Attack Watch

Or, at Michelle Malkin's, "Attaaaaack Waaaaaatch."

Plus: "Obama Campaign: AttackWatch Gains Over 100,000 Sign-Ups In Less Than 24 Hours."

Yeah, that oughta help. Not!

BONUS: "Attack Watch, new Obama campaign site to ‘fight smears,’ becomes laughing stock of the Internet."

U.S. Poverty Rates Hit 50-Year high

Obama promised change, and boy did he deliver. Change we haven't seen in nearly fifty years.

At LAT, "U.S. poverty totals hit a 50-year high":

Census Bureau's grim statistics show recession's lingering effects, as young adults move back home and 1 million more Americans go without health insurance.

Reporting from Washington — In a grim portrait of a nation in economic turmoil, the government reported that the number of people living in poverty last year surged to 46.2 million — the most in at least half a century — as 1 million more Americans went without health insurance and household incomes fell sharply.

The poverty rate for all Americans rose in 2010 for the third consecutive year, matching the 15.1% figure in 1993 and pushing many more young adults to double up or return to their parents' home to avoid joining the ranks of the poor.

Taken together, the annual income and poverty snapshot released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau underscored how the recession is casting a long shadow well after its official end in June 2009.

Continue reading.

Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos Leaked!

Hey, better late than never.

At Wall Street Journal, "Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos Part of FBI Probe of Digital Theft."

And at What Would Tyler Durden Do, "Scarlett Johansson is Naked." (At WeSmirch.)

Democrat Hopes Collapse Following Turner Win in New York Special Election

I've used the 1992 comparison previously. George H.W. Bush was defeated for reelection just 22 months after having record approval ratings of near 90 percent. With last night's breathtaking GOP win in NY-9, the left's utter freak out over 2012 has now hit gale force.

There's lots of stuff on this. See Caitlin Huey-Burns, at RealClearPolitics, "GOP Scores Major Upset in NY-9." Also David Seifman at New York Post, "Disaster looms for O in 2012" (via Memeorandum), and Peter Wehner at Commentary, "Panic, Then Rage Ahead for Democrats."

And at Politico, "Dems schvitzing over NY-9 results," and "Twin defeats spark Democratic fears."

BONUS: From Andrew Breitbart, "After Turner Earthquake in Weiner District, Democrats’ Civil War Against Obama Begins."

VIDEO: Afghanistan Firefight — NATO Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force, Kabul

Via This Ain't Hell...:

And at New York Times, "Militants Attack U.S. Embassy in Kabul."

KABUL, Afghanistan — Heavily armed insurgents wearing suicide vests struck Tuesday at two of the most prominent symbols of the American diplomatic and military presence in Kabul, the United States Embassy and the nearby NATO headquarters, demonstrating the Taliban’s ability to infiltrate even the most heavily fortified districts of the capital.

As the insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, Westerners sought shelter — one rocket penetrated the embassy compound — and Afghan government workers fled their offices, emptying the city center. NATO and Afghan troops responded with barrages of bullets. At least 6 people were killed and 19 wounded.

Keep reading.

New York 9th Congressional District Special Election Results

The Other McCain's got a live blog going: "NY-9: Turner Time?"

Also, David Weigel's calling it:

11:20: There's simply not enough of a Weprin margin in Queens to let him overcome the coming Turner landslide in Brooklyn. This is over, even if the AP waits a while to call it.

Bob Turner (R) defeats David Weprin (D)

9:30pm PST: Now at Los Angeles Times, "Republican Bob Turner wins special election in New York."

I got a note this morning from my good from Norman Gersman in New York. Listening to local talk radio today, Norm reported that it "was wall to wall Democratic advertisements viciously attacking the Republican candidate." And that obviously had little effect. And Norm noted, importantly:

In Queens, there is a small but truly active group of patriots who fully engage themselves in every election for Republican and Conservative candidates. They have boundless energy setting up phone banks, handing out literature, putting out signs, and just doing whatever has to be done to win an election. In Democratic Queens, they usually lose...but that has never, ever deterred them from working on the next campaign. A win tonight is due to them...a great group of patriots. All Americans should stand up and applaud what they have accomplished in the past few months. Their hard work will effect every 2012 campaign because it sends the message that no Democrat, not one, is safe. They all can and will be beaten. So when you read about this election, or view a piece about it on TV, you know who deserves the credit. Great job guys.

That's great to hear. Congratulations to our GOP friends out in New York. The Dems have held the 9th district continuously since 1923. It's going to be a desperate attempt by the Obama-Dems to spin this loss as insignificant for 2012. Just remember: Whatever the White House says, the truth will be the exact opposite.

Michele Bachmann Slams HPV Vaccine Mandate at GOP Debate

She did fine in the debate: "Rick Perry's HPV mandate returns to haunt him."

It's the post-debate comments that weren't Bachmann's best moments. Ed Morrissey's got the main story, "Bachmann: Gardasil causes “mental retardation”." (Via Memeorandum.) And Los Angeles Times has a medical report, "GOP debates HPV vaccine, but medical community gives it OK."

I'll bet Bachmann recovers on this sooner than Perry. The mandate calls into question his bona fides as a small-government conservative. And the debate got heated today among right bloggers and on the Twittersphere.

AoSHQ has this: "Bachmann: I'm A-Goin' to Go Ahead and Push This Lunatic Vaccines=Autism Lie":

Michelle Bachmann is desperate. She's an ambitious, egotistical woman who started running for President just two short years after she first ran for Congress. In the past two months her support went from 13% and rising to 4% and falling.

So she needs something, doesn't she, and Rush Limbaugh warned her off her planned Social Security demagoguery.

So, instead, this bullshit.

And Dan Riehl's got this: "Perry Doesn't Look Ready to Lead America," and "So Much For NRO Being Conservative."

And Tabitha Hale on Twitter: "I think maybe I should abandon Twitter until primary season is over so I still have friends."

It's gonna get heavy like this on the right for a while. Folks are starting to really dig in behind their favorites.

'Time Waits For No One'

It was another long commute yesterday morning. Construction continues on the 405 Fwy modernization, and the 22 Fwy interchange narrows down to two lanes when the freeways merge in Seal Beach. That, and it's just after 8:00am as I'm hitting the road to work, so it's "rush hour" --- except folks can't rush amid the crush. Anyway, blogging's light during the midweek. I watched movies on cable when I got home, caught the GOP debate, and helped my youngest work on his homework. The drive time playlist is below, from The Sound LA:

8:23 - Don't Stand So Close by Police

8:27 - Time Waits For No One by Rolling Stones

8:34 - Who Are You by Who

8:40 - Lookin' Out My Backdoor by CCR

8:50 - Rock 'n Me by Steve Miller

8:53 - Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love by Van Halen

8:57 - Alabama Song (whisky Bar) by Doors

9:00 - American Woman by Guess Who

9:05 - Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie

More blogging tonight.

Doug Ross Had an Awesome 'Larwyn's Lynx' Yesterday

I ran out of time and energy to blog on all the 9/11-related commentary available over the weekend, and Doug Ross had even more stuff I'd missed.

Some great reading: "Larwyn's Linx: Let's Roll Over."

Furor Over Paul Krugman's 9/11 Blog Post

From the letters to the editors, at New York Times:

To the Editor:

Re “The Years of Shame” (“The Conscience of a Liberal” blog, The New York Times on the Web, Sept. 11):

Paul Krugman writes, “The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame.” I disagree.

