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Israel To Gaza: Get Ready
The Israelis have sent a warning to Gaza and its Hamas leadership after the latest rocket attack on Ashkelon. If the attacks continue, Israel will invade Gaza and conduct large-scale military operations to eliminate the threat:
Israeli leaders warned Friday of an approaching conflagration in the Gaza Strip as Israel activated a rocket warning system to protect Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people, from Palestinian rockets.
Ashkelon was hit by several Grad rockets fired from Gaza on Thursday, a sign of the widening scope of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. One hit an apartment building and another landed near a school, wounding a 17-year-old girl.
Located 11 miles from Gaza, Ashkelon had been sporadically targeted in the past but never suffered direct hits or significant damage.
"It will be sad, and difficult, but we have no other choice," Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defense mister, said Friday, referring to the large-scale military operation he said Israel was preparing to bring a halt to the rocket fire.
"We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory," Vilnai told Army Radio on Friday.
Israel had tried using softer methods to stop the attacks, including a lockdown on the border between Gaza and Israel. That resulted in a breakout at Rafah, which took the Egyptian government several days to resecure. Other nations had pressured Israel to end the embargo or at least loosen it for food, energy, and medical supplies, but the rocket attacks continue.
Hamas says that Israel's return fire has killed 15 civilians and blames Israel for the rising tensions. Apart from the absurdity of blaming someone for hitting an aggressor in return, Hamas and other terrorist entities have no one but themselves to blame for civilian deaths. Even the AP acknowledges that Hamas launches its rockets from densely populated civilian centers, drawing fire onto their own people.
Israel cannot stand idle while terrorists rain rockets onto civilian populations, and the escalation to Ashkelon is a deliberate provocation by Hamas. The IDF has to take action, and this time it cannot be constrained by proportionality. They need a massive response to the Gaza provocateurs, one that leaves them no ground to hide. If Gaza's civilian population wants to avoid that, then they need to rid themselves of the terrorists before Israel's military does its work.
Posted by Ed Morrissey o
Clinton aides threatened lawsuit over Texas caucuses, officials say
By Jay Root | McClatchy Newspapers
AUSTIN — The Texas Democratic Party warned Thursday that election night caucuses scheduled for next Tuesday could be delayed or disrupted after aides to Hillary Clinton threatened to sue over the party's complicated delegate selection process.
In a letter sent out late Thursday to both the Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns, Texas Democratic Party lawyer Chad Dunn warned a lawsuit could ruin the Democrats' effort to re-energize voters just as they are turning out in record numbers.
Spokesmen for both campaigns said there were no plans to sue ahead of the March 4 election.
"It has been brought to my attention that one or both of your campaigns may already be planning or intending to pursue litigation against the Texas Democratic Party,' Dunn wrote in the letter, obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process.'
Democratic sources said both campaigns have made it clear that they might consider legal options over the complicated delegate selection process, which includes both a popular vote and evening caucuses. But the sources made it clear that the Clinton campaign in particular had warned of an impending lawsuit.
"Both campaigns have made it clear that they would go there if they had to, but I think the imminent threat is coming from one campaign,' said one top Democratic official, referring to the Clinton campaign. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Another Democratic official who was privvy to the discussions confirmed that Clinton representatives made veiled threats in a telephone call this week.
"Officials from Sen. Clinton's campaign at several times throughout the call raised the specter of 'challenging the process,' the official said. "The call consisted of representatives from both campaigns and the Democratic Party.'
The source, who asked not to identified by name because he did not have authorization to speak about the matter, said Clinton 's political director, Guy Cecil, had forcefully raised the possibility of a courtroom battle.
But Adrienne Elrod, Clinton's top Texas spokeswoman, said campaign and party officials had merely discussed election night procedures and that the campaign was merely seeking a written agreement in advance. She could not elaborate on the details of the agreement the Clinton campaign is seeking.
"It is our campaign's standard operating procedure that we need to see what we are agreeing to in writing before we agree to it,' Elrod said. "No legal action is being taken. We have no reason to take any legal action.'
Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said the Obama campaign had no plans to sue.
"We're confident that by working closely with the Texas Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign we'll have a caucus that Texans can be proud of — because every eligible voter will be allowed to participate and have their vote counted in a timely manner," Earnest said.
The letter to the two campaigns did not specify what procedures or rules might trigger a lawsuit. But one party official said the campaigns were most concerned about the caucus process, or, as the party refers to it, the "precinct conventions.'
Texas has 228 delegates, the biggest single cache remaining. But only 126 delegates are doled out based on the selection voters make at the ballot box. Another 67 delegates — more than in many states — are to be apportioned based on the number of people who participate in the caucuses that begin in over 8,000 precincts once the polls close at 7 p.m. (The remaining 35 are so-called "superdelegates' free to support whomever they choose).
Clinton campaign aides have argued that caucuses favor Obama, whose campaign organization has turned out overwhelming numbers at caucuses in other states.
Democrats have described the enthusiasm in Texas, as evidenced by the record turnout among early voters in the most populous counties, as a sign that the party is undergoing a revival after years of decline under virtually unchallenged Republican rule.
"If it is true that litigation is imminent between one or both of your campaigns and the (Democratic Party), such action coule prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated democratic process that is involving a record number of participants here in Texas and across the nation,' Dunn, the state party lawyer, wrote.
McClatchy Newspapers 2008
You stay classy billary
Pew: Majority now believe U.S. effort in Iraq will succeed, 53-39
posted at 7:45 pm on February 28, 2008 by Allahpundit
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In case you were wondering why the Democrats are running from this debate, it’s because the more public opinion shifts, the more their willingness to abandon Iraq looks less like a “realist” exit strategy than calculated defeatism. Even so, note how inelastic most of the results are despite the security gains (especially in Anbar). The microresults show impressive shifts — click the image and follow the link to see double digit swings in the “Growing Perceptions of Iraq Progress” graph — but the baseline results below are static. I wonder why.
pew1.png
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/02/28/pew-majority-now-believe-us-effort-in-iraq-will-succeed-53-39/
So, I take it you agree with Obama's stance on killing children then??
I guess I missed the part where Rick is running for President this year- as the article pointed out, he's not even in the Senate any longer
same for republicans in congress of which McCain is a member)
Approval for Congress as a whole is what, 11%?
People are rightfully upset about what's going on in COngress, but you're deluding yourself if you think that the dems are getting more approval
Reforming Islam - Turkey gives it a try
Posted by: McQ
This article is a couple of days old, but is an extremely interesting look at Turkey's attempt to change, or at least revise, the Hadith, "the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran." The Hadith is a collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet Mohammed and the source of many disputes concerning jihad and the religion in general.
Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.
The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.
[...]
As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.
But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.
It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.
One can imagine, among traditional and extremist sects of the religion, how that is going to be accepted. And given the excitement level they can generate over cartoons, does anyone doubt the possible inflammatory nature of this sort of an undertaking?
I certainly understand the point (and, we all know the history of religious reformation):
The argument is that Islamic tradition has been gradually hijacked by various - often conservative - cultures, seeking to use the religion for various forms of social control.
Leaders of the Hadith project say successive generations have embellished the text, attributing their political aims to the Prophet Muhammad himself.
But you have to wonder, in today's atmosphere and especially in the world of Islam, how such a project will be met.
According to Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey is doing nothing less than recreating Islam - changing it from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy.
He says that to achieve it, the state is fashioning a new Islam.
"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation," he says.
"Not exactly the same, but if you think, it's changing the theological foundations of [the] religion. "
Fadi Hakura believes that until now secularist Turkey has been intent on creating a new politics for Islam.
Now, he says, "they are trying to fashion a new Islam."
Significantly, the "Ankara School" of theologians working on the new Hadith have been using Western critical techniques and philosophy.
They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones.
"You have to see them as a whole," says Fadi Hakura.
"You can't say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology.
"I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."
As I said, this is going to be fascinating to monitor. Many of us, myself included, have said that in order for Islam to adapt itself to the current century, it will require a reformation. Is this the effort that will achieve that? Or, in a community presently dominated by the traditionalists and the extremists, will this be viewed as heresy and do more harm than good?
The Elephant in the Room: Obama: A harsh ideologue hidden by a feel-good image
By Rick Santorum
American voters will choose between two candidates this election year.
