[G'bye. You want to talk up Democrats? Do it at Daily Kos. Not here. – NS] The Delaware primary is a case of a battle won and a war lost. Pollster.com: Public Policy Polling (PPP) fielded a general election survey in Delaware over the weekend that they plan to release today, though they teased results yesterday that imply an even bigger Coons lead. They reported Coons | Read More »
I agree with Krauthammer and others. Ground Zero is hallowed ground, and a mosque in such close proximity is bad form. I don’t want it there. Except there’s this one sticking point that I just can’t get around: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Like it not, Islam is a religion. As adherents to the | Read More »
Last Friday and over the weekend, the uber-partisan Paul Krugman took several swipes at Paul Ryan and his Roadmap, starting with the complaint that the CBO didn’t score the plan. In a follow-up, he called Ryan a flimflammer. One problem. The CBO doesn’t score revenue forecasts. That’s the job of the Joint Committee on Taxation, and they wouldn’t do forecasts beyond ten years. Ryan responded to | Read More »
You know a group is a cancer on society when they murder international aid workers. Ten members of a foreign medical team — including six Americans and three women, all doctors and technicians — were shot to death on Thursday in a remote corner of the Hindu Kush in northern Afghanistan, officials confirmed Saturday. The Taliban has a good PR apparatus, especially when civilians are | Read More »
This is an issues piece from a moderate conservative perspective. We have a structurally imbalanced deficit, and spending restraint alone will not cut it. We’re in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Because of this, on social issues, I agree with Mitch Daniels: We have more serious priorities. I may very well be wrong, but I’m pessimistic that the GOP will regain the majority | Read More »
The more I read about fast reactors, the more I like. From a Q&A with a science writer: Most existing nuclear power plants, including all the ones operating in the US, are of a type known as a thermal reactor, they use slower neutrons. But there’s another type of nuclear reaction useful for generating power that uses faster neutrons. We’ll call those types “fast reactors”. | Read More »
“The irony of the underlying bill as it’s written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He’s gonna have counsel. He’s gonna be able to present evidence to rebut the government’s case…. I think we will convict him. And I think justice will be carried out.” –Senator Barack Obama, 2006, | Read More »
At The New Republic, Stephen Biddle asks if there’s a middle way for Afghanistan. The short answer: Not really. The gist: The reasons vary from proposal to proposal, but the basic problem is that the pieces of COIN are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts; implementing just one or two pieces alone undermines their effectiveness. It might | Read More »
I haven’t read much of Bruce Ackerman, and after persuing this, I can say that I haven’t missed a thing. His basic thesis is that General McChrystal is insubordinate because he disagrees with the Biden Magic Secret Ninja Plan, that the general supports the plan that he created, and that the 66-page report was leaked to the Washington Post. What a ridiculous article. McChrystal differed | Read More »
Implicit in my support of the mission in Afghanistan–in addition to having more troops and a workable strategy–is that they have a president who doesn’t steal elections. Given the amount of fraud already discovered, Hamid Karzai does not deserve outright victory: Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots | Read More »
George Will started and ended his piece with a personal story of a Marine who experienced emotional trauma. The part that I take issue with (among others) is this: Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen’s, is squandered. Have Allen’s efforts and valor been squandered? George Will made his conclusion, but to me | Read More »
Exhibit A: A powerful bomb killed more than 75 people Wednesday night at a market in Sadr City, Baghdad’s main Shiite neighborhood, casting doubt on the readiness of Iraq’s security forces to keep a latent insurgency in check as U.S. troops pull out of the capital and other cities. The blast, the second in Iraq in less than a week to kill more than 70 | Read More »
As Herschel Smith notes, the Taliban use the tactic of amassing fighters for strikes, ranging from 100 to 400 militants, usually in places where our footprint is light. American forces are commonly outnumbered ten-to-one, which necessitates close air support. However, that close air support has resulted in an uncomfortably high number of civilian casualties and a loss of the information battlespace. We lost the information | Read More »
A Special Forces guy with the name of Dalton Fury sounds almost cliche. Nick Fury is cliche, but Dalton Fury is a real soldier and he knows LT Gen Stanley McChrystal, the newly appointed U.S. NATO commander in Afghanistan. After reading the article, if I were to describe McChrystal in one word, that word would be badass. Whether he’s the right man for the job, | Read More »
DHS chief Janet Napolitano appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday, and it was a man-caused disaster. She announced that DHS was withdrawing its report on “rightwing extremism”, but not without some buck-passing: “An employee sent it out without authorization.” That would be her unnamed employee who did that. A person who actually had political courage would have taken responsibility for distributing such a | Read More »
In a piece a couple of Sundays ago by a Pakistani BBC correspondent on how the Pakistanis are caving to the Taliban, these paragraphs popped out: In Swat, I heard the same story again and again: Before the peace deal, soldiers would stop people at checkpoints and say, “Don’t go that way, the Taliban are slitting someone’s throat.” But they wouldn’t intercede to stop the | Read More »
If the Catholics had a saint who represented people whose mouths move faster than their brains, then Joe Biden would be its patron. This morning, Dumbass Joe unnecessarily caused alarm on the Today Show when he said the following: I would tell members of my family, and I have, that I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, | Read More »
I assume General Petraeus wouldn’t be saying these things if he didn’t have the backing from his boss. In Armed Forces Press Services, the USCOM commander sketched out a little more on what he wants to see in Afghanistan: Petraeus cited the downward spiral the country has taken, with an expanded and stronger insurgency and markedly increased levels of violence. Also, the Afghan government has | Read More »
Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States penned a ridiculous piece in the Wall Street Journal today, rife with strawmen, bullsh*t and whining. If you’re concerned about the Taliban’s ongoing takeover of large parts of the country, and if you’re concerned that the Taliban wants control of the country and nationwide sharia law, then you are experiencing “panicked reactions”. Straw man. Would you like a good | Read More »
Starting three years ago, which was roughly when al Qaeda suicide-bombed the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a wave of sectarian violence erupted in Iraq. From February 2006 through August 2007, the violence was horrific: al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents attacked Shiite and Kurdish targets, and Shiite paramilitants went on forays to slay Sunni military-age males. Coalition forces were hit with IEDs and ambushes. The intent | Read More »
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