Wednesday March 10th, 2010



World & National News

Massa Fumbles in Beck Interview

Fox News host Glenn Beck apologized to his viewers for “wasting your time” Tuesday after an interview in which former New York Rep. Eric Massa seemingly backtracked on his allegations that he was forced to resign over his opposition to Obamacare.

“We learned a lot I think, but what we learned I don’t think affects you at all,” Beck said, shaking his head and laughing at the conclusion of his hour-long interview with Massa, who resigned his office Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

GOP, Dems Squaqre Off over Mass Ethics Flap

Republican lawmakers may call for further investigation into the sexual harassment charges against former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), prompting Democrats to accuse the GOP of attempting to exploit the situation.

Massa, to the chagrin of Democrats, has kept himself in the spotlight over the past week, most recently with a set of extended television interviews last night in which he gave contradictory statements about whether or not he had ever "groped" male staffers. At one point, Massa said he had "groped" a staffer but not in a sexual way.


Are peace talks doomed before they start?
There is a deep reason the majority of Israelis and Palestinians can't move toward the two-state solution.

After more than a year in which both Obama and Netanyahu have been in office, the truly minuscule movement of resuming indirect peace talks is currently the only achievement on the peace front. Whose fault is this? The Middle East has been prone to an endless blame game. The Palestinians accuse Israel of not wanting peace, and justifiably point to the proliferation of settlements in the West Bank. Israeli commentators point out that the Palestinians have opted out every time Israel proposes something that they should accept, as in the Taba Summit of 2001 and during Olmert's talks with Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas).

This discussion does not only take place between Palestinians and Israelis, but also inside Israel.

'Jihad Jane' indictment shows terror's evolution

The self-described "Jihad Jane" who thought her blond hair and blue eyes would let her blend in as she sought to kill an artist in Sweden is a rare case of an American woman aiding in foreign terrorism and shows the evolution of the global threat, authorities say.

The suburban Philadelphia woman, Colleen R. LaRose, is accused in the indictment filed Tuesday of trying to recruit fighters, as well as agreeing to murder the artist, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to Europe and martyr herself if necessary.

Obama pushing end game

President Barack Obama is pushing a new anti-fraud plan and his top health official is challenging the nation's insurers as the administration cranks up the pressure for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's medical system.

Obama is to speak Wednesday in suburban St. Louis, his second health care address in three days. His speech comes as congressional Democrats stand on the brink of delivering the president a dramatic success with passage of his massive overhaul legislation — or a colossal failure if they can't get it done.

Chief justice unsettled by Obama crticism of Supremes

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told law students Tuesday that he found it "very troubling" to be surrounded by loudly cheering critics at President Obama's State of the Union address, saying it was reason enough for the justices not to attend the annual speech to Congress.

"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we are there," Roberts said at the University of Alabama School of Law.

Obama's speech in January came a week after the high court ruled 5 to 4 that corporations had a free-speech right to spend unlimited sums to elect or defeat candidates for office.


House Dems seek to limit earmarks?

Seeking to reclaim the reform mantle amid a series of scandals, House Democratic leaders are advocating a move that would shake up the multibillion-dollar practice of awarding no-bid contracts known as congressional earmarks.

Democrats are pushing for a new rule that would most likely forbid earmarked expenditures to private, for-profit contractors for at least one year. Such businesses reap billions annually in federal grants directed their way by individual lawmakers, particularly from the Pentagon's budget.


Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 22% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

Forty-two percent (42%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 72% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 17% Strongly Approve and 45% Strongly Disapprove.


Israeli housing push hits peace moves

Israel on Tuesday revealed plans to build a further 1,600 housing units in a Jewish settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, a move Washington was quick to condemn for its impact on US-backed peace talks. The Israeli decision coincided with a visit by Joe Biden, the US vice-president and the country’s most senior official to travel to Israel since Barack Obama took office last year. It also came a day after the Palestinian Authority dropped opposition to a new round of indirect peace talks with Israel – a promise that may be in doubt.

“The substance and timing of the announcement ... is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now,” Mr Biden said in condemning Israel’s move. “We must build an atmosphere to support negotiations, not complicate them.”

Some Troops Could Leave Afghanistan Early

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the possibility Wednesday that some of the U.S. forces involved in the Afghanistan surge could leave the country before President Barack Obama's announced July 2011 date to begin withdrawal.

Without giving specifics, Gates said, "It would have to be conditions-based."

Gates made the remarks during a visit to a dust-blown training ground in Kabul province where Afghan soldiers come for weeks of training under U.S. and British instruction. British Brigadier Simon Levy told Gates that if NATO countries contribute more trainers, the project to expand the Afghan army will keep pace.

Reconciliation Bill Will be Hard for GOP to Stop

Democrats are tying the fate of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul to a fast-track process that will make the bill tough for Republicans to derail in the Senate. But GOP lawmakers will still be able to force votes and make arguments that could give them ammunition for November's congressional elections.

Some questions and answers about the reconciliation process, which has itself become controversial as the health care debate enters its end stage.