One inspires hope for a brighter, better tomorrow. His rhetoric makes us feel we are, indeed, one nation indivisible - indivisible by ideology or religion, indivisible by race or creed. It is rhetoric of hope and change and possibility. It's inspiring. This candidate can make you just plain feel good to be American.
The other candidate, by contrast, is one of the Senate's fiercest partisans. This senator reflexively sides with the party's extreme wing. There's no record of working with the other side of the aisle. None. It's basically been my way or the highway, combined with a sanctimoniousness that breeds contempt among those on the other side of any issue.
Which of these two candidates should be our next president? The choice is clear, right?
Wrong, because they're both the same man - Barack Obama.
Granted, the first-term Illinois senator's lofty rhetoric of bipartisanship, unity, hope and change makes everyone feel good. But it's becoming increasingly clear that his grand campaign rhetoric does not match his partisan, ideological record. The nonpartisan National Journal, for example, recently rated Obama the Senate's most liberal member. That's besting some tough competition from orthodox liberals such as Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer.
John McCain's campaign and conservative pundits have listed the numerous times in Obama's short Senate career where he sided with the extremes in his party against broadly supported compromises on issues such as immigration, ethics reform, terrorist surveillance and war funding. Fighting on the fringe with a handful of liberals is one thing, but consider his position on an issue that passed both houses of Congress unanimously in 2002.
That bill was the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. During the partial-birth abortion debate, Congress heard testimony about babies that had survived attempted late-term abortions. Nurses testified that these preterm living, breathing babies were being thrown into medical waste bins to die or being "terminated" outside the womb. With the baby now completely separated from the mother, it was impossible to argue that the health or life of the mother was in jeopardy by giving her baby appropriate medical treatment.
The act simply prohibited the killing of a baby born alive. To address the concerns of pro-choice lawmakers, the bill included language that said nothing "shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right" of the baby. In other words, the bill wasn't intruding on Roe v. Wade.
Who would oppose a bill that said you couldn't kill a baby who was born? Not Kennedy, Boxer or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not even the hard-core National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Obama, however, is another story. The year after the Born Alive Infants Protection Act became federal law in 2002, identical language was considered in a committee of the Illinois Senate. It was defeated with the committee's chairman, Obama, leading the opposition.
Let's be clear about what Obama did, once in 2003 and twice before that. He effectively voted for infanticide. He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby. Infanticide - I wonder if he'll add this to the list of changes in his next victory speech and if the crowd will roar: "Yes, we can."
How could someone possibly justify such a vote? In March 2001, Obama was the sole speaker in opposition to the bill on the floor of the Illinois Senate. He said: "We're saying they are persons entitled to the kinds of protections provided to a child, a 9-month child delivered to term. I mean, it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal-protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child." So according to Obama, "they," babies who survive abortions or any other preterm newborns, should be permitted to be killed because giving legal protection to preterm newborns would have the effect of banning all abortions.
Justifying the killing of newborn babies is deeply troubling, but just as striking is his rigid adherence to doctrinaire liberalism. Apparently, the "audacity of hope" is limited only to those babies born at full term and beyond. Worse, given his support for late-term partial-birth abortions that supporters argued were necessary to end the life of genetically imperfect children, it may be more accurate to say the audacity of hope applies only to those babies born healthy at full term.
Obama's supporters say his rhetoric makes them believe again.
Is this the kind of change and leader you believe in?
Bottom line, who will they vote for??
They have no choice
Either Obama or billary would be awful in terms of the military and national security
Your posts speak for themselves
LOL, harsh word coming from a bot
Ohio And NAFTA
David Leonhardt of the Times has an interesting piece on NAFTA and Ohio hidden in the Business Section. In last night's debate both Hillary and Obama bashed NAFTA and threatened to withdraw from it if it could not be renegotiated to protect jobs in places like Ohio, so this bit was useful:
The first problem with what the candidates have been saying is that Ohio’s troubles haven’t really been caused by trade agreements. When Nafta took effect on Jan. 1, 1994, Ohio had 990,000 manufacturing jobs. Two years later, it had 1.03 million. The number remained above one million for the rest of the 1990s, before plummeting in this decade to just 775,000 today.
It’s hard to look at this history and conclude Nafta is the villain. In fact, Nafta did little to reduce tariffs on Mexican manufacturers, notes Matthew Slaughter, a Dartmouth economist. Those tariffs were already low before the agreement was signed.
A more important cause of Ohio’s jobs exodus is the rise of China, India and the old Soviet bloc, which has brought hundreds of millions of workers into the global economy. New technology and better transportation have then made it easier for jobs to be done in those places and elsewhere. To put it in concrete terms, your credit card’s customer service center isn’t in Ireland because of a new trade deal.
Posted by Tom Maguire on February 27, 2008 |
Again, I don't see the real quandry here as the choice will be very clear
On the main issues- security and ecomonic principles- spending etc, McCAin is clearly the choice
COulter is the only one going over the edge, but seh does that repeatedly for effect
THE DEMOCRATS' SOUTHERN OUTREACH PROGRAM CONTINUES, as illustrated in this email:
no shit Mccain leads democrats in TN. Like that is even a question.
Its a fucking southern red neck state. Obama or Hilary would never win that backwater hole.
we in nyc laugh at the south and think you people are pathetic.
It must be tough to think of yourself as so cosmo and still live in hell.
And when you visit NYC we sense your backwaterness. We can smell it a mile away.
With supporters like these, how can they fail to carry the south?
UPDATE: Reader Joseph Beaulieu emails: "Well, it was nice of Gov Dean to take some time out of his busy day to write to you." Heh.
instapundit
Keep hoping, this is no big deal
Who else will they right vote for?
In terms od national security and economic policy, the lines are clearly drawn
McCain will not change course now to appease the far right
PS
Noticed your program had been changed to drop the "ageist" comments on McCain
Good move by the programmers
More NYT stupidity on McCain:
The Times Raises Another McCain Non-Issue
The staff at the New York Times has burned the midnight oil trying to find ways to derail John McCain's campaign. After endorsing him in the primary, the paper then ran an unsubstantiated smear against him as a philanderer. Now they ask whether he is eligible for the office, given his birth in the Panama Canal zone while his father served the country:
The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.
“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”
It's a slam-dunk to the millions of military families whose service to this country should have left then with no doubts about their children being relegated to second-class citizenry. They sacrificed enough for their country without having to sacrifice the futures of their children. Any other conclusion would amount to a penalty for military service on those who did not volunteer.
The Founding Fathers recognized this. They passed a bill in 1790, three years after the adoption of the Constitution, which made clear that "natural born" applied to children born of American citizens "outside the limits of the United States". That law remains in effect and has never been challenged. At the least, it speaks to the intent of the founders when they used the term "natural born" in the Constitution.
It's beyond absurd to argue that John McCain doesn't qualify to run as an American for the presidency. The candidate or party that files a lawsuit to challenge him on this point runs the risk of alienating a large swath of the public who have served this nation in uniform, in diplomacy, and in government.
Besides, if the Times thinks this to be an issue, then why did they endorse McCain in January? Didn't they bother to do their research on him then?
The United Methodist Church and Israel
By Joseph Puder
The Jewish State of Israel may not be perfect, it is however a flowering garden of civility, democracy and human rights in a desert filled with Arab-Muslim oppressive dictatorships, who deny their people basic human and religious rights and fundamental freedoms to its minorities-such as freedom of speech, press, and assembly. Given Israel's circumstances - being surrounded by hostile Arab states (and Arab-Palestinians) who seek its destruction through war and endless cycles of terrorism, Israel's record of maintaining its democracy and working to insure human rights and freedoms for all is remarkable.
For the United Methodist Church (UMC) and other mainline Protestant churches, however, Israel is deserving of criticism and punishment. On April 23, 2008, when the UMC will hold its Quadrennial General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, divestment from companies that do business with Israel will be on the agenda.
Susanne Hoder, a member of the UMC's New England Conference Divestment Task Force, led an informational gathering on the Middle East last June. It was intended to provide participants with the opportunity to "learn how companies profit from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, and examine the impact of occupation on Israeli and Palestinian society." Hoder expects to update the New England Conference on Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Gaza, and discuss apartheid in Israel and the occupied territories, and how organizations including churches, municipalities and Jewish groups are using economic measures to end it.
