Dark Star

Israel "will attack" Iran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons, one of prime minister Ehud Olmert's deputies warned yesterday.

Full article.
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Iran's government spokesman said on Saturday it would not accept any new incentives, proposed by the EU and world powers, in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment program.

Gholam-Hossein Elham told journalists "If the packet of incentives from the "six" contains demands for a suspension [of uranium enrichment], then we will not discuss it."

Full article.
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Sounds like Obama did listen to some of Jeremiah Wright's preaching after all:

Barack Obama is warning supporters that the general election fight between him and John McCain may get ugly, but the Illinois senator is vowing not to back down.

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports.

"We don't have a choice but to win," Obama said, joking that he has heard "folks in Philly like a good brawl. I've seen Eagles games."

Obama again said that the GOP will make try to make him look "scary" to voters.

Obama pledging to swing back at the GOP drew much applause from the crowd.

Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant said Obama's rhetoric abandons Obama's campaign themes of hope and change.

"In the last 24 hours, he's completely abandoned his campaign's call for 'new politics', equating the election to a 'brawl' and promising to 'bring a gun,'" Conant said.

(Emphasis mine)

Conant has a great point. I thought this great uniter would be more interested in trying to talk to us about why we would feel he need to pull a knife and how he can change his behavior in order to not make us feel that way. Oh, wait - that's how he would deal with our nations enemies. John McCain gets "the gun".

Nice.
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It's always been a theory of mine that we have known where Bin Laden is and have monitored him and his communications to keep another attack on the U.S. from manifesting. He is the evil we know and if he's still alive and in communication, he's still the leader. If we have been monitoring him for the past few years, it could be a big part of the reason why we have had no more attacks on American interests other than on the two battle fields.

It would also explain why the "warrantless wiretaps," were of paramount importance to U.S. national security. It would be a damn shame to monitor communications from BInLaden all the way through the network until the last link in he chain dialed a number with a U.S. area code and we had to tune out.

I'm the first to admit that might be wishful thinking on my part, but with al of our military capabilities, and the fact that we have pretty much known where Bin Laden is for the past six years makes me think we haven't killed him for a reason. And with our technological and surveillance capabilities, I find hard to image us not intercepting Bin Laden's communications if he has had any at all.

Anyway, it wold stil be nice to see his pelt on the wall.

President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. "If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place," said a US intelligence source.

Bush arrives in Britain today on the final leg of his eight-day farewell tour of Europe. He will have tea with the Queen and dinner with Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah before holding a private meeting with Brown at No 10 tomorrow and flying on to Northern Ireland.

The Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis.

The hunt was "completely sanctioned" by the Pakistani government, according to a UK special forces source. It involves the use of Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with Hellfire missiles that can be used to take out specific terrorist targets.

Full article.
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Thomas Sowell has some choice words for Barry the Baritone:

Now that Senator Barack Obama has become the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the Secretary of Defense, in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates.

The letter ends: "I look forward to your swift response."

With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a "swift response" to a political candidate.

Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up, Senator Obama says he wants the Secretary of Defense to tell him, swiftly:

"What changes will you make to provide our soldiers in theater with real access to mental health care?"

"What training has the Pentagon provided our medical professionals in theater to recognize who might be at risk of committing suicide?"

"What assistance are you providing families here at home to recognize the risk factors for suicide, so that they may help our service members get the assistance they need?"

"What programs has the Pentagon implemented to help reduce the stigma attached to mental health concerns so that service members are more likely to seek appropriate care?"

All this sounds very plausible, as so many other things that Senator Obama says sound plausible. But, like so many of those other things, it will not stand up under scrutiny.

What has been widely publicized in the media is that suicides among American troops have gone up. What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.

Read the whole thing.
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Can we be so lucky?

Dick Morris thinks so:

The vote of the Democratic rules committee not to seat the entire Michigan and Florida delegations — as Hillary had wanted — signals the end of the domination of the Democratic Party by Bill and Hillary Clinton. It began when Bill won the California primary in 1992 and ended this past weekend, on May 31, 2008. During this period, nothing moved unless the Clintons OKed it. Now the Party has declared its independence, shaking off their family fiefdom.

There is a lot more involved than just the fact that Hillary lost the primaries to Obama and trails him among elected and super delegates. Obama will now have an easy glide path to the nomination which he should wrap up by June 4th.

But the power in the party has moved from the Clinton family to a combination of institutional Democrats, labor unions, and strong left wing groups. The massive grass roots structure, built up by Move On.org and amplified by Obama’s online campaign has become the dominant force in the party. But they do not rule alone. The Clinton defeats have liberated the unions and state democratic parties, once under the Clintons’ thumb, to become independent power centers working in coalitions with each other and with the radical left. The Democratic Party is now up for grabs. If Obama is elected, he will impose his own vision on it. But if McCain wins, this weekends vote sets up a power struggle that should be interesting.

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From Power Line:

Republican whip Roy Blunt put together this chart showing the practical effects of Democratic vs. Republican policies on the price of gasoline at the pump; click to enlarge:

Blunt's office adds this footnote:

Methodology: Retail gasoline prices are the result of literally hundreds of factors including crude oil supply, global demand, refinery capacity, regulation, taxes, weather, the value of the dollar, etc. Therefore it is impossible to say with certainty what one individual action will do to the overall price. However, based on what we know about the impact of crude oil supply and prices it is possible to develop some potential ranges of impact on gasoline prices for certain policy changes. For example, using the methodology employed by Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats that suspending shipments into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (between 40-77,000 barrels of oil a day) would reduce gas prices by at least 5 cents, bringing ANWR online (at least one million barrels of oil a day) could impact gasoline prices by between 70 cents and $1.60.

