Part 7--September, 2009

* 9/1/09--"The situation in Afghanistan is serious, demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve and increased unity of effort." -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, in an assessment of the war that likely will lead to a request for more troops.-NY Post

* 9/2/09--THIS week's polls are a disaster for President Obama. The Rasmussen poll has his approval dropping to 45 percent, after several weeks at 49 percent. The Zogby poll has it even lower -- at 42 percent. Worse yet, he's losing his political base: * People under 30 -- long a key element of his support -- give him no better than break-even ratings, with 41 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving of the job he's doing, according to Zogby. Only 75 percent of Democrats, who formerly have supported Obama strongly, now approve of his performance in office. Zogby reports that this represents a slide of more than 10 points over the summer. Even among blacks, only 74 percent approve of the job he's doing (also a drop of more than 10 points). Hispanics, who voted for him by a margin of more than 40 points, now break even (36-36) when rating his performance. Independents, the key swing group in our politics, now deliver a sharply negative 37-50 verdict on Obama's job performance. The elderly also give him negative ratings by 42-51. --NY Post

* 9/2/09--Has he no shame? Of course not. He's Charlie Rangel, head of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee -- who can't be bothered to tend to his own tax returns, but now intends to punish ordinary folks for making arguably minor mistakes on their forms. The Post's Charles Hurt reported yesterday that Rangel's committee seeks to reduce legal defenses and increase fines and penalties on taxpayers undergoing IRS scrutiny for what they assert are innocent errors. Among other things, Rangel's bill would even prohibit the IRS from forgiving taxpayers who erred in good faith -- though that would be a very generous interpretation of his own tax troubles. In just the last year, Rangel has been forced to file late-disclosure reports involving millions from land transfers and unreported business deals. Such transgressions should preclude Rangel from even voting on tax legislation, let alone writing any. Indeed, we wouldn't be all that surprised in the least if there were a Charlie Rangel exclusion clause written into the IRS-crackdown bill discovered by Hurt. Just kidding. But it's no joke. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to remove Rangel from his Ways & Means chairmanship. He has long since lost the credibility necessary for a sensitive House position -- and if Pelosi doesn't move on Rangel soon, she's going to be in the same boat.--NY Post Editorial

* 9/3/09--WASHINGTON -- Charlie Rangel's "forgetfulness" is apparently contagious. Two of his top aides are among about a dozen highly paid staffers on the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee who have filed a flurry of amendments correcting their financial-disclosure statements since 2002. Jim Capel, chief of staff for Rangel's personal office, failed to file any such statements for six years. On the afternoon of July 14, Capel filed five years' worth of delinquent reports. Capel told The Post yesterday it was a simple oversight. "I am sorry for not making these filings in the timely manner as required," he said. "My failure was not done for no other reason than I just forgot to do so." Another serial mis-filer working for Rangel is George Dalley, who is legal counsel in Rangel's personal office. Dalley has amended his statements four times since 2002. In his 2007 statement, he failed to disclose as much as $150,000 in rental income on two properties in DC. The House Ethics Committee also discovered that Dalley had failed to report as much as $45,000 in business transactions he made in 2006. On his 2004 statement, he failed to report as much as $47,000 in income. Capel and Dalley are among about a dozen top staffers for the Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel chairs, and Rangel's personal office who have filed a combined 24 amendments over the past seven years.--NY Post

* 9/3/09--First it was Gov. Paterson. Now the dean of New York's congressional delegation has played the race card -- and just as the governor did, he's using President Obama to do it. Rep. Charles Rangel said Tuesday that "bias" and "prejudice" toward Obama are fueling opposition to health-care reform. Those incendiary comments came on the heels of Paterson's controversial comments about race that also mentioned the nation's first black president. "Some Americans have not gotten over the fact that Obama is president of the United States. They go to sleep wondering, 'How did this happen?' " Rangel (D-Manhattan) said Tuesday. Speaking at a health-care forum in Washington Heights, Rangel said that when critics complain that Obama is "trying to interfere" with their lives by pushing for health-care reform, "then you know there's just a misunderstanding, a bias, a prejudice, an emotional feeling." "We're going to have to move forward notwithstanding that," said Rangel, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a chief health-care negotiator. Rangel then likened the battle over health-care expansion for the uninsured to the fight for civil rights. "Why do we have to wait for the right to vote? Why can't we get what God has given us? That is the right to live as human beings and not negotiate with white southerners and not count the votes. Just do the right thing," he said. Rangel's comments came less than two weeks after Paterson claimed he has been the victim of a racist white media -- and also suggested that opposition to Obama's plan is racially driven.

* 9/3/09-- In the dark days of the Iraq war when valiant U.S. troops faced down multiple enemies who obeyed no rules of war, President Bush never panicked. Even when his approval rating dropped below 35%, the president slugged it out for better or for worse, depending on your worldview. The same cannot be said for President Obama, who is now reeling from the pressure of his collapsing health care vision. The latest evidence of this was a posting on the "Organizing for America" website that was set up by Mr. Obama in January and is housed at the Democratic National Committee. The message, since scrubbed from the website, said this in part: "Stay at home [for Health Care Organizing Day.] Call your Senators that day [September 11] ... as we fight back against our own right-wing domestic terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox propaganda network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders."Again, that posting came from an organization created by President Obama. And even though somebody saw the insanity of the words and removed them, if this isn't panic, than nothing is.--Bill O'Reilly, Fox News

* 9/3/09--The Obama administration is rethinking its course recommendations for students ahead of President Obama's address to the nation's schoolchildren next week, rewriting its suggestions to teachers for student assignments on how to "help the president." White House aides said the language was supposed to be an inspirational, pro-education message to America's youths, but its unintended consequences were evident. Among the activities initially suggested for pre-K to 6th grade students was to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." Another assignment for students after hearing the speech was to discuss what "the president wants us to do." The suggestion about writing letters has since been changed to: "Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals."--Fox News

* 9/3/09--THE classified status report from Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley McChrystal was censored by the White House before its submission. As a result, it's all bun and no burger. According to multiple (angry) sources, McChrystal -- our top soldier on the ground -- intended to ask for 28,000 more US troops. A presidential hatchet man directed the general not to make the request: Troop increases would be "addressed separately." Worried about his poll numbers, our president's making a bad situation worse. He's given McChrystal the impossible mission of turning Afghan Flintstones into Jetsons, while starving him of means. This violates a fundamental principle of the American way of war: Once the president assigns the mission, the commander must receive due consideration when he asks for the necessary resources. Obama's message to McChrystal was "Just don't ask." -Ralph Peters, NY Post

* 9/4/09--An adviser to President Obama once voiced suspicion that 9/11 was an inside job by the Bush White House, it was reported yesterday. Van Jones signed a petition in 2004 calling for an investigation into whether "people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war." Jones is a member of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the author of a best-selling book that argues that creating "green jobs" will benefit the economy and poorer Americans...On Wednesday, Jones apologized for saying during a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley in February that Republicans would try to make trouble for Obama "because they are a - -holes." --Andy Soltis--With Post Wire Services