Linda Bloom, a United Methodist News Service writer based in New York reported on January 29, 2008 under the title "United Methodists Explore Divestment Proposals,"
that Rev. Steve Sprecher, director of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, called divestment a "time-honored policy" within the UMC. Rev. Sprecher, who led the social action agency petition at the 2004 UMC General Conference, recommended divestment from Caterpillar Inc. and charged that the company "profited from illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and contributes to the occupation by supplying the Israel Defense Forces with heavy equipment." Bloom's article further cites Rev. Sprecher reminder of the Resolution 312 that the UMC passed in 2004 "opposing Israeli settlements in Palestinian land."
The UMC's General Board on Global Mission Women produced a Mission Study for 2007-2008, endorsed by the national church, which refers to Israel's creation as "original sin," and likens the birth of Israel to the Holocaust and Israeli practices to those of the Nazis.
This undisguised venom towards the Jewish State by the UMC leadership is reminiscent of the pre-Holocaust anti-Semitic replacement theology that rejected the covenant between God and the Jewish people -- replacing the Jews with the Church (or the Palestinians, as some liberal-leftist Protestant denominational leaders see it) and similarly denying the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.
Theology notwithstanding, the assertions made by the UMC are false, hypocritical and misleading. The UMC leadership has apparently forgotten or has not taken the time to learn some of the history which includes the fact that there has never been a sovereign Palestinian State nor have lands been designated by a court of law as Palestinian. Prior to 1917, Palestine was within the domain of the Ottoman Empire and after WWI, Britain ruled Palestine as a mandatory power. In 1937 the Palestinians rejected self-determination as proposed by Peel Commission and, in 1947 rather than proceed with statehood based on the UN Partition Plan, the chose instead to attempt to annihilate the nascent re-established Jewish State in 1948. Between 1948 and 1967, the West Bank and Gaza were parts of Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
UN Resolutions 242 and 338 considered the territories of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza "disputed territories" -- because ownership has not been determined. In the interim, the Jews have had as much right to purchase "government" or "public" land, as have the Palestinian Muslims. Jewish settlements built on public land or land purchased in cash from private owners in the Jewish historical heartland is perfectly legal.
The U.S. and its western allies have called on Israel "not to expand the settlements" in the hope that a Palestinian State will be created in the West Bank and Gaza -- with the understanding that this will only happen if the Palestinians foreswear terrorism and are willing to recognize and live in peace with the Jewish State.
Despite agreements and accords this has not happened. Arab-Palestinian terrorism continues unabated. Mahmoud Abbas like Yasir Arafat, his former mentor, is unwilling to end the conflict with the Jewish State in spite of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and a current commitment to withdraw from 95% of the West Bank (in July 2000, Prime Minister Barak backed by President Bill Clinton made the same offer to Arafat who preferred, instead, to launch the Intifada) in exchange for a real peace.
The UMC leadership, while morally sanguine about anti-Semitic hate indoctrination in Palestinian schools, mosques and media, lashes out at Israel for building a defensive barrier, erected to protect Israeli civilians against an endless array of Palestinian suicide bombers intent on murdering Jewish civilians. That same UMC leadership likens Israeli self-defense measures to "Nazi practices." It is worth noting that prior to the Palestinian genocidal onslaught against Israeli Jews, hundreds-of-thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel, and it made them the most prosperous Arabs in the Middle East (other than the Gulf Sheikhs and their petro-dollars).
The UMC leadership has also chosen to overlook the oppression aimed at Christians in Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt and Saudi Arabia by Arab-Muslims & Palestinian. And, that nowhere else in the world is apartheid more of a practice then in the Arab-Muslim world, where slavery continues to exist and female genital mutilation is a fact of life. Conversely, Israeli Arabs, despite the fact that they readily identify with terrorism against Jews, enjoy full religious freedom, representation in the Knesset (where they often openly and provocatively side with Israel's Arab enemies), a free press (that openly instigates against the Jewish State), equality under the law, and who are, in short, represented in every sector of Israeli life.
If the leadership of the UMC is sincere about bringing peace to the Arab (Palestinian)-Israeli conflict, it should decry and condemn the teaching of hate and the instigation of violence by the Palestinian religious and government authorities. It should invest in Palestinian schools and send teachers who would teach tolerance for the "other" (Christians and Jews) in these schools, and give lessons in democracy, and human rights as well as impart such universal values as women's equality, and religious freedom.
Dangerous and oppressive regimes like those of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt are beyond UMC scrutiny. If the UMC leadership is concerned about human rights why have they not spoken out against the dreadful persecution of Egypt 's Coptic-Christians? or the ethnic cleansing of Kurds in Syria by the Assad dictatorship? Where are the concerned voices of the UMC regarding the persecution of Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Azeris, Bahais, Christians and Jews by the Iranian theocratic dictatorship? And why has the UMC not called for divestment from Egypt, Syria or Iran? Calling for divestment from companies that do business with Israel is clearly hypocritical and harmful and it will not advance peace. Giving abovementioned brutal regimes a pass sends a clear message that it is business as usual, and that Jews continue be the ready scapegoats for the UMC and other liberal Protestant denominations.
However imperfect Israel may be, it is an exemplary democracy in the Middle East. If any country deserves the rewards of "investment" it is the Jewish State, which in addition to sharing common values and common enemies with America and the west, it is sensitive to Palestinian hardships while defending its existence and the lives of its citizens.
Clinton’s Efforts on Ethanol Overlap Her Husband’s Interests
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has sponsored legislation to provide incentives for ethanol and has worked to foster a favorable environment for investment in it.
*
By MIKE McINTIRE
Published: February 28, 2008
To big rounds of applause, three of the world’s richest men — Richard Branson, Ronald W. Burkle and Vinod Khosla — trooped onto a New York ballroom stage with former President Bill Clinton to pledge support for renewable energy projects to combat global warming and create jobs.
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Former President Bill Clinton with Richard Branson in 2006. Both have been involved in efforts on alternative fuels.
It was September 2006, and the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual star-studded networking event for philanthropists and investors, had generated commitments to spend billions on ethanol and other alternative fuels. Cast as good works, many were also investments by businessmen hoping for a profit.
And sitting in the audience was an influential public official who had also taken an active interest in renewable sources of fuel: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Several months earlier, Mrs. Clinton had sponsored legislation to provide billions in new federal incentives for ethanol, and, especially in her home state of New York, she has worked to foster a business climate that favors the sort of ethanol investments pursued by her husband’s friends and her political supporters.
One potential beneficiary is the Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm where Mr. Clinton has been a senior adviser and whose founder, Mr. Burkle, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mrs. Clinton’s campaigns. Yucaipa has invested millions in Cilion Inc. — a start-up venture also backed by Mr. Branson, the British entrepreneur, and Mr. Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist — that is building seven ethanol plants around the country. Two are in upstate New York.
A Cilion executive said Mrs. Clinton’s office had been helpful to the company as it pursued its New York projects. More broadly, by steering federal money, organizing investor forums and offering the services of her staff, she has helped turn the upstate region into an incubator for ventures like Cilion’s, while providing a useful showcase for her energy proposals on the campaign trail.
Certainly Mrs. Clinton is doing what would be expected of a senator trying to stimulate a sagging rural economy in her home state, not to mention a presidential candidate mindful of the importance of ethanol in corn-producing places like Iowa. But her actions take on an added dimension when they intersect with Mr. Clinton’s philanthropic and profit-making endeavors, which have periodically raised questions as Mrs. Clinton seeks the Democratic nomination for president.
Yucaipa’s partnership with the rulers of Dubai and its investment in a Chinese media company drew attention to Mr. Clinton’s connection to the fund when his wife was preparing her presidential run last year. In December, aides to Mr. Clinton said he was taking steps to end his relationship with Yucaipa to avoid potential conflicts of interest or political imbroglios for his wife, should she become the Democratic nominee.
Representatives of the Clintons declined repeated requests for comment that included a detailed set of questions submitted to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign more than a week ago.
