’t the “hottest period in 2000 years” anymore.

A Sunny Day

clipped from online.wsj.com At the heart of the problem is not simply the nuclear program. It is the Iranian regime, a regime that has, since 1979, relentlessly waged war against the U.S. and its allies. The brutality without is more than matched by the brutality within—the rape, torture and summary execution of civilians by the tens of thousands, down, quite literally, to the present day. This is a corrupt, fanatical, ruthless and unprincipled regime It is, therefore, in the American interest to break with past policy and actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Not by invasion, which this administration would not contemplate and could not execute, but through every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard. And if, as is most likely, President Obama presides over the emergence of a nuclear Iran, he had best prepare for storms that will make the squawks of protest against his health-care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day.

Poles For Nothing, And Your Kicks For Holocaust

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com The administration has sought to display a united front with its partners in the talks -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. But Russia and China are especially wary of imposing more sanctions beyond those contained in three U.N. Security Council resolutions aiming at deterring Iran. Russian officials on Monday began backing off from statements made last week by President Dmitry Medvedev suggesting that Russian resistance to sanctions was weakening. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agencies that the missile launches were "worrisome" but added, "I am convinced restraint is needed." Similarly, a Foreign Ministry source told Russian news agencies that Western powers needed to restrain themselves. Both Russia and China have veto power on the U.N. Security Council, and reluctance by either to support additional sanctions would make it extremely difficult and time-consuming to erect additional international measures.

The Terrorist Arm Of The Democratic Party

clipped from brianakira.wordpress.com Robert Byrd (D-W.Va., KKK): “I will never fight with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” Robert Byrd is part of a long tradition in US Democratic Party politics. That of the K.K.K. Robert Byrd filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. His comrade, Al Gore Sr., vehemently opposed the bill, as did most of their fellow Democrat senators. Robert Byrd opposed the nominations of the Supreme Court’s two black justices, liberal Thurgood Marshall and conservative Clarence Thomas. Robert Byrd’s press secretary Tom Gavin is not sure whether Senator Byrd lynched any Black people or not. History shows that the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democrat Party.

The U.N.: International ACORN

clipped from washingtonindependent.com “It’s time to say enough of the American taxpayer’s dollar being spent on something that may have been a noble idea, but has become a disgrace!” said Huckabee. “It has become the international equivalent of ACORN and it’s time to say enough!” Huckabee continued, suggesting that the U.N. be handed over to one of the nations that attacked America. “Let’s end the diplomatic excesses that these people enjoy,” he said. “Let any country that is willing to spend the money that the United States is hosting–let them have it. Give it to the Saudis and let these diplomats suck the sand out of the Saudi desert for a few summers and see if that’s where they’d like to go, and make their ridiculous speeches.”

It Only Gets Worse

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Electing an unqualified ultra-left punk on the basis of his skin color, Muslim name, and ability to keep a straight face while reading outrageous lies off a teleprompter has been a disaster in all other respects, but at least the rest of the world loves and respects us now that we've abandoned the concept of acting in our own interest, and have embarked on a policy of "engagement" with our enemies. That is, the rest of the world, with the exception of our friends. Here's the view from India: He may not relish the comparison but it is now becoming increasingly obvious that Mr Barack Obama is the most hostile American President for India since Richard Nixon. In the eight months he has been in office, Mr Obama has snubbed India more than once. He has sent repeated signals that New Delhi is not integral to his Asian security architecture. Partly as a result of his country's economic crisis, he has bent over backwards to accommodate China.

COTD #2: ACORN-a-rama

clipped from esr.ibiblio.org Ways of Looking at an ACORN ACORN: Alien Children Offered Regularly Nationwide ACORN: Authorities Caught One Registering “Napoleon” ACORN: Assembly of the Complacent: Organized, Registered & Non-productive! ACORN: Association of Crooks O’Keefe Revealed in a Nanosecond ACORN: “Audacity” and “Change” that Obama Represents Nationally ACORN: Assorted Crazies, Oddballs, Reprobates, and Nincompoops ACORN: Association of Criminals Obama Represented in the Nineties ACORN: Advising Criminals, Organizing Radical Nutjobs ACORN: Assisting Call-girls, Obama, Reid & Nancy ACORN: Advancing Communism, Obamamania, Reparations Now! ACORN: After Clinton, Obama Retards a Nation ACORN: Alike Carter, Obama is Regretful and Negative ACORN: America, Could Obama Resign Now?? ACORN: Against Conservatives, Order, Republicans, and the Nation ACORN: American Cash Outflows to Rathke’s “Nonprofits” ACORN: Apparently “Community Organizing” Really is Nefarious ACORN: Andrew Clearly Outplayed the Resentful NYT

COTD: Fraud Machines

clipped from esr.ibiblio.org As a former Democratic campaign worker and Dem Congressional staffer, I can personally confirm your impression that ACORN-style vote fraud machines are the core competency of the party. If anyone has any doubt, they can stand outside a Dem Congressman’s campaign HQ the morning after a successful election. There’ll be a swarm of thugs passing out and collecting “walking around money”, basically bags of cash for delivering their neighborhoods. Sadly, African-American churches are another leg of the corruption stool — where black preachers auction off their ‘endorsement’ among a field of Dem candidates; with that ‘endorsement’ coming in the form of a sermon the Sunday before the election with the preacher screaming “It is your Christian duty to vote for X on Tuesday, the other guy is a RACIST.” I got disgusted with the entire machine. If only the rest of the public could see what I saw, they’d blow the Dem party up.