California's College Dreamers
When will students figure out the politicians have sold them out?

Hundreds of University of California students rallied against a 32% tuition hike last week. Let's hope their future employers get a better work product. With just a little research, the students could have discovered that compensation packages won from the state by unions were a big reason for the hike.

Last year, the state cut funding to the 10-campus system to $2.6 billion from $3.25 billion. To make up for the reduction in state funding, the UC Board of Regents increased tuition to $10,300, about triple 1999's cost.


Justice and the 'al Qaeda 7'
Lawyers shouldn't be "demonized with impunity," says the New York Times. So why did the Times do just that?

"Demagogues on the right are smearing loyal Americans as disloyal and charging that the government is being undermined from within," thumps the New York Times in an editorial:

    These voices--often heard on Fox News--are going after Justice Department lawyers who represented Guantánamo detainees when they were in private practice. It is not nearly enough to say that these lawyers did nothing wrong. In fact, they upheld the highest standards of their profession and advanced the cause of democratic justice. The Justice Department is right to stand up to this ugly bullying.

The controversy began when Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Attorney General Eric Holder for information about Justice Department lawyers who previously represented terrorist detainees.



Waiting for Godot
The Obama Years
    by Geoff Metcalf
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
        -- Bertrand Russell

Reasonable people can (or should be able to) reasonably disagree if or when they honestly consider facts that may contradict their preconceived opinions and prejudices. However, unfortunately, especially in the partisan environment of politics, reason, honest analysis and fairness too quickly become victims of the “us versus them” thing.  Politics has become a blood sport where the only golden rule is “the team with the gold makes the rules”.

Politicians who were elected to represent the best interests, wants and desires of their constituents, morph into petty, agenda driven competitors quick to eschew reason for partisanship. Sadly, this axiomatic reality is universal and not exclusive to any one party. Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise. However, increasingly, politics is a blood sport personifying the absolute worse elements of abuse of power under the color of authority.

President Barack Obama, a year after promising "change" and a Kumbaya tsunami of bi-partisan cooperation, now reluctantly admits he has not succeeded in bringing the country together. In a recent People magazine interview, the president begrudgingly  acknowledged an atmosphere of divisiveness that has washed away the lofty national feeling surrounding his inauguration a year ago. 'That's what's been lost this year ... that whole sense of changing how  Washington works,' Obama said.

"What I haven't been able to do in the midst of this crisis is bring the country together in a way that we had done in the Inauguration," he said, referring to last January 20 when hundreds of thousands flooded into Washington to see him sworn in as America's first black president...before reality and buyer's remorse.

The simple reality is Obama has failed because he and his party's leadership (or critics will argue LACK of leadership) have failed...failed to do what they said they would do...and failed to do anything the "way" they promised.  

Notwithstanding lofty eloquance, concensus and "unity' cannot be mandated by imperial decree. Partisan acrimony is not and cannot be bridled by harangue, bullying or bludgeon.  Politics is the art of compromise and the facts in evidence demonstrate that this administration and this Democrat led congress has not been disposed to engage in compromise. Rather the democrats have embraced a hamfisted "our way or the highway" forced imposition of their will.  

Now, in the wake of  spelunking poll numbers, rampant buyers remorse, and a previously unimagined nostalgia for the Carter administration, democrats seem shocked, amazed and confused that over half the country does not approve of not only what they are trying to do, but how they are doing it.  Blaming the dark sky and coming ice age on Bush (or Reagan or Nixon or Eisenhower or Lincoln) is a worn out dog that flat out ain't gonna hunt.

When Mr. Cool was promising "change" little did ANYone assume that change might result in a republican winning Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat.

It is a sad reality that at the same time our military has significantly improved the quality of the U.S. Troops who serve, the civilian leadership and politicians have regressed to a level reminisent of uneducated fuedal bullies. The military is smarter, more fit, better equipped, and as committed as any generation from Valley Forge to Iwo Jima or Pleiku to Bosnia. We have an all-volunteer military that is dedicated to protecting YOU. Conversely, the political arena is littered with disingenuous, duplicitous partisans who long since have abadoned their constituents for the next political victory (and/or pork laden earmark).

I have recently re-read Dr. Robert Humphrey's 'Living Values for a New Millenium' in preparation for an upcoming  February seminar.

In a 1997 speech before he passed away, Dr. Humphrey said, top leadership, in both our civilian or military government, is afraid even to discuss this apparent decisive need for new thinking both at home and overseas.  It was 13 years ago he observed, the news media and public opinion polls advise, "The people sense a moral bankruptcy in Washington" with a bickering inability in government to face these deeper problems.

Wherever you go, you are little bit safer because of the military and yet more at risk because of the coat room schenanigans of congress. Wherever the military sets a boot EVERYONE has a friend, a defender and a champion. However politicians seem more concerned about the next PAC contribution than the wants, needs or well being of the very people they were elected to represent.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard once wrote,“Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush—sophistry washed down with Chardonnay.”