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I think so, and Krauthammer articulates:

In his St. Paul victory speech, Barack Obama pledged again to pull out of Iraq. Rather than "continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians, . . . [i]t's time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future."

We know Obama hasn't been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground? Here is the "nothing" that Iraqis have been doing in the past few months:

1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi Army and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias.

2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki's direction confronted them and prevailed in every town -- Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah -- from Basra to Baghdad.

3. Without any American ground forces, the Iraqi army entered and occupied Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold.

4. Maliki flew to Mosul, directing a joint Iraqi-U.S. offensive against the last redoubt of al-Qaeda, which had already been driven out of Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala provinces.

5. The Iraqi parliament enacted a de-Baathification law, a major Democratic benchmark for political reconciliation.

6. Parliament also passed the other reconciliation benchmarks -- a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenue is being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget.

7. With Maliki having demonstrated that he would fight not just Sunni insurgents (e.g., in Mosul) but Shiite militias (e.g., the Mahdi Army), the Sunni parliamentary bloc began negotiations to join the Shiite-led government. (The final sticking point is a squabble over a sixth cabinet position.)

The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their "narrative of defeat and retreat" (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed.

It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq war the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war.

Full article.
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Excellent column by Miss Coulter this week:

In a conversation recently, I mentioned as an aside what a great president George Bush has been and my friend was surprised. I was surprised that he was surprised.

I generally don't write columns about the manifestly obvious, but, yes, the man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents.

Produce one person who believed, on Sept. 12, 2001, that there would not be another attack for seven years, and I'll consider downgrading Bush from "Great" to "Really Good."

Merely taking out Saddam Hussein and his winsome sons Uday and Qusay (Hussein family slogan: "We're the Rape Room People!") constitutes a greater humanitarian accomplishment than anything Bill Clinton ever did -- and I'm including remembering Monica's name on the sixth sexual encounter.

But unlike liberals, who are so anxious to send American troops to Rwanda or Darfur, Republicans oppose deploying U.S. troops for purely humanitarian purposes. We invaded Iraq to protect America.

It is unquestionable that Bush has made this country safe by keeping Islamic lunatics pinned down fighting our troops in Iraq. In the past few years, our brave troops have killed more than 20,000 al-Qaida and other Islamic militants in Iraq alone. That's 20,000 terrorists who will never board a plane headed for JFK -- or a landmark building, for that matter.

We are, in fact, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them at, say, the corner of 72nd and Columbus in Manhattan -- the mere mention of which never fails to enrage liberals, which is why you should say it as often as possible.

The Iraq war has been a stunning success. The Iraqi army is "standing up" (as they say), fat Muqtada al-Sadr --the Dr. Phil of Islamofascist radicalism -- has waddled off in retreat to Iran, and Sadr City and Basra are no longer war zones. Our servicemen must be baffled by the constant nay-saying coming from their own country.

The Iraqis have a democracy -- a miracle on the order of flush toilets in that godforsaken region of the world. Despite its newness, Iraq's democracy appears to be no more dysfunctional than one that would condemn a man who has kept the nation safe for seven years while deifying a man who has accomplished absolutely nothing in his entire life except to give speeches about "change."

Full article.
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Love the Liberal Majority on the court.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision Thursday declaring for the first time that Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to a hearing in U.S. courts is a milestone. It also reinforces a familiar court pattern in the post-9/11 world of insisting on judicial review of detainee cases.

The court's membership has changed in recent years, and it has zigzagged on high-profile social policy dilemmas. Yet a slim majority has voiced a consistent message on Guantanamo cases: Congress and the president cannot go it alone. The third branch must ensure that rights are not violated.

Dissenting justices have routinely denounced that message, and some have taken the extraordinary step of reading portions of their opinions from the mahogany bench. Dueling readings on Thursday showcased how narrowly divided the justices are on the controversial U.S. naval base in Cuba and the president's latitude on detainee policies. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote for the five-justice majority, read portions of his opinion aloud. Justice Antonin Scalia countered for the dissent.

"Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law," Kennedy wrote. He added "the political branches" may not "switch the Constitution on or off at will."

Scalia asserted that the decision will have dire consequences. He warned that some detainees will be freed and return to war against America: "The nation will live to regret what the court has done today."

Scalia is correct.
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In order to support his maverick status, John McCain has sided with the Dems on drilling in ANWaR and off-shore. This could be the big winning issue for Republicans, but our presidential nominee is no different than the Democratic nominee on this one.

McCain loves to pander to he Left-Of-Center. But, side with them all he wants, he still gets no love.

Wouldn't it be great if he realized it before the general campaign got going real good?
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In a 132-word videotaped pledge (still viewable on YouTube), Obama agreed to hollow out the U.S. military by slashing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The scope of his planned defense cuts, combined with his angry tone, is breathtaking. He sounds as if the military is the enemy, not the bad guys it’s fighting. Here is a transcript:

“I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as president, I will end it.

“Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.

“I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending.

“Third, I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal.”

You can bet that Obama will not make this sweeping indictment of our security forces again as he tries to move to the center in the general election. But this is what he thinks, and this is what he plans to do.

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Liberals just do NOT understand the enemy. Here is a prime example:

Judge Ralph Kohlmann warned Mohammed he faces the death penalty if convicted of organizing the attacks on America. But the accused mastermind of the terrorist attacks said he can't accept U.S. lawyers — only Islamic "Sharia" law — and would welcome being executed.

"This is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time," Mohammed said. "I will, God willing, have this, by you."

Ramzi Binalshibh, the alleged main intermediary between the 19 hijackers and al-Qaida leaders, responded similarly: "If this martyrdom happens today, I welcome it. God is great. God is great. God is great."

One of the civilian attorneys he spurned, David Nevin, told The Associated Press he would try to meet with Mohammed to "hear him out and see if we can give him information that is helpful."

