June 2010

Ross Douthat on Matthew Continetti's "Two Faces of the Tea Party."

Mother Jones (!) has a useful article on organizations that are working hard to out CIA operatives. At the very least, the article sheds a bit of light on why these organizations -- specifically the John Adams Project -- have devoted so much time and energy to this cause. Many of these folks, of…

This afternoon, Sen. John Cornyn intensified his criticism of Elena Kagan's decision to deny the military access to the office of career services at Harvard Law School. Cornyn suggested that Kagan's policy was to "stigmatize" the military and give it "separate but equal" access to students at…

Yesterday’s exchange between Elena Kagan and Sen. Tom Coburn did a fair amount to illuminate how Kagan would likely think and rule on the Court. 

The AP reports that Mosab Hassan Yousef will "be granted U.S. asylum after he passes a routine background check, an immigration judge ruled Wednesday." The hearing lasted 15 minutes and, according to the report, "Attorney Kerri Calcador gave no explanation for the government's change of heart."

Senator Orrin Hatch questioned Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan this afternoon about Shannen Coffin's report that Kagan, as a policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, had altered a medical group's memo on partial-birth abortion, apparently for political reasons. At issue was a 1996 position paper…

In a statement made to Congress yesterday, General David Petraeus promised to review the much-disparaged rules of engagement that U.S. forces are operating under in Afghanistan. The intent of restrictive rules of engagement is to protect civilians, but these rules are widely disliked by U.S.…

Smell that? Smells like redemption:

Today, 70 days into the oill spill in the Gulf, the U.S. accepted international assistance from 12 countries and foreign organizations to help with the mess.

At Bench Memos, Ed Whelan posts an excerpt of his forthcoming testimony to the Judiciary Committee.

Fox News last night did a spot on Mosab Hassan Yousef:

A great week for the left. The JournoList archives have a price of $100K on them, and Markos Moulitsas is suing his pollster, who is in turn countersuing him! Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming about divisions within the right.

What explains the timing of the bust of the Russian spy ring just four days after Barack Obama's "cheeseburger summit" with Dmitry Medvedev?

Yuval Levin writes:

On Tuesday evening, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) posed a hypothetical question to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: If Congress passed a law that said Americans "have to eat three vegetables and three fruits, every day ... does that violate the Commerce Clause?"

New Jersey governor Chris Christie appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning to discuss (among other topics) his state's budget:

Bill Clinton's had an awfully good week.

Petraeus: “The commitment to Afghanistan is necessarily … an enduring one.”

In a response to my article, “The Two Faces of the Tea Party,” Jonah Goldberg writes that “at times [Continetti] seems to be trying — and trying very hard — to use [Glenn] Beck to discredit the entire conservative argument against the progressive revolution in politics.”

When you've lost Bob Herbert, you've lost ... Bob Herbert:

Andrew Breitbart is offering $100,000 for the full archive of JounoList, the left-wing listserv that was recently disbanded after reporter Dave Weigel's emails attacking various political and media figures were leaked.

Markos Moulitsas says polls by Research 2000, the left-wing website's pollster until recently, were "likely bunk."

Joe Biden is in the Gulf today, and Bobby Jindal talked to NBC about his problems with federal response:

Scott Brown writes in a letter to Chris Dodd and Barney Frank:

Fred Barnes writes in today's Wall Street Journal:

Public Policy Polling reports:

President Obama has lunch and a meeting today with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. Nina Shea and Bonnie Alldredge have some good advice for what should be on the president's agenda:

The THAAD (terminal high altitude area defense) interceptor has been maligned for years as a failed, overly expensive missile defense system. That's mostly due to the missile's volatile initial testing phases during the mid-1990s, when the program was wrought with failure after failure -- not…

During questioning by Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy this morning, Elena Kagan defended the policy she upheld at Harvard of keeping military recruiters out of the office of career services.

Oops. Someone in the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, has pushed the wrong reset button, sending us back to the spy wars of the 1950s. The two FBI complaints made public yesterday, available here, contain the details of what might be the most bizarre espionage case in all of Russian/Soviet…

Does Elena Kagan believe the Constitution permits states to generally ban late-term abortions? That's what the man who appointed her said he believed in 2008 while campaigning for the presidency, but the Supreme Court has said otherwise for nearly four decades.

Last fall, the U.S. military decided to withdraw forces from remote districts in eastern Afghanistan, particularly in the provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, where isolated outposts were routinely attacked by large forces made up of the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as Chechen and Central and South…

Jeff Sessions lays out the case against Elena Kagan.

The Chicago Tribune's Mike Memoli reports:

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are experienced wheeler-dealers and savvy backroom players, so it’s no surprise there’s a lot of clever wheeling and dealing in the financial regulation bill they pushed through conference committee last week. But around 3:00 a.m. Friday morning, they may have made a…

Breaking news: Just days after President Obama met with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in Washington, 10 people were arrested Sunday for "conspiring to act as unlawful agents of the Russian Federation within the United States."

In the midst of an upheaval in the prosecution of the Afghanistan war, the G-8 and G-20 meetings, and the continuing saga of the BP oil spill, a political earthquake that took place in Hong Kong last week escaped notice.

Quin Hillyer comments on Winston Groom's article "Oil Messed Up" from this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

CIA director Leon Panetta gave a surprisingly candid interview on ABC's "This Week" yesterday, talking about Afghanistan and Iran. In the conversation with Jake Tapper, Panetta confessed that sanctions against the Iranian regime probably will not work. (Watch the entire exchange here.)

"As Kagan confirmation hearings begin, Republicans struggle for line of attack."  That's the headline of today's Washington Post front-page report by Anne Kornblut and Paul Kane on the Elena Kagan hearings. Isn't it strange how a story by objective Washington Post reporters mirrors the opinion of…

Michael O'Hanlon, of the left-leaning Brookings Institution, has been one of the strongest advocates for adopting effective, functional strategies in both Iraq and Afghanistan. To his credit, O'Hanlon was ahead of the pack on the Iraq surge, correctly predicting that additional forces -- all…

The financial regulation bill, which passed out of conference last week, may have trouble making its way to the president's desk. When the Senate reached cloture on the bill with 60 votes the first time around, it had the support of Robert Byrd, who passed away today, and Scott Brown, who is now…

Jules Crittenden calls attention to this excellent op-ed by the U.S. ambassador to Australia, Jeff Bleich, defending and explaining the American and Australian commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

The hearing is being shown on all three cable nets right now, live, and is on CSPAN-3 and CSPAN.org.

Sure, it's easy to get blue about our blue-state friend when he flips to become the deciding vote on gigantic financial regulation reform with more unintended consequences than, well, the last giant piece of legislation with a bunch of blanks to be filled in at a later date by regulators.

In September 2009, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke sat down for an interview with PBS for a Frontline documentary titled “Obama’s War.” Holbrooke discussed Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Obama administration’s approach to diplomacy in the region. His answers, viewed in hindsight, reveal just how much…

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of individual gun rights today, striking down Chicago's 28-year-old handgun ban almost two years to the day after the Court struck down the D.C. gun ban.

Commenting on North Korea’s attack and sinking of the Cheonan with 46 South Korean sailors killed, President Obama said this past weekend at the G-20 summit in Toronto that “our main focus right now is in the U.N. Security Council making sure that there is a crystal-clear acknowledgement that North…

It’s worth reading President Obama’s two answers on Afghanistan at the press conference yesterday at the conclusion of the G-20 summit in Toronto. The second, reproduced below , is especially striking.