I feel no shame about my personal recollections and commemorations of 9/11. My memories of the day have not faded; I recall what I saw with my own eyes in Lower Manhattan. I do not believe that our political system was irrevocably poisoned, or that it is a day of shame.

I remain grateful for the words of comfort that President George W. Bush and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani provided the nation in the aftermath.

I find no shame in the pursuit of justice since then by two presidential administrations. I may not agree with every policy decision taken since, but American society is sound and our recollections have not been hijacked.

I urge Mr. Krugman to appreciate moments of great leadership, regardless of the leader’s political affiliation.

MICHAEL METS
Glendale, Queens, Sept. 11, 2011

There are two more letters at that link.

James Taranto has commentary, "History's Smallest Monster." And Michelle felt obligated to respond: "A few more words about Koward Krugman."

And at Mediaite, "Megyn Kelly Hosts Fiery Debate Over Paul Krugman’s ‘Years Of Shame’ 9/11 Column." (Click through to watch. Megyn interviews Medea Benjamin, who is completely down with Krugman's desecration, naturally.)

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cancelled his subscription to the Times in protest: "Donald Rumsfeld cancels New York Times subscription." And "Rumsfeld Decides to “Go Timesless”."

Paul Krugman responded to the criticism (doubled-down), "More About the 9/11 Anniversary."

Turning Conservative After September 11, 2001

I've mentioned it a few times in the past. It was actually the left's reaction to the Bush administration and the Iraq war that made me realize I was conservative. In fact, I realized it on the morning of March 19th, 2003, when I spoke at a campus panel on the war. I didn't feel at home. I was surrounded by bloodthirsty leftists, students and professors, who looked like they had vengeance in their eyes. I went home that night and had dinner with my family, and I remember President Bush coming on the air to announce that combat operations had begun in Iraq. My political beliefs have never been the same. I voted for Al Gore in 2000. I still thought the Democratic Party was the party of Truman and Kennedy. How naive I must have been. But my vision has become clearer every year since then.

The annual debate over the September 11th attacks always reminds me of my political transformation. By now it's safe to say that 9/11 and the Iraq war have merged in my consciousness, although it wasn't always so. It took me a couple of years to understand the partisan divide in America, that one side stands for old-time values, love of country, individualism and sacrifice. The other side stands for ideological intolerance, anti-Americanism, and appeasement toward the forces of evil in the world. It's a stark difference that took stark historical events to congeal for me personally.

I'm reminded of this by some of the comments at my post from yesterday, "Progressives Shame the Country on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11." I wrote at the conclusion there: "For many people like myself, that's why they became conservative." And my good friend Kenneth Davenport dropped by to comment, responding in particular to my conclusion:

I haven't thought about it in this way before, but I've certainly become more conservative in response to the painful nihilism that regularly comes from the left. I live in a different world than they do, and there really are no areas of common ground. That's the truth. They see America as a flawed nation which should apologize for itself at every turn and which deserved the attacks of 9/11. And I see America as the last best hope of earth, a place of unbounded fairness and generosity, forged in the belief that the individual -- and not government -- is sovereign. There is no reconciling these two different belief systems. So I don't try. Instead, I surround myself with good people who share my values and who give thanks every day that there are those who are willing to sacrifice everything for our survival as a nation.

That's so well-said, and reaffirming. And Ken's posted a photo-essay from yesterday as well, where he demonstrates his love of country and appreciation of sacrifice: "9/11 on the USS Midway."

Now remember that it was Paul Krugman who got me going yesterday, and it turns out Glenn Reynolds received a load of comments about that. See, "EVERYBODY’S ANGRY, to judge from my email, about Paul Krugman’s typo-burdened 9/11 screed":

Don’t be angry. Understand it for what it is, an admission of impotence from a sad and irrelevant little man. Things haven’t gone the way he wanted lately, his messiah has feet of clay — hell, forget the “feet” part, the clay goes at least waist-high — and it seems likely he’ll have even less reason to like the coming decade than the last, and he’ll certainly have even less influence than he’s had. Thus, he tries to piss all over the people he’s always hated and envied. No surprise there. But no importance, either. You’ll see more and worse from Krugman and his ilk as the left nationally undergoes the kind of crackup it’s already experiencing in Wisconsin. They thought Barack Obama was going to bring back the glory days of liberal hegemony in politics, but it turned out he was their Ghost Dance, their Bear Shirt, a mystically believed-in totem that lacked the power to reverse their onrushing decline, no matter what the shamans claimed.

I'm not angry, as much as continually shocked at the brazen progressive hatred. It forces me to look inward, to my values and beliefs, and to history and national purpose. But sticking with the theme here, recall the essay from Cinnamon Stillwell in 2005, "The Making of a 9/11 Republican":

I was raised in liberal Marin County, and my first name (which garners more comments than anything else) is a direct product of the hippie generation. Growing up, I bought into the prevailing liberal wisdom of my surroundings because I didn't know anything else. I wrote off all Republicans as ignorant, intolerant yahoos. It didn't matter that I knew none personally; it was simply de rigueur to look down on such people. The fact that I was being a bigot never occurred to me, because I was certain that I inhabited the moral high ground.

Having been indoctrinated in the postcolonialist, self-loathing school of multiculturalism, I thought America was the root of all evil in the world. Its democratic form of government and capitalist economic system was nothing more than a machine in which citizens were forced to be cogs. I put aside the nagging question of why so many people all over the world risk their lives to come to the United States. Freedom of speech, religious freedom, women's rights, gay rights (yes, even without same-sex marriage), social and economic mobility, relative racial harmony and democracy itself were all taken for granted in my narrow, insulated world view.

So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11. The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a crime against humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it still does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespoke a different perspective. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself into work, still in a state of shock, and the first thing I heard was one of my co-workers bellowing triumphantly, "Bush got his war!" There was little sympathy for the victims of this horrific attack, only an irrational hatred for their own country.

As I spent months grieving the losses, others around me wrapped themselves in the comfortable shell of cynicism and acted as if nothing had changed. I soon began to recognize in them an inability to view America or its people as victims, born of years of indoctrination in which we were always presented as the bad guys.

Never mind that every country in the world acts in its own self-interest, forms alliances with unsavory countries -- some of which change later -- and are forced to act militarily at times. America was singled out as the sole guilty party on the globe. I, on the other hand, for the first time in my life, had come to truly appreciate my country and all that it encompassed, as well as the bravery and sacrifices of those who fight to protect it.

Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of those on the left, I began to look elsewhere for support. To my astonishment, I found that the only voices that seemed to me to be intellectually and morally honest were on the right. Suddenly, I was listening to conservative talk-show hosts on the radio and reading conservative columnists, and they were making sense. When I actually met conservatives, I discovered that they did not at all embody the stereotypes with which I'd been inculcated as a liberal.

PROTO CREDIT: "Faith, Freedom, and Memory: Report From Ground Zero, September 11, 2010."

NASA Aerial Video of 9/11

Via Israel Matzav:

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Paul Simon Sings 'Sounds of Silence' at New York 9/11 Ceremony

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

President Bush Reads Lincoln Letter at 9/11 Memorial Service in New York

Via Althouse, who publishes the text of Lincoln's letter:

September 11 Memorial Ceremony in New York

Bloomberg took heat for excluding clergy and firemen, but I'm sad I wasn't able to attend.

At New York Times, "Bush and Obama: Side by Side at Ground Zero":

For the first time on Sunday, President Obama and former President George W. Bush stood together at the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, listening as family members read the names of lost love ones and bowing their heads in silence to mark the moment the planes hit.