Asked how any attorney can defend a man who wants the death penalty, the Boise, Idaho, lawyer said: "It's a tricky matter. I don't have a good answer for you."

It just doesn't compute with them that this man wants to die for his religion. Especially after they have tried and tried to reason with him.

While Conservatives might not "get" it, they certainly understand it. These are the same type of extremists we have ruling Iran (albeit Shia in that case). Surely we could send some smart Liberals over there to talk to them too? They've had a lot of success in Guantanamo.

What's really throwing them off, I bet, is the fact they have these guys completely isolated and removed from the Arab cultures they grew up in, pull them aside and can talk to them all they want, and they don't even want their help at trial.

It blows the Liberal mind. The sad part is, they will still figure a way to make this America's fault.
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This is great:

Clint Eastwood says Spike Lee should "shut his face" about the lack of African-Americans in "Flags of Our Fathers."

"Has he ever studied the history?" Eastwood asked the U.K.'s Guardian in an interview published on Friday.

While promoting his own war movie, "Miracle at St. Anna," about the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division, which fought the Germans in Italy during World War II, Lee said Eastwood's Iwo Jima movie "Flags of Our Fathers" lacked a single African-American.

"There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in 'Flags' or 'Letters From Iwo Jima']. That was his version: The negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version," Lee said recently at the Cannes film festival in France.

In response, Eastwood told the Guardian: "A guy like him should shut his face."

"He was complaining when I did 'Bird' [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else."

As for "Flags of Our Fathers," he says there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is 'Flags of Our Fathers,' the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

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Time discusses why Hillary didn't get more of the women's vote and in doing so they break it down by older women (voted for Hillary) and younger women (voted for Obama) and those in the middle, which were split. The article then goes on to explain the difference between optimist feminists and pessimist feminists.

I think what they should do is break it down by married women and single women. But they don't. I think single liberal women are more likely to vote Obama.

I also find it amusing that the article makes an assumption that the only women who would vote Democrat is a feminist.

One of the Democratic campaign's great misperceptions has been that Clinton held an overwhelming advantage among women voters. But that isn't the case. As expected, Clinton captured the over-65 vote, and Obama won over younger women. But women in the middle split almost evenly between the two. And while both Senators boasted historic candidacies, Obama's seemed to resonate more deeply, translating into 70%, 80% and even 90% of the black vote in primary contests. No one expected Clinton to sweep 90% of Democratic women voters, but 60% wouldn't have been an unreasonable accomplishment for the first woman to have a serious chance of winning the presidency. Instead, Clinton won just over a majority of women's votes.

Full article.
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You thought I was kidding? I know you've probably seen this commercial by now. These two Reverends tell us they disagree on EVERYTHING except ONE THING.

Nope, it's not Jesus Christ.

It's climate change.


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But we'll have to fight this one again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, after a bitter debate over its economic costs and whether it would substantially raise gasoline and other energy prices.

Democratic leaders fell a dozen votes short of getting the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster on the measure and bring the bill up for a vote. The 48-36 vote failed to reach even a majority, a disappointment to the bill's supporters.

Majority Leader Harry Reid was expected to pull the legislation, in all likelihood pushing the congressional debate over climate change to next year with a new Congress and a new president.

The bill would have capped carbon dioxide coming from power plants, refineries and factories, with a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 71 percent by mid-century.

"It's a huge tax increase," argued Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a prominent coal-producing state. He maintained that the proposed system of allowing widespread trading of carbon emissions allowances would produce "the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal."

Full article.
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The U.S. military intercepted a ballistic missile Thursday in the first such sea-based test since a Navy cruiser shot down an errant satellite earlier this year.

The military fired the target, a Scud-like missile with a range of a few hundred miles, from a decommissioned amphibious assault ship near Hawaii's island of Kauai.

The USS Lake Erie, based at Pearl Harbor, fired two interceptor missiles that shot down the target in its final seconds of flight about 12 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

Full article.
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Ann Coulter makes a point:

Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago.

When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College -- or, for short, "the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents" -- anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan.

But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic primary, while Obambi has won under the rules. In a spectacular turnabout, media commentators are heaping sarcasm on our plucky Hillary for imagining the "popular vote" has any relevance whatsoever.

It's the exact same situation as in 2000, with Hillary in the position of Gore and Obama in the position of Bush. The only difference is: Hillary has a much stronger argument than Gore ever did (and Hillary's more of a man than Gore ever was).

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Questions Obama Needs to Be Asked [Mark Hemingway]

Barack Obama is going to be on with Brian Williams tonight, so I thought I'd start up the first of a periodic series here on The Corner where I suggest questions that the media might consider asking Obama:

Question: On your website you have listed Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias as a "bundler", having committed to raising between $100-200k for your campaign. He's also held fund raisers for your presidential campaign and he and his family have donated a considerable sum directly to your various campaigns and you endorsed his candidacy for state treasurer.

In 2006, while running for office Giannoulias admitted he personally oversaw the approval of $11.8 million in mortgage loans at his family bank to Michael Giorango, a convicted bookmaker and prostitution promoter, and $3.6 million of those loans were used by Giorango and another convicted felon to acquire a casino boat marina in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Giannoulias' family bank made other loans to Giorango going back to 1992, and his involvement in those loans has also been questioned.

What's more, while running for state treasurer in 2006, Giannoulias received a $5,000 campaign contribution from a Florida casino owner who owed $4.8 million to a bank Giannoulias has a stake in, and the Casino owner's uncle had ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and was gunned down in what appears to be a mob hit.

Are you confident Giannoulias doesn't have ties to organized crime, and should he be raising money for your campaign?

via The Corner
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Are Barack Obama’s views shown by what he says during an election year or by what he has been doing for decades before?