West Virginia senator Robert Byrd has died at the age of 92. R.I.P.

The Senate loses its longest-serving member. Robert Byrd passed away at the age of 92.

White Egrets

The Ninth

Illiteracy has never been wordier. Life has never been wordier. Experts say more language is consumed now than ever before. Not read. Not written. Consumed—like burgers and gasoline. 

London

Is Angela Merkel’s government on the verge of dissolution? “Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germanay faced calls from opposition leaders .  .  . for new elections, as bickering and fighting within her governing coalition has led to growing speculation in the German news media that a collapse of her…

Beirut

On Fox News Sunday, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein of California said the plan to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July 2011 should be scrapped if General Petraeus says he needs more time.

Here's THE SCRAPBOOK on the Washington Post and Dave Weigel:

Americans are infuriated by their sense that Washington lives by a different set of fiscal rules than the rest of us. And nothing could help illustrate this much better than the Democratic Congress's recent announcement that it has no intention of passing a budget.  American families have budgets,…

Fannie Mae has introduced a new policy that prevents people who have defaulted on their mortgages from getting a new Fannie Mae loan for seven years – up from five previously. This policy only applies to defaulters who have adequate income and other resources to pay the note – a process Fannie Mae…

Americans are fighting what Winston Churchill called “a Black Dog … on his back.” Americans are losing the fight, which is odd since the economy is finally gaining rather than losing jobs, and the manufacturing sector is growing nicely. The new Wall Street Journal-NBC poll shows that the Black Dog…

In a 219-206 vote yesterday, the House passed a campaign finance measure known as the DISCLOSE Act in answer to the Supreme Court’s January Citizens United decision.  The bill, according to Politico, would "require corporations, labor unions, trade associations, and advocacy groups to publicly…

Gallup: Percentage of self-identified conservatives at new high of 42%.

There's an old axiom from the intelligence community, "admit nothing, deny, counter-accuse," that can be as useful in politics as it is in the shadowy espionage world. Faced with a high-level summit bound to scrutinize President Obama's much-touted "reset" policy with the Soviet Union, that…

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, referencing a few polls, recently wrote of Obamacare’s popularity: “Public opinion remains mixed, and the trend is toward support, not opposition.”  This, however, is wishful thinking on Klein’s part.  A more thorough look at the polls shows that American voters…

“The party and the viewpoint that we’re closest to in Israeli politics is actually Kadima.” -- J Street founder and president Jeremy Ben-Ami, October 28, 2009.  

Larry Kudlow discusses the two sides of the Tea Party with Rick Santelli:

Hope. Change. Technicalities:

The New York Times runs a lovely tribute to the late Manute Bol today. The affable 7'6" Dinka tribesman, formidable NBA shot-blocker, and activist died at 47 of kidney complications related to a rare skin disease he developed after his basketball career.

Facebook publicists announced today that President Barack Obama and pop performer Lady Gaga are running neck-and-neck to become the first living person with 10 million fans. 

Gen. David Petraeus is getting lots of advice from all quarters--public and private, wanted and unwanted, helpful and unhelpful. This, from Jason Thomas, an Australian just returned from eight months working on the civilian side of the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan, was recommended to me…

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It’s been a rough seventeen months for Americans whose calling is to fight for the rights of people who’ve been stripped of them by force—young men and women beaten to death in full view of the world by the agents of their oppressors for daring to demand that their votes be counted; others hacked…

Richard Socarides: Ted Olson's better on gay rights than Obama.

Chalk up another defeat for Hugo Chávez. Last weekend, Colombian voters delivered a landslide victory to conservative presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos, who clobbered former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus by nearly 42 percentage points.

The Democrats' campaign finance 'reform' bill, the DISCLOSE Act, passes the House 219 to 206.

Marco Rubio told reporters at a Cosi on Capitol Hill this afternoon that repealing Obamacare will be a big issue in the Florida Senate race. "Obamacare should be repealed," Rubio said. "It's going to bankrupt America, it adds $2.5 trillion dollars to our debt in the long term. ... There are better…

The idiocy of the Department of Homeland Security--described in Daniel Halper's item below about Mosab Hassan Yousef--recalls an old joke. Yousef is a defector from Hamas, spiritually (he converted to Christianity) and politically (he turned anti-Hamas and informed on his old comrades to Israeli…

The legislation passed 99-0. The Hill reports:

Rep. Doug Lamborn is leading an effort in the House of Representatives to gather support for Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a founder of Hamas who converted to Christianity, became an anti-Hamas informer, and is now living in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security, incredibly, is opposing…

Ed Rendell has been dogged for months by rumors of a possible romantic relationship with a 40-year-old aide. A Philadelphia magazine reports on the rumors in an issue hitting newsstands Friday, but apparently finds no one who will go on the record, and no real concrete evidence.

On June 17, the anti-terrorism unit of the Kosovo police, acting by request from the U.S. Department of Justice, arrested 29-year old Bajram Asllani, a Kosovar Albanian and one of two suspects who fled North Carolina after law enforcement action 10 months ago against a jihadist conspiracy based in…

"HUGE SURGE: Burr 44% Marshall 43%," reads the subject line of an email from North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Elaine Marshall to supporters highlighting a new Rasmussen poll:

New Jersey’s Chris Christie continues to do a world of good.  At an event in Newark on Tuesday, the Republican governor promoted his “Cap 2.5” plan, first introduced in March, to constitutionally limit property tax increases.

John Yoo agrees with Robert Bork:

The left on generals resigning during the Bush years...

Rashad Hussain, America’s special envoy to the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Saudi-based body formed in 1969 to “protect” Jerusalem from the Israelis, announced a new title this week for President Barack Obama.  According to Hussain, Obama is America’s “Educator-in-Chief on…

Earlier this morning, Rick Santelli discussed Matthew Continetti's article "The Two Faces of the Tea Party" from this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD: 

Politico had a story yesterday about an Alexi Giannoulias fundraiser gone awry. Giannoulias is the Democratic nominee for Senate from Illinois, vying to hold the seat currently being occupied by Roland Burris.

When tiny globs of gooey brown oil began washing up on Gulf shores, it foreshadowed a more ominous environmental calamity lurking just over the horizon.  These first signs were troubling enough. But they also revealed a more daunting threat riding incoming tides that might prove impossible to fix.

Former federal judge Robert Bork said Wednesday that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s admiration of Israeli supreme court judge Aharon Barak, a Harvard graduate widely regarded as a quintessential activist judge, is "disqualifying in and of itself."

The Anti-Terrorism Unit of the Kosovo Police, acting on a request from the U.S. Department of Justice, last Thursday, June 17, arrested 29-year old Bajram Asllani, a Kosovar Albanian and one of two suspects who fled North Carolina after law enforcement action 10 months ago against a jihadist…

Faced with a full-fledged collapse in public support, self-declared climate change messiah Kevin Rudd has been ousted as Prime Minister of Australia. With polls now showing a near-certain loss in this year's elections, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) installed Julia Gillard as the country's first…

Dead heats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Senate races.

As Lisa de Moraes reported in the Washington Post, the ratings for last week’s season opener of Top Chef D.C. were dismal: With a mere 1.8 million viewers, the episode was the lowest rated opener in Top Chef history (compare with the 2.6 million who watched the first episode of Top Chef Las Vegas…

Ratification of the new nuclear arms treaty with the Russians may not be as easy as the White House, Senate Democrats, and the media appear to expect.  The pact, called the New START agreement, faces early trouble in the Senate – serious trouble.

