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Archive - May 2009 News Headlines, Links, and Comments
For more recent news headlines than May 2009 below, refer to the
News Highlights page.
An explanation of this news
archive feature follows at the end of the page.
The
reverse chronological headlines below link to May 2009 news reports,
mostly from the AP as published on
www.Breitbart.com , with our own comments and some links to related
pages for more details. Many global stories are also sorted by
country or topic under Global Issues.
Refer
to our Conservative Search and other
tools to find news and comments from many sources. We have also
set up a special Tea Party Search Tool
for websites related to the Tea Party movement.
News Archives: Headlines, Links, and Comments
for May 2009
May 31, 2009 - Muslims want tangible change on Mideast from Obama -
Comment: Let's hope that they are as disappointed as we are by
his actions. Why isn't the focus on the tangible change which we
want to see from them? Why do we accept that our policies are the
source of all problems? Why do we accept their allegation of our
"occupation of Iraq", rather than liberation of it from tyranny?
The correct response should be that we will respect them
when they earn our respect, not demand it. We owe no apologies to
"Muslims", because we treat them with respect here. What we don't
respect are the tyrants among them who have perpetuated misery and
conflict in their region for centuries, and who wish to spread their
tyranny to other countries, including our own. We resolutely
oppose them.
May 31. 2009 - Can it be? Iowa presidential campaigning returns -
Comment: Don't fall for this attempt to shift the focus to
2012 presidential candidates. Focus on winning Congress back in
2010., as well as the many races for governor. Don't divert time
and resources away from 2010 races.
May 31, 2009 - Israel begins its biggest civil defense drill -
Comment: Annual drill. Try to imagine doing something
comparable here - where people prefer to think that the threats have
gone away, or that our national security is somebody else's problem, or
that any attacks on us are our own fault.
May 31, 2009 - US journalists' trial begins in NKorea this week -
Comment: Like the recent show trial in Iran, this is all about
political pressure. Unfortunately, Americans who do stupid things
to put themselves in such predicaments do not take precedence over other
national security interests. They will probably be convicted and,
if they are lucky, will then be expelled once the North Korean leaders
conclude that they are of no further value as a bargaining chip.
Efforts to make their case a major issue will be counterproductive
despite good intentions, as in Carter's handling of the Iran hostage
situation.
The US government should very quietly
urge the Chinese to help persuade North Korea to expel them after a show
trial which is presumably intended mainly to intimidate other foreign
journalists and to send a clear message to any North Koreans about the
dangers of talking to such journalists. There should be no
illusion in North Korea that they can be traded back to us like hostages
for some advantage, because that would just reinforce the idea that
similar kidnappings can be useful tools in future crises.
May 31, 2009 - Geithner calls for closer economic ties with China -
Comment: If business leaders were worried about the trade
deficit and currency manipulation in China in the past as a problem,
look at the situation now that China has been given more leverage
through reckless spending.
May 30, 2009 - Geithner wields little leverage in China talks -
Comment: The story mentions that China holds $768 billion in US debt
(as of March), but neglects to mention whether that is increasing or
decreasing. With so much new debt being created by the exponential
growth in spending programs, is China still willing to invest in our
debt? That's why Geithner is now going to China "hat in hand".
May 30, 2009 - Gates: Tougher sanctions against NKorea needed -
Comments: Does anybody really believe that the North Korean
leaders fear sanctions? We're talking about a regime which let
perhaps a million citizens starve to death a few years ago rather than
change their policies.
It's time to put this
regime under some real pressure - such as by talking to the Chinese and
Russians in secret about supporting a coup in which China would quickly
seize direct control of North Korea, thereby avoiding the risk of a
flood of refugees into China or South Korea, and avoiding the risk of
attacks against South Korea, Japan, or any US forces in the region.
In short, let North Korea find out through their "intelligence" sources
or news leaks that we are plotting with the Chinese against them.
That would leave the regime to wonder whether China is
really still their friend or not. South Koreans and Japanese would
certainly not welcome the idea of China taking over North Korea, but it
might be preferable to a rogue military regime taking over North Korea
and presenting an even larger threat than Kim for decades to come.