The complete contrast between Obama’s election year image as a healer of divisions and his whole career of promoting far-left grievance politics, in association with America-haters like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, are brushed aside by his supporters who talk about getting back to “the real issues.”

There is nothing more real than a man’s character and values. The track record of what he has actually done is far more real than anything he says, however elegantly he says it.

Read the whole thing.
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New RNC ad featuring only Democrats:

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WASHINGTON, June 4, 2008 – Coalition forces detained nine suspects in central and northwestern Iraq today, including three wanted men and four of his associates, military officials said.

Coalition forces disrupted al-Qaida's bombing networks in and around Baghdad when they captured two wanted men and detained two additional suspected terrorists. One wanted man reportedly was involved in weapons distribution and car bombings. The other wanted man was detained in Taji, north of the capital, and is believed to gather intelligence for a bombing network in the area.

In Tikrit, coalition forces captured a wanted man and four associates who are believed to be involved in organizing suicide bombings and facilitating the movement of foreign terrorists into Iraq. In addition, detainee reports led coalition forces to a foreign-terrorist bed-down site west of Mosul, where they discovered and safely destroyed two terrorist safe houses.

During operations in Iraq yesterday:

-- Soldiers from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, attached to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multinational Division Baghdad, captured two suspects in the Doura neighborhood of Baghdad’s Rashid district. The detainees were wanted by the Iraqi government for allegedly committing crimes and acts of violence against the Iraqi people and Iraqi and coalition forces.

-- In the Abu Tshir community of southern Baghdad, soldiers from 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multinational Division Baghdad, captured a suspected terrorist.

-- Soldiers from Troop A, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, discovered 30 mm mortar tubes, 60 mm mortar rounds, hand grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, homemade explosives, various ammunition, and a blasting cap during a security patrol in the Karb de Gla region of southeastern Baghdad. Five individuals were detained for questioning during the incident.

-- Coalition forces captured a wanted man and four associates in Mosul. Officials said the wanted man is an alleged security leader for al-Qaida in Iraq and is suspected of coordinating bombings against Iraqi police. Another man, wanted for allegedly facilitating suicide bombings and foreign terrorist movement for al-Qaida, was captured in Tikrit with one additional suspect.

-- Soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division seized several weapons caches in Baghdad’s Sadr City. The munitions included PKC magazines and rounds, AK-47 rifle magazines loaded with 7.62 mm rounds, anti-tank rockets, anti-personnel rockets, a missile, grenades and initiation fuses. Soldiers in the same unit found an RPG-7 and five anti-personnel rounds.

-- Iraqi soldiers in Sadr City seized numerous weapons caches that included Dishka rounds, a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, an RPG warhead, 82 mm mortar rounds, 60 mm rounds, five 122 mm rockets, fire extinguishers, an armor vest with plates, AK-47 assault rifles, an RPK light machine gun, grenades, a 120 mm round, wire and a sniper rifle.

-- Iraqi soldiers discovered a homemade bomb in Baghdad’s Rusafa district. The bomb consisted of an electronic initiator and a box of homemade explosives.

-- In Baghdad’s Adhamiya district, Iraqi police found a GC machine gun and a sniper scope.

-- Iraqi national police detained a suspected insurgent in Baghdad’s Kadhamiya district.

-- In the Karkh district of Baghdad, Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers serving with 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, seized hundreds of 37 mm rounds.

-- Iraqi soldiers seized rocket components, RPGs, MP-5 magazines, and an armored vest in Baghdad’s Karkh district.

-- In Baghdad’s Sadr City, soldiers from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, discovered 60 mm high-explosive mortar rounds, 82 mm mortar rounds, RPGs, mortar tail booms, and a grenade.

-- In the Baladiat area of New Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers found a homemade bomb, rocket warheads, rocket-propelled grenades, an RPG launcher, 7.62 mm rounds, boxes of various ammunition, a PKC rifle and an AK-47, a rocket motor, radios, RPG motors, blasting caps, flak vests, and pounds of explosives.

-- A tip from an Iraqi citizen led 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, soldiers to a weapons cache in Adhamiyah. It consisted of anti-personnel mines and a 57 mm rocket.

-- Soldiers from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, seized 60 mm mortar rounds, 60 mm mortar tubes, homemade explosives, grenades, AK-47s, 120 mm mortars, an improvised rocket, improvised rocket tubes, and a blasting cap in Rashid.

-- In Kadhamiyah’s Shulla area, Iraqi soldiers, with soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, seized 82 mm mortar rounds while conducting a joint patrol. Members of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, also worked with soldiers from another Iraqi army division to discover a 155 mm mortar round, 100 mm mortar rounds, 60 mm mortar rounds, homemade explosives, a grenade, a mortar accelerant, detonation cord, and a cell phone charger in Kadhamiyah’s Khadra area.

In operations in Iraq on June 2, Iraqi special operations forces conducted an operation in eastern Mosul to capture a suspected terrorist who is believed to serve as a homemade-bomb-cell leader for al-Qaida. The man is suspected of numerous fatal car-bomb attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces.

via Global Security.org
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National Security.

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

Full story. (ignore Liberal headline)
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Watch this video. This is the best look at the question I've seen. Plus, Daniel Pipes Conclusion that the U.S. should do it instead of Israel.

Great 7 minute video.
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The portion of media bias the Clintons have received in favor of Obama I wouldn't call justice, exactly, but I would say it gives Bill and Hill a fair idea of what it's like to be a Conservative day in and day out. Is it a vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, Senator?

Bill can't handle it:

"It's part of the national media's attempt to nail Hillary for Obama," Clinton continued. "It's the most biased press coverage in history. It's another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn't do anything about it.

L.A. Times Full Story.
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Read this short piece now, and understand more in the months to come.

(Hat tip: Pajamas Media)
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Economics, Carbon Emissions, and Your Government.