In May, Mr. Bush declined Mr. Obama’s invitation to join him at ground zero after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. But on this morning, they stood shoulder to shoulder — commanders in chief whose terms in office are bookends for exploring how the United States has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, particularly in its response to terrorism.

The tableau was striking: the president who spent years hunting Bin Laden next to the one who finally got him. The president defined by his response to Sept. 11 standing alongside the one who has tried to take America beyond the lingering, complicated legacy of that day.

Mr. Obama read from Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength,” which an aide said he chose because it spoke of perseverance. Mr. Bush, the wartime leader, read a letter from Abraham Lincoln to a widow who was believed to have lost five sons in the Civil War.

More at that link above, and at Memeorandum.

And at Althouse, "President Bush, reading Lincoln's letter at the 9/11 ceremony in NYC."

9/11: Radical Islamists Burn U.S. Flag in London Protest (VIDEO)

From Telegraph UK:

And from London's Daily Mail, "100 protesters burn American flag outside U.S. embassy in London during minute's silence for 9/11."

RELATED: "Progressives Shame the Country on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11."

Israel's Memorial to September 11

At Berman Post, "Israeli 9/11 Memorial":

If the measure of a true friend is how sincerely they mourn for your loss, Israel once again showed how close of an ally they are to the United States.

RELATED: At Jerusalem Post, "PM on 9/11: We are still susceptible to terror attacks."

Progressives Shame the Country on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

I long ago lost any respect I had for Paul Krugman. I read Krugman's scholarly work back in the mid-1990s. He was a reasonable voice for American economic competitiveness, and his work was at the leading edge of strategic trade theory. But upon becoming a New York Times columnist he found his calling as a celebrity mouthpiece for the most inane progressive ramblings in American politics. Beclowning himself in that role would be putting it mildly. He probably should have just taken the day off from blogging today, but he couldn't resist fouling himself, wrapping himself in progressive toxicity. Linkmaster Smith has the essay screencapped, and can't bring himself to even comment on the depravity: "I really can’t comment on this in any family-friendly way." Plus, more from Dana Pico: "And Paul Krugman truly does define The Conscience of a Liberal," and Lonely Conservative: "Paul Krugman is Deranged." And check Althouse, who slams Krugman for his cowardice at closing his post to comments.

There's a Memeorandum thread. And checking the progressive entries we see the left's shame piling up like a heap of dung.

Here's idiot progressive Blue Texan, at Firedoglake, "Krugman is Right: We Should Be Ashamed of What Happened after 9/11."

Is anyone proud, 10 years later, that we’re still losing lives in Afghanistan?

Of course, you dolt. People are proud of the sacrifice and valor that's helped to make this country safer. Shame on you.

And Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerrilla can't take a moment to even honor the dead:

I’m not watching any of this “commemorative” crap today (thank God for cable!) and I’m certainly not writing about it today.

Shame on you, Susie. The attacks of 9/11 killed indiscriminately, killing those of all creeds and colors. At least have the decency to honor the dead.

At read the comment thread at Washington Monthly, where for the rare wayward commenter, you've got steady serving of hate-filled progressive gruel:

Krugman sums up my feelings exactly.

They once again came to the surface for me while I watched GDumbya read a letter from President Lincoln during the ceremony in NYC this morning.

Although 9/11 was a tragic autrocity [sic], the real tragedy is that we allowed an incompetent, out-of-control administration lead us down a rat-hole in the Middle East and consequently lose our national soul, our treasure, countless lives, our reputation, our integrity and our influence in the world.

I often wonder how different our present circumstance would be if the Supreme Court had not appointed Bush as president in 2001.

(Recall Daniel Henninger nailed progressies on this, arguing that the left's desecration of goodness preceded 9/11, going back to the Florida recount and the GOP's victory in Bush v. Gore. See: "America's Broken Unity After 9/11.")

And then check Prairie Weather, "A growing consensus about post-9/11":

Maybe an important aspect of the great divide in America is the difference between those Americans who are able to feel shame and willing to make genuine apologies, and those who can't admit to shame and toss off self-justification as a cheap plastic substitute for remorse.

I'm confounded on the one hand and enraged on the other. What apologies are necessary here? I mean, seriously. Doesn't Prairie Weather sum up everything that conservatives have been combating here at home since the early days of the war on terror, such as the progressive war on Bush's domestic and foreign security policies? Since September 11th we've seen the left's long train of shame. Recall the radical left's rank political opportunism in opposing the Iraq war, demonically, of course, since the Democrat Party in Congress --- the party of defeat --- turned against our troops after authorizing their deployment, to excoriate the mission, and declare repeatedly that Iraq was lost and that we should turn tail in an ignominious cut-and-run. And we had years of Bush derangement syndrome, which then transmogrified into putrid Palin derangement syndrome, all combined into a program of partisan political destruction that's done nothing but weaken American security by successfully terminating programs such as wiretapping that were keeping Americans safe. A decade's shame of appeasement and partisan abomination is frothing to a head in the left's responses to the 10th anniversary of 9/11. For many people like myself, that's why they became conservative.

Myth and Reality After 9/11

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review:

Why did radical Islamic terrorists kill almost 3,000 Americans a decade ago?

Few still believe the old myth that U.S. foreign policy or support for Israel logically earned us Osama bin Laden’s wrath. After all, the U.S. throughout the 1990s had saved Islamic peoples from Bosnia and Kosovo to Somalia and Kuwait. Russia and China, in contrast, had oppressed or killed tens of thousands of their own Muslims without much fear of provoking al-Qaeda.

Moreover, thousands of Arabs have been killed recently, but by their own Libyan and Syrian governments, not Israeli Defense Forces. Al-Qaeda still issues death threats to Americans even though its original pretexts for going to war — such as U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia — have long been irrelevant.

On this ten-year anniversary of 9/11, no one has yet refuted the general truth that bin Laden tried to hijack popular Arab discontent over endemic poverty and self-induced misery. In cynical Hitlerian fashion, al-Qaeda’s propagandists sought to blame the mess of the Arab Middle East on Jews and foreigners, rather than seeking to address homegrown corrupt kleptocracies, inefficient statism, indigenous tribalism, gender apartheid, and religious fundamentalism and intolerance ...

More at that link.

9/11 Tributes

From Bruce Kesler, at Maggie's Farm, "My Son, Age 11, Made This 9/11 Video For His 6th Grade Classmates."

RELATED: From Dana Loesch, at Big Journalism, "All Hail Salon, the 9/11 Tribute Police."

EXTRA: At Atlas Shrugs, "INFAMY."

MORE: From Glenn Reynolds, "SO HOW TO NOTE THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11?"

George W. Bush, National Geographic Interview: Remembering 9/11

I've been thinking about President Bush. I love him. Not a perfect president, especially on limiting the size of government, but he was the right president to lead the country in the war on terror. And for that he has my enduring gratitude.

This is a surprisingly comprehensive and fascinating interview. Watching the footage and photos from that day, I am reminded just how blessed our country was to have him during this time of tragedy and grief. It's difficult for some to admit, but his leadership and calm helped move us through one of the most difficult times in our country's history.

9/11 Media Overkill?

Thomas Ricks complains, "No 9/11 column here, but 2 questions: Where are the memorable 9/11 movies? And did we suffer a national panic?"

And following the links there, at Foreign Policy, "The 9/11 Anniversary Reader: Liberals vs. Neocons Edition."

Perhaps there's some sensationalism, but I learn more about what happened every year. The coverage this year's been especially fascinating precisely because of the ten-year marker.