* 9/4/09--The long list of Obama's czars, accountable to no one except Obama himself, is one of his most worrisome and expensive notions. The czars may be substitutes for the nearly half of Obama Administration's executive-branch positions that remain unfilled. The czars' salaries are paid by the U.S. taxpayers but they are not confirmed by the Senate, yet they appear to have the authority to override those who are confirmed. Lack of Senate confirmation means we must rely on Glenn Beck to discover that the Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, is or was a communist and a self-described "rowdy black nationalist." So far, Obama has appointed 34 czars. Just listing them is enough to scare anyone who believes in constitutional and representative government: Afghanistan Czar, AIDS Czar, Border Czar, Car Czar, Climate Czar, Copyright Czar, Cyberspace Czar, Drug Czar, Economic Czar, Education Czar, Energy Czar, Executive Pay Czar, Faith-Based Czar, Great Lakes Czar, Green Jobs Czar, Guantanamo Closure Czar, Health Reform Czar, Infotech Czar, Intelligence Czar, Iran Czar, Middle East Peace Czar, Non-Proliferation Czar, Persian Gulf/SE Asia Czar, Regulatory Czar, Science Czar, Stimulus Accountability Czar, Sudan Czar, TARP Czar, Terrorism Czar, Urban Czar, War Czar, and WMD and Terrorism Czar. At least one Obama pal is functioning in a similar capacity without the awesome Russian title of czar. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who publicly withdrew from the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services because of non-payment of income taxes, is providing "outside advice" to the President inside the Oval Office and to top White House officials, while continuing as a highly paid policy adviser to hospital and pharmaceutical clients of a law and lobbying firm. Daschle is not registered as a lobbyist; he identifies himself as a "resource" to government and industry. It looks like Daschle has the best of all worlds, both for influence and remuneration. The senior Senate Democrat, Robert Byrd of West Virginia (who is third in line for the U.S. presidency after Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi), wrote Obama in February saying that these czar appointments are a power grab by the executive branch and violate both the constitutional system of checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers. He said they are a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight. The President is entitled to have his own advisers, but these czars are directly dictating policy, and nobody really knows the extent of their powers. Whatever happened to Obama's campaign promise of transparency? Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has introduced the Czar Accountability and Reform Act (H.R. 3226) to cut off the salaries of these czars (estimated at $172,000 plus their staffs of 10+ people). It's unlikely that the Democratic Congress will let this bill see the light of day.--Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum

* 9/4/09--'THIS is the first telephone call of a brand- new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally? We are participating in history as it is being made. . . Bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely. . . We can really move the needle and get stuff done." That was Yossi Sergant, communications director for the National Endowment for the Arts, on an Aug. 10 conference call that looks a lot like an effort to get recipients of government grants to lobby for the Obama agenda. The NEA, along with the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve (the administration's volunteerism initiative), had invited 75 members of the arts community to listen to a discussion supposedly about national service. But one invitee, film producer Patrick Courrielche, soon blogged that the call turned out to be an effort to get participants to push the administration's agenda: "They told us: We had played a key role in the election and now Obama was putting out the call of service to help create change. We knew 'how to make a stink,' and were encouraged to do so." In other words, the nation's top funder of the arts was abusing its position as custodian of taxpayer dollars to promote the Obama agenda. This is unprecedented. As a former National Endowment for the Humanities official told me, "Nowhere, as far as I know, has there been even the suspicion that federal agencies under any administration have been enlisted by the administration to further specific legislation or legislative goals. And that's what happened. [They said,] 'We want to make art that will specifically advance Obama's agenda.' " It may be a crime: Federal agencies can't use public funds to lobby. At the least, it sounds huge conflict-of-interest alarms. A government agency enlisting grantees and potential grantees to do partisan favors? Sergant clearly knew what he was asking. He reportedly said, "I would encourage you to pick something. Whether it is health-care, education, the environment. . . There's four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service. And then my ask would be to apply your artistic, creative utilities. Bring them to the table. Again, I'm really, really honored to be working with you." --NY Post

* 9/4/09--(AP) THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- A clash over health-care reform ended with one man biting off another man's pinky. About 100 people were rallying for health reforms Wednesday night on a street corner when a protester walked across the street to confront about 25 counterdemonstrators. He got into a fist fight with an opponent -- and bit off his left pinky. The 65-year-old victim had Medicare, and his finger was reattached in surgery. The attacker fled. (The attacker was pro-Obamacare)

* 9/5/09--(AP) WASHINGTON -- The White House is taking a mostly tight-lipped stance on an environmental adviser who has been linked to efforts suggesting a governmental role in 9/11. When asked yesterday whether President Obama still had confidence in "green jobs" adviser Van Jones, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration." (On Saturday night, Jones sent a midnight email with his resignation.)

* 9/5/09--Unemployment last month soared to its highest rate since June 1983 --(a 26 year high)-- a surprise jump reigniting the debate over the Obama administration's huge stimulus package that has failed to revive the economy. The jobless rate hit 9.7 percent in August and the White House predicted it will exceed 10 percent before the country recovers. Economists had forecast a rate last month of around 9.4 to 9.5 percent, where it's been since May, amid optimism that the downturn had hit bottom. (AP)

* 9/8/09--Why was former president Zelaya driven from his would-be throne in Tegucigalpa? He tried to subvert Honduras' Constitution and set himself up as president-for-life. In June, the elected legislators and the Honduran Supreme Court had enough. As Zelaya aligned with Chavez, the Castro regime, Nicaraguan caudillo Daniel Ortega and other extreme leftists, the Honduran government gave the would-be dictator the boot. Acting under legal orders, the army peacefully arrested Zelaya and shipped him out of the country. No murders, no Chavez-style imprisonments. It was not a military coup. An elected congress and interim president, not a general, run the country today. But the Obama administration has decided that this "violation" is so dreadful that we won't even recognize future free elections in Honduras. Well, President Obama's taste in elections is finicky:

* He'll recognize the utterly bogus results of Afghanistan's corrupt election.

* He initially blessed the results of Iran's rigged election. (He was for it before he was against it.)

* He hasn't spoken one word of criticism as Chavez continues to strangle Venezuelan democracy.

* He hasn't questioned the divisive, racist politics of Presidente Evo Morales in Bolivia.

* He hasn't demanded free elections in Cuba -- instead, he's easing up on the Castro regime.

But we're going to show those wicked Hondurans, by George! They can't boot out a crazy leftwing president just because he's trying to subvert their Constitution. Honduras is a small country. But the principle and precedent loom hugely. Have we abandoned democracy entirely? In favor of backing anti-American dictators? This is beyond madness. Did our president's (self-avowed) Marxist friends convince him that Che Guevara really was a hero? --Ralph Peters, NY Post

--The Obama administration has repeatedly ignored Honduras' right to self-determination with measures that make the Left's cry of "American imperialism" during the Bush years seem like child's play. The U.S. State Department has cut off vital aid to Honduras and has denied its citizens U.S. visas, all to make it bend to the will of Obama, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. "It is imperative that dialogue begin," Hillary Clinton declared, and "that there be a channel of communication between President Zelaya and the de facto regime in Honduras." Memo to Hillary: Zelaya is no longer president, his legal term in office has expired, and the "de facto regime" is a legitimate transitional government until elections can take place. Regardless, the U.S. State Department has declared that it will not recognize the outcome of the upcoming elections on Nov. 29 unless Zelaya is returned to power.--Patriot Post

* 9/8/09--THE Obama administration is getting ready to throw the proposed Eastern European-based US missile-defense system under the bus. The move is a sop to the Russians (and to lefties here at home) -- but will render us increasingly vulnerable to the growing Iranian nuclear/missile threat. It's sheer madness -- yet another major foreign-policy fumble in its Pollyanna-ish effort to make everything right with the world. True to form, the Obama-viks are bending over backward to please the Russkies in hopes they'll finally come around on helping curb Iran's runaway nuclear and missile programs. As a result, Team Obama will likely can the W-era missile-defense system slated for Poland and the Czech Republic. The system would defend us (and Europe) from Iranian nukes/missiles, but the Russians hate it because it's in their old stompin' grounds.
Not only does this make us look weak by giving in to the Russian demand, there's also the delicious irony that Moscow is largely responsible for the Iran problem today, dating back to help the Kremlin gave the mullahs in the 1990s. --Peter Brookes, NY Post

* 9/9/09--President Obama yesterday delivered his much-anticipated back-to-school speech to the nation's schoolkids and -- surprise, surprise -- there was nothing political or contentious about it. The president, appearing at a Virginia high school, urged students to work hard, complete their assignments and "be careful what you post on Facebook." Pretty tame stuff. Which is why Democrats are asking why conservatives raised such a stink about the speech in the first place. Too bad they didn't take the same attitude back in 1991 -- when the first President George Bush made a similar address at a Washington, DC, high school. Then, the Democrats went ballistic. As Byron York of the Washington Examiner notes, they attacked Bush's speech as campaign propaganda. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president," said Dick Gephardt, then the House majority leader. And they didn't stop there -- Democrats actually hauled top administration officials, including Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, before the House Education and Labor Committee to explain the use of "scarce education funds to produce a media event." They even ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate -- which it did, concluding that there was nothing improper about either Bush's speech or the use of $26,750 in DOE funds. And note that, back then, the issue that had Democrats screaming bloody murder was the mere fact of Bush's speech itself -- not, as in Obama's case, the White House's creepy lesson plan, which at one point encouraged students to develop strategies to "help the president." Hypocritical? But of course. They're Democrats.--NY Post Editorial