(Hat tip: Power Line)
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Barack Obama stands poised to clinch the Democratic nomination for president today and put in an appearance at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican convention will be held this summer. It is a remarkable story for a man with such a thin public record and no tangible accomplishment in his 46 years other than writing a best-selling memoir.

Moreover, Obama is the most left-wing candidate the Democrats have nominated since George McGovern. If Obama wins the presidency, it is fair to say that it will be Jimmy Carter's second term. I think it is more accurate to postulate, however, that it will be George McGovern's first term. Even so, the Democratic Party has moved left since McGovern's defeat, and Obama is a product of the Democratic Party's post-McGovern left.

How did Obama emerge from the pack of Democratic candidates first to challenge and then to vanquish Senator Clinton? Last month I offered six theses on Obama's emergence as the Democratic nominee for president. I take the liberty of reiterating them today as Obama comes to town.

1. The primary thesis of the Obama candidacy was that, in a multiparty field, he could stake a claim as the Ivory Soap candidate on the issue of Iraq. His opposition to the war was purer than the rest of the Democratic field's. Having been an Illinois state legislator at the time the roll was called in the United States Senate, he had not cast a vote to authorize it. Free of the encumbrance of responsibility at the time of the Senate vote, he could present himself to Democrats as a visionary opponent of a misguided war. That his presentation of his position on the war was not entirely accurate, as Peter Wehner demonstrated in "Obama's war," is beside the point.

2. The secondary thesis of the Obama campaign is that there was a substantial desire among Democrats to move on from the Clinton era. After Obama's Iowa breakthrough and his New Hampshire loss, this theme had legs.

3. Obama emerged as a messianc figure come to redeem the time. He is a quasi-religious figure for non-believers, playing to the same market that made films such as "Ghost" and "The Sixth Sense" such enormous successes. It is an element of the Obama campaign that many observers have noted and that I explored in "The return of Sister Flute."

4. Obama's claim to represent a new poltics ending partisanship and division is as pure a product of the Bush era as Jimmy Carter's "I will never lie to you" was of the Nixon era. These entirely mythical claims built or build on genuine insight into the will to believe among a significant part of the electorate.

5. Obama's race is an asset. Americans want to prove their racial good will. A black candidate whose race is incidental to his campaign and whose political skills are manifest is able to take advantage of a great moral yearning that lies deep within the American psyche. Shelby Steele, who has eloquently explored this theme in reference to Obama, refers to it as "the idealism that race is but a negligible human difference."

6. There is no substitute for organization in a competitive race. Making use of his ample financial resources, Obama developed an impressive field organization to crush Hillary Clinton in the caucus states. Obama's lead among Clinton in pledged delegates is almost entirely attributable to his deicisive advantage over her in caucus states. This is a particularly old-fashioned thesis to derive from a campaign predicated on a theme of new politcs. D.H. Lawrence's literary lesson can be put to good use here: Trust the tale, not the teller.

The first three of these theses have a somewhat limited applicability to the contest among Democrats. The second three also provide a solid basis for Obama's candidacy in the general election campaign. For comparison and contrast, see Bill Bennett's "My old party" and Victor Davis Hanson's "Autopsy of the primaries."

Powerline.
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The Right Angle has an interesting piece on the Centrists vs. the Conservatives in the Republican party. Good, concise article. Here's a sample:

Conservatives don’t really dislike McCain as an individual; they dislike the fact that he is loved by those who despise the American right. McCain’s support comes from those who thought Reagan and Gingrich were too radical, those who thought Goldwater was a wacky warmonger, those who thought William F. Buckley was just a bit out there. McCain is the Prime Minister of Moderate Republicanism, the George H. W. Bush of the 2000s, the holy figure of political centrism. His nomination is the fruit of years of efforts by non-conservative Republicans to move the party away from all that right-wing Reagan stuff. If he becomes President, the centrist counterrevolution will proclaim, “Mission Accomplished.”

Conservatives might not want to hear this, but the leaders of the centrist counterrevolution will maintain power in the GOP for years to come. They lost power once, and they will fight like rabid canines not to lose it again. They will use their influence to force future conservative Presidential contenders to reinvent themselves as moderates in order to receive the GOP nomination. McCain’s victory will be a template for future GOP wins. Those hoping for the likes of Bobby Jindal to restart the Reagan era are in for a rude, harsh, brutal awakening. The centrist counterrevolution will force Jindal and other conservative-minded contenders to bend to their will—and if they don’t, they’ll be broken apart politically.

The centrist counterrevolution has essentially vanquished the American conservative movement. From now on, American voters will only have a choice between the moderation of the Republicans or the Marxism of the Democrats. For conservatives, this will be a nightmare. For the centrist counterrevolutionaries, this will be a dream come true.

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(Havana, Cuba) Cuba has 59 blocks of deep Gulf of Mexico waters claimed in an economic exclusion zone fronting the United States. Of the 59, 28 have been reserved for exploration by seven foreign companies.

The latest to join is the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras which signed the agreement with the Cuban state oil company CUPET on Friday.

The US Geological Survey estimated the North Cuba basin could contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil, with a high-end potential of 9.3 billion barrels, and close to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

PDVSA of Venezuela is already a major partner of Cuba in oil, taking out blocks in the gulf and building and modernizing refineries. Others signing agreements include Spain's Repsol-YPF, India's ONGC and Nordsk Hydro, Vietnam state oil and gas group Petrovietnam, Malaysia's state-run Petronas and Canada's Sherritt International.

So, along with Venezuela, Spain, India, Vietnam, Malaysia and Canada, now Brazil will be drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Isn't it odd that the only country that can't drill in the Gulf of Mexico is the one which borders it on three sides? I think so.