More on this throughout the day.

RELATED: See Zilla of the Resistance, "I Will ALWAYS Be A New Yorker - My September 11, 2001 Story." And Yid With Lid, "The Horror of 9/11, I Remember... But Too Many Others Forget."

Negrophobia

I read but don't normally blog William Jacobson's Saturday Night Card Game. But last night's was something else: "Saturday Night Card Game (The “Negrophobia” card is played)." The "Negrophobia" card is played at Balloon Juice, "The Modern Negrophobists reaction to the President’s speech…" It's really disgusting, the cartoon and the ideas behind it in the contemporary context. But the commenters are running with it, for example:

The modern negrophobist would demand the would be rescuer bring him a large rock so he could sink more quickly.

That cartoon warms my heart. I especially like the way the artist depicted the bigot as some sort of weasel/human hybrid.

I don't even know what to say. These people are simply not my countrymen. The sentiment is analogous to the kind of anti-Semitism found in caricatured drawings of long-nosed money-grubbing Jews. In other words, it's eliminationist.

I haven't finished listening to it, but Dennis Prager, in a clip at Blazing Cat Fur, indicates that progressive ideology is so removed from the basic values of this country as to be functionally anti-American. See: "Dennis Prager's Top 10 Ways Liberalism Makes America Worse." Balloon Juice demonstrates the point 1000s of times over.

9/11 Remembered — Ezra Levant

Really astounding commemoration.

I enjoy Ezra Levant more each time I listen, via Blazing Cat Fur:

Remembering 9/11: Air Traffic Controller Final Call to Flight 77

I mentioned that I had a "Pentagon Attack Truther" in class last week. Perhaps my students might learn something at this video, from ABC News:

George W. Bush Speech at Shanksville Flight 93 Memorial

Watch President Bush in full at Gateway Pundit, "George W. Bush at Flight 93 Memorial: “One of the Lessons of 9-11 Is That Evil Is Real and So Is Courage” (Video)."

'Twin Tower Cameos'

At LAT, "Video montage: The twin towers immortalized in film."

Remembering 9/11

At PJTV:

Beyond Cairo Embassy Attack, Israel Senses Wider Siege

See New York Times, "Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege":

JERUSALEM — With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.

The diplomatic crisis, in which winds unleashed by the Arab Spring are now casting a chill over the region, was crystallized by the scene of Israeli military jets sweeping into Cairo at dawn on Saturday to evacuate diplomats after the Israeli Embassy had been besieged by thousands of protesters.

It was an image that reminded some Israelis of Iran in 1979, when Israel evacuated its embassy in Tehran after the revolution there replaced an ally with an implacable foe.

“Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbor, after 31 years,” Aluf Benn, the editor in chief of the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote Saturday. “It seems that the flag will not return to the flagstaff anytime soon.”

More at that link, and see also, Barry Rubin, "Ten Years After September 11: Who’s Really Winning the War On Terrorism." Rubin looks at the range of extremist terrorist groupings outside of al Qaeda --- Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt --- and suggests that terrorism is on the march. Israel is right smack-dab in the middle of it all. As a challenge for U.S. foreign policy, the war on terrorism is hardly won.

Democrats Openly Alarmed About Obama's Reelection Prospects

Well, they should be.

At NYT, "Democrats Fret Aloud Over Obama’s Re-election." (Via Memeorandum.)

Democrats are expressing growing alarm about President Obama’s re-election prospects and, in interviews, are openly acknowledging anxiety about the White House’s ability to strengthen the president’s standing over the next 14 months.

Elected officials and party leaders at all levels said their worries have intensified as the economy has displayed new signs of weakness. They said the likelihood of a highly competitive 2012 race is increasing as the Republican field, once dismissed by many Democrats as too inexperienced and conservative to pose a serious threat, has started narrowing to two leading candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, who have executive experience and messages built around job creation.

And in a campaign cycle in which Democrats had entertained hopes of reversing losses from last year’s midterm elections, some in the party fear that Mr. Obama’s troubles could reverberate down the ballot into Congressional, state and local races.

More at that top link, but clearly, the Dems are going to be crushed.

And like Bill Whittle said, it's not going to matter who the GOP nominee is. Obambi's toast.

How the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Unfolded

Via Telegraph UK on YouTube:

Also at Telegraph, "9/11: Voices from the doomed planes."

Pentagon Memorial September 10, 2011

At Marooned in Marin, "Visiting The Pentagon Memorial - September 10, 2011."

Very nice. Click over there to RTWT.

Ari Fleischer Remembers 9/11

This is an extremely fascinating discussion, from Alexis Garcia, at Pajamas Media, "PJTV: Ari Fleischer on 9/11 and the Fog of War." I'm struck by Fleischer's discussion of signalling to President Bush, upon first learning of the attacks, when he was still at the Florida elementary school, that he wasn't to go public with announcements or statements that the U.S. was under attack:

We Didn't Overreact to 9/11

At the video, an interesting clip featuring Ann Coulter and Matt Welch.

And see Charles Krauthammer, at Washington Post, "The 9/11 ‘overreaction’? Nonsense":

9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. This time, however, the enemy had no home address. No Tokyo. Which is why today’s war could not be wrapped up in a mere four years. It was unconventional war by an unconventional enemy embedded within a worldwide religious community. Yet in a decade, we largely disarmed and defeated it, and developed the means to continue to pursue its remnants at rapidly decreasing cost. That is a historic achievement.

Our current difficulties and gloom are almost entirely economic in origin, the bitter fruit of misguided fiscal, regulatory and monetary policies that had nothing to do with 9/11. America’s current demoralization is not a result of the war on terror. On the contrary. The denigration of the war on terror is the result of our current demoralization, of retroactively reading today’s malaise into the real — and successful — history of our 9/11 response.

I love Krauthammer. Read it all.

Mayor Bloomberg and the Soul of American Politics

Here's yesterday's interview with Mayor Bloomberg, whose decision to exclude clergy from official events is stirring controversy:

And from Matthew Franck & William Simon, Jr., at National Review:

This Sunday is the tenth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on our country that left nearly 3,000 dead, the great majority of them in the ashes and rubble of the World Trade Center in New York City. As Americans pause on September 11 in mournful remembrance of that dreadful day, many of them will mark the moment with a prayer for the dead, for the loved ones from whom they were taken, and for their country. And such praying would be a normal part of any such commemoration even if the anniversary were not on a Sunday. It’s just what countless Americans do.

But there won’t be any praying at the City of New York’s official anniversary ceremonies this Sunday. At least, there won’t be any voiced at the microphones by invited speakers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to invite no clergy to be speakers at the event. It turns out that this omission of clergy participants has been a normal pattern of annual commemorations of 9/11. But on this tenth anniversary, the decision has finally been noticed, and it has become hugely controversial. According to the Wall Street Journal, the mayor said this week on his radio show, “It’s a civil ceremony. There are plenty of opportunities for people to have their religious ceremonies. . . . Some people don’t want to go to a religious ceremony with another religion. And the number of different religions in this city are [sic] really quite amazing.” He went on to deny the explanation that his own aides had been using to defend his decision — that it would just be “too difficult” to choose among so many faiths for the limited number of clergy who could be invited to speak. No, the mayor said, “It isn’t that you can’t pick and choose, you shouldn’t pick and choose. . . . If you want to have a service for your religion, you can have it in your church or in a field, or whatever.”

