THE REAL WORLD

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The story below is all about hack partisans going berserk over comments that have nothing to do with their far left savior Obama. Yet when the shoe fits so perfectly, they felt a deep and innate need to go crazy and attack-attack-attack.

Did you hear Biden, Levin, Pelosi et al? They were all right on script relative to remarks by Bush made in Israel. The problem with the talking points about Obama completely went off the mark. If you read the Bush speech it is quite clear he was speaking about the activities of the disgraced Jimmy Carter.

If Obama and his far left pals believe those words were describing him, what does that say about Obama and his views? Apparently Obama feels that shoe fits perfectly.

Further, this has been an attempt by the Obama campaign to gin up the the feelings and mad dog anger of his way lefty supporters. When one whips up the base it will drive more contributions. It looks like it worked with the extremists in Congress and well as the anarchists inside the Dem party. However the vast American moderate middle did not bite. Oh well, good try.

Finally there is the pot calling the kettle black aspect of this story. Having San Fran Nan Pelosi attempting to lecture anyone on the subject of the "dignity of office" is flat laughable. She and her Senate sidekick Reid have done nothing but insult the Office of the President of the United States since gaining their positions in 2007. Their ongoing vile and undignified commentary is a matter of record. Ms. Pelosi has no room to speak on the subject.

It is fascinating and entertaining that the far left goes absolutely beserk if they think, for a nanosecond, that they are being criticized or slighted in any way. Apparently they are the incarnation of the political metro sexual: so sensitive that they lack the self-confidence to understand what is actually being said and about whom it is directed.



Pelosi: Bush comments 'beneath the dignity of the office'

Democratic House leaders are calling out President Bush for a speech in Israel in which he seemed to suggest that Sen. Barack Obama wants the United States to "negotiate with terrorists."

In his speech, Bush said: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

The White House insists that Bush was "referring to a wide range of people, not any single person." But Obama's campaign says it appeared to be a swipe at him, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Bush's remarks were "beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation" at the celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary.

Referring to Sen. John McCain, Pelosi said: "I would hope that any serious person that aspires to lead the country, would disassociate themselves from those comments.”

As Pelosi was speaking, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued a statement in which he said: "The tradition has always been that when a U.S. president is overseas, partisan politics stops at the water's edge. President Bush has now taken that principle and turned it on its head: for this White House, partisan politics now begins at the water’s edge, no matter the seriousness and gravity of the occasion. Does the president have no shame?”

By Daniel W. Reilly

Have you looked around you lately? Our society is full (too full) of fatties. There cannot possibly be that many Americans with a genetic predisposition to obesity. We have become a nation of pigs.

Everywhere I go there is all too often a collection of large rear ends in virtually every direction. Not only is that bad for our health and the future of our health care system but it is making the rest of the world a bit peeved.

Really, how tough is it to simply do the following:

1. STOP THE SUGAR: it is everywhere and in almost everything we eat. Stay on the lookout for high fructose corn syrup, a true killer along with just plain sugar.

2. Back off the carbs: why? Because carbohydrates turn to sugar once they are in our systems. Thus we get way too much sugar in our blood which first gets stored as fat and second pushes us inexorably toward diabetes.

3. Cut the portion sizes: forget the second helping, don't heap food on your plate, back off desert.

4. Follow mom's advice: eat lots of fresh fruits, salads and veggies. They are good for you and they fill you up. Not to mention if decently prepared they are tasty as well.

If you worry over what the rest of the world thinks about America (even if the reaction from India below is a bit too overblown), stop stuffing your face with all the wrong food and too much of it at that. Further, get some exercise every day if possible or at least four times per week if not.

We don't need food police like many on the left like to advocate. What we need is a little common sense along with the recognition that obesity is a gradual form of suicide. Stop the lunacy, eat right. Widespread obesity is a sign of a growing weakness in American society.


Indians bristle at U.S. criticism on food prices
By Heather Timmons

NEW DELHI: Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy and go on a diet, say a growing number of politicians, economists and academics here.

Criticism of the United States has ballooned in India recently, particularly after the Bush administration seemed to blame India's increasing middle class and prosperity for rising food prices. Critics from India seem to be asking one underlying question: "Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?"

The food problem has "clearly" been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain.

If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, "many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates," Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added.

Developing nations like China and India have long been blamed for everything from the rising cost of commodities to global warming, because they are consuming more goods and fuels than ever before. But Indians from the prime minister's office on down never fail to point out that per capita, India uses far fewer commodities and pollutes far less than the West, and particularly the United States.

Many Indians felt that the remarks of President George W. Bush on May 2 were more of the same, though this time they seemed to breed a widespread sense of "We're not going to take this anymore." During a news conference in Missouri, Bush mentioned India's growing middle class, and said "when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up." This came on the heels of a similar statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that had already upset many in India.

Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day, the highest amount in the world, according to data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics," Jairam Ramesh, the minister of state for commerce, told The Press Trust of India after Bush's remarks, which he said proved again how "comprehensively wrong" Bush is.

"To say that demand for food in India is causing increase in global food prices is completely wrong," Ramesh said.

Politicians and academics in India cite various other reasons: diversion of arable land in the United States and Europe into ethanol production; trade subsidies by the United States and Europe; and the dollar's decline.

Subsidies to Western farmers have undercut agricultural production in fertile areas of Africa for decades, Kamal Nath, India's minister for commerce and industry, said by telephone. Meanwhile, he added, Americans waste more food than people in many other countries, in part because they buy in such large quantities.

The United States is responsible "many times more" than India for the world food crisis because of its higher food consumption, said Ramesh Chand, an economist with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, which advises India's government on farming policy.

The Bush administration responded to the criticism from India with calls for a truce. Bush is a "great friend and admirer" of India, said David Mulford, the U.S. ambassador to India. He added that he thought "this is a time for increased cooperation among nations to solve this problem and that hostile political commentary is not productive."

A White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel said, "We think it is a good thing countries are developing, that more and more people have higher standards of living."

Blaming India's growth is not only unfair but nonsensical, some economists argue. Food prices have not been continually rising with the growth of the developing world, said Ramgopal Agarwala, a former World Bank economist and senior adviser at RIS, a think tank in New Delhi.

"They were static until 2006, then in 2007 and 2008 there was a sudden spark," he said. Meanwhile, India's boom has been happening over the past decade. This is "not last year's phenomena," he said.

"I don't know who advised the president" on his recent comments, Agarwala said, but his analysis is "subprime."

Bush's "ignorance on most matters is widely known and openly acknowledged by his own countrymen," The Asian Age argued May 5 in an editorial, but he must not be allowed to "get away" with an attempt to "divert global attention from the truth by passing the buck on to India."

Mehta said that his remarks on liposuction were meant to be tongue in cheek but that "politically incorrect" attitudes like Bush's and Rice's needed to be challenged. Rather than blaming India, Mehta said, the West should be adjusting to the changing world. "If the developing world is going to develop, demand is going to go up and there are going to be new political paradigms," he said.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune www.iht.com

Have you ever noticed that an egg is an egg regardless if it is white, brown or any other color? Or that dogs are dogs although there most certainly a lot of different breeds (make sure to note that the vast variety of different appearing dogs are all descendants of wolves)?

Taking the analogy to another level, people are people regardless of their race or ethnicity. So who are the racists? Clearly it is those who think of themselves and their fellow human beings primarily in terms of race. To be a racist, one must make race their priority in life and thought. How many people do you know like that?

In other words those who regularly speak to the subject of racism are in fact racists. Or in terms of politics if a voter chose to or refused to vote for Obama only because he is mixed race, that is racism. But if you chose not to vote for Obama because of his views or positions, that has nothing to do with race. The same is true if one chose to vote for him on the same basis. Thus one cannot be a racist if race or racism is not primarily on their minds.

The following article takes the standard media position on race: some white people bad, most black people good. The author could not be more wrong headed. But that in normal. The reality is most people, regardless of race, live their lives based on a variety of priorities other than race. Of course racism exists in America, as it does everywhere in the world, but a strong case can be made that it is less a fact of life here than almost anywhere else.

Have you noticed our mixed race population in the United States? Do you know or see married couples of mixed race in your area or community? Where is the largest Chinese population outside of China? How about Filipinos? How many non-African large nations have notable numbers of black leaders in politics, business, government, entertainment, religion, education and so on? Do you hear an increased amount of Spanish spoken by those around you?

This country continues to put racism ever farther back in our national rear view mirror. Only racists have racism on their minds.


Commentary: No racism in the presidential election?
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.Special to CNN

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- In claiming victory in West Virginia last night, Hillary Clinton reiterated her last best argument as to why she should be the Democratic nominee: because only she can win in November.

Don't confuse that with what Clinton said in a debate just a few weeks ago about how she was confident that either she or her opponent could win in November.

How's that for chutzpah? She's arguing that the same person who couldn't win enough states in the spring against Barack Obama can win enough states in the fall against John McCain.

At least in West Virginia, Clinton chose her words more carefully than she did last week when she blurted out to USA Today that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again" and how whites who had not completed college were supporting her.

Clinton sounded less like George Washington and more like George Wallace. Imagine a presidential primary where, after more than 16 months, almost two dozen debates, hundreds of speeches, millions of dollars, and countless chicken dinners, the rationale for electing someone boils down to this: Vote for me. I'm white. I can win because other whites will vote for me.