* 9/10/09--Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced legislation Tuesday that would add nine permanent seats to the circuit courts and 38 to the district courts. It would also add some temporary judgeships on both levels, make five temporary judgeships permanent, and extend a temporary judgeship in the Northern District of Ohio. The bill has 17 cosponsors — all Democrats. Last year, a similar bill from Leahy drew 21 cosponsors, including six Republicans. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a former Judiciary Committee chairman, was among the earlier supporters. A major reason for the change is the new bill’s effective date. It would become law immediately after passage, giving President Barack Obama more opportunities to influence the next generation of the judiciary. The previous bill, introduced in March 2008 well before the November election, would have taken effect Jan. 21, 2009, the day after the new president’s inauguration.--LegalTimes.com

* 9/10/09--President Barack Obama this week has been laying the foundation for Senate Democrats to use a controversial budget maneuver to pass healthcare reform. By offering Republicans olive branches during his address to Congress on Wednesday, Obama has set up a win-win situation. If GOP lawmakers embrace compromise, a healthcare bill would pass Congress easily. But the more likely scenario is that Republicans will continue to oppose Obama’s plan, and the president later this fall will be able to note he tried to strike a deal with the GOP but could not. That will set up a Democratic argument that Senate leaders have been forced to use a partisan budget tool known as reconciliation to pass a health bill through the Senate by a simple majority, instead of 60 votes. Under the budget plan they passed earlier this year, Democrats could invoke the reconciliation process on Oct. 15. Republicans contend that the use of reconciliation would be at odds with Obama’s call for bipartisanship during his 2008 presidential campaign. But Obama has countered that argument in recent days by forcefully resurrecting the anti-Washington rhetoric that got him elected.--TheHill.com

* 9/11/09--WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't budge yesterday on her position that New York Rep. Charles Rangel should remain chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, despite new calls for his ouster. "I do not think he should step aside," Pelosi told reporters yesterday. She said that Rangel's fate should be decided by the House Ethics Committee, a secretive panel that has twice expanded its investigation of the embattled chairman but has given no indication when its probe will be completed. The probe covers numerous allegations, including that Rangel failed to pay taxes on income from a vacation home.--NY Post

* 9/12/09--WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal deficit surged higher into record territory in August, hitting $1.38 trillion with one month left in the budget year.

* 9/12/09--Nine months into Obama's presidency, conservatives gathered en masse to march on Washington in protest of big government, high taxes, and government-run health care. Estimates for the crowd size have varied between 500,000 and 1 million, with Americans flying and driving in from all corners of the country for the one-day event. Pennsylvania Avenue was flooded with people from the White House to the Capitol for most of the morning, and when everyone finally reached the Capitol lawn, it was standing room only. A line-up of speakers rallied the crowd and provided a schedule of events, though as the morning progressed, there was little that could be done to contain the participants or their chants. Signs were everywhere, with messages such as "We the People...are coming," "Lies, commies and czars, oh my," and "I'll keep my freedom, my religion, and my money... you can keep the change!" Rep. Joe Wilson provided a focus for many protesters during the event. Wilson yelled "You lie!" during Obama's speech on health care just three days earlier, and received sharp condemnation from both Republican and Democrat colleagues in and outside of Congress. But protesters' chants and signs made it clear that they favored both Wilson's convictions and the way he voiced them.--TownHall.com

--Charlie Martin of Pajamas Media pegged the actual size at around 850,000 after performing a series of calculations based upon known facts such as the size of the National Mall, National Park Service definitions of what constitutes a crowd (one person per five square feet), and the number of marchers who passed down Pennsylvania Avenue in a three-hour period. If this number is correct, then it was about the same size of the crowd that attended Obama's inauguration. That event was originally estimated at two million but was later quietly reduced after careful study of satellite photos of the Mall.--Patriot Post

* 9/12/09--It’s very easy to be outraged by the way our "objective" media greeted the massive September 12 rally against Big Government in Washington and across the country. They treated it as a menacing surge of white anger, meanness, and racism. But all the media bias against this rally clearly illustrates one nagging truth for media liberals: they really don’t think conservatives should be allowed to protest. It’s somehow like a copyright violation. On Monday night’s "Countdown," MSNBC’s David Shuster found the protest united "in apparent hatred of the current president, Barack Obama." It was undemocratic, a sign of people not accepting election results, and Shuster even suggested Sen. Jim DeMint’s speech at the rally signaled he favored a "military coup." The unglued anchorman also dismissed the crowd as "white, whiter, and whitest," all attending an "intolerance festival." --Media Research Center

* 9/14/09--The small scandal showing an embarrassing video of Baltimore ACORN staffers looking like they were giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel, is now national news. -- This story has everything you could ever want – corruption, sleazy actions at tax-funded organizations, firings, government ties, sex, hookers. It is a network news director’s dream. Imagine the ratings! Only almost no one is covering it. This is the news media in the era of Van Jones and President Obama. The major outlets cover what they want and create the themes they want. When they find something inconvenient, they let it pass. They didn’t like the Van Jones story, so they ignored it. The network news media liked the financial entity known as Fannie Mae, so they ignored that scandalous organization for years. ACORN is getting the same treatment.--FoxNews

* 9/16/09--Along party lines, the House delivered an unprecedented official rebuke yesterday to one of its members for shouting, "You lie!" during President Obama's televised health-care speech. The 240-to-179 vote said the House "disapproves" of Rep. Joe Wilson's "breach of decorum" and said the South Carolina Republican had "degraded the proceedings" and brought "discredit" to the body. It was the first time in the 220-year history of the House that a member was admonished for speaking out while the president was giving an address before a joint session of Congress. Wilson apologized to the White House after his outburst, but said yesterday there were "far more important issues" confronting the nation. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus said failing to condemn Wilson would encourage anti-Obama street protests, which they called racist and likened to the Ku Klux Klan. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) warned of "people putting on white hoods, white uniforms again . . . if this kind of attitude is not rebuked." --Post Wire Services with AP

* 9/16/09--The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet. Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the White House signaled that it would insist on open dealings with Internet users and, in fact, should feel obliged to disclose that it is collecting such information....Defenders of the White House actions said the Presidential Records Act requires that the administration gather the information and that it was justified in taking the additional step of asking a private contractor to "crawl and archive" all such material....Mr. Obama signed a memo in January stating that his efforts to maintain an open government would be "unprecedented" and "ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration." An Obama campaign document on technology pledged that, as president, Mr. Obama "will strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and will harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy." In a June 5, 2008, article in PC Magazine, Mr. Obama said, "The open information platforms of the 21st century can also tempt institutions to violate the privacy of citizens. We need sensible safeguards that protect privacy in this dynamic new world." The National Legal and Policy Center, a government ethics watchdog, said archiving the sites would have a "chilling effect" on Web site users who might wish to leave comments critical of the administration. Ken Boehm, a lawyer and chairman of the center, also disputed that the presidential records law applies, because the comments are pasted onto a third-party Web page and not official correspondence with the president. "If the White House has nothing to hide, why is this cloaked in secrecy? Why won't they make the dollar amount this is going to cost public?"

* 9/16/09--House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has released a helpful, updated primer for members regarding their conduct on the floor and in committees.... it has been held that a member could not:
• call the president a “liar.”

• call the president a “hypocrite.”

• describe the president’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”

• charge that the president has been “intellectually dishonest.”

• refer to the president as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”

• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the president’s part.”--Politico.com

* 9/17/09--(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he’ll hold off deciding whether to add more U.S. troops to the war in Afghanistan, as Democratic lawmakers raised concerns that he lacks a clear plan and measures of progress.