I understand, and I only fault Bloomberg to the extent that he personifies this country's banishment of religion from the public square. Folks no doubt would be able to grieve, commemorate and pray at an inter-denominational event. The logistics could have been worked out. Most of all, the day calls for spirituality. It's too bad we've come to this.

Continue reading, "Mayor Bloomberg and the Soul of American Politics."

How Many Jobs Have Obama's Policies Destroyed?

This ad ran ahead of Obama's jobs speech:

And see Power Line, "WANT MORE JOBS? THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT IS ENERGY":

Everyone knows that Obama’s jobs program is a joke; but let’s assume that you actually do want to help create a million or more jobs, while simultaneously increasing government revenues by many billions of dollars. How would you do it? It’s actually easy: just stop the irrational antagonism to energy development that is America’s most glaring public policy failure.

Lot of interesting charts at the post (via Memeorandum).

America's Broken Unity After 9/11

ICYMI, be sure to read Daniel Henninger's, "Whatever Happened to 9/11?", from a couple of days ago. Henninger recalls where he was on the morning of the attacks, and what it was like for him. Then he begins discussing the American response to the terror, for example, with the USA Patriot Act. There's more like that, and then he writes:

Virtually every aspect of the Bush antiterror policies became a target for litigation from the ACLU, opposition in Congress and press exposures: the wiretaps, Guantanamo, the Swift program to track terrorist finances, military courts, the Bush Doctrine of pre-preemptive strikes, terrorist interrogations. Opposition to the Iraq war rose, too, but the effort to thwart the provisions of the Patriot Act was a separate front.

Policy disagreements are inevitable. But how does one account for the intense personal animosity directed toward George Bush and those who worked for him in the government? They were hated, reviled, mocked. Recall, for instance, the effort to disbar former Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee for writing the legal opinions on aggressive interrogations. Opposition wasn't enough. The destruction of reputation became a policy goal.

This Sunday's 10th anniversary commemorations will evoke some semblance of the unity then in the face of an enemy attack on U.S. soil. But make no mistake: It's gone.

What happened?

Well, continue reading. But as noted above, political opposition wasn't enough for the left. The utter destruction of opponents is required, for according to progressive/socialist ideology, conservatives and Republicans are greater enemies to America than the terrorists. And the left's bloodlust demands for revenge and recrimination continue right into the 10th anniversary. I watched Rachel Maddow on MSNBC while working on this post. Her broadcast, "Day of Destruction, Decade of War," was one long repudiation of America's response to the terrorist attacks, from the decade-long war footing and military mobilization, to the interrogation techniques that helped generate actionable intelligence to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden. Plus, I'm reading David Cole, at New York Review, "After September 11: What We Still Don’t Know." Cole is a far-left activist professor of law at Georgetown University. He's repeatedly argued that the bigger threat to American security is the U.S. government and not the terrorists determined to decapitate it. At Cole's New York Review piece, he revives calls for war crimes prosecutions against Bush administration officials, taking President Obama to task for purportedly not standing up for constitutional values:

As President Obama entered office, he sought to make a clean break with his predecessor. But at the same time, he has insisted that we look forward, not back. His administration has refused to conduct the criminal investigation that the Convention Against Torture requires wherever there are credible allegations that a person within our jurisdiction has committed torture. His Justice Department vetoed the recommendation of its own Office of Professional Responsibility that lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee be referred to their bar associations for disciplinary action in view of their having failed to provide candid legal advice in drafting the “torture memos.” The administration has sought to derail efforts in Spain to investigate US responsibility for torture of Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo. And President Obama continues to oppose even a high-level commission to investigate and report on the nation’s departure from the rule of law and descent into torture, abduction, and disappearances.

Obama appears to believe that such an investigation would be divisive, and might undermine his efforts to portray himself as above partisan wrangling. But division is a fact of life in Washington these days. And being above the fray is not an unmitigated good; some things are worth fighting for. A legal and moral accounting of the wrongs we have done should be high on the list.

Cole goes on like that, and it's interesting that he picks out John Yoo for special condemnation, twice in fact, basically renewing the call that Yoo should have been disbarred for his work in the Bush administration, and by extension, tried as a war criminal.

Behold the mind of the progressive left on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attacks. For radical progressives, it's America that's the problem, not the fanatical killers who continue to wage war against us.

Terrorist Threat Prompts Tighter Security on 9/11

See New York Post, "Cops flood NYC streets and transit hubs amid bomb threat."

And at Fox News, "New York, DC Beef Up Security in Face of ‘Credible’ Terror Threat":

The two cities that were at the heart of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are on high alert this weekend after the government received a “credible” tip that Al Qaeda plans to launch an attack on Washington or New York as the nation marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Extra security is clearly visible on subways in both cities as officials are taking seriously a joint FBI, Homeland Security Intelligence Bulletin, first obtained by Fox News that states the timing and method of the potential terror plot.

“Al Qaeda possibly planned to carry out attacks…including a possible car bomb attack,” the bulletin reads.

Al Qaeda may have sent American terrorists or men carrying U.S. travel documents to launch the attack, government officials say.

And at ABC News, "Alleged 9/11 Anniversary Plot: Possible Suspect May Be ID'd" (via Memeorandum).

Protesters Attack Israel Embassy in Cairo

Well, if they're using Molotovs they're basically terrorists.

At NYT, "Israeli Ambassador Leaves Cairo After Protest Turns Violent":

CAIRO — Israel flew most of its diplomatic staff out of Egypt on Saturday after thousands of protesters the day before tore down a protective wall around the Israeli Embassy and broke into its offices the day before.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf of Egypt called an emergency cabinet meeting to deal with the aftermath of the attack and the Egyptian government put its police on alert to guard against more violence.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry said Saturday that at least two people had died in the clashes, one from a bullet wound and the other from a heart attack, while as many as 1,200 had been injured in overnight clashes with the police, mostly around the Israeli Embassy. Protesters scaled the walls of the embassy to tear down its flag, broke into offices and tossed binders of documents into the streets.

The rioting began after large groups of protesters split off from what had been a peaceful protest in Tahrir Square. Thousands attacked the Israeli embassy while others converged on the Interior Ministry, defacing its headquarters. Dozens were also injured in clashes with the police there.

Israeli officials signaled Saturday that they considered the breach of their embassy’s security a significant blow to relations between the two allies. Israeli officials placed several calls to their American counterparts, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to President Obama, and from Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, to try to apply pressure on Egypt to resolve the crisis, Israeli and American officials said.

A "significant blow to relations"?

You think?

Herman Cain 9/11 Tribute

Via The Other McCain, "Herman Cain Records Moving 9/11 Tribute, Alex Pareene Calls It ‘Tasteless’."

Michelle Malkin: 'All the wrong 9/11 lessons'

From Michelle's syndicated column:

...too many teachers refuse to show and tell who the perpetrators of 9/11 were and who their heirs are today. My own daughter was one year old when the Twin Towers collapsed, the Pentagon went up in flames and Shanksville, Pa., became hallowed ground for the brave passengers of United Flight 93. In second grade, her teachers read touchy-feely stories about peace and diversity to honor the 9/11 dead. They whitewashed Osama bin Laden, militant Islam and centuries-old jihad out of the curriculum. Apparently, the youngsters weren’t ready to learn even the most basic information about the evil masterminds of Islamic terrorism.

Mary Beth Hicks, author of the new book “Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid,” points to a recent review of 10 widely used textbooks in which the concepts of jihad and sharia were either watered down or absent. These childhood experts have determined that grade school is too early to delve into the specifics of the homicidal clash of Allah’s sharia-avenging soldiers with the freedom-loving Western world.

