GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Democrats rethink war strategy

Cracks are beginning to show in the Democrats’ war, or rather anti-war, strategy, forcing a reassessment of Jack Murtha’s plan to defund the troops. Moderate Democrats such as Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX) have argued correctly that tying strict conditions to the $100-billion funding bill for troops in Iraq collides with the flexibility needed in the field to command our forces. “If you strictly limit a commander’s ability to rotate troops in and out of Iraq, that kind of inflexibility could put some missions and some troops at risk,” said Edwards.

Murtha originally sought to fund only troops that had been fully rotated, meaning they have to be out of combat one full year before being deployed. Murtha admits that this restriction cannot be met and gleefully told his friends at MoveOn.org that this was the best way to prevent adding 21,000 troops to the Iraq theater of operations this spring. However, his comments have drawn the ire of Republicans and fair-minded Democrats alike. Now San Fran Nan Pelosi is looking to reduce dramatically Murtha’s funding restrictions. Could it be that, having played to their lefty base, Democrats are coming back to reality in time for the ‘08 elections?

In the Senate, Harry Reid is facing another defeat in his attempts to hamstring President Bush’s plan. At this point, he does not have enough votes to put any similar restrictions on troop funding. He has the option of tying funding restrictions to upcoming legislation that will enact more 9/11 Commission suggestions, but the families of 9/11 victims fear that piggybacking amendments to the bill will delay and maybe even derail passage. Now it’s back to the drawing board for the liberals. Looks as if majority rule isn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Bush veto threatened over screener unionization

The White House made it clear this week that if anti-terror legislation comes to the President’s desk with a provision that allows airport screeners to unionize, it will be vetoed. Thirty-six Senate Republicans stood solidly behind that pledge, and Jim DeMint (R-SC) will propose an amendment to strip the provision from the bill. As Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff pointed out, national-security threats in the form of airline terrorism cannot wait for collective bargaining to take place.

The overall bill, known as S 4, an attempt to enact the remaining suggestions of the 9/11 Commission Report, passed the House with the unionization language intact. It also includes a provision that would allow states to delay adopting standardized drivers’ licenses, which the White House also dislikes. Up until now, President Bush has vetoed only one bill, but Democrats had better expect him to call their bluff. This is one of the President’s signature issues, and he is not likely to let it slide.

Fundraising as usual

Congressional Democrats are looking to raise serious cash to hold on to their slim House and Senate majorities in 2008, and they are embarking on a series of fundraisers that will put high-level donors in touch with House committee chairmen. Next week alone will witness House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank headlining a $1,000 - $15,000-per-ticket breakfast in Washington, and House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus will be the toast of a $1,500 - $9,200-per-ticket event in New York. Senate Democrats are also planning a fundraiser in conjunction with a major American Indian gathering in Washington, an event that will feature some of the same players once represented by Jack Abramoff.

The goal for Democrats is to raise between $650,000 and $1 million by 30 June for each of the vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in 2008. It is hoped that by creating an early fundraising advantage, liberals will be able to hold off potential Republican challengers. These tactics are not new, and both Republicans and Democrats have engaged in this sort of strategy in the past. What makes this different, however, is the fact that Democrats have their majority in large part due to voters who were tired of the perceived ethical lapses of the Republicans. By behaving in the same fashion, they can’t hope to hold that majority for long.

Pre-election strategy doesn’t stop there, either. Senate Democrats are now looking to tighten 527 regulations since it is becoming apparent that they no longer stand to gain from the money that 527 groups have poured into campaign coffers. Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) promised to review the regulations during upcoming hearings on campaign-finance reforms. Offering a bit of insight to her agenda, Feinstein said, “I’d like to know exactly what 527s are doing. My exposure to them is necessarily limited, as it is for most members. It’s when you have a 527 weighing in against you that you want to know where this money is coming from.” Especially before they’re ramped up for the next election.

Clinton wants hubby off limits to others

We’ll let you make up your own joke about this headline, but the message this week from the Clinton campaign was clear: Sen. Hillary Clinton is telling her fellow Demo presidential competitors that they’d better not mess with Bill. After last week’s dustup with Barack Hussein Obama and David Geffen, Clinton’s campaign wants it clear that no one is allowed to bring up his impeachment or his numerous ethical lapses in judgment. If they do, they will incur all the wrath that her minions can muster, which we believe is quite a bit.

