NATO planes nowhere to be found as rebels flee Brega

Rick Moran "Who's in charge? A committee comprising NATO, the Arab League, and a few other nations belonging to the coalition. They are the ones making decisions on where to bomb, how to support the rebels. Given that both Turkey and Germany are against air strikes at all, its a wonder any NATO planes get off the ground.

"The world without American leadership. How's it look to you?"

America's exit from Libya ends coalition no-fly zone, campaign
"The United States has quietly withdrawn its air and sea assets from Libya and virtually ended its military intervention against Muammar Qaddafi's armed forces. This action over the weekend exposed NATO and its leading powers Britain and France as badly short of the air and sea capabilities necessary for halting Muammar Qaddafi's military advances, enforcing a no fly zone over the territory he controls or maintaining a sea blockade on Libyan ports."  DEBKAfile

Fanpix

From La Presse, Canada: What “Obama Doctrine?”  "In the hours and days that followed, journalists, experts and politicians searched his comments for a “doctrine” that could be applied to other conflicts, such as those by Presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, among others, that are named after the presidents.

"They all drew a blank — well, almost."

A Clash of Integrities: Moral and Religious Liberty in the Armed Forces

Heritage  "The report of the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Review Working Group and the steps taken to date to implement the repeal do not allay concerns that the religious liberty and free speech rights of these service members and chaplains will be compromised to the detriment of their military careers. Congress therefore has a profound responsibility to monitor the implementation process and to assure not only that these rights are respected, but also that the 2010 repeal law itself is subject to continuing and candid reassessment."

We Don’t Need Know Education

Mike Adams  "You are (like totally) aware of their presence when you hear a conversation like the following, which occurred last Tuesday right outside my opened office door:"

“I’m just like not real sure what I want to do when I graduate? I like thought I would like major in business but there’s a lot of like math and stuff? Plus, the classes in sociology are like easier and like way more interesting? I just seriously like need to focus on like what I want to do when I get out and stuff?”

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus

Chairman Ryan’s Budget Resolution Changes America’s Course

Heritage  "But in the end, let’s remember where we are and what Chairman Ryan has accomplished. Last year, neither the House nor the Senate passed a required budget resolution. This year, President Obama proposed a budget that more than doubles the national debt. In the first budget of the new Congress, Chairman Ryan has forged a serious path to fix our nation’s fiscal and economic crisis. The House, the Senate, and the President must now do their part so that we may reclaim our nation’s future."
Economic Analysis of the House Budget Resolution by the Center for Data Analysis.

Rep. Paul Ryan Unveils Budget with $6.2 Trillion in Spending Cuts

Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity  "In addition to the run of the mill demagoguery and repeated use of the word “extreme”, I’ve no doubt we will learn tomorrow that Ryan’s road map is the most disastrous thing ever conceived by the mind of man for a host of other reasons. It will be interesting to see if the arguments of Chuck Schumer, Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman and the rest of the usual suspects overlap significantly as they get talking points from the DNC telling them how best to respond."

Let the demagoguery begin:
Nancy Pelosi: Republican Budget Will Force Seniors Into Starvation

Obama Demands Budget Deal 'Or Else'...Tells GOP "Act Like Grownups"

Chicago Trib Religion Blog Thunders From Online Pulpit with Rebuke of Proposed Budget Cuts

The Goldstone Report and Israel’s moral standing; who can give Israel her reputation back? (Updated)

Understanding the Goldstone report Links within this report from the site include these:
What price the Israel witch-hunt now?
Judge Goldstone Disavows His Anti-Israel UN Report, But Accepts No Responsibility For Its Slander
Washington Post  "As Goldstone acknowledges, Israel has looked into every charge of war crimes — incident by incident. Some soldiers have indeed been punished because some awful things happened. But overall, Israel adheres to a morality we all recognize and admire — and that its enemies, Hamas in particular, do not. Those who gleefully embraced the Goldstone report have to ask themselves why. They may hate the answer."

http://fawstin.blogspot.com/

Goldstone: You Cannot Undo a Slander  "No, apparently Goldstone’s conscience troubled him. While that’s progress for him, the retraction cannot possibly correct his shameful contribution to lies, slander, and the moral perversion of the so-called “international community.”"