Yet, many of the same protectors of fragile elementary-school pupils can’t wait to teach them all the ins and outs of condoms, cross-dressers and crack addictions.

We pulled our daughter out of a cesspool of academic and moral relativism and found a reality-grounded, rigorous charter school where no-nonsense teachers refuse to sugarcoat inconvenient facts and history. Many of the students are children of soldiers and servicemen and women who — inspired by the heroes of 9/11 — have voluntarily deployed time and time again to kill the American Dream destroyers abroad before they kill us over here.

There’s no better way to hammer home the message that “freedom is not free” than to have your kids go to school with other kids whose dads and moms are gone for years at a time — missing births and birthday parties, recitals and soccer practice, Christmas pageants and Independence Day fireworks.

But instead of unfettered pride in our armed forces, social justice educators in high schools and colleges across the country indoctrinate American students into viewing our volunteer armed forces as victims, monsters and pawns in a leftist “social struggle.”

A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Blame America-ism still permeates classrooms and the culture. A special 9/11 curriculum distributed in New Jersey schools advises teachers to “avoid graphic details or dramatizing the destruction” wrought by the 9/11 hijackers, and instead focus elementary school students’ attention on broadly defined “intolerance” and “hurtful words.”

No surprise: Jihadist utterances such as “Kill the Jews,” “Allahu Akbar” and “Behead all those who insult Islam” are not among the “hurtful words” studied.

Middle-schoolers are directed to “analyze diversity and prejudice in U.S. history.” And high-school students are taught “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” – pop-psychology claptrap used to excuse jihadists’ behavior based on their purported low self-esteem and oppressed status caused by “European colonialism.”

It is no wonder that a new poll released this week showed that Americans today “are generally more willing to believe that U.S. policies in the Middle East might have motivated the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon,” according to Reuters.

To make matters worse, we have an appeaser-in-chief who wrote shortly after the jihadist attacks a decade ago that the “essence of this tragedy” derives “from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others.” A “climate of poverty and ignorance” caused the attacks, then-Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama preached. Never mind the Ivy League and Oxford educations, the oil wealth and the middle-class status of legions of al-Qaida plotters and operatives.

9/11 was a deliberate, carefully planned evil act of the long-waged war on the West by Koran-inspired soldiers of Allah around the world. They hated us before George W. Bush was in office. They hated us before Israel existed. And the avengers of the religion of perpetual outrage will keep hating us no matter how much we try to appease them.

The post-9/11 problem isn’t whether we’ll forget. The problem is: Will we ever learn?

That's not how I teach. I don't sugarcoat it, although I'm respectful of those who've been brainwashed by Noam Chomsky and 9/11 truthers and what not. Mostly, though, many students don't quite know exactly what happened on 9/11. A student stopped me last week during discussions, when I started taking about Flight 77 (the Pentagon) and Flight 93 (Shanksville). She didn't know there were four planes hijacked that morning. Ten years on, it's not only "never forget," it's educate the next generation on what happened, and don't pull punches.

VIDEO: 'Remembering 9/11 – Never Quit'

From the Hertiage Foundation:

Democrats Give New Meaning to the Phrase 'Attack Ad'

James Taranto notes that the Democrats can't be over September 11 soon enough. Indeed, the DSCC ran an advertisement in the NY-9 special election (to replace the disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner) that featured a jet swooping low over New York City. And here's the story, at NY Observer: "Anti-Bob Turner Ad Featuring Airplane Ominously Buzzing Manhattan: Slightly Terrorist-y?"

The ad without the New York skyline imaging:

Also from Jim Geraghty, "Why Do Stumbling Democrats Keep Tripping Up on 9/11 Images?"

F-16 Pilot Heather Penney Tasked to Take Down United Flight 93 on September 11

And the F-16 she piloted was not armed for combat, so she essentially was on a Kamikaze mission to take down the hijacked airliner if necessary.

See Washington Post, "F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11."

Also at Daily Mail, "I'd be a kamikaze pilot: Fighter pilot recalls her would-be 'suicide' mission to take down United 93 - and the heroes who did it for her."

Egyptian Protesters Tear Down Israeli Embassy Security Wall

This video c/o Ahram Online, "VIDEO: Protesters take down Israeli embassy flag."

And at Weasel Zippers, "Arab Spring: Hundreds of Rampaging Egyptians Tear Down Concrete Wall Protecting Israeli Embassy…"

RELATED: At Los Angeles Times, "EGYPT: Thousands in Tahrir Square angry at slow pace of reforms."

No doubt.

The Global Left's Anti-Israel Forum

See Anne Bayefsky, at Weekly Standard, "Durban III: An Anti-Israel Forum Takes Shape" (via Memeorandum).

Gender Equality Elusive at Top?

That was the headline at yesterday's Los Angeles Times business page, although I've added the question mark.

See: "Women on Wall Street: Small group at the top gets smaller."

"While the ouster of a number of top Wall Street women cannot necessarily be tied directly to the glass ceiling or sexism per se, the numbers aren't good," said Deborah Ancona, a professor of organization studies at the MIT's Sloan School of Management. "Women fill a minority of top leadership positions in corporate America."

But RTWT.

Actually, I don't think we'll ever have exact equality in that department, and I don't know if it was God's plan to do so, in any case. As James Taranto has written:

Men and women are intrinsically unequal in ways that are ultimately beyond the power of government to remediate. That is because nature is unfair. Sexual reproduction is far more demanding, both physically and temporally, for women than for men. Men simply do not face the sort of children-or-career conundrums that vex women in an era of workplace equality.

That said, see Patricia Sellers, at Fortune, "Carol Bartz exclusive: Yahoo "f---ed me over..." (At Memeorandum.)

'Time'

Heard this on the way home from "The Undefeated" the other night. And come to think of it, The Sound has been playing a lot of Pink Floyd:



P.S. I'll try to post my thoughts on The Undefeated later today.

The Return of Elitism?

An interesting piece, at Telegraph UK, "David Cameron: we need elitism in schools":

David Cameron will signal a return to “elitism” in schools in an attempt to mend Britain’s “broken” society and secure the economic future.

The Prime Minister will attack the “prizes for all” culture in which competitiveness is frowned upon and winners are shunned.

In a significant speech, he will outline Coalition plans to ensure teaching is based on “excellence”, saying that controversial reforms are needed to “bring back the values of a good education”.

Failure to do so would be “fatal to prosperity”, he will say.

The comments mark the latest in a series of attempts to focus on education in response to the riots that shocked London and other English cities last month.

Actually, we could use less elitism on this side of the Atlantic, and more back to basics, common sense, values-based instruction.

Can We Forgive the September 11 Terrorists?

Well, no. Seem strange to even consider it. The acts perpetrated on September 11 weren't a one off event, but a key moment on Islamism's long-term agenda. We're still fighting the forces that gave rise to this terrorism, and collective responsibility is required before any kind of forgiveness would even be possible. And we're not seeing any of that. In fact, it's just as much anti-Americanism as ever.

But this is an interesting essay, in any case, from Tim Townsend, at WSJ, "Can We Forgive?":

Forgiveness is central to the Christian faith. Christ's death represents the forgiveness of man's sin. All men. All sin. And Christians are expected to try to imitate it. "If Jesus could forgive the people who murdered him, there's something in that model that should apply to all of us," Fr. Ryan said. "I don't understand it all, but I'm willing to follow that model based on everything else I know and believe."