* 9/17/09--WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is poised to vote to push private lenders out of the federal college loan business and massively expand the government's own lending program. Lawmakers debated a student aid bill Wednesday that has widespread support, including from the White House. The measure is expected to win passage Thursday and go next to the Senate. Proponents of putting the government in charge of all federal loans say it would save an estimated $87 billion, though this figure has been disputed....Changes in federal student aid would fulfill a campaign promise by President Barack Obama and transform a long-standing partnership between the government and the private sector. Republican critics argue it is wrong to put the government in near-total control of student lending. "Ask yourselves whether another government takeover is what we need right now," said Minnesota Rep. John Kline, senior Republican on the Education Committee. Many also worry about job losses in their districts....Private lenders employ more than 30,000 people whose jobs depend on the subsidized loan program, and the industry says many would be laid off....

* 9/17/09-- (CNN) -- The Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday. The U.S. has been testing the ability of ground-based interceptor missiles to hit long-range ballistic missiles. The comment followed similar statements from officials in Poland and the Czech Republic -- where key elements of the system were to be located -- but was the first confirmation from an American official. Vice President Joe Biden earlier refused to confirm to CNN that the George W. Bush-era plan was being shelved. But he did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran -- a key concern for the United States -- was not a threat.

* 9/18/09--STILL determined to "push the reset button with Russia," President Obama hit the delete key on our allies in Eastern Europe. Obama's decision to abandon missile defense as we know it, cutting the throats of Poland and the Czech Republic, handed Moscow's hard-liners their biggest win since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin insisted all along that we'd never be permitted to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in the former Soviet empire. He was right. And Obama got nothing in return. No Russian commitments on Iran's nuclear program. No sovereignty guarantees for Georgia. No restrictions on arms sales to Venezuela. Not even a bearhug.--Ralph Peters, NY Post

--Coincidentally, the announcement on Thursday involved particularly bad timing, coming on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland after the Nazis attacked from the west. “The fact that the administration chose this day to announce new plans for this missile defense shield says a lot about the people in the White House who are making the decisions about central Europe,” said Slawomir Debski, director of the Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw.--NY Times

--"It's just, unambiguously, a bad decision," said John Bolton, former UN ambassador in George W. Bush's administration.

--"Russia and Iran are the big winners. I just think it's a bad day for American national security." Sen. John McCain, Obama's Republican rival in the presidential race, called the reversal "seriously misguided."

--On the other hand, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was a "brilliant" move and described it as a "giant step forward."

--IF diplomatic pusillanimity were the aim, President Obama's decision to abandon our current missile-defense plans in Eastern Europe must be regarded as a masterstroke. With just one announcement, the administration undercut two loyal allies, rewarded Russian bullying and diminished our ability to counter an emerging Iranian threat. If there were awards for self-defeating weakness, this move would deserve a "Neville" for Appeasement in a Perpetually Threatened Region. --Rich Lowry, National Review

--In "return," the erstwhile Soviets now indicate that they will not support any additional sanctions on Iran -- a threat they can back up with UN Security Council veto power. Why offer any concessions when Obama so readily gives up? (Incidentally, Obama claims that by quitting on missile defense, he is actually going to "strengthen America's defenses against ballistic-missile attack.")--Patriot Post

* 9/18/09--Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale. What to do? Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon: The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.... Considering all the logistics, each tomato she purchased had a carbon footprint of several tons. --Dana Milbank, Washington Post

* 9/18/09--President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage. He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants. "Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else. Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all." Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care. --Washington Times

* 9/18/09--WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that the anti-government rhetoric over President Obama's health-care reform effort is concerning because it reminds her of the violent debate over gay rights that roiled San Francisco in the 1970s. Anyone voicing hateful or violent rhetoric, she told reporters, must take responsibility for the results. "I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco," Pelosi said, suddenly speaking quietly. "This kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate in which violence took place." --AP (The only violence to date, was against a black man who protested Obama's plan and was beaten up by pro-Obama union thugs for it, and against man protesting Obama's plan who had his fingertip bitten off by a pro-reform advocate.)

* 9/18/09--NEW YORK (AFP) - The Federal Reserve would be required to approve salaries for tens of thousands of US bank workers, as part of a plan to curb risk-taking at financial institutions, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. "The Fed's plan would, for the first time, inject government regulators deep into compensation decisions traditionally reserved for the banks' corporate boards and executives," the report said. The proposal would see the Fed empowered to ban any compensation policies it believes encourage bank employees -- from chief executives, to traders, to loan officers -- to take too much risk.

* 9/18/09--Last week, when four U.S. Marines were killed in an ambush while training Afghan soldiers, the ROE were to blame. Eight Afghan troops and the Marine commander's Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle that took place in the village of Ganjgal, near the Pakistan border. The Marines came under heavy fire from jihadis hidden in the hills near the village, where women and children were helping to replenish the insurgents' ammunition. Citing the new ROE implemented by the Obama regime, designed to minimize Afghan civilian casualties, U.S. commanders repeatedly rejected calls from the Marines for artillery and air support aimed at the jihadis, who were dug into the slopes around the village but not in the village proper. The lack of air support led to a fierce firefight and directly contributed to the Marines' deaths. This is nothing short of criminal. While minimizing civilian casualties is proper, we are at war, and defeating the enemy is priority one. War-fighting decisions must be made by the troops who are actually in battle, not by cynical, agenda-driven politicians safely ensconced in their posh DC offices.--Patriot Post

* 9/19/09--WASHINGTON -- Seven former CIA directors asked President Obama yesterday to quash a criminal probe of harsh interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration. The CIA directors, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents, made their request in a letter yesterday. The incidents were referred to the Justice Department during the Bush administration, but Justice officials at the time prosecuted only one case. "If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless," they wrote. The seven former CIA directors include Michael Hayden, Porter Goss and George Tenet, who served under George W. Bush; John Deutch and James Woolsey, who worked for Bill Clinton; William Webster, who served under George H.W. Bush; and James Schlesinger, who worked for Richard Nixon. (AP)

* 9/19/09--WARSAW, Poland -- Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern yesterday at President Obama's decision to scrap a missile-defense shield planned for their countries. "Betrayal! The US sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back," the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page. Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama's new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous "gray zone" between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere. "Russia is testing us. It is testing how much we are afraid of it. It's a pity that we won't be able to complete the test," said former Czech President Vaclav Havel. (AP)

* 9/19/09--THE audience at President Obama's "fixing Wall Street" speech at Federal Hall this week was packed with Democratic donors and lefty community organizers. Of course, the White House can invite whoever it likes to such events -- but the rest of us ought to ponder the message contained in that guest list. After all, candidate Barack Obama slammed the Bush administration as "the most politicized" in history for rewarding cronies with perks. Indeed, Democrats had savaged the Bushies for inviting donors to social receptions at the White House; one anti-war group even sued because tickets to the 2005 inaugural parade had gone to Bush backers. It's thus significant that the crowd invited to hear Obama deliver what the White House billed as a major policy address outlining the president's vision for financial reform was full of people who arguably helped cause the economic meltdown. --Meghan Clyne, NY Post

* 9/20/09--Why does (Obama) continue to squander the public trust he worked so hard to build and that he will need for the many battles to come? The central problem is his relentless push for health legislation the public doesn’t want. The harder he pushes — five TV interviews are scheduled for today — the more the country resists. One result is a shocking trust deficit, as reflected in a recent Quinnipiac survey. By a whopping 68 – 26 percent margin, voters in Connecticut reported they don’t believe Obama when he says the health care plan will not add to the deficit. The findings mirror national ones reported in July. Imagine that — an American president is not believed on his signature claim by nearly 7 in 10 people. Yet he insists, without evidence, he is right and they are wrong. A president can go broke fighting public trust. As it stands, Obama will soon be like the little boy who called wolf too often. Surely he knows how that story ends, so why continue on this destructive course? That’s the mystery.--Michael Goodwin, NY Post

