Author: HL

Oh, Yes It Can…

Brown Will Not Seek Re-Election
Rep. Henry Brown (R-SC) has told associates he will his announce his retirement Monday, Politico reports.

“Brown survived a closer-than-expected re-election in 2008 and was already facing a primary challenge from Carroll Campbell III, the son of the former GOP governor and congressman.”

“In addition to Campbell, another renowned South Carolina political name may enter the race. Paul Thurmond, son of the iconic former senator and a Charleston attorney and county council member, was urged to challenge Brown in the primary.”

US Is Increasing Its Hegemony As the "Global War Gladiator" Under Obama
What to watch for in 2010 from the country that spends more on war than the next 25 combined.

What to watch for in 2010 from the country that spends more on war than the next 25 combined.

CA Politicians Are Relying on County Parties to Funnel Money, Avoid Campaign Limits
By using county parties as middlemen both Democrat and Republican donors can contribute far more money than the law typically allows.

By using county parties as middlemen both Democrat and Republican donors can contribute far more money than the law typically allows.

Reclaiming Legal Abortion as a Fundamental Right
It’s time to demand that the promise of Roe becomes a reality for women whose choices are already limited by poverty, joblessness and marginalization.

It's time to demand that the promise of Roe becomes a reality for women whose choices are already limited by poverty, joblessness and marginalization.

US More Vulnerable on Afghanistan as It Leans Harder on NATO Allies for Support
Democracy and domestic priorities will be the casualties in the US, Canada and Europe if the US-NATO military expansion into Afghanistan holds sway.

Democracy and domestic priorities will be the casualties in the US, Canada and Europe if the US-NATO military expansion into Afghanistan holds sway.

Did Obama Blow It On Northwest Terror Attack?
“The fact of the matter right now is that 100% of the Islamic terrorists who are coming against us are Muslims.” — American genius, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) It seems like there is lots of criticism of the President over…



Detroit – President of the United States – Terrorism – Warfare and Conflict – Al Qaeda

Neos Krauthammer, Kristol Start Year With Anti-Obama Screeds
Always remember, when you find the stomach to read Charles Krauthammer, that he views every issue through the lens of “is it good to help Israel withstand American pressure?” He’s a Canadian who came down here because some ambitious Canadians…



Charles Krauthammer – United States – Iran – Warfare and Conflict – Israel

Gun Rights and Tea Party Activists Encourage People To Bring Guns To New Mexico Protest
Nearly 350 right-wing protestors crowded a New Mexico town’s busiest intersection yesterday to protest President Obama’s supposed anti-gun agenda and the “government takeover of our health care system.” While the event mostly looked like any other recent right-wing rally — complete with signs reading “replace the communists in DC” and “the sky is falling! A […]

Nearly 350 right-wing protestors crowded a New Mexico town’s busiest intersection yesterday to protest President Obama’s supposed anti-gun agenda and the “government takeover of our health care system.” While the event mostly looked like any other recent right-wing rally — complete with signs reading “replace the communists in DC” and “the sky is falling! A black man is president!” — what set this protest apart was that there “were plenty of handguns and rifles displayed.”

The local Tea Party and a group called the Second Amendment Task Force (2ATF, a reference to the ATF, which enforces gun laws) encouraged people to bring guns to the event in Alamogordo, NM, in order to “put a positive light on gun ownership,” said 2ATF’s founder Dan Woodruff. While the two protests were technically separate, they were planned together for the same day in adjacent locations. Otero Tea Party Patriots coordinator Don Omey said he was “proud” of the gun-toters. “That’s what we need to turn some minds around,” Omey said. Under New Mexico law, it’s legal for anyone over the age of 19 to open-carry a holstered firearm in most public places.

And while there was no violence during the event, one protestor wearing a Tea Party shirt said his loaded gun was a “very open threat” to anyone who might “try to take over the country completely as a socialist communist [state].” Watch it:

Apart from the obvious danger from introducing fire arms to a crowded, emotionally-charged environment, as Walt Rubel, the editor of the Las Cruces Sun-Times wrote in today’s paper, displaying guns at a rally is counter-productive to the protestors’ goals. “Nothing will ‘put a positive light on gun ownership’ quite like inviting every yahoo with a weapon in southern New Mexico to gather at the busiest intersection in Alamogordo and wave their firearms at the passing traffic,” he wrote.