The Hill reports:

Since General Petraeus will lead the war effort in Afghanistan, who will take his place as commander of CENTCOM? One possibility, Tim Sullivan says, is to nominate General Ray Odierno, who now leads the war effort in Iraq:

Hamid Karzai, who had built a close relationship with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, releases this somewhat cool statement through a spokesman today:

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee last week, General David Petraeus, who will take over as the commanding general in Afghanistan, was questioned about President Obama's controversial decision to set July 2011 as a date to begin withdrawing troops. Petraeus said that that date…

The tone is respectful to McChrystal, but mindful of his breach. Obama takes the opportunity to reinforce the American commitment to victory in Afghanistan rather than back away from it. And, the speech is blissfully, only eight minutes long. 

Just received from ISAF's public affairs shop: 

According to Megyn Kelly on Fox News, the AP is reporting that Gen. McChrystal has been relieved of command and General Petraeus will take over McChrystal's duties in Afghanistan.

A 72-year-old Missouri man, David Jungerman, painted a message on the side of an 18-wheeler trailer and placed it on his farm land, within view of a high-traffic highway:

The Justice Department is preparing a lawsuit against Arizona’s controversial immigration law, likely to be filed next week. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a South American interviewer last week that the Obama administration opposes the law because “the federal government should be…

The Washington Post notes that the Republicans of South Carolina just elected an Indian-American governor and nominated Tim Scott, who is black, over Strom Thurmond's son for a Congressional seat he's expected to win. But never fear; Republicans are probably still big racists, which is what the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD's Philip Terzian's most recent book receives a rave review in today's Wall Street Journal:

In Utah's GOP Senate primary yesterday, Mike Lee defeated Tim Bridgewater 51% to 49%. While both candidates claimed the Tea Party mantle, Bridgewater was more closely tied to the establishment.  Bridgewater, a business consultant who twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress, had the support of…

Many on the center-right have settled on some version of the Peter Robinson/Jennifer Rubin/Daniel Foster/National Review solution for the mess made by General Stanley McChrystal and his staff. In that scenario, McChrystal offers to resign and President Obama, in the interest of winning the war and…

In today's Wall Street Journal, Eliot A. Cohen writes: 

In tomorrow's New York Times, Max Boot writes:

Chris Cilizza reports that Nikki Haley is one step closer to becoming the next Republican governor from South Carolina:

New York Times op-ed: Blow up the leaking oil well.

Sixty-nine-years ago today, 3.5 million German troops, plus another million from Nazi allies, invaded the USSR. (Geographically, the land now makes up Lithuania, Belarus, eastern Poland, Ukraine, and Moldavia).  It was the largest army ever assembled, the most ambitious invasion ever attempted, and…

Earlier today, ABC reported that Attorney General Eric Holder will likely file his lawsuit against Arizona over its immigration law next week. Now, the AP reports: "Lawyers for Mexico on Tuesday submitted a legal brief in support of one of five lawsuits challenging the law. The law will take effect…

CNN reports: "Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his resignation, Time magazine's Joe Klein told CNN, citing an unnamed source. CNN is working to confirm Klein's information."

In a phone interview this afternoon, Senator John McCain expanded on his statement from this morning on General Stanley McChrystal and the general's comments to Rolling Stone:

On the Senate floor, Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, goes after Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's treatment of military recruitment while she was president of Harvard Law School: 

Jackson Diehl writes:

When the going gets tough, the tough go to court. Isn't that the saying?

Well, the most glamorous power nerd after Barack Obama, of course. Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag is leaving the White House, Robert Gibbs confirmed in the White House press briefing today. He will be the first member of the Obama cabinet to leave the administration. 

Bloomberg reports:

Here’s the statement by Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), which suggests they think Gen. McChrystal ought to offer to resign, and that the president should probably accept the offer:

It's subscriber only, unfortunately, but that's no reason to miss Robert Zubrin's devastating analysis of the last several decades of space policy in Commentary. The piece is informative, imaginative, and extremely well written. Upon finishing it, I immediately looked up Zubrin's book, The Case for…

John McCain leads his GOP primary challenger J.D. Hayworth 47% to 36% in a new Rasmussen poll. As RealClearPolitics notes, dropping below 50% is "a sign of vulnerability for the four-term senator and former presidential nominee. The entrance of Tea Party activist Jim Deakin brought both McCain and…

The bad news for Democrats keeps pouring in. Now it comes from Wal-Mart moms -- women with children under 18 who shop at Wal-Mart.  They tend to be Democrats and more of them than not voted for President Obama in 2008.  But they’re leaning Republican this year.  And despite the happy economic talk…

More bad news emerged yesterday for those Democrats hoping support for health care reform might boost their electoral fortunes.  The short answer: it won't. At least, not in certain pivotal states and not with swing voters.

Classic David Brooks:

ABC's Jake Tapper reports:

The Washington Examiner's Byron York asked an astute question after listening to President Obama’s speech on the Gulf oil spill: Who told Obama drilling is ‘absolutely safe’? York points out that engineers and scientists don’t speak in such absolute terms, and he can’t get anyone in the political…

Faisal Shahzad pleads guilty.

Last week, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC announced it was supporting letters circulating Congress – a House version and a Senate one – supporting the Jewish state’s right to defend herself and reaffirming American support of its liberal democratic ally in the Middle East.  The Senate letter is led by…

Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen is caught on YouTube dancing awkwardly to some live rap music at a campaign event:

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is probably the happiest man in Turkey right now. He's just inherited the leadership of the country's secular socialist opposition, and now he's reaping the benefits of an incredibly boneheaded move by the "moderate" Islamists who run the country.

In a YouTube clip making the rounds, Elena Kagan says that the Robert Bork hearings were "the best thing that ever happened to constitutional democracy."

In his May 31, 2010, cover article titled “No Museum Left Behind,” Lance Esplund paints a detailed and idealized picture of the Barnes Foundation and adopts wholesale some of the common misconceptions about the upcoming move of the foundation’s collection to Philadelphia and the reasons for it.…

TPM's Eric Kleefeld posts a minute-long clip of J.D. Hayworth telling viewers in a 2007 infomercial how to get "free money" from the government:

A new Chamber of Commerce poll gives Charlie Crist his biggest lead yet since declaring as an independent in the Florida Senate race: Crist takes "42 percent of the vote to Rubio’s 31 percent. Another 14 percent favor Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek, and 12 percent still undecided." According to…

Hey, they were going to boycott the state of Arizona on account of its crackdown on illegal immigrants, which L.A. considers heavy-handed, potentially onerous to law-abiding citizens, and Big-Brother-ish, until the city realized it needed an Arizona company to help it run its red-light cameras. Hm.

Elliott Abrams writes:

Kesha Rogers won the Democratic nomination in a suburban Houston district (TX-22) on a platform of impeachment of Obama and colonization of Mars. A professional activist in the Lyndon LaRouche movement, she carries posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache and calls him a "Wall Street and London…

Here is Paul Krugman today:

One of the tertiary benefits to Iraq's surge -- aside from the military victory -- was the birth of a group of military thinkers informally called the COINdistinas. Though sticking counter-insurgency on the front burner of Armed Forces combat doctrine remains a hot debate inside the Pentagon,…

Vice President Joe Biden will be in Chicago today to campaign for Illinois candidates, including Alexi Giannoulias – the mob banker running to replace Roland Burris in the U.S. Senate.

"Chances dim for swift 9/11 decision," reports Politico.

Rahm Emanuel said on ABC's This Week that Rep. Joe Barton's comments on BP were "not a political gaffe. ... That is a philosophy."