* 9/20/09--Here we go again: The badly misnamed UN Human Rights Council last week delivered a scathing — and outrageously one-sided — report on last winter's three-week conflict in Gaza. The report denounced Israel for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" and urged the Security Council to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice for criminal prosecution. This, just hours after the United States joined the discredited council, which the Bush administration had boycotted because of (among other outrages) its blatant anti-Israel record....But its findings were predictable from the start — given that the resolution authorizing the initial investigation declared that Israel "has caused massive violations of human rights." Which is why numerous states — including Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the European Union — refused to support the probe. And why even a longtime critic of Israel, Mary Robinson, denounced that mandate as "not balanced, because it focuses on what Israel did, without calling for an investigation on the launch of rockets by Hamas" at Israeli civilians. And get this: A member of the investigating mission, Prof. Christine Chinkin, had actually signed statements denouncing Israel's actions in Gaza as "an act of aggression and . . . contrary to international law." No wonder Israel declined to cooperate with such an obviously biased probe....Little wonder, then, that a senior Hamas official hailed the report as "ammunition in the hands of the people who are willing to sue Israeli war criminals." More honest observers will recognize the report for what it is: the predetermined verdict of a kangaroo court.--NY Post Editorial

* 9/21/09--Even as President Obama vowed last week that he's "a strong believer" in the free market, he and his DC pals were moving to undermine it. The most troubling sign: The Wall Street Journal's story about a Federal Reserve plan to play a role in setting pay for tens of thousands of bank workers nationwide. That alone makes hair stand on end. But Americans might have shuddered -- or scratched their heads, anyway -- even as Obama was giving his big speech on the need for financial regulation. "We've worked closely with leaders in the Senate and the House," the president said -- singling out his "good friend" Mass. Rep. Barney Frank and Conn. Sen. Chris Dodd. "And we intend to pass regulatory reform through Congress." --Op/Ed NY Post

* 9/21/09--WASHINGTON -- During his first eight months in office, President Obama has sat down for three times as many television interviews as his most recent two predecessors combined. And with yesterday's run of the Sunday-morning news show circuit and tonight's airing of "Late Night with David Letterman," Obama continues to blaze through the media hotter than any political figure in modern history. "He's turning the presidency into an infomercial," warned former White House speechwriter Matt Latimer. "It's not just damaging to the White House. It will also ultimately hurt President Obama's image as a fresh, non-Washington leader." The media blitz has won Obama unprecedented wall-to-wall coverage in the mainstream media. In the New York Times alone, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, 405 stories on the Obama administration have appeared on the front page through mid-August of this year totaling 119,678 column inches. That's 9,973 column feet of Obama coverage on the Times front page alone. But it is television that has been the most powerful draw for Obama. In his five major appearances yesterday, Obama voiced skepticism about adding troops to Afghanistan, denied making a deal with Russia over missile defenses in Europe, and continued to push his government-run health-insurance program. As of mid-August, Obama submitted to a total of 66 television interviews, dramatically outstripping his two predecessors, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project at Towson University in Maryland. During the same period of their own presidencies, President George W. Bush gave 16 television interviews and President Bill Clinton gave just six. Obama is also out-hustling his predecessors with the print media, giving 36 interviews with newspapers and magazines during his first seven months in office -- nearly doubling the numbers given by Bush and Clinton.--Charles Hurt, NY Post

* 9/21/09--They say you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. But the 44th President of the United States doesn't seem to be worried about that. President Barack Obama, still with no fear of being overexposed, made the rounds on five Sunday morning talk shows on Sept. 20 to make another attempt at winning the hearts and minds over on his vague health care proposal. According to Obama, alleging he wasn't doing any "media-bashing," mentioned the three major cable news networks by name, and said they were the ones enabling the "rude" behavior that some of their on-air voices have decried by giving it so much attention.--Newsbusters.org

* 9/21/09--The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team. (Yet just yesterday, on all the morning talk shows "Obama voiced skepticism about adding troops to Afghanistan"). McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable." But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely.--Washington Post

* 9/21/09--The president said he is "happy to look at" bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses....Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin's Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D). White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.--TheHill.com

* 9/21/09--Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal. 'A multilateral process in which weapons states agree to radical disarmament'. Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials. Those options include:

• Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.

• Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.

• Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: "Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role." The move comes as Obama prepares to take the rare step of chairing a watershed session of the UN security council on Thursday. It is aimed at winning consensus on a new grand bargain: exchanging more radical disarmament by nuclear powers in return for wider global efforts to prevent further proliferation. That bargain is at the heart of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is up for review next year amid signs it is unravelling in the face of Iranian and North Korean nuclear ambitions.--Guardian.co.uk

* 9/22/09--WASHINGTON -- After a massive bank bailout, an auto bailout, and plans for a much bigger government role in health care, growing numbers of Americans now complain that government is playing too big a role, a new Gallup poll reveals. An overwhelming 57 percent of Americans now say the government is "doing too much" -- compared to only 38 percent of those who think the government should do more. Forty-five percent of Americans say there is too much regulation of business -- a high-water mark for the decade and well above the 28 percent number in 1993. In a troubling sign for President Obama's big push to regulate the health-insurance industry, politically paramount independent voters are resisting regulation and a robust government role. In September of 2008 -- before the massive bailout of Wall Street -- 38 percent of independents thought there was "too much regulation" of industry. Now, the number is up by 12 percentage points, to 50 percent.--NY Post

* 9/22/09--A failure to address climate change could create an "irreversible catastrophe," President Obama warned Tuesday in a speech at the United Nations in which he promised a renewed American commitment to the problem and urged developing nations to do their part in reducing emissions. "No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change," the president said. Obama said time is "running out" to fix the problem but that, "we can reverse it." But the United States has been greeted with skepticism on pledges to advance climate change legislation. A sweeping climate change bill passed the House this year, but it has been held up in the Senate as health care reform dominates the domestic agenda in Washington. --FoxNews.com

* 9/22/09--TEHRAN, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Iran has built a new generation of centrifuges for enriching uranium and is testing them, the official news agency IRNA quoted its nuclear energy agency chief as saying on Tuesday. "Iranian scientists have made a new generation of centrifuges that are currently undergoing necessary tests," Ali Akbar Salehi told a Tehran news conference as reported by IRNA. "Chains of 10 centrifuges are now under test," he said, and the number in each chain "will be gradually increased." Salehi did not say when the new model of centrifuge would be introduced to the production line in its Natanz enrichment plant but said it was stronger and faster than those now in operation. Iran says it is enriching uranium only to low levels suitable for electricity generation and is committed to non-proliferation safeguards maintained by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. United States and some Western countries suspect Iran has a secret project to fuel atomic bombs with highly enriched uranium, something the Islamic Republic has repeatedly denied.

* 9/23/09--A federal court of appeals ruled that public schools in nine western states can require a three week indoctrination to the Islamic faith in which all junior high students must pretend they are Muslims and offer prayers to Allah (students are further encouraged to take Islamic names, call each other by those names, wear Islamic garb, participate in Jihad games, and read the Koran during those three weeks). Yet that very court also ruled that it was unconstitutional for those same students to voluntarily mention "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Likewise, a federal court on the east coast ruled that public schools may display Islamic holiday symbols but not Christian ones. And the University of Michigan recently spent $25,000 of taxpayer money to install foot-washing facilities to accommodate the religious practices of Muslim students but made no similar expenditure on behalf of students from any other religion. As a result of such actions, many Muslims are exercising a new boldness in America. In fact, Muslim "honor killings" have now arrived in the United States (most recently in Texas); and just a few weeks ago, direct action was taken to prevent the honor-killing of a 17-year old Muslim girl in Ohio who converted to Christianity and, in fear of her life, fled from her parents to Florida. American Muslims have also enjoyed the direct support of President Obama. In April, he traveled to Egypt where he told the Muslim world that America no longer considers itself a Christian nation. He later traveled to Turkey and announced that America was one of the largest Muslim nations in the world (despite the fact that 78% of Americans claim to be Christians but only 1% claim to be Muslims). Then in May, President Obama refused to invite Christian and Jewish leaders to the White House to participate in the National Day of Prayer (as former presidents have done), but in September, he did invite Muslim leaders to the White House for a special Muslim Ramadan celebration to commemorate Allah delivering the Koran to his prophet Mohammed. Heartened by this new encouragement, Muslim leaders have called 50,000 observant Muslims to come to the Capitol this Friday, September 25, for a day of Jummah (Friday congregational prayer). The sponsors promise that from 4AM to 7PM, "the Athan [the call given five times each day for Muslims to participate in mandatory prayer] will be chanted on Capitol Hill, echoing off of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and other great edifices that surround Capitol Hill." The goal of this event is that "the peace, beauty and solidarity of Islam will shine through America's capitol." In fact, their website for this unprecedented event proudly and unabashedly declares, "Our Time Has Come!"--Wallbuilders.com