Because Mr. Burkle’s Yucaipa funds are private, and the Clintons have refused to release their tax returns, details of Yucaipa’s investments and Mr. Clinton’s potential to profit from them are not publicly available. Last year, after Mr. Clinton published a book on philanthropy that extols the virtues of investing in renewable energy and contains a reference to Cilion, a spokesman for the former president told New York magazine that he consulted for Yucaipa on renewable energy investments but was not involved in Cilion.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for Yucaipa declined to say how much it had invested in Cilion, but said it amounted to less than 5 percent of the company’s equity — small by Yucaipa standards, but enough for it to be represented on Cilion’s board. He said Mr. Clinton did not stand to profit from Yucaipa’s investment in Cilion.
Under an agreement with Mr. Burkle in 2002, Mr. Clinton was to provide advice and find investment opportunities for several domestic and foreign funds in Yucaipa’s portfolio, and would receive a share of the profits from those funds. On a financial disclosure report that Mrs. Clinton filed as a presidential candidate last year, Mr. Clinton listed several direct investments through Yucaipa, including one in a Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol company founded by Mr. Khosla, but Cilion was not among them.
Mrs. Clinton is far from alone in proposing increased federal incentives for renewable energy — her opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, backs even greater spending on biofuels — and not all of her actions on ethanol would benefit the interests of Mr. Clinton and his associates. She has voted to preserve a tariff on Brazilian ethanol imports, which helps domestic ethanol producers but works against investors in Brazilian facilities.
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In fact, Mrs. Clinton had long opposed ethanol subsidies, but in May 2006, she switched gears and introduced a bill to create a $50 billion “strategic energy fund” to expand the use of ethanol and other alternative fuels. The bill, which was reintroduced last year, would direct billions of dollars to develop cellulosic ethanol, an experimental fuel made from organic materials other than corn.
In addition to the legislation, Mrs. Clinton has spent an increasing amount of time in upstate New York, promoting the region as fertile territory for renewable energy projects. In Lockport in July 2006, she said she was working with the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry — which has offered technical assistance to Cilion and other companies in the region — to support locally produced ethanol, rather than “just relying on corn in the Midwest.”
“Because I want New York farmers, I want farmers around the country, to participate in this,” she said. “It’s going to take building production facilities, and we’re starting to do that.”
Several business and academic leaders in the region said they had crossed paths more than once with Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Khosla on the issue of biofuels, specifically cellulosic ethanol.
Cornelius B. Murphy Jr., president of the environmental college, said Mrs. Clinton became very active in assisting the school’s renewable energy projects starting in late 2005, and has since been involved in about eight events with the college. In 2006, the college also heard from Mr. Clinton, who wanted to talk to experts there about cellulosic ethanol and the concept of using forest products in place of corn.
“I’m amazed at how much her husband has picked up on this,” Dr. Murphy said of the former president. “He was very interested in the growth of energy feed stocks and how that could be worked into an integrated biorefinery.”
One of the biggest champions of cellulosic ethanol is Cilion’s founder, Mr. Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems who has grown close to Mr. Clinton in recent years through a mutual interest in renewable energy. In November, at a renewable energy forum in Iowa that was attended by some of the presidential candidates, Mr. Khosla opened his PowerPoint presentation with a quote from Mr. Clinton on the economic benefits of green investments.
Mr. Khosla provided seed money to create Cilion in June 2006, and shortly before the Clinton Global Initiative that September, Cilion announced it had received $160 million more, including an unspecified amount from Yucaipa. He is also backing another company, the Mascoma Corporation, which wants to build a plant in the Rochester area that will convert forest products, like wood chips and switch grass, into cellulosic ethanol.
Mr. Khosla did not respond to a request for comment.
Although Cilion uses corn, it hopes to eventually make cellulosic ethanol once the technology becomes commercially viable, said Jerry Wilhelm, the company’s executive vice president. Mr. Wilhelm said Cilion, which also has projects in California, Pennsylvania and Washington State, picked New York because of its large potential ethanol market, the availability of farmland and local support.
Mr. Wilhelm said that the New York projects were at an early stage, but that Mrs. Clinton “definitely has been helpful,” not only in writing letters but also in her general support of renewable energy initiatives in the region.
“We’ve gotten some letters of support from her that we’ve used in the permitting process,” he said in an interview. “We haven’t asked for a lot, but what we’ve asked from her, she’s responded.”
Late Wednesday, Yucaipa disputed that Mrs. Clinton had written any letters on behalf of Cilion. Efforts to reach Mr. Wilhelm to clarify the matter were unsuccessful.
Cilion’s efforts to set up a base of operations in upstate New York included joining the board of the Greater Rochester Enterprise, a nonprofit group that promotes business opportunities in the region. The group, which provided Cilion with office space and made introductions to key people, has worked closely with Mrs. Clinton on several renewable energy initiatives.
Mrs. Clinton arranged for the group to work with the U.S. Green Buildings Council to produce a report on the economic benefits of renewable fuels and energy conservation in the Rochester area, where both of Cilion’s ethanol projects are. The report concluded, among other things, that there should be more incentives to use locally generated renewable energy, and it cited a Cilion project, along with several others, as an example of available resources.
The 17-page report, which devotes a full page to Mrs. Clinton and mentions her eight times, “would not have happened without the senator,” said Dennis M. Mullen, president of the Greater Rochester Enterprise.
“We have met with the senator on numerous occasions, not only on ethanol but also other issues,” Mr. Mullen said. “She has helped us promote that in numerous ways.”
Cilion, meanwhile, recently revamped its Web site and added comments from Mrs. Clinton and other presidential candidates to illustrate the depth of political support for ethanol. The new site quotes Mrs. Clinton saying the country needs “an Apollo-like effort” to invest in renewable energy, and it provides a link to her strategic energy fund at hillaryclinton.com.
NYT
Yep I posted the same news earlier
Interesting no response from the libs
Pay no attention to the Algore behind the screen
Talk about blind faith in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary....
Temperature Monitors Report Worldwide Global Cooling
Michael Asher (Blog) - February 26, 2008 12:55 PM
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World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
A twelve-month long drop in world temperatures erases global warming
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
The first three installments of The Long War Journal’s series on Iraqi politics discussed the structure and progress of the executive branch and the composition of the legislative branch. This installment begins examination of progress on key legislation.
Some of the most important measures of progress are the Iraqi government’s efforts to propose and pass legislation allocating wealth. This includes the 2008 budget, which is immediately essential to executive functions and represents a de facto distribution of revenue among Iraq’s provinces and sects, and the hydrocarbons laws, which will have long-term ramifications for the apportionment and development of the country’s oil resources.
The 2008 Budget
Passed on Feb. 13, the budget was a pivotal piece of legislation, as it outlines the disbursal of revenue for all purposes in 2008, and the Iraqi parliament had missed its constitutionally mandated deadline to approve it in 2007.
Even in the absence of a current budget, money flowed at the start of this year. The projected revenue in the $30.2 billion budget for 2007 had been met a month early and exceeded by surprisingly high oil revenue; last year’s revenue was allocated but contracts remain unexecuted, so projects are ongoing; and several supplemental budgets approved in 2007 had injected funds into the provinces. But approving this year’s budget of $48 billion remained a priority, given that it more directly addresses the country’s pressing economic, reconstruction, and security needs.
“It reflects some of the lessons learned [last] year,” said Brigadier General Terry Wolff, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan Policy Implementation on the National Security Council. The 2008 budget has an “increased security budget, increased provincial budgets, … and it will also reflect the fact that the Iraqis are doing what both the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank have asked them to do in terms of debt relief and controlling inflation.”
The budget is also considered a measure of reconciliation, because it candidly reflects the government’s willingness to distribute resources equitably among regions and sects. This is especially relevant in the absence of an official agreement about the division of Iraq’s oil profits, which constitute about 95 percent of the country’s revenue. Some American officials point to the budget as a sign of Iraqi compromise and desire to remain unified as a country.
As an example, Iraq’s parliament, the Council of Representatives (COR), opened a special legislative session at the end of December to resolve the disputes delaying passage of the 2008 budget. Lawmakers interrupted their winter break to debate funding of the Kurdish Regional Force – Kurdistan’s semiautonomous security forces – and the proportion of nonfederal funds allocated to Kurdistan. Non-Kurdish lawmakers had cited Iraqi Planning Ministry data showing that Kurdistan contains 13 percent of the country’s population and argued that the province should be funded accordingly. The Kurdish representatives wanted to maintain the 17 percent allocated to the province in previous budgets.
