op ed review 11/22

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

Here it comes: “Administration Lowers Bar for Success in Afghanistan War, Seeks Exit Strategy”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/15/administration-lowers-bar-success-afghanistan-war-seeks-exit-strategy/

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created-congressional-districts-exist/story?id=9097853

The nation's Catholic bishops approved a pastoral letter on marriage Tuesday as their pivotal effort in their battle to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It is part of a multipronged effort to educate the nation's 67 million Catholic faithful that already includes a web site: ForYourMarriage.org, which was started in June 2007.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/18/bishops-letter-defines-marriage/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_more_news_carousel

The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091120/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_abortion

Conservative members of America's largest Lutheran denomination announced that they are splitting from the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, making it the second mainline Protestant church to undergo a major schism over the issue of homosexuality and related matters of biblical authority.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/19/conservative-lutherans-to-leave-synod/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_headlines

Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama. Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50 percent in the last year. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says “..Congress should now work on legalizing illegal immigrants.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/19/work-site-arrests-of-illegals-fall-dramatically/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_headlines

When the former Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor wrote her autobiography, the Associated Press found a copy before its release date and assigned 11 people to fact check all 432 pages.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/17/ap-turns-heads-devoting-reporters-palin-book-fact-check/

Al Gore's Current TV referred to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a "Gun-Ho" and a "TWILF." These disgraceful, sexually-charged epithets were part of an attack on prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and came in the form of a cartoon ironically titled "The Stupid Virus.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/15/al-gores-current-tv-bashes-limbaugh-beck-palin-fox-news

With Sarah Palin in the spotlight as she continues her nationwide media and book tour, the Democratic National Committee is suggesting to its supporters that the former GOP vice presidential candidate could pose a real threat to the Democratic agenda.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/20/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5723675.shtml

It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit.. And they should be, since they own nearly $2 trillion in assets denominated in the currency of a country about to double its national debt over the next decade.

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/11/16/china-questions-costs-of-us-healthcare-reform/

Improper payments by the U.S. government to people, firms and contractors rose sharply to $98 billion in fiscal 2009.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34009267

The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091114/ap_on_bi_ge/us_medicare_fraud

Newt Gingrich, author of the Contract With America, says GOP chairman Michael Steele has started work on a new framework for 2010 that he is calling "First principles.''

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/11/gingrich_contract_with_america.html

Rudy Giuliani is “very likely” going to run against appointed incumbent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s Senate term in 2010.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Republicans-could-make-electoral-history-in-New-York-70624392.html

Saudi Arabia has been identified as the source of the growing Islamization in the U.S. military. A leading analyst asserted that Saudi Arabia spent millions of dollars in its effort to convert U.S. soldiers to Islam.

http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/11/15/top_stories/doc4b004a82b3897267062133.txt

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

Diversity Has Jumped the Shark

Ann Coulter 11/19

It cannot be said often enough that the chief of staff of the United States Army, Gen. George Casey, responded to a massacre of 13 Americans in which the suspect is a Muslim by saying: "Our diversity ... is a strength."

As long as the general has brought it up: Never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a problem. Look at Ireland with its Protestant and Catholic populations, Canada with its French and English populations, Israel with its Jewish and Palestinian populations. Or consider the warring factions in India, Sri Lanka, China, Iraq, Czechoslovakia (until it happily split up), the Balkans and Chechnya. Also look at the festering hotbeds of tribal warfare -- I mean the beautiful mosaics -- in Third World hellholes like Afghanistan, Rwanda and South Central, L.A.

"Diversity" is a difficulty to be overcome, not an advantage to be sought. True, America does a better job than most at accommodating a diverse population. We also do a better job at curing cancer and containing pollution. But no one goes around mindlessly exclaiming: "Cancer is a strength!" "Pollution is our greatest asset!"….

Among the worst aspects of America's "diversity" is that liberals' reaction to a heterogeneous population is to create a pecking order based on alleged victimhood -- as described in electrifying detail in my book, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America. In modern America, the guilty are sanctified, while the innocent never stop paying -- including with their lives, as they did at Fort Hood last week. Points are awarded to aspiring victims for angry self-righteousness, acts of violence and general unpleasantness. But liberals celebrate diversity only in the case of superficial characteristics like race, gender, sexual preference and country of origin. They reject diversity when we need it, such as in "diversity" of legal forums.

After conferring with everyone at Zabar's, Obama decided that if a standard civilian trial is good enough for Martha Stewart, then it's good enough for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is coming to New York! Mohammed's military tribunal was already under way when Obama came into office, stopped the proceedings and, eight months later, announced that Mohammed would be tried in a federal court in New York.