Mark Steyn visits a dying Jewish community in Tangiers, Morocco, and comes to a startling conclusion: "By 2005, there were fewer than 150 Jews in Tangiers, almost all of them very old. By 2015, it is estimated that there will be precisely none. Whenever I mention such statistics to people, the…

John Nagl remains optimistic about U.S. prospects in Afghanistan:

Iran, moving steadily forward on its march toward nuclear status, has once again brazenly defied the International Atomic Energy Agency, barring two of its inspectors from touring its sites. How will the West respond?

An update to my piece for the magazine this week ("Dereliction of Duty"). In my efforts to simplify budget arcana, I left out some important information.

Hostility to the individual health insurance market and its less pleasant features, including medical underwriting, permeated President Obama’s crusade for health care reform. Although Obama-care ultimately will outlaw underwriting based on health history, it will increase the number of people…

The Gaza flotilla incident is not over. American demands for some “international role” in investigating Israel’s conduct (but not, it seems, Turkey’s) and for a new system of getting humanitarian aid to Gaza will be imposed on Israel one way or another before the episode will be behind us. But…

The case is straightforward. On Election Day 2008, two members of the New Black Panther party (NBPP) dressed in military garb were captured on videotape at a Philadelphia polling place spouting racial epithets and menacing voters. One, Minister King Samir Shabazz, wielded a nightstick. It was a…

Citizens of London

Rough Justice

When America’s flimsier corporate colossi threaten to collapse, they tend to follow a wearyingly familiar script. Quarterly reports “disappoint,” the media begin to stir, and questionable financial dealings come to light. The CEO then emerges from his bunker to announce that all would be well but…

Baghdad

Istanbul

Ugly stuff being spread around by Gresham Barrett's campaign co-chair:

What's BP's Tony Hayward up to today, with oil still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico? The New York Post reports: "The BP CEO is attending a yacht race off the Isle of Wight in southern England today, a company spokeswoman said." 

There is a direct line from Athens to Toronto, and not only on Air Canada. The more important connection is provided by the financial markets. When Greece ran out of accounting subterfuges and the ability to borrow at non-ruinous interest rates, it set in motion a process that caused the euro to…

Did Elena Kagan compare the NRA to the KKK?

Last month, Utah Republicans chose two grassroots primary candidates, Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee, to run for Senate. Incumbent senator Bob Bennett didn't even qualify for the ballot. In this very Republican state, the GOP primary on Tuesday, June 22 will almost certainly determine Utah's next…

Sharron Angle's campaign is reportedly having a difficult time dealing with the press, according to the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas:

A very timely launch for the newly inaugurated Friends of Israel Initiative. The group, led by former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar, has the following goals:

President Obama visited Columbus, Ohio today to tout what was supposedly the "10,000th road construction project using stimulus money." CNN reports that only 58 minutes elapsed between the time Obama got off Air Force One, delivered a speech, took a tour, and got back on his plane. Why such a quick…

Remind me. Has the State Department ever had to issue a travel warning for the greater Topeka metro area due to potential violence from Tea Party protesters?

CBS confirms Hillary's claim:

Byron York asks a great question in the Washington Examiner: "Who told Obama drilling is 'absolutely safe'?"

From Politico:

Over a month after Utah Republicans chose two grassroots primary candidates to run for senate over incumbent senator Bob Bennett, a political soap opera uncharacteristic of the Beehive State continues. The two Republicans face off next Tuesday in a primary.

Maybe that Rasmussen poll is an indication of where he's heading, or maybe it's an aberration, but Obama's poll numbers haven't appreciably changed in the past 60 days, accoring to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Tom Bevan writes:

My recent article on the proposed repeal of the 1993 Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell law drew a considerable amount of feedback, most of it private.  One of the more significant public responses came from David Rittgers, a legal analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.   

A new low:

Charles Krauthammer writes:

“Nuclear deterrence during the Cold War contemplated an automated response to attack by the Soviet Union, and similar automated responses to cyber attack are now being debated. Computer network attacks happen at the speed of light, so future threats require an equally rapid and perhaps automatic…

Last week, the Chinese government issued a new propaganda piece in the form of a policy paper on its Internet control policies. It serves as a typical example of Beijing's Orwellian use of language and formalism to dress up its authoritarianism as legal and rational. In Beijing's alternate…

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels tells Michael Gerson that he would reinstate the Mexico City Policy but is still sticking to the idea of a truce on social issues:

Sessions: Kagan discriminated against military, sat silent for Saudi gift.

Why did ethnic riots between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks suddenly erupt in Osh and Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan, driving almost half a million people from their homes, leaving nearly 200 dead, and injuring thousands?

Congressman Barton retracts his apology:

A DOJ spokesman responds to Hillary Clinton's statement that the administration will sue Arizona over its immigration law: "The Department continues to review the law."

Pew's new survey of global attitudes reports that the U.S. still isn't popular in Muslim countries: "In Egypt, America’s favorability rating dropped from 27% to 17% – the lowest percentage observed in any of the Pew Global Attitudes surveys conducted in that country since 2006."

A new Economist/YouGov/Polimetrix poll (conducted June 5-8, 2010), finds that Republicans hold a substantial edge on a number of policy issues with two key voter groups – seniors (age 65+) and independents – five months before this year’s midterm elections.

In the Boston Globe, Josh Green shares his latest epiphany:

Via The Right Scoop, Hillary Clinton says in an interview with a TV station in Ecuador:

GOP Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said at today's congressional hearing with BP chairman Tony Hayward:

James Kirchick in the Wall Street Journal:

In response to Jennifer Rubin's "Friends in High Places," a reader writes in:

Dale Peterson has returned in a new YouTube ad to take a shot at that "dummy" who was "bragging on Facebook about taking illegal contributions." Peterson throws his support behind said dummy's opponent:

Former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar writes in the Times of London:

Diane Feinstein, freshly back from a trip to Asia, was pressing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, yesterday about the need for engagement with China: “I think that the most important thing we can do right now is establish some military-to-military contact," she said…

Political enthusiasm is the secret sauce of American politics.  When it comes to producing calories for winning elections, it’s the difference between a Big Mac and Lean Cuisine.

GAO reports Planned Parenthood received $657 million in federal funds over 7 years.

Pete Wehner has a devastating takedown of an important aspect of Peter Beinart's new book:

Dino Rossi is the 10th man. Republicans need to pick up 10 Democratic seats in the midterm election to take control of the Senate. And they probably can’t do it without Rossi, a top-tier challenger in Washington to three-term Democrat Patty Murray. If he wins, Republicans have a realistic chance of…

The Washington Post reports:

The RNC hits Obama for golfing and partying with Bono and Kelly Clarkson--and not calling BP's CEO--while the oil continues to gush:

The nation of Kyrgyzstan is burning right now. Hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks have died at the hands of marauding bands of ethnic Kyrgyz, with 100,000 more fleeing the country. The eyes of the world have rightly turned to a part of the world normally considered a backwater.

The Foreign Policy Initiative will be hosting an event next week titled "U.S.-Russian Relations: Beset by Reset?" The event is timed to coincide with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev's visit to Washington. Speakers at the conference include Eric Edelman, Stephen Rademaker, David Kramer, with a…

A thoughtful, interesting, and depressing piece on Obama and his approach to the Muslim world, written by Lee Smith:

In case you missed it, you can watch Obama's speech here, or save yourself ten minutes and listen to Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Howard Fineman explain why they thought it was so terrible.