The impasse was resolved with parliament’s passage of the budget on Feb. 13, along with the Provincial Powers Act and the General Amnesty Law. Representatives agreed to integrate up to two divisions of the Kurdish Regional Force into the Iraqi Army, and individual political deals brokered between the Kurdish bloc and major Shia parties maintained the past proportion of funding for Kurdistan. According to a secular Iraqi politician not affiliated with the parties, the Sadrist Movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq both agreed to support the 17 percent allocation in return for Kurdish support of the Provincial Powers Act.
This type of political deal is an example of how the budget reflects ethno-sectarian compromise through revenue apportionment, as well as how the legislative process can enable accommodation.
“The budget represents all of the sectarian communities and they all believe it’s a good, investment-heavy document,” said Phil Reeker, Counselor for Public Affairs at the American Embassy in Baghdad. “I think that’s the thing to point to, because ultimately that’s the function of government; taking revenues and spending it on the people.”
The Hydrocarbons law
The Iraqi hydrocarbons law, or oil law, is really a package of four pending laws vital for governing the oil industry and the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s revenue. These laws will significantly influence the degree of the country’s long-term wealth and help outline management responsibilities and profit sharing. Specifically, the four laws outline:
1. Managing investment in Iraq’s oil resources, specifically the industry’s upstream development;
2. Revenue sharing among private companies, provinces, and the federal government;
3. Restructuring the Ministry of Oil; and
4. Reconstitution of the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC).
How Iraq’s oil industry integrates with foreign investment is a pivotal aspect of the ongoing debate over the legislation. The industry was nationalized in 1972 – a status currently shared by neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and Iran – but analysts believe that foreign investment based in profit sharing will significantly increase oil revenue. Iraqi politicians, oil companies, and various independent advisers are attempting to strike a balance between Iraqi control and foreign investment that will maximize the industry’s potential, while allaying nationalist fears over the politically sensitive topic of who controls and profits from the oil. Successful legislation is considered a prerequisite to attracting foreign investors.
“It’s not the security situation that keeps the oil companies away, … it’s the lack of a comprehensive national oil law,” said Reeker. “You have to have this national law that establishes the legal framework [for] foreign investors. … They’re not going to come until they know the rules of the road are defined and can be reasonably expected to remain in place.”
Key points of contention in the privatization vs. nationalization issue include the length of any contracts, the preferential treatment of the INOC over private investors in awarding contracts and responsibilities, and production sharing agreements that determine the split of profits between private companies and the government. Initial drafts of the investment portion of the legislation assigned the majority of profits to private oil companies until they recoup exploration and drilling costs, after which the companies earn 20 percent. Critics believe this degree of revenue sharing gives away too much of Iraq’s oil wealth, while proponents of the plan argue that it is a fair distribution given the assumed risk of the foreign companies, as well as their unique ability to drastically increase the country’s oil production. But significant, long-term production sharing agreements are abnormal for the region, as many countries utilize private companies on a more limited, contractual basis to augment nationalized industries. The extent of any revenue sharing between Iraq and private investors remains in debate, but some experts assert initial drafts provide for government control.
“[T]he aim of this law from beginning was to promote foreign investment in Iraq’s oil sector,” said Revenue Watch Middle East Director Yahia Said, at an event held in May 2007 by the US Institute of Peace, an independent organization funded by the US Congress. “Yet while the law opens the door for foreign companies, there are careful, deliberate mechanisms in place to maintain control in the hands of national government.”
Drafts of the laws have required that any contracts with private companies contain language that stipulates Iraqi government control, give the INOC authority over more than 90 percent of Iraq’s known oil reserves, and mandate a degree of transparency in oil contracting that is unusual for the Middle East.
Iraq's oil fields in 1992. Click map to view.
The other major debating point in hydrocarbons legislation is the degree of federal vs. provincial control over management of the industry. Two facts spur inevitable differences among naturally self-interested ethno-sectarian parties: the overwhelming proportion of the country’s revenue comes from oil and the major oil fields are unevenly located across Iraq’s provinces. The current draft of the law leans toward centralization by regarding the industry as a national patrimony overseen by the Council of Ministers, with specific policy set by the Ministry of Oil.
In very general terms, Kurdish politicians want more decentralization and aggressive production sharing agreements with Western companies, Shia leadership is open to decentralization but is more circumspect about Western investment, and Sunni leaders emphasize centralization while also closely vetting the conditions for any arrangements with foreign companies. The Kurds have long lobbied for control of northern oil resources and passed their own regional oil law in August 2007. But a federal government spokesman declared the law “illegal” and warned that foreign investors making deals with Kurdistan will be subject to lawsuits and denial of contracts after any federal oil laws are passed. Several foreign companies signed development contracts with the Kurds despite the warnings.
The first federal law governing investment has been approved by Iraq’s executive branch and submitted to the Council of Representatives for debate and review, though the legislature has made little progress on resolving key issues. Drafts of the other three laws have not been finished by the executive to be forwarded to the legislature. Analysts assert that all four laws must be reviewed as a package before the parliament can pass any of them. It is likely that debate over such comprehensive oil legislation will take some time, given the political sensitivity, complexity, and huge, long-term ramifications of the issue. Overall, the laws are slowly moving through committees but are delayed by a cautious approach and a lack of agreement on key questions, with many divisions along regional party lines.
As for when the legislation is likely to pass, one official would not venture to guess. “I couldn’t put a date on its passage; it’s a tough one,” said Reeker.
Short-term resolution of a long-term issue
While sectarianism and regional disagreements affect legislative progress in Iraq, lawmakers and bureaucrats have managed to achieve consensus on revenue distribution essential to the function of government with the passage of the 2008 budget. US officials believe that the distribution currently taking place – in the form of equitably apportioned yearly budgets and past supplemental budgets assigned to provinces – is a reasonable indicator of willingness to compromise and remain unified as a country, as well as address Iraq’s pressing economic, reconstruction, and security needs.
But a host of unresolved items delays legislation on the long-term disposition of Iraq’s oil industry and wealth. Progress on hydrocarbons law calls for striking a balance between federal and provincial authority and between privatization and nationalization. In addition, Iraqi politicians are cautious about the design and compromise of any legislation, as they view any agreement as a de facto definition and distribution of political power that will outlast shorter-term US interests. Given the import of the legislation and the difficulty of competing interests, the uneven geographic distribution of oil fields, politically sensitive matters of nationalism, and a decayed oil infrastructure requiring private Western investment, Iraqi technocrats and lawmakers have some way to go before reaching agreement on the package of hydrocarbons laws. Effective compromise on this issue will be vital to building on Iraq’s impressive revenue momentum and stabilizing the country through long-term equitable wealth distribution among provinces and sects.
Bill Roggio contributed to this report.
The next and final installment of The Long War Journal’s series on Iraqi politics will discuss the status of more pieces of legislation considered important for stability and reconciliation, including the Unified Retirement Law, de-Baathification reform, the General Amnesty Law, the referendum on Kirkuk, the Provincial Powers Act and the Provincial Elections Law.
While deflating their stock price
Palestinian scheme for mass charge on Gaza-Israel border collapses
February 25, 2008, 1:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
Gaza-Egyptian border wall flattened by Hamas Jan. 24, 2008
Gaza-Egyptian border wall flattened by Hamas Jan. 24, 2008
DEBKAfile reports: The Palestinian masses did not rise to the summons for 40,000 individuals to turn out Monday, Feb. 25 and draw a human chain along the 40-km border Gazan-Israel to protest the Israeli blockade. Deterred by determined Israeli military preparations to halt their approach to the border and Israeli ministers’ threats to shoot them in the legs if necessary,” only a few demonstrators obeyed the summons. The large numbers stayed away when they realized Israel was resolved to forcibly thwart a repeat of Hamas’ success a month ago when they knocked over the Egyptian border to open the gate for a massed Palestinian surge into Sinai.
Sunday night, acting PM foreign minister Tzipi Livni and defense minister Ehud Barak pledged Israeli territory would be defended against infiltration to its sovereign borders. “Hamas is directly responsible for activity which puts civilian population at jeopardy – and not for the first time,” said the statement.
Israel army and police forces, heavily reinforced, deployed in two defensive lines to shield the border and Israeli civilian locations facing Gaza.