Jewish tradition teaches that since God forgives, so must his creation. Forgiveness is at the heart of the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But victims are obligated to forgive only when the perpetrator has gone through a process of repentance, called teshuvah. Similarly, in Islam, forgiveness is tied closely to repentance.

Some see moral value in not forgiving. When a dying SS soldier in a concentration camp hospital asked Simon Wiesenthal for his forgiveness for the soldier's part in a massacre of Jews, Wiesenthal remained silent and walked away. A devout friend in the camp told Wiesenthal he had done the right thing: "You would have had no right to do this in the name of people who had not authorized you to do so. What people have done to you yourself, you can, if you like, forgive and forget. That is your own affair. But it would have been a terrible sin to burden your conscience with other people's sufferings."

When the aggrieved have been murdered, and the murderers are gone, too, do those who survived or the families of those who died have the moral standing to forgive? Maybe, Fr. Ryan told me, the answer is simply to stand for the opposite of the evil that was done. "I don't know if I see the devil dressed in red with a pitchfork and hooves," he said. "But evil is a force in the world, and if we don't consciously counteract it, the consequences are tragic."

"I looked up and I saw people jumping," he told me, his eyes glassy. "I saw several of them holding hands." Fr. Ryan paused. "I'm sorry. I don't talk about this a lot."

Yvonne Strahovski at Maxim (VIDEO)

Some Rule 5 action:

And see: "The 23 Hottest Women of Fall TV."

Obama Proposes 'American Jobs Act' (VIDEO)

The main story's at New York Times, "Obama Exhorts Congress on Jobs Plan":

WASHINGTON — Faced with a stalling economy, a hostile Congress and a disenchanted public, President Obama challenged lawmakers in a blunt address Thursday evening to enact a sweeping package of tax cuts and new spending designed to revive the stagnant job market.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama ticked off a list of measures he said would put money in people’s pockets, encourage companies to begin hiring again, and jolt an American economy at risk of relapsing into recession. And he all but ordered Congress to pass the legislation.

“You should pass this jobs plan right away,” the president declared.

With Republicans already lining up to condemn the plan, Mr. Obama said, “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy.”

Though Mr. Obama’s proposals were widely expected — an extension and expansion of the cut in payroll taxes; new spending on schools and public works projects; and an overhaul of unemployment insurance — the overall package was considerably larger than expected, with an estimated $447 billion in stimulus money.

Also at Los Angeles Times, "Obama to Congress: Americans want action now on jobs." The text is available via Memorandum.

All the "pass this jobs bill" agitation is Obama begging the Congress to act. What's interesting is how this sounds like just one more big porkulus, despite Obambi's denials and claims that "everything in this bill is paid for." Amazingly, he still announces that we need higher taxes!!

Jennifer Rubin has more, "Obama: Pay it now, pay for it later":

What was remarkable was the whiff of desperation conveyed by Obama, and the utter lack of interest by the Republicans. The speaker of the House looked bored. The Republicans neither booed nor applauded. No one thinks this grab bag, a mini son of the Stimulus Plan, is going to work. But Republicans must be relieved: Obama said nothing that would either win over independents or exert any pressure on them to pass it.

And back over to LAT, "Republicans' reaction to Obama speech is lukewarm -- and that's a start," and "Economists give Obama's jobs plan mixed reviews.

Added: See what I mean? From Associated Press, "FACT CHECK: Obama's jobs plan paid for? Seems not."

'Hard to Handle'

It took an hour to get to work yesterday. I don't mind, as long as I'm not running late (ha!). I get to listen to the radio. The Sound's playlist is below. The Black Crowes came up just as I got rolling with a cup of coffee:

8:05 - Hard To Handle by Black Crowes

8:16 - Bodhisattva by Steely Dan

8:21 - White Room by Cream

8:27 - Come Together by Aerosmith

8:30 - Jane by Jefferson Starship

8:34 - Magic Man by Heart

8:40 - More Cowbell by Christopher Walken

8:40 - Mississippi Queen by Mountain

8:49 - In The Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett

8:51 - Move It On Over by George Thorogood

8:56 - White Wedding by Billy Idol

9:00 - Space Oddity by David Bowie

9:05 - We Just Disagree by Dave Mason

9:08 - You Really Got Me by Kinks

More blogging tonight!

Cato Institute: 'Government Spending Doesn't Create Jobs'

Good timing:

'The Undefeated' — Lido Theatre in Newport Beach!

My meetup group has organized a showing of Stephen Bannon's "The Undefeated." It's part of the Liberatore Lecture Series. We'll see how it goes. I'm heading out right now and will post an update later tonight:

Wall Street Journal Not Thrilled With Romney's Jobs Plan

See, "Mitt Romney's 59 Economic Flavors." After the praise, some criticism:

On taxes, Mr. Romney would immediately cut the top corporate income-tax rate to 25% from 35%. His advisers say there's already a bipartisan consensus that the U.S. rate hurts American companies, and they're right. Even Mr. Obama agrees.

But on other taxes, Mr. Romney shrinks from a fight. He says he favors tax reform with lower individual tax rates but only "in the long run." His advisers say that means in the first two years of his Presidency, but then why not sketch out more details?

The answer may lie in his proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax—but only for those who earn less than $200,000 a year. This eviscerates most of the tax cut's economic impact and also suggests that he's afraid of Mr. Obama's class warfare rhetoric. He even picked Mr. Obama's trademark income threshold for the capital gains cut-off.

If Mr. Romney thinks this will let him dodge a class warfare debate, he's fooling himself. Democrats will hit him anyway for opposing Mr. Obama's proposal to raise taxes on higher incomes, dividends and capital gains in 2013. Perhaps Mr. Romney feels that his wealth and background make him especially vulnerable to the class charge, but if he won't openly make the economic case for lower tax rates he'll never get Congress to go along.

On spending, Mr. Romney joins the GOP's "cut, cap and balance" parade, setting a cap on spending over time at 20% of GDP. What Mr. Romney doesn't do is provide even a general map for how to get there, beyond cutting spending on nonsecurity domestic programs by 5% upon taking office.

That does sound a bit timid.

RTWT.

Erick Erickson: Dude Picks Fight With Sarah Palin Supporters, Loses Badly

Erick Erickson goes after Sarah Palin by attacking her supporters as "The Palin Fan Cult," and tops it off with a few juicy digs against the Governor herself. To bolster his case he cites Ann Coulter's comments with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.

The Fox hotties are not my concern, as they're supposed to be critiquing the candidates and pumping the ratings. Erick Erickson's purportedly about building a movement. And it seems to me the last person you'd want to bash in that regard is Sarah Palin. Has she held out too long? Probably. I wish she would've announced early this year so she could've been amassing a war chest to rival Barack Obama's expected $1 billion haul. And that's not counting the possibility that Palin could lose the nomination despite being the ultimate conservative rock star. Fact is, Palin's more in tune with the values of more conservatives than anyone else out there. Frankly, it doesn't matter when she announces, except as a matter of strategy. No doubt the waiting is hard, but it'd still be worth it if she came out in November or December with a major policy speech declaring her candidacy. I'd be behind her in a second. I've said all along that as much as I like and support Michele Bachmann, I throw my support to Palin without batting an eye. (Now, thinking about it, a Palin/Bachmann dream team would put me over the top.) But at this point we don't know, so faulting her for "teasing" only arms Palin's divisions of enemies on the progressive left. And Erick Erickson should know better, but then again, he's obviously not too bright.