In a liberal's reckoning, diversity is good when we have both Muslim jihadists and patriotic Americans serving in the U.S. military. But diversity is bad when Martha Stewart and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are subjected to different legal tribunals to adjudicate their transgressions. Terrorists tried in civilian courts will be entitled to the whole panoply of legal protections accorded Stewart or any American charged with a crime, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, the right to exclude evidence obtained in violation of Miranda rights, the right to a speedy trial, the right to confront one's accusers, the right to a change of venue, the right to examine the evidence against you, and the right to subpoena witnesses and evidence in one's defense.

Members of Congress have it in their power to put an end to this lunacy right now. If they don't, they are as complicit in Mohammed's civilian trial as the president. Article I, Section 8, and Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution give Congress the power to establish the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and to create exceptions to that jurisdiction. Congress could pass a statute limiting federal court jurisdiction to individuals not subject to trial before a military tribunal. Any legislator who votes "nay" on a such a bill will be voting to give foreign terrorists the same legal rights as U.S. citizens -- and more legal rights than members of the U.S. military are entitled to.

In the case of legal proceedings, diversity actually is a strength.

Edited form a longer column, read it here:

http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/11/19/at_the_end_of_the_day,_diversity_has_jumped_the_shark?page=full&comments=true

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

"As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries. I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice. It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience. The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by 'experts' means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs. Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to 'homeowners' who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance."

-John Stossel

"In the late 1930s, the noted economist Friedrich Von Hayek wrote his landmark pamphlet 'Road to Serfdom,' laying bare the diseased skeleton of socialist/utopian thought that had permeated academia and the salons of his day. With an economy of words that showcased the significance of his conclusion, he pointed out the Achilles heel of collectivist dogma: for a planned economy to succeed, there must be central planners, who by necessity will insist on universal commitment to their plan. How do you attain total commitment to a goal from a free people? Well, you don't. Some percentage will always disagree, even if only for the sake of being contrary or out of a desire to be left alone. When considering a program as comprehensive as a government-planned economy, there are undoubtedly countless points of contention, such as how we will choose the planners, how we will order our priorities when assigning them importance within the plan, how we will allocate resources when competing interests have legitimate claims, who will make these decisions, and perhaps more pertinent to our discussion, how those decisions will be enforced. A rift forming on even one of these issues is enough to bring the gears of this progressive endeavor grinding to a halt. This fatal flaw in the collectivist design cannot be reengineered. It is an error so critical that the entire ideology must be scrapped."

-Joe Herring

"It is not Islamaphobia if they really are trying to kill you."

-Brian

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GLOBALONEY

Global warming appears to have stalled. “Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years.”

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html

Al Gore was introduced in Palm Beach FL as "president of the planet" when he returned here to deliver an environmental lecture. The former vice president spoke on climate change to a crowd of about 800. More than 200 protesters gathered across the street from the event, and their boos and chants could be heard inside the amphitheater as Gore began his presentation.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/gore-s-presentation-on-climate-change-draws-800-59205.html

A hacker has gotten into the computers at Hadley CRU, Britain's largest climate research institute and a proponent of global warming, and seems to have uncovered evidence of substantial fraud in reporting the "evidence" on global warming; the unlawful destruction of records to cover up this fraud ,conspiracy, and deceit in the entire operation.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/scientific_scandal_appears_to.html

“Only a while ago, greenies were people with woollen hats, gumboots and long hair. They hugged trees, drooled over flowers, and generally messed about on the very edge of polite society. They were on the fringe, like weird cults and folks who love to be frightened by conspiracies. Now, in the space of less than a decade, these same weird people have become the major, if not only, force driving society in every country in the West, though what they say is really insane and off the wall! Why is this? Why have the inmates taken over the asylum? And why do people follow?”

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16694

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BOOKS

Book review of "Going Rogue," the title of Sarah Palin's autobiography, refers to the snide remark of an anonymous McCain aide late in last year's presidential campaign. It was used to describe the vice-presidential candidate's move to break free of her media handlers and speak out against the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan, a state that, in Mrs. Palin's view, was well worth contesting…”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574537882681089404.html

Amazon has announced its 2009 best selling books, and Mark Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto" and Glenn Beck's "Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government" are number two and three respectively. This will certainly ruin Chris Matthews' day, as the MSNBCer back in September agonized over there being "so much right-wing crap on the best seller list these days."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/16/levin-beck-take-second-third-amazons-2009-bestsellers

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LEFTIST WATCH

The next crusade of the left: Polygamy. Polygamy has been embraced by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2009/11/03/obama_makes_polygamy_a_21st-century_issue