Overnight, the air force struck armed Palestinian bands as they streamed from all parts of the Gaza Strip to seize battle positions on the border. Air Force and police helicopters scattered on launching pads the length of the Gaza border, armed with tear gas for crowd dispersal.
Israel also geared up against Palestinian terrorists accessing tunnels burrowed under the border to strike Israeli forces from the rear and batter the border barrier from the Israeli side. Five of those tunnels were discovered Sunday and 50 Palestinian operatives detained for questioning about Palestinian terror tunnel plots.
Gee, I feel so sorry for all the children that were supposed to miss school to participate. Those pesky Israelis not allowing them to martyr themselves- how horrible
JERUSALEM, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Israel has put paramilitary police on standby and boosted surveillance along the Gaza border in case Palestinians try to break through into Israel as they did in Egypt last month, security sources said on Sunday.
A pro-Hamas group said it would hold a peaceful protest on Monday in which it estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 women and children would form a “human chain” stretching the length of the Gaza Strip. Organisers said they had no intention of breaching the border.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces said: “The IDF is preparing based on reports from the Palestinian media.” She declined to elaborate.
Israel became increasingly concerned after Hamas Islamists blew open Gaza’s southern Rafah border wall with Egypt last month, and Hamas officials raised the possibility of similar breaches along the border with Israel. ...
The head of the Popular Anti-Siege Committee protest organisers, Jamal al-Khudary, said: “We do not have intentions of approaching the fence, either in the north or the south. We hope all the participants will abide by the instructions and we will try to prevent any violations.”
Organisers said Hamas-controlled schools across Gaza would get time off to allow students to take part in the protest.
An Israeli security source said the army was preparing for “all scenarios”.
“Obviously, if gunmen start shooting at the fence we will have to respond in kind and we are absolutely unwilling to countenance a situation where the fence is breached like it was at Rafah,” the source said.
This from a guy who was against the war from the start:
Two Winnable Wars
I
By Anthony H. Cordesman
Sunday, February 24, 2008; Page B07
No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. They are also clearly wars that can still be lost, but visits to the battlefield show that these conflicts are very different from the wars being described in American political campaigns and most of the debates outside the United States.
These conflicts involve far more than combat between the United States and its allies against insurgent movements such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban. Meaningful victory can come only if tactical military victories end in ideological and political victories and in successful governance and development. Dollars are as important as bullets, and so are political accommodation, effective government services and clear demonstrations that there is a future that does not need to be built on Islamist extremism.
The military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are very different. The United States and its allies are winning virtually every tactical clash in both countries. In Iraq, however, al-Qaeda is clearly losing in every province. It is being reduced to a losing struggle for control of Nineveh and Mosul. There is a very real prospect of coalition forces bringing a reasonable degree of security if decisions such as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's announcement Friday to extend his militia's cease-fire six months continue over a period of years.
Military victory is far more marginal in Afghanistan. NATO and international troops can still win tactically, but the Taliban is sharply expanding its support areas as well as its political and economic influence and control in Afghanistan. It has scored major gains in Pakistan, which is clearly the more important prize for al-Qaeda and has more Pashtuns than Afghanistan. U.S. commanders privately warn that victory cannot be attained without more troops, without all members of NATO and the International Security Assistance Force fully committing their troops to combat, and without a much stronger and consistent effort by the Pakistani army in both the federally administered tribal areas in western Pakistan and the Baluchi area in the south.
What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat. There are good reasons that the briefing slides in U.S. military and aid presentations for both battlefields don't end in 2008 or with some aid compact that expires in 2009. They go well beyond 2012 and often to 2020.
If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose. Years of false promises about the speed with which we can create effective army, police and criminal justice capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot disguise the fact that mature, effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012 and probably well beyond. This does not mean that U.S. and allied force levels cannot be cut over time, but a serious military and advisory presence will probably be needed for at least that long, and rushed reductions in forces or providing inadequate forces will lead to a collapse at the military level.
The most serious problems, however, are governance and development. Both countries face critical internal divisions and levels of poverty and unemployment that will require patience. These troubles can be worked out, but only over a period of years. Both central governments are corrupt and ineffective, and they cannot bring development and services without years of additional aid at far higher levels than the Bush administration now budgets. Blaming weak governments or trying to rush them into effective action by threatening to leave will undercut them long before they are strong enough to act.
Any American political leader who cannot face these realities, now or in the future, will ensure defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Any Congress that insists on instant victory or success will do the same. We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience -- or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves.
The writer holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He recently returned from the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq
In Baghdad Al Sadr is losing patience and may soon undeclare his ceasefire or lose control of his militia.
And you know this how??
An article was posted today on the extension of the ceasefire
Keep wishing for a return to the quagmire though
any thoughts on the legislative progress??
balls.
Shouldn't get into topics you're not familiar with
Democrats Dug In For Retreat
By Charles Krauthammer
"No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. ... If the U.S. provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state." -- Anthony Cordesman, "The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing from the Battlefield," Feb. 13, 2008
WASHINGTON -- This from a man who was a severe critic of the postwar occupation of Iraq and who, as author Peter Wehner points out, is no wide-eyed optimist. In fact, in May 2006 Cordesman had written that "no one can argue that the prospects for stability in Iraq are good." Now, however, there is simply no denying the remarkable improvements in Iraq since the surge began a year ago.
Unless you're a Democrat. As Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., put it, "Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq." Their Senate leader, Harry Reid, declares the war already lost. Their presidential candidates (eight of them at the time) unanimously oppose the surge. Then the evidence begins trickling in.
We get news of the Anbar Awakening, which has now spread to other Sunni areas and Baghdad. The sectarian civil strife that the Democrats insisted was the reason for us to leave dwindles to the point of near disappearance. Much of Baghdad is returning to normal. There are 90,000 neighborhood volunteers -- ordinary citizens who act as auxiliary police and vital informants on terror activity -- starkly symbolizing the insurgency's loss of popular support. Captured letters of al-Qaeda leaders reveal despair as they are driven -- mostly by Iraqi Sunnis, their own Arab co-religionists -- to flight and into hiding.
After agonizing years of searching for the right strategy and the right general, we are winning. How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation.
"National" is a way to ignore what is taking place at the local and provincial level, such as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, scion of the family that dominates the largest Shiite party in Iraq, traveling last October to Anbar in an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation with the Sunni sheiks.
Doesn't count, you see. Democrats demand nothing less than federal-level reconciliation, and it has to be expressed in actual legislation.
The objection was not only highly legalistic but politically convenient: Very few (including me) thought this would be possible under the Maliki government. Then last week, indeed on the day Cordesman published his report, it happened. Mirabile dictu, the Iraqi parliament approved three very significant pieces of legislation.
First, a provincial powers law that turned Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.
Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenues -- about 85 percent of which are from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.
What will the Democrats say now? They will complain that there is still no oil distribution law. True. But oil revenues are being distributed to the provinces in the national budget. The fact that parliament could not agree on a permanent formula for the future simply means that it will be allocating oil revenues year-by-year as part of the budget process. Is that a reason to abandon Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran?
Despite all the progress military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our "very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."
Why? Imagine the transformative effects in the region and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda. Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now achievable victory?
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Somehow he managed better grades than Kerry though
Clinton: Meanwhile, back in the real world of politics
Posted by: McQ
Hillary Clinton, despite saying last night that the delegate issue "would work itself out" apparently isn't going to leave it to mere chance according to an interview with Texas Monthly:
Evan Smith: There's been a lot of talk about what your campaign would do should it get to the convention. Would you commit today to honoring the agreement made earlier not to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations?
Clinton: Let's talk about the agreement. The only agreement I entered into was not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. It had nothing to do with not seating the delegates. I think that's an important distinction. I did not campaign-
Smith: The press seems to have missed the distinction if that's the case. The talk is that you agreed not to seat the delegation.
Clinton: That's not the case at all. I signed an agreement not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. Now, the DNC made the determination that they would not seat the delegates, but I was not party to that. I think it's important for the DNC to ask itself, Is this really in the best interest of our eventual nominee? We do not want to be disenfranchising Michigan and Florida. We have to try to carry both of those states. I'd love to carry Texas, but it's usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are. Therefore, the people of those two states disregarded adamantly the DNC's decision that they would not seat the delegates. They came out and voted. If they had been influenced by the DNC, despite the fact that there was very little campaigning, if any, they would have stayed home. But they wanted their voices heard. More than 2 million people came out. I mean, it was record turnout for a primary. Florida, in particular, is sensitive to being disenfranchised because of what happened to them in the last elections. I have said that I would ask my delegates to vote to seat.
