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

OUR DAILY SNIPPETS ARE HERE.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2010

NOW HERE'S A SURPRISE – AT 8:34 P.M. ET:  We usually don't think of Howard Dean, former presidential candidate and Democratic national chairman, as a voice of reason, but miracles do happen.  From the New York Post:

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, in a surprise move Wednesday, became the second high profile Democrat to come out against the building of a cultural center and mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero.

“This is something that we ought to be able to work out with people of good faith," Dean said in an interview with WABC radio.

"We have to understand that it is a real affront to people who’ve lost their lives, including Muslims.

"That site doesn’t belong to any particular religion … So I think a good reasonable compromise could be worked out without violating the principle that people ought to be able to worship as they see fit.”

Well, okay, a moment of sanity.  Maybe sanity comes to those who read numbers correctly.  A new poll just out shows that Americans who've formed an opinion reject President Obama's endorsement of the mosque, and by a sizable margin:

Most Americans who have an opinion about President Barack Obama’s comments on the Islamic community center to be built near ground zero don’t approve of what he said, according to a new Gallup Poll.

Out of just more than 1,000 adults contacted Tuesday, 37 percent said they disapproved of the comments Obama made at a Friday night Ramadan dinner, at which he said developers had a right to build the center, which would include a mosque. Only 20 percent said they approved, and the rest didn’t have an opinion.

Maybe it would be a good idea for liberals and their allies among the American elites to stop labeling everyone who opposes the mosque as a racist or a bigot.  Might offend tens of millions of Americans, not a good idea in an election year.

August 18, 2010        Permalink

THE NEW AXIS – AT 8:05 P.M. ET:  In World War II the Axis referred to Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and imperial Japan.  Now a new axis is forming, consisting of Iran and its new allies around the world.  There is a strange airline flight coming out of Tehran that symbolizes this new axis:

WASHINGTON - Iran Air 744 is a bimonthly flight that originates in Tehran and flies directly to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The maiden flight was Feb. 2, 2007.

The mere existence of the flight was a significant concern for U.S. intelligence officials, but now a broader concern is who and what are aboard the flights.

"If you [a member of the public] tried to book yourself a seat on this flight and it doesn't matter whether it's a week before, a month before, six months before -- you'll never find a place to sit there," says Offer Baruch, a former Israeli Shin Bet agent.

Baruch, now vice president of operations for International Shield, a security firm in Texas, says the plane is reserved for Iranian agents, including "Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and other intelligence personnel."

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials fear the flight is a shadowy way to move people and weapons to locations in Latin America that can be used as staging points for retaliatory attacks against the U.S. or its interests in the event Iranian nuclear sites are struck by U.S. or Israeli military forces.

And...

In addition to speculation about who is aboard, there are significant concerns that the Boeing 747SP airplane might be transporting uranium to Tehran on the return flight. The U.S. government has enacted strong sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program and there are worries the flight might provide an opportunity to skirt the embargo against materials that might be used for the program.

The U.S. Government, under Obama, has its usual dynamic reaction:

In a statement, the State Department says, "Nations have the right to enter into cooperative relationships with other nations."

Yeah, okay boss, and people have a right to build a mosque at Ground Zero.

COMMENT:  There have, for years, been concerns about radical Islamist infiltration of Latin America, made much easier by the fact that an America-hating regime exists in Venezuela.  We now how porous our southern border is.  How difficult would it be to smuggle agents or even light equipment across that border?

And while this is happening, the Obama Justice Department is suing Arizona.

August 18, 2010     Permalink

HILLARY TO DEFENSE? – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  This speculation was inevitable.  From Politics Daily:

Speculation is bubbling at the prospect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton becoming Secretary of Defense upon Robert Gates's retirement in 2011.

Gates, the only Republican holdover from the Bush Administration, recently told "Foreign Policy" magazine that he planned to step down next year.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail to reporters, "This is not Secretary Gates announcing his retirement. This is the secretary musing about when it would make sense for him to finally bow out. He has long said he would not serve the whole term and now he has told Foreign Policy that he thinks it best to leave with enough time on the administration's clock for his successor to be effective."

Still, it was enough to set off a name game of possible replacements, including Clinton. If Clinton accepted the position, she would be the first woman to hold it – another milestone in a historic political career.

