op ed review 2/7/09

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

Fox News will broadcast Sarah Palin’s keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention live on Saturday night.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0210/Fox_to_air_Palins_Tea_Party_address.html

In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html?hp

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel offered an apology on Wednesday to advocates for the disabled who were offended that he used the phrase "f---ing retarded." His remarks were publicized last week, and Sarah Palin set off a firestorm by slamming Emanuel on her Facebook page.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/02/04/2010-02-04_rahm_says_sorry_again_over_use_of_rword.html

Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is advertising job openings for “mentally ill” or “mentally retarded” attorneys. Seriously.

http://volokh.com/2010/02/03/seeking-qualified-mentally-retarded-lawyers/

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republicans' standard-bearer in 2008, is facing a surprisingly strong primary challenge from the right, evidence that even party leaders aren't safe from the swell of conservative activism heading into the 2010 midterm elections.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704343104575033181531964738.html

That Facebook page put up by Americans United for Life to support the Super Bowl spot featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother has drawn more than 160,000 supporters, and the signups are expected to total around 200,000 by the time the spot airs this Sunday during the showdown between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Tebow-ad-Facebook-page-draws-160000-signers-and-climbing-83555772.html

The Kennedy political dynasty is shaking in the aftershock of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s earth-shattering election, with a new poll showing U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy losing ground as he faces a well-financed GOP foe backed by Brown’s top strategists. The WPRI-12 poll showed the Rhode Island Democrat with a 56 percent unfavorability rating in his district - a negative that grows to 62 percent statewide.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20100205kennedys_shaken_as_gop_eyes_ri_too/

The American Legion and the veterans of Foreign Wars have come out in opposition to President Obama's plan to end the military's long-standing ban on open homosexuals in the ranks.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/04/veterans-groups-rap-push-to-end-military-gay-ban/

On sale exclusively at Target is an innocent-looking toy globe. They contain just about all the countries on Earth…except Israel: In the spot where Israel should be, this word is printed: "Palestine." Some of those who unwittingly purchased the Israel-free orbs feel as if they've played a role in a modern-day Final Solution.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/where_israel_did_get_wiped_off_map_qbXJETmT4RA4NuOHuxzeBI#ixzz0ecEPVXVu

Agents for Britain's MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=123758

Democratic lawmakers in Washington State are moving ahead with their first major plans for raising taxes as they try to solve a huge budget deficit.

http://www.kirotv.com/politics/22448842/detail.html

Until today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) seemed safe from the backlash gathering against Democrats. No Republican has managed to win a statewide election for either Governor or Senator in more than a decade, and Washington is a safely liberal cog in the Left Coast machine. However, according to a new poll among registered voters, Murray trails Dino Rossi….Independent voters are once again the key to the election. They support Rossi, assuming he enters the race, by 17 points. Rossi also has better base enthusiasm, with even moderate Republicans supporting him in the high 80s.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/29/murray-in-trouble-in-wa/

When presented with a petition of 14,000 signatures calling for tax increases, Washington Gov. Gregoir met with the sponsoring organization, happy to be asked to raise taxes. “But when 20,000 signatures -- mostly from the people who pay for those subsidies -- were provided in a petition against tax increases, none of our leaders -- not Gregoire, not Speaker Chopp, not Majority Leader Brown -- would meet with them.”

http://soundpolitics.com/archives/013718.html

Networks like ABC have hyperventilated about the "outrage" of "endangering" soldiers with rifle sights with "secret Bible codes" on them. They worried about Christian proselytizing on the campus of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Will these TV reporters notice as the Air Force responds to the liberal-media complaints by opening an outdoor chapel space for Wiccans and Druids?

http://www.usafa.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123187157

U.S. Department of Labor statistics show that unionized public sector workers now outnumber unionized private sector employees. We're becoming Europe.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013424060649464.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

Downtown Scotty Brown: The New GOP Senator Looks Like a Partisan

Howard Fineman 2/5/10

I just eyeballed newly sworn-in Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., the undertaker of the Kennedy legend and the man who sent shock waves through Democratic Party. I watched his swearing in, chatted him up in the hallway, and then attended his maiden presser.

My conclusion: this guy is a heat-seeking missile aimed straight at Barack Obama, and anyone who thinks he is moved by the bipartisan spirit of, say, Ed Brooke, the moderate Republican of yore from Massachusetts, is deluding himself. This guy is a fighter.