Smith: So your intention is to press this issue?
Clinton: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's in large measure because both the voters and elected officials in Michigan and Florida feel so strongly about this. Senator Bill Nelson, of Florida, early on in the process actually sued because he thinks it's absurd on its face that 1.7 million Democrats who eventually voted would basically be disregarded, and I agree with him about that.
Got it? If anyone thinks that Hillary Clinton is going to give up this fight to seat those delegates, you've been fooled about as bad as she was apparently fooled into voting for the war in Iraq.
"non denial denial"
LOL
How could he be any more clear?
He said the meeting never happened. Period.
More wishful thinking on the part of the moonbats
And I thought personal sexual conduct doesnt matter??????
I guess that just holds true for dems ( and blowjobs )
Times Doesn't Pass The Smell Test: Seattle P-I
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will never get mistaken as a conservative publication. It routinely editorializes in support of liberal causes and candidates, and it has come in for plenty of criticism for its decisions on publication decisions. They also routinely publish stories from their subscription to the New York Times syndication product. Today, however, David McCumber explains why he took a pass on the Times' hit piece on John McCain:
Obviously, the reporters, Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Labaton, are not working for me. I have no way, other than their excellent reputations, of specifically evaluating their sourcing. That job fell to Bill Keller, the editor of The New York Times, who had held the story, citing concerns about whether the reporters had "nailed it," long enough to fatally fracture the newspaper's relationship with Thompson. She left today to go back to work for The Washington Post.
Admitting that Keller was in a better position to vet the sourcing and facts than I am as, basically, a reader, let's assume that every source is solid and every fact attributed in the story to an anonymous source is true. You're still dealing with a possible appearance of impropriety, eight years ago, that is certainly unproven and probably unprovable.
Where is the solid evidence of this lobbyist improperly influencing (or bedding) McCain? I didn't see it in the half-dozen times I read the story. In paragraphs fifty-eight through sixty-one of the sixty-five-paragraph story, the Times points out two matters in which McCain took actions favorable to the lobbyist's clients -- that were also clearly consistent with his previously stated positions.
That's pretty thin beer. ....
This story seems to me not to pass the smell test. It makes the innuendo of impropriety, even corruption, without backing it up. I was taught that before you run something in the newspaper that could ruin somebody's reputation, you'd better have your facts very straight indeed.
"Nailed" would be one way to describe that.
Even the Times' allies have run for cover on this story. The Times ran a story that actually didn't allege anything except that two disgruntled former staffers claim that they thought McCain might be too close to Iseman. That's it. There's no there there, to quote Dorothy Parker.
Illegal Alien Caused Fatal Bus Accident
You may have heard about an accident in southwestern Minnesota in which a school bus was rammed from the side by a van, killing four school children. After considerable hemming and hawing, it has been confirmed that the woman who was driving the van, Alianiss Morales, is an illegal alien. Morales has been booked on suspicion of criminal vehicular operation.
It's a tragic story, with elements that, as so often happens, make little sense. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Morales has a "Minnesota identification card" but does not have a driver's license. I'm not sure what a "Minnesota identification card" is, or how an illegal alien can get one. In 2006, Morales was convicted of driving without a license. It appears that, not only does Morales not have a license, she does not know how to drive a car:
Recalling that incident, Sandra Keding of Montevideo said in an interview Thursday that she had been reading the newspaper in her home that afternoon when she heard gravel flying.
"I stood up from the couch and looked out my window and this car was coming right toward my house," said Keding, 45. "The car hit the curb, came right up on my yard and stopped about 12 feet from the front of my house."
She recalled that Morales was driving and that she was "shaking all over and was a total wreck." When Morales tried to shift the automatic transmission on the blue Dodge Neon, she couldn't.
"She apparently didn't know how to drive the car," Keding said. "I had to get in and move it. She acted like she didn't know how to shift."
Police arrived and ticketed Morales for driving without a Minnesota license.
As a result of that incident, Morales was fined $182. It seems inconceivable that this prosecution could have been carried out without it coming to light that Morales is an illegal alien, but apparently no effort was made to deport her. She remained, it seems, an unguided missile on the state's highways until her path tragically collided with that of a school bus containing 28 children. Here is how a witness described the school bus accident:
The driver of the truck told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that he saw the van run the stop sign.
"I saw the maroon van run a stop sign, it blew over the railroad tracks and hit the bus, sending it sliding into me," James M. Hancock, 45, of Marshall, told the newspaper from his hospital bed in Sioux Falls, S.D. "The next thing I knew, they were hauling kids out and it was chaos."
It's a sad story, for Morales as well as the families of the dead and injured children aboard the bus. But it is impossible to understand how anyone can try to justify the institutional refusal to enforce our laws that leads to such tragedies.
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Posted by John at 10:26 PM | Permalink | E-mail this post to a friend |
OOOOOPS, looks like he did exactly that in 2000
January 9, 2000
Responding to Criticism, McCain Releases Letters
By James Risen
Senator John McCain of Arizona released hundreds of letters today that he has sent to federal agencies under the jurisdiction of his powerful Senate committee, including more than a dozen involving the businesses of contributors to his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Mr. McCain said he was acting to defuse criticism of his interventions before the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of companies regulated by that agency, one of many supervised by the Commerce Committee, which he has headed since 1997.
In sheer volume, the release of more than two years of committee correspondence was both a remarkable display of openness and an effort to show that there was nothing unusual in what Mr. McCain has done by writing to agencies that regulate the companies whose employees have supported his campaign.
'If people view them in their entirety, they will see that I have acted on one fundamental principle, to protect the consumer,' the senator said today while on a campaign swing through South Carolina. 'The overwhelming majority of these communications are: 'Please act, please act.' '
...
The letters to the Federal Communications Commission show that in several instances, Mr. McCain sought help for companies in telecommunications and related fields that have also given to his presidential campaign.
But officials from both the McCain campaign and the Senate committee stressed today that the letters were sometimes sent without prompting from lobbyists and contributors, and that they reflected Mr. McCain's longtime policy positions. Some were also written jointly with other members of the Commerce panel, including Democrats.
Risen didn't brandish a smoking gun, and a month later the Times kissed and made up with a McCain The Maverick piece:
February 13, 2000
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE SPECIAL INTERESTS; McCain Broke With His Party in Licensing Flap
By JOHN M. BRODER AND DON VAN NATTA JR.
I'm surprised that Gabriel Sherman of TNR missed all this backstory to the backstory. Here is how Stephen Labaton is presented in the current TNR story:
The McCain investigation began in November, after Rutenberg, who covers the political media and advertising beat, got a tip. Within a few days, Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet assigned Thompson and Labaton to join the project and, later, conservative beat reporter David Kirkpatrick to chip in as well. Labaton brought his expertise with regulatory issues to the team...
And a bit later:
Of the reporters in the room, Bennett knew Labaton the best. In the 1990s, Labaton had covered the Whitewater investigation, and Bennett viewed him as a straight-shooting, accurate reporter who could be reasoned with.
I would be shocked if Bennet was not also aware of Labaton's early work on the Paxson-McCain story.
So, let's try for a Big Finish - the Times dropped these torpedoes in the water in 2000 and misfired then; now they are back, with a piece heavy with innuendo and padded by chit-chat about the Keating case. But eight years ago they gave up on the ethical scandal, and their sourcing for the sex scandal probably would not pass muster at the National Enquirer.
Props to Greg Sargent, who correctly notes that if the Times wrote this thin a story about a Democrat, lefties would leap from tall buildings.
Barack and Michelle Keeping the Faith
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
I'm not buying the Obama campaign spin on Michelle Obama's patriotic faux pas this week, any more than I'm inclined to believe that Barack Obama's refusal to wear our flag pin in his lapel is a meaningless gesture. Both Michelle's stated lack of pride in America until this precise moment in history, and Barack's unwillingness to don our national symbol are in perfect keeping with the doctrines of their church, Trinity United Church of Christ.