This was not the first right-wing protest to which people have brought guns or displayed offensive signs, but the hate-filled atmosphere at Tea Party rallies doesn’t seem to bother former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In a guest-column in the Des Moines Register on Friday he wrote, “every American who is not corrupted by the secular-socialist left should be a member of the Tea Party movement.”

Obama aide defend trial for suspect in Christmas Day attempt to bomb plane
President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser on Sunday defended the administration’s decision to try in federal court the man charged with attempting to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day and indicated that he would be offered a plea agreement to persuade him to reveal what he knows about…

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U.S., China locked in trade disputes
BEIJING — Trade disputes between Beijing and Washington over exports of tires, chickens, steel, nylon, autos, paper and salt are multiplying and further damaging the already tense relationship between the two economic powers.

Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials…

Fed chief Bernanke urges better financial regulation to prevent crises
Better regulation is the key to avoiding future financial excesses, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Sunday, arguing that the Fed’s low-interest-rate policies early in the decade were not a major cause of the housing bubble.

Prescription: More Doctors
Michael Johns & Edward Miller, Baltimore Sun
18° FJanuary 1, 2010Copyright © 2010, The Baltimore Sun Comments: 01400 characters remaining Drs. Hohns and Miller are absolutely correct. In order to encourage more medical students to go into family practice and internal medicine, I would support a tax exemption on the first $50,000 of income for anyone in these fields, and extend this also to nurse practitioners and physician's assistants….

It’s Payback Time for California
Peter Schrag, San Francisco Chronicle
It's a long list: the budget-process meltdown in Sacramento; the ugly combination of escalating fees and reduced programs and access at the California State University and University of California systems; the K-12 teacher layoffs and, along with them, the increasingly crowded classes; the Friday closings of state offices. Nor should we be surprised at the near-record voter-disapproval numbers for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, or the predictions from the state legislative analyst that, barring major fixes, California faces a $20 billion deficit in the 2010-11 budget…

Climategate: You Should Be Steamed
Neil Frank, Houston Chronicle
Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by “Climategate.”If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and…

Letting Go
There is something fitting about writing my last column on the first day of a new year. January, after all, is named for the Roman god of beginnings and endings. [Editor’s note: This is Ellen Goodman’s final column.] By Ellen Goodman

There is something fitting about writing my last column on the first day of a new year. January, after all, is named for the Roman god of beginnings and endings. [Editor’s note: This is Ellen Goodman’s final column.]

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Allen Barra on Winston Churchill
Is there anything left to say about Churchill’s extraordinary life and turbulent times? If so, can it be said in the brief compass of Paul Johnson’s 192-page primer?

Is there anything left to say about Churchill’s extraordinary life and turbulent times? If so, can it be said in the brief compass of Paul Johnson’s 192-page primer?

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2010 Election Situation Grows More Difficult For Democrats
WASHINGTON — An already difficult situation for Democrats in Congress is worsening as the 2010 political season opens. To minimize expected losses in next fall’s…

Tom Vander Ark: Naughts Not So Bad for Education
The papers have been full of editorials expounding on why the past decade was disastrous for America. There is much to forget and regret about…

FOX News Guest: ‘Strip Search All 18-28-Year-Old Muslim Men At Airports’ (VIDEO)
On Fox News Saturday, guest Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (retired) offered a radical solution for improving national security. “We have to use profiling,” he said,…

Joe Scarborough: The Decade Ahead: From Radicalism to Restraint
Washington just turned the page on a decade filled with reckless spending, military adventurism and political fratricide. The costs of that era will be with us for some time.

Newsweek: White House Advisor Briefed in October On Underwear Bomb Technique
White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan was briefed last October on an Al Qaeda assassination attempt that investigators now believe used the same underwear bombing…

Blogger To Fight TSA Subpoena
One of the bloggers who was subpoenaed by the Feds after posting a leaked safety directive from the Transportation Security Administration plans to challenge the subpoena in court.

Hoekstra: Abdulmutallab Should Be Classified As ‘Enemy Combatant’
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) believes the Obama Administration should have ordered that alleged terrorist Umar Abdulmutallab be taken into military custody and held as an enemy combatant, his spokesman tells TPMmuckraker.

REVEALED: See Going Rogue Event ‘Banned List’ Drawn Up By Todd Palin
We’ve just gotten our hands on the so-called “banned list” that was responsible for two journalists getting booted from a Sarah Palin book event in Wasilla last week. And we’ve got new details that shed light on Todd Palin’s role as his wife’s chief enforcer.