In short, the Chinese could quickly bring the country under very tight
control, so a tyrant like Kim might fear that a coup led by China could
very quickly succeed.
We could even give it greater credibility (from a
North Korean paranoia perspective) by suggesting that we are "giving"
North Korea to China as a quid pro quo for their continued support of
our economy.
If the Chinese ever crossed the border to confront the
North Korean military from the rear in support of a coup, the regime
would quickly collapse because it is so reliant on military support and
is concentrated against other perceived threats, such as South Korea.
It may seem to be completely irrational for us to expect the Chinese to
actually lead a coup, but Kim might just be paranoid enough to really
fear it. He will have no fear of UN sanctions. Like most
tyrants, he will only fear the loss of his own power or life. He
has trusted the Chinese, so his Achilles heel is to shake that trust by
exposing this vulnerability.
No matter how much we or the Chinese might deny any
such plot, Kim might fear it, and might purge his military leadership of
anybody who is perceived to be a potential threat in that regard -
thereby stirring up potential military dissent and resistance to his
continued rule without any overt provocation.
May 30, 2009 - Obama's Gramps: Gazing skyward on D-Day in England -
Comment: Preparing the narrative for the D-Day ceremony with family
stories - but nothing about Obama himself. Where was the diligent
investigative research about his own background and actions prior to the
election?
May 30, 2009 - Administration opposes Uighurs' release in US -
Comment: Another late Friday night story, presumably intended
to be buried. The gist is that Obama is now continuing to hold
these prisoners at Guantanamo despite criticism of the Bush
administration for doing so. They're still trying to find some
other country which will accept them - since they might be at risk if
returned to China. Why does it matter to us what China would do to
them? Why are we responsible for that? If Clinton could
engage in "rendition", why can't we simply deport them and wash our
hands of their fate?
May 29, 2009 - Economy sinks at a 5.7 percent pace in 1Q - Comment:
Remember when GDP was supposed to get better this summer or fall?
Or not be this bad in the first place? The predictions now for
recovery in 2010 are similar wishful thinking in the absence of any
political turnaround to stop the reckless spending and liberal
government intervention to impose changes in the private economy.
There might be some recovery in 2011 - 2012 if the Democrats are
trounced in the 2010 elections, but at this point it is more likely to
be 2013 or later, just as it took time to reverse Carter's harmful
policies.
May 28, 2009 - Obama moves to curb road-building in forests -
Comment: Note that, buried at the end of this story, is the point
that the main impact of this change is to block a project in Alaska.
Of course, that's not politically motivated. Which part of the
Constitution provides this authority?
May 29, 2009 -
Climate change causes 300,000 deaths a year - Comment:
Absurd drivel being spread by Kofi Annan and another group seeking
publicity, blaming rich nations for harming the poor. See the
related story as context -
African officials ask for climate change funding It's just
another excuse for North-South redistribution of wealth, as has been
their social agenda for decades.
May 27, 2009 - NKorea threatens to attack US, SKorean warships -
Comment: Is their political and military leadership really
delusional enough to risk war again? Will China intervene to stop
this? It may be time for China to remind North Korea of their
weakness, despite all the big military parades in Pyongyang. It
would also be a good time for both Japan and South Korea to make it
clear to the Chinese that they will quickly ramp up their own military
programs now in the wake of such provocation - unless China does
something tangible soon to put the North Korea regime under much tighter
control.
May 27, 2009 Gov't: Carbon pollution to grow by 40 percent -
Comment: Fresh climate change propaganda, just in time for the cap
and trade debate and alternative energy spending plans. See Al
Gore news archive from
February 19 and
February 14 and Obama from
February 24 for background, as well as
the May 12 and 24 news below. If there isn't a good crisis to
exploit, create one.
May 26, 2009 - Pentagon: Some released detainees return to battle -
Comment: The reporter seems to be keen to push the idea that
some of the released prisoners may never have been terrorists in the
first place, or that some may have joined Al Qaeda after their detention
(i.e., we provoked them). The obvious point is that this "catch
and release" program has cost more innocent lives, even if some of the
detentions may have been in error. Keeping them locked up did not
cost more lives, despite all the allegations that Gitmo has had some
unproven "recruitment" value as a symbol. The terrorists had no
need for such a symbol, because they couldn't care less about how we
treat our prisoners - since they brutally torture their own. They
already recruited and attacked us for many years before we responded.