True to Hillary’s nature, she wants to have it both ways. She wants free rein to talk up the good things of his administration (which should not take long), but not allow anyone to talk about the bad (which should carry us into the 2012 election season). Of course, anything injected into the public debate is fair game. If Hillary wants to wax nostalgic about the good old days of the 1990s, then her opponents have every right to remind voters that those good old days were not as good as they seemed.

In other campaign news, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack withdrew from the race for the Demo presidential nomination this week, citing an inability to compete with big money names like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That would explain why we didn’t realize he was running until he announced his decision to drop out. Like Sen. Evan Bayh, who also dropped out recently, Vilsack realized he would be unable to raise enough money to fight in what is increasingly becoming a front-loaded nomination schedule.

New & notable legislation

Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA) has introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which seeks to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military. The Government Accountability Office states that 10,000 members of the Armed Forces have been discharged since the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was enacted by President Bill Clinton fourteen years ago. Meehan, whose bill has 109 co-sponsors, including three Republicans, says that repealing the policy will allow homosexuals to serve who bring specialized skills necessary to fighting the war against jihad.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) introduced the Armed Forces Tax Relief Act (HR 1085) and the Strengthening America’s Military Families Act (HR 1086). The Armed Forces Tax Relief Act would exempt pay earned by service members in a combat zone from employment taxes, such as the payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. The Strengthening America’s Military Families Act would allow the spouses of service members currently fighting in a combat zone to claim the same federal-income-tax exemption as the service member.

Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-VA) introduced the Federal Agency Data Privacy Protection Act (HR 516), which would require federal agencies to restrict access to sensitive material, such as Social Security numbers, medical records and other personal information.

Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) introduced a legislative proposal that would criminalize unauthorized disclosure or publication of classified information “concerning efforts by the United States to identify, investigate or prevent terrorist activity.” This proposal, which arose from the rash of devastating leaks published by the New York Times and the Washington Post, would make such disclosures punishable by up to twenty years in prison. Opposition is already gathering, putting the liberal media’s need to sell newspapers above the security of the country. This proposal was introduced in 2000 and made it all the way to President Clinton’s desk before he vetoed it. We hope that this time it will become law.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Iran & Syria to join in regional talks

The Bush administration announced this week that it intends to sit down with Iran, Syria and other Persian Gulf nations to discuss the situation in Iraq. Why agree to meet with Iran, after 28 years of refusing to recognize its government and five years of labeling it as part of the Axis of Evil? Why meet with Syria, whose government has done everything except charter jumbo jets to facilitate jihadis entering Iraq? In short, President Bush agreed in order to lend support to a friend, Prime Minister Maliki, whose “government” is organizing and hosting the meeting. President Bush realizes that for Iraq to succeed, its government must attain true legitimacy, something it still has not achieved more than two years after Iraq’s first elections.

Also invited are the Arab League and the UN Security Council’s five permanent members. In this context, we note that the United States will not be talking directly to Iran, any more than we talk directly to Iran at the UN. Remember this amid the crowing of the mainstream media that President Bush has knuckled under to the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations to “talk to Iran.”

The attendees will be an interesting mix, to say the least. Egypt and Saudi Arabia represent the center of the Sunni world and are rightly nervous about Shi’a Iran’s ascendancy to regional power over the last decade. Syria is allied politically with Iran but is more than 75 percent Sunni, with a regime tottering perpetually on the edge of a military coup. Jordan, with its huge Palestinian refugee population, has no desire to see Iran’s puppet Hizballah stir up more trouble with Israel. Add in serial miscreants Russia and China, effete and narcissistic France, and a Great Britain too sick and tired of war to fight terrorism even within its own borders, and it’s hard to see much good coming from such a meeting. Yet, great nations stand by their friends, which is exactly what President Bush is doing now. While we do not hope for any real dividends to flow from this meeting, we approve of the President’s stance here. We hope, however, that someone keeps a close eye on the State Department.

Iranian acts of war?

Here’s one question to ask before we sit down to the table with Tehran: Is Iran already at war with the U.S., targeting and killing American soldiers? While not yet a certainty, evidence from Iraq this week certainly points in that direction. A raid last week on a Shi’ite camp in the southern city of Hilla provided what American intelligence is calling the best evidence yet that the deadliest roadside bombs in Iraq are being manufactured in Iran. The evidence includes infrared sensors, triggering devices, plastic-explosive techniques and bomb-assembly methods never before seen outside of Iran or southern Lebanon, where Hizballah uses Iranian-supplied weapons.