Blame it all on Bush?
The pro-liberal media that is going into withdrawal pains because they no longer have President George W. Bush to kick around, have gone to warp-speed in their efforts to heap praise on the new movie “Crazy Heart.” It’s gone beyond the level of effusive enthusiasm and is rapidly approaching the level of promobabble. […]

Citing Experience In Hawaii, Limbaugh Says U.S. Health Care System Is ?Just Dandy?
Earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital in Hawaii after he complained of chest pains and had reportedly been taken from his hotel “in serious condition.” Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu released Limbaugh yesterday and during a press conference, the conservative radio host said his physicians did not know what caused his […]

Earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital in Hawaii after he complained of chest pains and had reportedly been taken from his hotel “in serious condition.” Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu released Limbaugh yesterday and during a press conference, the conservative radio host said his physicians did not know what caused his symptoms. “I wish I knew what it was,” he said. Limbaugh also denied that he is again taking painkillers and praised the U.S. health care system based on his experience:

Asked if he was taking painkillers, he flatly said “No,” and added that he was taking Prednisone, a type of steroid used to treat inflammatory diseases. […]

“The treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer,” Limbaugh said. “Based on what happened here to me, I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy.”

Of course Rush would probably think any health system is “just dandy,” mainly because he is a multi-millionaire and can afford the best health care wherever he might be. But this is not the case for tens of millions of Americans who are unable to afford care or insurance due to the rising costs of health care in the U.S.

But it’s also odd that Limbaugh would cite his experience in Hawaii as evidence that the U.S. health care system is “fine” seeing that Hawaii has already passed reform measures similar to those that Congress is currently considering as part of comprehensive reform — measures that Limbaugh has constantly been attacking.

The state enacted a measure in the 1970s mandating that employers provide “relatively generous health care benefits” to full-time employees (Congress is currently considering a similar provision as part of reform) and Hawaii now has one of the lowest rates of uninsured in the nation, and more access has provided space for innovation and brought down costs:

Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest. […]

With more people given access to care, hospital and insurance executives in Hawaii say they have been able to innovate efficiencies. For instance, the state’s top three medical providers are adopting electronic medical records — years ahead of most mainland counterparts.

The Hawaii Medical Service Association, the state’s largest insurer and a Blue Cross Blue Shield member, recently offered the nation’s only statewide system whereby anyone for a nominal fee can talk by phone or e-mail, day or night, to doctors of their choosing.

Yet just two weeks ago, Limbaugh said those supporting health care reform are “mentally disturbed” and that “people are going to die” if reform ultimately passes.

Some foes of health-care bill hope courts will stop legislation
Opponents of the health-care reform bill are not giving up the fight, and some think their last, best hope to halt the legislation lies not in the U.S. Capitol but in the court across the street.

Detroit residents express little faith in Washington to fix city, auto industry
Few local economies have received as much federal attention and assistance in recent years as that of Detroit. But residents of this economically hard-hit region express little faith in Washington’s ability to solve problems and are divided over the effectiveness of government efforts to reshape the…

Pentagon computer-network defense command delayed by congressional concerns
The Pentagon’s plan to set up a command to defend its global network of computer systems has been slowed by congressional questions about its mission and possible privacy concerns, according to officials familiar with the plan.

Afghan lawmakers reject most of Karzai’s cabinet picks
KABUL — Afghanistan’s parliament dealt a stinging rebuke to President Hamid Karzai on Saturday by rejecting 70 percent of his nominees for a new cabinet, including a regionally powerful warlord and the country’s only female minister.

Healthcare Bills Are Unconstitutional
Hatch, Blackwell & Klukowski, WSJ
President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects. First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any…

Wall St. Gets $4 Trillion Gift from Barney Frank
David Reilly, Bloomberg
(ii) If you submit material to this site or to BLP or its representative, unless BLP indicates otherwise, you grant Bloomberg a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, copy, and display such content throughout the world in any form, media, or technology now known or hereafter developed. You also permit any other user to access, store, or reproduce such material for that user's personal use. You grant Bloomberg the right to use the name that you submit…