May 26, 2009 - Army chief says US ready to be in Iraq 10 years -
Comment: Misleading headline.
There's a big difference between contingency planning (having the force
structure in place to be capable of sustaining prolonged deployments in
the region despite other commitments and global threats) and actually
planning to leave troops deployed in Iraq for another decade. He's
right in terms of Army planning, but this may create some political
headaches as red meat for the liberal media and critics.
May 26, 2009 - UK opposition leader Cameron outlines reforms -
Comment: Imagine the level of frustration at being almost
completely stuck with a government for 5 years, despite poor
performance. American voters should be grateful for the
opportunity to quickly reverse the mistake in 2010.
May 26, 2009 - Candidates to head nuclear agency make their case -
Comment: While North Korea tests another nuclear weapon, the IAEA
can't even reach agreement on picking a new leader. To avoid any
risk of controversy in their selection, none are addressing any of the
most obvious threats. Is it any wonder that North Korea, Iran, and
others make a mockery of the IAEA process, as Saddam did?
May 26, 2009 - AP Analysis: US looking for Russians, Chinese to lead
- Comment: Is this what Joe Biden was talking about, when he
said that Obama would be tested within 6 months and might appear to be
making the wrong decision? With so many wrong decisions already in
just 4 months, it is going to be difficult to choose, but surely this is
a top contender for the prize. It's bad enough to try to pass the
buck to the UN. Why is it such a good idea for Russia and China to
assert their power now, even if they surprise us by actually doing so?
Do we support them collapsing the Pyongyang regime in favor of setting
up a more compliant one to their liking? Isn't that what the
Soviets did in Afghanistan?
May 26, 2009 - UN Amb.: NKorea feeling sting of global scorn -
Comment: "Sting"? Does anybody really believe that the
North Koreans will be talked into changing their belligerent behavior?
Even if Russia and China agree to stronger UN sanctions, North Korea
will scorn them with impunity.
AP Analysis: NKorea's bomb test adds to atomic threat - In the
past, Iran and Venezuela have sent observers to North Korea during
tests, and North Korea was helping Syria. It should be pretty
obvious that the real danger isn't just North Korea, but rather their
history of selling weapons to raise money.
May 24, 2009 - Powell: In GOP, says party must be more inclusive -
Comment: RINO. Note the last line of the story - about
voting for Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter before he endorsed Obama.
Let him join Arlen Specter in the party of his choice, rather than
advise Republicans to accept defeat again.
May 24, 2009 - Fix is hard for Medicare, Social Security finances -
Comment: When in doubt on a difficult and potentially
controversial political problem which may require more taxes for less
benefits, create another commission to punt the problem into the future
while pushing other priorities ahead.
May 24, 2009 - Pakistan troops retake bloody intersection - Comment:
Continued progress, but reporters remain skeptical of the military
reports in the absence of more direct observations of events. They
were always free to report on the latest Taliban atrocities, but those
rarely made the headlines because killing innocent civilians was
expected, rather than something newsworthy to these reporters.
May 24, 2009 - Iran cuts access to Facebook as election looms -
Comment: Before the "Tea Party" movement here took advantage
of Facebook and other social networking channels to rally opposition to
what our political leaders have been doing to us, young Iranians and
people in other countries who face even worse tyranny have already found
their voice and potential for collaboration through online channels.
It's now being blocked by the leadership as a potential threat to their
power.
Meanwhile, the Obama White House staff is
producing their own online propaganda videos and direct online
communications now, much to the chagrin of some members of the White
House press corps.
May 22, 2009 - UN seeks $543 million for Pakistan war refugees -
Comment: Reporters remain skeptical about whether the
Pakistani Army is making the claimed progress. The flow of
refugees out of the area, however, would suggest that they are taking it
to the Taliban now.
May 22, 2009 - GOP seizes on Pelosi charge that CIA lied - Comment:
Republicans are being accused of playing partisan politics on this.