Bent

clipped from www.analyzethis.net Like I said, I’m a fan. His famous keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention moved me to tears. The Democrats – not to mention America – need a mixed-race spokesperson who can connect to both urban blacks and rural whites, who has the credibility to challenge the status quo on issues ranging from misogynistic rap to unfair school funding. And yet I’m disappointed. Barack’s story may be true, but many of the facts are not. His larger narrative purpose requires him to embellish his role. I don’t buy it. Just as I can’t be inspired by Steve Jobs now that I know how dishonest he is, I can’t listen uncritically to Barack Obama now that I know he’s willing to bend the facts to his purpose.

The SEIU ACORNs Don't Fall Far From The Blago

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com One needn't be a mathematician to imagine what a national health-care option might mean to a union in search of new dues-paying recruits. The SEIU, which has promised "to fight tooth and nail" for a public option, is demonstrably persuasive. In Illinois, former governor Blagojevich (thank you for your patience) helped position the SEIU so that it could unionize health-care workers when he signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining. The SEIU showed its appreciation in advance by becoming Blagojevich's largest contributor, handing over $1.8 million for his two gubernatorial campaigns. Now that's community organization.

Slippery Slope To Nannysitting

clipped from www.riehlworldview.com Just when you thought he might be done, apparently access to babysitting services on weekends is a civil right in Obama world. At the very least, I'm sure taxpayers might object to having to pay for this right now. Update: Geesh! As Glenn points out and links, government looking at fining a woman for watching another's kids before the school bus arrives? They aren't nuts, they're just making it so no one but the state can be involved in child care while consistently eroding the bonds of family. Whether by overall design or not, the only destination for such misguided thought is the state, only the state and everything for the state. This is dangerous stuff slipping by mostly under the radar with out people putting the pieces together. Call it the slippery slope to tyranny, or not. But it's an undeniable, alarming trend driven by statists who couch themselves as representatives of the people.

Stopped

clipped from wizbangblog.com Is McCain a racist and closet white supremacist? Charles says he is, and offers his proof. McCain says he isn't, offers some proof, but mainly mocks the whole concept. My conclusion? I don't know, but if McCain is, he's one of the worst ones ever. I've read a bunch of his articles, and if anything I have a slightly diminished opinion of my fellow white people. If the white supremacist movement is counting on McCain to push their agenda, they oughta demand their money back. So, in complete disinterest in the minutiae of the fighting going on between Johnson and McCain, I've pretty much stopped reading Little Green Footballs -- and started reading The Other McCain semi-regularly. I'll still use LGF's archives when appropriate, as Charles hasn't started scrubbing his own articles yet, and they're still tremendously valuable.

COTD: Taxarado

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Colorado's Guv'nuh Bill Ritter, in order to erase tons of red ink in the state's budget plans to close two mental health care facilities. The residents are seriosly mentally ill--schizophrenia, delusions etc. He also plans to release about 6,000 prisoners from the state's prisons. Of course, we all know these prisoners will all go out and become gainfully employed and become perfect model citizens, by paying taxes,becoming homeowners and otherwise blending back into society. Speaking of paying taxes, there will be plenty of responsibilty to go around as Guv'nuh Ritter plans on raising taxes for one and all. I saw two signs last weekend (Sept. 19/20) on a road trip along Interstate-70. "Governor Ritter welcomes you to Taxarado." November 2010 can't roll around soon enough!