Of most concern for our troops are what appear to be shaped-charge warheads, or Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), which are designed to propel a stream of molten metal that slices through American armor. The shallow, concave metal caps, made of copper and formed into an armor-piercing projectile when the weapon explodes, were expertly manufactured, indicating to weapons experts that they were manufactured in Iran. Also found were Strella rockets that had Iranian markings. Should this evidence hold up to scrutiny, Iran is now directly involved in targeting and killing American soldiers in a war zone, and would technically be at war with the U.S.

Guns and butter

Domestic and military spending compete for their share of GDP in any country. The advent of asymmetric threats such as al-Qa’ida, however, has upset the balance of traditional military allocations so that spending on big-ticket, high-technology assets is now “bad.” In contrast, funding for counterterrorism ventures, such as Special Forces and counter-WMD capability, is “good.”

Democrats, ever thrifty when it comes to national security, welcome this line of reasoning, as evidenced by Congress’ severe cut of the Navy’s next-generation destroyer, the DDG 1000. The Navy wanted 24. It appears that they will get but two this year, and probably not more than seven in total. Unfortunately for the “Make-Levees-Not-Wars” crowd, the U.S. doesn’t have the only conventional army on planet Earth. Lest these spine-donors forget, the non-asymmetric crowd, namely, Iran, North Korea, China, Pakistan, and Russia each has its own very large standing army. The belief that such armies can be combated with the same forces used in counter-terror operations is dangerously silly. Despite media misinformation, big-ticket military items are big-ticket for a reason.

Sandy ‘Socks’ Berger back under the microscope

Paul Brachenfeld, inspector general of the National Archives and Records Administration, wants to know why Sandy Berger was able to get away with stealing highly classified original documents. He’s been asking questions about this egregious security breach since it happened in 2004. Berger, who got off light with community service, probation and a fine that was paid from liberal donations, removed and destroyed Clinton-era national-security documents while doing research for the 9/11 Commission. There should be no doubt that these documents were compromising to Clinton’s weak-kneed approach to terrorism. Why else risk jail time?

Brachenfeld has gone on record on numerous occasions, conflicting with Justice Department officials who tried to downplay the effect Berger’s actions had on national security and the assessment of the final 9/11 report on Clinton’s anti-terrorism policies. At long last, it appears his actions have gathered enough steam to open a serious dialogue about how Berger was allowed to review original documents alone on several occasions, even after Archive personnel became suspicious of his conduct. “If I had been notified, I would have put cameras in the room. I would have caught him leaving with documents on him… We could have had FBI agents around the facility… He would have been arrested,” Brachenfeld said. If only.

Medal of Honor awarded to Vietnam veteran

On Monday, retired Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall received from President Bush the Medal of Honor—the nation’s highest military honor. Crandall’s noble service in Vietnam was recounted in the film “We Were Soldiers,” which was adapted from the book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young. In a 14-hour period on 14 November 1965, in the Battle at Ia Drang Valley, Crandall made 22 helicopter flights under intense enemy fire to rescue 70 wounded comrades. He actually flew three different helicopters as two were so badly damaged that they could no longer fly. Capt. Edward Freeman, another pilot who participated in these rescue missions, received the Medal of Honor in 2001. Of his valor, Crandall, who had already received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Distinguished Service Cross, simply said, “There was never a consideration that we would not go into those landing zones. They were my people down there, and they trusted in me to come and get them.” Lt. Col. Crandall embodies our nation’s patriot-warrior ethos. We in our editorial shop are humbled by his bravery and grateful for his service—and wonder why it took so long to honor him.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Consumer confidence hits 5 ½-year high

The New York-based Conference Board announced this week that its Consumer Confidence Index rose in February to a level not seen since August 2001. “[I]mproving present-day business conditions and an easing in the proportion of consumers claiming jobs are hard to get have combined to lift consumers’ spirits,” says Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. Economists keep a close eye on consumer confidence because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. Perhaps one reason for the confidence boost is that personal income rose at twice the rate of spending in January.

Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan caused a panic on Wall Street Monday by saying the economy “might” go into recession this year. The Dow lost 416 points on Tuesday—its biggest loss in more than five years, though probably a necessary correction. Current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke maintains, “We are looking for moderate growth in the economy going forward,” adding that the markets are “working well.” Investors were left with the question: Whom do we believe? Consumers seem to be siding with Bernanke.

Free choice or no choice?

Recently, there’s been some controversy regarding the use of the term “Democrat Party,” as those on the left prefer to be called the “Democratic Party.”

Maybe it’s neither here nor there, but a bill recently introduced in the House of Representatives makes us wonder just how democratic Democrats really are. Ridiculously billed as the “Employee Free Choice Act,” HR 800 would actually do away with one of the hallmarks of a democratic society: the secret ballot. If the bill becomes law, union-representation elections would require employees to sign cards publicly that state their preference for or against union representation. Apparently the 61-percent success rate for union elections in fiscal year 2005 wasn’t good enough for the unionista thugs, who seek the right to intimidate 50-percent-plus-one of a workforce into guaranteeing that the union collects dues from 100 percent of the workers.

We question whether this practice is really for the workers’ benefit or just to collect a piece of their wages to advocate for political favors. Not surprisingly, all but a handful of the more than 230 co-sponsors to HR 800 are Democrats. The few undemocratic Republicans who have also signed on are an assortment of turncoats and cowards from Big Labor strongholds New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Connecticut.

Hansen’s map to the Stone Age

Expending some hot air of his own, NASA climatologist, global-warming cheerleader and misanthrope James Hansen called for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants until technology is available to capture the released carbon dioxide, essentially guaranteeing severe power shortages in the U.S. Taking the moral high ground (at least in his own mind), Hansen stated, “This is a hard proposition that no politician is willing to stand up and say it’s necessary.” (Maybe that’s because it’s not.)

Of course, the irony here is that Hansen is more politician than scientist, having served as a consultant in 2006 for the Reverend Al Gore’s Travelin’ Global Warming Salvation slide show, and more recently still by singing his global-warming song to the tune of $250,000 from none other than Mrs. John “Ketchup” Kerry. What Hansen hasn’t considered is how his plans for a U.S. energy shortage might affect Big Al—let’s hope the ex-veep’s Nashville mansion has a backup generator.

DDT, please!

DDT is by far the most effective and inexpensive anti-mosquito pesticide ever developed, yet since its ban in the early 1970s, between 30- and 60 million Africans have died from mosquito-borne illnesses, mostly malaria. Every year, more than 500-million people worldwide contract the excruciating disease.

Last fall the World Health Organization lifted its ban on inside spraying for malaria fighting, yet in the way international organizations “fight” malaria, little has changed, and little will change any time soon.

Bureaucratic inertia and strong resistance from environmentalists have combined to minimize DDT spraying to a tiny fraction of the quantity allowed even by the WHO. Last year, for example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) used DDT as only one of 11 pesticides in its $10-million Indoor Residual Spraying program. USAID also funds the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which will spend $1.2 billion by 2010—none of it using DDT.

All of this twisted thinking flows from Rachel Carson’s 1962 pseudoscience book, Silent Spring, which charged that DDT was highly dangerous to the ecosystem. Literally hundreds of scientific studies in the decades since have found no evidence that DDT poses a danger to man or other vertebrates.

We can count on the Leftmedia to report with feigned horror the genocidal destruction in Bosnia and the Sudan, always implicitly blaming the U.S., but when it comes to genocide of far greater proportions, perpetuated by Leftists in the name of their environmental religion, the silence is deafening.

Healthcare takes bigger slice of Social Security pie

In health news, recent studies confirmed the heaviest users of medical services in the U.S. are senior citizens, who already consume more than five percent of the national income to pay for their healthcare. While private insurers and government programs pay the majority of seniors’ medical care, seniors currently devote more than 44 percent of their Social Security incomes to pay for their medical services. That percentage is expected to increase to 50 percent by 2024.

Overall medical-care spending by Americans equals approximately 17 percent of the national income. While this is the highest percentage in the world, Americans receive superior healthcare and access to medical technology not available elsewhere in the world due to our distaste for socialized rationing systems. The growing medical-costs burden on seniors’ Social Security income may come as a surprise for today’s seniors, but to Generation X (the seniors of 2024), it only confirms the Xers’ belief that Social Security will no longer exist when it’s their turn to retire.