Of course, the Democrats are above that. Meanwhile, our national
security is being damaged by whose attempt to launch a partisan
political vendetta against former Bush officials for past decisions,
instead of doing her own job? Her next press conference should be
interesting. Try to spin out of this fiasco. Will she ever
apologize? Remember how often she used to insist that Bush should
admit mistakes?
May 21, 2009 - See the full speech by Vice President Dick Cheney at
the American Enterprise Institute (
www.aei.org ) as shared by Fox News. It's about 35 minutes,
but well worth the time to review carefully, rather than just listening
to brief news media clips from it.
May 21, 2009 - Compare
Obama's speech and former
VP Dick Cheney's speech today on national security and the war
on terrorism, including Gitmo and interrogations. Obama tried to
wrap himself in the flag and the Constitutional legacy of American
principles and values at the National Archives while basically
insinuating that Bush-Cheney ignored such responsibilities and chose
instead to hastily let the end justify the means. Pot calling the
kettle black?
By the way, the Secretary of
Defense is Robert Gates. Pay attention to the teleprompter.
(Obama got it wrong - as others have done recently). Watch for
Gates to be tossed overboard at the first opportunity, such as a
military crisis for which a scapegoat is needed. He was just a
useful pawn while pushing other agenda priorities, as well as military
spending cuts and changes to Bush policies, including the need to come
up with a closure plan for Gitmo. When a controversial plan
finally emerges, watch for it to be owned politically by Gates - not
Obama.
See
Cheney defends Bush's national security policies as well as the
AP Analysis piece
Obama defends Guantanamo closing - which failed to note the
obvious omissions in the Obama speech, such as any clarity or plans
about where Guantanamo prisoners would go. There wasn't even a
timeline for announcing such a withdrawal plan. For example, if
put on trial and acquitted in US courts, where would these presumed
"innocents" get released? Even if they are moved into US prisons
and don't escape, will that enable them to recruit and build networks of
contacts through other criminals who will be released?
May 21, 2009 - President Obama scheduled his speech at the
National Archives to occur just before the previously scheduled speech
at AEI by VP Dick Cheney, as above. Cheney waited until after
Obama finished his long speech before delivering his prepared remarks as
planned.
May 20, 2009 - Loss of Auto Ads Leads Minority Broadcasters to Plead for
Bailout - Comment: Ironic story from Rush Limbaugh about
unintended consequences - including the impact of auto dealership
closures on many communities (local charitable activities, sales tax
revenues, local print and radio advertising, etc. etc.). Why bail
out local radio stations? Won't that give the federal government
more control over how they are run, and what they say?
May 20, 2009 - Beer tax on tap for health care? - Comment: see
below. The bottom line is that they are trying to find anything at
all to tax because the cost will be massive, and very likely far worse
than their initial projections, like most government spending programs.
Press
release "States
can charge for alcohol-related harm to ease budget deficits" out
of the Marin Institute. So, these wizards in California are
telling politicians to balance their state budgets by raising alcohol
taxes? Ironic, on the same day when Californians voted
overwhelmingly to block tax increases and perhaps try making some budget
cuts instead of trying to legislate and regulate every aspect of how
they think we should live our lives.
May 20, 2009 - Senate rebukes Obama, blocks Guantanamo shutdown -
Comment: This will provide political cover for Obama doing the
obvious - keeping Gitmo open indefinitely, in spite of his Executive
Order without a plan back in January. The 90-6 vote just puts some
of the Democrats on the record as opposed to moving these terrorists
into their own states, which isn't exactly a daring vote when few except
ACLU lawyers think it is a good idea.
May 20, 2009 - Pentagon official: US must take Gitmo prisoners -
Comment: Does anybody else think it is a bit arrogant for an
Obama appointee to lecture members of Congress on their decisions?
Who ever heard of this official before? Who elected her to dictate
what civilians should accept here? There is no good reason to
close Gitmo. It's ideally suited to the unique role for which it
was created. The fact that some liberals and foreigners don't like
it is no excuse for doing something even worse. See the related
story
Judge says US can hold detainees indefinitely
May 20, 2009 - Iran says it tests missile, Israel within range -
Comment: Just in time for the election in Iran, and the Netanyahu
visit to Obama. Is it true? Past claims were not always
reliable, but it is an indication of intent to be able to credibly
threaten Israel or others as soon as possible.