Take One Tablet Rectally

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

A Book From My Neighbour

clipped from www.thefirstpost.co.uk The long-held suspicion in American right-wing circles that Barack Obama was not the sole author - not even the lead author - of his brilliantly received 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, has been rekindled by the publication of a new book about the Obamas, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage. The book by Christopher Andersen, author of a string of unauthorised celebrity biographies, has received considerable media coverage in recent days because of its claim that Barack and Michelle came close to splitting up. She apparently was bitter about her husband devoting too much time to his political ambitions and not enough to his family. the book has opened a can of worms concerning the provenance of Dreams From My Father. It appears to support the theory that Obama needed considerable help to produce Dreams - labeled by Time magazine "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician" - and yet has never owned up to using a ghost writer

the abOlitionist

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com President Obama's dream of a world without nuclear weapons seems more like a nightmare to Russia and other nations that possess doomsday arms. Obama is pushing on a door that is closed, barred from inside and locked with a key that has been thrown away as far as the Kremlin is concerned. This harsh reality does not mean that the president should abandon his effort, which is a useful tool in his broader, more urgent campaign to change America's image abroad. It does mean that Obama should temper his rhetoric and avoid adding atomic abolition to the growing list of subjects that he oversells and then seems to struggle to control. See: health care, bankers' bonuses and the Middle East. As the country slashes its bloated and expensive conventional forces, we were told, the only way to maintain influence in world affairs (and presumably to guard against a Chinese invasion of mineral-rich but thinly populated Siberia) is to have a smaller but more effective, permanent nuclear arsenal.

The Festival

clipped from drsanity.blogspot.com We are experiencing a festival of liberal hypocrisy on the Afghan war, as all the left-wing doves who touted the war as absolutely essential for years back off now that it's no longer a politically convenient war.... Read it all. But we always knew it would come to this, didn't we? The left has no real principles except the desire for power; no real moral compass except for spinning moral relativism...they waft around like feathers in the ever-changing political winds. They were "willing to use any club with which to beat the Bush administration and to trumpet the amazing qualities of Barack Obama." And like the messiah they adore, they will vote "present" on Afghanistan, then shrug their shoulders, ignore the advice of their Generals, and then say, "What more could we do?". Pathetic.

Index Records And Divided Loyalty

Leo Donofrio has come to the conclusion that to finally get at the actual "he can't be a natural born citizen since his father was a foreigner" issue of Obama's divided loyalties he's going to need to clear away the "Obama birth certificate" quagmire first.

He believes that Obama was likely born in Hawaii but realized together with one of his commenters (TerriK) that there was something fishy about the recent confirmations of Obama's "NBC" status from Hawaiian officials. Specifically, they referred to multiple original records (plural!) that they referred to in making their verification. This would lead a reasonable person to believe that Obama's birth records have been amended.

Leo is now working to understand Hawaii's freedom of information laws and determine what information that the officials used in their determination should in fact be shared with the public. For instance it appears that the Hawaii Attorney General rendered an opinion to them that itself should be made public. It also appears that "index data", though limited in the amount of information it contains, cannot be denied according to Hawaii statute:

(d) Index data consisting of name and sex of the registrant, type of vital event, and such other data as the director may authorize shall be made available to the public.

So what is index data? At the top of this post is what death record (not birth record) index data looks like on the North Dakota state website. I shrunk and redacted it to protect myself but this is the list of death records that includes my Father and Aunt. As you can see there are two records displayed. The minimum information I had to enter to get it was last name and a date range for when the death occurred. In this case I entered my last name and dates spanning the decade of the 90s which was when both of them passed away.

So if there are birth records (plural) for Obama, you might see something listed like the original birth record and also an entry at some later time for an amendment (who knows what).

However, North Dakota does not have an open index such as the above of birth records and to get access to them you need to go through what appears to be a third party (Lexis-Nexis) company called VitalChek and as part of that process you need to show specific interest and send them a copy of your ID, etc. There does not appear to be an online search-able database birth event index data like there is of death event data. (And not all states seem to have open death index data like North Dakota does -- I do not currently have the time to do an inventory of what the various states do. I just had something interesting I could look for in North Dakota even though I no longer live there.)

It seems very clear based on the Hawaii open information statutes that the public should at minimum be able to gain access to Obama's birth index data if not his actual certificate as people have been hoping for.

My guess is that if necessary -- that is if Leo starts to get too close to the truth -- there will be an emergency session of the Hawaii legislature to retroactively rewrite this law. Pardon my lack of faith in our current kakistocracy but that's my take. That or they'll just keep saying no even if Leo nails them to the wall technically.

Ironically, I just (re-)ran across something that made me believe even more in Leo's argument that the founders were requiring two citizen parents AND birth on U.S. soil to qualify as NBC. In going through the yearly "Standards of Business Conduct" training materials for my company, a key point that's hammered home is that while "outside employment" is not "forbidden", the standards do "forbid any outside work that could lead to divided loyalties."

Shockingly ethical isn't it? And of course the Obama argument implies that the founders were not smart enough to apply this common sense approach. Not.

Leo has concisely summarized John Jay's revision of Alexander Hamilton's draft:

The question presented then is whether the US is willing to allow persons who were born without sole allegiance to the US to be Commander in Chief of our military.

For it is this specific fear that prompted our first Supreme Court Chief Justice – John Jay – to suggest to George Washington the following:

Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.

This letter was written on July 25, 1787. It is in direct response to Alexander Hamilton’s suggested Presidential requirement appearing in the first draft of the Constitution wherein Hamilton – five weeks earlier – on June 18, 1787 submitted the following:

No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.