Anne Bayefsky reports:

Nafplio, Greece

Jennifer Rubin's "Friends in High Places," from this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, delves into the intrigue surrounding the dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. Her reporting on the NAACP's possible involvement has caught the attention of the U.S.…

Mark Hemingway writes:

Gen. Petraeus: "we have to be very careful with timelines."

Politico reports:

Hawaii's Republican congressman Charles Djou has had a whirlwind first three weeks in office.

Bill Kristol reported earlier that an aide to Rep. Gresham Barrett was circulating a story on Nikki Haley's religion this morning. Ben Smith reported last week that a "source close to the campaign ... said the Barrett campaign has at least discussed playing the religion card."

President Obama has been heavily criticized for not supporting democracy activists abroad, making it his priority instead to “engage” with dictatorial regimes.  In doing so, he has puzzled many activists who expected him to be at least as supportive, if not more so, than George W. Bush.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former case officer with the CIA's clandestine service, lays out a compelling case for supporting Iran's Green Movement:

CNN published a story at 9:25 a.m. this morning titled "Haley's path to Christianity leaves some evangelicals uneasy." The story informs readers that Nikki Haley, who was raised a Sikh and converted to Christianity, "still attends Sikh services occasionally with her parents and extended family."…

CNN published a story at 9:25 a.m. this morning titled "Haley's path to Christianity leaves some evangelicals uneasy." The story informs readers that Nikki Haley, who was raised a Sikh and converted to Christianity, "still attends Sikh services occasionally with her parents and extended family." It…

The findings of this poll conducted for NPR suggest that the GOP could have big gains this November:

Moments ago, Gen. Petraeus seems to have fallen ill during questioning from Sen. John McCain at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. He was able to walk off on his own, but the hearing was recessed until further notice. Here's the video:

The grossly misleading, full-color propaganda brochures that the Obama administration has been sending out to seniors at taxpayer expense don't seem to have swayed many minds -- at least not in the direction that the administration would want.  For the 4th straight week, Americans favor repealing…

American soldiers in battle don’t fight for what some president says on TV, they don’t fight for mom, apple pie or the American flag, they fight for one another.

Just as Iranians were reminded of their stolen June 2009 election and continued oppression, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) decided to kick them while they’re down.  On June 10, with the active involvement and approval of the Obama administration, the Council adopted a decision on human rights in…

Rep. Tom Price leads a group of House Republicans to stand with Israel.

Little noticed amid last Tuesday’s primary races was a Maine referendum, People’s Veto Question 1, in which voters repealed the state legislature’s tax reform package by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent. Last year, the legislature replaced the state's progressive income tax (which imposed an 8.5…

78 House Republicans sent a letter to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, offering support for Israel and its blockade of Israel. The letter was organized by the House Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Price. Here's the full text:

To this date, South Carolina Democrats are still confounded by their candidate for Senate, Alvin Greene. The unemployed veteran, currently using a public defender to deal with an obscenities charge, not only mustered the filing fee of $10,400 but also won handily with 58 percent of the vote.…

That's the question that one must ask after reading this report from the Atlantic's Max Fisher:

The latest on South Dakota from Rasmussen:

The campaign of Illinois Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk responds to recent reports that his Democratic opponent Alexi Giannoulias has embellished his record:

Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the UN and member of Barack Obama's cabinet, opened the door for the possibility of an international investigation into the U.S. military on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Here's the relevant part of the exchange:

In case you missed it (as can be the case with weekend editorials), the Saturday edition of the Washington Post contained a strong editorial recommending President Obama lend his full support to the demonstrators and reformers in Iran.

From CNN:

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle's position on Social Security and Medicare--that the programs should be eventually phased out for a completely private system--is a big enough political liability that Harry Reid shouldn't feel the need to distort it. But that's exactly what he does in his…

The New York Times ran an obituary on Saturday for Joan Hinton*.  Hinton was the daughter of prominent American progressives. She grew up to become a physics student who worked on the Manhattan Project, but subsequently moved to Mao's China, where she ran a dairy farm with her husband, who was…

The editors of National Review write that Obama "needs to walk back his deadline by making it clear that next July is the date for a review of the current strategy rather than its necessary endpoint."

Big Government has a video of Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina grabbing a college student by the arm and the neck after the student asks Etheridge, "Do you fully support the Obama agenda?"

Eric Holder has been a disastrous attorney general. “Classic 101 Boobery” was how one Democratic operative memorably called his decision, now on hold, to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in lower Manhattan. Other blunders have piled up and the White House has been repeatedly…

The boss's take on the current situation in Afghanistan (full transcript of the panel discussion after the jump):

The current crisis of the European single currency was an accident waiting to happen. The adverse consequences of imposing a single currency on a disparate group of countries were initially hidden by the short-run advantages that the weakest countries enjoyed when they adopted the euro in 1999—and…

Cannes

Samuel Johnson

The Scrapbook has no official observation on last week’s surprise announcement that Al and Tipper Gore have separated after 40 years of marriage. Other than the obvious, of course: namely, that it is never good news when a marriage which has endured for four decades comes to an end by way of press…

Solitary Man

Tatlin’s Tower

Sim Pace, evoking precedent set when Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace prize last year, makes the case that Nationals' pitcher Stephen Strasburg should be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame after his stellar debut performance. From the letters section of the Washington Post:

Everything Mark Steyn writes is worth reading. Much of what he writes is terrific. This piece, "The Very Model of a Modern Major Generalist: Like most multiculturalists', Obama's ideological worldview doesn't depend on anything so tedious as actually viewing the world," is spectacular--way off the…

Nearly a year ago, the final seconds of Neda Agha Soltan’s life flashed across computer screens worldwide. Peacefully protesting the controversial Iranian presidential elections of last year, 26-year old Neda was shot in the heart by a member of the para-governmental Basij militia. Her dying…

“We are all balloons dancing in a world of pins,” noted Sir Anthony Montague Browne, one of Winston Churchill’s private secretaries. That seems to describe our economic condition. Share prices drop like stones in response to actions by Greek civil servants, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an…

ROTC vs. teachers' unions in Massachusetts.

Business Week reports:

Two weeks ago, Newsweek's Matthew Phillips reported that some photographers and other journalists were being "blockaded" from reporting on the oil spill by the government and BP:

Iran’s pro-democratic Green Movement, which emerged one year ago in protest of the current regime’s fraudulent June 12 electoral victory, received the National Endowment for Democracy’s 2010 Democracy Award in a Capitol Hill ceremony yesterday. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen discussed Iran’s…

Another devastating report on Obamacare:

A newly released policy report on Turkey by the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy in Washington caught my eye this week. The report was dubbed, “Getting to Zero: Turkey, Its Neighbors and the West,” and the brief’s analysis and policy recommendations unfortunately display a distinct…

Not a bad start for Britain's new prime minister, David Cameron: 

The Daily Caller's Jonathan Strong reports:

The White House has responded, on background, to this report by Bill Kristol:

Foreign Policy has an excellent piece by Golnaz Esfandiari revising downward the importance Twitter played in the Iranian uprising last year. Some of the great take-aways:

Two 2012 stories today deserve a mention. Both involve, directly or indirectly, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who may run for president in 2012. The first is Huckabee's attack, via his PAC website, on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels. In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Daniels called…

In last week's print edition of TWS, I wrote: 

I’ve heard from a reliable source that Leon Kass, upon completing his last class at the University of Chicago, received a grand (and well-deserved) ovation from his students. It was a touching moment, when the beloved professor announced what everyone in the class knew—that this would be the end of…

Rep. John Boozman will support, both in committee and on the House floor, Pete King's "America Stands With Israel Act." The Arkansas Republican Senate candidate gave this statement to THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that senior Obama administration officials have been telling foreign governments that the administration intends to support an effort next week at the United Nations to set up an independent commission, under UN auspices, to investigate Israel's behavior in the Gaza…

Gen. McChrystal talks to Radio Free Afghanistan:

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has occasioned all sorts of "football" primers for ignorant Americans like me who still want to enjoy the event. The best by far is Jeff Blum's team-by-team analysis at n+1. It's informative and funny. Here's Blum on Team Portugal and its star Christiano Ronaldo:

“A senior Korean military commander has been arrested on suspicion of leaking the South’s military defense plans to Kim Jong Il’s regime,” reports The Australian. “The major general, identified only as Kim, arrested by military authorities yesterday, faces charges of supplying confidential…

The news that Glenn Beck's endorsement has sparked renewed interest in Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom reminded me of this passage from Irving Kristol's "America's 'Exceptional Conservatism'" (1995, available in Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea):

Marine Corps techie: Bomb the oil leak.