Why, this could be the new affirmative action. Whatever happened to merit?
Clinton's message in West Virginia was smoother. "I'm winning Catholic voters and Hispanic voters," she told supporters, "and blue-collar workers and seniors, the kind of people that Sen. McCain will be fighting for in the general election."

Meanwhile, some white Americans are turning themselves inside out to come up with excuses for why they're not supporting Obama. It seems like just yesterday that these folks were arguing there is no racism in the immigration debate, and now they're insisting there is no racism in the presidential election.
Some want to know why it isn't racist when 70 percent of African-Americans vote for Obama but it is when 70 percent of whites vote against him.

The answer has to do with history. Over the decades, black Americans have had plenty of opportunities to vote for white people for president. And they have done so. But this is the first time that white Americans have a chance to vote for an African-American with a shot at the presidency. And what are they doing?
Many are responding quite well. Obama won the votes of many, to borrow a phrase, "hardworking white Americans," in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. But, elsewhere, as Obama said in a recent interview, people may need to get their head around the concept of an African-American even seeking the presidency, let alone winning it.

That's understandable. There are places in this country where white Americans are still raised to think of black Americans as inferior. And then comes someone like Obama who has performed off the charts -- from Harvard Law School to the U.S. Senate and now, possibly, on to the White House. It's going to take some time to get used to all that, especially for people who never thought they thought they'd see the day that an African-American would be elected president.
But understand this: They had better hurry up. That day may soon be here.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist. Read his column here.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/14/navarrette/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
© 2008 Cable News Network

Most of us noted long ago that our current crop of politicians are not leaders but rather gutless partisans playing only to special interest and identity groups. Taking thoughtful action to benefit the country is rarely on their agenda.

Which brings up the subject of entitlements: specifically social security, medicare and medicaid. This massive non-discretionary spending, along with the fourth rail of interest on the debt, eats up as much as two thirds of our annual national budget. And entitlements have automatic increases attached that only make the problem that much worse each successive year.

The article that follows is done for and by a nonpartisan group of people concerned about the future of America. In other words, not our elected "leaders" but our fellow citizens who are not in this project strictly for their own benefit. It addresses an important and thoughtful solution to the entitlement nightmare that haunts this country and threatens to destroy the budget. As always, Americans have the creativity and will to find solutions to major issues. The next step is to jam it down the throats of the cowards in office who do nothing and care even less.


Let's Pop the Deficit Bubble
By WILL MARSHALL

The U.S. Treasury recently reported that the federal deficit will hit a record high of $311 billion for the first half of the fiscal year, thanks in part to plunging corporate profits and revenues. The report was greeted with stifled yawns by official Washington. Similar indifference greeted the Social Security and Medicare trustees when they issued their annual spring warning about an even bigger fiscal time bomb: exploding entitlement costs.

The trustees are used to being ignored, but this year's warning is more serious than ever: In 2008, the oldest of 77 million baby boomers will reach the age of eligibility for Medicare and Social Security. It is the beginning of an unprecedented demographic surge that threatens to overwhelm the nation's finances if we don't act, and soon.

To this end, members of the Brookings-Heritage Fiscal Seminar, a nonpartisan group of 16 federal budget and policy experts, of which I am member, have hammered out an innovative plan for averting a fiscal meltdown. The basic idea is simple: Take entitlement spending off auto-pilot, and establish a fixed, overall budget for the programs.

Political leaders, we say, can no longer afford to let the big entitlement programs grow automatically each year, with no deliberation by Congress, no pressure to reconcile spending and revenues, and no attempts to make trade-offs among competing public priorities.

When it comes to entitlement reform, the future is now. In the report, "Taking Back Our Fiscal Future," we say: "Our political leaders have been avoiding this enormous issue – largely because it requires that the public be told that not all past promises can be met. Our group has come together, from diverse points on the political spectrum, to sound an alarm: if America is to remain strong, such evasions must end."

The best solution, of course, would be for the next Congress and president to agree on ways to reform Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security so that they continue to provide health and retirement security without running up massive deficits. But our highly polarized political class is a long way from consensus on how to modernize the nation's biggest and most popular social insurance programs.

In truth, we aren't there either. So what we propose instead is essentially a stopgap – a way to prevent automatic entitlement spending from devouring the federal budget while elected officials summon the courage to act.

The plan, conceived by Gene Steuerle and Rudy Penner of the Urban Institute, works like this: Congress and the president enact explicit, long-term budgets for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. With this one step, entitlements would be forced to compete for budget dollars with other vital national priorities.

Either the trustees or the Congressional Budget Office would review the programs at regular intervals, possibly every five years, to determine whether they stay within their budget. Failure to do so triggers automatic adjustments in benefits, premiums, provider payments, or tax revenues.