* 9/23/09--TWO-thirds of doctors "oppose the proposed health-care plan," reports an Investors Business Daily/TIPP poll. Almost half would "consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if "Congress passes its health-care plan." Many of my colleagues feel like we're already struggling -- nor are we prepared to take care of tens of millions more patients. An Association of American Medical Colleges survey predicts a doctor shortage of 150,000 (at current rates of population growth) by 2025 if universal health insurance is adopted. The doctors we do have would be overwhelmed with far more patients than we could realistically take care of. We'd have to work under huge time pressures, and the service we could deliver would decline. Those who didn't quit would have to learn to "game" the new system by seeing more patients, doing more procedures, providing less care per patient and becoming less accessible for health-choice discussions. Is this what President Obama has in mind when he promises that everyone will get to keep his or her doctor? All the current health-care bills are unfair to doctors. Even Sen. Max Baucus' "moderate" bill (like the other bills) includes cuts to Medicare and Medicaid that would directly affect hospitals and doctors: How far does Congress think it can cut our reimbursements before compromising care, if not driving us out of business? --Dr. Marc Siegel, NY Post

* 9/23/09--NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government will have issued $7 trillion in bonds by the time the current fiscal year ends next week, but it expects the debt deluge to stabilize by mid 2010, a Treasury official said on Wednesday.

* 9/23/09--(CBS NEWS) When House leadership brings a final health care bill to the full House floor, it may be more liberal than moderate House Democrats expected, according to reports. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is planning to include in the bill a tax on wealthy Americans, as well as a more robust government-run health insurance plan (or "public option"), abandoning the compromises leaders in a key committee worked out with the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, according to Roll Call.

* 9/24/09--The juxtaposition on our front page this morning is striking. We carry a photograph of Acting Sgt Michael Lockett - who was killed in Helmand on Monday - receiving the Military Cross from the Queen in June, 2008. He was the 217th British soldier to die in the Afghan conflict. Alongside the picture, we read that the Prime Minister was forced to dash through the kitchens of the UN in New York to secure a few minutes “face time” with President Obama after five requests for a sit-down meeting were rejected by the White House. What are we to make of this? This country has proved, through the bravery of men like Acting Sgt Lockett, America’s staunchest ally in Afghanistan. In return, the American President treats the British Prime Minister with casual contempt. The President’s graceless behaviour is unforgivable. As most members of the Cabinet would confirm, it’s not a barrel of laughs having to sit down for a chat with Gordon Brown. But that’s not the point. Mr Obama owes this country a great deal for its unflinching commitment to the American-led war in Afghanistan but seems incapable of acknowledging the fact. You might have thought that after the shambles of Mr Brown’s first visit to the Obama White House - when there was no joint press conference and the President’s “gift” to the Prime Minister was a boxed DVD set - lessons would have been learned. Apparently not. Admittedly, part of the problem was Downing Street’s over-anxiety to secure a face-to-face meeting for domestic political purposes but the White House should still have been more obliging. Mr Obama’s churlishness is fresh evidence that the US/UK special relationship is a one-way street.--Telegraph.co.uk (The tension allegedly stems from Brown's handling of the Scottish decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing).

* 9/24/09--Who wrote President Obama's speech for the start of the UN General Assembly yesterday -- Rodney King? You know, the guy whose videotaped run-in with cops sparked the 1992 LA riots, leading King to ask: "Can't we all just get along?" Today that question is used derisively, to mock naive "solutions" for social ills. But it essentially sums up Obama's 38-minute UN plea, as Washington's former UN envoy John Bolton noted. Except that Obama is supposed to be the wise leader of the Free World. What a truly pathetic performance. Not only because of the president's stunning cluelessness about the world's nature. But also because of his repeated insults to America. And his back-stabbing of Washington's top Mideast ally, Israel. Obama, yet again, focused on the world's "distrust" of this nation, thanks to the "belief . . . that America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interest of others" -- presumably, under George W. Bush's presidency. Not to fear, though; Obama's here: He's closing Gitmo, he said, banning torture, quitting Iraq, scrapping nukes . . . What about protecting America? --NY Post Editorial

* 9/24/09--President Obama yesterday did his best impression of a high-school sophomore participating in his first Model UN meeting, retailing pious clichés he learned from his pony-tailed social studies teacher. Even Woodrow Wilson might have blanched at the mushy-headed exhortations to world peace and collective action better suited to a college dorm-room bull session or a holiday-season Coca-Cola commercial. "No nation can or should try to dominate another nation," Obama intoned. "No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold." Has an American president ever expressed such implicit hostility toward his own nation's pre-eminence in world affairs? Or so relished in recalling its failings, or so readily elevated himself and his own virtues over those of his country? --Rich Lowry, National Review

* 9/24/09--President Obama let the world know yesterday that the days of maverick US action are over -- and that he's no George W. Bush. "I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust," he said in his first speech to the UN General Assembly. "Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies and a belief that on certain critical issues, America acted unilaterally, without regard for the interest of others." Obama drew some of his biggest applause from world leaders when he made none-too-subtle jabs at the Bush policies on interrogation of terrorism suspects and the Mideast peace process....In another shot at Bush policy, Obama said American would no longer be an obstacle to action to combat global warming....Andy Soltis, Post Wire Services

--Obama received surprise support from Cuba's Fidel Castro, who praised his "brave gesture" in the battle against climate change on Tuesday....

--Moammar Khadafy called Obama "a glimpse in the darkness after four or eight years," then added: "We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as president of the United States" and called the president "my son." --NY Post (With friends like these...)

* 9/25/09--With Leftist Democrats in control of the House and with a veto-proof majority in the Senate (and an occasionally traitorous Republican), Democrats are ramming through legislation unwanted by the American public (Card Check, Cap-and-Tax, government-run health care). In addition, they are stonewalling certain investigations and pursuing others so as to suit their immediate political needs. More egregiously, Leftist Democrats are surreptitiously scheming to legalize 30 million illegal aliens and to force same-day voter registration across the country, thereby allowing them to convert these freshly minted "citizens" into millions of new Democrat votes. Another dire consequence of this veto-proof Senate majority is that Democrats are packing our courts with "living Constitution" judges. Unlike Democrat hero Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to pack the Supreme Court directly, this modern Democrat tactic seeks to stock the appellate court level. After all, little attention is paid to appellate nominees, and appellate courts can be altered more stealthily than can the Supreme Court. Significantly, packing the appellate level furnishes Democrats with a layer of insulation between their election-stealing shenanigans and the Supreme Court. If, for example, informed and patriotic voters were able to file suit over a rigged election (quite challenging and expensive, in and of itself), these "living documenters" could stymie or accelerate appeals, depending upon which rulings would support the desired outcome.--Patriot Post

* 9/25/09--(CNSNews.com) - Even though the Border Patrol now reports that almost 1,300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border is not under effective control, and the Department of Justice says that vast stretches of the border are “easily breached,” and the Government Accountability Office has revealed that three persons “linked to terrorism” and 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints last year, the administration is nonetheless now planning to decrease the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border. Border Patrol Director of Media Relations Lloyd Easterling confirmed this week that his agency is planning for a net decrease of 384 agents on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2010, which begins on October 1.

* 9/25/09--CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) -- U.S. regulators said total losses from large loans at banks and other financial institutions nearly tripled to $53 billion in 2009, due to a deteriorating economic environment and continued weak underwriting standards. According to an annual report released by the four federal bank-regulatory agencies on Thursday, credit quality deteriorated to record levels this year. The report said total identified losses of $53.3 billion in 2009 surpassed last year's total of $2.6 billion, and nearly tripled the previous peak in 2002, when losses totaled $19.1 billion. "While we expected a year-over-year increase in problem assets, given the weak economic environment, declining (commercial real estate) values, and previously weak underwriting, we were surprised by the magnitude of the increase," wrote FBR Capital Markets analyst Scott Valentin in a research note to clients Friday.