Following on the heels of their macabre Afghan war protest at a White House Halloween party that targeted children of military families for psychological abuse, leftist Obama ally Code Pink issued a statement justifying the terrorist attack at Fort Hood as opposition to the war from officers and put out a Veterans Day appeal seeking to raise money off the Fort Hood terrorist attack.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/14/obama-ally-code-pink-justifies-fort-hood-terrorist-attack-cashes-in-on-massacre-in-veterans-day-fundraising-appeal/#more-31034

President Obama's 13 million-strong campaign e-mail list has been transformed into a mass political operation dedicated to enacting his agenda -- along with its apparent readiness to help elect Democratic candidates and eventually re-elect the president. Loyal to the Obama White House, Organizing for America serves as a kind of party within a party. Housed within and funded by the Democratic National Committee, its main purpose has been to serve Obama,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20091115/pl_cq_politics/politics3248073

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ARTICLES

An attorney explains: “Why try five in civilian court and five by military commission? Quite simply, the dynamic duo of Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder devised a way to put President Bush on trial after all…... The question of whether the confessions of Mohammed were illegally obtained is a question of law. In federal trial court the defense will file a pretrial motion to suppress the evidence based on confessions obtained by coercion. Actually, they have a stronger argument: The confessions were obtained by illegal torture. It doesn't get much better than that for the defense……the real craziness of the pending scenario is that Obama and Holder have been running around saying that waterboarding is illegal torture. In other words, they have already supported the defense of the man they now wish to prosecute in civilian court. A fiction novelist would be hard-pressed to come up with a story so ridiculous. Let's hope the bulk of the evidence connecting Mohammed to 9/11 comes from sources other than his confessions.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/obamas_nyc_show_starring_khali.html

Pat Buchanan: “Enemy soldiers who commit atrocities are not sent to the United States for trial. Under the Geneva Conventions, soldiers who commit atrocities are shot when caught. When and where did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed acquire his right to a trial by a jury of his peers in a U.S. court?”

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116268

The ideal GOP candidate would be intelligent, articulate, and debate-tested. The candidate, preferably with experience as a governor and not just as a legislative orator, would be able to unite social and fiscal conservatives and use wit and warmth to disarm media twits. Will Republicans have such a candidate for 2012? Maybe…But you can be the first on your block to know the name of a strong candidate for 2020. He fits the specifications and, as frosting on the cake, has the last name of Cruz, a big plus for a political party that needs to capture the Hispanic vote to offset the Democrats' lock on African-Americans. Meet Ted Cruz, the Republican Obama.

http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2009/10/29/candidate_of_the_future

The Wal-Mart strategy: “What's notable about Sarah Palin's book tour, which starts midweek, is where she's not going. She's not going to L.A. or New York, Boston or San Francisco. She's going smack dab to the middle of the country. Fly-over country, liberals call it. And it's a shrewd move, not only in selling books, but positioning herself for a presidential run in 2012, if she chooses. It's a strategy right out of the late Sam Walton's playbook: go where there's demand and the competition ain’t.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/sarah_palins_walmart_strategy.html

Update on Kirby Wilbur: (Kirby) added that he will miss his time with KVI and all the great work he was able to accomplish over the past sixteen years. "Ranting about the governor is nice but the thing I loved most was helping local people, raising money for Operation Support Our Troops and Toys for Tots, getting people out to Tea Parties and rallying listeners to local causes, like raising money to pay for the Medal of Honor Memorial at the UW." He thanks all of you who have sent him messages over the past few days. He's received so many he's not sure he'll be able to respond to each one individually but will try. He said he even received a call from former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich…”

http://soundpolitics.com/archives/013540.html

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

This week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress, and the American Enterprise Institute released a report called “Leaders and Laggards” evaluating the “innovation gap” in America’s schools. They call results “deeply troubling.” Washington’s ranking: number 37.

http://www.libertylive.org/blog_main/post.php?post_id=1712

Here’s an interactive map:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/leaders_laggards/index.html

Comparison pictures of how other world leaders greeted the Emperor of Japan and avoided hitting their heads on the floor.

http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/president-obama-vs-rest-of-world.html

Milton Friedman on greed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

A Hilarious Anti-Harry-Reid Ad That Probably Won't Last Long….see it now.

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2FmNzA2ODI5ZGY2M2E2NWQwYTI0YjFkZmEzYmE2NTE=

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WISE WORDS

"The difference between the path toward greater freedom or bigger government is the difference between success and failure; between opportunity and coercion; between faith in a glorious future and fear of mediocrity and despair; between respecting people as adults, each with a spark of greatness, and treating them as helpless children to be forever dependent; between a drab, materialistic world where Big Brother rules by promises to special interest groups, and a world of adventure where everyday people set their sights on impossible dreams, distant stars, and the Kingdom of God. We have the true message of hope for America."

-Ronald Reagan