CULTURE

Al Sharpton’s long-lost family

Professional race-hustler Al Sharpton received some surprising news this week: His great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by a distant cousin of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. Thurmond was an advocate of segregation early in his career, even running for president in 1948 as a “Dixiecrat.” (Later, he repented and became a conservative Republican.) So whaddya know? Sharpton has something else in common with Thurmond—running for president on a racial platform.

Sharpton admitted that he never bothered to learn about his family tree, despite traveling the country demanding reparations for slavery. “I had never really traced my family history,” he said. Now Sharpton wants DNA testing to determine if he’s actually related to Thurmond. What purpose that would serve we’re not sure, other than to deepen Sharpton’s conviction that the entire white race owes him.

Christians don’t riot over ‘Tomb of Jesus’ documentary

Despite the fact that the cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, has been challenged (again) this week, Christians did not riot in the street or burn effigies or make death threats. A new Discovery Channel documentary called “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” is set to run Sunday. It resurrects an already-debunked discovery from 1980 of a tomb bearing the inscriptions of the names Mary, Jesus and Judah, “son of Jesus.” Aside from the very common names of the period (Jesus and Mary), the tomb was in Jerusalem, not Nazareth, where Jesus and his family lived.

Archaeologists have reacted with disgust. William Dever has been excavating in Israel for 50 years and said, “I’m not a Christian. I’m not a believer. I don’t have a dog in this fight. I just think it’s a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated.” In fact, the man who originally found the tomb, Amos Kloner, says the documentary is “nonsense.” Then again, it is about time for the annual Lenten attack on Christianity.

Still no word on when the Discovery Channel plans to run a documentary on the murderous exploits of the most Blessed Prophet Mohammed.

Former ACLU exec arrested on child-pornography charges

By now you have no doubt heard about the former Virginia ACLU president recently arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. No, you say? Well, you are not alone. The arrest of Charles Rust-Tierney garnered about as much mainstream media attention as a raindrop in Seattle.

Notwithstanding evidence that Rust-Tierney, a youth-sports leader in Virginia, actually subscribed to child-pornography websites, most of the MSM refused to point a finger at one of their darlings of liberalism.

Contrast this with the nationally headlined coverage of disgraced pastor Ted Haggard just prior to last year’s congressional elections. In fact, as recently as last month, CNN and the New York Times both ran stories mentioning the Haggard scandal. True to its form, the liberal media are continuing to feed viewers a one-sided view of the world that bears little resemblance to reality.

Planned Parenthood hits the wires

Warning: Your call may be monitored for pro-choice purposes. In its latest anti-life tactic, the nation’s largest abortion provider recently announced the launch of a wireless service that funnels ten percent of all monthly charges into its war chest and makes murder as mainstream as a phone call.

Powered by Working Assets, whose other supported organizations include NARAL and the ACLU, Planned Parenthood Wireless claims to “help preserve reproductive rights, and ensure access to comprehensive family planning and medically accurate sex education for women and families around the world.” In reality, Planned Parenthood’s brand of “reproductive rights” ended the innocent lives of 255,015 unborn children in 2005.

Planned Parenthood may try to whitewash its factory of death behind a calling plan, but no technological paint can mask the blood of the murdered unborn.

And last…

Big Al Gore certainly has a fat carbon footprint. The Oscar winner was met with some inconvenient truths about his hypocrisy this week, one of which was that his 10,000-square-foot mansion consumes 20 times more electricity each year than the average American home. Gore’s appetite, in fact, has actually increased since the release of “An Inconvenient Truth,” with his tab for electricity and gas in 2006 reaching nearly $30,000. Of course, Gore claims that he’s using as much “renewable” energy as possible, as well as planning renovations to his home that will include solar panels, and he and Tipper “also do the carbon emissions offset,” which means that for all their energy consumption at home or in their private jet, they pay for projects that offset their footprint with renewable energy investments. Sure, and we run a half-hour on the treadmill for every candy bar we consume. Of course, Gore conveniently directs these investments to Generation Investment Management, a firm he helped found and from which he profits. To his credit, though, at least Gore doesn’t live in John Edwards’ America. We can only imagine the carbon footprint of a 28,000 square-foot home.

Lex et Libertas—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families, especially those of our fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)