May 19, 2009 - Russian commission to guard against false history -
Comment: This is where tyranny leads - making it a crime
(again) to disagree with the official version of events. How do
liberal academics feel about this? Where is the outrage about the
need for "transparency" or investigations?
May 19, 2009 - Clinton to detail US humanitarian aid to Pakistan -
Comment: $10 million? For an estimated 1.5 million potential
refugees from the fighting in Swat? Do the math. This is the
strategy for winning hearts and minds? Demonstrating Obama's
commitment to the importance of this conflict? See subsequent
Clinton details US humanitarian aid to Pakistan - which reports
2 million refugees and a total of $110 million in aid (some through
State, and some from Defense), without very clear details.
May 19, 2009 - Pakistan races to deal with 1.5 million refugees -
Comment: We ignored the plight of Afghans and Pakistanis after
the Soviets pulled out, and look where it got us. Here is a chance
to win back some hearts and minds - or to reinforce the extremists for a
very long time by ignoring refugees.
May 16, 2009 - Dems' climate bill shy on tax credit help - Comment:
Beware the American Clean Energy and Security Act -
HR 2454 (pdf
text). They changed some provisions to try to make it easier
to ram through this new "cap and trade" policy without people
recognizing the full harmful costs of it at first.
May 16, 2009 - Obama hails efforts on clean energy, health care -
Comment: People aren't coming to the table to support his
plans, but rather to try to avert the damage of being targeted.
This is beginning to resemble a protection racket, like "pay to play"
machine politics.
May 14, 2009 - Obama to revive terror tribunals, with more rights
- Comment: Stalling the Guantanamo question for a few more
months with some minor changes for political cover while higher
priorities on the Obama agenda are pushed forward. Expect Gitmo
closure to be stalled later, too. It will be too politically
sensitive by 2010 to keep his imprudent campaign promises. Easier
to break them.
"Congress
weighs federal aid for health insurance". Let's see now -
they're talking about helping families making under $88,000 to pay for
health insurance, creating a pool of people who would get government
insurance, and other ideas. Meanwhile, Medicare is going broke.
If they can't run the programs now in place, why should we trust them to
do better with all these complex new schemes?
May 13, 2009 - Administration weights pay standards for banks -
Comment: Why should the federal government be setting compensation
standards for banks? Watch for this to extend for other sectors -
and tie into labor union interests as a new way to use government to
pressure management. Note that this may also apply to hedge funds
and other types of financial institutions - not just banks.
May 13, 2009 - Environmental alarms raised over home electronics -
Comment: The International Energy Agency is now targeting the
energy requirements of consumer electronics on the basis of the
hypothetical global warming impact of the energy required to power such
devices. Another excuse for greater multilateral bureaucratic
intervention in our lives to regulate everything which uses any energy.
May 12, 2009 - Social Security, Medicare dwindling in recession -
Comment: Dwindling? Blaming it all on the recession? Is
that the headline? How about "Medicare goes bankrupt in just 8
years now". It is going to cost trillions of dollars to fix this -
and that's not even in the budget deficit projections.
May 9, 2009 - Government blunts activism set off by China quake -
Comment: A good case study of how authoritarian regimes
respond to the threat posed by volunteers and non-governmental social
organizations which can spread the dangerous idea of not relying on
central government for everything.
May 9, 2009 - Russia displays military might on Victory Day -
Comment: Largest show of force since Soviet times as NATO does
training in Georgia. Did you ever notice that we don't celebrate
victory any longer? No more V-E day, V-J day, etc. At least
the Russians still know what they want. How many Americans even
respect Memorial Day as more
than a day off from work, or the start of summer?
May 7, 2009 - Holder: Terrorists won't be set free - Comment:
First they'll declare that they aren't really terrorists, since they
can't prove that they actually received terrorist training at secret
camps, and can't prove that they already killed a bunch of Americans,
instead of just planning with others to do so.