There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation.

There is no reason to believe that the standard that corporations use today to protect their own interests should be more stringent than that which protects the very survival of our Republic.

If you weren't born on U.S. soil, that's a potential for divided loyalities.

If one of your parents wasn't a citizen, that's another -- and potentially even more dangerous -- potential.

Both matter and need to be proscribed for the CinC.

And as Leo has done such a remarkable job of elucidating, the historical record has plenty of support for this common sense position.

UPDATE: Even better, I have come up with a little experiment that you can perform directly here.

Go to the link above and enter “Johnston” in the last name field and “01/01/2000″ thru “01/01/2009″ in the date fields and hit the search button. Interesting, no? (The name is not related to me or my family as was the [therefore redacted] example in my post -- I just experimented until I found something useful.)

Now you can know first hand what Leo's talking about when he says index data! In fact, this is richer index data than the Hawaii statute requires probably because it’s death rather than birth “index data” and thereby less prone to fraud abuse (as well as being from a different state with different requirements).

[Also fixed typo from 'less' to 'more' stringent.]

The Temporary

clipped from www.newsweek.com The other is the wry reflection that when the Gingrich Republicans briefly closed the federal government, they necessitated the recruitment of temporary workers and part-time interns such as Monica Lewinsky. A more ironic writer would have pointed out that by this accidental means the GOP eventually did get Clinton where it wanted him, and made him do to himself what his worst enemies could not accomplish. For the amazingly sincere Taylor Branch, it came as a visceral shock that Clinton eventually confessed (almost) everything, and did so just when Mrs. Branch had loyally gone to work for Mrs. Clinton. The "Friends of Bill," who had many times heard him swear that his bad old ways would not embarrass them yet again, were mostly without words on this occasion.

hOpenchange

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com Nice work libs. 66% of the country is angry with the radical far left agenda Pelosi and Obama are pushing on America. 36% are very angry. And, get this... 59% say the current level of anger is worse than it was during the Bush years!

More Likely

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com We should also consider the possible impact on Russia's thinking of another recent, and insufficiently noted, development -- Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Russia. Naturally, we don't know what Netanyahu told the Russians. However, it's pretty clear that he didn't make this unprecedented trip just to chit-chat. One can easily imagine that Netanyahu said, or strongly intimated, that Israel is prepared to attack Iran unless Russia gets "back on side" (Tisdall's phrase) with respect to sanctions. I'd like to think that Obama and Netanyahu engaged in concerted action -- Obama providing the carrot and Netanyahu the stick. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that the two did, or would, collaborate to that degree. It seems more likely that Netanyahu went to Russia precisely because he had lost any faith in the ability or willingness of the U.S. to influence Russian behavior.

Mel's World

clipped from pajamasmedia.com “We are being threatened with death,” he told the Herald. And he predicted that soon, mercenaries would storm the embassy to assassinate him. The Herald article does not say if Zelaya was referring to the same Israeli mercenaries that were bombarding him with high-frequency radiation — but in Mel’s World, the possibilities are endless and nothing can be too outrageous. Yet with all his peculiarities and criminal activities, the Obama administration, the UN, the OAS, and the EU have all joined hands with the likes of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez to call for his reinstatement. According to these supporters, what is best for Honduras is the leadership of an egocentric criminal who believes he is being attacked by Israeli mercenaries using high-frequency radiation. One would like to think that such a prestigious and law-abiding group of nations and world organizations would avoid and denounce a character such as Zelaya. But as we have already learned, anything is possible in Mel’s World.

gOing glObal II

clipped from article.nationalreview.com According to Obama, a highlight in his nine months of redemptive accomplishments was his decision to join the Human Rights Council, a corrupt, farcically bureaucratic carbuncle designed to vilify Israel and whitewash the abuses of evil regimes. Critics say we should not lend it more authority. But by Obama’s logic, such concerns are rooted in old arguments and ancient, irrelevant cleavages. Meanwhile, 53 paragraphs into a 63-paragraph speech, Obama said that we should not view the principles of democracy as an afterthought.

gOing glObal

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Of course, Obama’s objection isn’t to physical walls but figurative ones. His real point is that the cult of unity that marked the worst excesses of his presidential campaign should go global. “Old arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people,” he says. Rather, “the interests of nations and peoples are shared.” The problem with this notion of shared interests is not that it’s untrue, but that it’s a half-truth. Some interests are shared, others not. It was in Poland’s interest for us to honor our commitment on missile defense. Obama concluded that it was better for us to appease Russia’s interests. A core attitude unites Obama’s domestic and foreign-policy visions: Principled disagreements are not legitimate if they do not conform to the president’s agenda, be it on health care domestically or global warming and nuclear disarmament internationally. Call it a progressive version of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”