Goldstone’s Mea Culpa and Israel’s Wars "Essential to restoring that upper hand to Israel is the recognition — which is exactly what the Goldstone Report denied — of the difference between a democratic country defending itself and terrorist organizations using the most cynical means imaginable in fighting it. Whether Israel can now expect more sympathy is something that, according to one veteran Israeli analyst, we may soon find out. Count me pessimistic."

Richard Goldstone and Palestinian statehood  "Israel is being challenged by a political war that escalates every day. But we are not powerless. As we prepare for the Palestinians’ UN gambit in September, we must keep in mind the lessons from the Goldstone affair." Caroline Glick

Goldstone is gone -- but NY Times steps into the anti-Israel breach  "Bronner, however, lumps combatant and non-combatant Palestinian fatalities in one big, exaggerated total so as to hide the fact that the IDF went to extraordinary lengths to spare civilian lives by dropping leaflets and using telephone calls to warn Gazans to say out of combat zones. No other military in the world has shown such solicitude for keeping civilians as safe as possible -- the very opposite of Bronner's false intimation."

Goldstone Recants! Will the Left Follow His Example?  "The Goldstone report was a pivotal moment in the growing effort to delegitimize Israel. What we must now hear are similar apologies from all those groups and individuals, from Human Rights Watch to J Street to mainstream bloggers like Andrew Sullivan and minor Palestinian mouthpieces like Hussein Ibish, that either defended Goldstone’s false allegations or sought to aid  efforts to promote his scandalous charges. There must be an accounting from all of Goldstone’s previous champions. Like Goldstone’s report, their credibility on this issue is finished."
Amen.

Running Scared of Islam

Bruce Thornton  "Nor are the jihadists impressed by our willingness to betray our own ideals just to save our skin. Rather, they see our indifference to Christianity, the foundational faith of Western civilization, and our groveling hypersensitivity to Muslim feelings as another sign that we are spiritually corrupt hedonists, and that Islam is the superior religion worth killing and dying for, and thus in the end destined to triumph."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/chipbok

Quran Burning   "Nut-job Jones wasn't finished. On March 20th, he held a mock "trial" of the Quran and videotaped a burning ceremony. This video made its way around the Internet, all the way to Afghanistan's President Karzai, whose office issued a statement on the issue. At that point, Afghani Muslim radicals did just exactly what you can expect Muslims to do when they feel their wonderful, serene, peaceful religion has been dissed … they started killing to show how wonderful, serene and peaceful they are."

Syria’s ‘reformer’

Charles Krauthammer  "And it’s not just the words; it’s the policy behind it. This delicacy toward Assad is dismayingly reminiscent of President Obama’s response to the 2009 Iranian uprising during which he was scandalously reluctant to support the demonstrators, while repeatedly reaffirming the legitimacy of the brutal theocracy suppressing them.
"Why? Because Obama wanted to remain “engaged” with the mullahs — so that he could talk them out of their nuclear weapons. We know how that went."

Obama in 2012; DON'T CHANGE!

Obama's First 2012 Election Stunt: Military Trials for KSM and Four 911 Muslim Terrorists
"Mr. David Beamer spoke eloquently! The man is thoughtful and has a great command of his spoken word. He trusts himself. He knows the enemy and he knows the material at hand. He was solid and straight forward! This man needs to be in the forefront of this trial as a public speaker every chance he can get! I loved his attitude and fortitude and it's no wonder his son reacted the way he did that fateful date, as they say about the apple!
Tim did a great job too, but I think he knew there wasn't much more to add to Mr. Beamers great commentary! God Bless America!"  From the comments to this article.