David Cameron, only weeks after assuming the office of prime minister, is visiting to Afghanistan to express support for the fight against the Taliban. The New York Times reports:

Ramesh Ponnuru doesn't think it's workable:

Rep. Mark Kirk will cosponsor Pete King's "America Stands With Israel Act." The Illinois Republican Senate candidate says in a statement:

It's been a few days since we learned not only that Rush Limbaugh has married for the fourth time but also that the musical entertainment was provided by Sir Elton John. How on God's earth did this happen?

Tunku Varadarajan asks:

Another week, another documented example of physical violence by a protester, another instance in which the violence is not perpetrated by a conservative.

Reuters news agency was caught cropping photographs of the Gaza blockade-running raid by Turkish radical Islamists, removing knives from the hands of the extremists and blood from the scene. Previously, in its coverage of the Lebanon war of 2006, Reuters was forced to retract altered images by a…

In a speech delivered today at the National Endowment for Democracy, Senator John McCain called for regime change in Iran:

Today, a conference committee begins hashing out differences between the House and Senate visions for financial regulatory reform. As Congress begins deliberations on another sweeping overhaul of a complex national system with broad, international implications, one would hope they are well informed…

With drilling now limited off the Gulf Coast, oil businesses might have even greater incentive to engage in business elsewhere -- even in Iran. This could provide a great boost to the economy of this rogue regime, unless the U.S. acts to prevent such engagements. Barack Obama and his surrogates…

Via RCP, a new Rasmussen poll shows Republican Sharron Angle leading Harry Reid 50% to 39% in the Nevada Senate race:

Perhaps the Onion really is "America's Finest News Source," at least when it comes to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Hill's Michael O'Brien reports:

Hillary Clinton has been touring Latin America this week. First she traveled to Peru, where she attended the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), before visiting Ecuador, Colombia, and Barbados. To her credit, the secretary of state is trying to build support for…

Zoila, Liam, and Alena were strangers with a shared goal.  They met in Evanston, Illinois, last Saturday for the first time, telling other strangers they encountered as they walked door-to-door, “We’re here for the president.”

Nevadans support passing Arizona-style immigration law 57% to 32%.

Hezbollah stands behind Helen Thomas:

Texas Senator John Cornyn announces resolution to express support for Israel:

The city of Bedford in southwest Virginia lost 21 of its boys on the beaches of Normandy 66 years ago, and the town's expansive memorial to D-Day commemorated this last week by adding to the site--a bust of Josef Stalin?

A reader, noting the Obama administration’s apparent endorsement of an international board of inquest to look into Israel’s (but not Turkey’s) role in the terrorist flotilla incident, suggests a contest to name an appropriate American participant in this show trial. Helen Thomas is too obvious.…

At the Corner, Jay Nordlinger ponders the irony gays in Ireland carrying Hamas flags at a pro-Palestinian march:

Last week, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported that Illinois Democrat Alexi Giannoulias had embellished his record. Giannoulias claimed on his official website – he is currently the state treasurer of Illinois – to be the founder and chair of the AG Foundation. His biography stated, “He founded and chairs…

Oops:

Mickey Kaus, California voters hardly knew ye:

Rasmussen shows Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio tied at 37%, with Kendrick Meek at 15%:

From the BBC:

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on why Russia can invade Georgia at will and doesn’t need an advanced amphibious assault ship like the French Mistral to do so:

Stephen Strasburg is the talk of the town in Washington. The 21-year-old starting pitcher made his major league debut for the Nationals last night and lived up to every bit of hype the local and national sports media threw his way. Strasburg threw 14 strikeouts, which according to Buster Olney is…

We may soon have before our eyes the mother of all leaks. “The State Department and American embassies around the world,” reports the Daily Beast, “are bracing for what officials fear could be the massive, unauthorized release of secret diplomatic cables in which U.S. diplomats harshly evaluate…

Kosovo media have reported that an Islamist ideologue from that country, Fuad Ramiqi, was among the participants in the ill-fated attempt to break Israel’s naval blockade at Gaza. Ramiqi was joined by three Albanian Muslims from Macedonia--Sami Emini, Jasmin Rexhepi, and Sead Asipi.

Sharron Angle wins the Nevada Senate GOP primary, and former federal judge Brian Sandoval beats sitting (embattled) Nevada governor Jim Gibbons.

In what was otherwise a great night for candidates backed by Sarah Palin (Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Carly Fiorina in California) and other Republican women (Meg Whitman in California, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Kristi Noem in South Dakota), outsider Cecile Bledsoe has lost to Steve Womack…

The AP has called Meg Whitman the winner of the Republican primary for Governor of California; Carly Fiorina has been declared the Republican winner of the Senate race. Whitman currently has 61.8 percent of the vote over her opponent Steve Poizner, with 7 percent of precincts reporting. Fiorina…

"Incumbent wins!" National Review editor Rich Lowry jokes about Blanche Lincoln's surprise victory on Fox News's election coverage. Lowry's right, in a sense, it's not often that folks are so surprised by what was once expected in elections. But this year is different.

If Washington analysis would be any indication, Carly Fiorina was once hardly an afterthought in the Republican Senate primary in California. But the experts turned out to be wrong.

With more than 70% of precincts reporting, the AP is calling the Arkansas Democratic Senate primary for Senator Blanche Lincoln, as she leads Lt. Gov. Bill Halter 51% to 48%. A big loss for Big Labor and MoveOn.org, who were backing Halter.

Tom Graves is the newest Republican congressman from Georgia. He will replace the retiring Nathan Deal.

In the four-way South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, with 84 percent of precincts reporting, Nikki Haley has 49 percent of the vote--just shy of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. The AP projects that she will get there. So she'll head to a runoff with Gresham Barrett, unless he decides…

At a Kalamazoo Central High School commencement speech yesterday, President Obama reminded graduates that there will be times they “screw up” no matter how hard they try, and when that happens, “it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame.”  “We see it every day…

Allahpundit: Obama can’t explain why he hasn’t spoken to BP’s CEO

Great Britain is "committed to seeing [the war in Afghanistan] through to resolution."

In an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, President Obama said this:

Mitch Daniels told THE WEEKLY STANDARD's Andy Ferguson that the next president "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until economic issues are resolved.

Meeting today in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council heard the following statement from the Syrian representative, First Secretary Rania Al Rifaiy:  “Israel…is a state that is built on hatred…Let me quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing merrily as they go to school…

This morning at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Indiana governor Mitch Daniels met with a group of (mostly conservative) journalists, each of whom received a color printout of Andy Ferguson's new THE WEEKLY STANDARD cover story on Daniels.