Hmm.  Interesting, and possible.  On the positive side, Clinton could see Defense as another ticket punched, another qualification for the presidency:  First lady, senator, secretary of defense, secretary of state.  She could also polish her "patriotic" credentials, not bad in an era when the country seems to be moving to the right.  There's Hillary on the carrier, in the cockpit, with the troops in Afghanistan.

Negative:  She'd be stuck holding the bag for Obama's failures, especially if he demands premature withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Why go down with a sinking ship?

Clinton would certainly be preferable to some of the names thrown about, especially the unspeakable Republican turncoat Chuck Hagel.  And she'd be acceptable to both parties, avoiding a bloody confirmation battle in the Senate. 

Stand by.  I have no doubt the speculation will grow if it looks like Gates is really departing.

August 18, 2010      Permalink

THIS IS DISGRACEFUL, ABSOLUTELY DESPICABLE – AT 8:37 A.M. ET:  How low can the Democratic left go?  Well, maybe we're finding out.  Reader Brian Kuhn alerts us to this:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco's KCBS radio: 

"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."

And these are the same people who constantly shout "McCarthyism."  They, including Pelosi, are the latter-day McCarthyites.

Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million "Cordoba House" have fallen on deaf ears, though, as New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg has described such an investigation as "un-American."

So let me get this straight:  It is wrong, even un-American, to investigate the funding of the mosque, even though that funding may come from questionable sources linked to terrorism, but the speaker of the House wants to investigate the funding of those who are simply asking for sensitivity to the victims of 9-11? 

What has become of the Democratic Party?

August 18, 2010      Permalink

OH.  MAYBE BLAGO SHOULD HAVE WAITED FOR THE FACTS – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  There was heavy gloating in former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's circles yesterday when a jury convicted him of only one count after his corruption trial in Chicago.  But now the facts are out, and it's evident that one holdout juror prevented justice from being done:

One juror.

That was all it took to keep a jury from convicting former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich of trying to sell the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama, according to another juror in Blagojevich's federal corruption trial.

Instead, Blagojevich was found guilty Tuesday of just one lesser count of lying to federal agents, as jurors deadlocked on the 23 other counts against him, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial on those charges.

Blagojevich showed no emotion as the verdict was read, neither smiling nor grimacing. But afterward, he cast the outcome as a victory and vowed to appeal the one guilty verdict.

"I want the people of Illinois to know I did not lie to the FBI," Blagojevich told reporters. "I told the truth from the very beginning. This is a persecution."

After Judge James B. Zagel said he plans to call a mistrial on the remaining counts, federal prosecutors said they would retry Blagojevich "as quickly as possible."

Zagel set a hearing for Aug. 26 to decide the manner and timing of the retrial. He also said Blagojevich's bond will stay the same.

News broke later Tuesday that there was just one holdout juror blocking a conviction on the charge of trying to sell the Senate seat. The jury deadlocked 11-1 on that charge, according to another juror, Erik Sarnello of Itasca, Ill.

Sarnello, 21, said the holdout, a woman, "just didn't see what we all saw." He said the counts around the Senate seat were "the most obvious."

COMMENT:  We can't speculate on what was going through the mind of the holdout.  Was she just stubborn?  Wasn't she listening?  Did she feel sympathy for Blago?  Was she an Obama supporter trying to protect the party?  We don't know.

Things like this have happened many times before.  Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, went on trial for corruption in the early 70s, and got sprung not because of a holdout juror, but because one member of the jury, a partisan of Mitchell's, was able to mount an articulate defense of Mitchell in the jury room, persuading easily persuaded jurors.

Sometimes the one holdout juror is right.  In this case, I doubt it.

August 18, 2010     Permalink

GRIMNESS AMONG THE DEMS – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone analyzes some recent numbers and, after a word of caution about the size of the sample, comes up with a grim medical diagnosis for the congressional Democrats.