Look Ahead with Stoicism & Optimism
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
The accomplished and sophisticated attorney was asked what attitude he was bringing to the new year. “Stoicism and mindless optimism,” he laughed, which sounded just about right. He meant it, he said, about the stoicism. He had immersed himself in that rough old philosophy after 9/11, and had come to adopt it as his own. But he meant it about the optimism, too: You never know, things get better, begin with good cheer, maintain your equilibrium, don't lose your peace. We're at the clean start of a new decade, and it wouldn't be bad if the national watchwords were…

Death of the Superdelegate?
A group of Democrats convened by Barack Obama has recommended that the Democratic Party eliminate the influence of “superdelegates,” who have had an unrestricted vote in the nomination process because they were not selected based on the primaries or caucuses.   —JCL The Washington Post: Eighteen months removed from a protracted presidential primary fight, a group of Democrats gathered by President Obama has recommended that the party effectively eliminate the influence of so-called superdelegates by redefining their voting power. The Democratic Change Commission, which was convened last August to examine the nominating process, is recommending that superdelegates—also known as unpledged delegates—be required to vote along with the electoral majority of their state. “We need to show deference to what the party members in our state have done,” said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of the co-chairmen of the commission. Read more

A group of Democrats convened by Barack Obama has recommended that the Democratic Party eliminate the influence of “superdelegates,” who have had an unrestricted vote in the nomination process because they were not selected based on the primaries or caucuses.
? —JCL

The Washington Post:

Eighteen months removed from a protracted presidential primary fight, a group of Democrats gathered by President Obama has recommended that the party effectively eliminate the influence of so-called superdelegates by redefining their voting power.

The Democratic Change Commission, which was convened last August to examine the nominating process, is recommending that superdelegates—also known as unpledged delegates—be required to vote along with the electoral majority of their state.

“We need to show deference to what the party members in our state have done,” said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of the co-chairmen of the commission.

Read more

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Tom Vander Ark: Naughts Not So Bad for Education
The papers have been full of editorials expounding on why the past decade was disastrous for America. There is much to forget and regret about…

Blackwater Case Thrown Out By Federal Judge, Iraqis Upset
WASHINGTON — A federal judge cited repeated government missteps in dismissing all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians…

Chris Weigant: My 2009 “McLaughlin Awards” [Part 2]
Welcome back to my annual outright theft of The McLaughlin Group’s awards categories for the past year in politics. What’s that? We’re sorry, but out…

Good Riddance to the Blunder Years

Mega Giant Corporations Are Very Bad for America
Wal-Mart delivers at least 30% and sometimes more than 50% of the entire U.S. consumption of products. Why the monopolization of our economy should scare you.

Wal-Mart delivers at least 30% and sometimes more than 50% of the entire U.S. consumption of products. Why the monopolization of our economy should scare you.

Brad Burston in Ha’aretz: Israel’s 10 Worst Blunders Plus Israel Prepares New Gaza War In New Year
Brad Burston of Ha’aretz has it exactly right. Meanwhile TIME’s Tony Karon writes in “The National” that Israel is planning another Gaza war for 2010. Apparently, despite the horrific damage inflicted, Israelis view the war as a draw. And that…


Israel – Middle East – Maps and Views – Warfare and Conflict – Organizations

The Yemen Brief: Expanding Scope of US Military Engagement Exactly What Bin Laden Wants
Below the break follows the official statement from Yemen’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Yemen is in a very complicated place when it comes to its efforts against al Qaeda, other rebel tribes, and managing…


Osama bin Laden – Al-Qaeda – Yemen – Middle East – United States armed forces

Minnesota State Senate candidate removes racist comments from his Twitter feed.
Local bloggers are reporting that Minnesota State Senate candidate Mike Parry removed more than 43 racist and homophobic tweets from his Twitter feed after progressives began researching and responding to him. The Minnesota Independent highlights one of Parry’s scrubbed tweets, which was apparently directed at President Barack Obama: The day after the New York Times […]

Local bloggers are reporting that Minnesota State Senate candidate Mike Parry removed more than 43 racist and homophobic tweets from his Twitter feed after progressives began researching and responding to him. The Minnesota Independent highlights one of Parry’s scrubbed tweets, which was apparently directed at President Barack Obama:

The day after the New York Times published an editorial on the Matthew Shepard Act and a week after it was passed in the House, Parry posted a tweet stating “what’s with Dems and Pedophiles?” After winning the GOP’s endorsement this week, Parry aptly described himself as “pro-life, a Christian, a second amendment rights supporter, a hard worker and not politically correct.”