May 7, 2009 - White House: Obama wants to cut $17B from budget -
Comment: Not only are the proposed cuts insignificant relative
to increases, but many of them will probably never happen. This
shell game is just political cover to try to deflect criticism before
pushing for other costly initiatives.
May 6, 2009 - AP sources: Obama to seek $17B in budget savings -
Comment: Let's see now. That's a 0.5% budget cut after
already raising the spending by astronomical amounts. That's like
charging you $100 for something that is worth only $20, and then giving
you a $0.50 discount so that it merely costs you $99.50. Does
anybody but the AP and liberal media take this con game seriously?
A 10% cut from 2008 budget levels might at least be newsworthy as
symbolic progress. Businesses and individuals have already taken
actions to cut their spending dramatically. Why can't government
do it?
May 6, 2009 - Senate hears a dim forecast for newspapers' future
- Comment: Is this really about saving the failing community
newspapers as non-profits, or is this a way for the government to
encourage the rise of sympathetic non-profit news organizations in local
communities with favored tax treatment? Only the for-profit news
organizations would retain the independence to make political
endorsements, while local non-profits could offer totally biased news
coverage without risking their favored tax status. Does this have
any obvious implications for local elections? Why should our
government favor this?
May 6, 2009 - Obama wants to extend voucher program - Comment:
Not really. He really wants to kill this successful voucher
program for students who have fled the failing schools in Washington DC,
but he has agreed to let the existing students finish their program and
graduate to deflect further criticism by the angry parents involved.
He just won't let anybody else go into this program, thus cutting off
their potential path to escape failing schools instead of remaining
victims of their government for life.
Dick
Durbin of Illinois is the specious
politician who parents in DC can thank for killing this successful
school voucher program with the support of Education Secretary Arne
Duncan and the teacher unions. Hopefully voters in Illinois will
remember this betrayal of inner city minority children and rid
themselves of Durbin and others at the first opportunity, which
unfortunately will not come soon enough for many kids.
May 4, 2009 - Obama targets US firms' overseas tax loopholes -
Comment: Let's see now. If we raise the tax burden on US
companies relative to foreign ones, that really helps us, right?
Won't it also encourage foreign companies with lower tax costs and
operating costs to acquire US ones and shift their operations overseas
so that they can be more globally competitive?
This populist move against US multinationals will backfire, just like
the unintended consequences of so many other policies. It won't
generate a lot of extra tax revenue, but it will create more IRS jobs
and drive more business overseas. The labor unions behind this
move are still under the illusion that tax policy can be used to force
American companies to invest in globally uncompetitive operations here.
That statist mentality to push a coercive industrial
policy through government power is a proven failure, as socialist labor
movements around the world have repeatedly demonstrated. The
alleged "loopholes" exist because they were created to alleviate the bad
consequences of self-destructive tax policies.
May 4, 2009 - Fiat is out to create automotive powerhouse - Comment:
Italian history lesson time - What is it called when government power
and money colludes with business to dominate others? Perhaps our
friends in Germany or some Asian countries could help us out on this
question? Try looking up
Fiat's
history. Why is our government pushing Chrysler into Fiat such
a good idea?
Hint for the clueless CNN reporter
at the Tea Party in Chicago: try looking up the word "fascist".
May 4, 2009 - Democrats leave Gitmo closing money out of bill
- Comment: They are punting this further into the future since
they still don't have a plan for the prisoners after their
self-righteous European friends declined to take them when Holder
requested it. It looks as though military tribunals will resume
after all, with some new rules for political cover. In short, they
really want this issue to just go away while the primary focus remains
on pushing the Democratic social agenda in Congress.
See this related story -
Judge orders release of Guantanamo prisoner - as an example of
where this legalistic approach to the war declared by Islamist
terrorists against us is going.
In summary, seizing them before they can be proven to
have been personally responsible for killing Americans already is not
acceptable. Involvement with terrorist groups is not sufficient.
We have to wait until they personally commit a heinous crime, and we
have enough facts to prove it beyond a doubt. This extends
Constitutional legal protections for US citizens (designed to protect
our citizens against potential tyranny by our own leaders) to all of our
foreign enemies worldwide, as though it was our responsibility to
protect all of our enemies from our government, rather than to protect
us. Absurd.