The pro-Republican group American Action Forum has conducted polls, as Jim Geraghty reports in National Review Online, in 12 East Coast House districts (East Coast in this case includes Virginia, West Virginia and Florida) currently held by Democrats. The sample size for each district is only 400, so I don’t think it’s wise to read too much into the percentages in each race. On average, voters prefer Republican candidates to Democratic candidates by a 38%-31% margin—somewhat startling, considering that every one of these districts elected a Democrat in 2008. This seems consistent with Gallup’s most recent numbers on the generic House vote, which show Democrats doing worse than at any other time since 1950, when Gallup started asking voters which party’s candidate they would vote for in House elections. Gallup shows Republicans leading 50%-43%, which is very similar to Real Clear Politics’s average of recent polls, which is 47%-41% Republican...

...It’s beginning to look like see-saw politics. Barack Obama got a higher percentage of the vote in 2008 than any other Democratic nominees in history except Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Now Democrats seem to be on the brink of doing worse in House elections than they have in any cycle since 1946.

COMMENT:  And they would deserve it.  But the votes haven't been counted, so all we can do now is fight and hope, with the emphasis on the fight.

August 18, 2010       Permalink

TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2010

HE IS FORGIVEN – AT 7:43 P.M. ET:  Bobby Thomson has died.  You never heard of him?  Then you're unfit to be an American and must move right now to someplace outside the country, like Nancy Pelosi's congressional district.

Bobby Thomson was the greatest heartbreaker in the history of sport...well, in the history of Brooklyn, New York.  It was an October day in 1951 when Thomson, of the New York Giants, facing Brooklyn Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca, fired "the shot heard 'round the world" – a home run in the decisive National League playoff game, winning the pennant for the Giants and throwing us Dodger fans into permanent depression.

I heard it live.  Our school allowed us to listen to championship baseball games involving New York teams, suspending classes if need be.  Because of our devotion to the Dodgers, we considered it a religious holiday.

And we could barely believe it when we heard the crack of the bat, a screaming announcer, and the foul words, "The Giants win the pennant!  The Giants win the pennant!"  It was Pearl Harbor all over. 

I had gym the next period.  Our coach was one of those fatherly types out of central casting – gray hair, in his fifties, a bit of a belly, with a John Wayne walk.  (You never heard of John Wayne?  Then you're...oh, forget it.)  And Coach gave us one of those philosophical homilies, weighing the profound question of whether Thomson's hit was luck or skill. 

It was luck.  Trust me on that.  All Dodger fans knew it was luck.

It was because there was no "p" in Thomson.  It brought him luck.  That's all it was. 

Ralph Branca, the pitcher, fell into disgrace.  If this were Russia, he would have been airbrushed out of all team pictures.  Thomson became a folk hero to those spirtually void New Yorkers who rooted for the Giants.  And yet, the two became the best of friends, united in the memory of what many consider the most exciting moment in the history of baseball...if you were a Giants fan, and willing to admit it. 

We forgive you, Bobby Thomson.  RIP.

August 17, 2010     Permalink

BLOOMIN' IDIOT – AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  What has happened to Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York?  In his first two terms he was a competent, if boring mayor.  Now, in his third – made possible by a waiver of the two-term limit – he acts like his imperial majesty.

First, he endorses the mosque at Ground Zero and declares from on high that anyone who opposes it should be "ashamed" of himself, alienating most of the country and even his own city.  Now he travels to Pennsylvania to endorse Democrat Joe Sestak, a supreme nonentity, against Republican Pat Toomey, in the race for a U.S. Senate seat.  Sestak, of course, also endorses the mosque.  Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral who says that he fought for "constitutional rights" during his service career.

I'm sure that a mosque at Ground Zero was one of the "rights" that caused Navy men to rally 'round the flag.  Yeah, right.

Sestak's Navy career ended under a cloud, but he refuses to release records that would illuminate the problem.

Sestak has had some odd associations with Arab groups since becoming a U.S. congressman representing a district in eastern Pennsylvania.  He is not considered a friend by pro-Israel forces.  We don't know if he's ever brought up religious tolerance to his Middle Eastern pals.

What strikes me is the utter arrogance of those who favor the mosque.  There are, in the United States, disputes about the placement of houses of worship all the time, but I've never heard one of these worthies get involved to defend "religious freedom."  There was a hot dispute involving a church just two months ago in Princeton, New Jersey, inside the New York City region.  Did we see Mike Bloomberg all agitated?

