THE LATEST ON GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY got covered on CNN tonight. Here’s the YouTube video.
Archive for 2006
September 22, 2006
SEEING THROUGH CHAVEZ, at The Huffington Post: “What galls even more is how hopelessly naive, and reductive, those of us are who suggest that being the victim of American imperialism somehow exempts one from being corrupt and imperialistic. . . . And, those of us who are ingenuous enough to think that one who is the victim of an imperialism will notthemselves, under the right set of cirumstances, become imperialists have allowed their preoccupation with nationalism, third world or otherwise, to obscure their understanding of human nature.” If Chavez can get the HuffPo crowd to stumble (part way) toward reality, he may have a future as an educator. . . .
SPEAKING BACK to Islamists. “Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate.”
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: These guys just don’t give up, do they:
Over at my site earlier this week, I reported that Trent “Damn Tired of Porkbusters” Lott was holding up a bill to force Senate candidates to file campaign finance reports electronically (S. 1508). It appears he’s still doing it, and doesn’t want to tell anyone when he might quit quit bucking and braying and move the d*mn bill. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn he is.
So is Mitch McConnell. Unlike some, I’ve got no problem with McConnell’s opposition to McCain-Feingold. But his opposition to legislation that merely promotes transparency about donations undercuts any free-speech resonance that his opposition to the dumb McCain-Feingold bill might have.
UPDATE: McConnell’s office says that, despite reports to the contrary, he does not have a hold on the campaign-finance transparency bill and has no objections to its coming to the floor.
ME, MARK STEYN, AND AUSTIN BAY on this week’s Pajamas Media Blog Week in Review podcast.
It’s now sponsored by Volvo, as is the Glenn and Helen Show.
A PACK, NOT A HERD: “In U.S. Capitol Police’s first confirmation of the events surrounding the arrest of Monday’s Capitol intruder, Capitol Police acknowledge that citizens — not police — were first to apprehend the suspect.” Employees from a flag shop, as it turns out.
ED LASKY LOOKS AT the Democratic Party and the Jews.
CALLS FOR MUSLIM RAGE AT THE POPE seem to be flopping in Iraq.
UPDATE: Actually, they seem to have flopped pretty much everywhere.
NEW YORK’S “HUMAN RIGHTS” COMMISSION goes after free speech. One of a seemingly unending list of reasons to oppose a Bloomberg Presidential run.
IN THE MAIL: Mark Moyar’s new book, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965.
JOE GANDELMAN HAS A ROUNDUP on the detainee deal. Plus some valuable cautionary advice from Ann Althouse: “Plenty of people have lots of different motivations to make claims about this compromise. Don’t let yourself be spun.”
THIS SHOULD MAKE REPUBLICANS HAPPY: “Americans have become more optimistic about the economy, and President Bush is getting some of the credit, a new Times/Bloomberg poll shows.”
STRATEGYPAGE OFFERS A RATHER POSITIVE TAKE on what’s going on in Anbar province:
Coalition forces in Iraq have suddenly received the manpower equivalent of three light infantry divisions. They did not suffer any repercussions in domestic politics as a result, and now have a huge edge over al-Qaeda in al-Anbar province. How did this happen? Tribal leaders in the largely Sunni province on the Syrian border got together and signed an agreement to raise a tribal force of 30,000 fighters to take on foreign fighters and terrorists.
These leaders have thrown in with the central government in Baghdad. This is a decisive blow to al Qaeda, which has been desperately trying to fight off an Iraqi government that is getting stronger by the week. Not only are the 30,000 fighters going to provide more manpower, but these tribal fighters know the province much better than American troops – or the foreign fighters fighting for al Qaeda. Also, this represents just over 80 percent of the tribes in al-Anbar province now backing the government.
This makes an interesting counterpoint to the Bill Roggio post I linked yesterday.
JOHN TAMMES rounds up news from Afghanistan that you probably won’t see elsewhere.
A “CEAUCESCU MOMENT” for the BBC?
K.C. JOHNSON HAS THE LATEST on Mike Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case.
THE GEORGE ALLEN CAMPAIGN is charging James Webb with dirty tricks and push-blogging. “Push-blogging?” I guess the days of innocence for the blogosphere are all in the past, now.
KIDNEYBLOGGER VIRGINIA POSTREL asks how many people medical ethicist Art Caplan has killed by blocking the creation of a market in donor organs.
“How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I’ll kill you for it” is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge. But of course, refuting is not the point here. The point is intimidation. . . .
In today’s world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.
Those who do not practice tolerance have no right to expect it in return.
HOSNI MUBARAK: Egypt will pursue nuclear energy.
I hope he means safe, clean pebble-bed reactors, but I’m a bit, er, concerned that he might not.
MICKEY KAUS: “You would think the NYT would have learned from repeat, bitter experience that playing up all the anti-GOP aspects of its polls often leads to bitter disappointment in November. You would be wrong.”
September 21, 2006
DANIEL DREZNER FINDS AHMADINEJAD “UNDERWHELMING:” I have to say I agree. I saw him as the latest manifestation of a long chain of anti-American losers: Nasser, Qaddafi, Noriega, Ortega, etc. Like them, he may do some harm before he shuffles off. But as Drezner says, ” Like Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad might be able to stoke his own supporters, but he seems to excel even more at creating and unifying his adversaries. Ahmadinejad too will pass.”
Not a reason to ignore or underestimate him. But a reason not to inflate him into more than he is, as some people seem to be doing.
UPDATE: “A one-man Axis of Crazy.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Matoko Kusanagi thinks it’s a case of short-man syndrome.
THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “The Army is ending its best recruiting year since 1997 and expecting similar success in 2007 . . . . the Army will enlist its 80,000th soldier on Friday, reaching its goal for the year with eight days to spare. That is a considerable turnaround from last year when the Army missed its target for the first time since 1999 and by the widest margin in more than two decades.”
CORY MAYE UPDATE: Radley Balko reports:
Cory Maye will not sleep on death row tonight. Nor, for that matter, any night for the foreseeable future.
At the conclusion of the hearing today, Judge Michael Eubanks ruled on two of the defense team’s battery of arguments. Both rulings from the bench tonight dealt with Rhonda Cooper’s competence. Judge Eubanks found that Ms. Cooper was competent for the trial, but incompetent for the sentencing.
I have my quarrels with that ruling, obviously. But in the short run, it means that Cory will at the very least get a new sentencing trial. And until and if that happens, he will no longer be on death row, and for the moment is no longer condemned to die.
Judge Eubanks did not issue a ruling on any of the other defense arguments — and there were lots of them. It may be a month or more before we hear what he has decided. That said, I am cautiously optimistic.
Read the whole thing. And Radley’s piece on the case in Reason — alas, not available online yet — is really good. Alas, one thing he reports is that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) won’t even consider clemency, which strikes me as a serious abdication of responsibility on Barbour’s part.
HAVE THE NETROOTS GONE INSIDER? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with lunching with bigshots. But it’s probably better not to gush about it quite so much.