* 9/25/09--Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold." The note was a follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the markup.--Politico.com

* 9/25/09--PITTSBURGH, Sept. 25 -- President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain on Friday blasted Iran's construction of a previously unknown uranium enrichment facility and demanded that Tehran immediately fulfill its obligations under international law or risk the imposition of harsh new sanctions. "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," Obama said, detailing how the facility at Qom had been under construction for years without being disclosed, as required, to the International Atomic Energy Association. "International law is not an empty promise." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused Iran of "serial deception" that he said "will shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve." "We will not let this matter rest," Brown said. " . . . Iran must abandon any military ambitions for its nuclear programs." Iran acknowledged the existence of the facility for the first time on Monday, in a letter to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The letter said "a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country," said Marc Vidricaire, a spokesman for the watchdog agency. "The letter stated that the enrichment level would be up to 5 percent." --Washington Post

* 9/25/09--(AP) PORLAMAR, Venezuela – Iran is helping to detect uranium deposits in Venezuela and initial evaluations suggest reserves are significant, President Hugo Chavez's government said Friday. Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Iran has been assisting Venezuela with geophysical survey flights and geochemical analysis of the deposits, and that evaluations "indicate the existence of uranium in western parts of the country and in Santa Elena de Uairen," in southeastern Bolivar state. "We could have important reserves of uranium," Sanz told reporters upon arrival on Venezuela's Margarita Island for a weekend Africa-South America summit. He added that efforts to certify the reserves could begin within the next three years. The announcement came as revelations that Iran has secretly been building a uranium-enrichment plant provoke concerns among countries including the U.S., Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China.

* 9/26/09--President Obama said yesterday he still favors dialogue with Iran -- even after it was revealed the country has been caught building a second top-secret nuclear plant inside a mountain. --Charles Hurt, NY Post

* 9/26/09--Surprise, surprise, surprise, as Gomer Pyle used to say: Iran has been trying to hide a second uranium-enrichment plant. But then, really: Just how much of a "surprise" should that have been? More important, now that everyone knows, what exactly does President Obama plan to do to keep Iran from actually getting a bomb? Asked yesterday, Obama said merely that "what has changed is that the international community has spoken," refering to angry reaction from world leaders. True, he tried to suggest that all "options" -- presumably, including a military response -- were on the table. But is Obama still seriously hoping that a world consensus will somehow truly halt Iran's race to nuclear statehood? If so, start worrying. Because it's now no longer possible to deny that Tehran is rapidly pursuing nukes -- faster than many had thought. Of course, anyone with eyes has had to have assumed that Iran wants nuclear weapons. But Obama had enough info to know: US officials said they'd been tracking the facility "for years." Yet that only makes Obama's Iran policy for the past nine months even more inexplicable. From the start, the president has been adamant about coddling Iran's head thug, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and pursuing diplomatic talks. Even after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the second site yesterday, Obama pledged his commitment to "meaningful engagement" and "dialogue." (Heads up: A mushroom cloud is a powerful bargaining chip.) When Ahmadinejad stole re-election and violently crushed dissidents, Obama sat on his hands. When the prez decided to scrap a US missile shield in Eastern Europe, aimed at defeating possible nuke-tipped Iranian missiles, he cited intelligence showing the Iranian nuclear threat wasn't as grave as thought. (How, exactly, does that square with news of Iran's secret enrichment site?) And this week, after the UN Security Council adopted an anti-nuclear-proliferation "resolution" that left out any mention of Iran, it took French President Nicolas Sarkozy to express shock: "How," he asked "could we justify meeting without tackling" Iran's nukes? Now, in light of yesterday's revelation, Obama's nine-month course seems almost suicidal. Surely this second site means Iran is closer to having a bomb than most knew. That it's on a military base makes it harder for Iran to claim it's for peaceful purposes -- and perhaps tougher to take out by force, if need be. And the secrecy around it proves that Iran won't ever "talk" honestly with the "international community." Let's face it: Negotiating isn't likely to work. Obama needs a Plan B. Pronto. --NY Post Editorial

* 9/26/09--DID it surprise a single Post reader that Iran's been hiding a big nuclear weapons development facility? It stunned our president when he learned about it months ago. Then he kept it secret from you. Obama didn't want you to know how much progress Iran had made. It's an embarrassment. And it raises the pressure on the White House to act -- something this president's squirming to avoid. But the Iranians have now realized we know, so they tipped it themselves. Obama had no choice but to come clean. Yesterday, he interrupted the G-20 summit to go public -- Obama's statement amounted to, Ooooh, I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house down . . . maybe . . . eventually . . . but not really . . . let's talk . . . To be fair, Obama's overwhelmed. Fatally confident of his powers of persuasion, he's bewildered that he hasn't been able to convince the Iranians (or the Palestinians, Russians, Venezuelans, Chinese, etc.) to do what he wants them to do. So Washington delays. While Iran races toward a nuclear arsenal. Not only has Iran's known program moved ahead despite our cajoling, now comes the news that far more dangerous facilities have been missed for years by our intelligence services (to their credit, though, they ultimately found the Qom installation). Who knows how many more we haven't found? Additionally, an Iranian exile group opposed to the theocrat thugs in Tehran claimed this week that Ahmadinejad's government operates two secret plants that fabricate detonators for nuclear weapons....So now what? Obama will try more talks. We may see half-hearted sanctions -- which will be violated right and left. Russia, which profits hugely from dirty trade with Iran, can slip goods across the Caspian Sea or through Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. And maritime sanctions are meaningless, unless our president is willing to order our Navy to fire on Chinese-flagged or Venezuelan-flagged merchant vessels. Think that's going to happen? How will it end? With desperate Israeli attacks that do only part of the job, followed by Iranian counterstrikes on Persian Gulf oil facilities, the closure of the Straits of Hormuz and oil above $400 a barrel. Only the United States can stop Iran's nuclear program before it's too late. And this president won't. --Ralph Peters, NY Post

--No wonder the daffy but dangerous Moammar Khadafy declared he would be "happy and content if Obama can stay forever as president of America." Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez also lavished praise. Say this for the president: He has made himself popular on the world stage. Unfortunately, his fan club is led by some of the most dangerous people on the planet. If we judge him by this amen corner, Americans have more than mere fear to fear. Our president is taking us on a course that is dangerous to our nation's health.--Michael Goodwin, NY Post

* 9/28/09--Iran boasted that it successfully test-fired at least two short-range missiles yesterday -- in a defiant show of force after Washington and its allies warned Tehran over a newly revealed nuclear facility. The official English-language Press TV showed pictures of at least two missiles being fired at the same time from a site in a central Iran desert. Men could be heard shouting, "Allahu akbar!" -- God is great -- as the missiles rose into the sky. Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, which carried out the exercise, said the missiles hit their targets. --Andy Geller, NY Post

* 9/28/09--Tehran, Iran (AP) - Iran tested its most advanced missiles Monday to cap two days of war games, raising more international concern and stronger pressure to quickly come clean on the newly revealed nuclear site Tehran was secretly constructing. State television said the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran's missile program, successfully tested upgraded versions of the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles. Both can carry warheads and reach up to 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe within striking distance. The missile tests were meant to flex Iran's military might and show readiness for any military threat. "Iranian missiles are able to target any place that threatens Iran," said Abdollah Araqi, a top Revolutionary Guard commander, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. Iran conducted three rounds of missile tests in drills that began Sunday, two days after the U.S. and its allies disclosed the country had been secretly developing an underground uranium enrichment facility. The Western powers warned Iran it must open the site to international inspection or face harsher international sanctions.