The simple truth is that if any of us exposed ourselves to the kind of teachings espoused by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for 20 years, we might find it downright impossible to do any better than Barack and Michelle in the loving-America category of citizenship.
We probably couldn't summon a whole lot of American patriotism if our brains were stuffed on a weekly basis with sermons like this:
"Racism is how this country (America) was founded and how this country is still run!"
or this:
"We (Americans) are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!"
If I listened to stuff like this every Sunday for 20 years, I probably wouldn't be all that proud of my Country either, and certainly would feel it hypocritical to wear the symbol of this God-forsaken Nation in my lapel.
Wouldn't you?
Trinity's Black Liberation Theology
The Chicago Tribune's religion reporter, Manya Brachear, interviewed Rev. Wright in January 2007, writing:
"Wright sought to build on the black theology of liberation introduced in 1968 by Rev. James Cone of New York, by emphasizing Africa's contribution to Christianity rather than that of mainstream white theologians."
If only it were this simple.
But it isn't.
According to Cone:
"Christian theology is language about God's liberating activity in the world on behalf of freedom of the oppressed. Any talk about God that fails to make God's liberation of the oppressed its starting point is not Christian." (Speaking the Truth; James H. Cone; p. 4)
The gospel according to Cone revolves around a single dimension of the Christian faith and necessarily interprets the very nature of "oppression" as solely material and of this world. In effect, black liberation theology reduces the entire Gospel down to a Marxist people's struggle and hijacks the Christ for political purpose.
"What else can the crucifixion mean except that God, the Holy One of Israel, became identified with the victims of oppression? What else can the resurrection mean except that God's victory in Christ is the poor person's victory over poverty?" (Speaking the Truth; p. 6)
This certainly puts an altogether different light on the crucifixion than any to which I've ever been exposed.
According to this theology, we are not individually saved by grace. God hasn't anything at all to do with salvation or sanctification.
"...sanctification is liberation. To be sanctified is to be liberated - that is, politically engaged in the struggle of freedom. When sanctification is defined as a commitment to the historical struggle for political liberation, then it is possible to connect it with socialism and Marxism the reconstruction of society on the basis of freedom and justice for all."
(Speaking the Truth; p. 33; emphases mine)
According to the writings of Cone and the preaching of Rev. Wright, America can lay no claim whatsoever to any sort of goodness, and will perhaps never be able to do so until we are all residing in one, big, happy Marxist America with the presently "oppressed" on top and the evil "oppressors" on the bottom.
When these theologians re-wrote the gospel around their political ideology, they evidently came up with a way to make two wrongs into right.
Not exactly changing water into wine, walking on water, healing the maimed, the deaf and the blind, but quite a feat nevertheless.
Obama's Own Faith
Barack Obama expends an entire chapter in his book, The Audacity of Hope, writing about faith. In a chapter of 31 pages, he gives only 2 pages to his own decision to finally "walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ" and "be baptized."
Having been raised by a "spiritual," but non-religious mother, Obama says that he had quite a bit of antipathy for organized religion, but was able to overcome this at Trinity, where he recognized that faith was more than "just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death," but that faith was rather an "active, palpable agent in the world."
Obama's statements on his own faith in his book are as vague as his now all too familiar mantra, "Yes, we can."
But Trinity United Church of Christ isn't afraid to be more specific and blunt. Where mainline Christian denominations might focus on the Apostles' Creed, stating the basic tenets of Christianity, Trinity has this:
Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
A congregation committed to ADORATION.
1. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
2. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
3. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
4. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
5. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
7. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
8. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.
Interestingly enough, a change has been made quite recently (in the past 2 weeks) to number 3 on this list, obtained from Obama's church website. It did read, "a non-negotiable allegiance to Africa." Perhaps the church felt that it might reflect badly upon an American presidential candidate to be a prominent member of a church espousing "non-negotiable allegiance" to another continent.
Obama continues to see some of us as "oppressed," and he spouts a very condescending attitude towards those of us who have found spiritual food in evangelical Christian churches. Writing about why these churches have been growing by leaps and bounds, he says explanation for the success of these churches could be anything from "the skill of marketing religion" to the "charisma of their leaders," but primarily points to "hunger for the product they are selling."
So, how does Obama describe this "hunger"?
"They (religious seekers) want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life. They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway toward nothingness." (Audacity of Hope; p. 202)
That's a very bleak picture of our lives.
Precisely the kind of picture Marxist revolutionaries have always painted for the masses, right before they offer up the "hope" of something new and different, and the perfect "blueprint for change" that will make it all better.
As for me, I have been at the very, very bottom of life's rungs, even downright oppressed at times, but I have never been so far down that I would look to a mere man, or any government or movement, or even a church community, for salvation. And I'm surprised that anyone with a grain of self-respect or reverence for God would swoon over the purely preposterous notion that any man or government has such power to offer.
Pope Benedict XVI seems to agree:
"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic."
Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver@yahoo.com
Sadr Continues Ceasing [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
AP:
Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced Friday that he has extended a cease-fire order to his Shiite Mahdi Army by another six months, giving Iraq a chance to continue its fragile recovery from brutal sectarian violence.
His message was delivered by Shiite clerics during prayer services in mosques dominated by followers of the black-turbaned cleric.
“According to an order by Sayyid Muqtada, activities of the Mahdi Army will be suspended ... for another six month period,'' al-Sadr's aide Hazim al-Aaraji said, using an honorific for al-Sadr during his sermon at the Kazimiyah mosque in Baghdad.
Al-Sadr's decision to halt the activities of his powerful militia for up to six months last August was one of three critical steps widely credited with bringing the Iraqi death toll down more than 60 percent in recent months.
Right, I didn't think you would support equal scrutiny of the dems and the reps
TIA
Yeah, and I assume you believe that Hillary and Bill should release their tax returns- and especially the books for their foundation to make sure that foreign money is not making it's way into her campaign fund
You DO support that right?
That Line
02.21.08 -- 10:37PM
By Josh Marshall
I mentioned at the end of my debate blog that the pivot of Hillary's powerful concluding remarks came from Bill Clinton's 92 campaign. Clinton had various permutations to it back then. But TPM Reader CG found one example in this November 1992 article by Anna Quindlen ...
Clinton, 92: "The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time."
Hillary Clinton, tonight: "You know, the hits I’ve taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country."
Just to be 100% clear, there's nothing in the least wrong with this. And it's a great line. But I think it shows the silliness of the 'plagiarism' charges based on a few borrowed lines. Politicians borrow good lines and catch-phrases. Happens all the time. There's nothing wrong with it.
She also got her " It's personal to me " from John Edwards
Obama had it right, the plagarism flap is silly and a loser for Billary
Speculation as to their motives isn't necessary- they should be evaluated by what they printed
Their innuendo about a romantic relationship has no proof at all
Their sources are anonymous
McCain and his staff people, on the record , say there was no meeting regarding Iseman as reported in the paper
AS to the influence charges, Bennet , his lawyer , posted 1500 pages refuting the charges and provides evidence. They provided this info to the NYT BEFORE they went to print. THe NYT somehow forgot to list all the incidences where MCCain voted against Isemans clients.
I'm no great McCain fan, but he IS different. The main source of wasteful pork is earmarks. McCain has NEVER requested an earmark. HE actually attempted ( in a stupid manner in my mind ) to reform campaign finance. HE was acquitted in the kEating affair and the flap about his $1M to his campaign is no big deal
YOur argument seems to be " well it;s the NYT " they deserve credibility. Based on their recent series of sleazy incidents, that seems to be unfounded confidence
Well their credibility has been under attack recently because of their shoddy journalistic standards.
This is yet another example
Their report has been seen for what it is- from both sides 0 right and left- a partisan smear job which is long on hinted wrong doing and short on fact
You say they " nailed the facts "
Please provide specific examples of facts they have nailed
TIA
Right on
So, let's get the Clintons back in office
LMAS
LOL, it still is just the word of two "associates"
Do you know them enough to verify their veracity. I've posted articles from people who were on McCain's staff at the time who said it never happened.
So, they got their story together and it's corroborated by 2 other unnamed other people
IF it were a dem under attack, you would be screeching about the lack of journalistic integrity by the NYT here
By any standards, this was a partisan hatchet job, and you moonbats are only too willing to blindly believe the trash they printed