May 4, 2009 - Is the recession suffocating American innovation -
Comment: Patent applications and renewals are down, and may
decline further, despite continued R&D spending. The article fails
to distinguish between American and foreign-owned innovation, despite
the headline.
May 2, 2009 - GOP group launches listening tour to rebrand image -
Comment: Article on TownHall.com about the "National Council for a
New America" tour of town hall meetings organized by Republicans such as
Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, and Haley
Barbour. Notably absent are Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Newt
Gingrich and Mark Sanford. More below.
May 2, 2009 - GOP: Obama's first 100 days all spending, taxing -
Comment: Weekly GOP radio address, this time by Rep. Lynn Jenkins of
Kansas. Nice try, but she still doesn't get it, either. She
is still thinking in terms of Republicans trying to suggest other ideas
while Democrats do as they please. The Republicans already made
that approach irrelevant through their many losses in November 2008.
They don't have the votes necessary to have an impact. We the
people do - as Arlen Specter noticed.
May 2, 2009 - Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) Opinion in the Wall Street
Journal -
How Republicans Can Build a Big Tent Party - Comment: At least
he seems to be starting to "get it" - "The real mistake is that
Republicans became more concerned with staying in D.C. than reforming
it."
That's right - limited federal government powers to
rule over us applies to Republicans, too. We are not looking for
marginally better approaches to the relentless expansion of government
intervention, taxes, debt, and spending in our lives. We are
looking to roll back the role of the federal government by standing up
again for liberty and individual responsibility, including state and
local governance issues.
May 1, 2009 - McCain Heads GOP Road Show?- Comment: Rush
Limbaugh shares the perception of many that this new "National Council
for a New America" initiative by a handful of Republican leaders is a
farce which is doomed to failure. They still don't get it.
Ditto for
www.ResurgentRepublic.com
Eric Cantor tried to clarify that this was a
"conversation with America" rather than an attempt to "re-brand" the
GOP. See this
blog post on RedState about the conference call. Even it misses the
point about trying to "re-introduce Republican principles to the
people". Hello? Arrogance alert! We the people
never lost our principles - it's the Republicans in Congress who lost
theirs by thinking that the world revolves around them and their latest
new federal policy ideas or symbolic but meaningless votes.
Maybe they should watch Glenn Beck's May 1 show on Fox News about
the Tea Party movement. Better yet, the Republicans should
invite all of the Tea Party organizers and any attendees who wish to
join them to meet, and then to actually listen to them instead of doing
town halls to test-market policy ideas and rhetoric in preparation for
their 2010 campaigns. Get out of the bubble of fawning sycophants
and listen to those whose trust you have lost.
News Headlines, Links, and Comments
for April 2009 - see News
Archives
Note
that at www.Breitbart.com you can
see reader comments about the articles by following the "Show Comments"
link which is found at the bottom of each article. Since most
articles no longer show up for visitors there within 24 hours, many
articles have few comments unless they were very hot topics that day.
The AP often releases multiple versions of the same story, even with
very minor revisions, in which case a new page is created for each
version. That causes reader comments to be scattered across
multiple versions of the story. We do not attempt to link to every
version of the story.
At
some point links may no longer work because the other websites involved
will purge their content, but a Google search for the same headline may
still find them through other sources for reference.
This
tool was created to make it easier for conservative voters to go back
and find relevant political stories long after they have disappeared
from the current headlines. In some cases these stories were
hardly even mentioned at the time in the liberal news media, or quickly
disappeared from the news, so many voters may be completely unaware of
them. Some of the stories display obvious bias by the reporters,
but readers can be the judge of that. The comments reflect our own
editorial opinion on these stories.
For those who may not yet be familiar with The Christian
Science Monitor, it is an excellent objective source of independent
national and global reporting. We have no affiliation with it, but
respect it highly as a news source which focuses on more in-depth
research and analysis than just the latest bad news event of the day.
The
inclusion of any website links on this site does not reflect any endorsement
of their content, or vice versa. This information is just shared
openly for the convenient reference of our visitors.