Of course, Congress could override these adjustments – but it would have to take explicit action to jettison fiscal constraints. This is preferable to its current passivity in the face of automatic, formula-driven spending growth.

Amazingly, discretionary programs, including defense, now constitute only 38% of all federal spending. Our proposal would end the ever-narrowing scope of congressional decision-making, and fully restore lawmakers' constitutional power of the purse.

Congress has imposed disciplinary mechanisms on itself before. The budget caps adopted in 1990, the Military Base Closing Commission, and the 1983 Social Security Commission led by Alan Greenspan are all instances in which Congress recognized the need to establish procedures that provide members political cover for unpopular decisions.

Our idea for budgeting entitlements thus reverses the "Doomsday Machine" logic of automatic entitlement spending, calling instead for the automatic tax and spending adjustments necessary to keep the programs solvent. And if the composition of our group is any guide, it could have broad, bipartisan appeal. Meeting under the auspices of the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation, the gang of 16 includes prominent liberals and conservatives from eight Washington think tanks, as well as no less than three former directors of the Congressional Budget Office: Mr. Penner, Alice Rivlin and Robert Reischauer.

What unites us is fear of what unsustainable growth in entitlement spending portends. Conservatives worry that taxes on working families will have to rise to crippling levels to pay for the promises made to retirees. Progressives want to prevent automatic entitlement spending from squeezing out space in the federal budget for such vital public investments as educating the young, fighting poverty, protecting the environment, keeping our military strong, and modernizing our energy and transportation systems.

Inaction in the face of the looming budget crunch is not wise. Putting entitlements on a fixed budget will, we hope, set the stage for the long-overdue debate over how to ensure that our venerable social insurance programs continue to serve future generations of Americans.

Mr. Marshall is president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120968465450161133.html
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Most of us noted long ago that our current crop of politicians are not leaders but rather gutless partisans playing only to special interest and identity groups. Taking thoughtful action to benefit the country is rarely on their agenda.

Which brings up the subject of entitlements: specifically social security, medicare and medicaid. This massive non-discretionary spending, along with the fourth rail of interest on the debt, eats up as much as two thirds of our annual national budget. And entitlements have automatic increases attached that only make the problem that much worse each successive year.

The article that follows is done for and by a nonpartisan group of people concerned about the future of America. In other words, not our elected "leaders" but our fellow citizens who are not in this project strictly for their own benefit. It addresses an important and thoughtful solution to the entitlement nightmare that haunts this country and threatens to destroy the budget. As always, Americans have the creativity and will to find solutions to major issues. The next step is to jam it down the throats of the cowards in office who do nothing and care even less.


Let's Pop the Deficit Bubble
By WILL MARSHALL

The U.S. Treasury recently reported that the federal deficit will hit a record high of $311 billion for the first half of the fiscal year, thanks in part to plunging corporate profits and revenues. The report was greeted with stifled yawns by official Washington. Similar indifference greeted the Social Security and Medicare trustees when they issued their annual spring warning about an even bigger fiscal time bomb: exploding entitlement costs.

The trustees are used to being ignored, but this year's warning is more serious than ever: In 2008, the oldest of 77 million baby boomers will reach the age of eligibility for Medicare and Social Security. It is the beginning of an unprecedented demographic surge that threatens to overwhelm the nation's finances if we don't act, and soon.

To this end, members of the Brookings-Heritage Fiscal Seminar, a nonpartisan group of 16 federal budget and policy experts, of which I am member, have hammered out an innovative plan for averting a fiscal meltdown. The basic idea is simple: Take entitlement spending off auto-pilot, and establish a fixed, overall budget for the programs.

Political leaders, we say, can no longer afford to let the big entitlement programs grow automatically each year, with no deliberation by Congress, no pressure to reconcile spending and revenues, and no attempts to make trade-offs among competing public priorities.

When it comes to entitlement reform, the future is now. In the report, "Taking Back Our Fiscal Future," we say: "Our political leaders have been avoiding this enormous issue – largely because it requires that the public be told that not all past promises can be met. Our group has come together, from diverse points on the political spectrum, to sound an alarm: if America is to remain strong, such evasions must end."

The best solution, of course, would be for the next Congress and president to agree on ways to reform Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security so that they continue to provide health and retirement security without running up massive deficits. But our highly polarized political class is a long way from consensus on how to modernize the nation's biggest and most popular social insurance programs.

In truth, we aren't there either. So what we propose instead is essentially a stopgap – a way to prevent automatic entitlement spending from devouring the federal budget while elected officials summon the courage to act.

The plan, conceived by Gene Steuerle and Rudy Penner of the Urban Institute, works like this: Congress and the president enact explicit, long-term budgets for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. With this one step, entitlements would be forced to compete for budget dollars with other vital national priorities.