And we learned today that the only church actually destroyed in the 9-11 attacks was a Greek Orthodox church, which wants to rebuild.  Thus far it hasn't gotten permission from the Port Authority of New York, and negotiations are deadlocked.  Where is the support from anguished lovers of the First Amendment?  (We would like to see some help from this crowd when other First Amendment rights, like freedom of speech, are threatened, especially on college campuses that enact "speech codes" to be sure students are trained in political correctness.)

There are no actual "rights" involved in the Ground Zero dispute.  The right of Muslims to practice their religion is not being threatened.  There are mosques all over New York.  However, religious freedom has never included the automatic right to build a physical structure in a particular place. 

This dispute is about culture.  It's a conflict between cultural elites who believe they're being very "intellectual and multicultural" to favor the mosque, and "ordinary" American citizens, who know raw insensitivity when they see it.  The elites may get the mosque.  The citizens will get the elites.

August 17, 2010      Permalink

AND NOW FOR THE GROWN-UP WORLD – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  Just thought you'd like to be kept up to date on land-use plans in Iran:

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said Monday it has decided where to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds and will start construction on the first in March, defying international efforts to curb its nuclear program.

Enriching uranium creates fuel for nuclear power plants but can also, if taken to higher levels, produce the material for weapons and Iran's growing capacity in this process is at the center of its dispute with the international community.

The U.N. Security Council has already passed four sets of sanctions against Iran to try and force it to stop enriching uranium.

Last year, Iran flouted international concerns by claiming it would build 10 new enrichment plants and Monday's announcement revealed that the sites had been chosen and would be inside mountains, without revealing any other details.

"Construction of a new uranium enrichment site will begin by the end of the (Iranian) year (March) or early next year," Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi said. "The new enrichment facilities will be built inside mountains."

COMMENT:  Iran is moving toward the bomb, and that will dwarf all other issues.  While some economic reports suggest that the new round of sanctions is being felt in Tehran, there has been no indication that they have given the mullahs any second thoughts about pursuing their nuclear dreams. 

We learned in the last few days that Russia will begin loading uranium fuel rods into the Iranian plant at Bushehr on August 21st.  Once the fuel is in, an attack on the plant becomes extremely problematical because radioactive material will be spewed into the air.  America's former ambassador to the UN, the great John Bolton, says, "Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor."

One more famous victory for the reach out-and-go-touchy-feely foreign policy of the Obama administration.

August 17, 2010      Permalink

DAMAGE ASSESSMENT – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  In diving into the Ground Zero mosque controversy, President Obama handed the Republicans an unexpected gift.  Democratic strategists are reportedly floored, dismayed, that the president would commit such an obvious political blunder.  Damage assessment is underway, as reported by Byron York in the Washington Examiner:

Now, we are beginning to see the extent of the damage Obama's stand has done to a Democratic Party already anxious about its prospects this November. When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- normally one of the president's most reliable allies -- announces that he "thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else," then there is a problem.

Other Democrats will surely follow. While Obama's position is "defensible," former Democratic Rep. Martin Frost wrote recently in Politico, "it will not play well in the parts of the country where Democrats need the most help." According to RealClearPolitics, there are 27 House Democrats in races that now lean Republican, and there are another 30 Democrats in races that are judged toss-ups. (There are just four Republicans in races that lean Democratic or are toss-ups.) Do most of those endangered Democrats really want to spend their time defending the president's position on the Ground Zero mosque?...

...To Republican strategists, the mosque fits into a pattern of issues in which Obama is not just disconnected from the mainstream but actually opposed to the positions of a majority of Americans. Most people don't want the mosque; Obama favors it. Most people support the Arizona immigration law; Obama opposes it. Most people opposed the Democratic health care bill; Obama pushed it through. In each case, Obama and his Democratic allies knew what the majority of Americans wanted and ignored it.

COMMENT:  York points out that, while the president's mosque stand may be spun as a case of "standing on principle," Americans eventually become weary of a national leader who consistently defies them.  Americans gave Obama the benefit of many doubts in the 2008 election, and now those doubts, especially the ones involving Obama's feelings about his own country, are surfacing once more. 