From the JawaReport.
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The state may hold 40 billion barrels of oil. Best of all: No burqas.

Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer has a plan to solve the oil crisism, the New York Post reported.

Drill.

The feds say there are 4.3 billion barrels in his state.

“They are always conservative,” said Schweitzer, who greeted me in his office dressed in jeans, a white shirt and a string tie. “There will be more. It’ll probably be more like 40 billion.”

And people of Montana would be happy to help out.

“We’ve been drilling out there for 70 years,” said Schweitzer of the Bakken area. “People there like new oil production. In fact, the city of Sydney [the county seat] wants to build a refinery. Where else in America do you have a community that says, ‘we want to build a refinery in our backyard?’ ”

As Cleveland Browns fans used to say: Do it, Pruett.

via Don Surber.

(Hat tip: Instapundit)
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Iran expects a "different approach" from the next US president, whoever wins the November elections, President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad said in an interview published in Italy Wednesday.

"Whoever wins the elections, I'm sure that the United States will change, it will have a different approach," the Iranian leader told the Italian daily La Repubblica.

"The United States will have a reduced sphere of influence in the world," he predicted, adding: "The new president will have to respond to the real demands of the American people: 40 million American citizens do not have health insurance, the victims of the New Orleans hurricane still have no homes."

In addition, the United States "will have to withdraw the soldiers from Iraq (since) the American people will not tolerate continued spending of billions of dollars on weapons," said Ahmadenijad, in Rome to attend the UN food agency's summit on food security.

Asked whether he would negotiate with the new US leadership come January 2009, Ahmadenijad said: "It is they who cut off the links with us, hoping to suffocate us. Today Iran is an advanced country. We are ready for dialogue with anyone, except with the Zionist regime, in relations based on mutual respect and fairness."

Full article.

This is what happens when we let an idiot even run for president. Oh, well, that's democracy. So is electing the alternative.

I have a lot of problems with McCain, but I will be at the polls, punching my card for him.
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Numbers are, by and large, hard for many people, including myself, to compare in an abstract fashion. That's why they make graphs. For anybody who was wondering why Clinton wasn't dropping out of the race despite the media's overwhelming insistence that Obama had wrapped everything up months ago, take a look at the following, and see what Mrs. Clinton was seeing. (Click to enlarge)

Courtesy the Wall Street Journal.
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Troops in Iraq Kill Four Militants, Detain 13, Seize Weapons

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2008 – Coalition and Iraqi forces killed four enemy fighters, captured 13 suspects and seized scores of weapons in Iraq in recent days, military officials said.

Troops captured seven suspects today, including two wanted men believed to be tied to al-Qaida in Iraq bombing networks.

One wanted man, captured with four associates in Mosul, allegedly is a security leader for al-Qaida in Iraq and is suspected of coordinating bombings against Iraqi police.

Forces seized the other wanted man, who reportedly facilitates suicide bombings and foreign-terrorist movement in Tikrit for al-Qaida in Iraq, along with an additional suspect.

Elsewhere in Iraq today, coalition forces captured a suspected leader of an Iranian-backed “special group” and five associates, in Kut. Military officials said the man has been involved in murdering Iraqis and attacking coalition forces.

During operations yesterday:

-- Iraqi security forces and Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers killed four militants and seized a number of weapons in Baghdad. Military officials said troops were acting in self-defense when they killed the enemy fighters.

-- Using tips from local Iraqis, coalition troops uncovered thousands of pounds of weapons and munitions in the Jazeera Desert west of Samarra.

-- Coalition and Iraqi forces seized scores of weapons in the Adhamiya and Sadr City districts of Baghdad in two-day operations that ended today. The caches contained mortars, rockets, homemade explosives materials, assault rifles, rounds of various sizes and other military equipment.

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team captured eight suspects during several Salahuddin province-area operations that wrapped up June 1. Troops also uncovered weapons caches in the raids, military officials said.

via Global Security.org.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Now that he has sealed the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination, should Barack Obama choose vanquished rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate?

While, from a completely subjective and political standpoint, I think it would be hilarious to watch the Democrats rip itself to shreds for 4 years in the form of a Clinton administration within a Carter, er, I mean Obama administration, it would be a complete disaster for the country. Especially with D's controlling both houses of congress as I think they will be (filibuster proof numbers at that).

But I seriously doubt Obama will pick Clinton and his wife for Vice Prez. Matter of fact, I would be completely SHOCKED.

Full article from above.
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I don't know what AP pundit Liz Sidoti has been smoking, but I bet it's green...

Philosophically, the country will get either one extreme or the other in the conservative McCain or the liberal Obama.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll from April found that just over a third of all people call themselves conservative while just under a quarter say they are liberal. They rest describe themselves as moderate.

That means voters who aren't at the extremes of the political spectrum likely will be the deciding force. Thus, both candidates already have started to reach toward the middle after primary fights in which both played to their respective political bases.

Even so, the record is clear.

In line with conservative orthodoxy, McCain is a defense hawk who supports the troop-increase strategy in Iraq and opposes a quick pullout. He also favors tougher sanctions against Iran. He backs free trade and the extension of the Bush tax cuts that are the cornerstone of the current economic policy. He opposes abortion rights, and he favors school choice. He is a longtime advocate of fiscal restraint and a crusader against wasteful government spending. He takes a free-market approach to health care.

Obama has a record of liberal votes in the Senate. He opposed extending Bush's tax cuts on investments, a free trade agreement with Central America, drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge, extending federal wiretap provisions and the confirmation of Bush's two Supreme Court nominees. Obama also opposes privatizing Social Security and supports abortion rights. He was against the Iraq war from the start and has made his calls for a pullout a bedrock of his presidential campaign.

Full article.
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We often take for granted our 1st amendment right to freedom of speech. We often forget that even "the most civilized of nations" outside the U.S. don't enjoy this freedom.