Either the trustees or the Congressional Budget Office would review the programs at regular intervals, possibly every five years, to determine whether they stay within their budget. Failure to do so triggers automatic adjustments in benefits, premiums, provider payments, or tax revenues.

Of course, Congress could override these adjustments – but it would have to take explicit action to jettison fiscal constraints. This is preferable to its current passivity in the face of automatic, formula-driven spending growth.

Amazingly, discretionary programs, including defense, now constitute only 38% of all federal spending. Our proposal would end the ever-narrowing scope of congressional decision-making, and fully restore lawmakers' constitutional power of the purse.

Congress has imposed disciplinary mechanisms on itself before. The budget caps adopted in 1990, the Military Base Closing Commission, and the 1983 Social Security Commission led by Alan Greenspan are all instances in which Congress recognized the need to establish procedures that provide members political cover for unpopular decisions.

Our idea for budgeting entitlements thus reverses the "Doomsday Machine" logic of automatic entitlement spending, calling instead for the automatic tax and spending adjustments necessary to keep the programs solvent. And if the composition of our group is any guide, it could have broad, bipartisan appeal. Meeting under the auspices of the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation, the gang of 16 includes prominent liberals and conservatives from eight Washington think tanks, as well as no less than three former directors of the Congressional Budget Office: Mr. Penner, Alice Rivlin and Robert Reischauer.

What unites us is fear of what unsustainable growth in entitlement spending portends. Conservatives worry that taxes on working families will have to rise to crippling levels to pay for the promises made to retirees. Progressives want to prevent automatic entitlement spending from squeezing out space in the federal budget for such vital public investments as educating the young, fighting poverty, protecting the environment, keeping our military strong, and modernizing our energy and transportation systems.

Inaction in the face of the looming budget crunch is not wise. Putting entitlements on a fixed budget will, we hope, set the stage for the long-overdue debate over how to ensure that our venerable social insurance programs continue to serve future generations of Americans.

Mr. Marshall is president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120968465450161133.html
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Partisan politicians are sometimes the perfect definition of stupidity. The embarrassing article that follows is a shining example. The fact that it is a pol from the left probably tells us something as well.

According to this wizard, we have high gas prices at the pump because Bush and Cheney have friends in the oil business. Apparently they somehow get together and set the price per barrel and no one else on the planet can do a thing about it. That is stupid.

Or how about the claim that because one political party wants to do more drilling, the price is going up. That is stupid.

Than there is the idea that because the oil companies get tax breaks the price is going up. The corollary to that thought is to take away the tax breaks and the price will go down. That is more than stupid.

Further, forcing oil companies to invest more in alternative energy (something they already do) will mean lower prices. That is counter intuitive not to mention dumb.

The best idea however is standing up to OPEC. That will do it. Prices will drop instantly. Why didn't someone think about that outstanding solution before? Well, because it is just plain stupid.

And politicians wonder why the American public views them as somewhere below used car salesman on the scale of admirability and trustworthiness.

How stupid!


Democratic senator calls for GOP to alter energy policy
By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

The public must pressure Republicans in the White House and Congress to change directions in the country's energy policies, which have pushed oil and gas prices to record highs, a Democratic lawmaker said Saturday.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow said the rising price of oil, fostered by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's close ties to the oil industry, is no longer just a burden.

"Now it is a crisis for every American family," the Michigan senator said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. She called the current energy situation "a crisis that doesn't just affect us at the pump, but also raises the prices of groceries, increases our home heating bills and squeezes small businesses trying to keep their heads above water."

Oil rose above $126 a barrel for the first time Friday and gasoline prices rose above an average $3.67 a gallon at the pump.

"Republicans want more drilling, more consumption and more tax giveaways for the big oil companies," she said. "Democrats say that those are exactly the policies that got us into this mess to begin with."

She promoted the Democratic proposals for changing energy policy. Those call for:

• Ending billions of dollars in tax breaks for big oil companies.
• Forcing the oil companies to do their part by investing some of their profits in clean and affordable alternative energy.
• Protecting the American people from price gougers and greedy oil traders who manipulate the market.
• Temporarily stopping the diversion of oil to the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is already 97 percent full.
• Standing up to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil-producing nations that are working together to keep oil prices high.

"This fight won't be easy," Stabenow said, urging the public to pressure the GOP. "The President and his oil buddies have gotten used to the spoils of plunder, and they won't give up without a fight."

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson said, "The Democrats clearly don't understand the economy and the devastating burden that their proposed tax increases would impose on families and businesses across America."

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Lawyers will do anything for a fee or for their cause (as long as there is a fee involved with the cause). That includes putting the petal to the metal when going after other legal minds that do not think in the terms dictated by their world.