Obama's bizarrely discouraging pep talk  "Keep your eyes on the president's mental state. It all looked so easy when he was a candidate. He'd close Gitmo, try the 911 terrorists in New York, and take of everyone's health care. But now that he has executive responsibility for the first time in his life, it turns out the be a lot harder than he thought.
"Obama sounds to me like a man who is fighting off depression, and that would be understandable. In the past, all he had to do was sound good, and nobody would hold him responsible for outcomes. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge he chaired spent scores of millions of dollars with no positive impact, and nobody cared. He was president of the Harvard Law Review and failed to write a signed article, as was always the responsibility of presidents, and he got a big contract for an autobiography. He failed to deliver the manuscript, and nobody cared."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/bobgorrell

Neal Boortz  "As the election gets underway and the levels of support are counted, the Democrats can tally up the majority share of black voters, school teachers, single women, union members, government employees, and women who want the government to butt out of their private lives .. see where that leaves them, and then promise enough government spending and wealth redistribution to the rest in order to gain their majority."

Dick Morris: No way Obama wins in 2012 "The combination of high oil and gasoline prices, rising food costs, higher health insurance premiums and the likelihood of future inflation has jarred consumer confidence, creating a major crisis for the Obama administration.  The collapse has been sudden and dramatic."
The real deciding factor will be conditions in the nation at the time people vote, not now.

Jennifer Rubin: Obama, never demonstrating character, to run on it  "Really, what character is displayed by doing nothing in the face of a looming debt crisis and simply hanging back to demagogue your opponent?" Because it's what liberals-oops, progressives do.

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/lisabenson

Special Report Panel on Obama's Reelection Announcement  "Steve Hayes, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:"

Team Obama's Wyoming Howler

Wall Street Journal  "Under fire for rising gas prices, the Obama administration has been taking steps to promote a pro-energy policy. President Obama gave a speech Wednesday on "energy security," while Interior Secretary Ken Salazar spent last week in Wyoming boasting about the administration's new interest in coal mining. Or at least that was Mr. Salazar's intention, in an announcement that has since become a PR embarrassment."

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Thomas Sowell: Political Statistics

Townhall  "When someone gives you a check and the bank informs you that there are insufficient funds, who do you get mad at? In your own life, you get mad at the guy who gave you a check that bounced, not at the bank. But, in politics, you get mad at whoever tells you that there is no money."

http://www.nationalreview.com/ Mike Ramirez



A Commendable Budget Proposal  "Today House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan unveils his plan to save America’s future. I expect that three aspects will get a lot of attention: the proposal for Medicare, the reform of Medicaid, and the ten-year budget numbers. However, I think the most important feature of the budget is a vision for the role of government that restores the promise of long-term fiscal sobriety, economic growth, and intergenerational fairness.
"Imagine this: It will pay off the national debt by 2050."

Immaculate Intervention: The Wars of Humanitarianism

STRATFOR  "The doctrine becomes less coherent in a civil war in which one side is winning and promising to slaughter its enemies, Libya being the obvious example. Those intervening can claim to be carrying out a neutral humanitarian action, but in reality, they are intervening on one side’s behalf. If the intervention is successful — as it likely will be given that interventions are invariably by powerful countries against weaker ones — the practical result is to turn the victims into victors. By doing that, the humanitarian warriors are doing more than simply protecting the weak. They are also defining a nation’s history."

Immaculate Intervention: The Wars of Humanitarianism is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/jerryholbert

Foxworthyish:Obama might be a socialist

Washington Times  "If [you] want to lower the cost of health care but left out tort reform, you might be a socialist lawyer.

"If you're a Columbia University professor and gave a student named Barack Obama an A in economics, you are definitely a socialist.
"And finally, in the eighth year of the Obama presidency, if Bangladesh is hosting "Aid America" concerts or you're standing in line for toilet paper, you have a socialist president.
"It's time to stand up and loudly call a socialist ... a socialist!"
Via Lucianne