Charles Krauthammer: “If the capping operation succeeds…since it would come right after he stood up there and said, “I’m in charge,” I think he’ll be politically OK. If it doesn’t, and we have to wait until August…then he’s going to be savaged. It’s going to be his Katrina politically.”
“We’re the only country that I know that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.”
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Va. -- This is the place that receives the most attention on Memorial Day, though it is but one of 141 national cemeteries in the United States and 24 others located on foreign soil. Many of our countrymen will observe this “last Monday in May” holiday with travel, shopping and picnics. But those who take the time to visit one of these hallowed grounds will have an unforgettable experience.
These are the final resting places for more than 3 million Americans who served in our armed forces — as soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines — including the nearly 5,500 who have perished in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At the urging of the Obama White House, former President Bill Clinton asked Rep. Joe Sestak whether he would abandon his plans to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in a Pennsylvania Democratic primary if given an unpaid, advisory position, according to a White House counsel report issued Friday morning.
Senate Democrats managed Thursday to block deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, but the proposal still garnered a majority of senators, showing widespread support for a border-security-first strategy and underscoring why President Obama is having difficulty trying to win an immigration-legalization bill.
The new estimate – 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day – is two to five times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day figure given by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on April 28, and establishes the oil spill as the largest in American history.
State capitalism, Bremmer writes, “is a system in which the state dominates markets primarily for political gain.” From state-owned corporations operating in strategic industries like natural resources or defense, to enormous sovereign wealth funds in the hands of autocrats with opaque operating principles, state capitalism has enabled the world’s autocratic states to reap the benefits of capitalist enterprise while maintaining a vice-grip on political freedom.
“It just looks like he’s not involved in this,” Carville said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Visibly agitated, Carville said: “Man, you got to get down here and take control of this, put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving. We’re about to die down here.”
Carville — nicknamed the Ragin’ Cajun as far back as his days as an adviser to President Bill Clinton — has grown more outraged with each passing day, culminating with his taking a boat tour of the damaged waterways on CNN earlier in the week.
New York City officials have voted to allow construction of a $100 million mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. I mean no disrespect to Muslims, but this is an unspeakably bad idea. The 9/11 hijackers brought down those towers, and killed thousands, in the name of Islam. Of course it is wrong to blame all Muslims for 9/11. But why on earth rub salt in the wounds of the 9/11 dead by allowing a mosque to go in just two blocks from where jihadists incinerated or crushed over 2,700 innocent victims, in service of their faith? Proponents of the project call it a “seed of peace”, but tell me, would they call a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor a seed of peace? Would they call a German cultural center two blocks from the gates of Auschwitz a seed of peace?
WASHINGTON — In closing the deal on health care reform, Democratic leaders assured wavering legislators that the plan would grow more popular with time as its benefits became clear. “We have to pass the bill,” argued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, so that the public “can find out what is in it.” Presidential adviser David Axelrod predicted that Republicans would pay a political price for their opposition. “Let’s have that fight,” he said. “Make my day.” Consistent with this belief, the administration recently has been rolling out attractive elements of the law, including coverage for dependents up to age 26.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of U.S. voters say military troops should be sent to the Mexican border to prevent illegal immigration. A new Rasmussen Reports nationwide telephone survey finds that just 18% are opposed and another 15% are not sure.
A majority of Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters all support the concept of using the troops to stop illegal immigration.
President Obama recently announced that he is sending troops to the Mexican border, but the stated purpose is to prevent the spread of drug-related violence.
The new survey also finds that just 26% of voters believe the U.S. Department of Justice should challenge the legality of Arizona’s new law in federal court. Fifty-six percent (56%) oppose such a challenge, and 18% more are not sure. Earlier polling found that most Americans trust the Arizona state leaders more than leaders in Washington, DC on the topic of immigration.
Making it official hasn’t changed the numbers. Republican Dino Rossi is now formally challenging incumbent Democrat Patty Murray for the U.S. Senate in Washington, but the two candidates remain virtually tied as they have for months.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Washington finds Murray with 48% support while Rossi earns 47%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and four percent (4%) are undecided.
That’s essentially unchanged from earlier this month.
In fact, the results of a Murray-Rossi match-up have been close all year. Since January, when matched against Rossi, Murray’s support has stayed in the narrow range of 46% to 48%. During the same period, Rossi has earned 46% to 49%.
Any incumbent who earns less than 50% support at this stage of a campaign is considered potentially vulnerable. However, Washington is a Democratic leaning state which should provide a boost for the incumbent Democrat. Murray was reelected with 55% of the vote in 2004.
What do libertarians believe? On some issues, such as abortion, they are divided. But on gun control, for instance, the libertarian platform indicates that they believe in no restrictions whatsoever on gun ownership, no registrations or background checks — in short, no statutory or regulatory effort to prevent convicted criminals, registered sex offenders, suspected terrorists, illegal immigrants or anyone else from getting their hands on firearms, including anything from a 9mm to a missile launcher.
Some Americans may not consider such absolutism to be loony, but very few would favor abolishing all background checks or all of the existing restrictions on automatic weapons.
What voters in Kentucky and elsewhere will learn, when they look more deeply into the movement from which Paul emerged, is that libertarians believe in very little government. They seem to feel that the kind of state suited to the 18th century would serve America just as well today. So they would do away with all legal restrictions on wages, hours and working conditions, including the minimum wage and the ban on child labor. If your boss refused to pay you at the end of the week, the government would do nothing — and you would have to sue.
Just 35% of Americans plan to take a summer vacation this year, and most of those vacationers don’t plan to spend as much as they have in years past, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
For the previous two years, 38% of Adults planned to vacation during the summer. But only 34% now say they actually took a summer vacation last year. Sixty-four percent (64%) did not.
In late May 2006, 55% of Americans planned to take a summer vacation.
Sixty-four percent (64%) of those who vacationed last year and plan to do so again this summer say economic conditions are forcing them to cut back on their travel expenses. That’s up six points over the past year. Twenty-nine percent (29%) don’t plan to reduce their holiday spending this summer, but another seven percent (7%) aren’t sure.
I don’t see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president’s political judgment and instincts.
There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don’t see how you politically survive this.
May 28 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks slid, capping the worst May for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1940, while the euro slumped and Treasuries rose as a downgrade of Spain’s debt rating and escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula triggered a flight from riskier assets.
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A judge ordered the boy to serve probation, serve 200 hours of community service, write a letter to the victim to apologize — and to write a 1,000-word report on why it’s unhealthy to ingest fecal matter.
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