As the title of the following article states, doing everything possible within our laws, our constitution and our treaty obligations to protect innocent American civilian lives is not a crime. We did not start the war on terrorism. The terrorists attacked us and we have a right, within the confines of our system of law, to defend ourselves from any and all future attack.

International law and international institutions do not supersede our constitution and the laws of the United States. We reserve the right and have an obligation as a sovereign state to interpret international law as we see fit within the framework of our own governance. Our allegiance is to the nation, not to the world. We are Americans first and foremost even though we choose to be a part of the international community and to dutifully play our part within it.

Academics, activist lawyers, internationalist eggheads and the like are entitled to their opinion. But it is only that: their opinion. They cannot dictate, they have no power and they need to know that the United States is and has been for more than 200 years a sovereign nation that will proceed based upon it's national interests as the top priority.

It will remain so despite all the carping.


The War on Terror Is Not a Crime
By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. and LEE A. CASEY

Lynching lawyers, as Shakespeare once suggested, has never appealed much to the legal profession itself – literally or figuratively. But an exception apparently will be made for a group of attorneys who advised President Bush and his national security staff in the aftermath of 9/11. They've been subject to an increasingly determined campaign of public obloquy by law professors, activist lawyers and pundits.

Their legal competence and ethics have been questioned. Suggestions have even been made that they can and should be held criminally responsible for "war crimes," because their legal advice supposedly led to detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

The targets of this witch hunt include some of the country's finest legal minds – such as law Prof. John Yoo of the University of California at Berkeley, Judge Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and William J. (Jim) Haynes II, former Pentagon general counsel. Others frequently mentioned include former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

Many positions taken by these attorneys, laying the fundamental legal architecture of the war on terror, outrage international activists and legal specialists. Nevertheless, in a series of cases beginning with Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld many of their key positions: that the country is engaged in an armed conflict; that captured enemy combatants can be detained without criminal trial during these hostilities; and that (when the time comes) they may be punished through the military, rather than the civilian, justice system.

The Court has also required that detainees be given an administrative hearing to challenge their enemy-combatant classification, ruled that Congress (not the president alone) must establish any military commission system, and made clear that it will in the future exercise some level of judicial scrutiny over the treatment of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay – although the extent of this role is still being litigated. Overall, the administration has won the critical points necessary to continue the war against al Qaeda.

Most controversial, of course, was the Bush administration's insistence that the Geneva Conventions have limited, if any, application to al Qaeda and its allies (who themselves reject the "Western" concepts behind those treaties); and the administration's authorization of aggressive interrogation methods, including, in at least three cases, waterboarding or simulated drowning.

Several legal memoranda, particularly 2002 and 2003 opinions written by Mr. Yoo as deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, considered whether such methods can lawfully be used. These memoranda, some of which remain classified, explore the limits imposed on the United States by statute, treaties, and customary international law. The goal clearly was to find a legal means to give U.S. interrogators the maximum flexibility, while defining the point at which lawful interrogation ended and unlawful torture began.

Behind this inquiry is a stark fact. In this war on terror, the U.S. must not only attack and defeat enemy forces. It must also anticipate and prevent their deliberate attacks on its civilian population – al Qaeda's preferred target. International law gives the civilian population an indisputable right to that protection.

Lawyers can and do disagree over the administration's conclusions. However, it's now being claimed that the administration's legal advisers can be held responsible for detainee abuses.

This is madness. The lawyers were not in any chain of command, and had no theoretical or practical authority to direct the actions of anyone who engaged in abusive conduct. Those who mouth this argument are engaged in a kind of free association which, if applied across the board, would make legal counsel infinitely culpable.

In truth, the critics' fundamental complaint is that the Bush administration's lawyers measured international law against the U.S. Constitution and domestic statutes. They interpreted the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Convention forbidding torture, and customary international law, in ways that were often at odds with the prevailing view of international law professors and various activist groups. In doing so, however, they did no more than assert the right of this nation – as is the right of any sovereign nation – to interpret its own international obligations.

But that right is exactly what is denied by many international lawyers inside and outside the academy.

To the extent that international law can be made, it is made through actual state practice – whether in the form of custom, or in the manner states implement treaty obligations. In the areas relevant to the war on terror, there is precious little state practice against the U.S. position, but a very great deal of academic orthodoxy.

For more than 40 years, as part of the post World War II decolonization process, a legal orthodoxy has arisen that supports limiting the ability of nations to use robust armed force against irregular or guerilla fighters. It has also attempted to privilege such guerillas with the rights traditionally reserved to sovereign states. The U.S. has always been skeptical of these notions, and at critical points has flatly refused to be bound by these new rules. Most especially, it refused to join the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions, involving the treatment of guerillas, from which many of the "norms" the U.S. has supposedly violated, are drawn.