A few minutes into the press conference he declared, in answer to a question: "The stimulus bill didn't create one new job." The reporters in the rows glanced at each other, all thinking the same thought I'm sure: steel-caged death match! Didn't the president just spend a week saying the "recovery act" had "saved or created about 2 million jobs?"

There's a little difference of opinion between 44 (Obama) and 41 (Brown), but if anything Brown was aggressive about noting it. Pressed on the point, he allowed as how the law might have "retained some" jobs, but that was it.

More generally, Brown may not be full strength Tea Party, but his economic and fiscal thinking seems to have at least some Darjeeling in it. Right away he expressed his alarm at the very size of the Obama budget—$3.8 trillion—40 percent of which, he said, would have to be covered by borrowing. Voters, he said, were concerned that "we are living beyond our means."

And yet he also said that the country needed far more aggressive tax cutting than the president is proposing. Those cuts, he said, would spur growth—and, he implied, would pay for themselves. He decried the reach of government regulation and, all in all, sounded more like "Don't Tread on Me" than "Can't we all get along?"

And the sense I got of his character—tough, confident, a little cocky—comported with the role he played as a shooting wingman on the Tufts basketball team a long time ago. His nickname was "Downtown Scotty Brown," in honor of his willingness to hoist the long shot.

Well, the shot went in up in Massachusetts, and he's just begun to fire away.

And actually, as a Hill friend of mine just pointed out, the stimulus actually had created at least one new job: Brown's!

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/02/04/downtown-scotty-brown-the-new-gop-senator-looks-like-a-partisan.aspx

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

"Washington, Obama tells us, is 'unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.' So let's have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything! Which raises the question: Does even Obama listen to Obama's speeches?"

-Mark Steyn

"Last week the Russian air force celebrated the maiden flight of the Sukhoi T-50, Moscow's version of the American F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. We have shut down the F-22 production line, viewing it as an unaffordable and unnecessary extravagance. We mention this in light of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement that President Obama's proposed freeze on discretionary domestic programs should also cover defense expenditures. Unfortunately, our enemies aren't freezing their defense budgets…..Then there's the matter of the $101,000 tab taxpayers picked up over that period for (Pelosi’s) 'in-flight services,' including a selection of top-shelf booze. ... Pelosi has used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. ... We suggest that since everybody has to make a sacrifice, it not come at the expense of the U.S. military. We can't build any more Raptors, but we can use Air Force jets as sky taxis for politicians who consider themselves too important to fly commercial.""

-Investor’s Business Daily

"The bigger the government, the less I do for myself, for my family and for my community. That is why we Americans give more charity and devote more time to volunteering than Europeans do. The European knows: The government, the state, will take care of me, my children, my parents, my neighbors and my community. I don't have to do anything. The bigger question in many Europeans' lives is, 'How much vacation time will I have and where will I spend that vacation?' That is what happens when the state gets bigger -- you become smaller."

-Dennis Prager

"Many people ask me whether the Democrats are in as much trouble as they were in 1994. The numbers suggest they are in much deeper trouble, at least at this moment."

-Michael Barone

"When the president directed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other al Qaeda plotters of Sept. 11 be tried in a civilian court in Manhattan, [our] enemies knew they had the president's number for once and all. Now, with even stalwarts in his own party denouncing a civilian trial in Manhattan as the nut-ball idea of the year, he's looking for a smart solution, a way to look tough in retreat. He should take the trial to San Francisco, where the flame that warms the cult burns brightest, and where surely no one would object."

-Wesley Pruden

"Toyota apologized Saturday for faulty gas pedals on four million vehicles just recalled. When you press the pedal down it stays down and the car accelerates out of control. Whoever designed the gas pedal should be fired and made Treasury Secretary."

-Argus Hamilton

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GLOBALONEY

“The CFC ban: Global warming’s pilot episode” The CFC ban was a perfect pilot for the anthropogenic global warming fraud. It established all the characters: the eco-left NGOs, the environmental "scientists" (both real and self-proclaimed), and big industry poised to make huge profits and political control over human choices and behavior. It had buy-ins by governments all over the planet. It was based on an unproven (and probably unprovable) hypothesis. Many industries stood to gain at the expense of consumers……The CFC ban empowered and emboldened the eco-left. It…..gave them a "win," and it was based on some of the most specious, tenuous science one can imagine. But it proved a point: Proven science need not trump environmental ideology.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_cfc_ban_global_warmings_pi.html

“The effects of global warming have touched every continent. Drought and deserts are spreading, while from the other floods and hurricanes unseen before the previous decades have now become frequent.” Who said this? Al Gore? No. “bin Laden goes green”

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/05/bin-laden-goes-green/

One of Britain's top science writers reveals how researchers tried to hide flaws in a key study.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud

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LEFTIST WATCH

Fresh off liberals getting thumped in Virginia, New Jersey, and most recently Massachusetts, the left are now in a full-fledged panic, and they're doing all they can to quickly blur the obvious teachable moment: that the GOP can win by boldly going way to the right of the Democrats.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/desperate_times_and_left_wing.html

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NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD

An Egyptian cleric has issued a religious decree banning the use of Facebook, on the grounds that it encourages moral corruption. He called the site a destructive tool that helps form ''forbidden relations.''