At the same time, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who's doing a terrific job, warned his party yesterday not to carry the mosque issue too far.  He's right.  There's an old line in politics:  "When your opponent is committing suicide, don't interfere."  Republicans have stated their cased, based on sensitivity toward the victims of 9-11, and the president's apparent coldness toward those victims.  The point has been made, and we must avoid the spectacle of some Republicans beating the issue or making coarse comments, risking a public backlash.

August 17, 2010      Permalink

MORE GOOD POLLING NEWS – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  The election is two and a half months away, and Republicans seem, at this stage at least, to be consolidating their strength.  This morning's Gallup report confirms the trend:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's latest update on 2010 congressional voting preferences finds 50% of registered voters saying they would vote for the Republican candidate in their district, and 43% for the Democratic candidate, if the elections were held today. Republicans have led in each of the past three weeks, and their current 50% vote share and seven percentage-point lead represent their best showings thus far in 2010.

And...

Republicans typically turn out to vote in greater numbers than Democrats do. So their current seven-point advantage among all registered voters could represent the lower bound of the margin they could expect to win by (in the national two-party vote) if the elections were held today.

And...

A strong Republican showing this fall would be consistent with Gallup's recent research indicating that the party of a president with approval ratings below 50% tends to suffer heavy seat losses in midterm elections. The Republicans' larger lead on the latest generic ballot coincides with a new low weekly job approval average of 44% for President Obama.

Finally...

Also, in August to date, the vote among independent registered voters has averaged 47% Republican to 34% Democratic, a 13-point GOP advantage. That compares with an average 10-point Republican advantage prior to this month.

Now that's the way to start a day.

Of course, we all know that the only poll that counts is the one on a certain Tuesday in November.  Republicans should be concentrating on, among other things, a spectacular get-out-the-vote drive, an area where Democrats have traditionally excelled.  (Look, in Chicago the Dems get some of their voters from cemeteries.  How hard is that?) 

And I still maintain that press bias, which cannot be measured in polls, will play a role in this midterm, although perhaps not as decisively as in 2008.  This election isn't in the bag for the GOP.  The campaign is really just starting.

August 17, 2010     Permalink

THE BOXER REBELLION – AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  In the critical California Senate race, Republican Carly Fiorina is pulling ahead of incumbent Barbara Boxer.  Boxer's problems stem largely from the fact that California is in awful shape, and it's hard to think of anything Boxer has accomplished that might help the situation.  One of the great intellects of the Senate she is not.  From the Christian Science Monitor:

Los Angeles – Sen. Barbara Boxer is losing ground to challenger Carly Fiorina in the race for California's Senate seat, which is considered key to both political parties.

Fiorina showed a five-point lead (47 percent to 42 percent) in a SurveyUSA poll released Aug. 12. The poll surveyed 602 likely California voters between Aug. 9 and Aug. 11 and had a margin of error of 4.1 percent.

“The 2010 California Senate race is very important nationally,” says Carleton College political scientist Steven Schier. “If the GOP is to gain control of the Senate, they must win the California Senate race.”

Because economic concerns lead the list of voter issues, Senator Boxer and Ms. Fiorina have been parrying over their plans to create jobs in the struggling state. Fiorina has accused Boxer of supporting “job killing” taxes and regulations by allowing Bush tax cuts to expire. And she has said recent small business legislation co-sponsored by Boxer “has done nothing to make it easier for small businesses or family owned businesses.”

Boxer counters that she has introduced legislation that would establish the Working Capital Express program – a new lending initiative that would encourage banks to extend more credit to small businesses. The US Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday endorsed Fiorina last week.

“Fiorina’s message may be resonating with voters,” says Jessica Levinson, an analyst with the Center for Governmental Studies. “She has styled herself as a savvy businesswoman with real-world experience who can help improve the economy and create jobs,” she says, noting that a July poll by the same organization showed her lead at two percent.

COMMENT:  California is a blue state, and has, in recent years, grown even more blue.  It is not the state that Ronald Reagan governed 40 years ago.  But there may well be an awakening in the golden state, a recognition that it cannot continue its profligate ways, with a social program for every group consisting of two people or more.  Republicans have a real shot at Boxer's seat, but expect Dems, backed by funds from the vast army of Hollywood adolescents, to pour everything they have into saving her.

August 17, 2010     Permalink