The Bush administration acted on this skepticism – insisting on the right of a sovereign nation to determine for itself what international law means. This is at bottom the sin for which its legal advisers will never be forgiven. To the extent they can be punished – or at least harassed – perhaps their successors in government office will be deterred from again challenging the prevailing view, even at the cost of the national interest.

That is why these administration attorneys have become the particular subjects of attack.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and were members of the United Nations Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 2004-2007.

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120908451409543573.html
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

People on the political left are far too often borderline socialists. For better or for worse they will choose over-regulation and bloated bureaucracies rather than have government agencies work hand in hand with the private sector as well as allowing market forces to play out in the marketplace.

The piece below notes the success of the latter within the history of the airline industry, one of the largest business sectors in America. As illustrated on the chart above, the facts speak for themselves. In the highly competitive world of air travel, safety is up. Additionally more people are flying more often to more places than ever before.

Yet in the face of all that demonstrated and documented success, it was government bureaucrat regulators who recently and unnecessarily shut down American Airlines for several days and stranded tens of thousands of travelers for a non issue that did not require such draconian action.

Government and industry could have easily managed the problem without making a mountain out of a molehill. But bureaucratic regulators are nothing more than automatons following instructions: no brain and no thought required.

Bigger government bureaucracy is not the solution, it is the problem.


Airlines Are Safer Than Ever
By CLIFFORD WINSTON and ROBERT W. CRANDAL

Flights on U.S. airlines have never been more crowded – nor have they ever been safer. The last crash of a commercial jet occurred in November 2001, although the number of flights has increased substantially in the past six and one-half years.

Can more effective regulation by the Federal Aviation Administration explain the recent improvement in airline safety? Not according to Rep. James Oberstar (D., Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee. He's expressed concern that a "carrier-favorable, cozy relationship" has set in at the FAA.

Mr. Oberstar formed his view after learning that an FAA supervisor allowed Southwest Airlines to fly planes that had not been inspected in a timely manner for fuselage cracks. Chaos followed: American Airlines cancelled thousands of flights, responding to the FAA demand that it comply with federal rules regarding how certain wires in the wheel wells of MD-80 jets are secured. Of course, American Airlines and other carriers hardly need the FAA to tell them how to operate their $50 million MD-80s safely. Imagine owners of a Rolls Royce relying on a government agency for directives on how to properly maintain their vehicles.

What Mr. Oberstar should have recognized is that the FAA needs a cozy relationship with the airlines. This is because the agency needs to at least give the appearance that it is having a significant impact on safety.

Indeed, the fundamental problem with most regulation is that the regulatory agency does not have sufficient information, flexibility and immunity from political pressure to regulate firms' behavior effectively. Fortunately, the market, and in some cases the liability system, provide sufficient incentives for firms to behave in a socially beneficial manner.

Consider why economic regulation of the U.S. airline industry failed. The Civil Aeronautics Board used to be responsible for regulating fares and the number of carriers serving each route. The CAB used a cost index to set fares between city pairs that, in principle, would enable airlines to earn an above-normal rate of return given the industry's inherent risks, such as unpredictable demand.

But flight frequency was not regulated. Hence carriers offered an excessive number of flights. This reduced the percentage of seats filled by paying passengers, increased average costs, and lowered industry returns. In addition, political pressure from small communities resulted in short-haul fares that were below costs – but were intended to be cross-subsidized by long-haul fares that were above costs. However, because the CAB prevented new competitors from entering regulated routes, air carriers had little incentive to reduce costs.

In a nutshell, the CAB did not have sufficient understanding of industry operations and strategy, the flexibility to facilitate and account for possible changes in industry competition, and immunity from political pressure to set efficient fares. When fares and entry were deregulated, market competition accomplished in large measure what the CAB could not.

Airline safety presents similar problems for the regulator. The FAA knows much less about aircraft technology and airline operations than do the airlines and aircraft manufacturers. In principle, the agency can be educated about such matters, and through consultation with the airlines, aircraft manufactures and expert advisers can develop certain rules and procedures that the airlines agree to follow.

But the airlines will always be far more informed than the FAA is about the condition of their planes. They will also know which procedures and practices are really essential to maintain a comfortable margin of safety. The airlines will be able to make appropriate adjustments to their safety practices – long before the FAA can develop new directives – when information becomes available about aircraft design flaws, appropriate precautions to take when flying in certain weather conditions, and the like.

The FAA may be subject to political pressure to promote the advancement of civil aviation, which may conflict with its mission to promote safety. But the airlines are subject to the unbridled pressure of the market. This pressure put Air Florida out of business following the crash of one of its planes in the Potomac River, and forced ValuJet to emerge as a new carrier, Air Tran, following the crash of one of its planes in the Everglades.