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=167785

A girl was buried alive by relatives in southeast Turkey in a gruesome honor killing because she reportedly befriended boys.. Acting on a tip-off, police discovered Medine Memi's body in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre-deep hole in a chicken pen outside her house,40 days after she went missing.

http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/786e5ea7dddd4caea2af90951ef87cc0/04-02-2010-04-06/Girl_buried_alive_over_boys

No one told the Islamic Nazis that they lost World War II. The former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, recently asserted that Jews in Europe had “always been a problem.” He claimed that “they had to be confined to ghettos and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived…held whole governments to ransom.”

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/04/islamic-nazis/

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ARTICLES

“Free James O'Keefe” American Spectator, by Ben Stein

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/01/free-james-okeefe

“…The speaker of the House wants to extend a proposed freeze on domestic programs to include defense spending. In a world of growing threats, perhaps she'd also like to cut her travel and bar bill… We can't build any more Raptors, but we can use Air Force jets as sky taxis for politicians who consider themselves too important to fly commercial.”

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=519774

New media help conservatives get their anti-Obama message out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/31/AR2010013102860.html

On Thursday the Obama administration awarded $8 billion in stimulus funds to plan and build high-speed rail projects in California and Florida, and for other routine passenger-rail projects masquerading as high-speed rail. ……this is not money well spent. Supporters say high-speed rail is a cost-effective, "green" solution to airport and highway congestion. In reality, it is costly to build and operate and has a negligible impact on highway and airport traffic. High-speed rail is driven by little more than a romantic notion to confer a European ambiance on American cities.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575033672230734364.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

A Senate hearing last week confirmed the public's worst concern about Barack Obama: That when it comes to national security Obama hasn't just been asleep at the switch, he hasn't even bothered to find the switch. "I do not think he (Obama) has a firm grasp yet on the intelligence community," 9/11 Commission Vice-Chairman and former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_most_important_story_you_d.html

John Lennon caused a worldwide storm by claiming that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Now, more than four decades on, it seems his former bandmate Ringo Starr has acknowledged a humbler place in the grand scheme of things. The drummer says he has found God - after taking a long and winding road to enlightenment.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1248085/Why-Ive-turned-God-70-reformed-Ringo-Starr.html

“To all of you Kennedy groupies out there, go find yourself a grief counselor. Call the Samaritans. As the sign on the Sagamore bridge says, suicide is not the answer. This morning, for the first time since January 1953, there is neither a Kennedy nor a Kennedy-family retainer “representing” Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. Do not despair - after all, you still have Barney Frank.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20100205for_moonbats_the_end_of_an_era/

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Who thought this was a good idea? “NBC Cafeteria Celebrates Black History Month With Fried Chicken Special” Question: What would have happened if Fox had done this?

http://www.mediaite.com/online/nbc-cafeteria-celebrates-black-history-month-with-fried-chicken-special/

Dan Quayle has nothing on Obama. What is a “corpse man”?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlKIfzoC8D0

Anti-initiative bills in the Washington legislature: SAVE THE 2/3’s VOTE FOR TAX INCREASES!

http://www.voterswantmorechoices.com/

Join the fight for Boeing’s real American tankers.

http://www.realamericantankers.com/?gclid=CLz6gr_22Z8CFQLHsgodYGOvGg

Few stories elicit as much distorted coverage as the annual Pro-Life March in Washington. This video from Jack Cashill tells the story.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/02/media_malpractice_on_display.html

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HUMOR

“The hot joke in political circles lately is about the three girls on Career Day telling the class what their mothers do for a living. One says her mom is a seamstress, one says her mom is a nurse and the last declares hers to be an exotic dancer. "We didn't know your mother did that," the first two tell the third afterwards. "She doesn't, but I was too embarrassed to admit that she works on Wall Street."

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WISE WORDS

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."

-John Witherspoon, 1776

"It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

-Thomas Jefferson