In any case, see William Jacobson, "Erick Erickson: “moving on from Sarah Palin is like leaving Scientology”, and Linkmaster Smith, "Not Enough." And more commentary at Memeorandum.

Oh, and don't forget Dan Riehl, "Erick Erickson All Wee Weed Up Over Palin," and "For All The Brave Whiners On Palin."

Encore, 'Reelin' in the Years': Steely Dan with Elliott Randall

I've got some real musical connoisseurs reading this blog. At last night's video, commenter Harkin writes:

Ack - find the original with Elliot Randall. We loves Skunk Baxter but he butchers the solos on this.

Hey, your wish is my command:

That's a raw clip. Here's studio:

And the song's Wikipedia entry has this:

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has reportedly said that Elliott Randall's guitar solo on "Reelin' In the Years" is his favorite solo of all time.

I can dig it.

United Nations Anti-Semitism

Another devastating video, via Anne Bayefsky, at Big Peace, "The UN’s Anti-Semitism Agenda on Display in ‘Durban III’":

PREVIOUSLY: "United Nations Bias Against Israel."

Ten Years Without an Attack

From John Yoo, at Wall Street Journal (alternative link). Discussing President George W. Bush's leadership, Yoo writes:

Looking back over the decade, the first clear lesson is the critical importance of Mr. Bush’s decision to consider the struggle with al Qaeda a war. Unlike past administrations, his chose not to view al Qaeda as a Middle Eastern version of the mafia, if on a grander scale. The 9/11 attacks constituted an act of war—they were a decapitation strike, an effort to eliminate our nation’s leadership in a single blow. If the Soviet Union had carried out the same attacks, no one would have doubted that the United States was at war.

Al Qaeda’s independence from any nation state would not shield it from the American military and leave it solely to the more tender mercies of the FBI and the courts.

Choosing war opened the arsenal that has decimated al Qaeda’s leadership and blunted its plan of attack. A nation at war need not wait for a suicide bombing to arrest the “suspects” who remain. Instead, it can fire missiles or send in covert teams to pre-emptively capture or kill the enemy. Our government doesn’t need a judge’s permission before tapping an al Qaeda operative’s phones, intercepting his emails, or arresting him.

We need not provide terrorists with Miranda warnings, lawyers and jury trials. A nation at war can detain the enemy without lawyers or civilian trials and interrogate them for information to prevent future attacks.

In its second critical decision, the Bush administration pushed to translate knowledge into action. Winning the war requires, above all, the gathering, analysis and exploitation of intelligence. Before 9/11 our national security bureaucracies, prodded by the civil liberties worries of the courts and Congress, had deliberately handicapped their ability to pull all intelligence into a single mosaic. Passage of the Patriot Act, the expanded interception of international terrorist emails and phone calls, and the tough interrogation of a few high-ranking al Qaeda leaders broadened and deepened the pool of information on our enemy.

At the same time, the intelligence community and the U.S. Armed Forces have honed the integration of tactical intelligence and operations to a deadly knife’s-edge. Bin Laden’s killing this summer was not a one-off lucky shot, but the culmination of a decade of work combining intelligence-gathering, analysis and rapid strike teams. American presidents did not have such reliable options in the past—witness Jimmy Carter’s disastrous attempt to rescue the Iranian hostages or Bill Clinton’s failure to kill or capture bin Laden.

RELATED: "John Yoo at David Horowitz's West Coast Retreat, April 3, 2011."

'It's Civility Week!'

Mandy Nagy is cracking me up!

See, "New Tone: Twitter Users Want Republicans Dead."

Yeah, that is a lot of "new tone" this week, and it's only Wednesday!

Stay classy, progs!

Sarah Palin: Don’t Be Taken In by Union Thugs Like James Hoffa

On Facebook, "Welcome, Union Brothers and Sisters":

In my speech on Saturday in Iowa, I said: “Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses’ security and ‘green energy’ giveaways, [Barack Obama] took care of his friends. And now they’re on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again.” This was shamefully on display yesterday at President Obama’s taxpayer-funded campaign rally in Detroit. In introducing the President, Teamsters President James Hoffa represented precisely what I was talking about as he declared war on concerned independent Americans and on the freshman members we sent to Congress last November by saying, “Let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out!”

What I say now, I say as a proud former union member and the wife, daughter, and sister of union members. So, as a former card-carrying IBEW sister married to a proud former Laborers, IBEW, and later USW member, please hear me out. What I have to say is for the hard working, patriotic, selfless union brothers and sisters in Michigan and throughout our country: Please don’t be taken in by union bosses’ thuggery like Jim Hoffa represented yesterday. Union bosses like this do not have your best interests at heart. What they care about is their own power and re-electing their friend Barack Obama so he will take care of them to the detriment of everyone else.

Read it all...

The Myth of Conservative Purity

From Peter Berkowitz, at Wall Street Journal (and Google):

With the opening of the fall political season and tonight's Republican candidate debate, expect influential conservative voices to clamor for fellow conservatives to set aside half-measures, eschew conciliation, and adhere to conservative principle in its pristine purity. But what does fidelity to conservatism's core convictions mean?

Superstar radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has, with characteristic bravado, championed a take-no-prisoners approach. In late July, as the debt-ceiling debate built to its climax, he understandably exhorted House Speaker John Boehner to stand strong and rightly praised the tea party for "putting country before party." But then Mr. Limbaugh went further. "Winners do not compromise," he declared on air. "Winners do not compromise with themselves. The winners who do compromise are winners who still don't believe in themselves as winners, who still think of themselves as losers."

We saw the results of such thinking in November 2010, when Christine O'Donnell was defeated by Chris Coons in Delaware in the race for Vice President Joe Biden's vacated Senate seat. In Nevada Sharron Angle was defeated by Harry Reid, who was returned to Washington to reclaim his position as Senate majority leader. In both cases, the Republican senatorial candidate was a tea party favorite who lost a very winnable election.

The notion of conservative purity is a myth. The great mission of American conservatism—securing the conditions under which liberty flourishes—has always depended on the weaving together of imperfectly compatible principles and applying them to an evolving and elusive political landscape.

William F. Buckley Jr.'s 1955 Mission Statement announcing the launch of National Review welcomed traditionalists, libertarians and anticommunists. His enterprise provides a model of a big-tent conservatism supported by multiple and competing principles: limited government, free markets, traditional morality and strong national defense.

That's a long time ago. I don't know if we've got big tentyness these days. Besides, I have a hunch Republicans will may well nominate Romney. Perry's giving Romney a run for his money, and I'm not discounting Bachmann. But I'd be surprised if a purity candidate got the nod. That said, maybe purity is what the voters want, or at least in California? We'll know in due time.

RELATED: At LAT, "The real Ronald Reagan may not meet today's GOP standards."

Awaiting Obama's Jobs Speech: The 'Invisible Americans'

From the letters to the editor, at New York Times:

To the Editor:

Re “The Fatal Distraction,” by Paul Krugman (column, Sept. 5):

I am a small-business owner and will never receive money from big giveaway programs to state and local governments. My profits are not at record levels: whom are you talking to?

I am the foundation of the American Dream. I put my house on the line and worry about making the payroll. There is no support from banks or government. I do not have defined benefits or job security because of seniority.

Certainly, our educational system needs help and support to compete in this global economy, but so does my small business. We have no union, no lobbyists in Congress and no time to rally. We go to work every day. Truly, we are the invisible Americans.

BRENDA BEDRICK
East Greenwich, R.I., Sept. 5, 2011