The carriers understand that they cannot attract passengers, employees and investors if they are not vigilant about safety. Consider Southwest – the carrier at the center of this latest "safety" crisis. It has had no passenger fatalities in its entire history. It also has the largest market cap in the U.S. industry, among the best labor relations, and a very high standing with the flying public.

Part of the FAA's mission is to adopt and implement the latest technological advances to expand the airspace where planes can fly safely. How has it done?

In the early 1980s, the FAA announced plans to upgrade the air traffic control system. The fully upgraded system is more than a decade late, billions of dollars over budget, and still nowhere in sight.

Now the FAA is focusing attention on developing a satellite-based air traffic control system – with apparently similar futility. The Government Accountability Office has concluded that the FAA has failed to provide the expertise to make the transition to such a system, and urged it to seek assistance from a third party. We and others believe stronger actions are advisable, actions which would transfer the FAA's responsibility for managing air traffic control to an independent private entity such as Nav Canada, the Canadian air traffic control organization.

Unfortunately, the FAA's inadequacies are shared by other federal agencies that attempt to regulate safety. In our research on the subject, examining available empirical evidence, we could not find any discernible improvement in safety that was associated with regulations promulgated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and Mine Safety and Health Administration, among others.

At first blush, the FAA appears to differ from these agencies because its drawbacks do not include stimulating consumers and workers to engage in "offsetting behavior" that compromises efforts to improve safety. Maybe so. But in response to the FAA's overly aggressive actions that caused American Airlines to cancel thousands of flights, many travelers shifted from air travel to highway travel. In the process, they greatly increased their probability of dying in an accident on their journey.

Messrs. Winston and Crandall are senior fellows in the economic studies program of the Brookings Institution. Mr. Winston is the author of "Government Failure Versus Market Failure" (Brookings Institution Press, 2006).

URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120856322751028003.html
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The story that follows sums up the feelings of frustration and confusion on the part of the anti-war left and others of the same mindset. They simply cannot understand why their message and passion gets no traction.

Rather than acknowledge the root cause of their problem they like to blame it on the media (that's a laugh), apathy or just plain ignorance on the part of all of the rest of us who clearly don't buy their baloney.

What they fail to understand is simple: they have no argument.
1. America did not start the War on Terrorism.
2. America did not start the initial conflict with Iraq in the early 1990's that ultimately led directly to the latest conflagration there.
3. Americans want to end the fighting that costs us all so dearly in terms of lives and treasure.
4. But most importantly, the people of this country do not want to have wasted the valued resources invested over the past five years by walking away.

Americans know that we have a moral obligation to make things right in Iraq. In other words, the anti-war scree has no credibility and even less logic.

Most people are aware of what is going on in Iraq. Most people support the surge. Most people want our efforts there to succeed. And, yes, most people want to put an end to this matter sooner rather than later. But cut and run is not a viable option with the vast majority of our countrymen.

Thus the anti-war fanatics wail in their echo chamber and cannot comprehend why no one is paying attention. Dumb!


War protesters frustrated by apathy
By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
VWH Campbell/Post-Gazette

Marty O'Malley, a Forest Hills council member and Vietnam veteran, paces outside the Downtown office of U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle on Thursday. He was waiting for an anti-war petition that he planned to present to the congressman's office, but the person with it did not show.

Three protesters, a half-dozen signs and a missing petition.

"People walk past and say, 'I'm glad you're doing something,' " said Marty O'Malley, a Forest Hills council member who has attended more than 100 anti-Iraq war events, as he stood in front of Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle's Downtown office last week with the small gathering of activists.

"I want to shake them and say, 'Why aren't you doing something!?' "

After $500 billion in spending and 4,000 military deaths, this was supposed to be an election year dominated by the war.

Both Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, support a withdrawal, while Sen. John McCain, a Republican, argues that the U.S. risks losing Iraq to terrorist groups and Iranian influence if troops leave before the country is stable.

In Washington, D.C., Congress is preparing to consider President Bush's latest emergency funding package for the fighting, with a price tag of $108 billion.

But a worsening economy has easily overtaken Iraq as the top concern for voters, according to a New York Times/CBS poll released last week. Only 17 percent of respondents picked the war as the "one issue" they'd like to hear the candidates discuss more.

Americans still have strong feelings about the conflict: 62 percent want the next president to pull out of Iraq within a year or two of taking office, the poll said. Yet war opponents and supporters are having trouble getting the public's -- and the media's -- attention.

A March survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press discovered that just 28 percent of Americans knew the approximate number of U.S. deaths in the war.

"Obviously, I wish that the American people were more engaged in understanding what's at stake in Iraq," said Pete Hegseth, who served there with the 101st Airborne Division and is now executive director of Vets for Freedom. "I think it's unfortunate that here on the home front we're not interested in what's going on overseas."

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