McClatchy is reporting that the Iranian government has now launched a series of airstrikes and artillery barrages along the Northern Iraq border, in autonomous Kurdistan. Those attacks are coupled with a small scale troop incursion in the Kurdish-Iranian mountains.

You can't read the papers these days without being reminded that Israel is isolated. Of course, Israel has had few friends in Europe and the Middle East for some time. So, what's new?

We were flipping through back issues of the magazine when we were reminded that Hillel Fradkin and I. Lewis Libby anticipated Turkey's Islamist turn in the February  22, 2010, issue. The piece was headlined "Twilight of the Arabs." Here's a choice cut:

Permit me to remind my colleagues, in response to the sudden retirement of 89-year-old Helen Thomas, to be careful what you wish for: It may be satisfying to see her finally heading toward the exit--although I am not so sure this is permanent--but she has always been good for a laugh and rueful…

While delivering a commencement speech yesterday at Kalamazoo Central High School, President Obama reminded graduates that there will be times they “screw up” no matter how hard they try, and when that happens, “it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame.”  “We…

In a letter to Louisana's senators, Cliffe F. Laborde and J. Peter Laborde, Jr., who own and operate a small Louisiana-based shipping company that services oil rigs in the Gulf, argue that President Obama's decision to shut down 33 deep-water wells for six months "makes no sense and should be…

Today marks the launch of what will be an invaluable website for elected officials, candidates, journalists, and, really, all Americans: ObamaCareWatch.org.

New Orleans is, for many people, synonymous with disaster. But disaster has been the last thing on the minds of New Orleanians in the past few months, at least prior to the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast on April 20. Tourism was up, the local economy was…

The wire service Reuters has been caught cropping out important details from photos taken aboard the Mavi Marmara. Of course, that's the ship in the pro-terrorist flotilla that was intercepted on its way to assist Hamas-ruled Gaza that put up a deadly fight.

Wired has an excellent profile of the Wikileaks mole, one that's worth a read in its entirety. Here's a brief background:

AEI's Center for Defense Studies: Fighting the Right’s Isolationist Urges.

Two members of Germany's "post-communist" Left party, Inge Höger and Annette Groth, were on the Mavi Marmara last week and apparently used tax monies to fund their terror raid on Israel.

Some heartening news from Helmand, courtesy of our British friends: 

Politico has a statement from Hearst Newspapers:

Rasmussen:

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has called on Hearst Newspapers to fire Helen Thomas, and her co-author and speaking agency have cut ties with her. Now, former Hearst Newspapers correspondent Cliff May has sent this letter to his former employer, "urging you as strenuously as I can…

In today's Wall Street Journal, Fred Barnes argues that President Obama might be hoping to get Nancy Pelosi (and the congressional Democrats) off his back:

Let us give Barack Obama credit, on those all too rare occasions, when credit is due. The sacking of Dennis Blair is one of his finer moves in national security. It stands in stark contrast to one of George W. Bush’s most consequential lapses.

Christopher Caldwell writes in his latest Financial Times column:

Mason-Dixon's latest poll, released yesterday, shows former assemblywoman Sharron Angle leading by 8 points in the GOP primary which will be held tomorrow. This is the third recent poll putting Angle in the lead.

Here's a good way to remember John Wooden (1910-2010), the wonderful man who was a 3-time All-America basketball player at Purdue (1930-32), won 335 games and lost 22 in his last dozen seasons as UCLA's head coach, won 10 national championships over that span (no other coach has ever won 5), was…

Sex and the City 2

Macaulay

The Loser Letters

Oh, sure, there’s enough particulate matter in the New York City air to turn a white shirt gray by the end of the workday. And a couple whiffs of a narrow West Side cross street tightly enclosed by high-rises on a hot summer day when the trash is overdue for pickup could put even the strongest…

On the 65th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe in early May, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas. His speech was not about America’s unprecedented, massive marshalling of resources, men, and materiel to defeat the forces of fascism that…

In February, the news broke that Christopher Wheeldon was stepping down as artistic director of Morphoses/the Christopher Wheeldon Company, the internationally acclaimed ballet troupe he founded just three years ago. Within the dance community, this was seismic: Many were shocked, but few were…

Although the "United States these days is under unusually timid, intimidated, hypocritical, and sanctimonious leadership," as Bill Kristol writes in the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, "Congress can stand with Israel, expressing support for Israel’s right to defend itself. And Congress can…

A strong defense of Israel from Liz Cheney on ABC's This Week:

Cassy Fiano has a fine D-Day anniversary post at hotair.com, with clips of the invasion, FDR's speech, and Reagan's 40 years later.

Michigan, a state that Barack Obama won by 16 points and that hasn't gone to a Republican presidential candidate in 22 years, opposes Obamacare by 8 points, according to the Detroit Free Press.  Perhaps even more disconcertingly for the Obama administration, voters under age-30 are opposed to…

The bad news is that there is a lot of bad news. BP, known to our president as British Petroleum (which infuriates our British friends who say that name was abandoned long ago and Obama is merely trying to rubbish their country), is destroying the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico, and wrecking the…

The smears against Nikki Haley somehow manage to get uglier.

Today the Federal Trade Commission issued its draft report on "the reinvention of journalism."  At page 15 of the report, the FTC proposes to provide "direct and indirect" financial assistance to journalists.

So the one part of government the Obama administration—which is spending unprecedented amounts on every domestic department of government—has decided to squeeze is the military. This is outrageous and pathetic—taking money out of the already inadequate baseline defense budget to pay for a domestic…

Attorney General Holder apparently only selectively follows ethical rules governing what prosecutors can say about pending criminal investigations. Compare his comments on the Sestak scandal and the BP oil spill, only three weeks apart:

Conservatives have fallen for Chris Christie as he fights the teachers' union in New Jersey. Another clip of Christie on the unions this week shows you why:

Political junkies, there are 37—that's right, 37—governor's races this fall, so in case you thought you were going to get by only boning up on House and Senate races, think again, kid. The stage had already been set for historic, err, change, due to the relatively small number of incumbents running:

Keep America Safe's chairman, Liz Cheney, has released the following statement regarding the Obama administration's handling of the flotilla incident:

The IDF has released this video recording (recovered on board one of the ships) of one of the flotilla passengers saying he wants to become a martyr, and failed two times previously:

Naoto Kan was elected by the Japanese Diet today following the resignation of outgoing prime minister Yukio Hatoyama on June 2. Kan is a member of Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which last August wrested control of the government from the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party. ABC News has…

Ben Smith reports:

The boss introduced you to Cecile Bledsoe a couple weeks ago. Today, Sarah Palin endorses Bledsoe and designates her as an official "Mama Grizzly."

Charles Krauthammer writes:

Rasmussen:

Much of the focus on Obamacare has rightly been on its fiscal recklessness.  But in a New York Times story —the type of story the Times couldn’t seem to find space for prior to Obamacare’s passage — we see a clear glimpse of the kind of care that Obamacare would likely spawn.

George W. Bush: "Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ... I'd do it again to save lives."

Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli has refused to file an amicus brief on behalf of the family of the Marine at whose funeral the Westboro Baptist Church protested--a brief that 48 other states' attorneys general have agreed to file. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the story:

“I don't know why he feels the need to embellish the record and not tell the truth,” Alexi Giannoulias recently said of his opponent Mark Kirk. But now it would be fitting for Giannoulias to ask himself the same question he posed to his opponent, both of whom are vying for the Illinois Senate seat…

In the aftermath of the attempt by Hamas supporters to breach Israel's Gaza blockade, more questions should be asked about Turkey's relationship to Hamas--and about the U.S. attitude toward Turkey and its pro-Hamas associates. One point is already obvious: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan of…

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On Tuesday, one day after Israeli commandos raided a supposedly “humanitarian” flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip, Israeli Ambassador to the EU Ran Curiel appeared before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in what would become a raucous session. Even before Curiel had the chance to…

Marco Rubio writes on his website:

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation has released study that's worth of a (scrupulous) look. Here's its central tenet:

Harry Reid's favorability numbers are in the gutter, voters hate the new health care law, and Nevada has the highest foreclosure rate and the second highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. By all indications, the Senate majority leader's seat should be ripe for the picking.

Send Harry Packing has released its first ad in opposition to the Senate majority leader:

The international community may be determined to ignore videos clearly showing flotilla "peace activists" beating the mess out of IDF soldiers before they even hit the deck of the boat, but the rest of the world is tuning on on YouTube.

Following the revelation that Connecticut's Democratic Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal had falsely claimed to have served in Vietnam, Republican Linda McMahon was within just three points in a Rasmussen poll. But now Rasmussen shows Blumenthal back to a 23-point lead. 

Finally: White House approves Jindal berm plan.

They were just checking "to see if he was still interested" in the gig, you see. A statement from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

And Politico reports Romanoff has released the email from White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina to back it up:

The day Abraham Lincoln delivered his electrifying speech at New York City’s Cooper Union in 1860, he sat for a now famous photograph by Mathew Brady. Lincoln’s stem-winding perorations that night won him high praise from political elites, but the picture – widely used and reproduced in the…

The Democrats and their political allies seem to have found a way to try to circumvent the fact that Americans plainly want, by overwhelming numbers, Obamacare to be repealed: They simply don’t ask Americans the question. The Hill writes, “A plurality of Americans said they would prefer Republicans…

Netanyahu speaks on flotilla incident.

Just as the danger of homegrown political Islam is on display in the United States with the attempted Times Square bombing--the third attempted attack in six months--Germany seems to be recoiling to its pre-9/11 indifference toward growing radical Iranian Islam in its backyard. In late May, the…

Ben Smith posts a transcript of Vice President Biden's comments defending Israel on the Gaza flotilla incident:

I noted earlier that it sure felt like Obama was spending very little of his speech today on his purported top priority— the oil spill in the Gulf. The transcript is below the fold (also here), but here are the totals:

The AP's Philip Elliott reports:

Remember, it's all about the impoverished Palestinian people: 

A CNN poll of adults shows that 56% disapprove and 43% approve "of the passage of the health care bill which became law in April."

Eight months ago, Japan's Yukio Hatoyama was a star. His leftist Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had stormed to electoral victory, ousting a conservative party that had governed almost uninterrupted since the 1950s. Yesterday, he resigned after a massive collapse in popularity.

At the Washington Examiner today, David Freddoso explains the faulty logic in the D.C. Council's justification for the heavily-subsidized Nationals Park:

Well, a lawyer has been deployed.

The laws being contested in Citizens United treated unions and corporations the same. The Citizens United decision treats unions and corporations the same. In fact, campaign finance law has attempted to treat unions and corporations the same for 43 years.

Via JPost, video of peace activists throwing a stun grenade at the Israeli commandos:

George W. Bush is on Facebook.

Rep. Artur Davis lost his bid to become the first black Democratic nominee for governor in Alabama Tuesday by a huge margin, falling to state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks by 24 points.

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf--with no relief in sight until August or later--Daniel Foster at NRO suggests maybe we could seal the well with a small nuke:

Last night, our favorite Alabama Agriculture Commissioner candidate Dale Peterson lost, coming in third place and failing to advance to a run-off election.

Noah Shachtman has a rather dour take on the utility of Israel's new media engagements in the wake of the flotilla fiasco:

Kirsten Powers: "Politics as usual" is not an acceptable excuse for Obama in l'affaire Sestak.

At the United Nations, a lynch mob for Israel is always just a moment away.  The Islamic countries are a reliable source of venom, led by the Arab bloc; what we used to call the “non-aligned” are all aligned against Israel and happy to join the fun; and the Europeans can be counted on for…

Republicans may have a better chance of winning the Senate than the House in the midterm election in November.  And their prospects for taking over the Senate appear to be getting better by the day.  At least that’s what polls indicate.  But politics can be fickle and poll numbers fleeting.  So…

As further evidence of how politicized health care would become under Obamacare, Politico reports that Planned Parenthood is pushing for a national mandate that insurers must provide free birth control.  Over the objections of those who think that Americans should be free to seek out health…

"Israel had every right under international law to stop and board ships bound for the Gaza war zone late Sunday. Only knee-jerk left-wingers and the usual legion of poseurs around the world would dispute this," says Leslie Gelb.

How bad is the Turkish problem that Seth Cropsey writes about?

The details of Israel’s attempt on Monday to enforce the blockade of Gaza are less important than the consequences that will now begin to unfold. The Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara (Blue Marmara) was one of several that were attempting to run a blockade that Israel has been enforcing against…

While we're focused on the supporters of Hamas -- and the publicity they were able to garner by attacking Israeli soldiers -- it's worth considering other repressive Islamist regimes that are similar in nature to Hamas. Consider this recent report from Reuters, for instance, from sharia-ruled Saudi…

A U.S. official talks to Ben Smith about the flotilla incident. "We’re the only ones who believe them," the official says of the Israelis, "and what they’re saying is true."

Via Instapundit, some real talk from Mickey Kaus:

Three pro-Hamas demonstrators were already dead, due to friendly fire, before the Israelis boarded the ship headed for Gaza, according to Hanin Zoabi, an Arab-Israeli member of Knesset. Zoabi was on board the ship in support of the demonstrators.

Pat Toomey released the following statement regarding the pro-Hamas flotilla en route to Gaza:

Hillary Clinton raised more than a few eyebrows last week, when she aired her own views (and not necessarily those of the Obama administration, she said) on federal tax policy, saying she feels the rich “are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained Sarah Palin's imminent Facebook post on the Israeli Flotilla incident. Here it is:

The Washington, D.C. region has two large counties—one in Virginia and one in Maryland— that offer a helpful snapshot of good and bad budgeting. The bottom line: Virginia law doesn't allow public employees to unionize, while a Maryland county's government is stocked entirely with Democrats looking…

President Horst Koehler sent political shockwaves through Germany by announcing his  immediate resignation yesterday afternoon. Koehler -- who assumed the titular presidency in 2004 and was widely expected to serve out the remainder of his second term until 2014 -- stepped down barely a week after…

On Monday, the French-born American sculptor Louise Bourgeois died in her Manhattan home at age 98 of a heart attack.

"[T]oday the Moynihan Report is largely forgotten. Sadly, its predictions about the decline of the black family have proven largely correct."

The "big think" pieces on the Tea Party movement are starting to come out. I've linked to John B. Judis's (subscriber only) analysis of the Tea Party before, but continue to recommend it. I also recommend William Voegeli's essay in the new Claremont Review of Books. Choice cut:

The most ominous aspect of the flotilla incident is Turkey's involvement. The flotilla bound for Gaza, in violation of the blockade, was allowed to leave a Turkish port. The main sponsor was a Turkish charity known for ties to jihadist groups. The Turkish diplomatic and governmental apparatus…