* 9/28/09--A local TV station that reported on Chicagoans NOT wanting the Olympics has been told NOT to run the report again, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT! The Chicago Olympic Committee told FOX Chicago that its broadcast "would harm Chicago's chances" to be awarded the games.The station's news director ordered staff to hold fire after the report aired once last Thursday morning, claims a source. Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio are mounting strong bids for the honor to host in 2016. The International Olympic Committee makes its decision on Friday. President Obama will lead the in-person push. Developing... --Drudge Report

---President Obama will be the first U.S. president to lobby for an Olympics event in front of the International Olympic Committee. He's trying to get the 2016 Summer Games to be hosted in his hometown of Chicago, instead of Rio de Janeiro, Madrid or Tokyo. Michelle will join him in Copenhagen when the committee meets this week.--TownHall.com

* 9/28/09--Fearful that they're losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access. The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party's spines on the contentious issue, say it's unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they've been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements. --Washington Times

* 9/28/09--PARIS — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse. Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial system due to “irrational exuberance,” greed and the weakness of regulatory systems, European Socialist parties and their left-wing cousins have not found a compelling response, let alone taken advantage of the right’s failures. German voters clobbered the Social Democratic Party on Sunday, giving it only 23 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II. Voters also punished left-leaning candidates in the summer’s European Parliament elections and trounced French Socialists in 2007. Where the left holds power, as in Spain and Britain, it is under attack. Where it is out, as in France, Italy and now Germany, it is divided and listless. Some American conservatives demonize President Obama's fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul as a dangerous turn toward European-style Socialism — but it is Europe’s right, not left, that is setting its political agenda. --NY Times (As European socialism fails all across Europe, Obama embraces it?)

* 9/29/09--PROVIDENCE — U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy fears that supercharged passions fueling the national health-care debate may lead to violence. Drawing on his family’s violent past, the Democratic congressman told roughly 75 people gathered at a private health-care forum Saturday morning that opponents of Democrat-backed health-care legislation had gone too far. He cited, as an example, 10,000 signs distributed at a recent Washington protest that read, “Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy.” --Projo.com

* 9/29/09--Remember the controversy over the Pentagon policy of not allowing the press to take pictures of the flag-draped caskets of American war dead as they arrived in the United States? Critics accused President Bush of trying to hide the terrible human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "These young men and women are heroes," Vice President Biden said in 2004, when he was senator from Delaware. "The idea that they are essentially snuck back into the country under the cover of night so no one can see that their casket has arrived, I just think is wrong." In April of this year, the Obama administration lifted the press ban, which had been in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Media outlets rushed to cover the first arrival of a fallen U.S. serviceman, and many photographers came back for the second arrival, and then the third. But after that, the impassioned advocates of showing the true human cost of war grew tired of the story. Fewer and fewer photographers showed up....Fast forward to today. On Sept. 2, when the casket bearing the body of Marine Lance Cpl. David Hall, of Elyria, Ohio, arrived at Dover, there was just one news outlet -- the Associated Press -- there to record it. The situation was pretty much the same when caskets arrived on Sept. 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 22, 23 and 26. There has been no television coverage at all in September.The media can cover arrivals only when the family gives its permission. In all the examples above, the families approved, which is more often than not the case; since the policy was changed, according to the Mortuary Affairs Office, 60 percent of families have said yes to full media coverage. But these days, the press hordes that once descended on Dover are gone, and there's usually just one organization on hand. The Associated Press...has a photographer who lives within driving distance of Dover and is able to make it to the arrivals, no matter what time of day or night....So far this month, 38 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan. For all of 2009, the number is 220 -- more than any other single year and more than died in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 combined. With casualties mounting, the debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan is sharp and heated. The number of arrivals at Dover is increasing. But the journalists who once clamored to show the true human cost of war are nowhere to be found.--Byron York, Washington Examiner

* 9/29/09--MIAMI -- An Obama administration task force has so far cleared 75 of the remaining 223 Guantanamo prisoners for release as part of its effort to close the detention camp, a military spokesman said yesterday. The review team is examining each prisoner's case to decide who will be held for trial and who can be sent home or resettled in other nations. President Obama had set a Jan. 22 deadline to shut the camp at the US base in Cuba, although Defense Secretary Robert Gates told ABC News on Sunday that "it's going to be tough" to meet the deadline. "We are not focused on whether the deadline will or won't be met on a particular day," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "We are focused on making . . . the most progress that is possible." Some on the list are among the 30 ordered freed by US courts, but still awaiting transfer, including 13 Chinese Uighurs. Also on the list are 26 other captives from Yemen, nine from Tunisia and seven from Algeria.--Reuters

* 9/30/09--ALBANY -- The controversial, ACORN-connected Working Families Party and local Democrats are under investigation by a special prosecutor after a rash of allegedly forged absentee ballots and ballot applications were filed on behalf of candidates in the shadow of the state Capitol, officials said yesterday. A judge in Troy named Rensselaer County's former chief assistant district attorney, Trey Smith, as the special prosecutor Monday after the DA, a Democrat, recused himself from the case. Republicans in Troy, where the fraud is said to have taken place, are calling for a federal probe. The fraud allegations focus on claims by several public-housing residents that their names were forged on absentee-ballot applications, as well as on ballots filed on behalf of WFP candidates in the Sept. 8 primary. --NY Post

* 9/30/09--Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs. Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits. Grassley's amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.--TheHill.com

* 9/30/09--President Obama's "safe schools czar," under fire from critics who say he's unfit for his job, acknowledged Wednesday that he "should have handled [the] situation differently" years ago when he was a schoolteacher and didn't report that a 15-year-old boy told him that he was having sex with an older man. Kevin Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, was teaching high school in Concord, Mass., in 1988 when the boy, a sophomore, confessed an involvement with a man he had met in a bus station bathroom in Boston. Jennings has written that he told the boy, "I hope you knew to use a condom."--FoxNews

--Back on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed his would be the most "transparent" administration in U.S. history. Perhaps what he meant was that the mainstream media would look past the foibles of those he selects for high positions under his watch. The latest "for instance" comes in the person of "Safe School Czar" Kevin Jennings. Apparently, in the eyes of Jennings, a "safe school" is one where it's safe for an adult male to pursue a homosexual relationship with a student. Jennings denied condoning a relationship between a 15-year-old student and an adult male and threatened to sue a fellow teacher who called his refusal to report the incident "unethical." But since then, an audiotape has surfaced on which Jennings related to an Iowa homosexual advocacy group that he told the student to make sure to use a condom when seeing the older man. To most of us, allowing -- and even promoting -- statutory rape is grotesque, unquestionably illegal and grossly negligent, but to Obama, it appears to be qualification for the job. Meanwhile, a recent GOP amendment prohibiting the creation of "czar" positions unless Congress confirms appointees was killed by a procedural move made by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Chicago).--Patriot Post

* 9/30/09--"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi berated town hall and tea party protesters this month, tearfully warning they'd incite violence. Well, there's been violence all right, at Pittsburgh's G-20. But it wasn't the tea partiers. It takes gall to characterize ordinary Americans, freely exercising their rights of speech and assembly in civic forums, as 'mobs' while ignoring a pack of leftist thugs now smashing a U.S. city. But that's what Pelosi did, directing her righteous tocsin to the Norman Rockwell-like gatherings of Americans who opposed her expansion of government this past summer. 'I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw ... I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco,' Pelosi said, choking up, her eyes brimming with tears. 'This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it created a climate in which we, violence took place and ... I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made,' she told a congressional forum Sept. 17 in a bid to silence peaceful protesters. Scroll ahead one week to the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh: Some 1,000 hooded rioters descend on the city waving signs such as 'Smash the G-20' and 'Eat the Rich.' Many take 'direct action' to 'challenge capitalism' in what organizers brazenly call an 'unpermitted protest.' Unlike the town hall citizens, they didn't 'hurl' statements -- just tire irons, bricks and rocks, in an effort to damage private businesses. ... This kind of violence is nothing new. It was found in Seattle in 1999, where former Obama administration green czar Van Jones got himself arrested. It was repeated at other summits in Turin, Italy; Washington, D.C.; and London. These leftists detest capitalism, abhor private property -- and have ties to the Democratic Party. The unwillingness of the Democratic establishment to defend free markets emboldens the rioters. In destroying private property and impeding trade, these anarchists prove their aims aren't democratic. They resemble the mobs of Castro's Cuba who engage in violence against citizens to enforce conformity. The outrage of it all raises questions about Pelosi's real agenda in her one-sided criticism of tea partiers. By criticizing only tea partiers and ignoring rampant thugs, she seeks to repress peaceful dissent. With that setup, it's no surprise that there's a mudslide of violence now rolling down on us from an energized radical left." --Investor's Business Daily