Exhibit Number One (France):

PARIS — Brigitte Bardot was convicted Tuesday of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.

A Paris court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen siren and animal rights campaigner. The court also ordered Bardot to pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP.

Bardot's lawyer, Francois-Xavier Kelidjian, said he would talk to her about the possibility of an appeal.

A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.

In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts."

Bardot, 73, was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir, celebrated by slaughtering sheep.

French anti-racism laws prevent inciting hatred and discrimination on racial or religious or racial grounds. Bardot had been convicted four times previously for inciting racial hatred.

Exhibit Number 2 (Canada):

We do not envy the Canadians. They have entrusted to their government a power Americans never would, and they follow it into foolishness.In the week of June 2, a body of bureaucrats called the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal will call on the carpet author Mark Steyn. A bellicose champion of the West, Steyn predicts in his new book, "America Alone," that Muslims will swarm over Europe, ban alcohol and put women in veils. Maclean's magazine printed an excerpt that outraged Islamic Canadians, who complained to human-rights tribunals in Ottawa and the provinces.

Steyn's book may well be hateful in some way. The Seattle Times thought the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were hateful, and did not reprint them. That was one newspaper's decision. In Canada, the law makes such questions the government's decision.

British Columbia now bans all words and images "likely to expose a person ... to hatred or contempt" because of race, religion, age, disability, sex, marital status or sexual orientation." This sounds like a libel law for groups, except that libel is a misstatement of fact that damages an individual reputation. In the United States, for a public figure to be libeled, the false statement has to be made maliciously or recklessly.

These are the "enlightened," ones. How can any one discuss or dissent from ideas that may be harmful to society, if any such dissent can be considered hate speech or "inciting racism?" The short answer is, you can't. So the responsibility is squarely on U.S. shoulders to keep ideas and the freedom to talk about those ideas alive.
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"I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene," Ahmadinejad said.

"Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started," the hard-line president said.

Full article.
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Sen. Robert Byrd, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and a fierce opponent of the Iraq war, was taken to a Washington-area hospital for observation on Monday after a caregiver noticed that he was lethargic, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat said.

Full article.
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"I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," the former president told Clinton supporters in South Dakota, ABC and NBC reported on their news websites. [Breitbart]

I doubt it, but it can't hurt to hope. But Conservatives, it seems, aren't the only ones wishing he would just go away... Baltimore Sun Blog:

What will history remember? Did Bill Clinton help his wife more than he hurt her this campaign? And isn't this the same question many Democrats found themselves asking in 2000 - whether Clinton's legacy hurt Vice President Al Gore in his own White House bid, or whether Gore hurt himself by not playing the Clinton Card more forcefully?

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Now, I’m not suggesting that all conservatives are honest and all liberals are untrustworthy. But clearly a gap exists in the data. Why? The quick answer might be that liberals are simply being more honest about their dishonesty.

However attractive this explanation might be for some, there is simply no basis for accepting this explanation. Validation studies, which attempt to figure out who misreports on academic surveys and why, has found no evidence that conservatives are less honest. Indeed, validation research indicates that Democrats tend to be less forthcoming than other groups.

Full article.
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Just over half a century ago, Iraq’s Jews numbered more than 130,000. But now, in the city that was once the community’s heart, they cannot muster even a minyan, the 10 Jewish men required to perform some of the most important rituals of their faith. They are scared even to publicize their exact number, which was recently estimated at seven by the Jewish Agency for Israel, and at eight by one Christian cleric.

Full article.
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So Obama has finally rescended his membership at the Black Liberation Theology fuming Trinity Church. Byron York at the Corner has some questions:

Has the church somehow changed in the past few weeks from the Trinity he attended, apparently happily, for 20 years? Are ministers somehow making unacceptable statements from the pulpit that they did not make when Obama was going there earlier?

Also, what has changed since March 18, when Obama delivered his race speech in Philadelphia, when he asked the question:

Why not join another church?…if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

And then there is this description of Trinity, also from the speech on race:

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

Has that balance somehow changed in recent weeks?

The short answer is, I suspect, that Barack Hussien Obama is a man of principle. (Yeah, whatev)
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Congressional Idiot Maxine Waters wants to socialize our oil industry. Hey Maxine! Check it out. Hugo Chavez isn't doing so hot with that.
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The U.S. and Iraqi governments are currently in negotiations concerning the future security of Iraq and whether or not there will be U.S. military bases established in the country, for how long, and what it would mean for Iraqi sovereignty.

Cleric Sadr thought he'd gin up some trouble, but as the Weekly Standard Blog reports, the whle thing fell kind of flat for him:

Last week, Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army and the Sadrist political movement, called for massive demonstrations against the negotiations between the US.. and the Iraqi government over the basing of U.S. troops in the country beyond 2008. This Friday, the Sadrist movement carried out its first nationwide protest. The turnout was a flop.

The Associated Press put the best face on the turnout, saying “tens of thousands of Shiites” joined in. But the AP does not provide a breakdown on the protests.

AFP, Multinational Forces Iraq, and Voices of Iraq, an Iraqi news service, put the number in the thousands. Multinational Forces Iraq said more than 5,000 protesters were in Sadr Cit, and another 200-300 attended the protest in the Kadhamiyah district of Baghdad. AFP said “hundreds of Sadrists staged similar demonstrations” and said demonstrations were held in Basra, but no numbers were given.

There was a time when Sadr’s calls for protests put hundreds of thousands of Shia into the streets. Yet Sadr couldn’t get more than 6,000 to 7,000 join in on a protest on the day when most people attend mosque.

To put the current numbers into perspective, and estimated 2,000,000 Shia are estimated to live in Sadr City alone, and the Baghdad district is considered the bulwark of Sadr’s support. Yet Sadr couldn’t muster more than one quarter of one percent of the district's residents.

Sadr called for weekly protests, to be held every Friday after prayers. He may want to cancel the protests and blame the poor turnout on heavy handed tactics of the security forces, just as he has done in the recent past.

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I was tempted to let my last post about Scott McClellen's book be my last because I consider neither the book nor the man worth too much of my time. But that was before I saw Senator Dole's email to Mr. McClellen. Once I did, I thought it fitting that I defer to the Senator for the last word. From the Poltico:

Bob Dole yesterday sent a scalding e-mail to Scott McClellan, excoriating the former White House spokesman as a "miserable creature" who greedily betrayed his former patron for a fast buck.

In an extraordinary message obtained and authenticated by Politico, Dole uses his trademark biting wit to portray McClellan as a classic Washington opportunist.

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits and, spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."

Michael Marshall, Dole's spokesman and colleague at the Alston Bird law firm, confirms the message came from the former senator and presidential candidate. "Yes, it is authentic," Marshall wrote in an e-mail.

"In my nearly 36 years of public service I've known of a few like you," Dole writes, recounting his years representing Kansas in the House and Senate. "No doubt you will 'clean up' as the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm. When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years"

Dole assures McClellan that he won't read the book — "because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high-profile job."

"That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively," Dole concludes. "You’re a hot ticket now, but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

He signs the email simply: "BOB DOLE"

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A new Gallup Poll asks that question of the American public. The Weekly Standard Blog comments:

Gallup has released the results of a lengthy survey on gas prices, which asked both about causes and responses. Only 20 percent of Americans believe oil companies are responsible for the high prices, and 57 percent believe the correct response is to allow drilling in areas currently off limits:

When Americans are asked what steps should be taken to reduce gas prices, no consensus appears, but somewhat surprisingly, a majority favor imposing price controls, by a 53% to 45% margin. Americans also support releasing supplies from the federal government's strategic petroleum reserve (58%) and drilling in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas now off limits (57%). On the other hand, a majority oppose rationing gasoline (79%), re-instituting the 55 mph speed limit (56%), and suspending the federal tax on gasoline for the summer (52%)...

Ironically, the intensity with which Americans see oil companies as "gas price villains" may be fading a little, according to opinions respondents volunteered in a new Gallup Poll, conducted May 19-21. Over the past year, the percentage of Americans blaming the oil companies for skyrocketing gas prices fell from 34% to 20%; the percentage pointing to oil refinery problems fell from 16% to 9%; and those attributing the increase in prices to problems in the Middle East and the Iraq war fell from 13% to 8%.

Overall, the results are a jumble. A majority favors releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but there's barely a plurality for ceasing to add to it. Almost as many favor price controls as want more drilling. But the results overall should cheer Republicans. More Americans agree with Republicans on the causes (supply and demand, refinery problems, government involvement, crude prices, the shortage of oil, and dependence on foreign oil) than they do with Democrats. Support for new drilling has risen by 16 percent in just a year.

According to recent national polls, gas prices remain relatively low among Americans' top priorities. Unless Republicans can quantify the price effect of failing to increase domestic production, it's likely to be hard to make this a cutting issues.

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Barone at NRO:

By any historic standard, our economic numbers are good, though possibly headed in a negative direction. April’s unemployment was 5 percent — a figure that once upon a time was considered full employment. The Consumer Price Index was up 3.9 percent, largely due to price rises in energy and food. “Core inflation” was 2.3 percent. Productivity was up 2.2 percent.

Those are numbers that would have been taken as a sign of very good times when I was growing up. Then, we had recessions every four or five years and bad bouts of inflation in the 1940s, 1950s. and 1970s, and unemployment sometimes surged to 10 percent nationally and to 15 percent in industrial states like Michigan. In contrast, we’ve had only two mild recessions since 1983, with a third now possible but not yet in view.

In those 25 years, we have had low-inflation economic growth more than 90 percent of the time — something never before achieved in American history. Alan Greenspan titled his memoir The Age of Turbulence, but the story he tells is one of the amazing resilience of the American economy. Hit by one shock after another — a stock market crash in 1987, currency meltdowns in Mexico in 1994 and in Asia in 1997, the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, and the Sept. 11 attacks and the Enron collapse in 2001 — our economy has adapted and kept growing.

In the America I grew up in, the political effects of economic issues were clear. Voters, most of whom had vivid memories of the Depression of the 1930s, tended to vote for Democrats when the economy sagged. Political scientists produced formulas for predicting elections that were based largely on macroeconomic indicators: If the economy was growing, the incumbent party’s presidential candidate would win; if it was in recession, he’d lose. But those formulas don’t work anymore. If they did, Al Gore would have been elected by a comfortable margin in 2000.

Today, few voters remember the 1930s; the median-age voter has lived all his adult life in a period when low inflation economic growth has become the norm. Voters take a good economy for granted and are enraged by any irritation. But who is to blame? The subprime mortgage crisis was brought about by policies encouraging home ownership supported by George W. Bush and members of Congress of both parties. Monetary policy is made by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who has bipartisan support.

Polls suggest votes are not moving in response to local economic conditions. Recent polls in Michigan, the No. 1 state in unemployment, show John McCain running even with Barack Obama, even though George W. Bush lost the state by 3 percent in 2004. And Obama is running much stronger than John Kerry did in Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states with very low unemployment.

But then Obama is advocating fiscal and trade policies — higher taxes on high earners, more protectionism — which are the opposite of John F. Kennedy’s and the same as Herbert Hoover’s. Yes, the economy matters in politics, but not in the way it used to.

Full Article.
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This book has been added to my summer reading list. It apparently posits the shocking proposition that Government Doesn’t Make You Happy and backs it up with hard data.
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